Christian Wolff. Gesammelte Werke. I. Abteilung: Deutsche Schriften.... / Ergänzungsreihe: Materialien und Dokumente / Wolffiana III: Christian Wolff tra psicologia empirica e psicologia razionale

The comparison of Psychologia empirica and Psychologia rationalis is one of the themes which are of fundamental importance to the understanding of Christian Wolff’s philosophy. As is generally known, the terms themselves go back to the two major Latin works first published in 1732 and 1734. Contrary to the prevalent opinion which has viewed the difference between Psychologia empirica and Psychologia rationalis as purely a matter of tradition, here it is viewed rather as a distinction formulated in a specific way for Wolff and arising from the encounter between modern metaphysics and new scientific methods. Following the celebrations in 2004 to mark the 250th anniversary of Wolff’s death, a scholarly conference took place at the University of Verona in 2005 with the aim of reconstructing this theme for the interpretation of a way of thinking which is too easily interpreted as the clearest example of an abstract and dogmatic rationalism. In the essays published here attention is drawn instead to the central role of experience which allows a continual comparison of psychic facts and philosophical considerations. From this comes the importance of the comparison with Locke and Malebranche, as well as analyses of what are known as ideales sensuales or typical processes of imagination and of symbolic language, and the possibility of the application of mathematics to psychometrics. Historically-based comparisons (Alsted, Baumgarten, Meier, Kant, Herbart) are also present, illuminating the afterlife of a way of thinking which surely prepared the ground for the development of a new philosophical anthropology.