Johann Paul Hebenstreit: Philosophia prima ad mentem veterum sapientum in modum scientiae vere demonstrativae concinnata

This treatise on metaphysics, written by Johann Paul Hebenstreit (1660–1718), who was a professor of practical philosophy in Jena, was first published in 1691. It represents the final stage of German scholastic metaphysics before it was passed on to his student Christian Wolff, who would go on to become the greatest philosopher of the German Enlightenment. Subsequently, Wolff restructured the general framework into two separate treatises: one on ontology and the other on natural theology. This division is already foreshadowed in Hebenstreit’s “Philosophia prima”, as his method of exposition appears very rigorous and systematic. This reprint is the first edition of the complete text since 1705.