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Christian Wolff’s Reviews of His Own Books

  • Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero

Although Christian Wolff was an exceptionally prolific book reviewer and self-reviewer, this part of his output is largely unexplored. This chapter investigates Wolff’s philosophical and mathematical self-reviews to argue that, in spite of their adherence to the source works and lack of self-criticism, they offer valuable insights into his thought. In particular, the chapter aims to show that Wolff’s self-reviews may help us understand his intentions and strategies especially in that they complement, emphasize, or reformulate the information contained in the respective source works. The longest section focuses on Wolff’s Latin reviews of his German works, with special attention to the Latin rendition of his German metaphysical terminology. The self-translations Wolff performs in these cases – I will argue – are often revealing of his deepest philosophical concerns. The term “perception” is a case in point.

  • Keywords:
  • Christian Wolff,
  • self-reviews,
  • translation,
  • metaphysics,
  • perception,
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Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero

Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-7276-9244

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  29. Wolff, Christian. 1713a. “[Review of] Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Kräfften des menschlichen Verstandes […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (March): 133–37 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. II, 687–91).
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  47. Wolff, Christian. 1730c. “[Review of] Hieronymi Rorarii, Quod animalia bruta saepe ratione utantur melius homine, libri duo: quos recensuit, Dissertatione de anima brutorum, annotationibusque auxit Georg. Heinr. Ribovius.” Acta Eruditorum (April): 173–77 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. IV, 1927–31).
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  49. Wolff, Christian. 1731a. Cosmologia generalis methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger (repr. of the 1737 ed. in GW II 4).
  50. Wolff, Christian. 1731b. “[Review of] Jura de pacto hereditario renunciativo filiae nobilis a dissensu Doctorum liberata, et methodo demonstrativa in concordiam reducta a Johanne Ulrico Cramero […] cum Praefatione Christiani Wolfii […].” Acta Eruditorum (September): 411–15 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. IV, 2037–41).
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Informazioni sul capitolo

Titolo del capitolo

Christian Wolff’s Reviews of His Own Books

Autori

Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero

Lingua

Inglese

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1.07

Opera sottoposta a peer review

Anno di pubblicazione

2026

Copyright

© 2026 Author(s)

Licenza d'uso

CC BY 4.0

Licenza dei metadati

CC0 1.0

Informazioni bibliografiche

Titolo del libro

Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799)

Sottotitolo del libro

Volume 2

Curatori

Pasquale Terracciano, Francesco Valerio Tommasi

Opera sottoposta a peer review

Numero di pagine

282

Anno di pubblicazione

2026

Copyright

© 2026 Author(s)

Licenza d'uso

CC BY 4.0

Licenza dei metadati

CC0 1.0

Editore

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1

ISBN Print

979-12-215-0998-4

eISBN (pdf)

979-12-215-0999-1

eISBN (epub)

979-12-215-1060-7

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Knowledge and its Histories

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3035-5974

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3035-5923

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