In this respect, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz recognized the strategic value of the review as a tool for scholarly influence, as shown in Oliveri’s article in this volume. Far from viewing them as neutral reports, Leibniz employed reviews—such as his anonymous evaluation of Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding—to subtly advance his philosophical stance. His approach was to instill “prejudices”, understood as necessary precognitions, in the readership, thereby inclining them to view Locke’s arguments critically. For instance, by focusing on areas like the association of ideas and enthusiasm, where he seemed to agree with Locke, Leibniz simultaneously highlighted the underlying philosophical flaws that stemmed from Locke’s reliance on Cartesian premises which Locke himself criticized.

One primary function of the philosophical review was to actively shape and interpret major metaphysical and epistemological projects. The complex reception of Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism, for example, unfolded significantly through critical engagement. Early contemporaries struggled to accurately categorize Kant’s philosophy, misinterpreting it as a radical form of idealism similar to Berkeley’s, or finding substantial similarities with Leibniz’s doctrine of pre-established harmony (see Bucarelli’s essay). Kant sought to resolve these issues in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason by describing transcendental philosophy, through a biological metaphor, as an “epigenetic system of pure reason”. This concept explicitly countered the interpretation of transcendental philosophy as a mere “preformation” theory—a danger highlighted by his student Schultz’s review which appealed to the pre-established harmony guaranteed by a benevolent creator to ensure agreement between intellect and nature. Reviews thereby provided the necessary critical context for Kant to refine and clarify foundational concepts, such as the crucial distinction between “judgments of mere perception” (Wahrnehmungsurteile) and objectively valid “judgments of experience” (Erfahrungsurteile).

The review genre also served as a laboratory for testing and disseminating terminology crucial for nascent philosophical systems. Christian Wolff, perhaps the most prolific self-reviewer of his time, utilized reviews published in Latin in the Acta Eruditorum to introduce and clarify the technical terminology of his German works to an international audience, as Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero shows. These “self-translations” reveal Wolff’s profound terminological choices, such as equating the German Ding with the scholastic ens in his earliest exposition of ontology, or his reluctance to use perceptiunculae in German while adopting it in Latin to designate “small perceptions”, thereby showing a gap in the German psychological vocabulary. This comparative analysis underscores how reviews functioned not just as summaries but as vital complements to systematic works, helping authors stabilize their conceptual frameworks.

The philosophical review was fundamentally intertwined with the political struggles of the era, acting as a direct medium for ideological engagement. Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s The Closed Commercial State (1800), a work born from the conceptual crisis following the French Revolution, immediately became a focal point for controversy, receiving intense scrutiny across the journalistic landscape between 1800 and 1803 (see Gristina’s article). Critics quickly framed Fichte’s model—which redefined property as a right to productive activity and proposed economic closure to ensure distributive justice—as a dangerous political aberration. Conservative voices, influenced by Burke and Smithian economics, condemned it as stemming from “abstract theoretical constructs” and leading to an unacceptable limitation of personal liberty, labeling it a “vast penitentiary” or a form of “tyrannical despotism”. The reviews thereby served to neutralize a theoretical position perceived as carrying dangerous Jacobin implications. Christoph Friedrich Nicolai’s review, in particular, utilized this debate to highlight an internal tension in Fichte’s political thought, contrasting the valorization of radical liberty in his earlier Beitrag with the prescriptive socio-economic order of the Closed Commercial State.

Fichte’s awareness of the review’s decisive influence culminated in his unrealized plan for a “Journal at the Second Power”, a publication dedicated to reviewing other review journals, as clarified in the article that Matteo d’Alfonso and Maurizio Trudu have dedicated to it. Fichte realized that “the general public does not read books; the reviews are its book”, and thus criticism must target the critiques themselves to effectively shape public opinion.

This intellectual scrutiny extended to historical figures. The eighteenth-century German Enlightenment utilized reviews to conduct a measured reassessment of Niccolò Machiavelli, shifting his image from a theological scandal to an object of reasoned philosophical debate (see Terracciano’s article). Reviews provided a forum to debate the conflict between political necessity and moral virtue, notably in the wide discussion surrounding Frederick II’s Anti-Machiavel (1740). Furthermore, reviews acted decisively in determining the boundaries of modern philosophy itself. The three major reviews of Johann Franz Budde’s Introductio ad historiam philosophiae Hebraicae—an ambitious attempt to integrate the Jewish Kabbalah as the origin of true philosophical knowledge—ultimately served to marginalize the Hebrew tradition. Through strategies ranging from outright rejection (Amsterdam) to selective rewriting (Leipzig), the reviews actively participated in defining philosophy as a tradition that was Greek, rational, and Christian, thereby excluding a revelatory Jewish origin. This conundrum is addressed in this volume by Guido Bartolucci.

A pivotal moment in the evolution of this genre was the birth of the philosophical history of philosophy, a process essentially linked to the work of Christoph August Heumann, as shown by Roberto Bordoli. In his Acta philosophorum (1715–1726), the first periodical specifically dedicated to this field, Heumann established a fundamental distinction between historia philosophica (written by historians) and historia philosophiae (written by philosophers). For Heumann, the history of philosophy was not a mere branch of history like military or ecclesiastical history, but a new philosophical discipline essential for the search for truth and virtue. Through the Acta philosophorum, Heumann promoted Eclecticism as a critical method for independent judgment, emancipated from the “despotism” of traditional sects and authorities. He argued that a philosopher must examine past ideas as an equal, accepting only what is rigorously grounded in reason. This perspective allowed for a radical re-evaluation of the philosophical canon: for instance, Heumann was the first to fully include forbidden figures like Giordano Bruno in the narrative of modern philosophy, treating even atheism and heresy as legitimate objects of philosophical judgment that help refine human knowledge.

The case of Georg Friedrich Meier illustrates how reviews functioned within these institutional networks. Meier’s textbooks were used by Kant for nearly forty years, and his work was extensively discussed in journals such as the Jenaische gelehrte Zeitungen and the Hamburgische Berichte, as highlighted in Pozzo’s paper. Critical reviews by contemporaries like Moses Mendelssohn and Thomas Abbt signal the tensions of the era: Mendelssohn critiqued Meier’s “terrifying” productivity and the ambiguity of authorship between him and Baumgarten, while Abbt ironically dissected Meier’s habit of using fixed classification schemes—or “basic threads”—for all his writing.

The prominence of the review genre coincided with and propelled significant transformations in the form and accessibility of intellectual discourse. Christian Thomasius stands out as a pioneering figure, transforming the review by integrating it with dialogue and polemics, notably in his periodical Monats-Gespräche (1688–1690). The articles of Marco Sgarbi and Riccarda Suitner are focused on him. The use of dialogue in reviews served multiple functions: it allowed different perspectives to be presented pro & contra, fostering critical thinking in readers by withholding final, dogmatic judgment. This genre proved highly effective for popularizing knowledge, as it allowed difficult philosophical ideas to reach a wider, less academic readership that included soldiers, merchants, and women, thereby democratizing intellectual debate. Thomasius argued that reviews should eschew elitism and embrace a direct, critical style that would challenge established authorities and pedantry, treating criticism and excerpting as inseparable elements of philosophical practice.

More broadly, the sheer volume, variety, and competitive nature of Gelehrte Journale between the late 17th and late 18th centuries demonstrate a radical shift in knowledge dissemination. The shift toward accessible German-language periodicals, often appearing as ephemeral, anonymous, or pseudonymous Flugschriften (flyers), fundamentally altered the material conditions and social perception of intellectual work. The commercial nature of reviews meant they played a strategic role in determining what books should be bought, effectively offering themselves as a substitute for the books themselves for a burgeoning bourgeois audience eager for self-cultivation. Reviewers acted as “knowledge actors” as seen in the technical debates over translations of Pseudo-Longinus’ On the Sublime. The recurring attention to issues of translation in reviews of works like this highlights the crucial role of language in constructing national intellectual identity and making ancient texts accessible to non-specialist readers (see Pizzichemi’s paper).

The systematic examination of philosophical reviews reveals them as an indispensable source for understanding the intellectual history of the Enlightenment. These sources demonstrate how critical judgment—often embedded within ostensibly neutral summaries, dialogues, or polemical pamphlets—was essential for disseminating philosophical knowledge, establishing terminological standards, engaging in political combat, and shaping the modern philosophical canon through acts of inclusion and purposeful exclusion. The study of these intricate relationships, bridging the distance between private scholarship and public consumption, between abstract theory and ideological commitment, remains vital for grasping the foundations of modern European thought. This collection illuminates this dynamic intellectual landscape where the philosophical review reigned as the defining genre of its age.

Every era has its challenges. The invention of the printing press posed the challenge of an overflow of information in the form of printed books to the 17th century. This revolution impacted the lives of scholars, who had to find ways to cope with scientific reports, literature, and news. It also had a social dimension in that it motivated the scholarly community to establish official practices for dealing with products of knowledge, making ideas accessible without time-consuming reading practices. Reviews and excerpts became the main means of doing so.

G. W. Leibniz participated in the rethinking of cultural and scientific exchanges as a producer, consumer, and administrator. He served as librarian and as an influence on journals such as Monatlicher Auszug, as recently documented by Beiderbeck and Gantet (2021, 3–6). In his letters and writings, Leibniz expresses concern about the growing volume of published materials and the insufficient time allotted for reviewing them. This challenge motivates him to reflect on the role of the savant in society. The writing Mémoire pour des personnes éclairées et de bonne intention (1692, A IV 4 617) paradigmatically testifies of Leibniz’s commitment to rethinking the role of savants, portraying them as learned individuals who must give back to society by investing their valuable time in community-benefiting activities. Among the charitable activities that advance the public good, Leibniz lists those that promote science, such as meditations, observations, experiments, and instructions. Savants should pursue authentic scientific improvements rather than honor and public approval.1

In addition to the services that scholars can offer the public, there are also products that organize knowledge, such as encyclopedias, book catalogs, and book excerpts (excerpta). The latter seem to have a mere subsidiary function; they are useful for finding passages quickly and for providing an initial overview of the subject matter and the author’s approach.

As testified by the Academy Edition, excerpta was a practice used by Leibniz not just as a private way of studying a book, but also for sharing contents with other thinkers of the time. Few pages could easily be sent by mail and shared with other scholars, or published in journals. As Gantet (2021a, 263) has showed, the distinction between excerpta and reviews was not so sharp at the time. Both excerpta and reviews are published anonymously and must avoid controversies, even when they express merits and demerits of the book.

In another study, Gantet (2021b) reconstructs Leibniz’s publication and review activity in scientific journals and shows that Leibniz extensively exercised the practice of excerpta as book reviews. Moreover, his review and publication activity appears to be guided by a dissemination strategy that prioritizes high-impact journals over other media.

This strategy can be seen as reflecting what Leibniz wrote in Memoires pour des personnes ecclaires: high-impact journals guarantee a larger audience for ideas that contribute to scientific advancement. However, it can also be seen as a strategy to control and manipulate the dissemination of these ideas by influencing their readership. In this paper, I address the question of whether there is more to Leibniz’s review activity than disinterested scientific improvement or if he envisions the potential of reviews to influence reception and debate about the reviewed work.

The question of Leibniz’s ambivalent review activity stems from the role of reviews during his time. As Gantet (2021a, 263) points out, reviews were not intended to criticize an author’s work. Rather, they were a means of sharing information about a book’s content without engaging in critical debate with the author. Jean Gallois, the editor of the Journal des sçavans from 1666 to 1674, provides the following guidelines for writing a good review:

Although Leibniz apparently follows these instructions, he uses them as camouflage to deliver more than a report on the contents of the book. His reviews serve as a scientific tool to instill prejudices in scientific users. By “prejudices” I do not mean false judgments about a book, but rather some precognition in the form of knowledge one must have to critically assess the content of the book, which may eventually incline readers to reject the author’s arguments. To support my thesis, I analyze Leibniz’s review of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, published in 1700. Before I begin the analysis, I would like to address a methodological concern.

Leibniz’s review activity spanned his entire scientific life. During this time, he produced a remarkable number of reviews of books on philosophy, mathematics, physics, and more (see Gantet 2021b).2 Therefore, limiting the analysis to one review is methodologically unsound. A rigorous approach should survey all of this material and address other variables, such as the periodization of reviews (are there differences between early reviews, when Leibniz was young, and later reviews, when he was a well-known, acclaimed scholar?), the variety of disciplines (is there continuity between reviews of philosophical works and reviews of works in other disciplines?), and, finally, similarities that could be used to argue for a strategic use of reviews, as I suggest. Another way to support my thesis would be to examine Leibniz’s reviews of his own work (see Giampietri 2012) for clues as to whether he employed this strategy also to his own work. This paper is just the beginning of such research. As one must start somewhere, I will focus on what I consider a paradigmatic case: Leibniz’s review of Locke. Therefore, the support for my thesis would be modest. All I argue is that Leibniz used the strategy of deploying book reviews to influence readers at least once. This naturally raises the question of whether he did so systematically.

In par. 1, I explain why Leibniz’s review of Locke is paradigmatic in supporting my thesis. In par. 2, I analyze the review and demonstrate that, beneath the surface of what appears to be a fair and objective report, Leibniz offers a critical evaluation of John Locke’s work. This evaluation is designed so that readers familiar with Leibniz’s philosophy, including his intended audience, can immediately grasp the issues and contradictions of Locke’s empiricism. In par. 3, I conclude by examining the differences between the first review, published in 1700, and the addendum, published in 1701, in the same journal.

Among the most influential and important controversies between early modern intellectuals, the debate between Leibniz and Locke regarding the existence of innate ideas and their role in knowledge acquisition, as well as the question of whether the mind can develop its abilities only through the material provided by the senses, occupies a unique place, at least in terms of its influence on topics that are still debated today.3 If this is not reason enough why Leibniz’s review of Locke is a paradigmatic case, three aspects of the controversy support this view: First, the long-standing confrontation that led Leibniz to write a book-length rejection of Locke’s theses. Second, the abundance of public and private sources that shed light on Leibniz’s attitude toward Locke’s work. Third, the issue of diverging languages and the use of translations that shaped the reception of Locke’s work.

Regarding the first issue, Leibniz engaged with the work of Locke over a period of nearly ten years (1695–1704), which culminated in the writing of Nouveaux essais sur l’entendement humain. During this period, Leibniz hoped to engage Locke in direct dialogue, but Locke refused. In addition to his many indirect exchanges with Locke through Thomas Burnett (see Robinet and Schepers in the Introduction A VI 6, XVII–XXIII), Leibniz began corresponding with Lady Masham, Locke’s close friend and the daughter of Cudworth (see Meier-Oeser in the Introduction to A II 4 LXXXI–LXXXVIII). Locke spent the last years of his life at her house until his death in 1704. Leibniz abandoned the idea of publishing the New Essays because the reason for their completion—a live confrontation with Locke—disappeared with his death (Leibniz to Lady Masham, July 10, 1705, A II 4 325). The book was published more than fifty years later, in 1765, by Raspe, after Leibniz’s death.

From its structure to its content, the book New Essays on Human Understanding documents that the reason for engaging in a lively correspondence with Locke is not solely due to a difference in philosophical views. Leibniz is concerned that Locke’s writing style and his use of English, his native language, give him an advantage. Locke is able to express himself in a more accessible and appealing way, making his ideas easier to comprehend and share. This concern is explicit in a passage drawn from the Preface to the New Essays:

These lines from the Preface condense the three points I made to support the relevance of the review as a paradigmatic case. First, Leibniz’s strategy of turning the book into a dialogue is meant to make his position more appealing and less abstract than it would have been in a treatise. It further compensates for Locke’s linguistic advantage. Furthermore, a dialogue allows for a more focused debate, as both participants’ positions are presented to the readers. Symbolically, it represents Leibniz’s partnership with Plato. What he writes in the Preface testifies that he was afraid of the apparent soundness of Locke’s argumentation and the popular and simple way of exposition of his thought. Locke’s philosophy was not simply attractive, but capable to generate assent. These two features of Locke’s expository capacities increased the risk factor of wide dissemination of dangerous philosophical contents, like Locke’s criticism of innate ideas.

Leibniz likely had these concerns even before writing those lines in the Preface. When the dissemination of Locke’s philosophy increases through the translation of his Essay first into French by Pierre Coste in 1700 and then into Latin in 1701, he likely was searching for ways to contrast Locke’s philosophy. The translations gave him the opportunity to address Locke’s philosophy publicly, although anonymously. The first long review appeared in September 1700 and the shorter Zusatz in January 1701. Both reviews were written in German, a language Locke did not read. They were never sent to Locke, even though they were published before his death in 1704, when Leibniz was still trying to convince Locke to engage in a public debate.

For these reasons, I hypothesize that the purpose of this review is not the kind of public utility that Leibniz mentions in the quoted text of Mémoire pour des personnes éclairées et de bonne intention (1692). However, this is not because Leibniz is searching for public approval. An analysis of the review’s contents led me to conclude that Leibniz intended to influence the German reception of Locke’s work.

The Review and the Zusatz appear in Monatlicher Auszug aus allerhand neu herausgegeben, nütlzlichen und artigen Büchern, the former in the issue of September 1700, as a review of the French edition of the book; the latter in January 1701, occasioned by the publication of the Latin translation of Locke’s book. They are anonymous but attributed to Leibniz already early, as testified by their inclusion into Leibnitz’s Deutschen Schriften by Guhrauer in 1838.4 As the title of the Journal suggests, and as the first line of the review openly claim, it is written in the form of excerpta (Auszüge).

Since summarizing the entire Essay was impossible and unnecessary—Locke had already written an excerpt that was published in Le Clerc’s journal before his Essay was published (Locke 1688, 49–142)—, Leibniz decides to focus on two chapters added to the fourth edition of Locke’s book (1700):5 Book II, Chap. 33 On the association of ideas and Book IV, Chap. 19 On Enthusiasm.

The first set of remarks I would like to offer concerns the choice made by Leibniz of presenting these two chapters. The main reason he adduces is that they are added in the fourth edition of Locke’s work, but, as he also mentions, these are not the only changes Locke has made in the course of the four editions. In the second edition, Chap. 21, Book II, On Power was largely revised, and another, Chap. 27, Book II, On identity and Diversity, newly added. The reason to focus on Associations of ideas and Enthusiasm is not simply their recent addition in the fourth edition. I first focus on why Leibniz does not offer an overview of the other two chapters mentioned, Chap. 21 and 27 of Book II, although he does not refrain from saying something about Chap. 21.

Both chapters are philosophically significant, and what Leibniz writes about them in New Essays can be used to indicate his philosophical attitude toward the theses Locke defends there. Leibniz devotes a significant amount of discussion to opposing Locke’s notions of power and personal identity in New Essays. Conversely, Leibniz’s discussion of the two chapters of the Review in the New Essays manifests agreement with Locke’s ideas. According to the guidelines of the time, this conciliatory attitude is better suited to a review. However, if Locke and Leibniz agree on the theses of the chapters discussed in the review, then the review is not critical and my thesis is false. What is relevant to ground my thesis is the underlying disagreement beneath the apparent agreement. First, I focus on Leibniz’s criticism of Chapter 21 in New Essays and demonstrate how it builds on what Leibniz only mentions in the review.

Leibniz finds Locke’s analysis of the beginning of an action and free will (Essay II 21), as well as his analysis of personal identity (Essay II 27) highly problematic. In Leibniz’s view, Locke follows Descartes in his conception of thinking substance, insofar as the mind’s thoughts are always conscious.6 This thesis holds that to have a thought the mind has a perception both of the content of the act (the idea), and the kind of act the mind is using to consider its idea (either desiring, or imagining, or dreaming). This perception of the content and of the act amounts for Leibniz to an act of reflection. Locke uses this notion of mind (or of Cartesian thinking substance) as ground for his arguments that there are no innate ideas and truths;7 for his distinction between voluntary actions and free actions; for his conception of personal identity as the continuity between conscious acts of thought. I shortly highlight these three Lockean theses and Leibniz’s rejection (for an extensive treatment, see Oliveri 2016, 27–33).

Locke’s rejection of innate ideas and truths hinges on the notion that a mind is conscious of both the content and the type of state it has. According to Locke, a mind has an idea only if it knows it has that idea. This is similar to saying that the mind remembers encountering the same content in perception or reflection. For Locke, perception through the senses and reflection are the only “windows” through which the mind can acquire ideas. If one denies that having an idea means remembering that the mind has encountered the idea’s content, then any idea, including those of the senses, such as colors, turns out to be innate, which is absurd. (Essay I 4, par. 20 in Locke 1975, 96–9). Leibniz rejects this thesis, arguing that Locke’s criterion for determining whether an idea is innate or acquired is flawed because innate ideas can and must be learned. As Leibniz states: “I cannot accept the proposition that whatever is learned is not innate” (NE 85/A VI 6 85). In other words, remembering that one has previously considered the content does not mean that the content cannot be innate just because it is acquired.

Leibniz references Plato’s Meno, according to which geometric truths must be learned yet are innate (NE 77/A VI 6 77). Indeed, innate means that the source of the idea must be the mind’s abilities and dispositions, without which perceptions could not be processed to yield truths. To support this view, Leibniz rejects the idea that the mind is always conscious of its thoughts. He argues that conscious thoughts are merely the tip of the iceberg of a mind’s states, as they arise from minute perceptions and endeavors. These perceptions and endeavors represent the mind’s permanent and constant activity, whose task is to harmoniously express the entire world and other substances throughout its changes.8

Therefore, the mind is always perceiving and active, though not because it is conscious of its perceptions. Perception is the activity of the substance and is more fundamental than thinking. Thinking is constituted by perceptual states that are processed to represent perception in clear and distinct ways, i.e., through general notions, necessary truths, and innate ideas. The mind can eventually become conscious of its processing, and conscious thoughts serve very specific purposes, such as providing reasons and causes for actions and knowledge. In other words, minds represent motives and causes; however, the determination to act in a certain way or continue a series of thought is not solely determined by what is consciously represented. Minute perceptions and endeavors determine the mind’s internal states, which it then rationalizes by finding causes and motives (see Priarolo 2016, 745–64). For an example, consider that I believe that I chose to study philosophy because of the value I find in the discipline (rational cause), but the pleasure I feel in philosophizing (minute perceptual activity) played a decisive role in my decision. Therefore, my determination to study philosophy does not solely follow from rationalization; pleasure is a confused expression of metaphysical reasons that inclined me to study philosophy. In short, the unsaid beneath the said is Leibniz’s theory of substance, which Locke could never accept.9

This divergent view is only suggested in Leibniz’s review when he briefly mentions what Locke changed in Essay II 21. In the second edition, the conscious perception of motives for performing an action is considered insufficient to determine the action. Thus, voluntary determination through conscious motives cannot be the reason an action is considered free. For Locke, free action is simply the metaphysical possibility of the opposite action (see Essay II 21, par. 28 in Locke 1975, 247–48), while the determination of an action depends on what Locke defines as uneasiness of the mind (Essay II 21, par. 30 in Locke 1975, 249). Leibniz translates uneasiness as Unruhigkeit, a term that expresses the idea that the mind cannot be absolutely at rest (Ruhe) and is therefore always active.

Leibniz understood Locke’s definition of free action to be consistent with his own position, and therefore inconsistent with Locke’s initial premise that the mind is always aware of its actions. The agreement consists in the fact that actions are not the result of the apperception (Gewahrnehmung) of a greater good.10 Rather, action is the consequence of the activity of a substance of which conscious thought is merely a part. This substance is rooted in perceptions that are minute and nonconscious. In short, Leibniz points to an agreement between Locke’s concept of uneasiness and his own notion of minute perceptions. However, this agreement would have meant for Locke a rejection of the main thesis on which hinges his criticism of innate ideas and his denial of knowledge of metaphysical notions, like substance, identity, modes, and so on.

In the review, Leibniz presents the modifications to Essay II 21 as corrections to some of Locke’s false judgments in the previous edition. However, this report is inaccurate because Locke never presents the chapter as a correction of mistakes. The chapter is an expansion on the topic of voluntary action requiring the perception of volitions. However, volitions and self-determination are not sufficient to label an action as free. Interestingly, the choice of terminology in presenting Locke’s alleged change of mind incorporates Leibnizian ideas, particularly regarding his theory of minute perceptions.

The thesis that thoughts are conscious acts is used by Locke to argue that the mind not always think which is tantamount to saying that it is not always active, like in sleep (Essay II 1, par. 19 in Locke 1975, 114–15). This thesis grounds Locke’s distinction in Essay II 27 between man—the physical individual—; person—the collection of the conscious states of a mind—; and substance—as what we illegitimately infer as the metaphysical ground of the man and the person, since we cannot know what the substance is.

In New Essays, Leibniz finds this definition of personal identity too narrow as it implies the denial of a substance that perdures over time and metaphysically grounds all acts of the mind without the mind being conscious of them. Locke’s thesis of personal identity hinges on the thesis that thoughts is always conscious because the mind can be sure to be active only when it perceives and is conscious of its activity.11 Since the mind is not always conscious of its activity, it is intermittently active and the person consists only of those states the mind can acknowledge as its own. It follows that one cannot infer with certainty that the mind/person is always active even if unconsciously (this is possible, but not probable (Essay II 1, par. 19 in Locke 1975, 114–15). This idea undermines Leibniz’s conception of substance as always active. As the activity of the substance is a metaphysical necessary truth to argue that substances change, but perdure over the changes, Leibniz has to reject the thesis that personal identity is tantamount to conscious thoughts in order to affirm his notion of substance, as he does in NE II 27 (see Oliveri 2016 for an extensive comment).

To conclude this first set of considerations, we can say that, when considering what Leibniz writes against the theses expressed in Essay II 21 and II 27, it is apparent that he could not base his review on a discussion of these two chapters, as he would have resulted too critical towards Locke position, breaking the rules of good reviews. So, he is critical, but in a subtler way, and he does so by focusing on Essay II 33 On the association of ideas, and Essay IV 19, On enthusiasm.

These two chapters express theses that partially find Leibniz’s approval, though Leibniz’s reasons to approve those theses differ from Locke’s. Locke’s main thesis in Essay II 33 is that associations of ideas result from habits and exposure to frequent occurrences of those ideas in temporal and spatial proximity, often motivated by society and education. Therefore, associations of ideas have an empirical source and are not motivated by reason because there are no logical, necessary relations on which to base connections; only experience exists. Any association entails a degree of madness that cannot be avoided by any reasoning.

Leibniz also argues for a type of empirical knowledge (see Oliveri 2021). Unlike Locke, however, Leibniz believes that rational knowledge is possible if one accepts the existence of innate ideas and necessary truths. His approach to acknowledging empirical knowledge begins with an objection to Descartes’s thesis that thought is always conscious, which led Descartes to deny that animals have sensible souls or perceptions.12 To reject Descartes’s denial of animal souls, Leibniz contrasts Descartes’s dualism of substances with his theory of substances as active entelechies, whose basic activities are perceptions and appetites. The basic activities of substances do not require consciousness. (see Oliveri 2024). This metaphysical basis enables Leibniz to argue that there are other souls with perceptions that, unlike minds, cannot be conscious of those perceptions. However, these souls have empirical knowledge because it is based on associations of ideas through experience. Although it is true that minds also have and use empirical knowledge, they are also capable of knowledge based on reason, which rests on the human capacity to conceive and understand necessary truths. Once again, Leibniz thinks that Locke is right in pointing to the limit of human knowledge through the acknowledgment that most of human associations of ideas have their sources in their experience and education, and basically are nothing but some prejudices that almost mechanically influence human responses to input provided by nature and society (when I see the night, I look for the moon; when someone waves at me, I wave back, Guhrauer 1838, 315); he is wrong in thinking that any association can be exclusively of this kind.

To summarize, Locke’s associations of ideas claim that most of human knowledge is not based on reason. Locke proves this by accepting Descartes’s thesis of thoughts as conscious acts of the mind in order to deny that innate ideas are possible. Leibniz denies Descartes’s thesis that thought is always conscious because this implies the denial of animal cognition. He argues for a kind of basic activity of substances that does not require consciousness and can account for associations of ideas that are empirical, like those advanced by Locke Essay II 33. However, Leibniz’s reason to accept associations of ideas that are empirical rests on the denial of the thesis that thoughts are conscious acts on which Locke bases his criticism of innate ideas, necessary to argue for experience as the only source of association. Therefore, Leibniz’s agreement with Locke, as expressed in the review, is supported by an underlying criticism that allows Leibniz to accept what Locke denies: rational knowledge based on an internal, natural light. The topic of reason as an internal (divine) light is the second link to the chapter On Enthusiasm.

Leibniz thinks that Locke’s denial of innate ideas is directly related to Essay IV 19, On Enthusiasm, also added in the fourth edition.13 Those who base their knowledge on God’s revelation of truths through an internal light are enthusiastic. As Leibniz writes in New Essays, Locke is right to criticize those who appeal to God to justify what they perceive as good and true. However, Leibniz notes that enthusiasm has become a negative concept.

Although Leibniz shares Locke’s criticism of those who groundlessly appeal to God to justify what they believe to be true, he rejects the denial of a natural light as the source of acknowledge of eternal truths because of the abuse some philosophical sects made of the internal light as a source of knowledge. The lack of distinction between abuse of something good and what is good about what is abused is the reason why Locke fails to consider that a natural internal light can be the source of ideas and necessary truths required for associations of ideas based on reason.

Even if Leibniz’s criticism of Locke is not the focus of the review, the two chapters object of the review are directly related to his stronger criticism through the position of two distinct issues. If Locke is right in arguing that associations of ideas is mostly empirical; he is wrong in arguing that all associations are empirical. If he is right in arguing against the abuse of an internal light, he exaggerates his criticism to the denial of innate ideas, for which reason as the internal light is required. These two issues derive from an overall lack of discernment about Cartesian positions that Locke criticizes but at the same time uses, like the Cartesian criterion of truth, evidence.

Leibniz’s criticism of Locke concerns the use he does of his criticism against evidence. Leibniz thinks that Locke considers Descartes’s use of evidence as a criterion sufficient to gain knowledge about the innateness of ideas and truths (since the idea is evident, it does not need experience, therefore is innate). Locke criticizes the possibility to know about the innateness of an idea from evidence, but he uses the criterion of evidence himself, which makes him accept the distinction between matter and mind. Leibniz rebuts that the denial of evidence as the criterion for an idea’s innate status still is no argument against the possibility of innate ideas. An alternative to Descartes’s evidence could be the dependency argument which states that empirical knowledge depends on innate truths, such as identity and contradiction. These truths are therefore presupposed (a priori) to experience (see Oliveri 2021, Chap. 9, for a reconstruction of Leibniz’s argument). As discussed in the next paragraph, this epistemological flaw costs Locke the assumption of unsound metaphysical thesis, like Descartes distinction between res cogitans and res extensa.

The soundness of Locke’s criticism of philosophical ideas stemming from Cartesian theses increases the risk that Locke’s philosophy finds approval among those unsatisfied with Descartes’s philosophy. Once his criticism is accepted, his philosophy seems to be the only natural alternative. Leibniz aims to prevent this outcome and demonstrate that one can agree with Locke’s criticism for different reasons. Thus, Locke’s solution is not the only natural alternative for those dissatisfied with Cartesian philosophy.

As a proof of this worry, let me just mention the success of Locke’s chapter on Enthusiasm in Germany. As Konstantin Pollok (2004, XI n. 16) notices, the Lockean chapter played a decisive role in the development of the German Aufklärung: on one hand, it is used by Christian Thomasius to reject his previous pietist position and it is published separately in 1720 by Georg Michael Preu with the title Geist der wahren oder falsch befundenen Inspirationen […angefügt] Joh. Locks Gedanken von der Enthusiasterey. As Leibniz himself mentions in New Essays, Locke’s critique of enthusiasts will find resonance with those who in Germany find new prophets a philosophical fraud.14 So, even if Leibniz could not foresee the success of this chapter after his death, he could understand the potential it has to attract a German audience, like Christian Thomasius who, along with his father, Jocob, he knew personally. The acclamation of Locke’s rationale philosophy could so motivate the approval of his theses and the dissemination of his dangerous philosophy. An accurate objection to Locke’s theses and the dangerous implications they entail, like a lack of sufficient distinction between the abuser of a natural light and the “right” way to understand “the natural light” as reason, urged. Through his review, Leibniz aimed to provide the German readership with the tools necessary to recognize the merits of Locke’s criticism and the demerits of his philosophical solutions. Though camouflaged, this was Leibniz’s intention, which becomes clearer through a comparison of the long review of 1700 with the Zusatz of 1701.

In summary, we can say that Leibniz felt the need to publicly draw important philosophical distinctions that were overlooked by Locke’s philosophy. His own philosophy, similar to Locke’s in many respects, diverges from it by claiming the necessity of theses that Locke considered unsound, such as innate ideas and the notion of substance.

Table 1 – Comparison Between the Two Reviews.

This urge was also dictated by the growing reception of Locke’s philosophy on the Continent. The Latin translation of Locke’s Essay appears one year after the French translation in 1701. In January of that year, Leibniz published the Zusatz in the section VIII. Einige Ausbesserungen und Zugaben des ersten Jahres der Monatl. Auszüge of Monatlicher Auszug as an improvement to the original review published in the September 1700 issue (see also Guhrauer 1838, 328–29). Besides the difference in length between the two reviews (sixteen pages vs. two), the Zusatz takes an overtly critical stance against Locke’s philosophy by directly expressing its problems. Table 1 offers a synoptic comparison of the two reviews. In the following, I will focus on the problems reported by Leibniz in the Zusatz.

First, Leibniz rejects the idea that the association of ideas is solely the result of education and experience. A stronger reason to associate ideas is the conviction that one has a proof of the association of ideas without testing whether there is actually a proof of the idea’s possibility. This criticism echoes the one Leibniz leveled against Descartes in his Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas, his epistemology paper published in 1684 in the Acta Eruditorum. In it, he criticizes Descartes’s criterion of truth, which states that anything perceived as clear and distinct is true (see A VI 4 591). This criterion is used to disseminate a philosopher’s beliefs as infallible truths. The association of ideas based on evidence simply presupposes the capacity to offer proof without undertaking it, and therefore without knowledge of the possibility of having sound proof. Leibniz analyzes the ontological proof of the existence of God as an example of this error based on evidence. The ontological proof is not a proof because it links God’s perfection to God’s existence, presupposing the idea that a perfect being is possible. In other words, one assumes the possibility of the perfect being, whose existence cannot be denied, without proving whether such a perfect being is possible. (see A VI 589–90, for a discussion, Oliveri 2021).

This reference resonates with his criticism of Locke’s notions of body and matter. Locke’s mistake was accepting the Cartesian notion of the body as res extensa. Leibniz believes that the argument for Descartes’s substance dualism hinges on evidence as a criterion for truth. Therefore, he finds it puzzling that Locke accepts the result of Descartes’s reasoning, which is based on a criterion—evidence—that Locke also criticizes (Essay I 2, par. 19–21 in Locke 1975, 58–60, and Essay II 29 Of Clear and Obscure, Distinct and Confused ideas in Locke 1975, 363–72, and Essay IV 7, par. 1–3 in Locke 1975, 591–94). If Locke’s criticism of evidence aligns with Leibniz’s criticism in Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas, then Locke is inconsistent in his criticism because he accepts certain doctrines without further inquiring into their metaphysical soundness, as his claim that God could make matter think without imparting a soul to matter. This thesis of Locke was criticized by Edward Stillingfleet and the controversy between the two plays a pivotal role in Leibniz’s criticism in the Zusatz.

As Leibniz reports in the Zusatz, Locke himself allegedly recognized his lack of metaphysical understanding of the implications of his notions of matter and substance in his controversy with the Bishop of Worcester, Edward Stillingfleet. Stillingfleet claimed that Locke’s philosophy was openly materialist and opposed the immortality of the soul and the doctrine of the Trinity (see Stewart 2015). Leibniz followed the controversy with great interest and concern, as evidenced by the materials collected in vol. VI 6 of the Academy Edition.15 Between 1697 and 1700, he read and marked a copy of Stillingfleet’s A Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity (1697), which features three criticisms of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. At the end of 1698, he wrote a Compte rendu de la Vindication de Stillingfleet et de la lettre de Locke. Exactly around the year of the review, in 1700, Leibniz wrote Réflexions sur la seconde réplique de Locke. As Schepers and Robinet remark, Locke was aware of Leibniz’s interest in the controversy and informed him through Thomas Burnett that he was interested in hearing Leibniz’s position. In 1699, Leibniz sent Locke a long letter via Burnett that explicitly stated his position (Leibniz to Thomas Burnett of Kemney, Hanover, January 20–30, 1699, A I 16, 506–18). Later, in another letter to Burnett dated February 2–12, 1700, Leibniz attached his Réflexions sur la seconde réplique de Locke. Although Burnett sent both documents to Locke, and, although Locke read and commented on them, he never replied (A VI 6 XXI).

Leibniz’s reflections on Locke’s second reply to Stillingfleet square with the criticism levelled in the Zusatz. His Reflections turn around epistemological questions concerning certainty about the agreement or disagreement of ideas. Leibniz agrees with Stillingfleet, who criticizes the new way of ideas and refers to his paper in the Acta eruditorum from 1684. The mistake of Descartes, and of Locke, is to accept what they conceive as an agreement among ideas without providing arguments that oblige others to see the same agreement:

In a letter dated January 1700, the same year of Leibniz’s first review, Leibniz wrote to Burnett that he believed it was possible to reconcile Stillingfleet and Locke’s views on knowledge of clear and distinct ideas. This was because Stillingfleet’s idea that truths depend on eternal truths was compatible with Locke’s new theory of ideas, provided Locke acknowledged that clear and distinct ideas require proof of their possibility. (Leibniz to Thomas Burnett of Kemney, Hanover, 2./[12.] February 1700, A I 18 371–73). Without knowledge of the possibility of ideas, ideas are, in Locke’s sense, chimerical, and there is no criterion for truth (see also A. VI 6 31 and the letter of Leibniz to Burnet, January 20–30, 1699, A I 16 508). However, acknowledging the dependence of ideas on the truths of reason would have meant acknowledging the existence of an internal light—a divine part that does not perish with the body since it is not subject to material changes. In other words, it would have meant denying the theory of matter that Locke defends in his Essay, as well as Locke’s claim that God could produce a change in matter that yields a thought as a result. Stillingfleet and others considered this claim to be the source of Locke’s materialism and denial of the soul’s immortality because it amounts to the idea that the body can think without a soul (see Bolton 2015). In summary, Leibniz believes that Locke’s notion of substance is problematic, but this issue stems from Locke’s epistemology of ideas. Although Locke criticizes Descartes’ criterion of clear and distinct perception as evidence of the agreement of ideas, he still uses it in his philosophical arguments.

Against this backdrop, the following lines of the Zusatz about the controversy between Locke and Stillingfleet acquire a new meaning:

Had Locke admitted that something more than the body is required to explain thought, he would have had to concede the existence of an internal natural light as a principle of change originating not from the body but from the active part of substances—the form or entelechy, whose nature is to be active, and whose activity is perception and appetite. He would also have agreed to the necessity of positing soul-like substances in animals that differ from minds because only the latter are capable of reflection and consciousness. Thus, he would have distanced himself from the Cartesians. He would have acknowledged the possibility of associations based on reason because he would have found a way to explain necessary truths. Indeed, the Reflections sent to Burnett also close with an exposition of Leibniz’s own philosophy based on the notion of substance. This notion and his principle of pre-established harmony are also the object of his correspondence with Lady Masham, where he refers her and Locke to his comments to the entry Rorarius in Bayle’s Dictionaire (Leibniz to Lady Masham, Hanover, 14. January 1704 in A II 4 187). In short, if Locke had truly begun to believe that the body is more than just extension, he would have agreed with Leibniz’s philosophy.

As the final part of the review notes, the Locke of An Essay is misguided by these errors that led him to believe that ideas are derived from experience and that nothing in the intellect exists that was not previously perceived by the senses. Since substance cannot be perceived through the senses, it cannot be known, and our notion of substance is merely that of a substratum that we suppose as perduring through the changes of bodies, but that we cannot know. In the famous letter What It Is Beyond Senses and Matter, which is a reply to John Toland, a supporter of Locke who argues for empiricism, Leibniz also hints at the distinction between truths of facts and experience (Leibniz to Sophie Charlotte, Hanover, June 1702 A I 21 N. 224 328–46). This distinction is necessary to provide the subject with occasions to conceive and learn necessary truths and to recognize experience as the only source of knowledge. As he argued in his unpublished essay against Locke, the learnability of notions does not prove their dependence on experience for acquisition (see Oliveri 2021, Chap. 9). Therefore, we cannot infer that experience is the only reason we possess those ideas and necessary truths. Without an internal light, the mind would not be able to learn truths that surpass experience because experience requires them to be possible in the first place. Thus, Leibniz hopes that Locke would agree with him.

In other words, Leibniz thinks that his notion of substance, which has some affinity with Aristotle entelechy, is only possible when supported by Platonic psychology and epistemology. According to this philosophy, the mind learns truths through the exercise of its own rational nature occasioned by experience. If we can know the essence of substance, it is because we are substance, and doing philosophy is merely learning to know ourselves. If this is not possible—if we cannot learn to know ourselves—we cease to be human and never exercise the most natural part of our nature: the understanding.

Leibniz’s review of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding demonstrates that he used reviews to reveal its shortcomings to a German audience. This strategy becomes apparent when comparing the first review, published in 1700, with the 1701 Zusatz. While the first review seems to be an objective summary of the chapters added to the fourth edition of Locke’s Essay, the second review is overtly critical and lists Locke’s errors. However, a closer look at the first review shows that, beneath his approval of Locke’s thesis of the associations of ideas and criticism of enthusiasm, Leibniz expresses doubt about whether one should also accept Locke’s reasoning behind his thesis and criticism. The second review confirms Leibniz’s critical stance. Locke’s criticism addresses some epistemological questions correctly, but it also leads him to reject important metaphysical truths. By referencing the controversy with Stillingfleet, Leibniz suggests that Locke changed his mind about the notions of body and substance presented in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. A review of Leibniz’s correspondence with Burnett reveals that Locke’s flawed metaphysical beliefs stem from an incorrect epistemology that accepts what Locke himself criticized—that truth is based on the agreement or disagreement of ideas based on evidence, which makes a proof of agreement unnecessary. Leibniz’s criticism of Locke is based on questions about knowledge and how to acquire it. This makes the controversy with Locke prominently epistemological and therefore metaphysical.

Does this analysis sufficiently support my thesis that Leibniz used reviews as tools to instill prejudices and influence their readership? Even if I cannot argue for the general thesis, I have provided evidence that Leibniz used reviews as philosophical tools to influence the German community of scholars at least once and in an important case. If he did so once, perhaps he did so more than once, or even systematically.

A = Leibniz, G. W. 1923–2021. Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe. Berlin: Akademie Verlag/DeGruyter.

AT = Descartes, René. 1964–1978. Oeuvres de Descartes, édité par C. Adam, et P. Tannery. Paris: Vrin.

Barth, Christian. 2011. “Apperception in the New Essays Concerning Human Understanding. A Critique of the Reflective Account.” In Natur und Subjekt. ix. Internationaler Leibniz-Kongress, hrsg. von Herbert Breger et al., 37–43. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.

Beiderbeck, Friedrich, and Claire Gantet, edited by. 2021. Wissenskulturen in der Leibniz-Zeit: Konzepte – Praktiken – Vermittlung. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110730593

Boeker, Ruth. 2021. Locke on Persons and Personal Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198846758.003.0001

Bolton, Martha B. 2015. “Locke on Thinking Matter.” In A Companion to Locke, edited by Mattew Stuart, 334–53. Chichester (UK): Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118328705.ch17

CSM = Descartes, René. 1984–1991. The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, transleted by J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch, and A. Kenny, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dascal, Marcelo. 2006. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. The Art of Controversies. Berlin-Amsterdam: Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-5228-6

De Rosa, Raffaella. 2002. Innate Ideas and Intentionality Descartes Vs Locke. Dissertation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University.

De Rosa, Raffaella. 2015. “Locke’s Critique of Innatism.” In A Companion to Locke, edited by Matthew Stuart, 157–74. Chichester (UK): Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118328705.ch8

Essay = Locke, John. 17004. An Essay Corning Human Understanding. London: s.n.

Gantet, Claire. 2021a. “Leibniz und die gelehrten Journale.” In Wissenskulturen in der Leibniz-Zeit: Konzepte – Praktiken – Vermittlung, hrsg. von Friedrich Beiderbeck, und Claire Gantet, 253–88. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110730593

Gantet, Claire. 2021b. “Leibniz’ Journalartikel – eine Übersicht.” In Wissenskulturen in der Leibniz-Zeit: Konzepte – Praktiken – Vermittlung, hrsg. von Friedrich Beiderbeck, und Claire Gantet, 289–322. Berlin-Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110730593

Giampietri, Francesco, a cura di. 2012. Leibniz allo specchio. Dissimulazioni erudite. Milano: Mimesis.

Jorgensen, Larry M. 2009. “The principle of continuity and Leibniz’s theory of consciousness.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 47, 2: 223–48. https://doi.org/10.1353/hph.0.0112

Locke, John. 1688. “Extrait d’un livre anglais qui n’est pas encore publié, intitulé : Essay philosophique concernant l’entendement humain.” Bibliothèque universelle et historique 8: 49–142.

Locke, John. 1975. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited by Peter H. Nidditch, London: Clerendon.

Lodge, Paul, and Tom Stoneham, edited by. 2015. Locke and Leibniz on Substance. New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315762418

McRae, Robert. 1976. Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487579777

Oliveri, Lucia. 2016. “Imagination and Harmony in Leibniz’s Philosophy of Language.” Diss. University of Münster. <https://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:hbz:6-05169689910>.

Oliveri, Lucia. 2019. “The Leibniz-Treuer Correspondence. With text and English translation of excerpts from Treuer’s De mente sensu non errante and Correspondence with Leibniz.” The Leibniz Review 29: 83–104. https://doi.org/10.5840/leibniz2019298

Oliveri, Lucia. 2021. Imaginative Animals. Leibniz’s Logic of Imagination. Stuttgart: Steiner Verlag. http://doi.org/10.25162/9783515130516

Oliveri, Lucia. 2021a. “Conceivability Errors and the Role of Imagination in Symbolization.” Jolma the Journal for the Philosophy of Language, Mind and the Arts 2, 2: 293–310. https://doi.org/10.30687/Jolma/2723-9640/2021/02/002

Oliveri, Lucia. 2024. “Perception and Thought. Leibniz’s Criticism of Descartes’s Denial of Perception to Animals.” Giornale di Metafisica 2: 536–50.

Pelletier, Arnaud. 2017. “Attention et aperception selon Leibniz : aspects cognitifs et éthiques.” Les Études philosophiques 120, 1: 103–18. https://doi.org/10.3917/leph.171.0103

Pollok, Konstantin. 2004. Locke In Germany: Early German Translations of John Locke, 1709–61. Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum.

Priarolo, Mariangela. 2016. “The Consequences of Error. Leibniz and Toleration.” Rivista di storia della filosofia 71, 4: 745–64. https://doi.org/10.3280/SF2016-004012

Tabb, Kathryn. 2019. “Locke on Enthusiasm and the Association of Ideas.” In Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy, vol. IX, edited by Ronald Rutherford, 75–104. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198852452.003.0003

Thiel, Udo. 2011. The early Modern Subject. Self Conscsiousness and personal identity from Descartes to Hume. Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press.

Lucia Oliveri, oliveri.lucia@gmail.com, University of Münster, Germany, 0000-0001-8022-4538

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Lucia Oliveri, Leibniz and the Function of Book Reviews, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1.03, in Pasquale Terracciano, Francesco Valerio Tommasi (edited by), Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799). Volume 2, pp. -33, 2026, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0999-1, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1

Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) stands out as one of the most important and influential figures in German philosophy. His influence is not solely due to the cultural ferment during the early Enlightenment or the rise of Pietism, but also because he revolutionized philosophy by using the German language, so much so that his work is often compared to the power of Lutheran preaching in the sixteenth century. The breadth and depth of his philosophical contributions left a profound mark on generations of intellectuals, including Immanuel Kant, and played a pivotal role in shaping eighteenth-century philosophical discourse (see Schneiders 1989; Vollhardt 1997; Beetz 2003; Tomasoni 2005).

Thomasius has attracted substantial scholarly attention because his impact reached beyond philosophy into law and theology. However, there is one aspect of his career that has received less attention than it deserves—his pioneering role in the development of philosophical reviewing. Thomasius was not only a philosopher and jurist but also a founder of what can be called philosophical journalism.

His periodicals, such as Monats-Gespräche (1688–1690), Historia Sapientiae et Stultitiae (1693), and Summarischer Nachrichten von auserlesenen Büchern (1715–1718), were innovative ventures and began a period of critical experimentation and innovation of literary genres in the German language. Scholars such as Hanns Freydank, Thomas Woitkewitsch, Mark Lehmstedt, and Herbert Jaumann have examined Thomasius’ contributions, focusing primarily on the role of journalism and literary criticism during this period of intellectual transition. However, one aspect that remains understudied is the influence of reviews on Thomasius’ own philosophical outlook (Gierl 2004). Martin Gierl’s monumental work Pietismus und Aufklärung touches on the importance of Thomasius’ activity as a reviewer, linking it to the religious controversies surrounding Pietism. This paper seeks to expand on Gierl’s insights by demonstrating how Thomasius’ use of reviews was not just a theological tool, but also a vital instrument in his broader philosophical project—namely, the development of Eclecticism. Thomasius believed that reviews were an essential method of philosophical inquiry. Through them, he could critique, analyze, and synthesize various intellectual traditions in order to build a more comprehensive understanding of philosophy. Reviews allowed Thomasius to question established ideas and to search for truth, not just through original works but also by engaging critically with the works of others. Understanding Thomasius’ philosophy through the lens of his reviews offers fresh insight into his intellectual contributions (see Mulsow 2003).

Eclecticism, as promoted by Christian Thomasius, is best understood not as a distinct philosophical doctrine but rather as a method of inquiry.1 Unlike systems of thought that adhere to rigid principles or specific traditions, Eclecticism draws from a variety of sources. It is an approach that rejects dogmatism in favor of intellectual flexibility, allowing philosophers to select the best ideas from different schools of thought and synthesize them into a coherent framework.

This philosophical approach emphasizes the need for critical engagement with the ideas of the past, rather than outright rejection or uncritical acceptance. Thomasius believed that no single philosopher or tradition could lay claim to possessing the ultimate truth. Instead, he argued that truth unfolds over time and is often dispersed among various thinkers and historical contexts. Eclecticism, therefore, is not about creating new dogmatic systems but about discovering truth by examining different philosophical positions and evaluating them critically:2

For Thomasius, the purpose of Eclecticism was to avoid the pitfalls of dogmatism and skepticism. Dogmatism, in his view, was an intellectual stance that stifled critical inquiry by rigidly adhering to a particular system of thought. Skepticism, on the other hand, denied the possibility of certain knowledge, leading to intellectual paralysis. Thomasius believed that both dogmatism and skepticism were barriers to true philosophical understanding. Eclecticism offered a way to navigate between these two extremes by allowing for the selection and combination of the best aspects of various philosophical traditions.

Eclecticism,

One of the key features of Eclecticism is the emphasis on intellectual autonomy. Thomasius advocated for independent thought, urging philosophers not to rely on the authority of any single teacher or tradition. Instead, he emphasized the importance of critical reasoning and personal judgment. The eclectic philosopher, in Thomasius’ view, must engage deeply with philosophical traditions, but always maintain the freedom to assess their validity based on reason and evidence, rather than on the reputation of the thinker or the school from which they come.

Eclecticism also recognizes the limitations of human reason. Thomasius was acutely aware of the finite nature of human understanding and believed that no individual could grasp the full scope of truth. For this reason, he rejected the idea of constructing grand, all-encompassing philosophical systems. Such systems, in his view, were doomed to failure because they overestimated the capacity of human reason. Instead, Thomasius advocated for a more modest approach to philosophy, one that recognized the partiality of human knowledge and sought to improve it incrementally through critical engagement with the history of thought.

Eclecticism:

With respect to this philosophical attitude, for the present article, the emphasis placed by Thomasius on excerpting, or on gathering the opinions of others, and on the critical examination that must be made of these same opinions, are particularly important. Given Thomasius’ commitment to Eclecticism, it is not surprising that he, and his pupils and fellows placed such a high value on the practice of reviewing.3 Reviews, in his view, were a crucial tool for engaging critically with the ideas of others. They allowed philosophers to assess the strengths and weaknesses of various works, select the best insights, and incorporate them into their own thinking. For Thomasius, reviewing was not just an ancillary activity but a central component of his philosophical method.

Thomasius’ first major experience with reviewing came through his contributions to the Acta Eruditorum, the first learned periodical in Germany. Between 1683 and 1684, Thomasius wrote seven reviews for the Acta, primarily focusing on legal texts. These early reviews were characterized by their brevity and lack of critical engagement. Thomasius offered straightforward summaries of the works, without delving into deep analysis or critique. Nevertheless, these reviews represented his initial foray into philosophical journalism and laid the groundwork for his later, more sophisticated approach to reviewing.

Thomasius quickly became dissatisfied with the limitations of the Acta Eruditorum. The journal’s neutral tone and lack of critical depth did not align with his vision for what philosophical reviewing should be. He believed that reviews should not merely summarize the content of a work but should offer a thorough and critical examination of its arguments. In his view, reviews should serve as a tool for advancing philosophical discourse by helping readers identify both the strengths and weaknesses of the works being reviewed. So, while it is true that Thomasius’ first journalistic attempts were not in open opposition to the conception of the Acta (see Zedler 1745, XLIII, 1582–1583), as a matter of fact he chose a totally different path, an experimental alternative that would lead him in different directions and that earned him numerous criticisms.

This dissatisfaction led Thomasius to experiment with new forms of philosophical journalism. His most ambitious project in this regard was the Monats-Gespräche, a periodical he founded in 1688 (See Habel 2007, 453–54). The Monats-Gespräche had a satirical edge, which added to its appeal and made it more accessible to a broader audience. However, this tone also attracted criticism from some quarters, particularly among theologians in Leipzig such as Valentin Alberti, who attempted to censor the journal.4 In the second issue Thomasius offers his views on contemporary journalism, especially regarding how a review journal should be structured. He argues that, unlike the Acta Eruditorum, it would be more beneficial to translate excerpts from books written in other languages into German. This would allow Germans who did not understand French, Italian, or English to gain new knowledge. While Otto Mencke and the team behind the Acta aimed to establish German scholarly journalism on an international level, Thomasius had a different goal: to spread knowledge to as many Germans as possible. Thomasius valued the use of excerpta or extracts, which he considered interchangeable terms,5 because they provided a significant advantage: they allowed readers to understand the essence of a book “with little effort,” “minimal time loss,” and “without great cost” (Wustmann 1885, 224). This approach, centered on saving time, effort and money, enabled the advancement of knowledge in a practical manner. While Thomasius acknowledged the Acta’s contribution to the dissemination of knowledge, he found its purpose overly elitist.

Thomasius admired the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres more, both because it was managed by a single person and because it operated without significant financial support. What impressed him most about Pierre Bayle’s journal was not just the diversity of topics but also Bayle’s unique writing style, which blended profound thoughts with sharp, subtle humor. Thomasius praised Bayle’s direct style, which was capable of delivering criticism without causing offense. Thomasius sought to emulate this approach in his own journal.6

His attitude towards the Bibliothèque universelle was quite different. Although Thomasius appreciated the attempt, as stated in the preface to the first issue, to overcome biases and lack of objectivity in reviews, he argued that their method of excerpting certain texts was neither neutral nor historical as they claimed. Instead, it seemed biased, particularly regarding religious and philosophical subjects. Thomasius believed that absolute neutrality and impartiality were impossible to achieve when texts were extracted, and that the extract method often failed to present the full scope of an author’s work, as the logical connection between topics could be lost (Thomasius 1688b, 228–30). Moreover, he pointed out that extracts could encourage laziness in readers, who might be satisfied with reading a few pages rather than the entire work, potentially forming a distorted view of an author’s ideas if no critical commentary accompanied the review. Thomasius stressed that scholars should be free to challenge incorrect teachings in religion or philosophy when they encountered them in texts. If reviewers were not allowed to express disagreement, false ideas would spread unchecked, and reviews would become little more than summaries of indexes and prefaces, leaving readers unsatisfied.

For Thomasius, the methodological principles laid out in the Bibliothèque’s preface were either not applied or had largely been compromised by the editors. His critique of their approach emphasized the partiality and bias that came with the review method, despite thinkers like Le Clerc advocating for the neutrality of extracts. Still, Thomasius considered this reviewing activity important because, regardless of impartiality or objectivity, it could help reveal the truth. The extract could become a powerful investigative tool for Eclecticism when the reviewer sought out what was valuable and refuted what was wrong in the text.

However, the extract must always be accompanied by criticism, even a judgment on the author if necessary. Thomasius believed that reviewers should not be afraid of being criticized for passing judgment on authors; if necessary, the authors’ responses could be published in the same journal. For Thomasius, this approach—incorporating both criticism and author responses—meant that the review should take the form of a dialogue:

The dialogue genre meets Thomasius’ speculative desire to promote Eclecticism and the choice is therefore not accidental and certainly not simply rhetorical. Dialogue creates a certain emotional engagement that draws the audience into reading the review, something that sterile summaries or extracts cannot achieve. It allows different perspectives on the same topic to be presented, enabling the reviewer to step outside their personal stance and showcase a wide range of opinions which the reader can actively consider. This approach prevents the formation of the basic prejudices that Eclecticism opposed. Since no biases or final judgments are imposed, the reader is encouraged to think critically for themself, evaluating which argument is the strongest. In this way, the diverse opinions expressed in the review acknowledge and respect the variety of ideas held by the public at the time, helping to minimize any dissatisfaction. Because of this, the relationship between reader and reviewer becomes a kind of democratic community, where no single truth is imposed, but all viewpoints are explored with reasoned arguments. For Thomasius, dialogue, as a dialectical tool, is the means to discover the truth through the comparison of many different opinions (Beetz 2003, 46–8).

In 1688 the Monats-Gespräche, later published in two volumes, presents registers on three ways of considering the authors: (1) summaries interspersed with more or less long quotations mostly translated or paraphrased; (2) judgments of the authors, where the reviewer expresses his opinion; (3) mere quotations of the authors.7 The typologies are very flexible and indeed the dialogue itself often does not favor a great distinction, especially between the first two modalities. In any case, more than 65 summaries with quotations and more than 200 judgments of other authors are reported.8

An analysis of these reviews inserted in the dialogues clearly shows Thomasius’ polemical attitude. For example, the examination of Spinoza’s opinions is instrumental in discussing the relationship between theology and philosophy and the possibility of a libertas philosophandi. Therefore, he focuses above all on the Tractatus theologico-politicus, in which, according to Thomasius, Spinoza:

Thomasius is convinced that he absolutely must reply to Spinoza’s falsehoods.9 When dealing with Arnauld’s theses, Thomasius speaks of “rather absurd opinions,” such as “empty thoughts of a stubborn mind that imagined that his words would be given more credence than daily experience” (Thomasius 1688b, 361–62). This tone that Thomasius used in his dialogue-reviews probably did not sit well with many people.

The choice to adopt dialogue as a genre for the review is undoubtedly original, courageous and strategic. In the long run, however, it must have been rather tiring to express one’s thoughts effectively through dialogue. In a short time, he had to commit himself not only on a productive level, that is, to complete the issues, but also scientifically, that is, to say something meaningful on the topic and above all to say it in a very precise style. In the end, adopting the strategy of the other journals, writing short reports, must have been much simpler and easier, but it would not have been equally useful according to his eclectic perspective. However, starting from the year 1689, the form of dialogue was almost abandoned in favor of reviews of a certain length. At the beginning of the volume that collects the twelve issues, there are short accounts of the reviews, that is, summaries of the content of the review with their indexes. Sometimes these summaries collect the accounts of several reviews in a systematic unit. In total, there were 48 reviews in 1689, of which 25 were printed between October and December, thus exponentially increasing the pace of publication.

In this case, the eclectic perspective, applied to the attempt to search for truth in every philosophy and to the fight against pedantry and sterile scholasticism, emerges clearly in his review of the work of Confucius, published by Philippe Couplet in 1687 under the title of Confucius Sinarum Philosophus, sive Scientia Sinensis Latine Exposita. Thomasius’ reading of Confucius’s work was born from the curiosity aroused by what he had read in François de La Mothe Le Vayer’s De la vertu des païens about the analogy between the Chinese philosopher and Socrates. Furthermore, Thomasius’ reading of the Scientia Sinensis was also largely influenced by other reviews that this work had already received in the Journal des Scavans, in the Acta eruditorum, in the Bibliothèque Universelle and in the Historie des Ouvrages des Sçavans (on these reviews see Wenchao 2012). The impression he had formed from reading these reviews was of an exhortative and non-scientific work, and for this reason he was not interested in it, believing that he already knew everything about the subject from Greek and Latin philosophy. However, his interest was reawakened by a conversation with a friend who considered the book of Confucius to be one of the best books of philosophy ever written.

The narrative expedient is useful for Thomasius to directly criticize the other reviewers of the work and their methodology. In fact he writes explicitly, “I could not have discerned what he praised so highly from the extracts of various journalists” (Thomasius 1689, 602). So much so that he concludes that “the extractors often, through negligence, or perhaps even for deliberate reasons, leave out the best that a book contains” (Thomasius 1689, 603) and that “a book has not to be judged by its extracts but by the book itself” (Thomasius 1689, 605). These are rather strong words from someone who makes the extract an essential tool for philosophy. However, a more detailed examination of the text makes us understand that Thomasius was arguing against a certain form of journalism.

The overall opinion of the book that emerges from Thomasius’s review is that

Once again, the task of review is to distinguish, as Eclecticism demands, what is important and what is useless in a philosophy. Among the things he appreciates about Confucius is the method of first learning the wisdom of the ancients, then forming one’s own perspective on it and then autonomously developing one’s own thought that can be taught. In particular, he considers his idea of a philosopher as correct. A philosopher:

Along with this, Thomasius takes up the Confucian critique of pedantism: “Confucius also left behind very beautiful teachings concerning the knowledge and difference between hypocrites and pedants and truly creative and virtuous scholars” (Thomasius 1689, 616). So criticism of pedantry and search for truth in the thoughts of the ancients are instrumental for autonomous and critical thinking. However, Thomasius writes:

Thomasius’ review shows an interest in Confucian ideas, but he does not consider them superior to those of other ancient philosophers such as Epicurus and Seneca, with whom Confucius himself is juxtaposed, rather than Socrates. This shows not only how a review was influenced by other reviews, and how an author was influenced by reading many reviews, but also how Eclecticism could be a filter through which to understand an author’s thought in a critical and not totally derogatory or laudatory way.

The 1690 volume that collects the issues from January to April changes literary genre again. Here we find announcements of publications, ten very long reviews, often collected in groups around a single topic, and one excerpt. The 1690 issues are no longer edited by Thomasius but by Johann Jakob Ryssel. The new editor, a follower of Thomasius’ eclectic perspective, briefly mentions this change in the method of writing reviews:

Unfortunately, the issues ended in April and Ryssel never provided a true justification for his choice, but it is clear that the dialogue was abandoned in favor of a perspective that brought the reviews closer to historia literaria, a perspective substantially not dissimilar from that advanced by other magazines of the time such as the Historie des Ouvrages des Scavans.

That the reviews continued to serve Eclecticism even in 1690 is evident from the choices of works and their thematic grouping. The first two reviews, with long extracts, report a passage by Thomasius on pedantism taken from the Introductio ad philosophiam aulicam and the oration by Ulrich Huber on pedantism. They occupy almost seventy pages and the entire first issue. In the following issue the topic of the querelle des anciens et des modernes is addressed with the review of Parallele des Anciencs & des Modernes (1688) by Charles Perrault, of the Histoire poétique de la guerre, nouvellement déclarée entre les Anciens et les Modernes (1688) by François de Callières, and La guerre des autheursanciens et modernis, avec la Requeste et arrest en faveur d’Aristote (1670) by Gabriel Guéret. These reviews, accompanied by extracts translated into German, absorb two issues, February and March.

Thomasius’s first journalistic experience therefore ended between the end of 1689 and the beginning of 1690, when he began to be increasingly involved in writing books such as Einleitung zu der Vernunfft-Lehre (1691), Ausübung der Vernunfft-Lehre (1691), Von der Kunst Vernünfftig und Tugendhafft zu lieben (1692), and the Einleitung zur Sittenlehre (1692).

Thomasius resumed his journalistic work and experimentation with reviews in 1693, when he published Historia Sapientiae et Stultitiae in three volumes, along with its German counterpart Historie der Weisheit und Thorheit. The two journals are not translations of each other, but have very different content. The aims of the project are articulated by Thomasius in the academic program “Observationes promiscuas, die Kirschen-Historie und Historiam Philosophica, wie auch sonsten allerhand Erfindungen neuer Warheiten und Entdeckungen gemeiner Irrthümer betreffende” (1692) (Thomasius 1693). In this program he explains how the history of philosophy and church history have mostly been neglected in Germany, although they are important for the progress of knowledge. In what is a real plaidoyer of the value of the history of philosophy, Thomasius argues that history shows the way to acquire knowledge but also the many mistakes that have been made. For this reason, history can be called the history of wisdom and folly, in the wake of Erasmus. The historical approach would constitute an antidote against prejudice, ignorance and pedantry precisely because of its ability to reveal the truth that develops in time and the mistakes that are committed by philosophers. Thomasius’ approach to reviewing works in this journal is historical, that of the historia literaria suggested by his pupil Ryssel. The reviews are mostly long extracts in the philosophical field particularly investigating the life of Abelard, and the lives and doctrines of Democritus and Descartes. Starting from the third volume of the Historia, the reviews consist of long extracts taken from Jakob Thomasius’s Schediasma Historicum (1665) on mystical, Persian, Platonic and scholastic theology. There is nothing original in these reviews except the selection of passages aimed at seeking an Eclecticism that combines philosophy and religion.

No different is the attempt of the Summarischer Nachrichten von auserlesenen mehrentheils alten in der Thomasischen Bibliotheque published between 1715 and 1718. In the preface to the first issue Thomasius writes that in Germany, for about thirty years, extracts from new books have been published monthly or otherwise by learned individuals, contributing to the flourishing of the sciences and the improvement of knowledge (Thomasius 1715, 2). This practice continues, following the path he opened twenty-five years before with the Monats-Gespräche, although Thomasius is aware that such extracts, valuable in themselves, are not without flaws. Scholars in particular love to be praised and dislike it when their views are challenged, especially if errors are pointed out. Authors criticizing contemporary works, despite striving for impartiality, often find themselves influenced by hidden biases, leading to undeserved praise or unjust criticism. The sheer volume of new books increases every year, with few works failing to merit some form of remembrance, therefore the practice of excerpting, that is of writing extracts, is necessary (see Thomasius 1715, 4–5).

To avoid such problems, some scholars have opted to present new writings briefly without judgment or by offering universal praise, avoiding any potentially critical or negative remarks (Thomasius 1715, 5). This cautious approach, however, has satisfied few people, including Thomasius, and for several valid reasons. Notably, these extracts inadvertently encourage readers to focus only on new books, neglecting the old ones, even though old works are crucial for the development of new ideas in the sciences. Proper judgment is needed when reading older books, because, for Thomasius, many works of the past are widely known not for their quality or for their use in discovering and emending errors, but because they catered to popular tastes in times of profound ignorance (Thomasius 1715, 5–6). Conversely, according to Thomasius, useful books were often undervalued and are now rare, deserving better recognition through extracts. Therefore, it is fundamental to make a choice of the best old books as well as providing information about the newest ones.

In this sense, for Thomasius, Le Clerc’s work with the Bibliothèque choisie is commendable, for unlike other journals, the French periodical includes extracts and summaries of older books. This approach avoids many of the aforementioned annoyances and shortcomings, and in Thomasius’ opinion it is particularly useful because dead scholars cannot resent a lack of praise for their writings, nor can they harm the reviewer for disagreeing with their thoughts (Thomasius 1715, 7–8). Though the errors of these old authors still find defenders in the present, the criticism is less intense than that of contemporary authors. Indeed, judgments of the dead scholars should be framed to acknowledge errors and valuable opinions (Thomasius 1715, 8). Also in this framework Thomasius reveals the reason why making extracts is a practice useful for the purposes of Eclecticism.

Since opinions and assessments of old books are as important as those of new releases, in the Summarischer Nachrichten, with the support of several (never acknowledged) fellows, Thomasius decided to excerpt worthy books from his own library. To inform those interested in joining this endeavor, calling to arms potential contributors to the journal, Thomasius published a list of at least fifty books or documents at the beginning of each issue, in a similar manner to that which other journals did at the end of their publications, including a register of new book releases and possible works to be reviewed. This is a practice still in use today, but in this specific case Thomasius chose what was worthy of review. This practice was maintained for the first two issues, while from the third issue onwards the list of suggested books to be reviewed was published at the end.

Thomasius’ selection comprises books on law, philosophy and history, while generally it excludes medicine and theology. The reviewers, called by Thomasius “the excerpters,” should add their comments modestly and without offense (Thomasius 1715, 10). If necessary, he might edit their words before publication, but they should not be bound by his opinions, and they were free to arrange their comments according to their own knowledge. Finally, Thomasius claims that if anyone has a rare book, which was not in his own library, the reviewers are free to excerpt it, adding summary information and criticism as appropriate.

What makes this latest experiment particularly interesting is that, in line with Thomasius’ eclectic approach, reviewing is seen to be the same as excerpting, meaning reviews are primarily extracts. However, Thomasius’ extracts are unique. They aren’t just simple portions of text taken from notable works for review; they include critical analysis and contextual information. Unlike other journals of the time that focused on mere extracts, for Thomasius the act of reviewing is closely tied to the act of excerpting.

The Summarischer Nachrichten are thus divided into two parts, one consisting of the list of suggested important books to be reviewed and the other the reviews themselves.10 Reading the reviews, which are often more than thirty pages long, it becomes clear that there is a strong emphasis on understanding philosophy through the lives and histories of authors. This is the case of philosophers like Melanchthon, Hobbes, Theophrastus and Descartes.11 Additionally, there is a particular focus on ancient philosophy, as well as on Pierre Gassendi and several seventeenth-century British philosophers, who are highlighted for their skill in analyzing and critiquing ancient philosophical ideas.12 The Summarischer Nachrichten, even more than the Monats-Gespräche and Historia Sapientiae et Stultitiae, reveal Thomasius’ true intellectual interests and how he views the review as a primary tool for practicing philosophy. Throughout his experiments, Thomasius remains committed to an approach that treats reviewing as a form of non-dogmatic, critical philosophizing, allowing him to appreciate history without being constrained by its errors.

For Thomasius, philosophical reviews play a crucial and until his time overlooked role. They are essential tools for philosophizing, without which one cannot properly engage in philosophy. His use of reviews—whether in the form of dialogues, extracts, or summaries—reflects a methodological rather than doctrinal stance. Reviews are not meant to construct a grand philosophical system but to critique and select the most suitable material for philosophical inquiry. Thomasius’ Eclecticism revolves around this anti-dogmatic principle, using the review as his primary weapon in the battlefield of competing opinions found in the numerous books published during that time.

Albrecht, Michael. 1989. “Thomasius – kein Eklektiker?” In Christian Thomasius (1655–1728). Interpretation zu Werk und Wirkung. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.

Albrecht, Michael. 1994. Eklektik. Eine Begriffsgeschichte mit Hinweisen auf die Philosophie - und Wissenschaftsgeschichte. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog.

Beetz, Manfred, hrsg. von. 2003. Thomasius im literarischen Feld. New York-Berlin: De Gruyter.

Carboncini, Sonia. 1989. “Die thomasianische-pietistische Tradition und ihre Fortsetzung durch Christian August Crusius.” In Christian Thomasius (1655–1728). Interpretation zu Werk und Wirkung, 287–304. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.

Décultot, Elisabeth, Fabian Krämer, and Helmut Zedelmaier. 2020. “Introduction: Towards a History of Excerpting.” Berichte Zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte 43: 169–79.

Eskildsen, Kaspar Risbjerg. 2008. “Christian Thomasius, Invisible Philosophers, and Education for Enlightenment.” Intellectual History Review 18: 319–36.

Gierl, Martin. 2004. “Korrespondenzen, Disputationen, Zeitschriften. Wissensorganisation und die Entwicklung der gelehrten Medienrepublik zwischen 1670 und 1730.” In Macht des Wissens. Die Entstehung der modernen Wissensgesellschaft, 417–38. Köln: Böhlau Verlag.

Habel, Thomas. 2007. Gelehrte Journale und Zeitungen der Aufklärung. Bremen: edition lumière.

Lehmstedt, Mark. 1992. “Weidmann und Thomasius: Dokumente zur Leipziger Buchgeschichte des späten 17. Jahrhunderts.” Leipziger Jahrbuch zur Buchgeschichte 2: 327–72.

Mühlpfordt, Günter. 1989. “Ein kryptoradikaler Thomasianer: C.A. Heumann, der Thomasius von Göttingen.” In Christian Thomasius (1655–1728). Interpretation zu Werk und Wirkung, 305–34. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.

Mulsow, Martin. 2003. “Literarisches Feld und Philosophisches Feld im Thomasius-Kreis: Einsätze, Verschleierungen, Umbesetzungen.” In Thomasius im literarischen Feld, 103–17. New York-Berlin: De Gruyter.

Ryssel, Johann Jakob. 1690. Freymüthige ideoch Vernunfft- und Gesetz- mässiger Gedancken uber allerhand fürnemlich aber neue Bücher. Halle: Salfeld.

Schneiders, Werner, hrsg. von. 1989. Christian Thomasius (1655–1728). Interpretation zu Werk und Wirkung. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.

Thomasius, Christian. 1688a. Introductio ad Philosophiam Aulicam. Leipzig: Thomasius.

Thomasius, Christian. 1688b. Freymüthige Lustige und Ernstahaffte ideoch Vernunfft- und Gesetz- mässige Gedancken oder Monats-Gespräche. Halle: Salfeld.

Thomasius, Christian. 1693. Historie der Weisheit und Torheit. Halle: Salfeld.

Thomasius, Christian. 1715. Summarischer Nachrichten von auserlesenen, mehrentheils alten in der Thomasiusischen Bibliotheque verhandenen Büchern. Halle-Leipzig: Zeitler.

Tomasoni, Francesco. 2005. Christian Thomasius. Spirito e identità culturale alle soglie dell’Illuminismo europeo. Brescia: Morcelliana.

Vollhardt, Friedrich, hrsg. von. 1997. Christian Thomasius (1655–1728). Neue Forschungen im Kontext der Frühaufklärung. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag.

Wenchao, Li. 2012. “Confucius and the Early Enlightenment in Germany from Leibniz to Bilfinger.” In The Globalization of Confucius and Confucianism, 9–21. Berlin: Lit.

Wustmann, Gustav. 1885. Aus Leipzigs Vergangenheit. Leipzig: Grunow.

Zedler, Johann Heinrich. 1745. Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon Aller Wissenschafften und Künste. Halle-Leipzig: Zedler.

Marco Sgarbi marco.sgarbi@unive.it, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, 0000-0002-6346-8167

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Marco Sgarbi, Christian Thomasius and Reviewing as Philosophy, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1.04, in Pasquale Terracciano, Francesco Valerio Tommasi (edited by), Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799). Volume 2, pp. -48, 2026, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0999-1, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1

Lo studio della storia della filosofia è indissolubilmente legato anche allo studio dei generi letterari e delle forme, testuali o iconografiche, in cui essa ha preso forma nei secoli, come un numero crescente di ricerche sta dimostrando: programmi accademici, biografie, ‘scritti volanti’ e ‘letteratura di strada’, manuali, dialoghi, dissertazioni, illustrazioni non sono meri involucri formali, ma parte integrante di veri e propri programmi filosofici.1 Obiettivo delle pagine che seguono è indagare gli intrecci tra la recensione di testi filosofici e uno dei generi filosofici per eccellenza, quello del dialogo, nella Germania tra fine Seicento e primo Settecento, ovvero il periodo comunemente chiamato Frühaufklärung.

Il dialogo è, notoriamente, uno dei generi letterari più amati del Settecento. Si tratta anzitutto di una tipologia testuale che riflette una società che si costituisce progressivamente attraverso la discussione pubblica. La transizione dal dialogo didattico ed euristico dell’umanesimo (si pensi ad esempio ai catechismi in forma dialogica stampati nel primo periodo della Riforma, come il Catechismo di Raków o il Dialogo de doctrina cristiana di Juan de Valdés) a uno dal carattere più ‘aperto’ e ‘intertestuale’ rispecchia inoltre la vocazione didattica illuminista e le differenze rispetto alla pedagogia dei secoli precedenti (Schmeisser 2012; de Valdés 1979; Vickermann-Ribémont e Rieger 2003). Ulteriori punti di forza del dialogo di questo periodo sono l’attenzione per la performatività della lingua, il potenziale di teatralità intrinseco nel genere, la tendenza a una sorta di riproduzione letteraria della cultura dei salons e l’antidogmatismo. Quest’ultima attitudine, pur se comune a molti altri testi filosofici del periodo, si rivela particolarmente bene nel genere dialogico, grazie ai punti di vista plurali rappresentati dagli interlocutori, che tentano di convincere sia il loro oppositore che il lettore stesso, e talvolta, con le loro domande, si pongono in modo dubitativo o con distaccata ironia anche nei confronti delle loro stesse posizioni (Beetz 2003, 46-7).

La letteratura dialogica tedesca spicca nettamente nel panorama europeo per la fisionomia straordinariamente varia ed eterogenea, grazie alla confluenza di numerosi fattori. La crescente diffusione e fortuna in Germania dei Nεκρικοὶ Διάλoγοι di Luciano di Samosata, dei Dialogues des morts composés pour l’éducation d’un Prince (1712-1718) di François de Salignac de la Mothe Fénelon e di due testi provenienti dall’ambiente libertino dell’Accademia degli Incogniti di Venezia, De’ Ragguagli di Parnaso (1612-1613) di Traiano Boccalini e La Secretaria di Apollo di Antonio Santacroce (uscito anonimo nel 1653), il clamoroso successo del periodico mensile di David Fassmann Gespräche im Reiche der Toten sono solo alcuni di essi.2 A rafforzare decisivamente l’associazione tra trattazione di questioni filosofiche e forma dialogica, che definirei addirittura sistematica per quanto riguarda la prima parte del secolo, sarebbero poi state le traduzioni tedesche da parte di Johann Christoph Gottsched delle opere principali di Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle: i Nouveaux dialogues des morts (1727), l’Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes e l’Histoire des Oracles (1730).3 Si trattava di traduzioni non letterali, ma improntate a una veicolazione di valori cristiani, che rappresentarono un presupposto significativo per l’affermazione di un certo filone ‘moralistico’ del dialogo filosofico tedesco, rimasto tuttavia nel complesso minoritario nel quadro d’insieme (Suitner 2021).

Una particolarità prettamente tedesca, che avrebbe conferito al genere del dialogo filosofico un carattere totalmente nuovo, è inoltre la sua saldatura con proto-giornalismo, ‘letteratura di strada’ e pubblicistica d’occasione (Gelegenheitspublizistik). Molta parte dei dialoghi che videro la luce nella Germania settecentesca furono stampati in tempi ristrettissimi, venduti come Flugschriften (lett. ‘scritti volanti’, ovvero non rilegati) agli angoli delle strade e nelle università o pubblicati in riviste; erano adibiti a trattare questioni di ampio richiamo, avvenimenti e polemiche di stretta attualità, e garantivano un sicuro ritorno commerciale.4 Ne fecero massiccio uso eruditi di vario tipo, i quali non di rado se ne servirono per prendere posizione in controversie accademiche (Streitschriften) in corso, nei più svariati campi, non solo filosofico, ma anche storiografico, teologico, artistico, numismatico.

Rudolf Hirzel e Vittorio Hösle hanno osservato come il dialogo filosofico conosca una particolare fortuna nei momenti di crisi e di rivoluzioni: con la sofistica, nel Rinascimento e nell’età dell’Illuminismo.5 Entrambi gli studiosi intendono con Aufklärung un periodo posteriore a quello che qui si tratta. Gli anni Venti e Trenta del Settecento sono per la filosofia tedesca una fase di rottura, causata non solo dalla nascita e progressivo consolidamento di nuovi sistemi come quello di Christian Wolff, ma anche dal dibattito legato alla controversa eredità di filosofi del secolo precedente come Leibniz e Descartes. Non c’era mezzo migliore per rappresentare queste tensioni del genere dialogico, e le recensioni filosofiche in forma di dialogo di cui si tratta in queste pagine sono ovviamente parte di questo quadro.

Per quanto concerne lo stato dei generi letterari, il primo Settecento è sicuramente in Germania una fase altamente ‘sperimentale’. A un livello fatto di scritti d’occasione, pubblicistica periodica e di Flugschriften, i confini tra generi erano particolarmente fluidi. Una delle premesse di questa evoluzione fu certamente la connessione molto forte affermatasi tra giornalismo, forma dialogica e riviste di recensioni in lingua tedesca (le riviste in latino erano infatti solo marginalmente toccate dalle novità e dai meccanismi che qui si descrivono). L’impiego così massiccio della forma dialogica non trova alcun corrispettivo negli esempi stranieri; si trattava, tuttavia, di riviste più vicine al modello francese e olandese rispetto ai più conservatori Acta eruditorum di Lipsia. Il ‘prototipo’ delle riviste più innovative del periodo erano senz’altro i cosiddetti Monatsgespräche di Christian Thomasius, i cui titoli estesi sono Schertz- und ernsthaffter, vernünfftiger und einfältiger Gedancken über allerhand lustige und nützliche Bücher und Fragen (annata 1688) e Freymüthiger jedoch vernunfft- und gesetzmäßiger Gedancken über allerhand, fürnemlich aber neue Bücher (annata 1689/90).6

Della filosofia di Thomasius, al di fuori degli studi in lingua tedesca, oggetto d’interesse è soprattutto il De criminae magiae, la celebre dissertazione del 1701 in cui si demolivano, con argomentazioni sia giuridiche sia filosofiche (anche basate sulle teorie di ascendenza cartesiana della separazione tra sostanze) le basi delle imputazioni di pratica di magia diabolica e di patti col demonio, all’epoca ancora perseguibili nella maggior parte dei territori protestanti di lingua tedesca. La sua rivista rimane invece, in contesto internazionale, ancora poco studiata, nonostante le sue caratteristiche di dirompente novità. Si trattava in sostanza di un intreccio tra bollettino di critica sul modello del francese Journal des Sçavans e satira filosofica, spesso antiaristotelica e antiscolastica, anche in forma di sferzanti dialoghi tra personaggi fittizi.

Svariati altri elementi rendevano i Monatsgespräche qualcosa di molto diverso da quanto si era visto fino a quel momento. Questi elementi appartengono a diverse sfere: a quella della storia filosofica, a quella della storia dei generi letterari, e a quella della cosiddetta History of Knowledge o Wissensgeschichte: quest’ultima indaga notoriamente questioni quali la circolazione del sapere, le gerarchie tra diverse forme di sapere in una data epoca storica, la dicotomia conoscenza/ignoranza, e ha trovato esplicita applicazione, nell’ultima ventina d’anni, anche nella disciplina della storia della filosofia e in riferimento allo specifico contesto del primo Illuminismo tedesco.7 Si tratta, in fondo, di un’ulteriore sfaccettatura del complesso – e mai risolto – rapporto tra storia intellettuale e storia filosofica o, come è stato definito da Riccardo Pozzo, tra storia storica e storia filosofica della filosofia (Pozzo 2014).

Il lungo titolo della rivista dichiara già, come in una sorta di manifesto programmatico, i suoi caratteri salienti e il suo scopo. Si tratta, leggiamo sul frontespizio, di una rivista mensile e in forma dialogica (in einem Gespräch vorgestellet). Il carattere dialogico, in realtà, non era esclusivo, ma preponderante. Anche il peso delle recensioni è dichiarato già dal titolo, in cui si parla di «libri e domande» (Bücher und Fragen). Le riflessioni (Gedancken) esposte all’interno sono non erano solo serie (ernsthafft), sensate (vernünfftig) e franche (freymüthig), ma anche scherzose (schertzhafft). La maggior parte delle incisioni che accompagna il frontespizio illustrava personaggi in varie situazioni di conversazione: tre personaggi vestiti con abiti dalla foggia orientale (incisione introduttiva al fascicolo del luglio 1688, cfr. Fig. 1), una dama e un signore dell’alta società (ottobre 1688, Fig. 2), due amici in una stanza riscaldata da una Stube (dicembre 1688, Fig. 3).

Figura 1 – [Christian Thomasius], Schertz- und ernsthaffter, vernünfftiger und einfältiger Gedancken über allerhand lustige und nützliche Bücher und Fragen. Incisione del frontespizio del fascicolo del luglio 1688, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Figura 2 – [Christian Thomasius], Schertz- und ernsthaffter, vernünfftiger und einfältiger Gedancken über allerhand lustige und nützliche Bücher und Fragen. Incisione del frontespizio del fascicolo dell’ottobre 1688, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Figura 3 – [Christian Thomasius], Schertz- und ernsthaffter, vernünfftiger und einfältiger Gedancken über allerhand lustige und nützliche Bücher und Fragen. Incisione del frontespizio del fascicolo del dicembre 1688, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Esse sono assai rappresentative dei caratteri tipici delle incisioni del periodo, fase in cui – a differenza che nella seconda parte del Diciottesimo secolo – sono moltissimi i testi aperti da un frontespizio inciso. Come pure in questo caso, non si trattava solitamente di illustrazioni continuative, ma di un’unica incisione iniziale posta a lato del frontespizio, dall’alto carattere simbolico concordato tra autore e incisore, che in qualche modo presentava una ‘messa in scena grafica’ del contenuto filosofico del testo e serviva anche a rendere il libro più attraente ai compratori.8

I libri e le domande venivano caratterizzati da due aggettivi: divertenti (lustig) e utili (nützlich).

Quanto a queste ultime, all’esclusione che riservavano loro caffè e società scientifiche corrispondeva anche una ghettizzazione nella letteratura filosofica loro dedicata, per lo più manualistica e scritta da altre donne in forma semplificata, come ad esempio il Grundriß einer Weltweißheit für das Frauenzimmer (1751) di Johanna Charlotte Unzer.9

Tra i lettori di Thomasius vi erano poi verosimilmente anche autodidatti, i quali cominciarono a essere presi in considerazione dall’opinione pubblica, anche in veste di autori, proprio nel corso del Diciottesimo secolo (Böning, D’Aprile, Schmitt, e Siegert 2015). A cavallo tra XVII e XVIII secolo, quantomeno i più facoltosi tra loro cominciavano a comprare la letteratura filosofica di lettura più agevole (sia perché scritta in uno stile nuovo che perché in tedesco anziché in latino) e opere di consultazione, come il Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon (1732-1754) di Johann Heinrich Zedler.10 Tutti questi gruppi erano chiaramente molto interessati alle recensioni, che riguardavano sapere sia teorico che praticamente applicabile. Questo sapere non intendeva avere carattere esclusivo e, attraverso l’abilità retorica del critico, guadagnava una sorta di posizione intermedia tra i discorsi degli studiosi e la nuova sete di conoscenza di un pubblico socialmente ampio (Jaumann 1997, 395-404; Peter 1999, 64-5).

Nel complesso, le caratteristiche della rivista thomasiana non sono comprensibili senza essere anche inquadrate in quel fenomeno, descritto sapientemente da Jürgen Habermas nel suo classico del 1962 Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit, della progressiva ‘emersione’ della borghesia tedesca nel dibattito pubblico. D’altro canto, a mio parere i Monatsgespräche condividono anche alcuni elementi con la letteratura dialogica destinata all’educazione aristocratica. Penso ad esempio ai Dialogues des morts di Fénelon, facenti parte di un programma educativo dedicato all’erede al trono di Francia, il Duca di Borgogna.11 L’importanza di padroneggiare l’arte della conversazione come uno degli elementi essenziali dell’educazione illuminista era infatti particolarmente valorizzata dal genere dialogico. Negli ambienti aristocratici, la capacità di condurre una conversazione brillante e di presentare argomenti a favore e contro una determinata tesi significava possedere una sufficiente padronanza dei codici di etichetta sociale e averne interiorizzato i valori (Kollbach 2009, 338). Nel caso di Thomasius è stato sottolineato che i suoi dialoghi offrono «modelli per una cultura educata della conversazione a vari livelli» (Beetz 2003, 37). Il genere del dialogo, con il suo eterogeneo target di lettori e la sua ibridità letteraria, che lo collocava all’incrocio tra moralistica, letteratura educativa, pubblicistica d’occasione ed erudizione, si rivelava un mezzo ideale per superare le barriere tra diverse classi sociali e gruppi di lettori nel primo Illuminismo.

L’immagine che si associa comunemente alla maggior parte dei filosofi di lingua tedesca del primo Settecento (se si esclude Christian Wolff; penso ad esempio allo stesso Thomasius, a Johann Franz Budde, a Nicolaus Hieronymus Gundling) è di scarsa sistematicità, o meglio, si è disposti a riconoscere loro una sorta di sistematicità nell’applicazione di un metodo eclettico (Albrecht 1994). Ciò riguarda però Thomasius solo fino a un certo punto: la sua preferenza per il genere del dialogo, ad esempio, è molto coerente con il ruolo della Geselligkeit (socievolezza) nella sua concezione giusnaturalistica (Thelen 2024).

I Monatsgespräche proponevano una conversazione intesa su più piani diversi. Il primo era chiaramente quello letterale. Come si è già visto, molta parte della rivista attingeva al genere dialogico; in particolare le recensioni beneficiavano dei particolari vantaggi di quella forma testuale in termini di immediatezza comunicativa verso il pubblico di riferimento (che non era esclusivamente accademico), antidogmatismo filosofico e possibilità per l’autore di celare la propria posizione personale, facendola però allo stesso tempo emergere per allusioni. Alcune recensioni sono definibili come dialoghi in senso letterale: quella dell’edizione latina della Histoire critique du Vieux Testament di Richard Simon, ad esempio, prevedeva una conversazione tra due interlocutori contrassegnati dalle lettere A e B (dicembre 1688, 706-97). Questi stavano rispettivamente per Albericus, per cui Thomasius alla fine ammette di parteggiare, pur lasciando ai lettori libertà di iudicium, e per Basilius, il cui appoggio a un’opera in cui si avanzavano interpretazioni così controverse circa la paternità dell’Antico Testamento appariva – coerentemente con l’opera filosofica di Thomasius – come troppo vicina all’ateismo. Non sempre, però, il carattere di conversazione della rivista si riferiva a dialoghi intesi in senso letterale. Contribuivano infatti all’impronta generale dei Monatsgespräche anche le conversazioni ‘a distanza’ e indirette, magari con i propri nemici (Zueignungs-Schrifft an meine Feinde, introduzione al fascicolo del gennaio 1689, pagine non num.). Molte volte, inoltre, Thomasius inseriva in una sua prefazione numerose domande retoriche, che immaginava poste da ipotetici lettori o interlocutori, e che contribuivano anch’esse ad accentuare il carattere dialogico del tutto. La rivista prevedeva però anche alcune recensioni in senso tradizionale: ad esempio quella alla Censura philosophiae cartesianae di Pierre Daniel Huet (ottobre 1689, 807-34).

I Monatsgespräche presentavano anche altri importanti elementi caratterizzanti oltre a quelli enunciati sul loro frontespizio, che si presentavano nel corso della rivista in modo ricorrente, in particolare con riferimento alle recensioni. Un primo era l’imparzialità. In realtà gran parte della pubblicistica filosofica tedesca (soprattutto Flugschriften e periodici) tra la fine del Seicento e l’inizio del Settecento abbonda di professioni d’imparzialità. Non bisogna però farsi fuorviare dal termine unpartheyisch che, in quanto traduzione del neologismo impartialis, nasce solamente in età moderna. A un’osservazione attenta si nota che questi proclami, formulati in apparenza per dare sfoggio di superiorità etica, comparivano in realtà proprio nell’ambito di polemiche tra scuole filosofiche rivali.12 Le conversazioni immaginarie che discutevano di libri filosofici e dei loro autori sotto l’etichetta di imparzialità contenevano solitamente prese di posizione più o meno sottili a favore della posizione di uno dei protagonisti.

Il secondo di questi elementi ricorrenti è l’anonimia. In Germania, e con le dovute differenze anche in altri paesi europei, nel primo Settecento non serviva una particolare ragione per pubblicare qualcosa in forma anonima. Non era solo il timore di ricevere accuse di eterodossia a poter far adottare questa soluzione, e non erano solamente i testi potenzialmente sovversivi a essere pubblicati senza il nome dell’autore. Anonime uscivano le recensioni e i contributi delle riviste, pamphlet e scritti polemici, raccolte di poesie, voci dei dizionari e Flugschriften (compresi quelli in forma dialogica). Le ragioni erano molteplici, e andavano dalla scarsa consapevolezza dell’importanza dei riconoscimenti di paternità intellettuale delle opere (che si accompagnava a una maggiore tolleranza verso i plagi rispetto alla seconda metà del secolo), a scelte strategiche di editori o autori, a cui poteva convenire, nel dubbio sull’accoglienza da parte del pubblico, proporre un’opera in forma anonima. L’anonimato, tuttavia, era spesso solamente parziale. Pseudonimi, iniziali, fittizi editori e luoghi di stampa potevano consapevolmente fungere da spie, da segnali di un’appartenenza a un comune dibattito, a un gruppo che si riconosceva in determinati codici di comunicazione, più o meno allusivi.13 Solamente nella seconda parte del Diciottesimo secolo diversi autori, tra cui Wieland e Lessing, cominciano a proporre una «programmatica illuminista dell’anonimia», ovvero una consapevole scelta dell’anonimia, spesso sotto forma di elogio dell’uguaglianza delle voci che essa rendeva possibile, indipendentemente dal ruolo sociale e dalle differenze gerarchiche tra autori (Cfr. Pabst 2011).

I Monatsgesprache furono ascritti dai contemporanei alla letteratura dialogica satirica nella tradizione dei dialoghi di Luciano di Samosata (Jaumann 1997, 404). Pur non trattandosi di dialoghi dei morti, la rivista era ricca di riferimenti all’«höchstes Gericht im Parnasso», ovvero il tribunale sul Monte Parnaso che in molti dialoghi pubblicati in età moderna, non solo in quelli già menzionati di Boccalini e Santacroce, ma anche in quelli lingua tedesca, fungeva da sede di giudizio delle anime dei morti da parte del dio Apollo ([Thomasius] 1690, 206-222; AletopHilus 1731).

Questi rimandi alla tradizione greca sono tuttavia un po’ deboli per giustificare un paragone vero e proprio tra una rivista che era solo parzialmente dialogica e testi che appartenevano al genere del dialogo vero e proprio, e per lo più al suo sottogenere del dialogo dei morti. Ma vi è molto di più oltre ai rimandi letterali. I contemporanei scorgevano in entrambi i generi una connotazione satirica e dissacrante, che era senz’altro nuova in associazione alle riviste erudite ma aveva sempre caratterizzato i dialoghi dei morti, tant’è che Lutero era esplicitamente contrario alla loro pubblicazione per il loro carattere intrinsecamente blasfemo (Schelle 1984). Il dialogo dei morti, inoltre, non era tradizionalmente visto come una forma letteraria particolarmente qualificata, degna di trattare materie considerate di livello ‘elevato’. Fino a Fontenelle, adoperare questo genere letterario per trattare questioni filosofiche aveva costituito un forte tratto di eccentricità, e lo stesso si può dire dei Monatsgespräche, il cui carattere innovatore era dato, tra le altre cose, dalla scelta del tedesco anziché del latino e dall’allargamento del potenziale pubblico di riferimento.

Non a caso, troviamo un paragone tra dialoghi dei morti e lo stile innovativo dei coevi periodici mensili anche in un Besonders curieuses Gespräch im Reich der Todten zwischen Christian Thomasio und August Hermann Francken, pubblicato anonimo nel 1729:

Il passo è tratto da un corpus di dialoghi dei morti ad argomento filosofico pubblicati in forma anonima e di Flugschriften, che funsero da luogo ideale di messa in scena delle controversie che gravitavano attorno al wolffismo, alla filosofia di Descartes e di Leibniz, alla demonologia di Balthasar Bekker e alla scuola di Christian Thomasius. Nella loro realizzazione erano implicate figure che si muovevano sia nel mondo della ‘pubblicistica di strada’ che nei contesti accademici, soprattutto studenti e incisori. Si tratta di testi da analizzare su più piani, che rispondono a precise dinamiche di comunicazione tipiche sia della pubblicistica clandestina e anonima che della pamphletistica filosofica del periodo, oltre che alle leggi proprie del genere letterario cui appartengono e a quelle che regolavano il dinamico mercato librario degli ‘scritti volanti’.15

Questi dialoghi si inserivano, esattamente come i Monatsgespräche, all’interno di una fase di sperimentazione che coinvolgeva i generi tradizionali. Anch’essi erano fortemente ibridi e contenevano al loro interno sezioni compilative, in cui venivano integrati estratti tratti da generi letterari più tradizionali come recensioni, dissertazioni accademiche, biografie e sermoni funebri. Essi inoltre possedevano una sorta di embrionale serialità, dal momento che alcuni, come quelli appena citati tra Thomasius e Francke, si avvicendarono uno dopo l’altro in una sorta di numerose ‘puntate’, scritte da autori diversi e in concorrenza tra loro. Il legame con l’attualità era molto forte, in quanto i dialoghi furono pubblicati alla morte dei loro protagonisti e puntavano sulla curiosità sorta attorno a loro da parte di studenti, colleghi e privati cittadini. Anche gli autori di questi dialoghi beneficiavano della possibilità, garantita proprio dal genere impiegato, di esprimere certe opinioni in modo sottile e implicito, dietro lo schermo dell’anonimato e di una professata (ma mai attuata) imparzialità.

Vi erano tuttavia in questo corpus di dialoghi degli elementi diversi e in un certo senso più radicali rispetto alla rivista di Thomasius. Le fittizie conversazioni messe in scena tra filosofi appartenenti a generazioni diverse e la sede pensata per queste conversazioni creava una serie di cortocircuiti temporali che accentuavano ed esasperavano caratteristiche già presenti nei Monatsgespräche. La forma di dialogo dei morti permetteva agli autori dei testi di far entrare direttamente in scena filosofi di generazioni differenti, creando dei caratteri fittizi e distorcendo in modo tendenzioso il profilo ‘storico’ dei protagonisti: troviamo allora, tra gli altri, un Descartes antipietista e antiwolffiano e un Leibniz sostenitore della fisicoteologia e avversario delle poetiche che seguivano il metodo matematico wolffiano uscite negli anni Quaranta del secolo (Anonimo 1731; 1745). Ai protagonisti dei dialoghi venivano fatti commentare avvenimenti accaduti successivamente alla loro morte, principalmente con l’intento da parte degli autori di prendere posizione nelle controversie legate alla filosofia di Christian Wolff che infiammavano all’epoca il mondo accademico tedesco, in accordo con la situazione generale del genere del dialogo nella Germania settecentesca, che era molto usato come veicolo di polemiche intellettuali anche nelle controversie che coinvolgevano Wolff e i suoi avversari (cfr. per es. Anonimo s.a., [Tilesius] 2000). Lo stesso discorso valeva anche per libri e recensioni, che si immaginano letti e discussi nel regno dei morti dai protagonisti dei dialoghi: sia libri propri e di altri che recensioni, anch’esse di libri propri o di altri. I dialoghi contengono dunque di fatto numerose sezioni assai simili alle recensioni dialogiche dei Monatsgespräche. L’assidua comunicazione tra vivi e morti, la distinzione tra ‘regno delle lettere’ e ‘regno dei morti’, che riservava a chi si trova nel regno dei morti la possibilità di dire la verità senza ipocrisie, l’accesso alla lettura da parte dei filosofi, erano tutti escamotages che permettevano agli autori di immaginare caratteri e posizioni filosofiche completamente discordanti dalla realtà storica.

La galassia delle riviste e degli scritti in qualche modo a esse imparentati, che pubblicavano dibattiti e recensioni filosofiche in forma dialogica nella Germania della prima metà del Settecento è molto più complessa di così, e meritevole di essere indagata ulteriormente: possiamo ricordare Gundlingiana di Nikolaus Hieronymus Gundling (che nel 1715 ospitò un Gespräch zwischen Michel Montaigne und dem Archimedes), le Neue Unterredungen dello stesso Gundling (1702) e le Novellen aus der gelehrten und curiösen Welt di Gottfried Zenner (1692-1697). Inoltre, come nella rivista di Thomasius, giurista e filosofo, si recensivano anche pubblicazioni afferenti ad altre sfere del sapere, poteva accadere anche il contrario, ovvero che riviste dirette da non filosofi, in accordo con la concezione thomasiana, toccassero anche temi filosofici. Ne è un esempio la rivista Monatliche Unterredungen einiger guten Freunde von allerhand Büchern und andern annemlichen Geschichten pubblicata tra 1689 e 1698 da Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel, strutturata in forma di conversazioni proprio secondo il modello dei Monatsgespräche, che era divenuto da subito paradigmatico. Tentzel era il direttore del gabinetto numismatico (Münzkabinett) di Schloss Friedenstein a Gotha, il castello della dinastia Coburg-Gotha (e, nel suo ramo inglese, futura dinastia Windsor) e quello che si definiva all’epoca un Polyhistor, al centro di una fitta rete di corrispondenti, tra cui Leibniz e Magliabechi (Hartmann 2002; Mulsow 2013; Habel 2013). La sua rivista fu una delle prime sedi in cui in Germania fu presa in considerazione l’opera del cartesiano Balthasar Bekker: il numero di febbraio del 1692 aveva infatti ospitato una discussione tra le due figure fittizie di Leonardus e Antonius sulle dirompenti novità contenute nel Betoverde Weereld, e sul lungo processo intentato contro Bekker dopo l’uscita dei primi due volumi dell’opera (Tentzel 1692, 109-31). L’anonimia, le garanzie d’imparzialità, la struttura dialogica che abbiamo già visto in Thomasius si rivelavano strategie particolarmente preziose per gli intellettuali di corte come Tentzel, che se da un lato ci tenevano a presentarsi come personalità intellettuali indipendenti, dall’altro si muovevano evidentemente nella cornice di rapporti di dipendenza tipici del mecenatismo (Suitner, 2025).

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Riccarda Suitner riccarda.suitner@uniroma1.it, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, 0000-0003-2316-940X

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Riccarda Suitner, Filosofia e ‘conversazioni mensili’: l’arte della recensione nella Frühaufklärung, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1.05, in Pasquale Terracciano, Francesco Valerio Tommasi (edited by), Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799). Volume 2, pp. -67, 2026, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0999-1, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1

The presence of Renaissance authors in German periodicals—Machiavelli aside—is noteworthy though not quantitatively overwhelming. We stand on the threshold of the invention of the Renaissance—a construct born, to put it succinctly, from the encounter between the French Enlightenment and, later, the philosophical and cultural traditions of the German world, until Burckhardt finally codified the historiographical myth of the Renaissance. Yet for certain Renaissance authors a crucial turning point in their posthumous fortunes was determined by the reinterpretation that classical German philosophy gave to their thought. It is therefore of particular interest to observe how these figures were registered and discussed in contemporary learned journals, how their works circulated in the European editorial landscape, and how their “subterranean persistence” can be traced within this cultural and geographical framework. In 1682, the Acta Eruditorum reported the publication of Pico della Mirandola’s Epistolarum liber, edited by Christoph Cellarius (Acta Eruditorum 1682, 184). References to Pico appear sporadically in other texts, but his presence is, on the whole, limited. The same applies to Marsilio Ficino, of whom three reviews appear in connection with the 1744 Leipzig edition of the Phaedo edited by Winkler (Nova Acta Eruditorum 1745, 717–20). This relative scarcity must be contextualized: Pico’s reputation in the early eighteenth century corresponded to the limited fortune of the platonic philosopher of the fifteenth century, which would grow in German territories in the centuries to come. The fortune of Giordano Bruno was instead in an ascending phase, as attested by the treatment devoted to him by Jacob Brucker in his Historia Critica Philosophiae (Brucker 1744, IV, pars 2, 786; V, pars 2, 12–62). From this point on, the publication of several Latin extracts and important biographical clarifications by Heumann in Acta Philosophorum stands out (Heumann 1724, 432). And yet it is interesting to note that, in the review of Gautier’s Bibliotheca philosophorum et eruditorum published in the Acta Eruditorum in 1724, it is lamented that nothing has been transmitted about certain important authors whose texts are difficult to find—one of the examples given is that of Bruno (Heumann 1724b, 46).

More abundant are references to Giulio Cesare Vanini.1 The 1709 Acta Eruditorum reviewed De vita et scriptis famosi athei Julii Caesaris Vanini, situating the renowned “Italian atheist” within a genealogy of unbelief rooted in Italy—a lineage including Aretino, Poggio, Pomponazzi, Campanella, Cardano, Machiavelli, Cesalpino, Cremonini and others. Vanini is placed among the disciples of Pomponazzi, portrayed as the intellectual father of all atheists; elsewhere he is described as even worse than “Peretto” (ipso non satis bono, longe deterior). Lutheran theologians reconstructed his biography following the Lexicon of 1709, weighing accusations of atheism (Raynaud, Lacroze, Schramm, Morhof) against exculpatory readings as those of Olearius, Arpe, Diecmann (Acta Eruditorum 1709, 260–64).

Thus, Italian thinkers were portrayed, on the one hand, as irreligious, and on the other, as victims of Rome’s intolerance—two well-established themes of Protestant polemic that shaped the German intellectual perception of the Renaissance. Machiavelli’s case follows this general pattern shared by other Renaissance authors, though with a moment of rupture that significantly alters the picture, as we’ll see.

At this point, it is worth briefly retracing the thread of Machiavelli’s presence in Germany. The Italian Renaissance played a distinctive role in shaping German thought, and within it Machiavelli occupied a singular position—not merely as a symbol of intrigue, but as a key voice in debates on ragion di Stato and as a potential interlocutor for a politically fragmented Germany seeking unity (Procacci 1995). For this reason, studies on his reception in German-speaking Europe are by no means lacking; yet even recently it has been pointed out that the history of Machiavelli in Germany is still far from fully written (Macor 2015; Robertson 2017; Biasiori-Presezzi 2025).

A crucial vehicle for the diffusion of Machiavelli’s thought and myth beyond Italy was Italian emigration—particularly that motivated by religious exile. The first Latin edition of Machiavelli, printed in Basel by the Lucchese émigré Perna at the end of the sixteenth century, provoked controversy yet made his writings accessible to scholars across Europe (Kaegi 1940; Terracciano 2016).

Another major channel for the spread of the Machiavellian myth in the German world was the Catholic anti-Machiavellian campaign, especially through the activity and publications of the Jesuits. One of the most emblematic episodes occurred at the Jesuit college of Ingolstadt, where Machiavelli’s portrait was publicly burned in effigy, described in scathing terms as that of a “cunning and deceitful man, author of diabolical ideas, assistant to the devil.” (Schoppe 1619) The episode is recorded in a manuscript by Caspar Schoppe—the same author who reported the burning of Giordano Bruno. Schoppe, a Protestant convert to Catholicism, sought through his notes to mitigate Machiavelli’s most scandalous aspects, an endeavor that culminated in his Paedia Politices, published in Rome in 1623. The work aimed at a moral and philosophical “normalization” of Machiavelli’s figure, possibly nourished by Schoppe’s encounter with Campanella.

It is for this reason that Schoppe’s work was reprinted in 1663 by the Protestant Hermann Conring, who a few years earlier had completed a new Latin translation of Il Principe accompanied by a commentary (Machiavelli 1660). Conring’s scholarly intention was to strip the text of the layers of polemical pamphleteering that had accumulated over time, treating Machiavelli instead as a genuine political theorist whose ideas should be evaluated independently of moral judgment.

Not everyone, however, was ready to abandon the “black legend.” Reacting against Schoppe’s Paedia Politices, the Jesuit Heinrich Wangnereck published the Vindiciae politicae adversus pseudo-politicos (1636), reiterating the Counter-Reformation condemnation of the Florentine Secretary and describing yet another burning in effigy of Machiavelli at Ingolstadt—this time as part of a satirical theatrical performance organized by university students. A similar tone and vocabulary appear in Promontorium Male Spei by the Jesuit Paul Zehentner (1643).2

The true turning point, however, came with Hermann Conring’s 1660 translation of Il Principe. For Conring, Machiavelli remained above all a theorist whose objective was to describe the universal laws governing all forms of government; his interpretation, therefore, did not differ substantially from that of Schoppe. Yet this new translation marked a shift: from the earlier pamphlet-driven controversies to a more philological and scholarly engagement. From the final decades of the seventeenth century onwards, discussions about The Prince increasingly entered the learned republic of letters.

Although their concerns remained primarily erudite, the proliferation of references to Machiavelli laid the groundwork for a broader reconsideration of his work—a process through which the Florentine thinker began to emerge not merely as a moral problem, but as a foundational yet deeply problematic author in the genealogy of modern political thought, one whose warnings demanded careful attention. In other terms the history of Machiavelli’s reception in Germany between 1678 and 1810 evolved significantly, moving from explicit demonization to nuanced philosophical and dramatic exploration of political pragmatism.

Across the German learned journals of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one can identify roughly seventy references to Machiavelli—encompassing not only a) editions of his works, but also b) texts related to Machiavellian themes and c) reflections inserted within reviews of other authors. This wide spectrum of mentions attests to the persistent, though evolving, fascination exercised by Machiavelli within the Respublica litteraria.

The Acta Eruditorum of 1692 offers a telling example, briefly but sympathetically noting a new French edition of the Discorsi (Discours politique de Machiavel, – Nicolai Machiavelli ad primam Decadem Historiarum Titi Livii Discorsi Politici Amsterdam, H. Desbordes 1691), likely penned by Otto Mencke,—mathematician, polymath, and, together with Leibniz, founder of the Acta. The notice praises Machiavelli’s “profound knowledge of political science” in analyzing the rise of the Roman Republic and regards his Discorsi as worthy of continued study despite ecclesiastical hostility. It reads:

No mention is made here of Il Principe, yet the passage provides an important early testimony of appreciation for the republican Machiavelli—the thinker of civic virtue and political prudence, rather than the theorist of princely manipulation. The Acta Eruditorum’s acknowledgment of his “profound knowledge of political science” signals a shift in tone: it is a cautious rehabilitation within a learned context that begins to distinguish between Machiavelli’s historical analysis and his moral reputation. This review stands as one of the first marker of the German Enlightenment’s willingness to engage with Machiavelli not as a moral scandal but as a political classic—a thinker whose republican writings could now be read with scholarly sympathy, detached from the polemical excesses that had long defined his image.

In 1714, the Gelehrte Journale und Zeitungen der Aufklärung reported a German edition of several Machiavellian works—The Prince, the Life of Castruccio Castracani, and a Life of Borgia—published under a fictitious imprint as Lebens und Regierungsmaximen eines Fürsten by Peter Marteau. Translator Carol Arnd, professor at the University of Rostock, prefaced it accusing Machiavelli of blasphemy and of being “a man without conscience,” and placing him first among the “false politicians”, a reminder that moral suspicion lingered even within Protestant academia, where Machiavelli was habitually reduced to a symbol of cynical statecraft and impiety. Yet even this hostile reception attests to the continued vitality of his name within the German learned public: the very need to denounce him proves his ongoing intellectual presence (Gelehrte Journale und Zeitungen der Aufklärung 1714, 94–96).

A turning point in the more balanced reassessment of Machiavelli came with the publication of De Nicolao Machiavello libri tres (1731) by Johann Friedrich Christ, promptly reviewed in the Neue Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen. A student of Christian Thomasius, academic, and later rector of the University of Leipzig, Christ embodied one of the first genuine attempts within European scholarship to read and interpret the Florentine Secretary’s works historically and without prejudice. The Neue Zeitungen review, published in May of the same year, praises precisely this methodological rigor and the author’s commitment to restoring intellectual accuracy to the study of Machiavelli:

Christ’s De Nicolao Machiavello libri tres thus marks a fundamental moment in the German Enlightenment’s intellectual encounter with Machiavelli. No longer the diabolical counselor or “atheist politician” of Counter-Reformation polemic, Machiavelli begins here to emerge as a historical figure whose works can be examined critically, philologically, and politically. The Leipzig scholar’s insistence on accurate documentation and systematic interpretation paved the way for the later eighteenth-century rediscovery of Machiavelli as a political thinker, not merely a moral problem—a development that would culminate, only a decade later, in the great European debate surrounding Frederick II’s Anti-Machiavel.

Among the most intriguing and intellectually rich references to Machiavelli in the German learned journals is an intervention by Christian Thomasius, which belongs to the third category of allusions—not to editions or explicit treatises, but to broader reflections embedded in other critical discussions. It appears in an article entitled Schertz- und ernsthaffter, vernünfftiger und einfältiger Gedancken über allerhand lustige und nützliche Bücher und Fragen (1689), concerning Robert Knox’s Reise Beschreibung von der in Ost-Indien gelegenen Insel Ceylon in Englischer Sprache heraus gegeben durch Robertum Knox, Schiff-Capitein in Engelland. Thomasius, writing in the Monatsgespräche (1689), argued that polemics against Machiavelli had produced little effect: princes did not need Machiavelli to govern tyrannically, since tyranny arose from corrupted will, not from political theory. Such observations revealed skepticism toward the very genre of antimachiavellian literature that would soon gain prominence.

The text is particularly significant for three reasons: first, it is one of the earliest citations of Machiavelli within the corpus under consideration; second, it comes from one of the most prominent figures of German early Enlightenment thought; and third, it anticipates several themes that would later recur in more systematic treatments of Machiavelli, influencing subsequent authors such as Christ and Reimmann. Knox’s travel narrative—An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon in the East Indies—contains a vivid description of a tyrannical regime ruling over the island. It is in this context that Thomasius introduces his extended excursus on Machiavelli. He writes:

Thomasius’s passage is of remarkable depth. It criticizes the futility of intellectual polemic against Machiavelli’s doctrines when, in practice, those very doctrines are continuously enacted by both rulers and their moral critics. The real issue, he argues, is not intellectual error but the corruption of the will—tyranny is born not of ignorance, but of moral vice. Hence, genuine erudition should aim at the pursuit of truth and the cultivation of virtue, rather than the sterile refutation of abstract ideas. Thomasius’s reference to Christian Weise’s drama Der Bäurischer Machiavellus (1679) enriches the discussion. Weise—a Protestant writer, political theorist, and former pupil of Hermann Conring—used the infernal mythology surrounding Machiavelli to stage a celestial court, presided over by Apollo, where the Florentine is accused of corrupting mankind. A character called “Gentilletus” (an evident echo of Innocent Gentillet) repeats the traditional anti-Italian and anti-Medicean argument according which Machiavelli’s writings indirectly caused the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Machiavelli defends himself by asserting that his intention was satirical: to expose, not to encourage, the vices of tyrants. Nonetheless, he is admonished as a paradigmatic example of the misuse of intellectual gifts.

In Thomasius’s reading, however, Machiavelli acquires a subtly utopian dimension: the possibility of transforming political knowledge into moral reflection. His remarks, beyond their moral thrust, anticipate the approach later adopted by Johann Friedrich Christ—the call to study Machiavelli concretely, historically, and without prejudice.

The decisive moment in the German debate on Machiavelli and Machiavellism: the publication of Frederick II’s Anti-Machiavel, with its successive clandestine and authorized editions around 1740–1741—a work that would crystallize the Enlightenment’s moral and philosophical confrontation with the Florentine Secretary. The book, as it is very well known, was composed by the young Frederick of Prussia, and edited and brought to press by Voltaire in 1741. The book was quickly reviewed in leading German periodicals. Frederick II’s Anti-Machiavel opens with its now-famous statement:

Machiavelli’s writings, Frederick insists, “corrupt the young and the naïve,” but their greatest danger lies in the fact that—being a handbook for rulers—they corrupt those who govern: “and kings with a corrupted morality do greater harm than natural cataclysms.” (Frederick II 1958, 169).

The publication of Anti-Machiavel unleashed a veritable flood of reviews across the German learned press, most of them enthusiastic or at least deeply respectful of the young Prussian prince’s philosophical ambition. The first notice appeared in the Frankfurtische Gelehrte Zeitungen in June 1740, on the Amsterdam edition published by von Duren: “There are only few who think about such matters as they should, and among them the author surely deserves the first place” (Frankfurtische Gelehrte Zeitungen, June 1740, 102–103). Equally positive were the reviews printed in the Hamburgische Berichte von neuen Gelehrten Sachen, the Neue Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen, and the Nöthiger Beytrag zu den Neuen Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen. The Göttingische Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen published two separate notices in 1741—one distinctly enthusiastic, the other briefer and more neutral in tone.3

In March 1742, the Acta Eruditorum reviewed Frederick’s treatise in explicitly celebratory terms:

This tone of almost reverential admiration dominates most of the German reception. Yet a few notices stand apart, revealing the complexity of the debate. Of particular interest is an anonymous essay published in the Frankfurtische Gelehrte Zeitungen on 27 June 1741, situating the review of the Anti-Machiavelli within the broader context of justice in public administration and the judiciary. The writer acknowledges his inspiration from “a work praised with many eulogies in the learned journals under the title Anti-Machiavel, said to be authored by a great prince and edited by the famous French poet Voltaire.” Developing his own reflections on justice, he warns against the seductions of power: “The greater the power, the more easily one may permit oneself arbitrariness against justice—or, as we say, govern and judge in a Machiavellian manner.” The treatise closes in a quasi-apocalyptic tone: “Thus it remains in accordance with the word of God: let the wicked remain wicked, and the righteous remain righteous; for His judgment is that of God, to render to each according to his works.”

Although veiled in theological rhetoric, the text seems to imply a certain distance from Frederick’s own political conduct—a subtle skepticism that perhaps recognized the contradiction between his theoretical critique of Machiavelli and his practical pursuit of Realpolitik.

This ambivalence emerges even more clearly in the reception of Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre’s Réflexions sur l’Anti-Machiavel (1740), the philosophical and critical essay written in response to Frederick II. Saint-Pierre’s work is not a direct attack on Machiavelli, but rather a moral and political reflection on the ideal of the “just prince,” contrasted both with Machiavellian thought and, to some extent, with the moralistic simplifications of Frederick’s text. As an Enlightenment reformer and utopian thinker, Saint-Pierre advances a rational and pacifist vision of political power, grounded in principles of justice, the common good, and fair administration.

The Hamburgische Berichte von neuen Gelehrten Sachen of 1742 review the work approvingly, noting how Saint-Pierre turns Frederick’s arguments toward a pacifist ideal: the rejection of Machiavellianism becomes, here, an appeal to reason and peace, transforming Frederick’s moral protest into a program of perpetual concord (1742, 21–3).

Equally significant is the notice published that same year in the Neue Zeitungen von Gelehrten Sachen on Machiavel Républicain tegens den Anti-Machiavel verdedigt (“The Republican Machiavelli Defended against the Anti-Machiavel”). The tone is calm and measured, yet the very act of defending Machiavelli in print against Frederick’s assault marks a new phase in the European debate (1742, 491–92). The Nöthiger Beytrag, by contrast, dismisses the same work harshly, reaffirming the Prussian monarch’s moral authority (1742, 215–17).

Through these layered and often contradictory reactions, the German learned press of the 1740s constructed a polyphonic image of Machiavelli: between condemnation and rehabilitation, moral critique and political admiration. The Enlightenment thus transformed the Florentine’s legacy into a mirror of its own internal tensions—between virtue and power, moral law and political necessity.

The long trajectory traced through German learned journals—from Thomasius’s early remarks to Christ’s systematic inquiry and the wave of reviews prompted by Frederick II’s Anti-Machiavel—shows how the German engagement with Machiavelli unfolded less as a coherent intellectual program than as an uneven, often contradictory exploration of pressing philosophical and political questions. Over the course of half a century, the Florentine Secretary became not so much an emblem of Enlightenment progress as a testing ground for competing interpretive needs: moral suspicion and historical curiosity, political anxiety and scholarly rigor.

In the German context especially, Machiavelli’s presence exposes fractures rather than synthesis. Journals in Leipzig, Hamburg, Göttingen, and Frankfurt did not simply “refine” or “rehabilitate” him; they used his name to probe the tensions between princely authority and civic virtue, between erudition and polemic, between normative theory and the observation of political reality. Through these shifting appropriations—admiring, hostile, or ambivalent—Machiavelli emerged as a sensitive indicator of the unresolved dilemmas that marked early modern debates on power, responsibility, and the conditions of political order.

Rather than a reinvention, his German reception appears as a fragmented itinerary: a mirror in which the intellectual uncertainties of the age repeatedly came to the surface.

Biasiori Lucio, Presezzi Cora, a cura di. 2025 «Cose della Magna». Machiavelli e il mondo tedesco. Roma: Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici.

Brucker, Jakob. 1741-1744. Historia critica philosophiae. Leipzig: Breitkopf.

Burckhardt, Jacob. 1860. Die Kultur der Renaissance in Italien, Basel: Schweighauser.

Castel de Saint-Pierre, Charles-Irénée. 1741. “Réflexions sur l’Anti-Machiavel de 1740.” In Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, Ouvrajes de Morale e de Politique. Rotterdam: Daniel Beman.

Frederick II of Prussia. 1740. Anti-Machiavel, ou Essai de critique sur le Prince de Machiavel. Amsterdam: von Duren.

Frederick II of Prussia. 1958. L’AntiMachiavel, par Frédéric II, roi de Prusse, édition critique avec le remaniements de Voltaire pour les deux versions, édité par C. Fleischauer. Genève: Institut et Musée Voltaire.

Heumann, Cristoph August. 1724. Iordani Bruni Metaphysica. In Acta Philosophorum, 15 vol. III.

Kaegi, Werner. 1940. “Machiavelli in Basel.” Basler Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Altertumskunde 39: 5–51.

Machiavelli, Nicolò. 1588. Nicolai Machiavelli Opera omnia latina, Basel: Perna.

Machiavelli, Nicolò. 1660. Nicolai Machiavelli Princeps aliaque nonnulla ex italico latine nuncdemum patim versa, partim infinitis locis sensus melioris ergo castigata, curante Hermanno Conringio. Hemstadt: Henning Muller.

Machiavelli, Nicolò. 1691. Discours politique de Machiavel – Nicolai Machiavelli ad primam Decadem Historiarum Titi Livii Discorsi Politici. Amsterdam: H. Desbordes.

Macor, Anna Laura. 2015. “Why Machiavelli and the Making of German Identity?” Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics 17, 3: 7–8.

Pici Mirandulae, Ioannis. 1682. Epistolarum liber, recensitus et illustratus a Christophoro Cellario. Cizae: Bielcki.

Procacci, Giuliano. 1995. Machiavelli nella cultura europea dell’età moderna. Roma-Bari: Laterza.

Robertson, Ritchie. 2017. “Machiavelli in Germany, 1678-1810.” In Machiavelli’s Prince. Roma: Viella.

Schoppe, Kaspar. 1623. Paedia Politices. Roma.

Terracciano, Pasquale. 2016. “La politica all’inferno. Rileggendo il sogno di Machiavelli.” Rinascimento 2, 56: 23–52.

Terracciano, Pasquale. 2025. “Bagliori sinistri. L’infernale Machiavelli e la cultura tedesca.” In «Cose della Magna». Machiavelli e il mondo tedesco, 57–72. Roma: Istituto Italiano di Studi Germanici.

Thomasius, Christian. 1689. “Reise Beschreibung von der in Ost-Indien gelegenen Insel Ceylon …” In Schertz- und ernsthaffter, vernünfftiger und einfältiger Gedancken, oder Monats-Gespräche, vol. III, 580–98. Halle: Salfeld.

Wangnereck, Heinrich. 1636. Vindiciae politicae adversus pseudo-politicos, Roma: Caspari Sutoris.

Weise, Christian. 1679. Der Bäurischer Machiavellus. Zittau.

Weise, Christian. 2012. Der Bäurischer Machiavellus. Hamburg: Tredition.

Zehentner, Paul. 1643. Promontorium malae Spei, Impiis Periculose Navigantibus Propositum. Graz: Sebastian Haupt.

Pasquale Terracciano pasquale.terracciano@uniroma2.it, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Italy, 0000-0002-5862-9480

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Pasquale Terracciano, Reviewing Machiavelli: German Journals and the Politics of the Enlightenment, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1.06, in Pasquale Terracciano, Francesco Valerio Tommasi (edited by), Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799). Volume 2, pp. -79, 2026, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0999-1, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1

Christian Wolff is among the most prolific authors of philosophical book reviews in history. He debuted at the age of 26 with a review of Italian mathematician Francesco Bianchini’s work in the 1705 Acta Eruditorum (Wolff 2001 I, 3–8). This marked the beginning of an intense and longstanding collaboration with the journal, whose founder and editor, Otto Mencke, Wolff had met in Leipzig. A reputed mathematician, the young Wolff soon had the opportunity to review Newton’s Opticks.1 From mathematics, his expertise gradually extended to the journal’s other five categories: he reviewed books on theology, law, medicine and physics, history and geography, and philosophy and philology.

In 2001, Hubert A. Laeven and Lucy J. M. Laeven-Aretz edited five volumes containing four hundred eighty-five book reviews by Wolff. This impressive collection does not exhaust his output: it includes the reviews published in the Acta Eruditorum between 1705 and 1731, excluding any he may have written for the Nova Acta Eruditorum (the post-1731 rebranded version of Mencke’s journal) or for other scholarly journals.2 We should also bear in mind that, since all book reviews in the Acta Eruditorum appeared anonymously, the list of Wolff’s reviews is actually a list of reviews attributed to him.3

In this paper, I focus on a specific subset of the corpus. Of the four hundred eighty-five book reviews edited by Laeven and Laeven-Aretz, twenty-eight4 are reviews of Wolff’s own works. Thematically, this sub-corpus reflects the wide scope of Wolff’s intellectual output. The self-reviewed works include twelve works of philosophy (including logic, metaphysics, and practical philosophy), nine works of natural philosophy (including experimental and theoretical physics, the life sciences, and natural teleology), five works of mathematics, one miscellaneous work, and Wolff’s report on his own mathematical and philosophical teaching.

In reviewing the works of his followers, Wolff also took the opportunity to talk about himself and his own work. Thus, his reviews of authors such as Ludwig Philipp Thümmig and Georg Bernhard Bilfinger can be considered partial self-reviews. A case in point is his review of Georg Heinrich Riebow’s 1729 edition of Hieronymus Rorarius’s essay on animal reason. Dwelling on Riebow’s Dissertatio historico-philosophica, which “constitutes the greatest part of the book”, the reviewer also praises Riebow’s earlier defense of Wolff’s German Metaphysics against “the objections of the anti-Wolffians”.5 Referring to the Dissertatio and, in particular, to Riebow’s historical outline of the doctrine of the animal soul, he emphasizes that this author rightly follows the Wolffian precepts for writing “literary history [historia literaria]” and also “retains the definitions that Wolff has given in the German Metaphysics” because it would be absurd to “change what has been well established by others” (Wolff 1730c, 175–6).

Another form of partial self-review involves Wolff’s reviews of books that include his own contributions, such as prefaces or entire chapters. An example of the former is his review of a juridical treatise by his disciple Johann Ulrich Cramer. Wolff devotes the final lines of the review to promoting his own preface:

An example of the latter is Wolff’s review of Thümmig’s 1727 collected papers, which also include two essays by Wolff himself, originally published in 1709 and 1717, respectively (see Thümmig 1727, 265–338 and 339–72). Wolff confines the description of these two contributions to a short final paragraph:

Thus, Wolff can also be regarded as one of the most prolific self-reviewers of all time. In one instance, he even reviewed his own work twice, namely both the first (1720) and the third (1728) edition of his Vernünfftige Gedancken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen.7 Obviously, the caveats regarding the professed scope of the 2001 collection and the attribution problem also apply to self-reviews, leaving us to wonder whether the list provided is complete.8

In the case of self-reviews, the requirement of anonymity shapes some of Wolff’s stylistic choices. When reviewing his own works, he cannot speak in the first person about himself; he must refer to the author in the third person. Effectively, he must split himself into two, so to speak: the work’s author and the review’s author. Linguistically, this pretense involves using third-person indexicals to refer to the work’s author and first-person indexicals to refer to the reviewer. In a passage from his Ratio praelectionum, for instance, Wolff refers to the beginning of his career in the first person: “When I was first teaching philosophy in Leipzig […]”.9 The corresponding passage in the book review expresses the same spatio-temporal reference by replacing “Leipzig” with a first-person indexical: “[W]hen he [sc. Wolff] was teaching philosophy apud nos”, that is, at “our” university (Wolff 1719, 122). The “University of Leipzig” mentioned in the book becomes “our university” in the review.10 However, Wolff wrote this review some twelve years after settling in Halle, so Leipzig was no longer his university. By using the first-person plural to refer to Leipzig, the anonymous reviewer not only identifies himself as a Leipzig journal staff member (which Wolff indeed was), but also suggests that he is based in Leipzig (which Wolff no longer was). Thus, nothing disabuses the reader of the belief that the book review is written by someone other than the book’s author.11

Although quantitatively exceptional, Wolff’s engagement in self-promotion was less unusual than it might seem. In nascent early modern journalism, self-review was a relatively widespread practice. As noted by recent scholarship, several seventeenth- and eighteenth-century journals accepted—or even solicited—book reviews directly from the authors, a choice often prompted by the difficulty of finding reviewers competent and scrupulous enough to read the books before reviewing them (see Léchot 2017).

Whereas the intrinsic scholarly value of “normal,” third-party book reviews is beyond question, self-reviews may raise doubts. This phenomenon is certainly relevant to the history of journalism and literary practices; but is the content of self-reviews themselves also worthy of attention? In what follows, I will address this question primarily through Wolff’s case. Rather than examining the social dynamics among self-reviewers, journal editors, publishers, and readers, I will focus on the textual relationships between self-reviews and their source works.

Third-party book reviews are primarily interesting insofar as they record an intellectual encounter. Wolff’s reviews of British, German, French, Italian, scholastic, Cartesian, Leibnizian, Newtonian, or eclectic authors often provide valuable insights into his readings and reactions. By contrast, his reviews of his own books do not seem to document a genuine encounter, since the distinction between the book’s author and the reviewer is mere pretense. One might even argue that these are not genuine reviews. Yet it is worth considering that even self-reviews may document an intellectual encounter—that between the author and their own work. I will adopt the working hypothesis that the self-review of a given work possibly opens up a perspective on the work which corresponds to the point of view of its author—not the author of the work in the making, but the author of the finished work. The distance between writing a book and reviewing it allows the self-review to contribute something non-trivial to the work itself.12 The following sections focus on some types of discrepancies from the source work that make self-reviews informative and, thus, worth reading.

Generally speaking, book reviews are metatextual in character—they are texts about other texts. This is especially true of Wolff’s self-reviews: they serve as an extended commentary in which the author retraces his own steps and describes his works from a relatively external vantage point. As a genre,13 Wolff’s self-reviews belong to the broader family of his various metatextual outputs, which include not only portions of his “fist-level” works (such as self-prefaces, scholia, descriptions of his works in letters) but also independent compositions in the form of self-commentaries and reports on his own teaching or writings. Taken together, these texts provide a metatextual framework that helps us to correctly understand his first-level works. From this perspective, of course, self-reviews of self-commentaries, such as Wolff’s review of his 1723 Monitum ad commentationem luculentam or of his 1724 Anmerckungen, actually belong to a meta-meta-level: they are texts about texts about other texts.

This structural feature of self-reviews is consistent with their function. Indeed, one use of self-reviews in Wolff’s dissemination strategy is to provide metatextual information about the origin and internal structure of the reviewed work. They also provide intertextual references that situate the work within the framework of his scholarly output. In particular, Wolff’s self-reviews supplement the intertextual information in his first-level works by referencing his earlier publications, announcing forthcoming ones, outlining his program for future activity, informing readers of his German works about his Latin ones, and vice versa.

The review of the Aërometriae elementa, for example, points out that Wolff’s use of experiments to prove the existence and properties of air conforms to the laws he established “in the Acta [Eruditorum] of last year” (Wolff 1709b, 26), specifically in the 1708 article on Leges experientiarum fundamentales. Thus, Wolff emphasizes the consistency between his treatise on aerometry and his general experimental method. As late as 1713, the review of the German Logic refers to the same journal article as containing the essentials of Wolff’s doctrine of experience in summary form (Wolff 1713a, 134), while tracing his account of the origin of concepts back to an earlier contribution to the Leipzig journal: his 1707 Solutio nonnullarum difficultatum circa mentem humanam obviarum (Wolff 1713a, 133; and see 1707, par. 3-4). A number of references to previous works and their respective reissues and self-reviews appear in the 1720 review of the German Metaphysics, which begins as follows:

Here, Wolff also elucidates the method adopted in the German Metaphysics by comparing it to the method of his mathematical handbooks. This emphasizes the systematic use of internal references, or citationes:

Connection is the hallmark of Wolff’s concept of a system. His German and Latin works both make systematic use of internal citations to strengthen the connectedness of their respective philosophical systems. Connection means order: truths that ground others must come first. Thus, by citing the paragraph—whether from the same work or from earlier volumes—where a given proposition has been demonstrated, the philosopher shows that his system complies with this methodological rule.14 In this sense, even Wolff’s frequent references to his other works in self-reviews serve to present his intellectual output as cohesive and systematically organized.

The above-mentioned 1719 review of the Ratio praelectionum was a landmark for Wolff. In later self-reviews, he refers to it as summarizing the essentials of his practical philosophy (Wolff 1721, 36; and see 1719, 124–25) or the empirical foundation of his physics (Wolff 1722, 31; and 1723b, 468; see Wolff 1719, 124). In terms of metatextual content, this self-review is also noteworthy in that it explains how the chapters of the second, philosophical section are organized:

In presenting his works to the journal’s readers, Wolff is especially careful to track the parallel development of his bilingual projects. Reviewing his 1710 German handbook of mathematics, he informs “the reader that the Latin edition, too, is already being printed to assist, by the same labor, the efforts of those who do not master the German language, or take more pleasure in Latin” (Wolff 1710, 487). In 1713, the review of the German Logic introduced this book as the first in a series of German philosophical works:

In 1724, after publishing a commentary on his German Metaphysics to save it from misinterpretations and polemics, he closed the review of this commentary with one eye to the future and the other to the present, while recalling the past:

In these final lines, Wolff essentially incorporates the work of his longtime assistant, Thümmig, into his own publication program.

Wolff’s self-reviews of his Latin system also reference his German works. Reviewing the Logica, Wolff mentions the success of its German precursor, but also emphasizes the new treatise’s merit in terms of completeness:

This book review also provides an interesting list—which does not appear in the source work—of the philosophical disciplines that Wolff considers his own original additions to the traditional division of philosophy:

Two years later, the review of the Philosophia prima, sive ontologia seized the opportunity to promote both the fourth edition of the German Metaphysics and the forthcoming Cosmologia generalis:

In addition to referencing his own works, Wolff’s self-reviews also cite other authors. The most significant case is Leibniz, whose mentions in these self-reviews do not always correspond to those in the respective source works. This gives the impression that Wolff sometimes used his self-reviews to comment on the thorny issue of his debts to Leibniz, an issue which his opponents frequently emphasized to question his originality.

Wolff’s first public acknowledgment of Leibniz’s impact on his thought is his famous claim in the preface to the German Logic that he received “a great light” from Leibniz’s 1684 Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis.15 Reporting this claim, the review of the German Logic explains that Wolff borrowed from Leibniz the criteria for distinguishing concepts according to their clarity and distinctness. At the same time, however, the review points out that Wolff “adds for his part [de suo] how we come to obscure or clear, and confused or distinct notions, and when notions finally become adequate” (Wolff 1713a, 133).

The claim to originality even when adopting Leibniz’s ideas also appears in Wolff’s review of his Ratio praelectionum. Whereas this work touches upon the link between the contingency of the actual world and the plurality of possible worlds without mentioning Leibniz,16 the review credits Wolff with providing a demonstration that Leibniz had failed to supply: “From the nature of contingent things, our [Author] demonstrates the possibility of more than one universe, which Leibniz assumes in the Theodicy”.17

The same point is made in the review of the German Metaphysics, which informs us that in the theological chapter of this work, Wolff “also demonstrates what Leibniz asserts without demonstration in the Theodicy, namely that God contemplates the whole universe in the smallest part of space”.18 This self-review makes similar claims concerning both the Principle of Sufficient Reason and the Principle of Indiscernibles. As for the former, the review acknowledges Leibniz’s pioneering effort to “introduce” this principle “in metaphysics”, but points out that Wolff “gives a double demonstration of it, whereas Leibniz used to prove it solely by induction” (Wolff 1720a, 372). As for the latter, the review emphasizes that Wolff establishes the Principle of Indiscernibles not only by means of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, “as with Leibniz”, but also by means of “the notion of contingent beings”.19 Although this second deduction of the Principle of Indiscernibles is indeed carried out in the German Metaphysics,20 its independence from Leibniz is explicitly asserted only in the book review.

Thus, Wolff’s self-reviews align with his general strategy of claiming originality for his own contributions whenever possible, particularly by crediting himself with proving what Leibniz left unproved. In one case at least, comparing the self-review with the original work shows Wolff downplaying Leibniz’s role. Concerning the ars characteristica combinatoria (or, to use Wolff’s German term, Verbindungs-Kunst der Zeichen), the German Metaphysics cites a letter to Oldenburg and a passage from the Miscellanea Berolinensia as evidence that “Leibniz had an idea [Begriff] of this art”, and that only the “imperfect state of sciences” prevented him from developing it.21 By contrast, the review reduces this to the claim that the “bare name” of the art occurs in one of Leibniz’s letters (Wolff 1720a, 375), thereby suggesting that Leibniz introduced merely a name rather than an idea.

Apart from metatextual and cross-referential information, what do Wolff’s self-reviews contribute to his works? The possible answers range between two extremes, namely from the negative view that they are entirely unoriginal to the positive view that they should be valued as much as his independent, original works. While the positive extreme is hardly plausible, the negative extreme may appear justified at first sight: Wolff’s self-reviews are primarily intended to summarize his books. Their approach is almost entirely descriptive rather than evaluative. Just like his reviews of other authors, they provide a clear, orderly, and reasonably detailed overview of the work’s content. This is consistent with their purpose of attracting readers while also making the works’ contents known to a broader audience than Wolff’s actual readership. This is especially true of his Latin reviews of his German works: Latin summaries were essential for dissemination abroad. Moreover, insofar as they were informative rather than critical, privileging description over evaluation, they were less likely to expose him to the widespread prejudice against self-reviewers, who were generally suspected of lacking the impartiality necessary for writing book reviews (see Léchot 2017; Gantet 2025, 36).

Yet, it would be hasty to conclude that Wolff’s self-reviews are mere summaries. An obvious difference lies in their material conditions. Like all printed texts, book reviews have intrinsic space limitations, a fact of which Wolff was acutely aware. In some cases, he adduces these constraints as the reason for omitting parts of a book. For example, when reviewing the philosophical section of his Ratio praelectionum, he mentions that he would have “more things to report”, if he did not “fear that the review would exceed the set limits” (Wolff 1719, 121). In the same vein, at the end of his (unusually long) review of his German Metaphysics, he regretfully mentions the theological topics that the review is forced to omit due to lack of space. Even major theological topics addressed in the final chapter of the German Metaphysics—such as the creation and conservation of the world, the permission of evil, and God’s attributes—cannot be included in the book review,

These lines illustrate the challenge of summarizing systematic writings. Since reviews must condense lengthy arguments into a small amount of space, they cannot reproduce the chain of reasoning that constitutes a system (in Wolff’s sense). For the most part, reviewers can only mention the main topics and theses found in a work, thus leaving much unexplained. Reviews of systematic books, such as Wolff’s, cannot be systematic themselves; they must forgo both systematicity and completeness.

This seems to make the position of self-reviews even worse. The summaries they provide cannot even count as complete (albeit scaled-down) reproductions of the respective works. However accurate, they remain inevitably partial and fragmentary. Yet, from another perspective, precisely this discrepancy from the source work is what makes (self-)reviews more than dull summaries. Forced to select some contents while neglecting others, book reviewers create their own perspective view of the work. They alternate zooming in and zooming out, thereby foregrounding some parts or subjects at the expense of others.

Wolff’s self-reviews are no exception. Rather than allocating space to each topic proportionate to the corresponding section of the work, he often prefers to focus on the specific content he wants to highlight. A case in point is his aforementioned review of his Anfangs-Gründe aller mathematischen Wissenschafften. This four-volume work comprises some two thousand pages, ranging from pure mathematics (arithmetic, geometry, algebra etc.) to applied mathematical disciplines (architecture, mechanics, optics, astronomy etc.). Wolff’s review of this massive handbook spans five pages. Unable to outline the content of each section in detail, Wolff focuses on general issues concerning the mathematical method, the applicability of mathematics to science and technology, and the educational purposes, tools, and strategies of his handbook. Specific topics are only mentioned by way of example. At the end of the review, however, Wolff addresses a specific problem regarding the exegetical implications of astronomy. He introduces this subject as an addition to the review:

The review then summarizes Wolff’s attempt to reconcile Copernicanism with the Scriptural episode of the Sun standing still. In short, he argues that Scripture should be read as a historical text describing both natural and supernatural phenomena as they would appear to onlookers, rather than a scientific text explaining the causes of such phenomena (see Favaretti Camposampiero 2022). In the book, this hermeneutic doctrine is discussed in less than four pages out of two thousand (see Wolff 1710a, vol. III, 345–48). In the review, the corresponding account takes up all the last eighteen lines, which is to say roughly half a page out of five. This disproportionate conclusion to an otherwise compendious review is clearly intended to highlight a “philosophical” passage that might easily escape notice in the depths of a four-volume mathematical work. At the same time, the reviewer’s concern with this specific topic demonstrates its importance to Wolff.22 Although quantitatively irrelevant, the paragraphs on Biblical exegesis are philosophically paramount. The review restores their real significance by adjusting their proportion to the entire work.

Even summaries may differ from the source work, insofar as they express the same content differently. Summarizing entails reformulation, which allows for the addition of information, at least in terms of clarity and disambiguation. The brevity of book reviews may prompt reviewers to avoid roundabout expressions and be more straightforward. By retrospectively reformulating their own claims, self-reviewers have the opportunity to clarify the intended meaning of certain passages, provide further explanations, or even venture stronger, less cautious formulations.

A case in point is Wolff’s review of his first book, the 1709 Aërometriae elementa. Nearly one-sixth of the review is devoted to the Preface, which actually takes up little more than one-thirtieth of the book, thus offering another example of the disproportion between parts of the source work and parts of the review. The Preface was a milestone in the development of Wolff’s metaphilosophy, as it first publicly expounded his definition of philosophy as “the science of all possible things”, or “the science of possible things as such [rerum possibilium, qua talium, scientiam]” (Wolff 1709a, Preface, unpaginated). In his subsequent works, Wolff steadily draws on this definition whenever addressing metaphilosophical issues. However, he never repeats the original formulation, instead trying out various alternatives which arguably involve a gradual shift in meaning (see Favaretti Camposampiero 2023). This process of reformulation already begins in the review of the 1709 book, where the definition is reported as follows: “For him [sc. Wolff], philosophy is the science of possible things insofar as they are possible [rerum possibilium, quatenus possibiles sunt, scientia]” (Wolff 1709b, 24). Four years later, the first edition of Wolff’s German Logic adopts a German version of this formulation.23 However, replacing the original “as such” formulation with an insofar-clause also paves the way for the mature formulation, which splits the notion of possibility into two different modal concepts: “Philosophy is the science of possible things insofar as they can be [scientia possibilium, quatenus esse possunt]”.24 Thus, Wolff’s 1709 self-review documents an early stage in this evolution. Two decades later, his self-review of the Philosophia rationalis sive logica reports the final stage: according to the definition given in the Discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere, philosophy has the task of explaining “how the possible can become actual [actum consequi]”.25

In some cases, the review specifies a concept that the book expresses more generically. The review of the Ratio praelectionum, for example, summarizes the twenty-six paragraphs devoted to natural theology in just six lines. Nevertheless, whereas the source work simply mentions two different “notions” of God—God as the substance representing all possible worlds to itself, and God as the self-subsistent being—the review distinguishes the one from the other as two different types of definition:

This detail, also repeated in the review of the German Metaphysics,26 may be relevant to reconstructing the logic of Wolff’s a priori and a posteriori arguments for God’s existence, and their relationship to one another.

In other cases, the review describes the content of the book by employing expressions drawn from Wolff’s vocabulary that do not themselves occur in the text, thereby offering helpful hints to interpreters. A case in point is the theory of cognition expounded in Wolff’s logical works. As mentioned above, this theory owes a great deal to Leibniz’s Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis. In addition to the distinctions between degrees of conceptual clarity, Wolff also borrows from Leibniz the distinction between intuitive and symbolic thought, which he further develops in his psychological works as a distinction between intuitive and symbolic cognition. Since these terms never occur either in the German Logic or the Latin Logic, one might be led to conclude that the Leibnizian distinction between two modes of cognition is absent from Wolff’s logic and pertains only to his psychology. In fact, however, the doctrine of the use of words that Wolff develops in both Logics—and especially his claim that the production of intelligible speech is independent of the speaker’s actual grasp of its meaning—is grounded precisely in Leibniz’s distinction (see Favaretti Camposampiero 2009). Wolff’s reviews of both works provide conclusive evidence for this interpretation, as they explicitly employ the Leibnizian terminology. For example, the review of the German Logic describes the content of its second chapter by evoking the opposition between the intuition of ideas and the use of symbols:

The review of the Latin Logic is even more explicit in linking Wolff’s cognitive doctrines to the intuitive/symbolic distinction. Its summary of the “theoretical part” of the work concludes with the following remark:

Reformulations are even more significant in Wolff’s reviews of his German works. Like all other articles in the Acta Eruditorum, these reviews had to be written in Latin. This linguistic requirement, however, also served Wolff’s dissemination strategy. By reviewing his German works in Latin, he could reach a non-German-speaking audience and thus partially fulfill his international ambitions even before beginning the rewriting of his whole system in Latin. These self-reviews made doctrines originally formulated in German also available in Latin. Because of this shift in language, they are of particular terminological interest. In this case, the reformulation of the source text entails translation from one language into another. By reviewing his books in Latin, Wolff de facto attempted an abridged translation of his German system, foreshadowing his subsequent series of Latin works.

As is well known, Wolff’s German works were foundational for the development of German philosophical terminology. The self-reviews that accompanied their publication reveal which Latin terms Wolff had in mind when introducing certain German expressions into his philosophical vocabulary, thereby shedding light on their intended meaning. We might even regard these self-reviews as a sort of laboratory in which Wolff tested linguistic strategies for rendering his philosophical system in Latin. As the following examples show, the terminology of metaphysics is especially illuminating in this respect.

In the same set of paragraphs from the German Metaphysics discussed in the previous section, Wolff also draws on Leibniz’s argument for contingency from infinite analysis. When we attempt to explain why something occurs in the actual world, we can only point to a proximate cause, which in turn is the effect of a previous cause, and so on. This search for reasons leads upstream along an endless chain of contingent causes, none of which can serve as the chain’s first, uncaused link. This regress manifests the distinction between contingent facts and necessary truths:

In the 1720s, Wolff’s opponents cited this passage as evidence of his endorsement of Spinoza’s infinite regress in the chain of finite causes. As I have shown elsewhere (see Favaretti Camposampiero 2021, 255), part of Wolff’s defensive strategy consisted in denying the charge. Concerning the passage just quoted, he emphasized his use of “innumerable” instead of “infinite” as evidence that he did not intend to commit himself to an infinite regress (Wolff 1724a, par. 201). When I first questioned the sincerity of Wolff’s retrospective self-interpretation, I unfortunately overlooked the strongest evidence against it, which appears in his self-review of the German Metaphysics. Outlining this work in Latin, Wolff summarizes the argument for contingency quoted above as follows: “Contingent things [contingentia] are determined to actuality by an infinite series of causes [per infinitam seriem causarum] and are therefore not comprehended by a perfect analysis” (Wolff 1720a, 377). The Latin reformulation shows no reticence to describe the causal chain as “infinite,” contradicting Wolff’s later self-declared intention and thereby confirming my reconstruction of this episode. In 1720, his argument for distinguishing contingent events from necessary truths was indeed based on the idea of an infinite causal regress.

In conclusion, if we value philosophical book reviews solely for their capacity to take a critical stance, raise objections, and spark debate, Wolff’s self-reviews will inevitably fall short of our expectations. By contrast, if we take the time to compare them with their source works and read them as variations in the way he expressed his ideas, they cease to be mere summaries and instead function as complements to those works. We can then reassess self-reviews as valuable guides for exploring the complexities of Wolff’s thought, and appreciate their ability to preserve information that would otherwise be lost.

A= Leibniz, G. W. 1923–. Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, hrsg. von Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften und Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.

GW = Wolff, C. 1962–. Gesammelte Werke, hrsg. von J. École u. a. Hildesheim: Olms.

Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb. 1750. Aesthetica. Frankfurt (Oder): Kleyb.

Bissinger, Anton. 1970. Die Struktur der Gotteserkenntnis: Studien zur Philosophie Christian Wolffs. Bonn: Bouvier.

de Vleeschauwer, Herman Jan. 1952. “Christian Wolff et le ‘Journal littéraire.’ Contribution à la Controverse Leibniz–Newton au sujet du Calcul différentiel.” Philosophia naturalis. Archiv für Naturphilosophie und die philosophischen Grenzgebiete der exakten Wissenschaften und Wissenschaftsgeschichte 2: 358–75.

Dyck, Corey W. 2024. Wolff and the First Fifty Years of German Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Favaretti Camposampiero, Matteo. 2009. Conoscenza simbolica: Pensiero e linguaggio in Christian Wolff e nella prima età moderna. Hildesheim: Olms (GW III 119).

Favaretti Camposampiero, Matteo. 2016. “Counterfactual Hypotheses, Fictions, and the Laws of Nature: The Arguments for Contingency in Leibniz, Wolff, and Bilfinger.” In Theodicy and Reason: Logic, Metaphysics, and Theology in Leibniz’s Essais de Théodicée (1710), edited by Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero, Mattia Geretto, and Luigi Perissinotto, 141–62. Venezia: Edizioni Ca’ Foscari.

Favaretti Camposampiero, Matteo. 2021. “Infinite Regress: Wolff’s Cosmology and the Background of Kant’s Antinomies.” Kant-Studien 112, 2: 239–64.

Favaretti Camposampiero, Matteo. 2022. “Wolff, Spinoza, and the Interpretation of Scripture.” In The Philosophers and the Bible: The Debate on Sacred Scripture in Early Modern Thought, edited by Antonella Del Prete, Anna Lisa Schino, and Pina Totaro, 262–77. Leiden: Brill.

Favaretti Camposampiero, Matteo. 2023. “Christian Wolff and the Science of All Possible Things.” Rivista di filosofia 114, 3: 443–66.

Gantet, Claire. 2025. “Albrecht von Haller’s Self-Reviews and Style of Reasoning.” In Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799), vol. I, edited by Marco Sgarbi, 33–56. Firenze: Firenze University Press.

Gerhardt, Carl Immanuel, hrsg. von. 1860. Briefwechsel zwischen Leibniz und Christian Wolf[f] aus den Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Hannover. Halle: Schmidt (repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1963).

Laeven, Augustinus Hubertus. 1990. The ‘Acta Eruditorum’ Under the Editorship of Otto Mencke (1644-1707): The History of an International Learned Journal Between 1682 and 1707, translated by Lynne Richards. Amsterdam and Maarssen: APA-Holland University Press.

Laeven, Augustinus Hubertus, and Lucy J. M. Laeven-Aretz. 2014. The Authors and Reviewers of the Acta Eruditorum 1682–1735. Molenhoek: Electronic publication. http://hdl.handle.net/2066/125186

Léchot, Timothée. 2017. “L’extrait et ses fonctions dans la presse d’Ancien Régime.” Mémoires du livre / Studies in Book Culture 8, 2. https://doi.org/10.7202/1039696ar

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. 1710. “Annotatio de quibusdam Ludis; inprimis de Ludo quodam Sinico, differentiaque Scachici et Latrunculorum, et novo genere Ludi Navalis.” Miscellanea Berolinensia 1: 22–6.

Ludovici, Carl Günther. 1748. “Wolf, (Christian, Reichs-Frey-und Edler Herr von).” In Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschafften und Künste, vol. LVIII, 549–677. Leipzig and Halle: Zedler.

Riebow, Georg Heinrich. 1726. Fernere Erläuterung der vernünfftigen Gedancken des Herrn Hof-Rath Wolfens von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, wie auch einiger Puncte aus der Sitten-Lehre. Frankfurt and Leipzig: s.n. (repr. in GW III 70).

Sgarbi, Marco. 2025. “Introduction to Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799).” In Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799), vol. I, edited by Marco Sgarbi, 7–14. Firenze: Firenze University Press.

Thümmig, Ludwig Philipp. 1727. Meletemata varii et rarioris argumenti in unum volumen collecta. Braunschweig and Leipzig: Renger.

Wallis, John. 1699. Operum mathematicorum volumen tertium. Oxford: Sheldonian Theatre.

Wolff, Christian. 1707. “Solutio nonnullarum difficultatum circa mentem humanam obviarum, ubi simul agitur de origine notionum et facultate ratiocinandi.” Acta Eruditorum (November): 507–14 (repr. in Wolff 1755, Sect. I, 11–7).

Wolff, Christian. 1708. “Leges experientiarum fundamentales.” Acta Eruditorum (April): 163–66 (repr. in Wolff 1755, Sect. I, 18–21).

Wolff, Christian. 1709a. Aërometriae elementa, in quibus aliquot aëris vires ac proprietates juxta methodum geometrarum demonstrantur. Leipzig: Lankis (repr. in GW II 37).

Wolff, Christian. 1709b. “[Review of] Aërometriae elementa […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (Januar): 24–31 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. I, 356–63).

Wolff, Christian. 1710a. Anfangs-Gründe aller mathematischen Wissenschafften. 4 vols. Halle: Renger (repr. of the 1750–57 ed. in GW I 12–5).

Wolff, Christian. 1710b. “[Review of] Anfangs-Gründe aller mathematischen Wissenschafften […] edita a Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (November): 486–92 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. I, 497–503).

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).

Wolff, Christian. 1713b. Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Kräfften des menschlichen Verstandes und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in Erkäntnis der Wahrheit [= German Logic]. Halle: Renger.

Wolff, Christian. 1717. Specimen physicae ad theologiam naturalem adplicatae, sistens notionem intellectus divini per opera naturae illustratam. Halle: Zahn.

Wolff, Christian. 1718. Ratio praelectionum wolfianarum in mathesin et philosophiam universam. Halle: Renger (repr. of the 1735 ed. in GW II 36).

Wolff, Christian. 1719. “[Review of] Ratio praelectionum wolfianarum in mathesin et philosophiam universam.” Acta Eruditorum (March): 118–26 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. III, 1039–47).

Wolff, Christian. 1720a. “[Review of] Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (August): 371–84 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. III, 1151–64).

Wolff, Christian. 1720b. Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt [= German Metaphysics]. Halle: Renger (repr. of the 1751 ed. in GW I 2).

Wolff, Christian. 1721. “[Review of] Vernünfftige Gedancken von der Menschen Thun und Lassen […] editae a Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (Januar): 36–46 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. III, 1185–95).

Wolff, Christian. 1722. “[Review of] Allerhand nützliche Versuche […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […] Tomus I.” Acta Eruditorum (Januar): 31–6 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. III, 1263–68).

Wolff, Christian. 1723a. “[Review of] De differentia nexus rerum sapientis et fatalis necessitatis […] luculenta commentatio […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […]. Monitum ad commentationem istam […] Autore eodem […].” Acta Eruditorum (November): 510–18 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. III: 1414–22).

Wolff, Christian. 1723b. “[Review of] Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Würckungen der Natur […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (October): 468–72 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. III, 1409–13).

Wolff, Christian. 1724a. Anmerckungen über die vernünfftigen Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt. Frankfurt: Andreä (repr. of the 1740 ed. in GW I 3).

Wolff, Christian. 1724b. “[Review of] Anmerckungen über die vernünfftigen Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (July): 310–20 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. III, 1478–88).

Wolff, Christian. 1728a. Philosophia rationalis sive Logica, methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger (repr. of the 1740 ed. in GW II 1.1–1.3).

Wolff, Christian. 1728b. “[Review of] Ludovici Philippi Thummigii […], Meletemata varii et rarioris argumenti in unum volumen collecta […].” Acta Eruditorum (March): 129–33 (repr. in Wolff 2001, 1780–84).

Wolff, Christian. 1728c. “[Review of] Philosophia rationalis, sive logica, methodo scientifica pertractata […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (October): 455–68 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. IV, 1791–1804).

Wolff, Christian. 1730a. Cogitationes rationales de viribus intellectus humani earumque usu legitimo in veritatis cognitione. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger (repr. of the 1740 ed. in GW II 2).

Wolff, Christian. 1730b. Philosophia prima, sive ontologia, methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger (repr. of the 1736 ed. in GW II 3).

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).

Wolff, Christian. 1730d. “[Review of] Philosophia prima, sive ontologia, methodo scientifica pertractata […] Autore Christiano Wolfio […].” Acta Eruditorum (February): 73–86 (repr. in Wolff 2001, vol. IV, 1903–16).

Wolff, Christian. 1731a. Cosmologia generalis methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger (repr. of the 1737 ed. in GW II 4).

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).

Wolff, Christian. 1732. Psychologia empirica methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger (repr. of the 1738 ed. in GW II 5).

Wolff, Christian. 1734. Psychologia rationalis methodo scientifica pertractata. Frankfurt and Leipzig: Renger (repr. of the 1740 ed. in GW II 6).

Wolff, Christian. 1755. Meletemata mathematico-philosophica. Halle: Renger (repr. in GW II 35).

Wolff, Christian. 2001. Sämtliche Rezensionen in den Acta Eruditorum (1705–1731), hrsg. von H. A. Laeven und L. J. M. Laeven-Aretz, 5 vols. Hildesheim: Olms (GW II 38.1–38.5).

Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero matteo.favaretti@unive.it, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, 0000-0002-7276-9244

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Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero, Christian Wolff’s Reviews of His Own Books, © Author(s), CC BY 4.0, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1.07, in Pasquale Terracciano, Francesco Valerio Tommasi (edited by), Philosophical Reviews in German Territories (1668-1799). Volume 2, pp. -102, 2026, published by Firenze University Press, ISBN 979-12-215-0999-1, DOI 10.36253/979-12-215-0999-1

Nel corso del Rinascimento, l’ebraismo smise di essere semplicemente una presenza marginale o polemica nel panorama culturale cristiano, e iniziò ad affermarsi come depositario di una sapienza primigenia, capace di dialogare – e in alcuni casi di fondare – le correnti più alte del pensiero europeo. A partire da Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) e Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494), l’idea che esistesse una prisca theologia – una sapienza antica e rivelata, comune alle più nobili tradizioni religiose e filosofiche – divenne uno dei cardini della nuova cultura umanistica.1

Nel solco di questa visione si colloca una delle operazioni intellettuali più ambiziose della cultura tedesca tra XVII e XVIII secolo: la riscoperta della filosofia ebraica, non come semplice curiosità filologica o testimonianza dell’‘altro’ teologico, ma come chiave per rifondare la teologia protestante e il suo rapporto con la filosofia. Questo progetto trovò un protagonista d’eccezione in Johann Franz Budde (1667-1729), teologo luterano, che tentò di collocare la cabala e la speculazione ebraica al centro di una nuova storia della filosofia, capace di spiegare, attraverso la distinzione tra sapienza originaria, rivelazione e corruzione pagana, lo sviluppo delle eresie cristiane e i limiti dell’aristotelismo scolastico.

Budde non era solo: le sue riflessioni si collocavano all’interno di un più ampio movimento di revisione dei fondamenti dell’ortodossia luterana, in dialogo con il pietismo e la nuova filosofia illuminista. E proprio nel contesto accademico della Germania protestante – tra Halle, Lipsia, e Jena (solo per citare alcune importanti università) il suo tentativo di integrare l’ebraismo nella storia della filosofia conobbe fortuna, opposizione e oblio. Questo articolo ricostruisce il progetto filosofico e teologico di Budde, analizzando il contesto intellettuale in cui prese forma, e la sua ricezione, attraverso l’analisi di alcune recensioni, le quali ci permettono di comprendere il modo in cui venne progressivamente marginalizzato in favore di una narrazione della filosofia come tradizione puramente greco-cristiana.2

Nel 1704, all’Università di Greifswald, venne discussa una dissertatio inaugurale dal titolo provocatorio: Aristoteles utrum fuerit Iudaeus (Bollhagen e Bottiger 1704). L’autore, Laurent Bollhagen (1683-1738), si confrontava con un’antica leggenda – già presente in Eusebio di Cesarea, Origene e poi in autori del Rinascimento come Marsilio Ficino – secondo cui Aristotele sarebbe stato influenzato, se non addirittura educato, da maestri ebrei (Del Soldato 2020, 83-6; per Ficino, Bartolucci 2017, 60-1). L’obiettivo di Bollhagen non era tanto ristabilire la verità storica (che ormai nessuno metteva più in discussione), quanto misurarsi con un tema carico di implicazioni teologiche e culturali: il rapporto tra filosofia greca, tradizione ebraica e storia del cristianesimo.

Pochi anni prima, altre tesi simili erano state discusse ad Amburgo (1700) e Rostock (1705), con al centro la figura di Pitagora e la sua presunta ebraicità o conversione all’ebraismo (Mayer e Bandeco 1700; Roflerer e Buchholtz 1705). Anche in questo caso, la messa in discussione della tradizione ebraica associata al filosofo greco si era dimostrata falsa da tempo. Nonostante ciò, il rapporto tra la filosofia greca e la tradizione ebraica continuava ad essere oggetto di discussione.3 La questione non riguardava più semplicemente la confutazione erudita di affermazioni risalenti alla patristica greca, ma diventava un problema urgente all’interno del mondo accademico luterano: come conciliare la filosofia pagana con la religione cristiana. Questo dibattito investiva direttamente l’insegnamento della filosofia e il suo rapporto con la teologia, così come si era andato definendo dai tempi di Lutero fino alla fine del Seicento. In quel periodo, la Chiesa luterana si trovava a fronteggiare sfide provenienti sia dall’interno che dall’esterno: tra queste, la pubblicazione del Tractatus Theologico-Politicus di Baruch Spinoza nel 1670, l’ascesa del pietismo e le crescenti critiche all’ortodossia luterana e ai suoi presupposti aristotelici (Marchetti 2004). A partire dalla seconda metà del XVII secolo e per tutta la prima metà del XVIII, la discussione si intensificò all’interno delle università protestanti, dando origine a una vasta produzione di testi che riflettevano sul ruolo della tradizione ebraica nel contesto più ampio della tradizione filosofica occidentale.4