An Edition and a critical Commentary of Erhard Weigels Writings on God, Time and Existence within the Framework of an already begun complete Edition of his most important works

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann
• Subject Area: History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2014 to 2017
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 253375659

I appeal for the funding of a critically commented edition of several small Latin treatises of Erhard Weigel on God, Time and Existence that shall be collected into an omnibus volume. That volume will appear within the framework of a projected edition of his most important works. The mathematician, astronomer and philosopher from Jena who had been the teacher of Leibniz and Pufendorf had an enormous influence on the philosophical thought of the 17. and 18. century and is looked upon as one of the mentors of a non-classical school-education and of the idea of the academy. Nonetheless his extensive work had not as yet been published in a modern edition. Funded by the DFG the first steps to bring out a critically commented edition were done by the edition of the Universi Corporis Pansophici Caput Summum, the Arithmetische Beschreibung der Moral-Weißheit von Personen und Sachen, the Analysis Aristotelica ex Euclide restituta, the Philosophia Mathematica Theologia Naturalis Solida and at present by the Wienerische Tugend-Spiegel. That work shall be continued by the edition of the treatises on God, Time and existence. In two of them that figured as Weigels Dissertatio pro loco he develops a non-essentialist concept of existence which is understood as affection of any true being and which is determined by the modes of duration and of space. Weigel finally identifies duration and existence; and in his treatises on pansophic physics and philosophy of body he bases on it a mathematic proof of divine existence. From the experience of permanent temporal flux that proof gathers the existence of a permanent being exempt from the change of existence that recreates the world from nothing and keeps it up in any instance (creatio continua). It is well known that this proof aroused the interest of Leibniz who knew its argumentation before the extensive version of that proof in the Wienerische Tugend-Spiegel was published: This may be infered from his philosophic correspondence of the seventies on this matter that refers to the abovementioned small treatises and in peculiar to the Theodixis Pythagorica of 1675. The Text is opened up by a philologic annotation in the footnotes and an explaining annotation at the end of the text; in addition to it indexes will facilitate the orientation. In addition to a general introduction into the omnibus volume special introductions of the single treatises will feature their history, structure and content.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants