Émilie Du Châtelet on Freedom: The Wolffian Context

Abstract

We contextualize Du Châtelet’s On Freedom (c. 1737) within the framework of Christian Wolff’s theory of free will and action. Wolff’s account resulted in a conflict with the German Pietists on whether internal spontaneity is central to free action, in its own right, or whether there needs to be some causal contribution from the will, independent of reason, to the action for that action to be free. Contextualizing Du Châtelet’s account with Wolff’s German Metaphysics (1719) and the ensuing Pietist debate helps to clarify certain puzzling parts of On Freedom; particularly ones that are concerned with the connection of the will to physical action and the issue of whether Du Châtelet supports a more compatibilist or libertarian view of freedom. Regarding the latter, we propose a conciliatory reading due to textual evidence for both compatibilist and libertarian accounts. We argue that Du Châtelet does not commit to a clear compatibilist or libertarian position in On Freedom and merely responds to what she calls the “illustrious opponents” of freedom in the text.