This volume investigates the historical, conceptual and lexical evolution of ontology in the context of German-speaking Protestant and Reformed scholasticism (Schulmetaphysik) in the years following the publication of the Elementa Philosophiae sive Ontosophia (1647) by the Calvinist Johannes Clauberg (1622-1665). The work, reissued in 1660 and 1664, is one of the most systematic treatises on ontology of the time.
This study, starting from the current framework of our knowledge of the first phase in the history of ontology – from the coining of the term in 1606 to the publication of the Elementa Philosophia sive Ontosophia in 1647 – aims to investigate the ‘second half’ of this history, i.e. the years following the reception and dissemination of Claubergian works in the context of Schulmetaphysik, and ranging roughly from the 1660s to the end of the century, without excluding the first decade of the 18th century, in which a number of significant events took place: Lange’s Dissertatio academica, focusing on the outcomes of ontology, and Ott’s Brevis Epitome Praeceptorum Scientiae Metaphysicae, the last work belonging to the Claubergian tradition, were published in 1708. Beyond this timespan, it is already possible to glimpse the context inspired by the new instances of the Frühaufklärung, with the role of Wolff, one of its most important exponents, intent on dialoguing with the late Schulmetaphysik.