Christian Wolff was born in Breslau in 1679 and received his initial education there; he studied theology at Jena, then mathematics at Leipzig, where he received his master's degree. He was appointed professor of mathematics and natural science in Halle in 1706, at the recommendation of Leibniz, with whom he corresponded until the latter's death in 1716. Through his engaging teaching style and clear systematic prose, Wolff established himself as an important proponent of Enlightenment ideals at what was then the leading university in Prussia. In 1723 he was expelled by King Frederick William I, ostensibly because of the Pietists' accusations that his adherence to preestablished harmony committed him to fatalism, Spinozism, and atheism. Wolff fled to Marburg, where he continued to lecture and publish as a professor of mathematics and philosophy. In 1740 he returned to Halle at the request of Fredrick the Great, who had since taken over the throne from his father. Wolff remained in Halle until his death in 1754.

Wolff was an extraordinarily prolific writer, publishing, among many other things, a series of lengthy German textbooks from 1713 to 1725 – on logic, metaphysics, ethics, politics, physics (including cosmology), and teleology – and then reworking many of these into longer Latin versions in the 1730s and 1740s in order to gain a wider European audience, though he also penned voluminous polemical tracts on the side in his debates with the Pietists.