10 Facts About Gabriel Wagner

Gabriel Wagner held radical political views critical of the nobility and monarchy.

Gabriel Wagner believed that both education and philosophy should be modernized and focus on mathematics, physics and medicine, but not theology.

Gabriel Wagner instead advocated reason, the most "godly" aspect of humankind, as a means of eradicating superstition.

Gabriel Wagner therefore celebrated advances in science facilitated by Descartes and even considered himself a Cartesian, though he disagreed with the latter's Christian metaphysical beliefs and even sought to undermine them.

Deeply influenced by Spinoza, Gabriel Wagner placed even greater emphasis on the importance of experimentation and empiricism in developing knowledge.

Gabriel Wagner held radical political beliefs, advocating a restructuring of society according to more egalitarian principles and advocating greater emphasis on administration, education and culture.

Gabriel Wagner contested that aristocracy by birth was inferior to intellectual achievement.

Gabriel Wagner believed that Germany's fragmentary political system resulted in a weak and mismanaged government.

Gabriel Wagner is known for his longstanding correspondence with Leibniz, and his erudition and innovative understanding of philosophy and natural sciences during his time, according to historian Cornelio Fabro.

Historian Jonathan Israel writes that Gabriel Wagner is an important materialist philosopher of the late 17th and early 18th centuries, and an example of both radical philosophy and atheism produced by the growing university system of the period.