Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten - Wikipedia Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Born 17 July 1714 Berlin, Brandenburg Died 27 May 1762(1762-05-27) (aged 47) Frankfurt (Oder), Brandenburg Education University of Halle University of Jena (no degree) Era 18th-century philosophy Region Western philosophy School Age of Enlightenment Institutions University of Halle Alma Mater Viadrina Academic advisors Christian Wolff Johann Peter Reusch [de] Notable students Georg Friedrich Meier Main interests Aesthetics Notable ideas Aesthetics as the perfection of sensuous cognition[1][2] Influences Gottfried Leibniz, Christian Wolff Influenced Immanuel Kant, Georg Friedrich Meier, Johann Georg Sulzer, Johann Joachim Winckelmann Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (/ˈbaʊmɡɑːrtən/; German: [ˈbaʊmˌgaɐ̯tn̩]; 17 July[3] 1714 – 27 May[3] 1762) was a German philosopher. He was a brother to theologian Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten (1706–1757). Contents 1 Biography 2 Philosophical work 2.1 Views on aesthetics 3 Reception 4 Metaphysics 5 Works 5.1 English translations 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links Biography[edit] Baumgarten was born in Berlin as the fifth of seven sons of the pietist pastor of the garrison, Jacob Baumgarten, and of his wife Rosina Elisabeth. Both his parents died early, and he was taught by Martin Georg Christgau where he learned Hebrew and became interested in Latin poetry. In 1733, during his formal studies at the University of Halle, he attended lectures on the philosophy of Christian Wolff by Johann Peter Reusch [de] at the University of Jena.[4][5] Philosophical work[edit] While the meanings of words often change as a result of cultural developments, Baumgarten's reappraisal of aesthetics is often seen as a key moment in the development of aesthetic philosophy.[6] Previously the word aesthetics had merely meant "sensibility" or "responsiveness to stimulation of the senses" in its use by ancient writers. With the development of art as a commercial enterprise linked to the rise of a nouveau riche class across Europe, the purchasing of art inevitably led to the question, "what is good art?". Baumgarten developed aesthetics to mean the study of good and bad "taste", thus good and bad art, linking good taste with beauty. By trying to develop an idea of good and bad taste, he also in turn generated philosophical debate around this new meaning of aesthetics. Without it, there would be no basis for aesthetic debate as there would be no objective criterion, basis for comparison, or reason from which one could develop an objective argument. Views on aesthetics[edit] Aesthetica (1750) by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Baumgarten appropriated the word aesthetics, which had always meant "sensation", to mean taste or "sense" of beauty. In so doing, he gave the word a different significance, thereby inventing its modern usage. The word had been used differently since the time of the ancient Greeks to mean the ability to receive stimulation from one or more of the five bodily senses. In his Metaphysic, § 607,[7] Baumgarten defined taste, in its wider meaning, as the ability to judge according to the senses, instead of according to the intellect. Such a judgment of taste he saw as based on feelings of pleasure or displeasure. A science of aesthetics would be, for Baumgarten, a deduction of the rules or principles of artistic or natural beauty from individual "taste". Baumgarten may have been motivated to respond to Pierre Bonhours' opinion, published in a pamphlet in the late 17th century, that Germans were incapable of appreciating art and beauty. Reception[edit] In 1781, Kant declared that Baumgarten's aesthetics could never contain objective rules, laws, or principles of natural or artistic beauty. The Germans are the only people who presently (1781) have come to use the word aesthetic[s] to designate what others call the critique of taste. They are doing so on the basis of a false hope conceived by that superb analyst Baumgarten. He hoped to bring our critical judging of the beautiful under rational principles, and to raise the rules for such judging to the level of a lawful science. Yet that endeavor is futile. For, as far as their principal sources are concerned, those supposed rules or criteria are merely empirical. Hence they can never serve as determinate a priori laws to which our judgment of taste must conform. It is, rather, our judgment of taste which constitutes the proper test for the correctness of those rules or criteria. Because of this it is advisable to follow either of two alternatives. One of these is to stop using this new name aesthetic[s] in this sense of critique of taste, and to reserve the name aesthetic[s] for the doctrine of sensibility that is true science. (In doing so we would also come closer to the language of the ancients and its meaning. Among the ancients the division of cognition into aisthētá kai noētá [sensed or thought] was quite famous.) The other alternative would be for the new aesthetic[s] to share the name with speculative philosophy. We would then take the name partly in its transcendental meaning, and partly in the psychological meaning. (Critique of Pure Reason, A 21, note.) Nine years later, in his Critique of Judgment, Kant conformed to Baumgarten's new usage and employed the word aesthetic to mean the judgment of taste or the estimation of the beautiful. For Kant, an aesthetic judgment is subjective in that it relates to the internal feeling of pleasure or displeasure and not to any qualities in an external object. In 1897, Leo Tolstoy, in his What is Art?, criticized Baumgarten's book on aesthetics. Tolstoy opposed "Baumgarten's trinity — Good, Truth and Beauty…."[8] Tolstoy asserted that "these words not only have no definite meaning, but they hinder us from giving any definite meaning to existing art…."[8] Baumgarten, he said, claimed that there are three ways to know perfection: "Beauty is the perfect (the absolute) perceived by the senses. Truth is the perfect perceived by reason. The good is the perfect attained by the moral will."[9] Tolstoy, however, contradicted Baumgarten's theory and claimed that good, truth, and beauty have nothing in common and may even oppose each other. …the arbitrary uniting of these three concepts served as a basis for the astonishing theory according to which the difference between good art, conveying good feelings, and bad art, conveying wicked feelings, was totally obliterated, and one of the lowest manifestations of art, art for mere pleasure…came to be regarded as the highest art. And art became, not the important thing it was intended to be, but the empty amusement of idle people.(What is Art?, VII.) Whatever the limitations of Baumgarten's theory of aesthetics, Frederick Copleston credits him with playing a formative role in German aesthetics, extending Christian Wolff's philosophy to topics that Wolff did not consider, and demonstrating the existence of a legitimate topic for philosophical analysis that could not be reduced to abstract logical analysis.[10] Metaphysics[edit] For many years, Kant used Baumgarten's Metaphysica as a handbook or manual for his lectures on that topic. Georg Friedrich Meier translated the Metaphysics from Latin to German, an endeavour which - according to Meier - Baumgarten himself had planned, but could not find the time to execute. Works[edit] Dissertatio chorographica, Notiones superi et inferi, indeque adscensus et descensus, in chorographiis sacris occurentes, evolvens (1735) Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (doctoral thesis, 1735) De ordine in audiendis philosophicis per triennium academicum quaedam praefatus acroases proximae aestati destinatas indicit Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1738) Metaphysica (1739) Ethica philosophica (1740) Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten eröffnet Einige Gedancken vom vernünfftigen Beyfall auf Academien, und ladet zu seiner Antritts-Rede [...] ein (1740) Serenissimo potentissimo principi Friderico, Regi Borussorum marchioni brandenburgico S. R. J. archicamerario et electori, caetera, clementissimo dominio felicia regni felicis auspicia, a d. III. Non. Quinct. 1740 (1740) Philosophische Briefe von Aletheophilus (1741) Scriptis, quae moderator conflictus academici disputavit, praefatus rationes acroasium suarum Viadrinarum reddit Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1743) Aesthetica (1750) Initia Philosophiae Practicae. Primae Acroamatice (1760) Acroasis logica in Christianum L.B. de Wolff (1761, 2nd ed. 1773) Ius naturae (posthum 1763) Sciagraphia encyclopaedia philosophicae (ed. Johs. Christian Foerster 1769) Philosophia generalis (ed. Johs. Christian Foerster 1770) Alex. Gottl. Baumgartenii Praelectiones theologiae dogmaticae (ed. Salomon Semmler; 1773) Metaphysica (translated by Georg Friedrich Meier 1766) Gedanken über die Reden Jesu nach dem Inhalt der evangelischen Geschichten (ed. F.G. Scheltz & A.B. Thiele; 1796–1797) English translations[edit] Alexander Baumgarten, Metaphysics. A Critical Translation with Kant's Elucidations, Selected Notes, and Related Materials translated and edited by Courtney D. Fugate and John Hymers, London, New York: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013. Notes[edit] ^ Alexander Baumgarten, Aesthetica, 1750, §1: "Aesthetices finis est perfectio cognitionis sensitivae". ^ Steven Nadler (ed.), A Companion to Early Modern Philosophy, John Wiley & Sons, 2008, p. 622. ^ a b Jan Lekschas, The Baumgarten Family Archived 2019-01-24 at the Wayback Machine ^ Robert Theis, Alexander Aichele (eds.), Handbuch Christian Wolff, Springer-Verlag, 2017, p. 442. ^ Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762) ^ Caygill, Howard (1982). Aesthetics and Civil Society: Theories of Art and Society, 1640-1790. University of Sussex. ^ Metaphysics: A Critical Translation with Kant's Elucidations ^ a b What is Art?, VII ^ What is Art?, III ^ Frederick Copleston (1946–1975). A History of Philosophy, vol. VI. References[edit] Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. Further reading[edit] Eric Watkins (ed.), Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: Background Source Materials, Cambridge University Press, 2009 (Chapter 3 contains a partial translation of the 'Metaphysics'). External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. Baumgarten and Kant on Metaphysics 2018 Courtney D. Fugate (Editor), John Hymers (Editor) Jan Lekschas, The Baumgarten Family (in German) Alexander Gottilieb Baumgarten (1714-1762) (in German) v t e Aesthetics topics Philosophers Abhinavagupta Theodor W. Adorno Leon Battista Alberti Thomas Aquinas Hans Urs von Balthasar Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten Clive Bell Bernard Bosanquet Edward Bullough R. G. Collingwood Ananda Coomaraswamy Arthur Danto John Dewey Denis Diderot Hubert Dreyfus Curt John Ducasse Thierry de Duve Roger Fry Nelson Goodman Clement Greenberg Georg Hegel Martin Heidegger David Hume Immanuel Kant Paul Klee Susanne Langer Theodor Lipps György Lukács Jean-François Lyotard Joseph Margolis Jacques Maritain Thomas Munro Friedrich Nietzsche José Ortega y Gasset Dewitt H. Parker Stephen Pepper David Prall Jacques Rancière Ayn Rand Louis Lavelle George Lansing Raymond I. A. Richards George Santayana Friedrich Schiller Arthur Schopenhauer Roger Scruton Irving Singer Rabindranath Tagore Giorgio Vasari Morris Weitz Johann Joachim Winckelmann Richard Wollheim more... Theories Classicism Evolutionary aesthetics Historicism Modernism New Classical Postmodernism Psychoanalytic theory Romanticism Symbolism more... Concepts Aesthetic emotions Aesthetic interpretation Art manifesto Avant-garde Axiology Beauty Boredom Camp Comedy Creativity Cuteness Disgust Ecstasy Elegance Entertainment Eroticism Fun Gaze Harmony Judgement Kama Kitsch Life imitating art Magnificence Mimesis Perception Quality Rasa Recreation Reverence Style Sthayibhava Sublime Taste Work of art Related Aesthetics of music Applied aesthetics Architecture Art Arts criticism Feminist aesthetics Gastronomy History of painting Humour Japanese aesthetics Literary merit Mathematical beauty Mathematics and architecture Mathematics and art Medieval aesthetics Music theory Neuroesthetics Painting Patterns in nature Philosophy of design Philosophy of film Philosophy of music Poetry Sculpture Theory of painting Theory of art Tragedy Visual arts Index Outline Category  Philosophy portal Authority control BIBSYS: 90320243 BNE: XX849892 BNF: cb11990555c (data) GND: 118507605 ISNI: 0000 0001 0915 1735 LCCN: n81147170 NDL: 00462935 NKC: jn20011018227 NLI: 000016583 NLK: KAC201620081 NLP: A12581653 NTA: 070256888 PLWABN: 9810657639705606 SELIBR: 176928 SUDOC: 02797765X ULAN: 500314012 VcBA: 495/138384 VIAF: 73862436 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n81147170 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alexander_Gottlieb_Baumgarten&oldid=997569235" Categories: 1714 births 1762 deaths Writers from Berlin People from the Margraviate of Brandenburg 18th-century philosophers 18th-century Protestants German philosophers Philosophers of art University of Halle alumni University of Jena alumni University of Halle faculty Viadrina European University faculty 18th-century German male writers Hidden categories: Webarchive template wayback links Articles with hCards Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Commons category link from Wikidata Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLK identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLP identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with ULAN identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Languages العربية تۆرکجه Беларуская Български Bosanski Català Čeština Dansk Deutsch Eesti Ελληνικά Español Esperanto فارسی Français Galego 한국어 हिन्दी Hrvatski Italiano עברית Қазақша Кыргызча Latina Lietuvių Magyar Македонски مصرى Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Norsk nynorsk Polski Português Română Русский Slovenčina Slovenščina Српски / srpski Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски Suomi Svenska Türkçe Українська اردو 中文 Edit links This page was last edited on 1 January 2021, at 04:43 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia Mobile view Developers Statistics Cookie statement