Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten

Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (July 17, 1714 – May 26, 1762) was a German philosopher. He was a follower of Leibniz and Christian Wolff, and gave the term aesthetics its modern meaning.

Baumgarten was born in Berlin as the fifth of seven sons of the pietist pastor of the garrison, Jacob Baumgarten and his wife Rosina Elisabeth. Both his parents died early and he was taught by Martin Georg Christgau where he learned Hebrew and got interested in Latin Poetry. Whilst words may change their meaning through cultural developments anyway, Baumgarten's reappraisal of aesthetics is often seen as the key moment in the development of aesthetic philosophy. Previously the word had merely meant 'perceptions' 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 lead to the question, 'what is good art'. Baumgarten developed aesthetics to mean the study of good and bad perceptions, thus good and bad art, linking good perceptions with beauty.

By Trying to develop an idea of good and bad perceptions, 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 basis for comparison or reason from which one could develop an objective argument.

Works

• Dissertatio chorographica, Notiones superi et inferi, indeque adscensus et descensus, in chorographiis sacris occurentes, evolvens (1735)
• Meditationes philosophicae de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (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)-1758)
• Initia Philosophiae Practicae. Primae Acroamatice (1760)
• Acroasis logica in Christianum L.B. de Wolff (1761)
• 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 (übers. Georg Friedrich Meier 1776)
• Gedanken über die Reden Jesu nach dem Inhalt der evangelischen Geschichten (ed. F.G. Scheltz & A.B. Thiele; 1796-1797)

References and Further Reading

• Townsend, Dabney (1998). Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved March 27, 2007, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/M013.

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