Baumgarten

Baumgarten’s contribution to the development of the aesthetic theory

Short introduction
Aesthetics as an autonomous science of the beautiful in which the object of investigation plays the major role in determining the ordering process of aesthetic theory became popular in Germany not before the 18th century.
Leibniz, Wolff and Gottsched attempted a systematic and comprehensive analysis ofthe aesthetic phenomenon. Paradoxically, however, the very philosophical premises that inspired thinkers to analyze the phenomenon of beauty tended to inhibit the establishment of aesthetics as an autonomous field of study. The reason seems to be the rationalistic roots of the early 18th century German thought.

Task of my essay
In the following pages I will try to assess Baumgarten’scontribution to the development of aesthetic theory as an independent science, taking into consideration some of the charges against him. NOTA 1
Procedure
1. First of all I will examine Baumgarten’s metaphysics and his corresponding treatment of ‘sensation’.
2. Afterwards I will examine his psychologia empirica as opposed to rational psychology.
From 1. and 2. it will become apparent how Baumgartenisolates the constituent elements of aesthetic experience and how he explains their mode of combination in such a way as to liberate aesthetics from intellectualism sufficiently to justify our designating him as the ‘father’ of modern aesthetics.
Baumgarten’s ontology is a metaphysics of essentialism according to which ‘to be’ means to be open to the conceptual power of the intellect whichexpresses itself by ascribing predicates to a subject. It could also be defined as the science of all the more general predicates of being. NOTA 2
Before going on with our investigation I think it is necessary to define the Ratio as that what gives intelligibility to a being. Between any two predicates asserted of any subject there is a relationship of Ratio- Rationatum. NOTA 3
In imitation of Leibniz,Baumgarten maintained that all predicated have their ground in an adequate conception of a subject and that they stand together as ground and consequence. NOTA 4
The undetermined determinations (the ones that do not have a Ratio) are the basic determinations called Essentialia. A complex of these essentials constitute the essence of a thing, and from its essence all its properties can bededuced. For instance, the essentials from which the essence of a triangle is determined are: lines, a plane, angles etc. From the essence there follows the less primary and more specific determinations called Affectiones. Individuality is the most determinate type of essence in a descending series of classes of categories.
There is: -the Genus
-the generic difference-the species
-the numerical difference
Baumgarten was trying to reduce that which is incommunicable and private about every individual thing to that which is communicable and in some way general. In other words, he was seeking to bring essentialism to its logical conclusion. If all knowledge about reality is of one type, the individual has to have the characteristics of a conceptif it were to find a deductive niche in Baumgarten’s dream of a logically interconnected reality. He can integrate sensation into his system but it would seem that sensation would be limited to some problems: it would seem that any cognitive determination by sensation could be understood in intellectual terms; that our sensorial experience would appear to have nothing irreducible and that could bethe subject of aesthetics.
From the above it is quite obvious that Baumgarten’s metaphysics makes any autonomy for the field of aesthetics impossible. It is rather in his psychology that his contribution to aesthetics is to be found. For him, psychology is the study of which is conscious, the soul. The objects of consciousness are representations of the universe as they occur in the soul....