German Aesthetics at Mid-Century

Paul Guyer

doi:10.1017/CBO9781107110342.011

7 - German Aesthetics at Mid-Century

from Part Three - German Aesthetics between Wolff and Kant

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2015

Paul Guyer

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Paul Guyer: Affiliation:
Brown University, Rhode Island

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Summary

Mendelssohn

In a 1757 review of Meier’s abridgment of his main work, thus entitled the Extract from the Foundations of all fine Arts and Sciences, Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) wrote the following about the work of Baumgarten, of whom he took Meier to be a mere expositor:

It seems to us that the inventor of this science has not delivered everything to the world that his explanation of the word aesthetics promised. Aesthetics is supposed to contain the science of beautiful cognition in general, the theory of all the fine sciences and arts; all of its explanations and doctrines must therefore be so general that they could be applied to each fine art in particular without force.... But if one considers the aesthetics of Herr Professor Baumgarten or the “Foundations” of Herr Meier (for the latter are nothing but a more extensive exposition of the former), then it seems as if in the whole organization of the work they have had their eye only on ... poetry and eloquence.... But these clues will not take us very far. Just as little as the philosopher can discover the appearances of nature, without examples from experience, merely through a priori inferences, so little can he establish appearances in the beautiful world, if one can thus express oneself, without diligent observations. The securest path of all, just as in the theory of nature, is this: One must assume certain experiences, explain their ground through an hypothesis, then test this hypothesis against experiences from a quite different species, and only assume those hypotheses to be general principles which have thus held their ground; one must finally seek to explain these principles in the theory of nature through the nature of bodies and motion, but in aesthetics through the nature of the lower powers of our soul.

Type: Chapter
Information: A History of Modern Aesthetics , pp. 341 - 376

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107110342.011 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2014

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