Aesthetics as a philosophical science: rethinking of the ideas Baumgarten’s ideas

Abstract

The author, given the insufficient coverage of the significance of A. G. Baumgarten in Russian literature, which acquired the status of a secondary philosopher in the great history of philosophical thought, sought to emphasize the anthropological significance of the work of the philosopher as the founder of the science of aesthetics. To this end, the author cites the words of the somaesthetics R. Shusterman about the significance of the Baumgarten theory of sensory knowledge, refers to the axiological vision of the aesthetic foundations of Baumgarten L. N. Stolovich, refers to the philosophical interpretation of the aesthetics of V. F. Asmus and others. The introduction presents the origins of the theory of sensory knowledge, which, according to Baumgarten, should consist of clear and distinct concepts, which was the task of aesthetics as a science. The ideas of rationalistic idealism, in particular Leibniz, Wolf, were in the zone of close attention of many philosophers and geniuses of the art of the Enlightenment, the time of Baumgarten. In the main part of the article, some of the foundations of the aesthetics of A. G. Baumgarten on the basis of partly translated into Russian paragraphs from a huge six hundred pages of work «Aesthetics», partially given in the publication «History of Aesthetics. Monuments of world aesthetic thought». The author draws attention to the dignity of Baumgarten’s aesthetic views, seeing in them a value attitude to the human sensory world and art as a way of human interaction with the world. The main thing has been done by Baumgarten: the theoretical and practical significance of aesthetics as a science has been singled out, which is defined as a science of not only sensory cognition, the highest goal of which is beauty, but a science that reveals the ideally material problems of sensual-expressive forms, thoughts of educating a real aesthetics, aspiring to the perfect and cognizing science of art in the world of beauty, of the dialectics of the beautiful and the ugly, etc. In conclusion, the author, rethinking the meaning of the philosopher, once again wanted to emphasize the value of the aesthetic foundations examined by him, requiring a greater connection with anthropology.

Keywords

• a. g. baumgarten
• aesthetics
• sensory cognition
• philosophy of art
• axiological anthropology