Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb
Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb
(1714-1762) A German thinker of the pre-Kantian period and disciple of Christian Wolff whose encyclopaedic work he tried to continue. Among his works the best known is Aesthetica in which he analyzes the problem of beauty regarded by him as recognition of perfection by means of the senses. The name of aesthetics, as the philosophy of beauty and art, was introduced by him for the first time. — R.B.W.