Baumgarten, Alexander Gottlieb (1714–62)

Author(s):  
Dabney Townsend

The German philosopher Baumgarten is known primarily for his introduction of the word ‘aesthetics’ to describe the affects of art and nature, which in the course of the seventeenth century replaced the older theory of beauty. Baumgarten derived the term from the Greek aisthanomai, which he equated with the Latin sentio (1739: 79). He understood it to designate the outer, external or bodily sense, as opposed to the inner sense of consciousness. Thus aesthetics is the realm of the sensate, of sense perception and sensible objects. Baumgarten understood his usage to be consistent with classical sources, but he was aware also that he was extending logic and science into a new realm. Baumgarten’s importance lay in adapting the rationalism of Leibniz for both the study of art and what came to be known after Kant as the aesthetic.

2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-168
Author(s):  
Kirsten Dickhaut

AbstractThe machine theatre in France achieves its peak in the second half of the seventeenth century. It is the construction of machines that permits the adequate representation of the third dimension on stage. This optical illusion is created by flying characters, as heroes, gods, or demons moving horizontally and vertically. The enumeration indicates that only characters possessing either ethically exemplary character traits or incorporating sin are allowed to fly. Therefore, the third dimension indicates bienséance – or its opposite. According to this, the following thesis is deduced: The machine theatre illustrates via aesthetic concerns characterising its third dimension an ethic foundation. Ethic and aesthetics determine each other in the context of both, decorum and in theatre practice. In order to prove this thesis three steps are taken. First of all, the machine theatre’s relationship to imitation and creation is explored. Second, the stage design, representing the aesthetic benefits of the machines in service of the third dimension, are explained. Finally, the concrete example of Pierre Corneille’s Andromède is analysed by pointing out the role of Pegasus and Perseus.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
AWEJ-tls for Translation & Literary Studies ◽  
Noureddine Friji

Utilizing Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man (1962) and Counterrevolution and Revolt (1972) as a theoretical backdrop, this article seeks to gauge the extent to which the teachings of the German philosopher and political theorist lay the groundwork for the protests mounted by the university students in David Lodge’s campus novel Changing Places (1975). Admittedly, the Student Revolution spilled over into numerous fields. However, given space restrictions, only its cultural manifestations will be examined. It will be clear that at the root of Lodge’s students’ uprising lies an overpowering urge to break with the cultural heritage and with the academics upholding it. It will be equally clear, nonetheless, that these young activists’ faith in Marcuse’s political doctrine is unwelcome to conservative academics on the ground that it has diverse adverse effects on universities. Not only are politically oriented texts and discourses given precedence over traditional ones but also teachers and administrators are, at times, hindered from doing their duties. The plausible conclusion to draw, in the light of the research’s findings, is that although cultural revolutions undeniably pave the way for a number of personal and collective achievements and help us modernize many aspects of life, they should not blind us to the enduring significance of previous cultural traditions and of the aesthetic value of literary works.


Author(s):  
Victor Terras

Aesthetics as a branch of philosophy, or in the sense of an explicitly stated theory of art, appeared in Russia no earlier than the seventeenth century, under the direct influence of Western thought. It developed in connection with the adoption of European art forms. Russian contributions in terms of original styles in all forms of art, as well as of certain aesthetic notions which may be credited to Russia, came in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and must be understood in context with European art and aesthetic thought. Russian art, music and literature, as well as the aesthetic notions guiding them, get their Russianness from the political and social background, a major factor in literature, and from a carrying over of traits found in Russian folk art, folk music and folklore, as well as in religious texts, iconography, architecture and music, whose Orthodox version is sharply distinct from their equivalents in the Roman Catholic West.


Author(s):  
Vittorio Hösle

This chapter examines the thoughts of natural philosopher Theophrastus Bombastus of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493–1541), and Jakob Böhme (1575–1624). Like most of the innovative ideas of the sixteenth century, Paracelsus's philosophical-scientific ideas belong to the time of fermentation between the collapse of Scholastic science and the emergence of the new science in the seventeenth century. The polemic against traditional medicine, especially the humoral pathology that derived from books rather than from direct experience, is conducted in a churlish manner reminiscent of Luther and with bombastic self-praise. Böhme is considered first epoch-making German philosopher of the modern period. He was a cobbler who had had experienced mystical visions and wanted to provide a deeper foundation for his traditional Lutheran piety (inspired by the Bible) through a philosophical account of the development of God, nature, and redemption through Christ.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 176-195
Author(s):  
Christoph Brunner

This article deals with the aesthetic mobilization of anonymity in Argentine activist practices. Focusing on the specific intervention of El Siluetazo, the public drawing and placarding of nameless silhouettes during the mili- tary dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, anonymity will be explored as instigating an affective politics of sensation. Different from the human rights discourse on disappearance, which is concerned with politics of identification of the disappeared and the repressors, anonymity offers forms of affective relaying beyond identity. The logic of identity will be discussed in relation to a “ distribution of the sensible” that takes aesthetics of sense perception as the target of control (Rancière, 2004). Through investigating the silhouettes not as a universal signifier of disap- pearance but as an aesthetic expression potentially moving across space and time, I will unfold a media ecological conception of activist practices and their capacities of activating transtemporal forms of resistance. 


2010 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-314
Author(s):  
Antonella D'Ovidio

During the seventeenth century, the Medici family sought to legitimize its power by using art to communicate a political message, referring constantly to a precise code of sacred imagination and religious devotion. This article focuses on Antonio Veracini – a violinist in the service of Vittoria della Rovere – and on his op. 1, which shows a perfect agreement with the aesthetic ambitions of the grand duchess and with her double role of regent and defensor fidei. In the light of recent studies that reconsider the traditional historiographical approach to what has been called the ‘bigotry’ of Cosimo III, Antonio Veracini's sonatas – in comparison with two other coeval collections of trio sonatas dedicated to Grand Prince Ferdinando (by Pietro Sanmartini and Giovan Battista Gigli) – show a full awareness of the expressive potential of the sonata, transforming it into a musical genre capable of conferring not only ‘pleasure’ and ‘delight’ but also symbolic significance within specific cultural contexts.


2010 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 237-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
JULIA BRAY

AbstractArabic biographical writing is much used as a historical source, and scholars agree that its textuality must be taken into account in evaluating its content. There is less agreement, though, on the importance of thoroughly understanding the range of processes of literary composition used by biographers. This article approaches three sets of biographies from a purely literary viewpoint: two medieval sketches of women, a Sufi and a songstress respectively; three seventeenth-century hagiographies of the physician and theosopher Dāwud al-Anṭākī; and a thirteenth-century portrait of one man of letters, al-Qifṭī, by another, Yāqūt. It concludes that the art and care devoted to shaping such commemorations of individuals is evidence of the aesthetic and cultural importance of biography as an Arabic literary genre.


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