BAUMGARTEN

baumgarten, alexander gottlieb (1714-1762), german philosopher, born at berlin. he studied at halle, and became professor of philosophy at halle and at frankfort on the oder, where he died in 1762. he was a disciple of leibnitz and wolff, and was particularly distinguished as having been the first to establish the _theory of the beautiful_ as an independent science. baumgarten did good service in severing aesthetics (q.v.) from the other philosophic disciplines, and in marking out a definite object for its researches. the very name (_aesthetics_), which baumgarten was the first to use, indicates the imperfect and partial nature of his analysis, pointing as it does to an element so variable as _feeling_ or _sensation_ as the ultimate ground of judgment in questions pertaining to beauty. it is important to notice that baumgarten's first work preceded those of burke, diderot, and p. andre, and that kant had a great admiration for him. the principal works of baumgarten are the following: _dispulationes de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus_ (1735); _aesthetics; metaphysica_ (1739; 7th ed. 1779); _ethica philosophica_ (1751, 2nd ed. 1763); _initia philosophiae practicae primae_ (1760). after his death, his pupils published a _philosophia generalis_ (1770) and a _jus naturae_ (1765), which he had left in manuscript. see meyer, _baumgarten's leben_ (1763); abbt, _baumgarten's leben und charakler_ (1765); h.g. meyer, _leibnitz und baumgarten_ (1874); j. schmidt, _leibnitz und baumgarten_ (halle, 1875); and article aesthetics. his brother, siegmund jacob baumgarten (1706-1757), was professor of theology at halle, and applied the methods of wolff to theology. his chief pupil, johann salomo semler (q.v.), is sometimes called, the father of german rationalism. baumgarten, though he did not renounce the pietistic doctrine, began the process which semler completed. his works include _evangelische glaubenslehre_ (1759); _auszug der kirchengeschichte_ (1743-1762); _primae lineae breviarii anliquitatum christianarum_ (1747); _geschichte der religionsparteien_ (1760); _nachricht van merkwurdigen buchern_ (1752-1757); _nachrichten van einer hallischen bibliothek_ (1748-1751). see life by semler (halle, 1758).