Baumgarten`s foundation of modern aesthetics

Abstract

The paper explains Baumgarten's foundation of modern aesthetics as the science of sensible cognition. The paper first examines mentalistic paradigm in modern philosophy as an intellectual background of Baumgarten's philosophy and aesthetics (I). This is followed by consideration of Baumgarten's definitions of aesthetics from Philosophical meditations of pertaining to some mat ters concerning poetry (1735), Me taphysics(1739) and Aesthetics (1750) (II).Finally, it considers Baumgarten's definition of aesthetics as the science of sensible cognition starting from Leibniz's theory of different stages of knowledge(III).