Baumgarten, ALEXANDER GOTTLIEB

Baumgarten, ALEXANDER GOTTLIEB, a clear and acute thinker of the school of Wolf, was born at Berlin on the 17th of July 1714, studied at Halle, and in 1740 became professor of Philosophy at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, where he died on the 26th of May 1762. He is the founder of Æsthetics (q.v.) as a systematic science of the beautiful and an integral part of philosophy. In 1750-58 he issued two volumes of his Æsthetica, but his death hindered the completion of the work. His writings in other departments of philosophy are marked by clearness and precision. He carried the dogmatic, rationalistic system of Wolf to its utmost development; his Metaphysica (Halle, 1739; 7th ed. 1779) is one of the most useful books for the study of the Wolfian philosophy. He also wrote Philo- sophia Generalis (published 1770), Ethica (1740), Jus Naturæ (1765). See Joh. Schmidt's Leibnitz und Baumgarten (Halle, 1874).