Background
Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten was born on July 17, 1714 at Berlin, Germany; the son of the pietist pastor of the garrison, Jacob Baumgarten, and of his wife Rosina Elisabeth. His brother, Siegmund Jacob Baumgarten (1706 - 1757), was professor of theology at Halle, and applied the methods of Wolff to theology.
Education
Baumgarten was taught by Martin Georg Christgau where he learned Hebrew and became interested in Latin poetry. He then studied at Halle.
Career
Baumgarten 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. The principal works of Baumgarten are the following: Disputationes de nonnullis ad poema pertinentibus (1735); Aesthetica; 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.
Views
In Baumgarten’s theory, with its characteristic emphasis on the importance of feeling, much attention was concentrated on the creative act. For him it was necessary to modify the traditional claim that “art imitates nature” by asserting that artists must deliberately alter nature by adding elements of feeling to perceived reality. In this way, the creative process of the world is mirrored in their own activity.