ABSTRACT
In this chapter, Alessandro Nannini deals with the relationship between the concept of experience and the birth of modern aesthetics as a discipline by focusing on Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–1762). With particular reference to early eighteenth-century philosophy (Buddeus, Syrbius, Wolff, Hanov, and Hagen), Nannini examines the new sensuous concept of experience, emphasizing its background in both the natural sciences and experimental theology. Against this backdrop, Nannini explores how Baumgarten integrates the new conception of experience into his project of aesthetics as the science of sensible knowledge, making a case for the importance of aesthetics in both the theorization and the practical training of experience. In this sense, it is argued, Baumgarten’s aesthetics aims to provide the various types of experimentalism, ranging from natural science to theology, with a unified epistemological framework. In addition, Nannini demonstrates that Baumgarten held that aestheticians should not limit themselves to studying the sensuous basis of experiments but should also conduct experiments in order to achieve the highest goal of aesthetics, that is, beauty.
