Abstract
While Christian Wolff’s empirical psychology is distinguished by its focus on what
we can observe about the soul, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten concentrates on
the case of the I (ego), or my soul. How does this affect the relationship between
empirical and rational psychology? The intent of both authors is to start from the
empirical data collected by empirical psychology, and then to move to a more abstract
and formalistic justification of these data in rational psychology. However,
despite the undeniable methodological relevance Wolff attributes to empirical data
as the beginning of the cognitive process, rationalistic formalism still seems irreducible
in his conception of experience. Baumgarten’s rational psychology also cannot
avoid relying on the observations and the consequent definitions stated in empirical
psychology, but Baumgarten’s employment of the I within the Psychologia empirica
can be regarded as testifying to his deeper concern of the knowing subject in his
sensible experience. Baumgarten’s concept of experience, even if apparently similar
to Wolff’s, is indeed much more focused on the possibility of discovering a form of
rationality that is peculiarly detectable from the sensible experience of the singular
I. Thus, since Wolff’s concept of perception still relies on attention, he partially underpins
even the possibility of experience on purely rational principles. Baumgarten
instead puts his treatment of the “Sensus” soon after the exposition of the inferior
cognitive faculty, as an independent source of the “Scientia sensitive cognoscendi et
proponendi”, a discipline that he defines as Aesthetics.
Lingua originale | English |
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Titolo della pubblicazione ospite | From Hamann to Kierkegaard |
Pagine | 21-36 |
Numero di pagine | 16 |
Stato di pubblicazione | Pubblicato - 2017 |
Evento | First Workshop of the international Project “Experimentation and Dissidence” - Università di Lisbona Durata: 15 dic 2016 → 16 dic 2016 |
Workshop
Workshop | First Workshop of the international Project “Experimentation and Dissidence” |
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Città | Università di Lisbona |
Periodo | 15/12/16 → 16/12/16 |
Keywords
- Baumgarten, Wolff, Kant, Empirical Psychology, Rational Psychology, Subjectivity, Aesthetics