Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

In the Wake of Clio

Alexander G. Baumgarten on History

Auf den Spuren von Clio

Alexander G. Baumgartens Beitrag zur Geschichte

  • Beitrag
  • Published:
Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

In the present paper, I intend to analyse Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s conception of history. Investigating the various passages in which Baumgarten deals with history, I argue for its relevance both for Baumgarten’s philosophy and for the intellectual history of the German Enlightenment. The essay is divided into three parts: in the first section, I examine Baumgarten’s theory of history, so as to interpret it within the coeval debate. In the second section, I look at Baumgarten’s activity as a militant historian during the Seven Years’ War, commenting upon his work Zur alten Geschichte des Vaterlandes which has hitherto escaped scholars’ attention. In the last section, I show the mutual influence of history and aesthetics, insofar as history constitutes a crucial subject for the beautiful mind, while aesthetics enables the historian to come to terms with the fictitious facticity of the past.

Zusammenfassung

In der vorliegenden Arbeit beabsichtige ich, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens Auffassung der Geschichte zu analysieren. Indem ich den verschiedenen Stellen nachgehe, wo Baumgarten sich mit der Fragestellung Geschichte/Historie beschäftigt, argumentiere ich für ihre Bedeutung sowohl für Baumgartens Philosophie als auch für die Geistesgeschichte der deutschen Aufklärung. Der Aufsatz gliedert sich in drei Teile: In der ersten Sektion untersuche ich Baumgartens Theorie der Geschichte, um sie im Lichte ihrer zeitgenössischen Debatte zu interpretieren. In der zweiten Sektion bespreche ich Baumgartens Tätigkeit als militanter Historiker während des Siebenjährigen Kriegs, und dabei kommentiere ich sein Werk Zur alten Geschichte des Vaterlandes, das der Aufmerksamkeit der Forscher bisher entgangen ist. In der letzten Sektion erforsche ich den wechselseitigen Einfluss von Geschichte und Ästhetik, insofern Geschichte ein zentrales Thema für den schönen Geist darstellt, während Ästhetik es dem Historiker ermöglicht, sich mit der fiktiven Faktizität der Vergangenheit auseinanderzusetzen.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. The original intention of the author was to publish this book as the first volume of a work entitled Kants Kritik der Urteilskraft. Ihre Geschichte und Systematik, Halle 1923. In the afterword of the second edition, which only records the cited title (Alfred Baeumler, Das Irrationalitätsproblem in der Ästhetik und Logik des 18. Jahrhunderts bis zur Kritik der Urteilskraft, Darmstadt 1967), Baeumler explains the reasons for the interruption of his project.

  2. Baeumler (note 1), 1–2. See Salvatore Tedesco, Il metodo e la storia, Palermo 2006, 36–41; Giuseppe D’Acunto, »Alfred Baeumler: per un’estetica dell’individualità«, Aisthesis 10/2 (2017), 31–37. See in general Alain Renaud, L’ère de l’individu, Paris 1989.

  3. Baeumler (note 1), 2.

  4. Baeumler (note 1), 3–4.

  5. Aristotle, De Anima, II, 5, 417b22–23; Metaphysica, VII, 10, 1036a2–6.

  6. See for example John Buridan, Quaestiones super octo libros Physicorum Aristotelis (secundum ultimam lecturam). Libri I–II, ed. Michiel Streijger, Paul J. J. M. Bakker, Leiden/Boston 2015, 11.

  7. Christian Wolff, Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, Halle 1720, § 991.

  8. Baeumler (note 1), 15.

  9. Baeumler (note 1), 15. On this aspect, see also Rodolphe Gasché, »Of aesthetic and historical determination«, in: Derek Attridge, Geon Bennington, Robert Young (eds.), Post-Structuralism and the Question of History, Cambridge 1987, 139–161.

  10. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Aesthetica, Traiecti cis Viadrum 1750, § 1: »Aesthetica <…> est scientia cognitionis sensitivae«.

  11. Johann Martin Chladenius, Allgemeine Geschichtswissenschaft, Leipzig 1752. On the scientification of history in the eighteenth century, see for instance Andreas Kraus, Vernunft und Geschichte. Die Bedeutung der deutschen Akademien für die Entwicklung der Geschichtswissenschaft im späten 18. Jahrhundert, Basel/Wien 1965; Horst Dreitzel, »Die Entwicklung der Historie zur Wissenschaft«, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 8/3 (1981), 257–284; Wolfgang Hardtwig, »Die Verwissenschaftlichung der Geschichtsschreibung und die Ästhetisierung der Darstellung«, in: Reinhart Koselleck, Heinrich Lutz, Jörn Rüsen (eds.), Formen der Geschichtsschreibung, München 1982, 147–191; Peter Hanns Reill, »Die Geschichtswissenschaft um die Mitte des 18. Jahrhunderts«, in: Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.), Wissenschaften im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, Göttingen 1985, 163–193; Konrad Jarausch, »The Institutionalization of History in Eighteenth-Century Germany«, in: Hans Erich Bödeker, Georg G. Iggers, Jonathan B. Knudsen, Peter Hanns Reill (eds.), Aufklärung und Geschichte: Studien zur deutschen Geschichtswissenschaft im 18. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 1986, 25–48; Horst Walter Blanke, Dirk Fleischer, »Artikulation bürgerlichen Emanzipationsstrebens und der Verwissenschaftlichungsprozeß der Historie. Grundzüge der deutschen Aufklärungshistorie und die Aufklärungshistorik«, in: Horst Walter Blanke, Dirk Fleischer (eds.), Theoretiker der deutschen Aufklärungshistorie, I, Die theoretische Begründung der Geschichte als Fachwissenschaft, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990, 19–102; the various articles included in Wolfgang Küttler, Jörn Rüsen, Ernst Schulin (eds.), Geschichtsdiskurs, II, Die Anfänge des modernen historischen Denkens, Frankfurt a. M. 1994; Daniel Fulda, Wissenschaft aus Kunst. Die Entstehung der modernen deutschen Geschichtsschreibung 1760–1860, Berlin/New York, 1996. See also in general Fritz Wagner, Die Anfänge der modernen Geschichtswissenschaft im 17. Jahrhundert, München 1979; Notker Hammerstein, Jus und Historie. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des historischen Denkens an deutschen Universitäten im späten 17. und im 18. Jahrhundert, Göttingen 1972; Peter Hanns Reill, The German Enlightenment and the Rise of Historicism, Berkeley/Los Angeles/London 1975; Georg G. Iggers, »The University of Göttingen (1760–1800) and the Transformation of Historical Scholarship«, Storia della storiografia 2 (1982), 11–37; Ulrich Muhlack, Geschichtswissenschaft im Humanismus und in der Aufklärung. Die Vorgeschichte des Historismus, München 1991; Frederick C. Beiser, The German Historicist Tradition, New York 2011, especially the Introduction and the first three chapters; Martin Gierl, Geschichte als präzisierte Wissenschaft. Johann Christoph Gatterer und die Historiographie des 18. Jahrhunderts im ganzen Umfang, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2012.

  12. In this sense, it is interesting that Karl Friedrich Flögel enhanced the paired birth of the two sciences as two parts of special logic, one dealing with the rules of common historical knowledge and the other with beautiful knowledge, see Karl Friedrich Flögel, Einleitung in die Erfindungskunst, Breßlau/Leipzig 1760, § 194.

  13. For a wider contextualization of the theme, see especially Arno Seifert, Cognitio historica. Die Geschichte als Namengeberin der frühneuzeitlichen Empirie, Berlin 1976.

  14. Christian Wolff, Vernünfftige Gedancken von den Kräfften des menschlichen Verstandes, Halle 1713, 2–3.

  15. Wolff (note 14), 6–7.

  16. Christian Wolff, Mathematisches Lexicon, Leipzig 1716, coll. 460–465, here: 464–465.

  17. Christian Wolff, Ratio praelectionum wolfianarum in mathesin et philosophiam universam, Halae 1718, 8; see also 111.

  18. Wolff’s follower Georg Bernhard Bilfinger considers cognitio vulgaris as the lower degree of historical knowledge, a degree that neglects antecedent, concomitant and subsequent circumstances of an occurrence, as it often happens in everyday life; vulgar historical knowledge is therefore different from a more circumspect kind of knowledge, typical of scientific observations and experiments, see Georg Bernhard Bilfinger, De triplici rerum cognitione, historica, philosophica, et mathematica, Ienae 1722, §§ 16 ff. On his part, Wolff will distinguish between »cognitio historica communis« and »cognitio historica arcana«, see Christian Wolff, Discursus praeliminaris de philosophia in genere, in: Christian Wolff, Philosophia rationalis sive Logica, Francofurti et Lipsiae 1728, § 21.

  19. As is clear in Bilfinger and in Wolff’s later works, this means that the very same things can be known on the basis of each of these three epistemic modes, see Bilfinger (note 18), § 12; Wolff (note 18), § 17.

  20. Wolff (note 17), 111–113. In Bilfinger, historical knowledge belongs to those who »experientia sive propria sive aliena docti, quid factum sit, aut fieri soleat, ita cognoverunt, ut caussas rei, quare fiat, aut fieri possit, non simul intelligant«, see Bilfinger (note 18), § 11.

  21. Bilfinger (note 18), § 13.

  22. Wolff (note 18), §§ 3; 21.

  23. Wolff (note 18), §§ 8; 15.

  24. Wolff (note 18), § 8 scholium; § 15 scholium. On these bases, it is not difficult to assume that we can also have historical knowledge of the historical knowledge reported by others.

  25. Wolff (note 14), ch. 10.

  26. Christian Wolff, Philosophia rationalis sive Logica, Francofurti et Lipsiae 1728, pars II, sectio III, cap. IV.

  27. Wolff (note 18), § 17.

  28. Wolff (note 14), ch. 10, § 1; Wolff (note 26), § 744.

  29. Wolff (note 14), ch. 10, § 1; Wolff (note 26), § 750.

  30. Wolff (note 14), ch. 10, § 5; Wolff (note 26), § 745; see also §§ 746–747.

  31. Wolff (note 26), §§ 745; 748.

  32. Wolff (note 14), ch. 10, § 6; Wolff (note 26), §§ 745; 749. Wolff also speaks of the so-called historico-dogmatic books, which limit themselves to reporting dogmas without demonstrating them, see Wolff (note 26), § 751.

  33. Wolff (note 26), § 745, scholium.

  34. Wolff (note 26), § 745. In this domain, Wolff differentiates civil, ecclesiastical, literary, and private (biographical) history. See also Wolff (note 14), ch. 10, §§ 7–9.

  35. As highlighted by Schloemann, however, Wolff sometimes employs the term ›historical knowledge‹ to indicate not only a mode of knowledge, but also a kind of subject, for example natural and human history, see Martin Schloemann, Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten. Theologie und Geschichte in der Theologie des Übergangs zum Neuprotestantismus, Göttingen 1974, 137–138, note 180.

  36. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Acroasis logica, Halle 1761, ch. 10. For the relationship between Baumgarten’s Acroasis logica and Wolff’s logic, see Clemens Schwaiger, »Die Rezeption von Wolffs Deutscher Logik bei Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten«, in: Arnaud Pelletier, Christian Wolff’s German Logic. Sources, Significance, and Reception, Hildesheim/Zürich/New York 2017, 175–196. On the discussion of history in the logical tradition, see for example Dreitzel (note 11), 263. Provided that logic in a broad sense also includes aesthetics, we shall see in what follows that history was discussed by Baumgarten in this framework too.

  37. Baumgarten (note 36), § 4.

  38. Baumgarten (note 36), §§ 5 and 8.

  39. Baumgarten (note 36), § 427: »Thema in oratione est conceptus vel iudicium, eius pars, in qua ratio sufficiens est cogitatarum eius partium reliquiarum«; see also Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Reflections on Poetry (1735), tr. and ed. Karl Aschenbrunner, William B. Holther, Berkeley 1954, § 66: »By theme we mean that whose representation contains the sufficient reason of other representations supplied in the discourse, but which does not have its own sufficient reason in them«.

  40. Baumgarten (note 36), § 427: »Scriptum, cuius thema est historia, seu singularis rei praeteritae illustratio, est historicum, cuius thema est dogma vel notio, est dogmaticum«. Compare with the entry »Historie« in Johann Georg Walch, Philosophisches Lexikon, Leipzig 1726, coll. 1453–1460, here: 1453: »Historie ist eine Vorstellung, Beschreibung, oder Erzehlung einer geschehenen Sache«. On the use of the term illustratio, see below. In any case, it is already clear that Baumgarten fully acknowledges the importance of the rhetorical tradition in his conception of history. On the relationships between history and rhetoric, see Eckhard Keßler, »Das rhetorische Modell der Historiographie«, in: Koselleck, Lutz, Rüsen (eds.) (note 11), 37–85; on the correction of the thesis of an alleged Entrhetorisierung of the Geschichtsschreibung in the mid-eighteenth century, see Fulda (note 11), in particular 146–155, who rather speaks of a »sedimentation« of the rhetorical heritage.

  41. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Sciagraphia encyclopaediae philosophicae, ed. Johann Christian Förster, Halae Magdeburgicae 1769, § 97; histories are here understood as »enumerationes rerum facti«. It is interesting to enhance that the Latin term scientia is here rendered in German by Kunst. The term ars is also preserved in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Philosophia generalis, ed. Johann Christian Förster, Halae Magdeburgicae 1770, §§ 147; 161. In the humanistic tradition, the term ars historica made reference to the rhetorical setting of history, see Keßler (note 40), 70–71. The equivalence of ars in the sense of ars historica with science is present in Johann Christian Gatterer, »Vorläufige Einleitung von der Historie überhaupt und der Universalhistorie insonderheit«, in: Johann Christian Gatterer, Handbuch der Universalhistorie nach ihrem gesamten Umfange, Göttingen 17652, where ars historica or historiographia (»historische Kunst oder Geschichtswissenschaft«) is defined as »Wissenschaft von den Regeln, lesenswürdige Geschichtsbücher zu verfertigen«, § 1. Gatterer then mentions Historie as the »Wissenschaft merkwürdiger Begebenheiten« and Historiomathie as the »Wissenschaft von den Regeln, Historie zu studieren«, § 1 (in the first edition of 1761 only the definition of Historie is mentioned). On the issue of ars in a historic domain in the early modern age, see Hardtwig (note 11), 182–183. It should be remembered that terminology is still very fluid and evolving, and that Baumgarten’s age does not know yet the singular collective of history as Geschichte, see Reinhart Koselleck, »Historia magistra vitae. Über die Auflösung des Topos im Horizont neuzeitlich bewegter Geschichte«, in: Hermann Braun, Manfred Riedel (eds.), Natur und Geschichte. Karl Löwith zum 70. Geburtstag, Stuttgart 1967, 196–219, here: 201–205. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s brother Siegmund, for instance, often employs the same term Geschichte as a synonym of the very common loanword Historie, that is, a writing or a report on res gestae. In turn, Historie is sometimes used by Siegmund J. Baumgarten as a synonym of »historische Gelehrsamkeit« or »Geschichtskunde«, see Schloemann (note 35), 134, in particular note 160. Alexander G. Baumgarten himself uses »Historie« in this sense, see Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, »Kollegium über die Ästhetik«, in: Bernhard Poppe, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten. Seine Bedeutung und Stellung in der Leibniz-Wolffischen Philosophie und seine Beziehungen zu Kant, Borna/Leipzig 1907, § 64. On the confusion of meanings that the term Historie can convey still at the beginning of the Fifties, including both res gestae and their narration, see Chladenius (note 11), 10. In his Philosophia generalis (§§ 158–161), Alexander G. Baumgarten distinguishes historiographia from the so-called disciplinae historicae, that is, those historiae compiled in the form of a discipline (such as lexicography, grammatic, oratory, poetics, etc.); for this reason, although such disciplines can be philosophically expounded according to the method of reason, they do not belong to the sphere of philosophy. The non-philosophicity of disciplines like poetics or eloquence obviously refers to their historical development alone, and not to their universal core, see for example § 147.

  42. Insofar as the theme presupposes the notion of ratio sufficiens, history here seems to admit of an explicative dimension on the basis of the nexus of causes and effects, as enhanced in this period by Chladenius, see Michael Ermarth, »Hermeneutics and History. The Fork in Hermes’ Path through the 18th Century«, in: Bödeker, Iggers, Knudsen, Reill (eds.) (note 11), 193–221, here: 208.

  43. Baumgarten (note 39), § 69. Here, Baumgarten specifically discusses poetical representations.

  44. Baumgarten (note 39), § 70; Baumgarten (note 36), § 290: »Methodus est ordo cogitationum«.

  45. Baumgarten (note 36), § 429; Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (praeses); Johann Daniel Schwechten (respondens), De notitia patriae, Francofurti ad Viadrum 1748, § 18. The method of the historians had already been viewed in the Meditationes as one of the possible ways in which poetical representations converge within the framework of the lucid method, see Baumgarten (note 39), § 72. The other mentioned ways are the method of wit, where representations converge on the basis of similitude, and the method of reason, where the conclusions are inferred from the premises. Against the thesis of Gaede, who traced the distinction of the three modes of the lucid method back to the tripartition of concept, judgement, and syllogism, Matsuo frames its rationale in the ontological tripartition of the nexus of things (the method of wit, in this perspective, corresponds to identity; the method of the historians, to simultaneity and successivity; the method of reason, to causality), see respectively Friedrich Gaede, »Gottscheds Nachahmungstheorie und die Logik«, DVjs 49 (1975), 105–117; Hiroshi Matsuo, »«, Aesthetics 41/2 (1990), 1–11.

  46. Baumgarten (note 36), § 295. For the two laws, see Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Metaphysica, Halae Magdeburgicae 1739, § 541: »Lex sensationis est: Ut sibi succedunt status mundi et status mei, sic sequantur se invicem repraesentationes eorum praesentium«; and § 561: »<…> <L>ex imaginationis: Percepta idea partiali recurrit eius totalis. Haec propositio etiam associatio idearum dicitur«. For an English translation of the fourth edition (1757), see Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Metaphysics, eds. Courtney D. Fugate, John Hymers, London 2013.

  47. Baumgarten (note 36), § 296.

  48. On the difference between idea and notio, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 44.

  49. Baumgarten (note 36), § 428.

  50. Baumgarten (note 36), § 428. A dogmatic writing that exclusively expounds historical knowledge is a historico-dogmatic writing; if it expounds a discipline in a philosophical way, it is a systematic writing; if it is orally commented, it is acroamatic, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 440.

  51. Baumgarten (note 36), § 428.

  52. Baumgarten (note 36), § 428. See also Baumgarten (note 10), §§ 580–583.

  53. See in general Pietro Pimpinella, »Experientia/Erfahrung in Chr. Wolff e A. G. Baumgarten«, in: Marco Veneziani (ed.), Experientia. Atti del X Colloquio Internazionale del Lessico Intellettuale Europeo, Roma, 4. – 6. gennaio 2001, Firenze 2002, 367–397.

  54. On the novelty of these faculties in Baumgarten, see Clemens Schwaiger, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten – ein intellektuelles Porträt. Studien zur Metaphysik und Ethik von Kants Leitautor, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2011, 84 and 102.

  55. Baumgarten (note 36), §§ 365 and 370; Baumgarten (note 10), § 583. On the role of memory in the context of the German Enlightenment, see Frank Grunert, »Die Marginalisierung des Gedächtnisses und die Kreativität der Erinnerung. Zur Gedächtnistheorie der deutschen Aufklärungsphilosophie«, in: Günter Oesterle (ed.), Erinnerung, Gedächtnis, Wissen. Studien zur kulturwissenschaftlichen Gedächtnisforschung, Göttingen 2005, 29–51. For the sake of completeness, it is necessary to specify that the relevant faculties for fictions are imagination and facultas fingendi; for universal truths, understanding and reason.

  56. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 64. See below, note 207.

  57. Wolff (note 14), ch. 11, § 2; Wolff (note 26), § 912.

  58. Along with truth, Wolff mentions two other »virtues« of historical writings: completeness (on the basis of the author’s intentions) and order, see Wolff (note 14), ch. 10, § 2.

  59. Wolff (note 26), § 803.

  60. Wolff (note 26), §§ 613 ff.

  61. Wolff (note 26), § 804. In case the narrated things turn out to be false or contradictory, they are totally impossible; if they contrast with the usual inclinations of humans, they should be considered as morally impossible; if they collide with preceding or subsequent occurrences, they are hypothetically impossible, see scholium.

  62. Wolff himself mentions the importance of the understanding in the judgement about the things believed by faith, see Wolff (note 14), ch. 7, § 15.

  63. Johann Christoph Gottsched, Erste Gründe der gesamten Weltweisheit. Erster, Theoretischer Theil, Leipzig 1733, § 113; on Gottsched, see Ermarth (note 42), 198–201. See also Walch (note 40), col. 1456. The absence of demonstrations in history was the crucial reason why Thomasius denied it the status of science, see Christian Thomasius, Introductio ad philosophiam aulicam, Lipsiae 1688, 155; on the fact that the fides historica does not fall into the domain of demonstration, see Christian Thomasius (praeses) and Matthaeus Lupin (respondens), Dissertatio de fide juridica, Halae 1699, ch. 2, § 31. Heumann opposes this thesis, recognizing in the case of history the possibility of a hypothetical demonstration, insofar as it is possible to prove with certainty that a certain event did occur, see Christoph August Heumann, »De fide historica, oder Von der Glaubwürdigkeit in dieser Historie«, Acta philosophorum 1 (1715), 3. Stück, 381–462, here: 386. Such a perspective, certainly known to Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, will be important for the subsequent debate, see Johann Friedrich Bertram, Einleitung in die so genante Schöne Wissenschaften oder Litteras Humaniores, Braunschweig 17282, 26; Johann Andreas Fabricius, Abriß einer allgemeinen Historie der Gelehrsamkeit, I, Leipzig 1752, 290.

  64. See Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, »Vorrede«, in: Uebersetzung der Algemeinen Welthistorie. Erster Theil, Halle 1744, 36. According to Wolff, historical truths should be believed rather than known, see Wolff (note 14), ch. 11, § 3.

  65. Schloemann makes clear that Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten showed, albeit cautiously, a higher consideration for cognitio historica, see Schloemann (note 35), 139.

  66. Baumgarten (note 64), 36. Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten thus does take exception not only to the scepticism coming from France, which spread a systematic suspicion towards historical studies, but also to the diffidence towards history descending from the Wolffian assumptions. See Schloemann (note 35), 140–143. Schloemann deals in detail with Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten’s attempt to overcome the neglect of history on the part of the Wolffian system, without blatantly breaking with the principles of Wolffian philosophy, see 135–156. On his relationship with scepticism, see also Markus Völkel, »Pyrrhonismus historicus« und »fides historica«. Die Entwicklung der deutschen Methodologie unter dem Gesichtspunkt der historischen Skepsis, Frankfurt a. M. 1987, 229–253. In any case Siegmund J. Baumgarten prudently considered history as »Gelehrsamkeit« rather than as a science in the strict sense of the term, see Schloemann (note 35), 152.

  67. Baumgarten (note 10), § 583.

  68. Bertram (note 63), 24. If the possibility of a scientification of the liberal arts, among them history, had already been envisaged by Wolff (see Wolff [note 18], § 72), Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten seems to step forward in this direction, see Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, Evangelische Glaubenslehre, ed. Johann Salomon Semler, Halle 1759, I, 83 and 33–34. On the scientification of history in this period, see above, note 11. On the concept of science in general, see Waltraud Bumann, »Der Begriff der Wissenschaft im deutschen Sprach- und Denkraum«, in: Alwin Diemer (ed.), Der Wissenschaftsbegriff. Historische und systematische Untersuchungen, Meisenheim am Glan 1970, 64–75.

  69. Baumgarten (note 41), § 64: »Die Historie gehöret auch unter die Wissenschaften, die der schöne Geist treiben muß«. See below, note 201.

  70. Baumgarten (note 36), § 430.

  71. Baumgarten (note 36), § 378.

  72. Baumgarten (note 36), § 357. If the assent given to testimony rests on sufficient reasons, faith is called rational, see Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (praeses); Georg Christoph Wilhelm Bütow (auctor), Dissertatio inauguralis de fidei in philosophia utilitate, Francofurti ad Viadrum 1750, § 4. For a comment, see Clemens Schwaiger, »Philosophie und Glaube bei Christian Wolff und Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten«, Aufklärung 23 (2011), 213–228.

  73. Baumgarten (note 36), § 363.

  74. Baumgarten (note 36), § 361: »Dexteritas testis est sufficientia virium eius ad proponendum eius, quod testator, veritatem, eiusque propensio ad testandum, quae testanda novit, est sinceritas«.

  75. Baumgarten (note 36), § 362. The highest certainty is given by a testimony which is recognized as divine, see § 371.

  76. Baumgarten (note 36), § 380. This means that one should not accept by faith what is in contradiction with experience or reason.

  77. Wolff (note 14), ch. 7, § 15.

  78. Baumgarten (note 36), § 381. See also Baumgarten/Bütow (note 72), § 5. Taking up Wolff’s distinction between necessitas absoluta and necessitas hypothetica, Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten distinguished the internal and the external necessity, so as to grant a form of certainty to the knowledge of history too (in this case, as an external necessity), Baumgarten (note 64), 19; see on this Schloemann (note 35), 148–150.

  79. In his Deutsche Logik, Wolff does not use the term ›certainty‹ in this context, see Wolff (note 25), ch. 7, §§ 5 ff. Even if he introduces the term certainty in the Logica latina, this is still linked with a subjective sphere, see Wolff (note 26), § 614, see Schloemann (note 35), 144, note 220.

  80. Baumgarten (note 64), 19. See already Friedrich Wilhelm Bierling (praeses) and Gerhard Patje (respondens), Dissertatio de pyrrhonismo historico, Rinthelii 1707, 4. On the rules to determine on a case-by-case basis the degree of certainty in history according to Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, see Schloemann (note 35), 146 ff.

  81. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Aestheticorum pars altera, Francofurti cis Viadrum 1758, § 842.

  82. Baumgarten, Schwechten (note 45), § 22. The term is not employed in the Acroasis logica.

  83. Ludwig Martin Kahle, Elementa logicae probabilium, Halae Magdeburgicae 1735, § 256: »Si autem omnium testium oculatorum, mirificus consensus in omnibus partibus deprehnditur, & plane omnia requisita interna & externa adsunt, seu ἀξιοπιστία; inde certitudo historica trahit originem; quae alias etiam certitudo moralis seu evidentia moralis dicitur«.

  84. Baumgarten (note 64), 20, note 1; Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, Auszug der Kirchengeschichte, Halle 1743, § 1. See Schloemann (note 35), 152–156; 190–191. On the currency of the issue in Germany, see Johann Martin Chladenius, Vernünftige Gedanken von dem Wahrscheinlichen und desselben gefährlichen Mißbrauche, ed. Urban Gottlob Thorschmid, Stralsund/Greifswald/Leipzig 1748, 42 (the Latin version dates back to 1747).

  85. For if many historical occurrences can be known with certainty, many more can be known as highly probable, see Baumgarten (note 64), 20. While in his Deutsche Logik Wolff did not deal with the issue, he inserted the ›logica probabilium‹ among the desiderata in his Logica latina, see Wolff (note 26), § 593; see also his famous preface to Johann Peter Süßmilch, Die göttliche Ordnung in den Veränderungen des menschlichen Geschlechts aus der Geburt, dem Tode und der Fortpflanzung desselben, Berlin 1742. On Wolff’s difference with regard to Siegmund J. Baumgarten, see Schloemann (note 35), 151–152. On the logica probabilium, see Luigi Cataldi Madonna, La filosofia della probabilità nel pensiero moderno. Dalla Logique di Port Royal a Kant, Roma 1988. Over the course of the Thirties, the problem was increasingly addressed in logical textbooks, see Rüdiger Campe, Spiel der Wahrscheinlichkeit. Literatur und Berechnung zwischen Pascal und Kleist, Göttingen 2002, 285. The endorsement of probability, in particular in the domain of history, is not unanimous. Chladenius proves sceptical, not least for apologetical reasons; he thereby strives to reinforce the role of certainty in history against what he considered as an »idolum seculi«, see in particular Chladenius (note 84), 34–63. On the difference from Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten’s strategy, see Schloemann (note 35), 187–191. More open to the idea of historical probability is Christian August Crusius, Weg zur Gewissheit und Zuverlaessigkeit der menschlichen Erkenntnis, Leipzig 1747, § 605.

  86. According to Cataldi Madonna, Wolff rejects this concept for its implicit necessity to link certainty with the limitedness of the human understanding, see Luigi Cataldi Madonna, »Wahrscheinlichkeit und wahrscheinliches Wissen in der Philosophie von Christian Wolff«, Studia leibnitiana 19 (1987), 2–40, here: 22.

  87. On the notion of ›moral certainty‹, see Carlo Borghero, La certezza e la storia: cartesianesimo, pirronismo e conoscenza storica, Milano 1983, passim; Helmut Zedelmaier, Der Anfang der Geschichte: Studien zur Ursprungsdebatte im 18. Jahrhundert, Hamburg 2003, 157–158; Marcus Conrad, Geschichte(n) und Geschäfte. Die Publikation der »Allgemeinen Welthistorie« im Verlag Gebauer in Halle (1744–1814), Wiesbaden 2010, 33–34. For references, see Lutz Danneberg, »Probabilitas hermeneutica. Zu einem Aspekt der Interpretations-Methodologie in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts«, Aufklärung 8, 1993, 27–48, here: 45; and Lutz Danneberg, »Die Auslegungslehre des Christian Thomasius in der Tradition von Logik und Hermeneutik«, in: Friedrich Vollhardt (ed.), Christian Thomasius (1655–1728): Neue Forschungen im Kontext der Frühaufklärung, Tübingen 1997, 253–316, here: 305–306.

  88. Bierling/Patje (note 80), § 2, nota (a).

  89. Thomasius/Lupin (note 63), 25.

  90. Johann Clauberg, Logica vetus et nova (1654), Amstaeledami 16582, 111. See also Walch, for whom moral certainty makes it possible to move the mind, see Walch (note 40), col. 1305.

  91. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Ethica philosophica, Halae Magdeburgicae 1740, § 56. See also Baumgarten (note 46), § 723.

  92. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 584.

  93. In Baumgarten/Bütow (note 72), § 23, experience, reason, and faith are defined as the three graces of knowledge. Baumgarten recognizes cases in which assent does not only come from testimony (pure faith), but partly from experience and/or reason, thus giving rise to mixed faith, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 358; Baumgarten/Bütow (note 72), § 2. Wolff too, beside the famous marriage between faith and reason, mentioned the marriage between faith and reason, see Christian Wolff, Theologia naturalis, I, Francofurti 1736, § 290, scholium. If faith is here connected with Holy Scripture, its meaning is limited to that faith which Baumgarten calls fides sacra (or fides theologica; or fides divina), see Schwaiger (note 72). The inspired testimony of Scripture thus conveys a sort of historical knowledge of God, to the extent that God revealed himself in time, see Matteo Favaretti Camposampiero, Conoscenza simbolica: pensiero e linguaggio in Christian Wolff e nella prima età moderna, Hildesheim 2009, 302 in note; on the important link between apologetics and historical knowing in the German eighteenth century, see first of all Walter Sparn, »Vernünftiges Christentum. Über die geschichtliche Aufgabe der theologischen Aufklärung im 18. Jahrhundert«, in: Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.), Wissenschaften im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, Göttingen 1985, 18–57; Walter Sparn, »Von der fides historica zur historischen Religion. Die Zweideutigkeit des Geschichtsbewußtseins der theologischen Aufklärung«, Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte (1985), 147–160. In this case, faith is grounded in the authority of Scripture, but also in the subjective enlightenment of reason, see on this aspect Jean Ecole, »Les rapports de la raison et de la foi selon Christian Wolff«, Studia leibnitiana 15/2 (1983), 204–214. The ›marriage‹ between reason and faith therefore not only is not used in a technical sense by Wolff, but its scope is very narrow. By contrast, Baumgarten employs the broader meaning of faith as such in the connubial context too, so that it is possible to speak of a ›marriage of reason and faith‹ also in history altogether. In this technical sense, the phrase is thus much more tightly linked with the marriage between reason and experience. In fact, according to Baumgarten, experience, reason, and faith form a triad, in which each element can join one of the other two or both. Hence, beside a marriage of reason and experience and a marriage of faith and reason, there also exists a marriage of experience, reason, and faith. The certainty deriving from the marriage of experience, reason, and faith will be the highest, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 358.

  94. Baumgarten also takes exception to those, like Bellarmino, who were eager to reduce faith to mere assent, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 357, scholium. In Lutheranism, faith necessarily presupposes a cognitive basis, see Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Gedanken über die Reden Jesu nach dem Inhalt der Evangelischen Geschichten, eds. Friedrich Gottlob Scheltz, Anton Bernhard Thiele, I, Pförten 1796, 77; Alexander’s brother Siegmund also polemizes with Bellarmino’s reduction of faith to assent in his controversistic theology, see Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, Untersuchung theologischer Streitigkeiten, II, Halle 1763, 618. Wolff himself seems to oppose knowing and believing by faith, although Wissen is here understood only as the result of a rational demonstration, see Wolff (note 14), ch. 7, § 4.

  95. See Meta Scheele, Wissen und Glauben in der Geschichtswissenschaft. Studien zum historischen Pyrrhonismus in Frankreich und Deutschland, Heidelberg 1930; Völkel (note 66), in particular 99–202. See also Carsten Zelle (ed.), Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert 31/2 (2007). On the general context of Pyrrhonism and the possibility of knowledge in history in the early modern age, see Borghero (note 87), in particular ch. 7 for the German milieu.

  96. See Friedrich Wilhelm Bierling, Commentatio de pyrrhonismo historico, Lipsiae 1724, 10–11. On this aspect, see Völkel (note 66), 137–143.

  97. Baumgarten (note 36), § 381.

  98. Baumgarten (note 36), § 381. For a staunch defence of the value of knowledge provided by history against sceptical attacks, see Chladenius (note 84), ch. 3, where the author engages with the European and German debate of the age.

  99. On this improbability, Johann Wilhelm Berger (praeses); Arnold Greve (auctor), Dissertatio historico-critica qua ΠΕΡΙ ΤΩΝ ΑΠΑΞ ΕΙΡΗΜΕΝΩΝ sive de auctoritate unius testis, Vitembergae 1722, 15–16, who also make reference to Jakob Perizonius, De fide historiarum contra Pyrrhonismum historicum, Lugduni Batavorum 1702. The criticism of scepticism has recently been put in relation with the birth of aesthetics, see Sandra Richter, »Unsichere Schönheit? Die Geburt der Ästhetik aus der Kritik des Skeptizismus«, in: Carlos Spoerhase, Dirk Werle, Markus Wild (eds.), Unsicheres Wissen. Skeptizismus und Wahrscheinlichkeit 1550–1850, Berlin/New York 2009, 159–178.

  100. Baumgarten (note 36), § 439. For the concept of impartiality in this period, see Kathryn Murphy, Anita Traninger (eds.), The Emergence of Impartiality, Leiden 2014, in particular the essays Rainer Godel, »The Rise of Controversies and the Function of Impartiality in the Early Eighteenth Century«, 247–264; and Hanns-Peter Neumann, »Objectivity, Impartiality, and Hermeneutics in the Leibnizian-Wolffian Debates between 1720 and 1750«, 265–285.

  101. The vantage point depends on the observer’s internal and external state, from which a certain way of seeing things descends, see Chladenius (note 11), 100. On the theory of the point of view, see Christoph Friedrich, Sprache und Geschichte. Untersuchungen zur Hermeneutik von Johann Martin Chladenius, Meisenheim am Glan 1978, ch. 1.4.1. On the possible reconciliation of the perspectivistic theory of the point of view and the issue of impartiality, see among others Horst Walter Blanke, Dirk Fleischer, »Allgemeine und historische Wahrheiten. Chladenius und der Verwissenschaftlichungsprozeß der Historie«, Dilthey-Jahrbuch für Philosophie und Geschichte der Geisteswissenschaften 5 (1988), 258–270, here: 266–270; see also Muhlack (note 11), 79–85.

  102. Chladenius (note 11), 151.

  103. See Chladenius (note 11), 152–153, here: 152: »Unpartheyisch erzehlen kan daher nichts anders heissen, als die Sache erzehlen, ohne daß man das geringste darin vorsetzlich verdrehet oder verdunckelt: oder sie nach seinem besten Wissen und Gewissen erzehlen: so wie hingegen eine partheyische Erzehlung nichts anders als eine Verdrehung der Geschichte ist«. To quote Baumgarten’s colleague in Frankfurt on the Oder Simonetti: »Ein Geist den die Vorurtheile des Ansehns, der Gewinsucht, des Volks, des Landes, der Lebensart, der vermeinten Religion plagen, kann unmöglich die Wahrheit schreiben«, see Christian Ernst Simonetti, Der Character des Geschichtsschreibers, Göttingen 1746, 25.

  104. Baumgarten (note 36), § 439.

  105. Baumgarten (note 36), § 439. On the issue of critique, see Völkel (note 66), 208 ff. On the genesis of historical critique, see Benedetto Bravo, »Critice in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries and the Rise of the Notion of Historical Criticism«, in: Christopher R. Ligota, Jean-Louis Quantin (eds.), History of Scholarship. A Selection of Papers from the Seminar on the History of Scholarship Held Annually at the Warburg Institute, Oxford/New York 2006, 135–195; Goran Gaber, »What Was Critical History? A Reading of Richard Simon’s Histoire critique du Vieux Testament«, History and Theory 57/2 (2018), 216–231.

  106. Schloemann (note 35), 155.

  107. Baumgarten (note 36), § 431.

  108. See Fulda (note 11), 59 ff. Fulda highlights that such a »system« is at the same time a construction of the historian and the object of research, see 61–62. More in general, see Gudrun Kühne-Bertram, »Aspekte der Geschichte und der Bedeutungen des Begriffs pragmatisch in den philosophischen Wissenschaften des ausgehenden 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts«, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 27 (1983), 158–186, in particular 179. On the role of pragmatism in the novels of the late Enlightenment, see in particular Wilhelm Vosskamp, Romantheorie in Deutschland. Von Martin Opitz bis Friedrich von Blanckenburg, Stuttgart 1973, 186 ff. It is interesting to notice the role played by Thomas Abbt, a colleague of Alexander G. Baumgarten’s in Frankfurt on the Oder, for this meaning of pragmatic history in his »153. Brief. Anmerkungen über den wahren Begriff einer pragmatischen Geschichte«, Briefe, die Neueste Litteratur betreffend 10 (1763), 118–125.

  109. Johann David Köhler, Programmate de Historia Pragmatica ad Lectiones Suas Publicas et Orationem de Dissensu Historicorum, Altorfi (22 August) 1714. See also Johann Reiske (praeses); Christian Rhesen (respondens), Exercitatio de historia pragmatica, Raceburgi 1677.

  110. See Merio Scattola, »Historia literaria als historia pragmatica. Die pragmatische Bedeutung der Geschichtsschreibung«, in: Frank Grunert, Friedrich Vollhardt (eds.), Historia literaria. Neuordnungen des Wissens im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin 2007, 37–64. On the issue of pragmatisation of erudition in general with Thomasius and his pupils, see Frank Grunert, »Pragmatisierung der Gelehrsamkeit. Zum Gelehrsamkeitskonzept von Christian Thomasius und im Thomasianismus«, in: Ulrich J. Schneider (ed.), Kultur der Kommunikation. Die europäische Gelehrtenrepublik im Zeitalter von Leibniz und Lessing, Wiesbaden 2005, 131–153.

  111. Christoph August Heumann (praeses), Ludolph Granzinus (respondens), Prolegomena historica disputatione publica in gymnasio Gottingensi excussa, Gottingae 1723, 14–15. If according to Gundling history in general can be identified with practical philosophy, insofar as it is able to compensate the abstraction of the doctrines of theoretical philosophy (see Nikolaus Hieronymus Gundling, Collegium historico-litterarium oder Ausführliche Discourse über die Vornehmsten Wissenschaften und besonders die Rechtsgelahrheit, Bremen 1738, 293–294), such a link is even truer of pragmatic history. As argued by Kapp, the pragmatic approach ensures that the general doctrines of ethics are applied to history, so that moral doctrines constitute the guidelines of historical narrations, see Johann Erhard Kapp, »Vorrede. Wie man die Historie auf Schulen und Universitäten recht und pragmatisch zu treiben anfangen soll«, in: Nikolaus Hieronymus Gundling, Vollständige Historie der Gelahrheit, 1. Theil, Franckfurt und Leipzig 1734, 1–44, here: 35–37. For a comment, see Scattola (note 110), 47–48.

  112. Dietrich Hermann Kemmerich, Neu-eröffnete Academie der Wissenschafften. Erste Eroeffnung, Leipzig 1711, 339.

  113. Differently from Alexander G. Baumgarten, his brother Siegmund seems to blend the two meanings, see Baumgarten (note 84), 4; see also Baumgarten (note 64), 9. In particular, he affirms that it is necessary to insert the event in a narration that takes into account the whole set of events belonging to one another as well as their sequence and their nexus, so that »a piece of news is made suitable for deriving universal truths from singular cases, in other terms, it is made pragmatic«. As is apparent, pragmaticity does not only depend here on the structural element of the causal link pervading the narration, but also on the possibility to infer general truths applicable to the readers’ life. In this case, the teaching for the readers is no longer immediate, but derives from such a consequential connection of occurrences that the readers themselves will be able to draw teachings on their own, see Schloemann (note 35), 196; Fulda (note 11), 59, note 3. Schloemann underlines that Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten goes beyond utilitarism and pragmatism, showing that history must also be pursued for its own sake, see Schloemann (note 35), 196.

  114. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Vom vernünfftigen Beyfall auf Academien, Franckfurth an der Oder 1740, § 9.

  115. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Gedancken vom vernünfftigen Beyfall auf Academien, Halle im Magdeburgischen 17412, § 9, note 3.

  116. Baumgarten (note 36), § 434. Hereby, Baumgarten does not reject the history of nature, that is, the history of the phenomena of the corporeal world. Natural history is such if the description of phenomena is not replaced by concepts, general propositions, and syllogisms, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 433.

  117. Baumgarten (note 36), § 435.

  118. Baumgarten (note 36), § 434.

  119. Baumgarten (note 36), § 434. For instance, there is a laic and an ecclesiastical history, here too with several other internal subdivisions, see §§ 434 and 436. A specific kind of laic history is political history, which has a private side (the history of the rulers) and a public side (the history of the states), see § 437. If in the case of the history of nature Baumgarten points to the role of the experimental physicist as a crucial witness, while not yet a historian (see § 433; in this sense, Baumgarten recommends that the natural historian himself be a physicus), in the case of politics the politician who does not misuse his knowledge is probably the best historian, see § 437.

  120. Baumgarten (note 36), § 438. In Baumgarten’s Sciagraphia (note 41), § 97, history can be political, ecclesiastical, literary, natural, and miscellaneous.

  121. Baumgarten (note 36), § 432. In the Sciagraphia (note 41), § 1, pansophy is another name for encyclopedia. As is well known, the Czech educationalist Jan Amos Komensky (Comenius) (1592–1670) is considered as the founder of pansophy.

  122. For the reconstruction of this translation, see Conrad (note 87), in particular 17–85.

  123. Baumgarten (note 36), § 432 scholium.

  124. Baumgarten (note 36), § 432.

  125. Baumgarten (note 36), § 432 scholium.

  126. In particular, historians’ vantage points are usually linked with a certain place, for example their fatherland, a certain period or a certain kind of things, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 432.

  127. See in general on this theme, Blanke, Fleischer (note 101), 269–270.

  128. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (praeses); Johann Daniel Schwechten (respondens), Dissertatio periodica de disciplinis oeconomicopoliticocameralibus, Traiecti cis viadrum 1747, § 3. See also Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (defendens); Christian Ludwig de Brand (defendens), Scenographia iuris socialis primarii, Traiecti cis Viadrum 1746, in particular the summary at § 40.

  129. Baumgarten (note 45), §§ 1–2.

  130. Baumgarten (note 45), § 4.

  131. Baumgarten (note 45), § 3. Admittedly, without this knowledge the notion of social right and general politics, examined in the two previous dissertations, cannot be immediately applied to the case of one’s fatherland, see Baumgarten (note 45), §§ 7; 9 and 10. On the distinction between on the one hand the history of the fatherland, the fatherland right, and the prudence or politics of the fatherland, and on the other hand the Staats-Wissenschafft, see Justus Christoph Dithmar, Entwurff der Königlich-Preußischen Chur-Brandenburgischen Staats-Wissenschafft, Franckfurth an der Oder 1734, 3. Baumgarten, however, is not convinced about the label »science« for this form of knowing, see Baumgarten (note 45), § 10. Against the confusion between the knowledge of a state and its history, the ius patrium, the ius gentium, and the general politics, see also Carl Friedrich Pauli, Gedancken von dem Begrif und denen Grentzen der Staats-Kenntniß, Halle 1750, § 22, who speaks of Staats-Kenntniß instead of Staats-Wissenschaft. Pauli was a close friend of Baumgarten’s pupil Georg Friedrich Meier, see Samuel Gotthold Lange, Leben Georg Friedrich Meiers, Halle 1778, 64; 166–168.

  132. A state is the coexistence of mutable and constant, contingent and necessary elements in a certain thing, hence of attributes and essentialia on the one hand, and modes and relations on the other hand, see Baumgarten (note 45), § 12; Baumgarten (note 46), § 205: »Substantia contingens singularis est determinate, qua modos et relationes. Hinc coexistunt in ea fixa seu intrinsece immutabilia cum mutabilibus. Eiusmodi coexistentia status est«.

  133. Baumgarten (note 45), § 12.

  134. Baumgarten (note 45), § 12. Baumgarten remarks that historical knowledge is difficult, empirical knowledge is more difficult and divinatory knowledge is most difficult.

  135. Baumgarten (note 45), §§ 14–25. See in general Alessandro Nannini, »The Six Faces of Beauty. Baumgarten on the Perfections of Knowledge in the Context of the German Enlightenment«, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (forthcoming).

  136. Baumgarten (note 45), § 14.

  137. Baumgarten (note 45), § 16.

  138. Baumgarten (note 45), § 18.

  139. Baumgarten (note 45), § 20.

  140. Baumgarten (note 45), § 22.

  141. Baumgarten (note 45), § 24.

  142. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Scriptis quae moderator conflictus academicus disputavit, Halae Magdeburgicae 1743, § 13. Indeed, Baumgarten proves to master extensive knowledge about the historiography of Prussia-Brandenburg, see Baumgarten (note 45), § 13. Baumgarten favorably cites Caspar Abel, Preußische und Brandenburgische Staats-Historie, 2 voll., Leipzig 1710; and Caspar Abel, Preußische und Brandenburgische Staats-Geographie, 2 voll., Leipzig 1711, defining it as the most complete investigation of the fatherland carried out by a single author, see Baumgarten (note 45), § 10; see also Georg Gottfried Küster, Bibliotheca historica Brandenburgica, Vratislaviae 1743; and Dithmar (note 131).

  143. Georg Friedrich Meier, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens Leben, Halle im Magdeburgischen 1763, 27.

  144. Meier (note 143), 22.

  145. See Isaac Iselin, Über die Geschichte der Menschheit (1764), II, Zürich 17702, 390. On this issue, see in particular Rudolf Vierhaus, »Patriotismus. Begriff und Realität einer moralisch-politischen Haltung«, in: Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.), Deutschland im 18. Jahrhundert. Politische Verfassung, soziales Gefüge, geistige Bewegungen, Göttingen 1987, 183–201; Christoph Prignitz, Vaterlandsliebe und Freiheit: Deutscher Patriotismus von 1750 bis 1850, Wiesbaden 1981, 21 ff.; Hans-Martin Blitz, Aus Liebe zum Vaterland: Die deutsche Nation im 18. Jahrhundert, Hamburg 2000, in particular part 3 and 4; Klaus Bohnen, »Von den Anfängen des Nationalsinnes. Zur literarischen Patriotismus-Debatte im Umkreis des Siebenjährigen Kriegs«, in Helmut Scheuer (ed.), Dichter und ihre Nation, Frankfurt a. M. 1993, 121–137; Hans Peter Herrmann, »Individuum und Staatsmacht. Preußisch-deutscher Nationalismus in Texten zum Siebenjährigen Krieg«, in: Hans Peter Herrmann, Hans-Martin Blitz, Susanna Mossmann (ed.), Machtphantasie Deutschland. Männlichkeit und Fremdenhaß im Vaterlandsdiskurs deutscher Schriftsteller des 18. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt a. M. 1993, 66–79; Eckhart Hellmuth, »Die Wiedergeburt Friedrich des Großen und der Tod fürs Vaterland. Zum patriotischen Selbstverständnis in Preußen in der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts«, Aufklärung 10/2 (1995), 23–54, Wolfgang Burgdorf, »Reichsnationalismus gegen Territorialnationalismus. Phasen der Intensivierung des nationalen Bewußtseins in Deutschland seit dem Siebenjährigen Krieg«, in: Dieter Langewiesche, Georg Schmidt (eds.), Föderative Nation: Deutschlandkonzepte von der Reformation bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, München 2000, 157–190.

  146. See among others Isaak Iselin, Philosophische und patriotische Träume eines Menschenfreundes, Freiburg 1755; Franz Urs Balthasar, Patriotische Träume eines Eidgenossen (written in 1744), Freystadt 1758; Johann Georg Zimmermann, Von dem Nationalstolze, Zürich 1758.

  147. See Thomas Abbt, Vom Tode für das Vaterland, Berlin 1761. For a comment, see Hans Erich Bödeker, »Thomas Abbt: Patriot, Bürger und bürgerliches Bewusstsein«, in: Rudolf Vierhaus (ed.), Bürger und Bürgerlichkeit im Zeitalter der Aufklärung, Heidelberg 1981. Abbt was a colleague of Baumgarten’s in Frankfurt on the Oder during the biennium 1760–1761 as well as one of his biographers.

  148. See Louis de Beausobre, Discourse sur le patriotisme, Berlin 1761. Beausobre was a former student of Baumgarten’s, with whom he remained in epistolary contact; see Martin Fontius, »Baumgarten und die Literaturbriefe. Ein Brief aus Frankfurt/Oder an Louis de Beausobre in Berlin«, DVjs 80 (2006), 553–594, in particular 562–563.

  149. Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, Preussische Kriegslieder von einem Grenadier (1758), Liechtenstein 1968.

  150. See Christian Ewald von Kleist, Sämmtliche Gedichte, 1. Theil, Wien 1774, 16–19.

  151. See Ingrid Patitz, Ewald von Kleists letzte Tage und sein Grabdenkmal in Frankfurt an der Oder, Frankfurt an der Oder 1994. Baumgarten had talked to him shortly before Kleist died, see Leonard Meister, Characteristik deutscher Dichter, II, St. Gallen/Leipzig 1789, 221.

  152. Baumgarten (note 45), § 1.

  153. Reinhard Blänkner, »Die Viadrina und Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten«, in: Andrea Allerkamp, Dagmar Mirbach (eds.), Schönes Denken. A. G. Baumgarten im Spannungsfeld zwischen Ästhetik, Logik und Ethik, Hamburg 2016, 299–316, here: 314.

  154. See the sixth volume of Abbt’s Vermischte Werke, Berlin/Stettin 1781, dedicated to writings and fragments concerning history.

  155. Thomas Abbt, Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens Leben und Character, Halle 1765, 20: »<Er> lief die Brandenburgische Geschichte durch, und sammlete, wie ich weis, Anmerkungen, deren Bekanntmachung auch die gedruckte Brandenburgische Geschichte, um sehr wenig zu sagen, gewis nicht verunzieren würde«; see also Thomas Abbt, Leben und Charakter Alexander Gottlieb Baumgartens, in: Thomas Abbt, Vermischte Werke, IV, Berlin und Stettin 1780, 215–244, here: 231. Abbt’s remark is taken up by Johann Christoph Adelung, Fortsetzung und Ergänzungen zu Christian Gottlieb Jöchers Allgemeinem Gelehrten-Lexico. Erster Band. A und B, Leipzig 1784, col. 1536. Meier just writes in an appendix to his biography that Baumgarten »trieb«, among other things, »die Historie«, see Meier (note 143), 37.

  156. See Johann Christian Förster, Vergleichung von Charaktern dreyer berühmter Weltweisen der neuern Zeiten nämlich Leibnitzens, Wolffs und Baumgartens, Halle 1763; Johann Christian Förster, Charactere dreyer berühmter Weltweisen nämlich Leibnitzens, Wolfs und Baumgartens, Halle 17652.

  157. Johann Christian Förster, Discursus praeliminaris, in: Baumgarten, Sciagraphia (note 41), without page number: »Plures scire praetendunt, ipsum multa assiduitate, Patriae historiam consignavisse et in hoc libro ipsum pepercisse neque sumtui neque operae«.

  158. The importance of the section Borussica is enhanced by Fontius, see Fontius (note 148), here: 588, note 113.

  159. See Catalogus librorum a viro excellentissimo amplissimo Alexandro Gottlieb Baumgarten, Francofurti ad Viadrum 1762, 20–22, nn. 182–188.

  160. Letter of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten to Jakob Wippel, 2 January 1757, Biblioteka Jagiellońska Kraków. Wippel, a former student of Baumgarten’s, had sent Baumgarten a »programma« of the school over which he presided, the Graue Kloster in Berlin, one of the most reputed educational institutions of the nation, where Baumgarten himself had studied in his youth. Baumgarten replied in this letter that the »programma« »mir um so lieber war, da es mir von einer der vornehmsten Schulen des Vater-Landes etwas erzehlte, nachdem ich einige Neben-Stunden der Geschichte des Vaterlandes zu widmen entschloßen bin«. Regrettably, Wippel’s original letter is lost.

  161. Günter Gawlick, Lothar Kreimendahl, »Einleitung«, in: Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Metaphysica/Metaphysik, ed. Günter Gawlick, Lothar Kreimendahl, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 2011, XXVII, note 100.

  162. Poppe (note 41).

  163. Poppe (note 41), 62, note 1. According to Poppe, Zur alten Geschichte des Vaterlandes is a »Kollegnachschrift«, hence the transcription (the handwriting would be too clear and neat to be direct notes) of a course of lectures delivered by Baumgarten. I have not found any decisive proof in this sense. While Poppe indicates that the manuscript is made up of three parts, I was able to detect only two sections, see below. The four-volume Isagoge philosophica in theologiam theticam is still present in the Berlin State Library with the following shelf mark: 209. theol. oct. 48–51. The first volume is dated March 1748; the last one, August 1748. The two letters, among them the aforementioned letter to Wippel, are now in Cracow.

  164. Salvatore Tedesco, »Avvertenza del curatore«, in: Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Lezioni di estetica, ed. Salvatore Tedesco, Palermo 1998, 21.

  165. I owe this information about the belonging of Baumgarten’s Kollegium to Nicolai’s estate to Professor Clemens Schwaiger, whom I warmly thank.

  166. See Werner Schochow, Bücherschicksale. Die Verlagerungsgeschichte der Preußischen Staatsbibliothek, Berlin 2003, 160–165. The manuscript must therefore be considered as lost, albeit not necessarily destroyed.

  167. Helga Döhn, Die Sammlung Autographa der ehemaligen Preußischen Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Wiesbaden 2005, in particular Helga Döhn, »Einleitung«, 20–32; on the presence of Woldemar von Ditmar’s letters in this collection, see 43; the list of the people occurring in the old catalogue of the Sammlung Autographa der ehemaligen Koeniglichen Bibliothek zu Berlin starts at 55.

  168. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Zur alten Geschichte des Vaterlandes, Man. boruss. qu. 5, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, 2r. To the Giant Mountains in particular, Balthasar Ludwig Tralles had devoted a poem in 1750, which Baumgarten held in his library in the section on the history of the fatherland, see Catalogus (note 159), 21. See Balthasar Ludwig Tralles, Versuch eines Gedichtes über das schlesische Riesen-Gebürge, Breslau 1750.

  169. Baumgarten (note 168), 2r–2v.

  170. Baumgarten (note 168), 5v.

  171. Baumgarten (note 168), 6r–6v. See Virgil, Georgics 4, 516.

  172. See Baumgarten (note 168), 16r.

  173. Baumgarten (note 168), 15v–16r.

  174. Albert Georg Schwartz, Kurtze Einleitung der Geographie des Norder-Deutschlandes slavischer Nation, Greifswald 1745, [4r]: »Die Oerter bestimmen durch ihre Beschaffenheit die Geschichte, die darinnen vorgehen, und diese die Oerter«. See Catalogus (note 159), 21. Schwartz is one of the founders of the Greifswald Society for the study of history, see below, note 190.

  175. Philipp Clüver, Germaniae antiquae libri tres, Leiden 1616. Clüver is considered as the founder of historical geography. Leibniz too is important in this route, see Margherita Palumbo, Leibniz e i geographica: libri geografici e apodemici nella biblioteca privata leibniziana, Roma 1996.

  176. Christian Ulrich Grupen, Origines Germaniae oder das älteste Teutschland unter den Römern, Franken und Sachsen, 3 voll., Lemgo 1764–1768.

  177. Baumgarten (note 168), 18r–21r.

  178. Baumgarten (note 168), 25r–25v.

  179. The first identification of Gets and Goths, Baumgarten writes, was made by Helius Spartianus, see Baumgarten (note 168), 21r. On the importance of the theme for geographers and historians of the early modern period, see for example Karen Skovgaard-Petersen, Historiography at the Court of Christian IV (1588–1648), Copenhagen 2002, 167.

  180. Baumgarten (note 168), 22v.

  181. Baumgarten (note 168), 42v. With regard to a book of poems written in Getic by Ovid, Baumgarten wonders: »Wird uns doch hiemit der älteste Sechsfüßler in einer Sprache bekannt, welche vielleicht die erste ist, welche Theotiska oder deutsch in des Alterthums Ueberbleibseln genannt wird?«, see Baumgarten (note 168), 42r.

  182. Baumgarten (note 168), 75v. See also 26r–28r. In the first section, he summed up the main results of his research in a numbered list, see Baumgarten (note 168), 15v–16r.

  183. Baumgarten (note 168), 24r–25v.

  184. Baumgarten (note 168), 74v–75r: »<Wir> können also genauer bestimmen, da sich Caracalla von den Alemannen nach Morgen in seinem wunderlichen Zuge gewendet, er zuerst an die Geten oder nunmehrigen Goten treffen müßen, welche sich nordlich über dem römischen Gebiet, östlich zunächst an der Schweven Seite noch frei befanden, und über Pannonien und Dacien hinauf gegen Norden ins unendliche zogen, vielleicht auch damahls nicht nur Goth und Jütland, sondern auch Meißen und Türingen schon besetzt hatten«.

  185. An issue for future research is the question whether the extant manuscript is all that Baumgarten wrote as a historian. There is no direct evidence to either confirm or reject this hypothesis. A small hint seems to be a note of the preface to the first volume of his Gedanken über die Reden Jesu, where the two editors make reference to a Miscellanea authored by Baumgarten. If this notice were reliable, it would be a completely unknown work; see Friedrich Gottlob Scheltz and Anton Bernhard Thiele, »Vorrede«, in: Baumgarten (note 94), without page number. In his Sciagraphia, Baumgarten mentioned the historiographia miscellanea among the kinds of historiographia, see Baumgarten, Sciagraphia (note 41), § 97. Given the theological argument of the reference, it could be a Miscellanea sacra, similar to those written by Witsius, Buddeus, and Walch. It is not excluded that even the extant manuscript may have come into the hands of one of the editors, Thiele, with whom Baumgarten had a relationship of confidence in the last part of his life and to whom he had entrusted his manuscripts with the task of publishing them, see Alessandro Nannini, »How a Philosopher Dies. Reason, Faith, and aisthesis in Baumgarten’s ars moriendi«, Das achtzehnte Jahrhundert (forthcoming).

  186. Baumgarten (note 39), § 58. Precisely because of this indeterminateness, ancient history requires a more conspicuous intervention on the part of poets in order to achieve the greatest richness of marks in their representations.

  187. For a synthesis, see Stephan Kammer, Überlieferung. Das philologisch-antiquarische Wissen im frühen 18. Jahrhundert, Berlin/Boston 2017, § 1.1.

  188. Baumgarten (note 64), 21–22.

  189. Baumgarten (note 45), § 18: »Quumque iam non heterocosmicam Severambium, utopiae, Atlantidos, solisve patriam, sed huius mundi strictissime veram civitatem quaeramus, non vera solum, sed et exacta ut sit notitia, quam locus et tempus egregie variant, geographiam et chronologiam patriae historici, empirici, mantici eius spectatores nunquam amittamus ex oculis«. The attention to chronology is well witnessed by the dates appended to the side of several pages of the extant manuscript, where particular historical events are discussed.

  190. See Alessandro Nannini, »Alexander G. Baumgarten and the Lost Letters of Aletheophilus. Notes on a Mystery at the Origins of Modern Aesthetics«, Diciottesimo secolo 2 (2017), 23–43, here: § 5.

  191. See »Fortsetzung des dritten Artickels im ersten Stück«, Vermischte Sammlung von allerhand gelehrten und nützlichen Sachen, so bisher unter dem Namen des Greifswaldischen Wochenblatts ausgefertiget worden 2 (1743), 10–14, where the guidelines of the society are recorded. The authors are Augustin von Balthasar and Johann Franz de Boltenstern. See also above, note 176. The interest in history was widespread in Frankfurt on the Oder too, as testified for example by the legacy of Baumgarten’s colleague Wolf Balthasar Adolf von Steinwehr: Handschriften geschichtlichen Inhalts, welche aus der Universitäts-Bibliothek zu Frankfurt in die zu Breslau gelangt sind, ed. Verein für die Geschichte Berlins (Berlin 1887), 5–40.

  192. Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, »Vorrede«, in: David Franck, Alt- und Neues Mecklenburg, Güstrow/Leipzig 1753, 19–20. As is well known, Siegmund J. Baumgarten is one of the pioneers of the historical studies in Germany, see Schloemann (note 35), 96–170. It is not unlikely that his »alte Neigung zur Historie« (Baumgarten [note 64], 53, note 51) might have rubbed off on Alexander during the years in which Siegmund acted as the philosophical preceptor of his younger brother, Meier (note 143), 11.

  193. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 1.

  194. See the interesting remark which could be applied to aesthetics too in Baumgarten (note 36), § 438, note: »A potiori non male denominantur historiae e. g. philosophiae, etiamsi ab ovo exorsae fata notitiae suo themati maxime homogenae simul enumerant, quae habuit ante, quam in formam disciplinae, vel scientiae redigeretur, vel nomine, quo nunc, gauderet«.

  195. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 1.

  196. Tommaso Campanella, »Historiographia« (1613), in: Tommaso Campanella, Tutte le opere, ed. Luigi Firpo, I, Milano 1954, 1222: »Historiographia est ars recte scribendi historias (sicuti sonat nomen) ad scientiarum bases fundandum«.

  197. Wolff (note 18), § 72; see also §§ 39–41 and § 71. See also Christian Wolff, Philosophia moralis, sive Ethica, I, Halae Magdeburgicae 1750, § 492, scholium. On this aspect, see the pioneering Salvatore Tedesco, L’estetica di Baumgarten, Palermo 2000, 33–34. Wolff distinguishes historia artium and historia literaria, see Helmut Zedelmaier, »Zwischen Fortschrittsgeschichte und Erfindungskunst. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz und Christian Wolff über Historia literaria«, in: Grunert, Vollhardt (note 110), 89–99, here: 94 ff.; Baumgarten mentions historia artium in his discussion about historia profana rather than in his discussion about historia literaria, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 434.

  198. In order to avoid a lengthy discussion, the narration provided by Baumgarten is exclusively limited to the attempts of those practical aestheticians who were mainly committed to distinct knowledge, see Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 1. The birth of the history of aesthetics as such dates back to the end of the eighteenth century, see Tomás Hlobil, »On the Origins of the Historiography of Aesthetics in the German-Language Area: A Preliminary Outline«, in: Matthias Kaufmann (ed.), Expressis verbis. Philosophische Betrachtungen. Festschrift für G. Schenk zum 65. Geburtstag, Halle 2003, 147–158.

  199. The difference between Baumgarten’s aesthetic science and the previous ars aesthetica lies in the fact that the grounds of the rules of the aesthetic science are sufficiently certain, see Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 10. See in general Alessandro Nannini, »Ancient or modern? Alexander G. Baumgarten and the Coming of Age of Aesthetics«, Filozofija i Društvo 26/3 (2015), 629–651, here: §§ 6 ff.; for the relationship between Baumgarten and Wolff on this aspect, see Tedesco (note 197), 31–45.

  200. Baumgarten (note 10), § 64. See also Georg Friedrich Meier, Anfangsgründe aller schönen Wissenschaften, I, Halle im Magdeburgischen 1748, § 234.

  201. By speaking of »pulcra eruditio«, Baumgarten takes a clear stance in favour of the belonging of history and other humanities to eruditio, as Bertram had already claimed, see Bertram (note 63), 19 ff. Differently from ethics or metaphysics, however, history is not only a part of pulcra eruditio, but is also one of the schöne Wissenschaften, as Meier will explicitly state, connecting it with oratory, poetry, music, etc., see Meier (note 200), § 16. History had already been viewed as a »schöne Wissenschaft« by Bertram and will be considered as such still by Herder: »Kann es eine schönere Wissenschaft als Geographie und Geschichte geben?«; see respectively Johann Friedrich Bertram, Summarische Einleitung in die so genannte Schöne Wissenschaften, Oder Litteras Humaniores, Halle 1725, 19 (Historie is here included among the main parts of the »beautiful studies«); Johann Gottfried Herder, »Vom Begriff der schönen Wißenschaften, insonderheit für die Jugend« (1782), in: Herders Sämmtliche Werke, ed. Bernhard Suphan, XXX, Berlin 1889, 81. On belles lettres in general, see Werner Strube, »Die Geschichte des Begriffs Schöne Wissenschaften«, Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 33 (1990), 136–216; Klaus Weimar, Geschichte der deutschen Literaturwissenschaft bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts, München 1989, 56–106.

  202. On this aspect, Baumgarten (note 10), § 83.

  203. See Baumgarten (note 10), §§ 566 ff. Baumgarten contends that poetic verisimilitude is so different from historical verisimilitude that it can be more easily referred to a dogmatic dimension. In this direction, Baumgarten finds support in Aristotle, who had argued for the superiority of poetry to history because of its universality, see Baumgarten (note 10), § 586; see also Baumgarten (note 39), § 58. As Koselleck noticed, Aristotle’s thesis gave rise to two traditions in the West, one of which stayed true to Aristotle’s teaching, the other advocating the superiority of history to poetry because of poetry’s mendacity, see Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past. On the Semantics of Historic Time (1979), New York 2004, 205–206. For the relationship between poetry and history in the Western tradition, see Klaus Heitmann, »Das Verhältnis von Dichtung und Geschichts[s]chreibung in älterer Theorie«, Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 52 (1970), 244–279. Baumgarten distinguishes between a historical and a poetical dimension in relation to aesthetic truth, fictions, fables, verisimilitude, and probability, see Baumgarten (note 10), § 533. This does not imply any contempt for the historical dimension, to the extent that both the poetical and the historical dimension are conducive to the beautiful thinking.

  204. Baumgarten (note 10), § 441. On the link between cognitio sensitiva and the knowledge of particular or individual beings, see for example Ursula Franke, Kunst als Erkenntnis. Die Rolle der Sinnlichkeit in der Ästhetik des Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Wiesbaden 1972, 37–38; see also Pietro Pimpinella, »Veritas aesthetica. Erkenntnis des Individuellen und mögliche Welten«, Aufklärung 20 (2008), 37–60.

  205. Baumgarten (note 10), § 441.

  206. See Baumgarten (note 10), § 566.

  207. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 64. On this aspect, see his brother’s remark, Baumgarten (note 64), 26–27. The same holds true for geography: »Wann der schöne Geist diese Gelehrsamkeit, z. B. die Geographie, nicht wissen sollte, so würde er sich sehr lächerlich machen«, see Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 65.

  208. Heumann, Granzinus (note 111), 17; see Daniel Georg Morhof, Polyhistor, Lubecae 1688, 220.

  209. Baumgarten (note 39), § 21; see also Baumgarten (note 10), § 526.

  210. Baumgarten (note 39), §§ 22 and 18.

  211. The link between history and poetry for their exemplary dimension had already been stressed by Leibniz, who wrote in his essays on theodicy: »Le but principal de l’histoire, aussi-bien que de la poésie, doit être d’enseigner la prudence et la vertu par des exemples«, see Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, »Essais de Théodicée«, § 148, in: Œuvres philosophiques de Leibniz, ed. Paul Janet, II, Paris 1866, 218. As early as in his Meditationes (1735), Baumgarten proves to know well this passage, which he quotes in the course of his discussion about the poeticity of examples, albeit amputated of the reference to history, see Baumgarten (note 39), § 22. The passage will be quoted in its entirety in a note appended to the second edition of the Beyfall (1740; 17412), not by chance while dealing with pragmatic history, see Baumgarten (note 115), § 9, note 3.

  212. See Baumgarten (note 39), § 19; Baumgarten (note 10), § 440.

  213. Baumgarten (note 36), § 435: »Imitanda vel fugienda in tuo themate pingens quam evidentissime satis eris pragmaticus, etiamsi parcus sis paraenesium«.

  214. In this way, a biography is able to please (and benefit) both the amateur and the specialist more intensely than a coherent history whose parts converge in a single object only through general concepts; also, biography is more favourable to ethics, to the extent that it is easier to imitate or avoid behaviours of singular examples, which often elicit a strong motivational power on the mind, see Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, »Vorrede«, in: Samlung von merkwürdigen Lebensbeschreibungen, Halle 1754, without page number.

  215. Baumgarten (note 214), without page number: »Daher nicht nur die Dichtkunst zur höchsten Belustigung, die vermittelst der Einbildungskraft durch die sinlichste Erzälung von Begebenheiten erhalten werden kan, Lebensbeschreibungen zum Muster erwälet, welchen, unter allen Arten der Geschichte, Heldengedichte am nächsten kommen: sondern auch Romanen ihrer Aenlichkeit mit Lebensbeschreibungen und der darin gegründeten Einheit der Erzälungen die reitzende Belustigung der Leser eben so sehr zu verdanken haben, als der Umständlichkeit derselben, welche ohne diese Verknüpfung auf einen einigen Gegenstand dergleichen Wirkung nicht haben würde, dieselbe auch durch jede Abweichung davon vermindert«.

  216. Baumgarten (note 45), § 11.

  217. On the necessity of a beautiful cognition of one’s fatherland, see for example Baumgarten (note 45), § 14; see also Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 126.

  218. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 388: »So viel ist gewiß, man muß immer die nöthigsten Gesetze seines Vaterlandes wissen. Noch mehr wer wahrhaftig edel denkt, muß die Geographie und Historie seines Vaterlandes wissen, er mag nun studieren oder Kriegsdienste nehmen, er muß dies wissen, wann er einen edlen Charakter beobachten will«.

  219. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 300. Not by chance, in his Acroasis logica Baumgarten chooses Holy Scripture and fatherland’s laws as two prominent examples of writings to read with the utmost attention, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 455.

  220. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), §§ 386 and 388.

  221. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 83.

  222. Baumgarten (note 46), § 533. This definition is present from the fourth edition of his Metaphysica (1757). See also Baumgarten, »Kollegium über die Ästhetik« (note 41), § 1. On the importance of the method of the historians for poetical representations, see above note 45. For some hints on the relationship between history, poetics, and aesthetics in Baumgarten, see Gasché (note 9). The relevance of aesthetics for history is still more apparent in Baumgarten’s pupil and friend Meier. For history, insofar as it is included in the list of the liberal arts and belles lettres, is supposed to receive its most general rules from aesthetics, which is »theoria liberalium artium«, see Meier (note 200), § 16.

  223. Baumgarten (note 45). On the concept of philosophical hypothesis, see Baumgarten (note 36), § 398.

  224. Baumgarten (note 10), § 483.

  225. Baumgarten (note 10), § 483. The aesthetic truth is a potiori defined as verisimilitude, which can be thought of as the truth to the analogue of reason.

  226. Verisimilitude in the strictest sense or historical verisimilitude is one of the two kinds of aesthetic verisimilitude. In this case, even the perception of falsehood in a broader sense is banished. The other kind of aesthetic verisimilitude is the heterocosmic verisimilitude, see Baumgarten (note 10), § 530.

  227. Baumgarten (note 10), § 431; Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 431. Such a possibility entails the compliance with the non-contradiction principle, see Baumgarten (note 10), § 431; also, it includes both natural and moral hypothetical possibility, see Baumgarten (note 10), §§ 432–436; Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 40), §§ 433–435.

  228. Baumgarten (note 10), § 437. The reference to the principle of reason and of consequence is clear, see also Baumgarten (note 10), § 426. On the analogue of reason as the ensemble of lower faculties, see Baumgarten (note 46), § 640.

  229. Baumgarten (note 10), §§ 437–438.

  230. Baumgarten (note 64), 9–10. The internal verisimilitude of an occurrence therefore increases if it is possible to show its nexus with the following occurrence, see 18. On the contrary, external reasons rest on the reliability and the number of witnesses, see 11.

  231. The proximity of poetics and history in the eighteenth century had already been highlighted by Koselleck, who contended that the epic rule of unity, at least from Fénelon onwards, was also applied to history, in particular to pragmatic history, with the aim of representing the causal nexus of the narrated occurrences, see Koselleck (note 41), 204. In this sense, it can be somewhat one-sided to affirm, as certain scholars do, that it is the rules of pragmatic history to influence the pragmatic theory of the novel of the late Enlightenment, see Georg Jäger, Empfindsamkeit und Roman. Wortgeschichte, Theorie und Kritik im 18. und frühen 19. Jahrhundert, Stuttgart 1969, 114–126; Werner Hahl, Reflexion und Erzählung. Ein Problem der Romantheorie von der Spätaufklärung bis zum programmatischen Realismus, Stuttgart 1971, ch. 2; for a survey, see Joachim Scharloth, »Evidenz und Wahrscheinlichkeit. Wahlverwandschaften zwischen Romanpoetik und Historik in der Spätaufklärung«, in: Daniel Fulda, Silvia Verena Tschopp (eds.), Literatur und Geschichte. Ein Kompendium zu ihrem Verhältnis von der Aufklärung bis zur Gegenwart, Berlin/New York 2002, 247–275, here: 255–256, note 44, As enhanced by Vosskamp, it is more sensible to consider the parallel development of pragmaticism in Historik and Poetik rather than to endeavour to establish a priority of a tendency over the other, see Vosskamp (note 108), 186–190. As for the shared assumptions, Vosskamp mentions the rules of epic poetry, the discoveries in the natural sciences, and the Leibnizian tradition, see already Friedrich Meinecke, Die Entstehung des Historismus, München 1946, 14, and in general ch. 1; on the importance of the natural sciences for pragmatic history, see also Hanns Peter Reill, »Narration and Structure in Late Eighteenth-Century Historical Thought«, History and Theory 25 (1986), 286–298. Among these assumptions, we can now add, it would not be unfair to assign a place to Baumgarten’s aesthetics too, although Baumgarten, as recalled, does not use the term ›pragmatic‹ in a structural sense. Vosskamp also makes reference to the proximity of history and poetics as regards the necessity of an illusionary dimension of the narration.

  232. If the concept of inner verisimilitude (or structural consistency) can be traced back to Aristotle, and was traditionally used to prioritize poetry, more concerned with verisimilitude than with facticity, over history (see Koselleck [note 203], 205–206), the term ›innere‹ or ›innerliche Wahrscheinlichkeit‹ is widely used in the German poetics of the Thirties and Forties, in particular in the theatrical discussions of Gottsched’s followers, see in this sense [Christian Gottlieb Ludwig], »Abhandlung von denen auf der Schaubühne sterbenden Personen; in sofern man sie nehmlich vor den Augen der Zuschauer solle sterben oder ihren Tod erzählen lassen«, Beyträge zur critischen Historie der deutschen Sprache, Poesie und Beredsamkeit 4 (1736), 15. Stück, 390–406, here: 395: »<Die innere Wahrscheinlichkeit> wird gerechtfertiget, wenn sie uns mögliche Dinge, welche aus der Verbindung der Handlung geflossen sind, anzeiget«. This is different from the so-called »Wahrscheinlichkeit der Vorstellung«, which concerns those things that can be made plausible on the stage; for the explanation of internal verisimilitude, see also [Christlob Mylius], »Eine Abhandlung, worinnen erwiesen wird: Daß die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Vorstellung, bey den Schauspielen eben so nöthig ist, als die innere Wahrscheinlichkeit derselben«, Beyträge zur critischen Historie der deutschen Sprache, Poesie und Beredsamkeit 8 (1743), 30. Stück, 297–322, here: 301: »Wenn der Dichter bey Verfertigung eines Schauspieles beständig den Lauf der Welt, und die Handlungen, Gemüthsarten und Neigungen aller Arten von Menschen vor Augen hat, und nach diesem den Zusammenhang und die Handlungen des Schauspieles sorgfältig einrichtet; wenn er ein solches Schauspiel verfertiget, welches einer wahren Geschichte so nahe kömmt, als es bey Erdichtungen möglich ist: so sagt man, er habe die Regeln der innern Wahrscheinlichkeit in Acht genommen«. See also Baumgarten’s followers: [Jakob Immanuel Pyra], Fortsetzung des Erweises, daß die G*ttsch*dianische Sekte den Geschmack verderbe, Berlin 1744, 79; and Michael Conrad Curtius, »Abhandlung von der Wahrscheinlichkeit«, in: Aristoteles Dichtkunst, ed. Michael Conrad Curtius, Hannover 1753, 400–407, here: 401: »Die innerliche Wahrscheinlichkeit beruhet auf den Gründen, welche die Sache wirklich in sich hat. Je stärker diese Gründe sind, desto näher gränzet der Satz an die Wahrheit, und desto größer, ist die innerliche Wahrscheinlichkeit«. Curtius distinguishes internal verisimilitude from »äußerliche Wahrscheinlichkeit«, which is grounded in human assent. In order for internal verisimilitude to be useful in poetry, it must be perceived by the senses, see 402. On the concept of internal verisimilitude in Lessing and in subsequent poetics, see Karl Heinz Stahl, Das Wunderbare als Problem und Gegenstand der deutschen Poetik des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts, Frankfurt a. M. 1975, 117–119; 190–191; Otto Hasselbeck, Illusion und Fiktion. Lessings Beitrag zur poetologischen Diskussion über das Verhältnis von Kunst und Wirklichkeit, München 1979, 144–147; Christian Berthold, Fiktion und Vieldeutigkeit. Zur Entstehung moderner Kulturtechniken des Lesens im 18. Jahrhundert, Tübingen 1993, 96–108.

  233. In the case of an unknown fiction, the verisimilitudo interna must be higher than that of another fiction, because the former cannot hinge upon myths, legends, and common opinion which makes the audience’s illusion more plausible, see for example Baumgarten (note 10), §§ 518 and 484. If the innere Wahrscheinlichkeit that Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten uses for history conceptually corresponds to the verisimilitudo interna that his brother Alexander employs in aesthetics, it seems that the concept should be translated as »verisimilitude« and not as »probability« as Scharloth suggests, see Scharloth (note 231), 262–263. The shift from a concept of Wahrscheinlichkeit measured in connection with the experiential horizon related to the empirical world towards a concept of Wahrscheinlichkeit as a principle of causality internal to the narration does not therefore seem ipso facto to coincide with the shift from Wahrscheinlichkeit as verisimilitudo to Wahrscheinlichkeit as probabilitas, but rather with an internal shift within the very concept of verisimilitudo in terms of a correspondence of the representation to the possibility of the occurrence, which takes a more and more structural meaning. Probabilitas, insofar as it concerns the judgement about a thing rather than the thing itself and its possibility (see Scharloth [note 231], 261), seems to correspond to the concept of äussere Wahrscheinlichkeit, hence, first of all, to the analysis of the testimony concerning a certain occurrence. For a more extensive discussion of the conceptual shifts of verisimilitude and probability in this period, see Hans Blumenberg, »Terminologization of a Metaphor: From Verisimilitude to Probability«, in: Hans Blumenberg, Paradigms for a Metaphorology (1960), ed. Robert Savage, New York 2010, 81–98. For the distinction between verisimilitudo and probabilitas in Alexander G. Baumgarten’s Aesthetica, see for example Baumgarten (note 10), § 485.

  234. Meier (note 200), § 106. As is notorious, the link between novels and possible worlds is known to Leibniz and Wolff, see Leibniz (note 211), § 173; Wolff (note 7), § 571. To enhance the coherence of each representation with the theme, Baumgarten compares the poem to a little world, thus drawing on the venerable tradition of the poet as a creator, see Baumgarten (note 39), §§ 68–71; the metaphor of the world also occurs in the Aesthetica, see for example Baumgarten (note 10), § 530; 587–588. The literature on this aspect is extensive and there is no use citing it here. I just mention Tanehisa Otabe, »Possible Worlds and the Analogy of Creation. Prehistory of the Modern Concept of ›Artistic Creation‹ in Leibniz-Wolffian Philosophy«, Aesthetics 6 (1994), 35–46.

  235. See Scharloth (note 231), 264 ff. The strict connection of causes and effects, typical of the successful unknown fiction in Baumgarten, will be seminal in the novels of the late Enlightenment, for example in Johann Carl Wezel’s Hermann und Ulrike (1780), see Scharloth (note 231), note 266. The proximity between poetical and historical verisimilitude, then regretted by Johann Adolf Schlegel (see Scharloth [note 231], 264), had already been considered suspiciously by Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, who rejected the possible employment of the unbridled poetic wit in history, which would turn the latter into a novel, see Baumgarten (note 192), 18. To be sure, as Gatterer will maintain, the so-called »truth of the novels« is in a sense at the basis of both history and novels; yet, in order for the »truth of the novels« to become historical truth it is necessary to go beyond the mere possibility of a certain occurrence by means of historical demonstrations. In this sense, the truth of the novels resembles the internal verisimilitude in Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten, whereas the historical demonstrations, required by the historical truth, aim to achieve a sort of ›external verisimilitude‹, see Johann Christoph Gatterer, »Vorrede von der Evidenz in der Geschichtkunde«, in: Die allgemeine Welthistorie, ed. Friedrich Eberhard Boysen, Halle 1767, 37. For a first outline of this issue, see for example Jäger (note 231), 114–126, with the warning made at note 231.

  236. Baumgarten (note 10), § 584.

  237. Baumgarten (note 10), § 506.

  238. Baumgarten (note 10), § 509.

  239. Baumgarten (note 10), § 509. In this case, Baumgarten speaks of strictly historical fictions.

  240. See for instance the case of Coriolanus, in which Livy inserts the speech of Coriolanus’ mother, in order to account for his emotion, Baumgarten (note 10), § 438. Such an invention thus gives rise to a fictio strictius historica. It is in the domain of this kind of fiction that the fictions of the »beautiful and rational novels« according to Meier can take place, see Meier (note 200), § 106. The insertion of speeches, which are fictitious but consistent with the context, will be acknowledged as legitimate by Gatterer too, see Gatterer (note 235), 21. For this aspect alone, Gatterer contends, historians approach poets in their exposition.

  241. The quote is recorded in Koselleck (note 203), 205.

  242. Baumgarten (note 10), § 506. Fictions in a broad sense are here defined as »perceptiones combinando praescindendoque phantasmata formatae«. Baumgarten then labels »fictiones strictissime verae« the fictions narrated according to the fides historica. Such fictions belong to the so-called historical fictions in a broad sense, which »omnem cognitionem huius universi apud pulcre cogitantem complexae, quam ipse non expertus est, aut sistunt saltim inexperto strictissime veros eventus huius universi fictiones strictissime verae«, § 509. They also include strictly historical fictions, which contain the element of possibility, § 509. All that the historian has not personally experienced is the fruit of a fiction in this sense. The point is therefore not to reject fictions from history, but to verify their more or less ›historical‹ status before accepting them in a historical narration.

  243. Koselleck spoke of the relationship of res factae and res fictae in Koselleck (note 203), 205 ff.

  244. In other terms, the beautiful mind can beautifully think about past events according to the fides historica.

  245. The issue of transformation (Verwandlung) of Geschichte in the narration was enhanced by Chladenius, see Chladenius (note 11), ch. 6. In the same way as the historical fictions in Baumgarten, the concept of ›transformation‹ highlights the distance between the direct experience of an occurrence (which in itself, as recalled, is already prospectively biased) and the picture guiding the historical narration, see 116: »Wir erzehlen die Sachen nicht in der Empfindung, und währender Vorstellung, sondern nach derselben: und richten uns also nach dem Bilde, welches durch die Empfindung in unsere Seele ist eingeprägt worden. Da nun dieses schon nicht der Empfindung vollkommen gleich ist, so wird noch erst mancherley Veränderung damit vorgenommen, so bald als der Vorsatz, die Sache andern zu erzehlen, darzu kommt«. In this sense, the appeal to Verwandlung seems to unearth the necessity of a fictional mediation between the cognitio historica on which a historical book hinges and the narration of the historical book itself. The fact remains that Chladenius explicitly rejects the term ›fiction‹ (Erdichtung), insofar as fiction is for him connected with lies and falsehood, 154–155.

  246. On the insertion of the German Geschichtsschreibung in literature between the late Enlightenment and nineteenth-century historicism, see in particular Rudolf Vierhaus, »Geschichtsschreibung als Literatur im 18. Jahrhundert«, in: Karl Hammer, Jürgen Voss (eds.), Historische Forschung im 18. Jahrhundert, Organisation-Zielsetzung-Ergebnisse, 12. deutsch- französisches Historikerkolloquium des Deutschen Historischen Instituts, Paris/Bonn 1976, 416–431, § 2. However, Baumgarten’s role is not taken into account.

  247. See Koselleck (note 203), 111–112, who stresses that the sources offer a negative control over what cannot be stated, but do not positively prescribe what to say. In this sense, the employment of a rigorous historical critique is not necessarily in contrast with the fictional dimension.

  248. Baumgarten (note 10), § 583.

  249. Baumgarten (note 10), § 510.

  250. In any case, the internal credibility should not present any contradiction not only to the analogue of reason, but also to reason.

  251. Chladenius (note 11), »Vorrede«.

  252. Against the prejudice that history only rests on memory, Siegmund Jakob Baumgarten affirms: »Denn obs gleich ein Vortheil der Historie ist, und zu ihrer Anmut viel beiträgt, daß sie keine beschwerliche Anstrengung der Gemütskräfte erfordert, auch nicht leicht jemandes Fähigkeit übersteiget, oder durch Entdeckung eines gänzlichen Unvermögens, etwas davon zu fassen, Unlust erwecket: so ist doch keine Art des natürlichen Vermögens und erlangter Fertigkeit des Denkens in der menschlichen Vorstellungskraft anzutreffen, die nicht dabey gebraucht und beschäftiget werden sollte. <…> <S>o wird nebst der Erinnerungs- und Einbildungskraft, der Witz und Verstand; nebst der Erwartung änlicher Fälle, die deutliche Einsicht in den Zusammenhang der Dinge; nebst den Leidenschaften, die freiere Bewegungen des Willens; folglich Sinlichkeit und Vernunft, in Beschäftigung gesetzt«, see Baumgarten (note 64), 23, note 24.

  253. On the necessity for the aestheticus felix to take care of the lower faculties too, see Baumgarten (note 10), § 38.

  254. On the issue of the »ganzer Mensch« on which we cannot linger, see the recent survey by Elena Agazzi, »Alcune riflessioni sul concetto di ganzer Mensch nel tardo Illuminismo tedesco«, Cultura tedesca 50 (2016), 75–99.

  255. See above, note 41.

  256. Baumgarten, Sciagraphia (note 41), § 90. In this sense, the case of historiography shows how aesthetics can apply its general principles to special themes, see § 97. Historiography could thus be inserted in the list of applications provided in Baumgarten (note 10), § 4.

  257. See above, note 40.

  258. Baumgarten (note 36), §§ 28–29.

  259. Baumgarten (note 81), § 730. The concept of sensible clarity had been enhanced by Baumgarten’s master Johann Peter Reusch, see on this Alessandro Nannini, »L’idea estetica di chiarezza estensiva e la sua genesi nella filosofia wolffiana«, Rivista di storia della filosofia (2014), 421–442. In this sense, argumenta illustrantia are different from argumenta resolventia or analytica, which furnish intellectual clarity. Both argumenta resolventia and argumenta illustrantia are included in argumenta declarantia (explicantia), which shed light on a given perception in general. See also Baumgarten (note 46), § 531 starting from the second edition (1743).

  260. In this sense, the process of detailing typical of the illustratio in ancient rhetoric is here reinterpreted in an epistemic sense through the increase in notes of the representation. Vividness is tightly connected with the dimension of exemplification, which, as recalled, was a crucial aspect of the pragmatic approach, see Baumgarten (note 10), § 526: »The example is the inferior concept which elucidates, that is, makes clearer, the superior concept in which it is contained«; see also Baumgarten (note 81), §§ 749–762. In vivid knowledge, the emphasis lies on the object rather than on the signs through which we look, thus giving rise to that intuitive knowledge that will be pivotal in the later theory of history, in particular in Gatterer; see Baumgarten (note 46), § 620 starting from the second edition of 1743.

  261. Although illustratio is an important component for sensible evidence accompanying persuasion, it does not coincide with it as the ancients like Cicero believed, see Baumgarten (note 81), §§ 852–853.

  262. Baumgarten (note 81), § 847. On the existence of intellectual and sensible evidence, see § 849. Aesthetics must seek true evidence, keeping itself away from false persuasion, see § 849. In the Metaphysica, evidence is »certa perspicuitas«, while certainty is »conscientia veritatis«, see Baumgarten (note 46), § 531 starting from the second edition (1743). For a detailed analysis of the concept of evidence in Baumgarten and in his context, see in particular Bernhard Fischer, »Von der ars zur ästhetischen Evidenz – Überlegungen zur Entwicklung der Poetologie von Gottsched bis Lessing«, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 109 (1990), 481–502; Hans Carl Finsen, »Evidenz und Wirkung im ästhetischen Werk Baumgartens. Texttheorie zwischen Philosophie und Rhetorik«, DVjs 70/2 (1996), 198–212; Rüdiger Campe, »Bella evidentia. Begriff und Figur von Evidenz in Baumgartens Ästhetik«, Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 49 (2001), 243–255; Eberhard Ostermann, Die Authentizität des Ästhetischen. Studien zur ästhetischen Transformation der Rhetorik, München 2002, ch. 3, entitled »Zum Konzept ästhetischer Evidenz bei Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten«; Frauke Berndt, »Ex marmore. Evidenz im Ungeformten bei J. J. Winckelmann und A. G. Baumgarten«, in: Birgit Neumann (ed.), Präsenz und Evidenz fremder Dinge im Europa des 18. Jahrhunderts, Göttingen 2015, 75–98.

  263. Baumgarten (note 81), § 849.

  264. Baumgarten (note 36), § 435. As Baumgarten affirms in his Aesthetica, historians, as well as orators and poets, must elucidate the truth they put forward through the suitable light, see Baumgarten (note 81), § 842, hence they make it evident, albeit in a different way from philosophers and mathematicians. In this way, the solidity of knowledge is not necessarily linked with intellectual certainty, but can also exist in all those fields in which truths are elucidated in an accurate manner through the rules of verisimilitude (aesthetic solidity), §§ 840–841.

  265. Aesthetic evidence is the sensible light surrounding true or verisimilar things, thus accompanying aesthetic persuasion, see Baumgarten (note 81), §§ 847–54. The demonstration addressed to the eyes is analogue to the intellectual one, see § 847.

  266. Baumgarten (note 81), § 853.

  267. Gatterer (note 235). In the wake of Baumgarten, Mendelssohn had already detected the characteristics of evidence in certainty and comprehensibility, see Moses Mendelssohn, Abhandlung über die Evidenz in Metaphysischen Wissenschaften, Berlin 1764. On Gatterer’s proximity to this perspective, see Matthias Buschmeier, Poesie und Philologie in der Goethe-Zeit, Tübingen 2008, 69. For an analysis of Gatterer’s essay, see Fulda (note 11), 157 ff.

  268. Baumgarten (note 10), § 583.

  269. Baumgarten, »Kollegium« (note 41), § 583. This is not to say that a historical outline cannot be sometimes written in a dry way, especially if the understanding is expected to know only its main determinations. In his Metaphysica, Baumgarten pinpoints the opposition between nitor et splendor cogitationum et orationis, connected with vividitas, and siccitas, as a feature both of the genus cogitandi and of the genus scribendi; see Baumgarten (note 46), § 531 starting from the second edition (1743).

  270. Chladenius (note 11), 23. Chladenius does not deny that poetical representations can have an illustrative role for history, but this holds true only as long as the addressed audience’s customs do not change. When this happens, elucidation turns into obscurity, 129–130. Baumgarten’s claims are all but isolated: see already [Georg Friedrich Meier], »Fünfte Fortsetzung des 43sten Stücks, von dem Werth der Historie in der Gelehrsamkeit«, Der Mensch 6. Theil (1753), 258. Stück, 387–402. In this essay, it is argued that the historian who is content with »eine trockene und unangenehme Erzehlung wirklicher Dinge und Begebenheiten« is but »ein blosses Register der Welt und des menschlichen Geschlechts«, 392–393. On the contrary, history should establish direct links with other branches of erudition. The alliance with the belles lettres, in particular, makes of history »eine lebhafte, rührende und höchst angenehme Erzehlung«, 393.«Die Historie <…> ist eine schöne Erzehlung wirklicher Dinge und Begebenheiten, welche so pragmatisch ist, daß die Regeln der menschlichen Glückseligkeit auf eine practische Art daraus können erkant werden«, 394–395. Gatterer’s position too is relevant in this sense. According to Gatterer, the historian cannot become a poet, insofar as the writing style cannot be a poetic prose, see Gatterer (note 235), 19–20. Rather, Gatterer intends to promote the best aspects of the ancient historians’ prose in modern historiography, in particular their simplicity and evidence. For albeit not essential to Geschichte, a good garb (Einkleidung) is useful and desirable for a historical text, see Johann Christoph Gatterer, »Vorrede«, Historisches Journal 1 (1773), without page number (the preface is dated 23 September 1772). On the problem of »elocutio« in history writing in the 18th century, see Fulda (note 11), in particular 151–152.

  271. As is well known, the connections between history and aesthetics will gain momentum from the Sixties of the German eighteenth century onwards. On their novelty with regard to the previous period, see in particular Fulda (note 11), 166–174. The necessity to take into account the literary dimension of history will become apparent towards the end of the century, in particular in Herder (see note 272) and Schiller, see for example Thomas Prüfer, Die Bildung der Geschichte. Friedrich Schiller und die Anfänge der modernen Geschichtswissenschaft, Köln/Weimar/Wien 2002, in particular ch. 4. The role of aesthetics will be crucial in nineteenth-century historicism, see for example Jörn Rüsen, »Rhetoric and Aesthetics of History: Leopold von Ranke«, History and Theory 29 (1990), 190–204; Wolfgang Hardtwig, »Die Geschichtserfahrung der Moderne und die Ästhetisierung der Geschichtsdarstellung: Leopold von Ranke«, Geschichte und Gesellschaft 23 (1997), 99–114.

  272. For the new awareness of the active dimension of the historian, an important role has been played by Johann Jakob Breitinger in the first part of the eighteenth century, who developed a perspective literary interpretation and a temporalization of poetry which will be then crucial for the »poetization of historiography«, see Jill Anne Kowalik, The Poetics of Historical Perspectivism. Breitinger’s »Critische Dichtkunst« and the Neoclassic Tradition, Chapel Hill/London 1992, here: 8. The fictional dimension of history finds, as is known, a full-fledged development in Herder, who sets historiography free from the relation of copy with the past, by enhancing the mediational role of the language, see Fulda (note 11), in particular 208–227. See also Hinrich C. Seeba, »Geschichte und Dichtung. Herders Beitrag zur Ästhetisierung der Geschichtsschreibung«, Storia della storiografia 8 (1985), 50–72. Fulda stresses the importance of text-oriented poetics and history from the Seventies of the 18th century to the contemporary debate, see Daniel Fulda, »Die Texte der Geschichte. Zur Poetik des modernen historischen Denkens«, Poetica 31 (1999), 27–60.

  273. See Hardtwig (note 11), 189.

  274. See Koselleck (note 203), 206, who makes reference to Chladenius as a crucial author for the blending of fictionality and facticity in the 18th century, without mentioning Baumgarten’s hints.

  275. It does not come as a surprise, from this point of view, that Baumgarten makes reference in several occasions to the category of verisimilitude which he had theoretically grounded in his Aesthetica.

  276. See for example Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, Ethica philosophica, Halae Magdeburgicae 17512, § 202: »Ergo singulas facultates animae tuae, quoties potes, in optimis exerce convenientissime. Perfice facultatem tuam cognoscitivam, hinc et inferiorem, analogon rationis, ita, ut cognitio materialiter optima, i. e. optimorum, quae potes cognoscere, sit simul formaliter optima, quam praestare potes, uberrima, gravissima, verissima, clarissima, certissima, ardentissima«.

  277. On this work, see Nannini (note 185).

  278. Baumgarten (note 81), »Praefatio«. For the text in Latin, see the following note.

  279. The whole passage reads: »Si quis tamen superes, amice lector, qui me curas, qui me nosti, qui me amas denique, disce fortunam ex aliis, ex me, qui iam octavum in annum per ambages aegritudinum circumerro, quae videantur inextricabiles, quam necessarium sit, maturius bene cogitandis optimis assuefieri. Quid enim agerem, uti nunc sum, pro virili hoc agere nescius, profecto, nescio«, see Baumgarten (note 81), »Praefatio«. Such words elicited Mendelssohn’s emotion, as he did not hesitate to confess in his review of the second part of Baumgarten’s Aesthetica, see Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste 4/1 (1758), 438–456, here: 439. Baumgarten’s plea follows the pattern of Aeneas’ plea to his son (see Virgil, Aeneid, XII, vv. 435–436: »Disce, puer, virtutem ex me verumque laborem / fortunam ex aliis«), where the son is here replaced by the readers. Baumgarten’s poor health led him to adapt the original passage to his situation; in the new arrangement, the fortune must be learned not only from others, but from Baumgarten himself, who had been sorely tested by eight years of severe disease.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Research in the Humanities, University of Bucharest, Strada Doctor Dimitrie Brândză, 1, 060102, Bucharest, Romania

    Alessandro Nannini

Authors
  1. Alessandro Nannini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alessandro Nannini.

Additional information

* This essay, developed as a fellow of the IRH-ICUB, University of Bucharest, is framed within the project PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-2299 (funded by UEFISCDI, 23/2018), PI Dr. Tinca Prunea. My warmest thanks go to Professor Clemens Schwaiger for his helpful suggestions.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Nannini, A. In the Wake of Clio. Dtsch Vierteljahrsschr Literaturwiss Geistesgesch 93, 1–41 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41245-019-00074-2

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41245-019-00074-2

Search

Navigation