In the Wake of Clio: Alexander G. Baumgarten on History

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 amilitant 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 acrucial subject for the beautiful mind, while aesthetics enables the historian to come to terms with the fictitious facticity of the past.