BAUMGARTEN, ALEXANDER GOTTLIEB (1714— 1762), German philosopher, was born in Berlin. He studied at Halle, and became professor of philosophy at Halle and at Frank furt. He was a disciple of Leibnitz and Wolff, and was distin guished for separating aesthetics from the other philosophic disciplines, and in marking out a definite object for its researches. Baumgarten's first work preceded those of Burke, Diderot, and P. Andre, and Kant had a great admiration for him. His most important works are : Disputationes de nonnullis ad poema perti nentibus (1735) ; Aesthetica (175o) ; Metaphysica (1739) ; Ethica philosophica (1740) ; Initia philosophiae practicae primae (176o). After his death, his pupils published a Philosophia Generalis (1770) and a Jus Naturae (1765).
See Meier, Baumgarten's Leben (1763) ; Abbt, Baumgarten's Leben and Charakter (1765) ; H. G. Meyer, Leibnitz and Baumgarten (1874) ; J. Schmidt, Leibnitz and Baumgarten (Halle, 1875) ; Zimmer mann, Gesch. der Aesthetik (Vienna 1858) .
His brother, SIEGMUND JACOB BAUMGARTEN was professor of theology at Halle, and applied the methods of Wolff to theology. His chief pupil, Johann Salomo Semler is sometimes called the father of German rationalism. Baumgarten, though he did not renounce the Pietistic doctrine, began the process which Semler completed. His works include Evangelische Glaubenslehre 0759); Auszug der Kirchengeschichte .
See Life by Semler (Halle, 1758) .