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Shaping the Past: the Founding of History as an Aesthetico-Logical Science in the German Enlightenment (2017-2018, 2018-2019)

10.58367/NECY.2023.2.7.179-203

Publication: 10.58367/NECY.2023.2
Field of study: Philosophy, Intellectual history
Summary:

In this paper, I intend to study for the first time the role of demonstrations and fictions as key elements for the scientization of history in the early German Enlightenment. First, I analyze the debate about the role of demonstrative knowledge in the historical narration, with special regard to Thomasius and Heumann. Next, I explore the relationship between the knowledge of historical
facts and the epistemology of sensibility, with special regard to Chladenius and the Baumgarten brothers. My conclusion is that history as a science arises out of a concurrence of logical and aesthetic features.

Keywords: Thomasiu, Baumgarten, theory of history, aesthetics, fictionality

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