Metaphysics

Alexander Baumgarten (1714 - 1762) was among the first to teach the controversial philosophy of Christian Wolff (1769-1764). By order of the king, he moved to Frankfurt on the Order in 1739, where he remained until his death in 1762. His most influential philosophical works are Metaphysics (1739), Philosophical Ethics (1740), and Aesthetics (2 Vols, 1750 & 1757). It is as formulated in these works that the Leibniz-Wolff tradition was chiefly communicated to later German philosophers, including Immanuel Kant. Today Baumgarten is also regarded as a central founder of modern aesthetics.John Hymers is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at La Salle University, USA.Courtney D. Fugate is Assistant Professor at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

Baumgarten's Metaphysica was both a refined restatement of the German rationalism of Leibniz and Wolff and an original work of philosophy. Not merely the textbook for Immanuel Kant's lectures on metaphysics and anthropology, it fundamentally shaped Kant's "Critical Philosophy" and through that most of later German philosophy. This lucid translation finally makes Baumgarten's seminal work available in English . . . indispensable for all future students of Kant and German philosophy.

• Part I: Introduction to the Translation Introduction 1. Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-1762) and Georg Friedrich Meier (1718-1777): A historical sketch 2. The philosophical context of the Metaphysics 3. Kant’s Handwritten Notes to the Metaphysics 4. Notes on this translation Part II: The Translation Alexander Baumgarten’s Metaphysics Johann August Eberhard’s Preface to the Second German Edition (1783) Georg Friedrich Meier’s Preface to the First German Translation (1766) Preface of the third edition (1750) Preface of the second edition (1743) To the listener of good will [preface to the first edition](1739) Synopsis Prolegomena to Metaphysics Part I: Ontology Prologomena Chapter I. The universal internal predicates of a being Chapter II. The internal disjunctive predicates of a being Chapter III. The relative predicates of a being Part II: Cosmology Prologomena Chapter I. The concept of the world Chapter II. The parts of the universe Chapter III. The perfection of the universe Part III: Psychology Prolegomena Chapter I. Empirical psychology Chapter II. Rational psychology Part IIII: Natural theology Prolegomena Chapter I. The concept of God Chapter II. The operations of GodPart III: Ancillary Materials Glossary Latin-English English-Latin Notes and Textual variantsSelected Bibliography Index to the paragraphs of the Metaphysics General Index