J. Colin McQuillan is associate professor of philosophy at St Mary's Unversity, Texas. He is the co-editor, with Joseph Tanke, of the Bloomsbury Anthology of Aesthetics and author of Early Modern Aesthetics (Rowman & Littlefield International).

This excellent volume on Baumgarten's aesthetics edited by J. Colin McQuillan provides a wide ranging set of essays that expand on Baumgarten's new science of sensible cognition as well as the aesthetic perfections of clarity and liveliness that characterize beauty. The essays collected in this volume also show how this new discipline relates to the modern search for the art of invention, the Pietist faith in communication through the affects, and Baumgarten's influence on later philosophers.

• IntroductionJ. Colin McQuillan1.Baumgarten’s Invention of AestheticsUrsula Franke2. Baumgarten’s Aesthetics: Topics and the Modern Ars inveniendiStefanie Buchenau3. Beauty and Appearance in Baumgarten’s Metaphysics and AestheticsMatthew McAndrew4. Baumgarten’s Conception of Aesthetic Truth in the AestheticsAngelica Nuzzo5. Pietist Aisthesis and Moral Education in the Works of Alexander Gottlieb BaumgartenSimon Grote6. Wolffian Rationalism and Baumgarten’s AestheticsJ. Colin McQuillan7. The Co-Founding of Aesthetics: Baumgarten and MeierAlessandro Nannini8. An Exercise in Humanity: Baumgarten and Mendelssohn on the Importance of Aesthetic TrainingAnne Pollok9. Herder’s Engagement with BaumgartenHans Adler10. The Majesty of Cognition: The Sublime in Baumgarten, Mendelssohn, and KantRobert R. Clewis11. The Discipline of Aesthetics is the Aesthetics of Discipline: Baumgarten from Foucault’s PerspectiveChristoph Menke12. The Happy Aesthetician and the Feminist Killjoy: Baumgarten and AhmedAmelia Hruby