The closest that Baumgarten came to a qualitative aesthetic is in his discussion of ‘the wonderful’, which he characterized as an intuitive grasp of the inconceivable that is not present in perception ( 1735: 53). It is not that feelings of pleasure are intrinsically valuable, but that more effects contribute to a greater perfection of the discourse. On the other hand, Baumgarten distinguished aesthetic effects quantitatively, not qualitatively. Stronger impressions are more poetic because their impressions are extensively clearer ( 1735: 27). Sensate representations are ‘marked degrees of pleasure or pain’ ( 1735: 47). He focused on the affective side of perception.
A number of points in Baumgarten’s aesthetics bear on later developments in aesthetics.
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