Diotima's Children

Frederick Beiser was educated at Oriel College Oxford (B.A. 1972-74) and Wolfson College Oxford (1975-1981). He has had several major research fellowships: NEH, Guggenheim, Thyssen and Humboldt and has taught at seven US universities: Harvard, Yale, Colorado, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Syracuse. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse University.

• Introduction: Reappraising Aesthetic Rationalism ; 1. Leibniz and the Roots of Aesthetic Rationalism ; 2. Wolff and the Birth of Aesthetic Rationalism ; 3. Gottsched and the Highnoon of Rationalism ; 4. The Poets' War ; 5. Baumgarten's Science of Aesthetics ; 6. Winckelmann & Neo-Classicism ; 7. Mendelssohn's Defense of Reason ; 8. Lessing and Aesthetic Rationalism ; Bibliography

This book represents a revolution in the historiography of German aesthetics and philosophy, shaped and canonized since Kant and Hegel. However, its provocative statements are simply the result of carefully rereading the long-dismissed pre-Kantian thinkers and of trying to understand them from the perspective of the questions which originally motivated their thinking. The result is the most informative and comprehensive presentation of German aesthetics and philosophy from Leibniz to Kant available today, one that can finally replace Beck's Kant and his Predecessors.