Abstract

Although pregnancy as a semantic and perceptual density is a central notion of aesthetics, scholarship has not yet conducted a genealogical inquiry into its early-modern roots. It is the aim of this investigation to make a contribution in this direction. My thesis is, that the idea of aesthetic pregnancy emerges in Alexander G. Baumgarten’s philosophy as the outcome of the convergence between Leibnizian assumptions anda series of hermeneutical categories, which have hitherto been overlooked. After analyzing the role of pregnancy in Lutheran hermeneutics, I examine its reception in Baumgarten’s philosophy, in the attempt to enhance the relationships with the earlier tradition. By reconfiguring the semantic densitywith the instruments of empirical psychology, I argue, Baumgarten is able to shift pregnancy from the hermeneutical domain of sense to the metaphysicaldomain of sensibility, thus paving the way for its fortune in future aesthetics.