The Example in the Knowledge of Aesthetics (1750-1850). Exploring and Archiving a Discoursive Practice

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Michael Niehaus; Professor Dr. Peter Risthaus
• Subject Area: German Literary and Cultural Studies (Modern German Literature) ; General and Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies ; History of Philosophy
• Term: from 2017 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 327259109

Giving examples is a fundamental and essential element of scientific discourses and practices which cannot be reduced to the logical relation between the general and the particular or to a mere illustrative function. With regard to the universal principles, concepts and terms which are to be developed examples are by no means interchangeable and random.The project explores the use of examples in the discourse of aesthetics between 1750 and 1850. During this period the philosophical discipline of aesthetics develops and, following Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, systematic essays as well as several scholarly books are written and published. Since the discourse of aesthetics deals with single, conceptually not dissolvable judgements of taste it is an adequate subject of this research project. Focusing on the nature of beauty and its sensual conception, the discourse of aesthetics inherently relies on the use of examples. Whether it is a rose or the statue of a Greek goddess.: In both cases the gain of knowledge through the use of examples has to be reflected on thoroughly since there is a difference between commonly applied examples and newly invented ones. Thus, detailed reflections on examples can be found in crucial parts of the various aesthetics.Therefore, the project aims at investigating the mediation of examples between a claim of general meaning and an objects particular aesthetical moment. Examples are not only used to persuade, but also to memorize knowledge; they are used as agents of insight into complex relations or as striking counter-examples; generally, they are the basis of generating new knowledge. To meet the requirements of this discursive complexity, different dimensions will be analyzed, such as the rhetorical, mnemonic, conceptual, epistemological, and institutional as well as the normative dimension of the use of examples. A broader study of both examples in general and of their use in aesthetics in particular is a desideratum. The project contributes to this research based on extensive material provided by the database Archiv des Beispiels. In this database all relevant examples coming from a broad corpus are systematically collected and organized. Simultaneously, an interdisciplinarily oriented group of researchers will investigate the historical developments as well as the linguistic und discoursive forms of the use of examples in the epistemic field of aesthetics. This approach shall finally give insight into the basic significance of examples and how they work.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants