Baumgarten and the problem of obscure representations

Résumé

Baumgarten is perhaps the first philosopher to approach the problem of the obscure representations of the soul aiming at discerning in them not obscurity or irrationality, rather a new clarity and hence a new perspective towards a better cognition of the human soul. The objective of this article is to verify how Baumgarten achieves this; namely, by understanding how the philosopher inscribes obscure representations, the “ground of the soul”, within empirical psychology, and hence within metaphysics, as a topic of an aesthetic order; by identifying that which, according to Baumgarten, is the problem inherent to obscure representations, between the necessary and the impossible exteriorization (chiaroscuro) of the latter, and to attempt to discern Baumgarten’s solution for this dilemma, which is to be found in the conscious-unconscious sfumato of poetry and is occasioned by the inherent poeticity of obscure representations themselves.