Umanizzare l'uomo. Le implicazioni antropologiche dell'educazione estetica nell'epoca della Popularphilosophie

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to highlight the relevance of aesthetic education in the German Popularphilosophie. After a brief introduction on the anthropological issue in general, the essay examines three main ways to consider ‘humanity’. In the first part, the analysis concerns the establishment of humanity through the fine arts at the dawn of civilization, as it is suggested in philosophers like Mehmel and Sulzer. In the second part, the focus is set on the fact that ‘humanity’ cannot be considered as a once-and-for-all acquisition, but has a pedagogical basis which clearly emerges in the reception of Baumgarten’s aesthetics. In the last section, the text turns to the normative overtones of the idea of humanity and to its seminal role as a propaedeutics for moral life in several authors such as Eberhard and Heyne.