Before we can turn to the Aesthetica, however, we must look at some of the key definitions Baumgarten lays down in the chapter on “Empirical Psychology” in his Metaphysics. Baumgarten begins by defining the “inferior” or “lower faculty of cognition” as that which works with sensible representations, which are in turn “indistinct, that is, obscure or confused” (Metaphysik, §§382–3, pp. 115–16). Sensible representations can be developed in either of two ways, however: either with increasing clari