On the Limits of a Purely Logical Demonstration of Aesthetic Value in Jonas Cohn’s Allgemeine Ästhetik (1901)

Jonas Cohn (1869–1947), a disciple of Windelband and Rickert, published Allgemeine Ästhetik in 1901. This work is distinctive in that it is the only systematic investigation in the field of aesthetics undertaken by a representative of the Baden Neo-Kantian school. On the one hand, this extremely rigorous work fine-tunes the results of several of Cohn’s previous studies (1894–1900) and investigates the problem of beauty and art from a psycho-physiological point of view. In so doing, it also analyses various then-active currents in art psychology. On the other hand, Cohn takes up the problematic perspective of a “normative aesthetics” that founds its premises and aims on the typical principles of the critical philosophy of values. The present article seeks to account for the scope of the question as it is presented in Cohn’s 1901 volume – and also refers when needed to some of his immediately subsequent writings.