Il corpo come strumento della sensibilità: riflessioni sul conoscere e il sentire fra estetica e fisiologia

Since its origins, the controversial relationship between sensible knowledge and conceptual knowledge is a central problem of aesthetics. The reflections of A.G. Baumgarten, the “father of modern aesthetics”, played a key role for the revaluation of senses and corporeity, although, in his works, the constructability of aesthetics is not extended to physiological topics yet. In this article we aim to understand the role played by senses and body structure in all living beings, from unicellular organisms to human beings; at the same time, we try to understand the importance of senses for environmental comprehension, adopting a morphological perspective and keeping together philosophical and scientific reflections. In this attempt we turn to J.G. Herder’s essay On cognition and sensation of human soul and to the biological proposals of the German zoologist E. Haeckel.