The tendency to isolate aesthetics in the study of fine arts and in basic fine arts research as well as through the aesthetics of empathy goes back to post-Kantian philosophy. This way of thinking, as far as it was of particular interest to Cohen, dominated aesthetics and art theory during the time of the publication his Ästhetik des reinen Gefühls. In the Marburg School itself, the systematic basis of aesthetics began to shift in 1912.