UN EPISODIO DEL PENSAMIENTO FRANCÉS DE LA AUTONOMÍA Benjamin Constant y las idées très ingénieuses Francisco Gelman Constantin Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, Universidad de Buenos Aires Abstract – This paper attempts a consideration of the significance of Benjamin Constant’s aesthetic thoughts within the context of the history of the concept of “aesthetic autonomy”. With that in mind it reevaluates his transformation of the German tradition, by way of its binding to the social theory corresponding to the cultural and historical analysis of early French Romanticism. Taking the coinage of the expression “art for art’s sake” as a starting point, this paper reconstructs the whole of Constant’s thought-system, as well as its exchanges wit...