A well-known work on aesthetics which Diderot attacked in his Lettre sur les sourds et muets, (1751). In 1750 the prestigious post of Professor of Greek and Latin Philosophy at the College de France fell vacant and was given to Batteux, and this was resented by the philosophes, who thought it should have gone to a philosopher (like Condillac, or Diderot himself), instead of a mere scholar and rhetorician.

Published between 1747 and 1750 the Cours appeared in a German translation between 1756 and 1758. It remained influential throughout much of the eighteenth century and is referred to in The Sorrows of Young Werther.