Friedrich Schiller’s on the Aesthetic Education of Man

Critical Review: Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man

Friedrich Schiller’s abstract ideas in relation to aesthetics were developed in the late Eighteenth century specifically in response to the publication of Kant’s Critique of Judgment in 1790. A series of letters were sent by Schiller to his patron Prince Friedrich Christian in 1793, and were later published in a journal under the title On the Aesthetic Education of Man in 1795. These letters build upon a framework of Kantian principles, utilizing established concepts as a means to explore the role of art and aesthetic experience in human development and society. Schiller addresses the dualisms Kant previously discussed of nature and reason; building upon the idea of the Spieltrieb (“play- drive”) in an attempt to reconcile the two opposing drives of the Stofftrieb (sense-drive) and the Formtrieb (form-drive).  However, Schiller does not directly follow Kant, deviating instead in order to aid his own socio-political agenda. Adapting the concepts, he exploits them for a further discussion about morality in particular. Written with the backdrop of the French Revolution there is a distinct politicization of the concepts, reflected in the focus on the role art and beauty plays within morality and political freedom. Most notably, Terry Eagleton’s article “Schiller and Hegemony” explores the letters as a political allegory1 for the German class system, and the emerging hegemony of the bourgeois.

Whilst Schiller’s argument does leave unresolved tensions, particularly in regards to the notion of The Sublime and categories of beauty, there is value in that his ideas can transcend their context. Influencing future philosophers such as Karl Marx and more recently, Jacques Ranciere’s notion of the ‘Aesthetic regime of art’2. Schiller’s exploration of the integrative dynamism between art, aesthetics and the political sphere, can still be applied to the interpretation of art and aesthetics in contemporary society.

In his second letter, Schiller makes the claim “Only through beauty that arrives at Freedom”3.  This is certainly the underlying theme that permeates his discussion of aesthetics. But in order to further examine Schiller’s argument, it is integral to discuss the context from which On the Aesthetic Education of Man was produced. Written originally as a series of letters in Germany in 1795, Schiller was becoming increasingly disillusioned with The Enlightenment, and viewed the French Revolution as the failure of successive governments to put it's ideals into practice. During this period Germany had yet to fully immerse itself in industrialisation but was well on its way. Schiller recognised the potential direction society was undertaking and viewed modern civilisation as a corruption of nature: These are expressed in the first few letters, of which he premised his argument, through his discussion of political renewal; particularly in letter VI where he references the harmony of Greek civilisation and directly contrasts it with modern society’s fragmentary specialization of human beings4. It was this urgency that prompted Schiller to develop the notion of the ‘Aesthetic State’ in a hope his education in relation to the role art could play would establish the freedom that political revolution had evidently failed to achieve.

In addition, it is also important to take into consideration how On the Aesthetic Education of Man was markedly influenced by Immanuel Kant’s renowned work Of the Critique of Judgement (1780).   As Schiller himself admits in Letter I “the assertions which follow rest chiefly upon Kantian principles”.5 For Schiller presents his argument for socio-political cohesion through the beauty of art within the framework of Kant’s dualisms of nature and reason, sense and spirit, matter and form. Schiller attempts to reconcile these opposing aspects of human nature through the aesthetic. For what is for Kant a set of necessary divisions to make the exploration of knowledge possible, becomes for Schiller a dualism indicative of the decaying human condition6.  Terry Eagleton interprets this reconciliation of nature and reason as an allusion to the political context of Schiller's writings, implying Schiller is alluding to the "missing mediation between a barbaric civil society given over to pure appetite and the ideal of a well ordered political state" 7 Consequently, Schiller adapts Kant’s divisive philosophy to discuss the possibility of harmony between the material and intelligible worlds of thought and feeling as well as our purpose as individuals, whilst simultaneously being members of a community.

Schiller goes about achieving this aim implicitly in Letters X to XVI where he proceeds to address his what constitutes beauty, which for him is in 'living form8'.  He begins this discussion by dissecting the human form. Schiller attempts to distinguish between 'person' and 'condition'. Humans are a combination of the two, however the former is consistent whilst the latter is constantly altering. He then goes on to introduce the language of drives and forces. It is here he implicitly adapts Kant’s notion of the ‘play drive’ as a proposal for the potential harmonious relationship between the opposing forces of Stofftrieb (sense-drive) and the Formtrieb (form-drive). The 'sense-drive', derives from our condition and is not grounded, it comes from man's existence, set within the limitations of time and hence becomes matter or life. In contrast, the ‘formal-drive' is our moral and reasoning and is grounded in who we are as a person, it is form. Hence, the object of the ‘play-drive’ is an ideal fusion of the contradictory forces known as ‘living form’ or beauty. Therefore beauty is defined as consisting of a reciprocal relationship and balance between the two. Once again, Schiller uses the idealised example of the Greeks, specifically the Juno Ludovisi marble head to illustrate the relationship between all encompassing, harmonious beauty as a reflection of morality9.