Schiller's Aesthetic Ideology And Its Practical Significance

As a cultural giant, sharing the honor with Goethe in the eighteenth century, Schiller pursued the human freedom and liberation enthusiastically and persevered exploring the way to freedom in the art practice, art theory and philosophy, aesthetics and other fields. Therefore, at the beginning , his aesthetic thought contacts with the country's political situation and reality with a strong meaning pointing to the reality. His idea of aesthetic education not only established the independence of the aesthetic, but also united beauty and humanity closely. Aesthetic education bridged the gap of the division of human nature because of the social division of labor and large-scale social production. So that Schiller pointed out the significance of human nature in the process of individual survival and the development of society. At the same time, his concerns on the importance of human emotion and individual harmonious survival status in the real world made his idea not only has the role of turning-point in the aesthetic history but also an essential significance in political science, sociology. In this paper, Schiller's aesthetic thought and its practical significance were sorted out and explained in four chapters.In chapter one, the cultural and thinking background and theoretical sources were sorted out. Schiller's aesthetic thought is based on the development of the western culture and idea. Two different thinking tendencies in Western aesthetics were formed from ancient Greece. One emphasized on the role of rationale, logical thinking, and the other stressed the role of emotion, highlighting the emotional experience. These two theories have been existing in the development process of aesthetic thought. They blended each other and showed the characteristics of extreme development and formed the two major tradition together- aesthetic rationalism and empiricism. Schiller formed his own unique aesthetic thought after absorbing the aesthetics results and the essence of Kant's theory critically under this background. Therefore, Schiller's aesthetic thought showed the consistency of Western aesthetics, which made the development of Western aesthetic thought logical internally. His thought has also become the key chain ring of the German classical aesthetics. At the same time, the Western theory of human nature is also an important source of his aesthetic thought. Rousseau and Kant were his direct source of human thought. Schiller started from human nature to analyze the problem of the time and human nature problems which had gone through all his aesthetic thought which provided a new dimension for thinkers of after generations.In chapter two, the author explained the real social situation in Germany during the process of Schiller's aesthetic thought development. The reality is the starting point of Schiller's aesthetic idea which is the premise of our research on Schiller's aesthetic thought. The formation of Schiller's aesthetic idea has close relation with social reality of Germany as well as his own life experiences. In 18th century, Germany was in the political divisions and had many feudal countries; The capitalist economy developed slowly and social economic declined; The emerging bourgeoisie were lack of strength and had no rights in political status, but they had contradictions with all walks of life. Although the advanced Germany intellectuals had been impacted by the Enlightenment idea profoundly, Germany could not have political and social latitude for revolution as the France. Schiller promoted the development of the theory of alienation and opened a modern aesthetic criticism firstly starting from his own life experiences and copying the full survival status of the ancient people. After the French Revolution, Schiller attempted to achieve political freedom by philosophical and aesthetic study and achieve the aesthetic survival by changing the way of feeling.In Chapter three, the connotation of Schiller's aesthetic thought was explained from a human perspective. It also pointed out that the core of Schiller's aesthetic thought was the perfect of human nature. Schiller absorbed the philosophy thought of Kant and Fichte. He made an abstract analysis to the nature of the person and pointed out that the mechanism of Games, which linked it with Game and planted the game into the depth of human nature. Schiller raised his own Game Theory based on the Western Game Theory .H e also pointed that there was a process from below to high, that mean, the seriousness of the material-the game of material-the game of Aesthetic .Against the phenomenon of the human "debris" in reality, Schiller pointed out that the Aesthetic Education could bridge the division of human nature in order to achieve full humanity. Schiller pointed out that the illusion is better than the reality, art is better than natural. To Schiller, the aesthetic illusion has a strict distinction. The highest and ideal illusion is a pure illusion, which must be upright, honest, independence, self-control and independent on all conditions. False illusion is only a way for people to reach the aim and its existence must be based on reality. The freedom of the aesthetic must be reflected in the real world. When the objectivity of the aesthetic was tested, the aesthetic and moral set up a close contact in the field of objective and perceptual situation. Schiller analyzed the independence of the arts as well as pointed out that education must provide the best aesthetic and artistic works, and only ideal works can inspire people and touch the human heart, which is the prerequisite for art education. Schiller pointed out the artist's mission, and noted that the aesthetic can not be ignored in human development.In Chapter four, the practical significance of Schiller's aesthetic thought was focused on and the aim of Schiller's aesthetics thinking was pointed out that is to seek the harmony between man and society, so as to the significance of Schiller's aesthetic thought in the process of building social harmony was explored. Schiller aimed at exploring a way to political freedom in reality by the analysis aesthetic and human nature. Schiller linked the harmonious individual survival with the development of country and society closely. All the point tendency of Schiller's works is an existence social ideal. Schiller accepted Kant's concept of country which made the priori doctrine to country. He linked the country's development with human history. Schiller put the status of individual above the country's position. The implementation of the country is the result of individual freedom. The pursuit of a harmonious society was fully reflected in exploring social harmony in Western philosophy, sociology and political science aspects , and is also reflected in dynamic development of "harmony" as an aesthetic category .Schiller's seeking of mental and physical harmony is the natural development of"harmony"in Western aesthetic. Schiller's criticism of modern civilization opened a gate to modern criticism aesthetic. Regardless of on the question social conditions, human alienation, as well as exploring aesthetic, Marx and Schiller have the same point, but on the way to implementation, Marx advocated social revolution and production revolution activities to achieve the objective. Schiller's way to criticize social civilization and seeking a political solution to the problem can be echoed at Herbert Marcuse and other Western theories of the Frankfurt School. As a part of social critical theory of the Frankfurt School, they emphasize the practice point of aesthetic which implement social critics with aesthetic and the arts, trying to achieve life-saving to society alienation and the reality.The construction of a harmonious society is the common ideal of mankind, is the objective requirements to a harmonious existence state. As a phased and various description of society, a harmonious society is bound to reflect coordinate development and healthy functioning in the specific area of society. Harmonious socialism is an initial goal and ideal social demand based on Chinese socialism development. Building a harmonious socialist society is in line with the aesthetic principles of Marxism, which is not only the goal of social development, the inevitable nature, but also the achievement of Marxist aesthetic. However, in the process of building a harmonious society there exist a lot of disharmonious factors in the political, economic, social and cultural aspects and there highlights various contradictions .In the modernization process, the alienation of human, materialism phenomenon, the loss of sense of social responsibility, and individual moral anomie, spiritual emptiness, non-rational, anti-rational thought have become a popular trend. Emotionalism sweeps all aspects. Schiller's aesthetics couldn't assume the task of transforming society of his time, but it can work on the spirit aspects of the people in our society atmosphere, publicize aesthetic spirit, set the aesthetic ideal and cultivate people's aesthetic consciousness. In real Practice, we can create a harmonious, free, ideal and all-round development of personality by aesthetic education in order to participate in the actual construction of a harmonious society.Schiller's aesthetic thought has key value and meaning on the long chain of German classical aesthetics history. Schiller's aesthetic thought starts from sensibility of the people along the road of Kant achieving the unity of emotional and rational, subjective and objective. To some extent, it broke through Kant aesthetics'Speculative and abstract thinking. He stated aesthetic and art theory from a point of realistic requirement, put aesthetics into a broader social theory and linked to the real existence of human. His proposing aesthetic education systematically made aesthetic with more practical significance. However, he divorced from specific social environment, lack of a correct understanding of the law of human and social development. The construction of human nature is the lack of actual interoperability. After all, his aesthetic utopian is a kind of fantasy. But his critical theory made aesthetics and the political and social questions link closely, and in particular social development, the aesthetic will play an irreplaceable role.