Aesthetic Association And Humanistic Freedom:The Unity Of Schiller’s Thought

Freedom is a European modem idea which is regarded as the theme of German Idealism especially.According to philosophers,freedom refers to the reason which is opposed to that of poets for whom it represents the humanistic freedom.F.Schiller,the great poet linking Rousseau and Hoelderlin,claims that the aesthetic humanity through the aesthetic association,that is,unconstrained humanity.And the attention of humanistic freedom never deviates from the heart of his thought.For him,the nature is an aesthetic nature which is different from that of Rousseau who treats nature as the aesthetic spirit and that of Hoelderlin who regards it as the sacred nature.This aesthetic nature reveals the association of human which is beauty-regulated.The common point shared by him,Rousseau and Holderlin is that the aesthetic association conveys the unconstrained nature of humanity,though the form of this so-called nature is totally different in their ideal systems.And the manifestation of the unity of Schiller’s thought,as the poet,thinker and dramatist,is attributed primarily to the humanistic freedom conveying through the aesthetic association.This unity reflects the modern free spirit:principle of life.After the introduction of the research background,significance and related studies,the first chapter will mainly focus on discussing the differences between Schiller and Immanuel Kant about the beautiful and sublime in order to underline the unity and peculiarity of Schiller’s thought.The differences are embodied in three levels.Firstly,Kant regards the determination of the beautiful as reflective judgement,and all aesthetic judgments formal,and the four moments of beauty and the subjective purposiveness both accords with the subjective form of man.Schiller regards the beautiful not only as the result of reflective judgement,but also the principle of nature and freedom,it gives law with contents in reality.The form of beauty is also not only subjectively purposive,but also the form of life itself:play implusion.Secondly,Kant aims to realize the highest good which depends on the three postulations in the rational world.While in the perceptual world,the realization of freedom relies on beauty and sublime directly.The former explain the reality of freedom,the later explain the inevitability of freedom.This is usually said that Kant link up the rational world and the world of phenomena.In other words,both beauty and sublime are one of the important segments to realize the highest good of Kant.Yet Schiller does not treat beauty as a part of realizing the highest good,but regards it as a figure of knowledge from its nature.What’s more,Kant claims that the faculty of reason is the nature of human being,especially the practical reason which is the realization of the highest good in the moral action.But Schiller suggests that all of human is constrained whether they are rational or perceptual.The former is compelled by the reason,while the latter is compelled by the perceptual aspiration.A real human being or the realization of successful humanity is to free both the rational people and the perceptual ones without any restraint.This is a game that realizes freedom through the appreciation.These differences of the comprehension of human being between Schiller and Kant service as the origin of Schiller’s idea.Schiller mainly focuses on humanity,which is different from the philosophers who pay more attention to the reason.As a poet,dramatist and thinker,Schiller has his real beginning of his whole thoughts in his early poems,in particular,his long poems.Therefore,the second chapter,through the study on Schiller’s poetry it suggests that,opened by the poetry of Schiller’s thought,first of all is love and the praise of the common humanity-the universal human nature is reflected in his contemporary philosophy that is the common recognition of reason;followed by the reflection of the loss and alienation of nature.Finally,it is to return to the beautiful nature:what man loses in natural freedom,in a free nature he regains.There is a potential danger of hollow when the ideal lacks limits.So what is the limits of this natural ideal of beauty?The third chapter which is unfolding around Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen points out that Schiller proposes concrete regulation about human being who is beauty-regulated.His ideal of aesthetic education has no pertinence,but can be applied to everyone.His aim is to cultivate common humanity,thus constructing a free country.In Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen,Schiller recalls the Greeks in whom humanity still is a unity,since the fall of nature.The situation of his time is totally different.With the development of division of labor and the detailing of science,humanity becomes more and more alienated,and human has been bounded with an isolated fragment forever.According to this,men have to break ourselves into a fragment.We never can facilitate the harmonic development of our nature,but turn into a handful of tiny,incomplete fragments.Therefore,Schiller wants to rebuild the freedom of human being through two ways:on the one hand,freedom can be realized in the ideal through play impulsion,which means the reason proposes the aesthetic ideal meanwhile proposes the ideal which human should pursue in his game.On the other hand,freedom can be realized in the limited spirit,which means dual tension of perceptivity and reason can be dispelled through aesthische stimmung in order to endow the mind with freedom.Schiller has a sentence that is nature is first creator of human being,and beauty is the second one.The freedom coining from aesthische stimmung is a gift of nature which distinguishes human from animals and is characterized by the love to aesthische Schein.Aesthische schein,as an ideal,can overcome the real life,like honor conquers wealth,thought conquers enjoyment and the perpetual ideal conquers existenz.So the fourth chapter points out the differences between Schiller’s early dramas showing body freedom and his later dramas revealing spiritual freedom primarily through discussion.Basing on this,this chapter will pay much attention to explain how the ideal nature which corresponds with humanity vanishes in the real life and reaches the eternity in the mind through analyzing Wallenstein,the first drama in his later period,and Wilhelm Tell,the last one in this period.It is contrast to this that how aesthetic humanity can be realized in reality through self-regulation,how to realize the transition from the aesthetic status to ethic status,and how to realize the freedom of humanity by means of the actions in history.Beautiful personality not only reflects his beauty and self-determination in his formal personality,but also in his real actions.This ’ ideal of the beautiful’,namely the man who regards beauty as his determination,presents his freedom in his actions,and establishes the ethical freedom.This theme is equal with the answer proposed by Schiller in Ueber die aesthetische Erziehung des Menschen,that is let beauty go ahead in freedom,and realize freedom through beauty.The aesthetic ideal of Schiller is aesthische Schein which is realized through the actions of characters in dramas.Dramas can present aesthische schein,because that their language is poetic language which having concrete regulation.Therefore,the fifth chapter concludes the whole treatise which focuses on the linguistic feature of Poem,the representation of wisdom.It makes three pairs of distinguishes primarily,they are the distinctions between the language of poem and language of prose,between the language of genius and language of writer,and between the classical language and contemparary language.And then,it will discuss the new history and world constructed by the language of poem.This history is different from the history of reality,which is a humanistic development history which exists only in the mind.Meanwhile,the new world is not same with the real one also,which is a humanistic worth.Both of them reveal the free spirit of the modern together.In the end,this chapter stops over the inspiration of the poetic language.It is not a command which based on external forces.And at the part of conclusion,all of the major topics will be summarized.