Bibliographie
Acosta López Maria del Rosario, “Making Other People’s Feelings Our Own: From the Aesthetic to the Political in Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters,” in: High Jeffrey L., Martin Nicholas, Oellers Norbert (eds.), Who is this Schiller Now? Essays on His Reception and Significance, Rochester: Camden House, 2011, p. 187-201.
Acosta López Maria del Rosario, “The Resistance of Beauty: On Schiller’s Kallias Briefe in Response to Kant’s Aesthetics,” Epoché 21, no 1, 2016, p. 235-249.
Adorno Theodor, Aesthetic Theory, translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997.
Aristotle, Metaphysics, translated by Joe Sachs, Santa Fe: Green Lion Press, 1999.
Beiser Frederick C., Schiller as Philosopher: A Re-Examination, Oxford: OUP, 2005.
Bernet Rudolf, Force, Drive, Desire. A Philosophy of Psychoanalysis, translated by Sarah Allen, reprint edition, Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2020.
Deligiorgi Katerina, “The Proper Telos of Life: Schiller, Kant, and Having Autonomy as an End,” Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 54, no 5, 2011, p. 494-511.
de Man Paul, “Kant and Schiller,” in: Aesthetic Ideology, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Disselbeck Klaus, Geschmack und Kunst. Eine systemtheoretische Untersuchung zu Schillers Briefen, „Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen,” Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1987.
Gauthier Jeffrey A., “Schiller’s Critique of Kant’s Moral Psychology,” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 27, 1997, p. 513-544.
Gingsborg Hannah, “On the Key to Kant’s Critique of Taste,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 72, no 4, 1991, p. 290-313.
Guyer Paul, Kant and the Claims of Taste, Cambridge: CUP, 2nd edition 1997.
Henrich Dieter, “Beauty and Freedom: Schiller’s Struggle with Kant’s Aesthetics,” in: Guyer Paul, Cohen Ted (eds.), Essays in Kant’s Aesthetics, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982, p. 237-257.
Kant Immanuel, Anthropology, History, and Education, edited by Günter Zöller and Robert B. Louden, Cambridge: CUP, 2007.
Kant Immanuel, Critique of Judgment, translated by Werner Pluhar, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987.
Kant Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Werner Pluhar, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996.
Lessing Gotthold Ephraim, “Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting,” in: Bernstein J.M., Classical and Romantic German Aesthetics, Cambridge: CUP, 2003.
Marcuse Herbert, Eros and Civilization. Philosophical Inquiry Into Fred, Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.
Martinson Steven D., Harmonious Tension: The Writings of Friedrich Schiller, Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996.
McQuillan Colin, “Baumgarten, Meier, and Kant on Aesthetic Perfection,” in: Dahlstrom Daniel (ed.), Kant and His German Contemporaries, volume II: Aesthetics, History, Politics, and Religion, Cambridge: CUP, 2018, p. 13-27.
Piché Claude, “Fichte’s Debate With Reinhold in 1793: The Doctrine of Drives and the Problem of Freedom,” in: Ahlers Rolf (ed.), System and Context: Early Romantic and Early Idealistic Constellations, Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004, p. 263-285.
Reinhold K.L., Letters on the Kantian Philosophy, edited by Karl Ameriks, Cambridge: CUP, 2005.
Reiss H.S., “The Concept of the Aesthetic State in the Work of Schiller and Novalis,” Publications of the English Goethe Society 26, no 1, 1959, p. 26-51.
Roehr Sabine, “Freedom and Autonomy in Schiller,” Journal of the History of Ideas 64, no 1, 2003, p. 119-134.
Savile Anthony, Aesthetic Reconstructions: The Seminal Writings of Lessing, Kant and Schiller, Oxford: Blackwell, 1988.
Schiller Friedrich, “Concerning the Sublime,” translated by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, in: Walter Hinderer and Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Friedrich Schiller: Essays, New York: Continuum, 1993, p. 70-85.
Schiller Friedrich, “Kallias or Concerning Beauty: Letters to Gottfried Körner,” in: J.M. Bernstein, Classical and Romantic German Aesthetics, Cambridge: CUP, 2003, p. 145-183.
Schiller Friedrich, “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man,” translated by Elizabeth M. Wilkinson and L.A. Willoughby, in: Hinderer Walter, Dahlstrom Daniel O. (eds.), Friedrich Schiller: Essays, New York: Continuum, 1993, p. 86-178.
Schiller Friedrich, “On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry,” translated by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, in: Hinderer Walter, Dahlstrom Daniel O. (eds.), Friedrich Schiller: Essays, New York: Continuum, 1993, p. 179-260.
Schiller Friedrich, “On the Pathetic,” translated by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, in: Hinderer Walter, Dahlstrom Daniel O. (eds.), Friedrich Schiller: Essays, New York: Continuum, 1993, p. 45-69.
Schiller Friedrich, “On the Art of Tragedy,” translated by Daniel O. Dahlstrom, in: Hinderer Walter, Dahlstrom Daniel O. (eds.), Friedrich Schiller: Essays, New York: Continuum, 1993, p. 1-21.
Wiese Benno von, Friedrich Schiller, Stuttgart: J.B. Metzler, 1959.
Willoughby L.A., “Schiller on Man’s Education to Freedom Through Knowledge,” The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory 29, no 3,1954, p. 163-54.
Woodmansee Martha, “Aesthetic Autonomy as a Weapon in Cultural Politics: Rereading Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters,” in: The Author, Art, and the Market: Rereading the History of Aesthetics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, p. 57-86.
Zuckert Rachel, Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment, Cambridge: CUP, 2007.
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Notes
Two exceptions that spring to mind are Epicureanism in the Greek tradition of philosophy and, to some extent, Daoism in the classical Chinese tradition.
F. Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man, 13 and 14. Hereafter cited as Briefe in the body of the text. All English translations of the Briefe are from Wilkinson and Willoughby.
Idem, Letter 15, 131.
In his investigation of Laocoön, Lessing contends that the sculptor’s intent was to bring all the elements of the work of art together into a single point of focus; namely, that single moment of shrieking in Laocoön that can be heard by the free play of imagination. The artist then gives the viewer’s imagination the capacity to think beyond what the mere sensuous impressions afford. The parts of the work of art must be depicted as being free; constraint will “weaken” the play of the imagination. See G. E. Lessing, Laocoön: An Essay on the Limits of Painting and Poetry, III, 56.
See I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, § 22, AA V: 241 and 240. On these varying descriptions of the free play, see R. Zuckert, Beauty and Biology: An Interpretation of the Critique of Judgment, 279-320.
As much as I appreciate her work, this seems to be the interpretation that Martha Woodmansee offers, as she and many others identify Schiller’s shift at the end of the Briefe as abandoning an argument for political freedom in favor of collapsing freedom and the beauty of art into one experience of freedom (See M. Woodmansee, “Aesthetic Autonomy as a Weapon in Cultural Politics: Rereading Schiller’s Aesthetic Letters”). That Schiller crafts the letters on aesthetic education during la Terreur of 1793 without explicitly commenting on those events also gives some readers pause about the revolutionary spirit of Schiller’s program. I will argue, however, that political freedom, for Schiller, can only be secured by way of the aesthetic.
Katerina Deligiorgi argues that Schiller is unclear about the play-drive, while I think that his various descriptions of the play-drive are not competing with one another, but offer different accounts of one and the same activity. Cf. K. Deligiorgi, “The Proper Telos of Life: Schiller, Kant, and Having Autonomy as an End”; J. A. Gauthier, “Schiller’s Critique of Kant’s Moral Psychology”; A. Saville, Aesthetic Reconstructions: The Seminal Writings of Lessing, Kant and Schiller.
This seems to be the point emphasized by Dieter Henrich and many other Kantians. See F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher: A Reexamination, 2. This view is also evident in many commentaries on Schiller and post-Kantian idealism, where Schiller is portrayed as someone needing to borrow from Fichte and Reinhold in order to resolve problems with his interpretation of Kant.
I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, § 9, AA V: 216.
I cannot resolve this issue here, as many commentators have devoted much effort to this discussion with seemingly little consensus produced. My take is that the act of judging the representation to be beautiful is itself what pleases us. Yet, many who respond to Kant’s theory of taste argue that a problem of two steps in one judgment remains. For a sample of the main problems raised, see P. Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Taste and H. Gingsborg, “On the Key to Kant’s Critique of Taste.”
See I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, § 8, AA V: 215. This seems to be a source of widespread confusion. Kant, in my opinion, does not claim that, just because I judge this rose to be beautiful that everyone must find this particular representation so pleasing. The universality in the judgment of the beautiful rather refers to the universal harmony of the cognitive powers (imagination and understanding) in their free play.
Idem, § 9, AA V: 217-218.
Idem, § 16, AA V: 229-230.
See idem, § 54, AA V: 331.
Idem, § 54, AA V: 332.
Ibid.
Ibid. This might serve as an example to Herder’s criticism that Kant neglects the physiological aspect of aesthetic judgment, though it seems to me that laughter necessarily implies a visceral participation in the free play. On this, see C. McQuillan, “Baumgarten, Meier, and Kant on Aesthetic Perfection,” 31–32. For a defense of Kant’s consideration of embodiment, see R. Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology, 285n.
I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, § 54, AA V: 334.
Idem, § 49, AA V: 317.
See Kant’s description (Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA V: 242) of dull landscape gardens that employ the parterre and geometrical patterns in comparison to English landscape gardens that resemble the natural. Schiller takes a similar viewpoint in “Über das Erhabene” (1801), where he writes: “Is there anyone who would not rather linger amidst the inspiring disorder of a natural landscape than pass time in the insipid regularity of a French garden? […] No one will deny that people are physically better cared for in Batavia’s pastures than under Vesuvius’s treacherous crater or that the intellect that wants to comprehend things […] is far better served by an inn’s orderly garden than by a natural landscape in the wild. People have, however, need of something more than merely to live and enjoy themselves” (Concerning the Sublime, 79).
See idem, AA V: 243. See I. Kant, Kants gesammelte Schriften, AA VII: 173; Anthropology, History, and Education, 283. As Kant writes in the Anthropology: “We play with the imagination frequently and gladly, but imagination (as fantasy) plays just as frequently with us, and sometimes very inconveniently” (AA VII: 175; Anthropology, History, and Education, 285).
R. Zuckert, Kant on Beauty and Biology, 285. Thus, Zuckert characterizes the argument as a free play of the imagination and / with the understanding, as free lawfulness, and lawfulness without a law.
Idem, 279-293.
I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, AA V: 229-230; cf. 242.
Ibid.
Idem, § 57, AA V: 341. See R. Zuckert, 288.
See idem, § 23, 244 and First Introduction 20: 220, where Kant compares the beautiful to an indeterminate concept of the understanding and the sublime to an indeterminate concept or idea of reason.
See idem, § 9, AA V: 219.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 13; quoted from 118, 119, and 120, respectively. As Beiser points out, Schiller’s notion of the form drive from Letter 13 onwards takes on a moral notion. See F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 142.
See J.G. Fichte, Das System der Sittenlehre, SW IV, 212.
See J.G. Fichte, Ueber Geist und Buchstab in der Philosophie, SW VIII, 277; On this, see F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 147.
See idem, 279; F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 147.
See F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 146-147.
See ibid.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 14, 125; see also Letter 15, 128-129.
I disagree with Klaus Disselbeck, who so neatly sees Schiller borrowing (or at least, modifying) his concept of the reciprocal action from Fichte; namely, by inserting the concept of play in place of Fichte’s account of the role of the imagination. See K. Disselbeck, Geschmack und Kunst. Eine systemtheoretische Untersuchung zu Schillers Briefen, “Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen,” 25-27.
F. Schiller, NA XXVIII, 200-203 (June 23rd and 24th, 1795). As Beiser has indicated, Schiller, as editor of the collected essays to be published, would not have wanted Fichte’s discussion to be included, since their essays dealt with the same subject. Cf. F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 146-147.
See B. von Wiese, Friedrich Schiller, 487.
On this, see F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 147.
K.L. Reinhold, Letters on the Kantian Philosophy, 165.
In a way, Reinhold pulls the will apart from its Kantian rootedness in practical reason. See S. Roehr, “Freedom and Autonomy in Schiller,” 125.
On the debate between Fichte and Reinhold, see C. Piché, “Fichte’s Debate With Reinhold in 1793: The Doctrine of Drives and the Problem of Freedom.”
Roehr sees this as the product of Reinhold’s influence, but Schiller could have simply modified the Kantian distinction between the will (Wille) and the power of choice (Willkür) as spelled out in the Critique of Pure Reason; between an activity springing from pure practical reason and the empirical act of making decisions. Moreover, Schiller clearly criticizes the long-held argument of the Aufklärer that all (meaningful) human activity is reducible to reason.
Beiser notes that the evidence of Schiller having read Aristotle in the early 1790s cannot determine whether or not he knew much of Aristotle from direct sources (cf. F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 248 and 251). Of course, Schiller would have been at least marginally acquainted with Aristotle from his reading of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. I assume that he would have been familiar with Salomon Maimon’s 1794 work on Aristotle, as Maimon was well-known at that time. Moreover, in a letter from September of 1794, Schiller informs Goethe that he intends to show him a treatise by Maimon on the beautiful. That the two most famous literary giants in German history discuss Maimon’s work on aesthetics demonstrates how much Maimon has been neglected by contemporary readers.
See Aristotle, Metaphysics, IX.6 1048a30-1048b: “Now being at work is something’s being-present not in the way that we speak of as in potency; and we speak of being in potency, for example, Hermes in a block of wood or half line in the whole, because they can be separated out […] The other way these things are present is in activity.”
Idem, VIII.6 1045b18.
R. Bernet, Force, Drive, Desire. A Philosophy of Psychoanalysis, 5.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 5, 103.
Idem, Letter 6, 106.
Idem, Letter 14, 127.
Idem, Letter 19, 143.
See idem, Letter 20, 145.
Idem, Letter 23, 153.
Idem, Letter 20, 145.
Ibid.
Idem, Letter 25, 165. See F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 159.
Idem, Letter 23, 154.
Schiller to von Augustenberg, November 21, 1793. “Der Geschlechtstrieb war das einzige Band, das ihn an seine Gattin fesselte, und die Befriedigung dieses Triebes die einzige Forderung, die er an sie machte.”
Schiller to von Augustenberg, November 21, 1793.
Schiller an von Augustenberg, November 21, 1793.
See F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 26, 166.
Idem, Letter 26, 167.
Idem, Letter 26, 169.
Idem, Letter 15, 128.
Idem, Letter 15, 130
Idem, Letter 15, 131.
Idem, Letter 27, 172.
Ibid. Letter 17 also describes relaxing and tense kinds of beauty that offer bodily relief from ailments. The two kinds of beauty offset one another by not allowing either the sensuous or rational to become overpowered by the affects and effects of either kind of beauty. On this, see F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 148.
Idem, Letter 22, 149.
Idem, Letter 27, 173.
Ibid.
Idem, Letter 27, 174.
See ibid.
Idem, Letter 22, 150.
Beiser identifies three different notions of freedom in the Briefe: moral, which is entirely rational; anthropological, which concerns the capacity for self-determination in the full harnessing of our drives; determinability or choice, which allows us to navigate between different options of action, both sensible and rational. See F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 156.
Adorno criticizes this aspect of Schiller’s concept of play, claiming that modernity increasingly excluded all forms of art that were not also sublime. See T. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, 197.
M.R. Acosta López, “Making Other People’s Feelings Our Own,” 192-194.
F. Schiller, “Concerning the Sublime,” 77.
Idem, 84.
F. Schiller, “On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry,” 179-181.
On this, see Laure Cahen-Maurel’s contribution in this issue. (Cf. L. Cahen-Maurel, “Fichte avec Schiller. La querelle des Heures à la lumière de Grâce et Dignité.”) I’m grateful to her for encouraging me to reconsider the relationship between the sublime and the beautiful on this point.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 27, 178 (NA XX: 412).
See idem, 176. See F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 162.
F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 163. The three governing principles of power, morality, and taste in the three states are effects of the three drives: sensuous, rational, and aesthetic.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 27, 176.
H.S. Reiss, “The Concept of the Aesthetic State in the Work of Schiller and Novalis,” 39-40. Willoughby correctly, I think, assesses the aesthetic state as being a transformative process motivated by an imaginative awakening of the whole person. See L.A. Willoughby, “Schiller on Man’s Education to Freedom through Knowledge,” 172.
Cf. S. D. Martinson, Harmonious Tension: The Writings of Friedrich Schiller, 191-192; P. de Man, “Kant and Schiller,” 154-155; and T. Adorno, who associates Schiller’s supposed “elitism” with Kant’s “fetishization of the concept of genius,” in: Aesthetic Theory, 171.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 2, 90.
See idem, Letter 8, 107.
Idem, Letter 27, 176.
See M.R. Acosta López, “Making Other People’s Feelings Our Own,” 193.
See idem, 190.
F. Schiller, “On the Pathetic,” 68.
Idem, 61. See Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 207.
F. Schiller, “Kallias or Letters Concerning Beauty,” 173. Jena, February 23, 1793. (NA XXVI, 216)
F. Schiller, “On the Art of Tragedy,” 4.
F. Schiller, “Concerning the Sublime,” 83.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 24, 157-158.
F. Schiller, Kallias, 170 (February 23, 1793).
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 27, 176.
Idem, 172.
F. Schiller, “On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry,” 181.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 23, 154.
F. Schiller, “On Naïve and Sentimental Poetry,” 181.
Ibid.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 23, 152.
See H. Marcuse, Eros and Civilization: An Inquiry Into Freud, 187-190.
Or, as Beiser claims: “Kant subordinates humanity to morality whereas Schiller subordinates morality to humanity” (F. Beiser, Schiller as Philosopher, 184).
See D. Henrich, “Beauty and Freedom: Schiller’s Struggle with Kant’s Aesthetics,” 254. For a response to this, see S. Roehr, “Freedom and Autonomy in Kant and Schiller,” 133-134.
Acosta López takes Schiller’s turn away from Kant to be present already in the Kallias Briefe, where he is said to transform the “critique of aesthetics to the idea of aesthetics as critique”. See M.R. Acosta López, “The Resistance of Beauty: On Schiller’s Kallias Briefe in Response to Kant’s Aesthetics,” 235–49. I think this lends support to the argument that Schiller’s project of aesthetics was more about developing a method of doing philosophy itself, a standpoint, than merely offering a theory of beauty in the narrow sense.
See H. Marcuse’s insightful interpretation of the play-drive in Eros and Civilization, 187-190.
F. Schiller, Aesthetic Education, Letter 27, 178.
See idem, Letter 14, 126. For an account of aesthetic experience overcoming the “tyranny of the will-drive,” see R. Bernet, Force, Drive, Desire, 307.
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