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describes these two aspects as Condition (Zustand) and Person
(Person). The human being is part of the physical world ( Condition )
as a physical object subject to the laws of nature, like any physical
object. But more importantly, the human being is part of the world of
rationality, what he identi es with the term Form (Gestalt), and it is
through this that the human being strives to be a Person. Corre-
sponding to these divided aspects are the two opposing attractions or
drives that the human being feels to the two opposing worlds: the
sensuous drive (Sto trieb) and the formal drive (Formtrieb). The sensuous
drive produces desires for objects in the material world. In contrast to
the material orientation of the sensuous drive, the formal drive pro-
ceeds from the absolute existence of man, or from his rational nature,
and is intent on giving him the freedom to bring harmony into the
diversity of his manifestations, and to a rm his Person among all the
changes of Condition (AL, . ).
Schiller states that a literal interpretation of Kant s moral philosophy
can lead to viewing material things as nothing but a obstacle, and
imagining that our sensuous nature . . . must be in con ict with reason
Schiller s aesthetic state
(AL, . , footnote). Opposing this puritanical understanding of Kan-
tian morality, Schiller insists that the sensuous drive cannot simply be
ignored or suppressed: Thought may indeed escape it for the moment
. . . but suppressed nature soon resumes her rights, and presses for reality
of existence, for some content to our knowing and some purpose for our
doing (AL, . ). Schiller thus attempts to reconcile those two aspects
of the individual that Kant left in contradiction: the individual as subject
to the universal laws of morality, and the individual as the pursuer of his
or her own individual desires. Drawing on Fichte, Schiller describes a
reciprocal action between subjectivity and the material world. He thus
augments the letter of Kant s philosophy by stressing that the material
world ( Condition ) is necessary for leading the subject to reason, not
just pure reason ( Form ). Instead of simply seeking to free ourselves
from the material world, Schiller argues that, as human beings, we need
to acknowledge the material world and incorporate it as an element of
our subjectivity. Schiller therefore points to the need to arm abstract
form with sensuous power, lead concept back to intuition, and law back
to feeling (AL, . ).
Now the aesthetic work is uniquely suited for reconciling the two
opposing human drives because it also exhibits the same dual nature: it
is a physical object in the material world (marble, sound, paint, ink, and
paper); and, as an object given form, it is the expression of rational
subjectivity. But unlike the human being in which these two aspects of
Condition and Form seem in con ict, in the aesthetic work these
two aspects are harmonized. This harmony is what Schiller means by
beauty (Schönheit), and this harmonious beauty is what de nes the
aesthetic sphere.
On the analogy of the sensuous and formal drives, Schiller calls our
attraction towards beauty and the aesthetic sphere the play drive
(Spieltrieb), and sees in this drive a reconciliation of the other two drives.
And because the aesthetic work harmonizes both drives, it can serve to
help the two kinds of imbalances in human natures that arise in human
beings, favoring the sensuous drive or the formal drive: By means of
beauty, sensuous man is led to form and thought; by means of beauty
spiritual man is brought back to matter and restored to the world of
sense (AL, . ). The rst of these services she renders to natural
man, the second to civilized man (AL, . ). Following the logic of the
symbol, as I discussed above in chapter , the aesthetic sphere is the
space of freedom in which and through which the individual can
reconcile what seem like the con icting demands of the material world
Romanticism, aesthetics, and nationalism
and the moral laws. For, in the aesthetic sphere, these two worlds do not
appear to be in con ict. In the aesthetic sphere, they are experienced as
harmonious.
Woodmansee regards Schiller s argument for the aesthetic autonomy of
the work of art as seeking to suppress the free subjectivity of the viewer.
This raises the question of how one de nes subjectivity and freedom.
Despite the left-leaning rhetoric of her critique, Woodmansee s model
of subjectivity turns out to be that of British individualist liberalism,
which, (as I discussed in chapter above) posits the centrality of individ-
ual desire. This becomes explicit in her endorsement of the laissez-faire
aesthetic theory of Archibald Alison and Francis Je rey, which, accord-
ing to Woodmansee, a rms art s complete integration into a economy
in which the value of an object is a function of its utility to consumers
who cannot be wrong except by consuming too little (Author, Art, ).
Woodmansee seeks to connect Je rey s con dence in the free market
for culture with contemporary concerns for respecting cultural diver-
sity, and she approvingly discusses a passage from Je rey in which the
judgment of cockney tourists on the lack of beauty of the Highlands is
granted the same validity as the opposing judgment of the upper-class
viewer (Author, Art, ).
For Woodmansee, Je rey s account of the relativity of perceptions of
beauty is the most democratic of aesthetic doctrines. But I would argue
that Je rey s aesthetic relativism is no more intrinsically democratic
than Schiller s arguments for aesthetic autonomy are intrinsically anti-
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