see Appendix 44 see Appendix.

45 Their part in aesthetic appreciation is discussed below, in chapter 4.

46 Patrick T. Murray, The development o f German aesthetic theory from Kant to Schiller: a

philosophical commentary on Schiller’s ‘Aesthetic Education o f Man ’ (1795), Lewiston NY; Lampeter: Edwin Mellen, 1994, p. 122.

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and he still sometimes used Kantian terms in order to refer to them.47 Table 1. shows the various paired terms he associated with the sense / form dichotomy in the course of the Aesthetic Letters. Sometimes he used more than one of these pairings alongside each other interchangeably.48

Table 1.

sense, or sensuous drive form, or formal drive

concrete abstract

bodily / material mental

passive active

sensuous spiritual

diversity (manifold) unity / unification

content, matter form

feeling reason / rationality

condition Person

perceptual conceptual

Kant’s familiar dichotomy between the objective and the subjective has not been included above. It does not correspond with the contrasts made in table 1. Some of these pairs contrast aspects of the mind, such as feeling and reason, whilst others

47 Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education o f Man: in a series o f letters, (ed.), (tr.) Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, XIII; fh. p.85. We can see here that Schiller uses the feeling / reason, and world o f appearances / form dichotomies interchangeably. Either this shows some confusion, as Murray says, or some more detailed explanation is required. 48 Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education o f Man: in a series o f letters, (ed.), (tr.) Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, eg. XVII; § 4, p. 119. - reason / feeling; mental / physical;

Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education o f Man: in a series o f letters, (ed.), (tr.) Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, XVIII; § 2, p. 123. - material world / form; active / passive.

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contrast the experience of being a person with the perceived, externally existing, material world. Each dichotomy tends to be accompanied by an assumption that the first of each pair, corresponding with the sense drive, precedes the second in a

developmental sense,49 though Schiller never regards physical matter as an obstacle to using reason and recognising necessary truths.50 We are indeed rational beings with bodies, as Kant also said, so animal inclinations always have to be taken into account, although, as Schiller said in Anmut und Wiirde, we should leave objects and animals to do what they are best at, and concentrate on what humans do best.51

How Schiller is able to claim that the sense drive is both developmentally lower than the form drive and equally important is illustrated as follows: In an animal, or in the uncultivated and savage man, or in the very young baby, perception is raw, manifold and unformed, and the creature has no sense of self. It is unable to

distinguish between itself and its perceptions, or between itself and the outside world. Gradually, however, the form drive comes into action. This holds with reference to living creation as a hierarchy of increasingly complex organisms, and also to the changes taking place in a human lifetime. Earlier in life, the sensuous drive is stronger than the form drive, because sensation precedes consciousness. But the growth of the

t

form drive makes consciousness and reflection possible, and forms the individual into

49 Although Schiller takes constant pains to assure us that mankind is essentially an amalgam o f sense and reason, hence the importance o f striking the right balance, see letter XXVI which portrays the development o f the form drive as a progressive developmental step in mankind, and letter XXVII, §11, which mentions the usefulness o f beauty in covering up the more distasteful aspects o f physical existence.

50 Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education o f Man: in a series o f letters, (ed.), (tr.) Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, XIII; fh. §2, p.89.

51 Friedrich Schiller, Kallias oder iiber die Schdnheit and Anmut und Wiirde, (ed.) Klaus L. Berghahn, Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1994, p.76.

52 see also Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education o f Man: in a series o f letters, (ed.), (tr.) Elizabeth M. Wilkinson & L.A. Willoughby, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, XVII; § 4. reason / feeling; mental / physical; & XVIII; § 2. material world / form; active / passive.

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a complete, conscious person, a (Kantian) subject. Thus, the sense drive is not only lower, but also more fundamental, and, thus, just as important as the form drive.

In the opening paragraphs of this chapter we saw that analysis o f how individuals are composed of Person and Zustand came after a stylised historical and anthropological account of the origins of modem society. Table 2. below summarises the main ways in which Schiller observed sense and form drives at work.

Table 2.

method of I sense drive exhibits itself as

analysis i form drive exhibits itself as

anthropological savage society civilised society

historical

~ primitive, ancient humanity modem human society

psychological

* uneducated individual educated individual

developmental baby adult

metaphysical condition (ie. the conditioned,

determined)

Person (ie. the unconditioned, undetermined)

analytical . . . . . . . . .

raw material of perception conceptualisation

Thus, in Schiller’s historical account of the nature of mankind and the theory of the drives, both cultural and personal improvement takes place while folk

groupings move from savagery to civilisation. However, the same process also takes place continuously in any given society, because, side by side, some people are more savage, others more civilised than the rest; more importantly, with the right

encouragement, even the savages can improve and gradually develop their form drive. However, Schiller did not explain why parallel developments occur within the

individual and in society, and which, if either explanation takes precedence. He appears to presume that his micro and macro explanations interact and confirm each

SECTION 1: Friedrich Schiller Chapter 3

other. A little later in the century this kind of presupposition would be examined more carefully, for instance, as Holderlin devised his integrated, more organic metaphysical model of mankind’s place in the cosmos, and as Friedrich Schlegel celebrated the piecemeal patterns of reality that typified the human environment and were largely manifested in historical change.54

Despite the loose ends that unavoidably remain, the conception of human drives possibly improves on Kant in two ways. The first is that it resolves Schiller’s doubts about Kant’s notion of the Gemeinsinn, by accounting for both social

generalisation and individual uniqueness. The second relates to a question that had troubled the philosophical world in general, including both Reinhold and Fichte, namely, the wish to avoid an infinite regress. They sought a more fundamental groundwork for the transcendental deduction, because Kant supposedly did not explain how his theory could motivate or co-ordinate the workings of the human being. However, the theory of sustained, self-generated, opposing drives, as Schiller conceived them, structures, creates, develops and improves the human being, simply by repeated and constant action, while accommodating variations between one person and another.55 By finding some core explanation that accepted diversity and change,

I

Schiller avoided these problems, and even accounted for the fact that not all human adaptations appear to be good.

At the same time, Schiller’s use of the concept of the neutral will shows that he still believed there to be a unified self present independently of the additional unifying effects that our next chapter shows are produced by an aesthetic education. Schiller’s general philosophy mainly emphasised how to improve and complete

53 see chapters 6 - 9 .