Keywords: aesthetic game, complete humanity, "free" human aesthetic education
Schiller is a pioneer of aesthetic education in the history of western aesthetics. His aesthetic education thought is embodied in shaping people with complete humanity through aesthetic games and realizing people's "freedom". Schiller believes that only through aesthetic games can people rise from a simple perceptual state to a rational moral state, which is the premise and important way to shape a complete human nature and realize human's "freedom". Schiller's aesthetic education thought has its social background and philosophical foundation, which is instructive to western aesthetic thought and modern society.
1. The connotation of Schiller's aesthetic education thought
Schiller, as a famous aesthetician during the German Enlightenment, his aesthetic education thought is of great significance in the history of human development. In the history of aesthetic education, Schiller broke through the narrow world of personal education proposed by British aesthetic circles, and put forward the theory of shaping complete human nature and realizing human "freedom" from a historical height. It is the core of Schiller's aesthetic education thought to realize people's "freedom" through aesthetic games, shape complete human nature, and make people enter the realm of moral freedom from the realm of necessity through aesthetic realm.
1. Aesthetic games shape complete human nature
Schiller's aesthetics is people-centered. Starting from human nature, through the analysis of social status quo, he came to the conclusion of the importance of shaping complete human nature. Schiller believes that due to the division of human nature, almost all people in contemporary society are in a state of decadence. He compared the human nature under the ancient Greek city-state system and thought that in ancient Greece, "although rationality was divided so finely, it would never be incomplete." Although rationality decomposes human nature and extends it to gods, it does not tear human nature into pieces, but combines it in different ways, so that every god can show complete human nature. [1] However, under the current social situation at that time, "the state and the church, laws and customs are separated, enjoyment and labor, means and purposes are divorced, and efforts and returns are divorced. Bound to a lonely fragment in the whole forever, people will turn themselves into a fragment. " [2] Schiller believes that, measured by the whole person and the whole person, no modern person can stand up and compare the value of human nature with a single Athenian. Compared with the complete human nature in ancient Greece, the internal connection of modern human nature has been cut off, and a fatal conflict has split the various forces of people in a harmonious state, thus forming two opposite requirements: rational impulse and perceptual impulse.
Modern people's perceptual impulse and rational impulse are contradictory, but what does not conform to them is not contradictory, nor is it contradictory in essence. "To make natural people move towards rational people, we must build a bridge-aesthetic education, and use art to cultivate and restore people's pure mind. Art comes from the third motive force in human nature-game impulse. Only in the game can a person become a complete and truly free person. " [3] So Schiller believes that individuals in society are one-sided, and only in aesthetics can they become comprehensive people. Only when people play games can they have complete humanity; Only when people have complete humanity can they play games, and it is aesthetic games that shape complete humanity.
2. Aesthetic games realize people's "freedom"
From the book Letters of Aesthetic Education, we can see that the realization of human "freedom" is the lofty pursuit of Schiller's aesthetic education thought. Although Schiller respected beauty and art, he didn't do it for beauty or art. In his view, behind beauty and art, there is a higher purpose, that is, to realize people's "freedom". Freedom is not only the soul of artistic aesthetic activities, but also the requirement of human nature and the highest essence of human beings. Schiller believes that "personality must have its own foundation, because unchangeable things cannot be produced by change. This absolute and self-based concept of existence, that is, freedom, is the first for us." [4] Freedom and integrity of human nature are also unified. "Freedom can only be promoted and prevented by natural means. When a person is complete and his two basic impulses are developed, he begins to have freedom. As long as man is incomplete and only one of his two basic impulses is excluded, there is no freedom. " [5] Therefore, freedom is the first place of Schiller's aesthetic education thought.
How to realize people's "freedom"? This is also an important problem to be solved in Schiller's aesthetic education thought. Schiller's "freedom" is the freedom of human liberation, that is, the freedom to overcome the shortcomings of human separation and shape a complete human nature through aesthetic means. Schiller thinks: "There is no other way to make an emotional person become a rational person than to make him an aesthetic person first." [6] Only after aesthetic training can we rise from sensibility to rationality. At the same time, only through aesthetics and games can we shape a complete human nature and realize human "freedom". As he said, "In the terrible kingdom of power, the aesthetic creative impulse unconsciously established the third kingdom, that is, the kingdom of games and pleasant appearance. Here, it removes the shackles of all relationships in people and liberates him from physical or moral coercion. " [7] Therefore, only through aesthetic games can human nature be complete, and people can get rid of the shackles of external and internal factors and realize human "freedom".
Second, the causes of Schiller's aesthetic education thought
1. Social background of Schiller's aesthetic education thought
Schiller's aesthetic education thought is closely related to the social background at that time. Schiller was born in marbach on1759165438+10. His father is a military doctor and a munitions supplier, and his mother is just the daughter of a poor baker. His family's economic life is relatively tight. /kloc-Germany in the 0/8th century was relatively backward in politics and economy, divided politically, and had no unified market in economy, which seriously hindered the development of German capitalism. When the news of the French Revolution came, he thought that the "ideal kingdom" of freedom and equality he had built in his heart was about to be realized, but the social, political and economic conditions in Germany at that time could not become a unified class force that could compete with feudal nobles like the French bourgeoisie.
Schiller, who thought that the French Revolution could liberate human nature, realized that such a violent revolution could not realize the construction of a free kingdom after facing its failed social reality. He believes that "in the aesthetic country, people must show themselves to others in images and can only get along with others as the object of free games." Giving freedom through freedom is the basic law of the aesthetic kingdom. "[8] Therefore, Schiller began to explore the integrity of human nature. Only through the aesthetic road can human nature be complete, human's "freedom" be truly realized, and people can enter the ideal kingdom of freedom.
2. The philosophical basis of Schiller's aesthetic education thought.
Schiller's aesthetic education thought is also influenced by western philosophy. On the one hand, he was influenced by the western philosophical tradition, on the other hand, he was directly influenced by Kant. From ancient Greece to modern times, western education has been pursuing the purification of the soul, and the Greeks have a great influence on the formation of their aesthetic education thought. He believes that "Greek nature combines all the charm of art and all the dignity of wisdom, unlike our nature, which has become a victim of culture ... in them, we see a perfect human nature, which combines imaginary youth and rational adulthood." [9] At the same time, Plato believes that physical education and aesthetic education are the important contents of education in the Republic; Aristotle does not limit the content of aesthetic education to one aspect, but thinks that the whole art is the content of aesthetic education; Goethe insisted on the unity of sensibility and rationality and that man is an organic whole, which had a far-reaching influence on Schiller's aesthetic education thought.
On the other hand, Schiller's aesthetic education thought is deeply influenced by Kant. In Mei Yu Shujian's first letter, he pointed out that a large part of the propositions in the book are based on Kant's principles. In Kant's philosophy, "aesthetic activities should serve as a bridge between the inevitability of nature and the freedom of the spiritual world." Aesthetics has become the only way for nature to emerge from man, and it is the intermediate link between the inevitable free kingdom and the free kingdom of man. "[10] Schiller perfectly accepted Kant's thought and transformed it to enrich it. Schiller's aesthetic education thought originated from Kant's philosophy, but he still has many objections to Kant's philosophy. Schiller thought that human psychological function was an organic whole, but Kant dismembered it. Therefore, Schiller is determined to first overcome Kant's subjectivity in the concept of beauty, establish an objective basis for the concept of beauty, and try to extract the concept of beauty from the unified relationship between truth, goodness and beauty.
Three. Comments on Schiller's Aesthetic Education Thought
Schiller took "aesthetic education" as an independent educational method and concept for the first time in his Letters on Aesthetic Education, and juxtaposed it with intellectual education, moral education and physical education, which is the first declaration book of aesthetic education in the west. Starting from humanitarianism, he advocates overcoming the division of human nature through aesthetic games, thus shaping a complete human nature and realizing human "freedom". Schiller's aesthetic education thought puts forward to cultivate all-round developed people, shape complete human nature and realize human's "freedom" from a historical height. This idea breaks through the narrow vision of personal education put forward by British aesthetics from the scope of existing bourgeois culture, and carries out personal education from a higher angle. This thought is not only a fresh blood of society at that time, but also a great liberation of human nature, and it still has educational value in today's society. Schiller's aesthetic education thought was directly influenced by Kant, but he dared to transcend the limitations of subjectivity and abstraction in Kant's philosophy and understand the unity of sensibility and rationality from reality. Schiller's aesthetic education thought is of great significance not only in German classical philosophy, but also in the whole history of western literature. Thus, the development to objective idealism produced Hegel's aesthetic theory, that is, beauty is the perceptual expression of ideas; From the practical point of view, it reveals the root of beauty and the historical formation of aesthetic feeling, laying the foundation of Marxist aesthetics. [1 1] Schiller's aesthetic education thought thinks about the way of personal education from the height of human nature, which greatly liberates human nature and has far-reaching influence in the whole history of western aesthetics.
Of course, Schiller's aesthetic education thought advocates shaping complete human nature through aesthetic games and realizing human's "freedom". Such a road to the aesthetic "freedom kingdom" could not be implemented under the social background at that time. Under the social and historical conditions at that time, Schiller could not transcend the limitations of the times and classes, and his thoughts were criticized by many people as unrealistic fantasies about bourgeois society under private ownership. He tried to use aesthetic games as a tool to open the source of purity that has not been corrupted by politics. In the bourgeois society at that time, the implementation of Schiller's thought lacked a realistic basis. He only limited aesthetic education to art education and exaggerated its role. However, Schiller's aesthetic education thought about shaping complete human nature and realizing human's "freedom" is still applicable to some specific groups in today's pluralistic society. If Schiller's aesthetic education thought is not limited to art education, but applied to some people who are addicted to artistic pursuit, this thought is still applicable. Such a group of people are often not understood and accepted by most people in society, and accepting Schiller's aesthetic education thought can also make them detached, that is, realizing people's "freedom" as Schiller said
Schiller's aesthetic education thought has a far-reaching influence in the history of western aesthetics. He believes that aesthetic games shape a complete human nature and realize human freedom. Only by playing aesthetic games can people get rid of the shackles of external and internal factors and reach a state of freedom. Although Schiller's aesthetic education thought has its limitations, we should also see its enlightening significance to western aesthetic thought and current social education.