Schiller began to write letters about aesthetic education in the summer of 1793, and published them in Horen in 1795. These letters became the first programmatic document of modern aesthetic criticism. Schiller used the concept of Kant's philosophy to analyze his internal split modernity, and designed a set of aesthetic utopia, giving art a comprehensive social revolutionary role.
From this point of view, compared with Schelling, Hegel and Holderlin becoming close friends in Tubingen, Schiller's work has been one step ahead in Frankfurt. Art should be able to replace religion and exert the power of unity, because art is regarded as a "form" that goes deep into the sexual relationship between human subjects. Schiller understood art as a communicative rationality, which will be realized in the future "aesthetic kingdom".
Schiller raised the question in his second letter, that is, is it inappropriate to let the United States lead before freedom? "Because today, the affairs of the moral world are more closely related, the situation of the times urgently requires philosophical spirit to explore the most perfect works of all works of art, that is, to study how to establish real political freedom."
Schiller's question actually implies an answer, that is, art itself is the intermediary that enables people to achieve real political freedom through enlightenment. The process of enlightenment has nothing to do with individuals, but involves the collective life context of the nation: "Only a nation that has the ability and qualification to transform a compulsory country into a free country can find the integrity of its character."
In order to accomplish the historical mission of modernity of unified analysis, art should not cling to individuals, but must transform the life form in which individuals participate. Therefore, Schiller emphasizes that art should exert the power of communication, empathy and unity, that is, it emphasizes the "public characteristics" of art. Schiller's analysis of reality shows that in modern life relations, individual forces must sacrifice integrity if they want to separate and develop from each other.
In this way, the dispute between ancient and modern times has become the starting point of critical self-confirmation of modernity. Ancient Greek poetry and art "naturally decomposed human nature, magnified human nature, and then dispersed to magnificent gods, but." It doesn't tear human nature into pieces, but mixes it in different ways, because every single god is not short of complete human nature.
This is completely different from us modern people! Here, the image of the genus is also scattered on the individual after amplification-but they are divided into pieces, not an ever-changing mixture, so we need to ask the individuals to gather the integrity of the genus one by one. Schiller criticized bourgeois society as an "egoistic system". His wording is reminiscent of young Marx.
Schiller believes that not only the materialized economic process is like a delicate clock, but also enjoyment is out of touch with labor, means and purpose, effort and reward; An independent state machine also works mechanically like a clock, making citizens become dissidents and bringing citizens into the law of indifference through "grading".
After criticizing alienated labor and bureaucracy, Schiller immediately turned to an intelligent and over-specialized science far away from daily problems: "When the thinking spirit pursues an indispensable possession in the conceptual world, it will inevitably become an alien in the sensory world and lose material for the sake of form.
When the spirit of pragmatism is enclosed in a monotonous circle composed of various objects and bound by various procedures in this circle, it will inevitably see the whole freedom disappear before his eyes, and at the same time its scope is becoming more and more poor.
Therefore, abstract thinkers often have a cold heart, because his task is to analyze impressions, which will only touch the whole soul; Pragmatic people are often narrow-minded, because their imagination is confined to the monotonous circle of his profession and cannot be extended to the ways that others deliberately do it. "