The Body in Schiller’s Aesthetics

Abstract

Because of its links with sensorial elements, the body is usually taken in the Critique of the Power of Judgment as something that stands in the way of sound aesthetic judgment. On the one hand, it is described in tragedy as an analogue to processes of the mind [Gemüt] which may promote our vital forces but cannot be universally admitted in everyone. On the other hand, the body also provides a specific kind of pleasure which, by its agreeable nature, condemns music to the lowest position in the hierarchy of fine arts sketched by Kant in §§51-54. In this paper, I will argue that Schiller, one of the first philosophical readers of the third critique, reverses both of Kant’s positions while holding to his main philosophical tenets. I will show that Schiller’s essay “On Grace and Dignity” maintains Kant’s analogy between body and soul suggesting, nevertheless, that the former may serve as a symbol for the excellence of the latter. Furthermore, I will suggest that Schiller agrees with Kant that delight originating exclusively from the body may not be regarded as properly aesthetic; nevertheless, he also contends that through the body one may produce in art a superior kind of pleasure which corresponds to the presentation of the supersensible in us.