Thursday October 1 2009 / Culture & Science
Burgerhart Lecture: Peter-André Alt
Schiller and Politics. Perspectives of an Aesthetic Enlightenment
Peter-André Alt (Freie Universität Berlin / Friedrich Schlegel Graduate School of Literary Studies) proposes in the second Burgerhart lecture an alternative interpretation of the Enlightenment with respect to the still current debate on the political concept of the nation-state. He discusses the ideal of an aesthetic Enlightenment in the work of Friedrich Schiller in relation to his political intentions.
Alt shows how Schiller was struggling with the political dilemmas of his era as he critically, and with mistrust, followed not only the French but also the German national movement. As an advocate of the French revolution, Schiller was, like many of his contemporaries, shocked by the beheading of the French king in 1793 and by the Jacobean reign of terror.
Two years later he published his letters on the aesthetic education of mankind, which would offer a way out of these dilemmas. Schiller argued for extending the concept of the Enlightenment and maintained that it should not be based on reason alone but should be complemented by an Enlightenment of observation. Citizens should be educated in the sphere of the aesthetic experience and thus become familiar with the concepts of freedom and autonomy. Schiller claimed that just as beauty in the arts is all about having the courage to suspend rules and regulations, so it is with the ideal state. Such a state would facilitate the individual autonomy and development of its citizens and so would eventually render itself superfluous.
No matter how utopian Schiller's ideals may seem today, in the light of recent experiences with religious fanaticism and ideological terror, we should still take his idealism seriously. However, Schiller was constantly aware of human flaws in his writings. His definition of a progressive Enlightenment is centred on the capacity to attain autonomous critical reflection.
This lecture is made possible by SNS Reaal Fonds and Fonds voor de Geld- en Effectenhandel.
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