Baumgarten & Schiller: Reconciling the Tension between Reason and Beauty

The overarching theme to our readings this week seems to be the relationship between what we deem beautiful and what we deem logical or reasonable. Both texts desperately attempt to reconcile the distinction between beauty/reason. While this reconciliation is evident in Baumgarten through the discussion of poetry and philosophy, it is apparent in Schiller through the discussion of the battle between reason and the sensuous and the joining of those in play.

Much like the Aristotle, Horace and Longinus texts of last week, Baumgarten's Reflections on Poetry seems to take as one of its main projects drawing rules and distinctions around what is and isn't poetic; however, Baumgarten's text is unique in that it moves beyond a kind of codification of aesthetics in service of very explicitly attempting to demonstrate the "amicable union" between poetry and philosophy through the use of syllogism and example. While Baumgarten relies on logic to demonstrate the similarities and mutual dependencies of poetry and philosophy, Schiller's Letters make an argument about the necessity for beauty in a freedom. Schiller’s text connects back to our readings last week through its positioning of Greece as the paragon of civilized and balanced life.

In his introduction, Baumgarten states, "I wish to make it plain that philosophy and the knowledge of how to construct poems, which are often held to be entirely antithetical, are linked together in the most amicable union" (36). This statement, along with belaboring of the countless syllogisms used throughout the text leads me to believe that there were a great number of thinkers during Baumgarten's time which would disagree with his central argument. Although Schiller's text seems to take shape very differently, similar evidence exists which suggests the audience to Schiller's text would also see beauty and reason as somewhat distinct. On page 8 Schiller idealizes Greek culture by stating, “Poetry had not yet become the adversary of wit, nor had speculation abused itself by passing into quibbling. In cases of necessity both poetry and wit could exchange parts because they both honoured truth only in their special way….how different is the course followed by us moderns!”. Here, we can see how Schiller’s idealism for Greek life demonstrates that he does not believe his contemporaries view reason and art as balanced. Schiller goes on to draw further distinctions between the Greek value of unity and the modern condition of fragmentation. Overall, then, it seems like Baumgarten and Schiller imagined their audiences as those who were already embedded in divisions between beauty/reason; poetry/philosophy.

Given the fascinatingly similar projects taken up here in two very different ways, I am particularly interested in further discussing the motivations of these writers for creating such texts. For example, is Schiller’s discussion of liberty and freedom implicit in Baumgarten’s text? Why does Schiller’s text take the letter form and why is Baumgarten’s text a, what seems to me, overwhelming list of syllogisms and examples?

Another question I had while reading this text was this: It seems as though these texts (but particularly Schiller) uphold a balance between beauty and reason present in Greek society; yet, what about the ways in which Greek society (and what has come between Greek society and these writings) reinscribes the split between poetry and philosophy? In other words, how do other historical distinctions that these writers themselves rely upon seem to reinscribe the distinction between beauty and reason (poetry and philosophy) that they are so clearly advocating against? Wow, sadly, I'm not sure that I can make that much clearer...!