School of Historical and Philosophical Studies - Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Item
    Thumbnail Image
    Free play : a study of one characteristic of our response to beauty through the aesthetics of Kant and Schiller
    Wetherell, R. F ( 1967)
    Our pleasure in beautiful things is both invigorating and relaxing. It is invigorating because we learn something new, that a certain form exists in nature, or may be imposed upon it by man. This is not learnt as a piece of information - it is an experience which moves us one step further in our search for order In the chaos of our experience. Intellectual pleasure arises from the discovery of order, too, either through dividing our experience into segments, or through putting them back together again. But the discovery of intellectual order may bring us no closer towards realising how physical and mental characteristics are united in the human personality. Now pleasure in beautiful things is neither purely intellectual nor purely physical. Beautiful thoughts are rare, and beautiful touches do not exist. I want to show how an experience of beauty is a model for, and a foretaste of, a more ultimate synthesis between the mind and the physical world. Pleasure in beautiful things is also relaxing, because it allows us to enjoy being ourselves. For the time being, we do not worry about achieving anything, or learning anything. Some experiences of beauty make great demands on our powers of comprehension, but somehow this is relaxing rather than exhausting. There is pleasure in the very exercise of these powers in appreciating beauty, arid, moreover, we cannot be forced into it. It is the pleasure of freedom, through which a fuller self-realisation is possible, because we are not tied to a particular task. This experience is best characterised as one of free play, as opposed to work and other serious occupations. Freedom here is not to be confused with the more solemn freedom of the moral sphere. Nevertheless, because the pleasure of free play, like moral feeling, may be communicated to others and even required of them, a study of free play is illuminating for our understanding of moral freedom. This essay aims at following these ideas through the two books which first gave the currency. They are Kant's Critique of Judgement and Schiller's letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man.