Reassessing the Rise of Aesthetics: Aesthetic Heteronomy from Shaftesbury to Schelling
The eighteenth century is traditionally regarded as the Grand Siècle of modern aesthetic autonomy. A longstanding diachronic narrative holds that such autonomy originated in British early eighteenth-century theories on a specific aesthetic disinterestedness and was fulfilled in the poetological and philosophical program of German Romanticism. The project aims to reassess the current validity of such a narrative, by charting the intellectual topography of the aesthetic heteronomy that distinguished the British and German eighteenth-century discourse on ideal disinterestedness and works of art. The project focuses specifically on how leading critics and philosophers inscribed aesthetic experiences of works of art in discourses on political society and natural science. The project adopts a radically new perspective on the subject, divided into three intersected subprojects: (1) the ambition of the third Earl of Shaftesbury at the dawn of the eighteenth century to incorporate ethico-theological ideas on disinterestedness and works of art as organic wholes, in an ongoing debate about modern political society; (2) the notion of the work in German aesthetics and the wish to pursue, but also alter, the Shaftesburyan legacy, by introducing the scientific conception of organic nature; and (3) the romantic and idealist effort to develop the analogy between work of art and organism into a new model of ideal society by criticizing a mechanistic conception of nature in natural science.
Final report
Purpose and Evolution of Project
The primary aim of the project was to study the established account of modern aesthetic autonomy, generally claimed to be a phenomenon arising in early British eighteenth-century aesthetic theory only to reach its modern shape in the poetological and philosophical program of German Romanticism. The project progressed via a series of re-readings of paradigmatic eighteenth-century treatises and by means of digitized material, to prove a persistent presence of moral, social, theological, and philosophical problems and concepts in aesthetic theory. Rather than establishing a new aesthetic narrative, the project has demonstrated the scholarly advantages of exploring discursive pluralism. The concepts disinterestedness and sensus communis retained central functions in the three sub-projects, enabling the participants to determine the sustained impact of moral and religious values when functions of art were profoundly transformed. By means of a set of digital methods the project has analysed and challenged the relation between aesthetic concepts and extra-aesthetic concepts.
Implementation
The participants of the project have organized a series of conferences, workshops, research panels, and presented papers at international conferences and seminars. Research results are published in prestigious refereed journals, anthologies, monographs, and a translation. Two major monographs require special mention: Mattias Pirholt’s Grenzerfahrungen: Studien zu Goethes Ästhetik (Heidelberg: Winter, 2018) and Karl Axelsson’s Political Aesthetics: Addison and Shaftesbury on Taste, Morals, and Society (London: Bloomsbury, 2019 [paperback 2021]). The project has also produced the anthology Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics (New York and London: Routledge, 2021), published in Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, and the first Swedish critical edition of Shaftesbury’s The Moralists, A Philosophical Rhapsody.
Originally scheduled in 2020, the concluding conference, Aesthetics and Idealism in the Age of Goethe, arranged in collaboration with The Society for German Idealism and Romanticism (SGIR), was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is scheduled to take place in Stockholm in June 2022. In addition, numerous panels in USA were broadcasted digitally.
By a series of research visits, the project has both established and continued international collaborations with University of Sydney (Australia), University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), and University of Cambridge (UK). The participants of the project have also studied archive material (especially the Shaftesbury Papers) at the National Archives in Kew and at the British Library in London. Two of the participants have attended the Introduction to Digital Humanities strand at the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School 2019 (University of Oxford) and lectured on digital methods in aesthetic research at Södertörn University.
Major Results and Contributions
1. Originating in the theological and philosophical debates of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the concept of disinterestedness remains key for accurate knowledge and understanding of the development of British and German aesthetic theory. The concept itself does not implicate an absolute autonomy regarding aesthetic experiences of art and nature but rather expands and strengthens historical, theological, and ethical legacies in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century aesthetic theory.
2. Contemporary meta-aesthetic debates on the modern system of the arts would benefit from combining and integrating the continuity model of the classicists and the Kristellerian discontinuity model. The scholarly challenges emerging from Kristeller’s thesis about the modern system of the arts needs to be further studied rather than rejected, and future research on the development of eighteenth-century aesthetic theory needs to integrate problems raised by recent criticism from classicists.
3. British and German eighteenth-century aesthetic theory is distinguished by discursive pluralism. The concept of nature constitutes the pivot that enables theories to interact with and influence neighbouring scientific discourses. This is especially evident in, on the one hand, theories on poetry’s capacity to preserve a selfless attachment to the non-human world, which also remains a guiding principle for political theories on necessary improvements of enlightened societies, and, on the other hand, in scientific practices reintroducing a new concept of rationality. Such a (natural) science acknowledges that human rationality is embodied and entwined in its material conditions of possibility.
New Research Questions
The relevance of the concept of nature has piloted a large part of the project, which has raised a series of new questions regarding its conceptual history. To what extent can we increase our knowledge of the concept itself by integrating additional seventeenth-century theological claims in aesthetics? Shaftesbury’s understanding of organic nature is heavily influenced by the idea of plastic nature present in the writings of the Cambridge Platonists. Future projects need to improve our understanding of the concept of nature advanced by Cambridge Platonists and its expansion in Shaftesbury’s aesthetic theory as well as in late eighteenth-century German theory.
The project has primarily fostered a historical focus on aesthetics, to some extent at the expense of contemporary theory. Relevant questions raised in the project about human interaction with nature could be further developed by relating aesthetic theory to contemporary ecocriticism and posthumanism.
Collaboration and Dissemination of Research Results
The project has produced twenty-three publications. A quarter (six publications) are accepted for publication; regarding the rest of the corpus, nine publications are published open access in peer-reviewed journals; three anthologies are published; two monographs are published; two book chapters are published; one review is published.
The participants have contributed in six international conferences or panels; presented papers at six occasions and participated by presenting papers at twenty-three workshops and seminars.
The project has collaborated fully or partly with researchers at the University of Sydney (especially Professor Dalia Nassar, one of the invitees at the conference Aesthetic Heteronomy: New Perspectives on the Long Eighteenth Century, at Södertörn University, 22–23 April 2016). The assistance of Professor Nassar enabled the project to engage in a vibrant international research environment with a network of scholars tied to Society for German Idealism and Romanticism (SGIR). One of the project’s participants was invited as speaker at SGIR’s annual conference at University of Sydney in 2018. Further collaborations will follow by the concluding conference of the project (a collaboration with SGIR) and a scheduled anthology edited by two of the project’s participants and Professor Gerad Gentry (Chair of SGIR).
The project has also developed a strong collaboration with the University of Wisconsin (USA). Professor Hannah Vandegrift Eldridge has been particularly important by hosting a research visit for one of the project’s participants in 2019. Professor Eldridge is one of the invited speakers to the project’s (and SGIR’s) concluding conference.
One of the participants intends to develop the project’s theoretical perspective in the context of American literature by participating in the C19 conference (Florida) in 2022, where he will present a paper on the aesthetic heteronomy of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The primary aim of the project was to study the established account of modern aesthetic autonomy, generally claimed to be a phenomenon arising in early British eighteenth-century aesthetic theory only to reach its modern shape in the poetological and philosophical program of German Romanticism. The project progressed via a series of re-readings of paradigmatic eighteenth-century treatises and by means of digitized material, to prove a persistent presence of moral, social, theological, and philosophical problems and concepts in aesthetic theory. Rather than establishing a new aesthetic narrative, the project has demonstrated the scholarly advantages of exploring discursive pluralism. The concepts disinterestedness and sensus communis retained central functions in the three sub-projects, enabling the participants to determine the sustained impact of moral and religious values when functions of art were profoundly transformed. By means of a set of digital methods the project has analysed and challenged the relation between aesthetic concepts and extra-aesthetic concepts.
Implementation
The participants of the project have organized a series of conferences, workshops, research panels, and presented papers at international conferences and seminars. Research results are published in prestigious refereed journals, anthologies, monographs, and a translation. Two major monographs require special mention: Mattias Pirholt’s Grenzerfahrungen: Studien zu Goethes Ästhetik (Heidelberg: Winter, 2018) and Karl Axelsson’s Political Aesthetics: Addison and Shaftesbury on Taste, Morals, and Society (London: Bloomsbury, 2019 [paperback 2021]). The project has also produced the anthology Beyond Autonomy in Eighteenth-Century British and German Aesthetics (New York and London: Routledge, 2021), published in Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, and the first Swedish critical edition of Shaftesbury’s The Moralists, A Philosophical Rhapsody.
Originally scheduled in 2020, the concluding conference, Aesthetics and Idealism in the Age of Goethe, arranged in collaboration with The Society for German Idealism and Romanticism (SGIR), was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is scheduled to take place in Stockholm in June 2022. In addition, numerous panels in USA were broadcasted digitally.
By a series of research visits, the project has both established and continued international collaborations with University of Sydney (Australia), University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA), and University of Cambridge (UK). The participants of the project have also studied archive material (especially the Shaftesbury Papers) at the National Archives in Kew and at the British Library in London. Two of the participants have attended the Introduction to Digital Humanities strand at the Digital Humanities at Oxford Summer School 2019 (University of Oxford) and lectured on digital methods in aesthetic research at Södertörn University.
Major Results and Contributions
1. Originating in the theological and philosophical debates of the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the concept of disinterestedness remains key for accurate knowledge and understanding of the development of British and German aesthetic theory. The concept itself does not implicate an absolute autonomy regarding aesthetic experiences of art and nature but rather expands and strengthens historical, theological, and ethical legacies in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century aesthetic theory.
2. Contemporary meta-aesthetic debates on the modern system of the arts would benefit from combining and integrating the continuity model of the classicists and the Kristellerian discontinuity model. The scholarly challenges emerging from Kristeller’s thesis about the modern system of the arts needs to be further studied rather than rejected, and future research on the development of eighteenth-century aesthetic theory needs to integrate problems raised by recent criticism from classicists.
3. British and German eighteenth-century aesthetic theory is distinguished by discursive pluralism. The concept of nature constitutes the pivot that enables theories to interact with and influence neighbouring scientific discourses. This is especially evident in, on the one hand, theories on poetry’s capacity to preserve a selfless attachment to the non-human world, which also remains a guiding principle for political theories on necessary improvements of enlightened societies, and, on the other hand, in scientific practices reintroducing a new concept of rationality. Such a (natural) science acknowledges that human rationality is embodied and entwined in its material conditions of possibility.
New Research Questions
The relevance of the concept of nature has piloted a large part of the project, which has raised a series of new questions regarding its conceptual history. To what extent can we increase our knowledge of the concept itself by integrating additional seventeenth-century theological claims in aesthetics? Shaftesbury’s understanding of organic nature is heavily influenced by the idea of plastic nature present in the writings of the Cambridge Platonists. Future projects need to improve our understanding of the concept of nature advanced by Cambridge Platonists and its expansion in Shaftesbury’s aesthetic theory as well as in late eighteenth-century German theory.
The project has primarily fostered a historical focus on aesthetics, to some extent at the expense of contemporary theory. Relevant questions raised in the project about human interaction with nature could be further developed by relating aesthetic theory to contemporary ecocriticism and posthumanism.
Collaboration and Dissemination of Research Results
The project has produced twenty-three publications. A quarter (six publications) are accepted for publication; regarding the rest of the corpus, nine publications are published open access in peer-reviewed journals; three anthologies are published; two monographs are published; two book chapters are published; one review is published.
The participants have contributed in six international conferences or panels; presented papers at six occasions and participated by presenting papers at twenty-three workshops and seminars.
The project has collaborated fully or partly with researchers at the University of Sydney (especially Professor Dalia Nassar, one of the invitees at the conference Aesthetic Heteronomy: New Perspectives on the Long Eighteenth Century, at Södertörn University, 22–23 April 2016). The assistance of Professor Nassar enabled the project to engage in a vibrant international research environment with a network of scholars tied to Society for German Idealism and Romanticism (SGIR). One of the project’s participants was invited as speaker at SGIR’s annual conference at University of Sydney in 2018. Further collaborations will follow by the concluding conference of the project (a collaboration with SGIR) and a scheduled anthology edited by two of the project’s participants and Professor Gerad Gentry (Chair of SGIR).
The project has also developed a strong collaboration with the University of Wisconsin (USA). Professor Hannah Vandegrift Eldridge has been particularly important by hosting a research visit for one of the project’s participants in 2019. Professor Eldridge is one of the invited speakers to the project’s (and SGIR’s) concluding conference.
One of the participants intends to develop the project’s theoretical perspective in the context of American literature by participating in the C19 conference (Florida) in 2022, where he will present a paper on the aesthetic heteronomy of Nathaniel Hawthorne.