The Contemporary Reading of Schiller and Aestheticization as a New Enlightenment

In his book Aestheticization as a Second Enlightenment (2012) the literary and cultural theorist Jürgen Peper understands culture as a “designed and experienced idea of the truth” rather than the progress of civilization. According to Peper, Aestheticization is “the epistemological-critical questioning of the classical ideas of truth” that during the 19th and 20th century led to the new Enlightenment. Examining the key issue of the 18th century, the question of freedom, Friedrich Schiller considers both aspects of the problem of Aestheticization – the sentimental artist with his epistemological-critical stance and the consumer of art that could be educated only within the aesthetic activity. The core of Schiller's theory is that only the emancipation of the human spirit can lead man to his moral perfection and a harmonious society. Schiller's elitist anticipation of the development of European history and society reverberates in Peper's theory, confirmed through the empirical analysis of literary and philosophical works as well as works of art from 19th and 20th century. Peper demonstrates how aestheticization, as a process of individualizing particularization, contributed significantly to the history of the development of the individual and thus the history of democratization.”Keywords: aestheticization, aesthetic activity, Enlightenment, individuality, democratization