The Aesthetic Theories of Schopenhauer and Hegel

One of the most famous and uncompromising rivalries in the history of Western Philosophy was the feud between the two 19th-century German thinkers: Arthur Schopenhauer and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Despite their differences, both thinkers shared a deep appreciation for aesthetics and the philosophy of art. Both Schopenhauer’s and Hegel’s aesthetic theories were shaped by their divergent conceptions of reality. I will first provide a brief overview of the meaning each philosopher attached to “aesthetics” and “art,” then I will provide background information that is necessary to understand the place of aesthetics in each philosopher’s Weltanschauung. I will then analyze the major components of Schopenhauer’s and Hegel’s account of art and the aesthetic experience, as well as their similarities and differences. Finally, I will conclude with an overview of Schopenhauer’s and Hegel’s philosophy of art as a whole. 

Schopenhauer’s and Hegel’s understanding of the meaning, significance, and nature of art are deeply influenced by their idiosyncratic metaphysical doctrines. Despite being idealists, and influenced by the writings of Kant, both Schopenhauer and Hegel viewed the nature of art and its relation to experience differently. For Schopenhauer, “the object of art, the depiction of which is the aim of the artist…is an Idea, in Plato’s sense, and absolutely nothing else; not the particular thing, the object of common apprehension, and not the concept, the object of rational thought and science.”1 For him, the artist endeavors to translate “objective perception” into a medium that retains the hallmark of perceptual immediacy. Likewise, the apprehension of art is characterized by “intuitive apprehension.” For Hegel, on the other hand, art is sensuous, but is also conceptual, intellectual, and fused with self-conscious thought. He writes that “art and its works as generated and created by the mind (spirit), are themselves of a spiritual nature, even if their mode of representation admits into itself the semblance of sensuous being, and pervades what is sensuous with mind. In this respect art is, to begin with, nearer to mind and its thinking activity than is mere external unintelligent nature; in works of art, mind has to do but with its own.”2 To better grasp the essence of Schopenhauer’s and Hegel’s approach to art, one must examine their aesthetic theories in light of their respective metaphysical frameworks.

In order to understand Schopenhauer’s general attitude regarding the nature of aesthetic theory, it is essential to review his metaphysic and theory of knowledge. Schopenhauer’s magnum opus, The World as Will and Idea, published in late 1818, is a work that expands upon Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” in philosophy, and undertakes to show that the world, in and through which we live and move, is of a two-fold nature: it is our idea (or Vorstellung), and our will. Like Virgil, Schopenhauer takes the reader by the hand, and opens his eyes to the endless, miserable strivings of the empirical world, and dives deep into its nature as it is in itself to find that the blind, relentless strife of empirical nature is, at bottom, grounded in the very same thing: an eternal, insatiable, and blind will. The cosmic Will, the “thing-in-itself,” is indivisibly present as the core and kernel of each and every one of its “objectifications” in idea; manifesting as the fundamental forces of nature (e.g., gravity and electromagnetism, etc.), up through unorganized matter (e.g., minerals); into organic, non-human beings (e.g., plants, aquatic life, animals, etc.); and, culminating at the apex, the highest grade of the “Objectification” of the Will: the human being. This “great chain of Being” or “pyramid” of the Will’s “Objectifications” possesses an infinite series of degrees, yet no grade is any less a manifestation of the Will than another. Schopenhauer calls the “adequate Objectification of the Will” the Platonic Idea, i.e., the genuine object of all artistic endeavors, and the object of aesthetic experience.

When understanding Hegel’s philosophy, we quickly find that Schopenhauer was his foil. While Schopenhauer held that “The world is just what it is because the will, whose manifestation it is, is what it is, because it so wills;” Hegel elevated reason and thought above all else, writing that “What is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational.”3,4 Hegel’s philosophy was founded upon the process of “Spirit” or “Mind” dialectically unfolding itself through history, eventually becoming conscious of itself as “Spirit.” Hegel’s historicism and his notion of the progressive developmental character of reality into higher forms of consciousness can be illustrated in the following passage:

“History [is] a progression in consciousness, from consciousness to self-consciousness and then to self-consciousness of self-consciousness, the giving of law reflexively to oneself as lawgiver. The process of development in consciousness is conceived by Hegel as dialectical opposing moments, conflicting principles, reconciled in a synthesis which supersedes each moment, only to undergo conflict itself and subsequent supersession. The fulfillment of the process is consciousness aware of itself as free cause of itself. This is Absolute Spirit, the Absolute Idea, realizable only through its own history, the Universal in the concrete.”5

This progression of consciousness gradually manifests itself in art; however, art, for Hegel, fails to culminate in the highest expression of Spirit; instead, religion and philosophy sublate the achievements of art and proceed to manifest themselves as the highest forms of consciousness. Hegel points out this shortcoming when he says, “There is, however, a deeper form of truth, in which it is no longer so closely akin and so friendly to sense as to be adequately embraced and expressed by [the artistic] medium…The particular mode to which artistic production and works of art belong no longer satisfies our supreme need…Thought and reflection have taken their flight above fine art.”6 And fine art encounters this “supreme need” and “deeper truth” when “it has taken its place in the same sphere with religion and philosophy.”7

Returning now to Schopenhauer, we can proceed to investigate the core principles that ground his aesthetic theory. Schopenhauer maintains that aesthetic experience has “two inseparable constituent parts—the knowledge of the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea, that is, as the enduring form of this whole species of things; and the self-consciousness of the knowing person, not as individual, but as pure will-less subject of knowledge.”8 The fact that the “Platonic Idea” is the object of aesthetic experience is “due not merely to the fact that art presents things more clearly and characteristically by emphasizing the essential and eliminating the inessential, but just as much to the fact that the absolute silence of the will, required for the purely objective apprehension of the true nature of things, is attained with the greatest certainty.”9  Schopenhauer emphasizes that in the act of aesthetic apprehension, an individual transforms into a “pure will-less subject” and, being released from his own selfhood, is free from personal interests, cravings, desires, and wants. He is liberated from the pangs of his own individual will. He becomes an “eternal world-eye:”

“This eye looks out from all living beings, though with varying different degrees of clearness, and is itself, constantly one and the same, and the supporter of the world of permanent Ideas, i.e., of the adequate objectivity of the will. On the other hand, the individual subject, clouded in his knowledge by the individuality that springs from the will, has as object only particular things, and is as transient and fleeting as these themselves are.”10

For Schopenhauer, the disclosure of the Platonic Ideas of things are not concepts accessed by an individual’s rational and conceptual faculties. On the contrary, conceptual knowledge, “as a rule, remains always subordinate to the service of the will, as indeed it originated for this service, and grew, so to speak, to the will, as the head to the body.”11 However, the knowledge of the Platonic Ideas in aesthetic experience is a form of knowledge that is not subordinate to the will; indeed it is an ephemeral moment of relief wherein “knowledge breaks free from the service of the will...”12 Schopenhauer stresses the importance of genuine art being “non-conceptual;” as opposed to it being a product of abstract concepts which—Schopenhauer condemned as being the result of “will-laden” pursuits. And, since the object of art is “to facilitate knowledge of the Ideas of the world” it follows that conceptual and abstract knowledge cannot be the ground, purpose, or medium of genuine art.13 Schopenhauer provides an elegant illustration of this process:

“If, raised by the power of the mind, a man relinquishes the common way of looking at things, gives up tracing…the where, the when, the why, and the whither of things, and looks simply and solely at the what; if, further, he does not allow abstract thought, the concepts of the reason, to take possession of his consciousness, but, instead of all this, gives the whole power of his mind to perception, sinks himself entirely in this, and lets his whole consciousness be filled with the quiet contemplation of the natural object actually present, whether a landscape, a tree, a mountain, a building, or whatever it may be; inasmuch as he loses himself in this object (to use a pregnant German idiom), i.e., forgets even his individuality, his will, and only continues to exist as the pure subject, the clear mirror of the object, so that it is as if the object alone were there, without any one to perceive it, and he can no longer separate the perceiver from the perception, but both have become one, because the whole consciousness is filled and occupied with one single sensuous picture…”14

On the other hand, man’s “natural attitude” is driven solely by his attention to particular things, how they may be of use to him, where they are from, what is their purpose, etc.—all of which are concerned with the principle of sufficient reason. However, in aesthetic experience, man—now the pure, will-less subject of knowledge—and the work of art—the Platonic Idea—transcend the principle of sufficient reason and cease to be subordinate to the pangs of the Will.

A notable point of intersection between Schopenhauer and Hegel is their common usage of expressions when speaking of the nature of art. For example, Hegel, like Schopenhauer, held that “the content of art is the Idea, while its form is the configuration of sensuous material.”15 We also see a similarity, albeit to a lesser extent, when Hegel writes, “the content of art that it be not anything abstract in itself, but concrete, though not concrete in the sense in which the sensuous is concrete when it is contrasted with everything spiritual and intellectual.”16 We have hitherto seen that Schopenhauer vehemently criticized the impinging of the “will-driven” intellect into the realm of aesthetic production and appreciation, and elevated the clear, purely sensuous image of perception as being the hallmark of fine art. By contrast, Hegel, held that fine art was art insofar as it was impregnated and shaped by the active and transformative power of thought—a feature that Schopenhauer held to be abstract (as opposed to “concrete”) and subordinate to the Will, and incapable of transcending the Will. More importantly, Hegel held that “Art is not, either in content or in form, the supreme and absolute mode of bringing the mind’s genuine interests into consciousness,” and that “religion” and “philosophy” captured the being of art in a truer and richer manner.17 Schopenhauer, an atheist and vehement opponent of religion, would profoundly disagree with the assertion that religion was a better expression of the truths that art sought to articulate, than art itself. On the other hand, Schopenhauer does show signs of agreement—albeit with respect to some art forms (music being an exception)—writing that “the works of poets, sculptors, and pictorial or graphic artists generally contained an acknowledged treasure of profound wisdom…yet only virtualiter or implicite. Philosophy, on the other hand, endeavors to furnish the same wisdom actualiter and explicite; in this sense philosophy is related to these arts as wine is to grapes.”18

In conclusion, the aesthetic theories of Arthur Schopenhauer and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel are the workings of two diametrically opposed thinkers. Beginning from vastly different metaphysical standpoints, both thinkers managed to arrive at a variety of intersections of mutual agreement and reconciliation. Where differences persist, both thinkers work to solidify their theories by appealing to their respective cornerstones: Will and Thought. Overall, Schopenhauer and Hegel provide insightful analyses into the meaning, significance, and richness of art.

Footnotes

[1] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.F.J Payne, vol. I (New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications Inc., 1969), 233. 

[2] Hegel, Georg. The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art. trans. Bernard Bosanquet. (London, England: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1886), 58.

[3] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp, vol. I (London, England: K. Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, Limited, 1906), 427.

[4] Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Hegel Reader, ed. Stephen Houlgate (Oxford, UK, England: Blackwell Publishers, 2005), 325.

[5] G.W.F. Hegel, “Philosophy of Fine Art,” in Art and Its Significance: an Anthology of Aesthetic Theory, ed. Stephen David. Ross (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1987), pp. 145-162, 145.

[6] Georg Hegel, The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art, trans. Bernard Bosanquet (London, England: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1886), 53.

[7] Ibid., 48.

[8] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp, vol. I, 253.

[9] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.F.J Payne, vol. II (New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications Inc., 1966), 370.

[10] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.F.J Payne, vol. II, 371.

[11] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp, vol. I, 230.

[12] Ibid, 230.

[13] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.F.J Payne, vol. II, 408.

[14] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, trans. R.B. Haldane and J. Kemp, vol. I, 231.

[15] G.W.F. Hegel, “Philosophy of Fine Art,” in Art and Its Significance: an Anthology of Aesthetic Theory, ed. Stephen David. Ross (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1987), 146.

[16] Ibid., 147.

[17] Georg Hegel, The Introduction to Hegel's Philosophy of Fine Art, trans. Bernard Bosanquet, 52-53.

[18] Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans. E.F.J Payne, vol. II (New York, N.Y.: Dover Publications Inc., 1966), 407.