The philosophy behind Romanticism
Review of Roots of Romanticism by Isaiah Berlin
This is a splendidly dense introduction to the Romantic Movement. Isaiah Berlin argues that the Romantics established a new kind of relativism and possibility, forever demolishing the 2000-year search for absolute certainty in philosophy.
When the Romantics emerged, it was at the moment that reason had seemingly reached its apogee in the Enlightenment. With the scientific achievements of Newton – in a clockwork universe of mathematical precision – and of many others in various disciplines, their methodology appeared unassailable. In the view of the philosophes, given the proper question, things were knowable; a logical method to find these truths could be taught to anyone of intelligence; all of these truths together had to be logically compatible, i.e. these truths had to fit into one gigantic jigsaw puzzle of the ultimate reality behind all that we see and experience.
Beyond the hard sciences, Enlightenment rationalism implied that in all areas of human endeavor there were right ways of doing things that were universally applicable and irrefutable, once they were discovered. They believed, Berlin explains, that there was an incontrovertible nature of things, a sure course to truth and human perfection as immutable as Plato's forms. It would lead to the technocratic notion that, given certain facts and conditions, there were objectively optimal policies.
According to Berlin, the Romantics rebelled against this dogmatic and self-satisfied view. The early Romantics sought to advance an aesthetic rebellion, by which the individual genius of the artist sought to express a reality that was wholly their own and that, once shared, changed the world itself and human possibility by a conscious act of will. These artists belonged, they argued, to a group that dared to question, that would throw out what was accepted as "known", in the courageous search of freedom for themselves and others. Finally, Berlin explains, the truths and ideals that the philosophes championed often clearly appeared incompatible and irreconcilable, in particular for different cultures and different times. This opened the way to relativism but also to an understanding of others' views on their own terms and perhaps even without judgment.
According to Berlin, the Romantic movement started with an obscure character, Johann Gottfried von Herder, who expressed these notions in crude form referring mostly to art. The reasoning was then taken up by Kant, who based his philosophy of being on the primacy of free will. Though Kant is regarded by many as an Enlightenment figure, in particular with his early work in astronomy, Berlin argues he forged some of the fundamental building blocks of Romanticism, i.e. the necessity of will. Next came Schiller, who in his novels portrayed man as separate from nature because of his sense of morality, which often went against nature’s perceived obligations and ways. Finally, Fichte widened the focus onto human political action; he saw contemplative knowledge as a tool in the construction not just of lives, but of entire nations and peoples, e.g. the Germanic spirit.
Rather than a reality divisible into its component parts of perfect compatibility, Berlin continues, the Romantics promoted the notion of an indefinable vitalism and mystery that could only be expressed in symbols, a whole that could never be entirely grasped by reason and hence inexhaustible. This would, in the hands of various people, lead to unique works of art as well as nationalist projects and even fascism, whereby peoples sought to impose their will and vision on others in an unavoidable political process of conflicting ideals.
In a positive sense, Berlin concludes, this meant that "your universe was as you choose to make it". Without structure or inexorable pattern to which you must adapt, your life can be endlessly open and reinvented. This would lead to the disciplines of psychology and anthropology, ideally to a world of freedom and creativity rather than the necessity to live within limits and conventional correctness. I find this – the divine mystery and infinite possibility it implies – an utterly captivating, if idealized vision, a constant in the way I have seen life and history. It was a great revelation to read that it was the Romantics who reasoned through and articulated this vision first, contravening the entirety of the western philosophical tradition from Plato onward.
As it is a philosophy book, there are some turgid patches, in particular a first chapter that nearly put me off the book. I was disappointed that he spent so much time on art and aesthetics, barely mentioning the political implications until the last few pages. Finally, the type on many of the even pages was slightly smudged, a constant annoyance (Princeton U. Press). But these are minor criticisms when you view the clarity of ideas and the elegance of the language - these were lectures and the prose is so beautiful it can be read aloud.
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