How Shall We Read Schiller Today?∗

Waibel, Violetta L.

doi:10.1080/00201740701858951

Cited by 2 publications

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“…335-393);Houlgate (2008);Macor (2012);Moggach (2008);Stern (2012, pp. 104-135);and Waibel (2008).23 CompareHoulgate (2008, pp. 37-49).24 ComparePareyson (1983);Miller (1959);Beiser (2008aBeiser ( , 2008b;Stern (2012, pp.…”

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One more time on the alleged repugnance of Kant's ethics? Schiller's Kallias letters and the entirety of the human being

Falduto

2020

European J of Philosophy

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In this paper, I consider the Kallias Letters in connection with Kant's account of moral action in order to analyse Schiller's characterisation of Kant's conception of constraint as aesthetically repugnant. I show how Schiller treats the difficulties inherent to the dualistic view that human beings consist in irreducibly sensible and rational natures. After elucidating the fundamental distinctions between Kant's and Schiller's views, I argue that, although Schiller's charge of repugnance appears too weak to pose a serious threat to Kant's ethics, it nevertheless indicates a significant problem in Kant's dualistic conception of the human being.In March 1782, a text entitled "A Magnanimous Act from Most Recent History" appeared anonymously in the Wirtembergisches Repertorium der Litteratur. 1 The author of this text, Friedrich Schiller, wrote about the distinction between two extremes coexisting within the human being, that is, the angelic and the demonic. For Schiller, who was at that time a young physician, this distinction opens up, but fails to identify and reflect upon, a potential middle ground between these extremes, that is, the possibility of becoming a magnanimous agent. 2 Only two years have passed since the completion of his third medical dissertation, entitled On the Connection between the Animal and the Spiritual Nature in the Human Being, in which Schiller focussed on the sensible/rational human being as an inseparable whole. He considered this unity to be the key to the understanding of humanity, not only in its physiological nature but also in its moral vocation. 3 Schiller would remain driven by the possibility of reconciling the dualism of the sensible and rational in human nature throughout his life. In this paper, I concentrate on the Kallias Letters, composed more than a decade after the aforementioned medical dissertation, in which Schiller considered the human being as an entirety. These letters are mainly dedicated to the elucidation of a new theory of beauty. Nonetheless, within

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confidence: 99%