I argue that scientific and poetic modes of objectivity are perspectival duals: 'views' from and onto basic natural forces, respectively. I ground this analysis in a general account of objectivity, not in terms of either 'universal' or 'inter-subjective' validity, but as receptivity to basic features of reality. Contra traditionalists, bare truth, factual knowledge, and universally valid representation are not inherently valuable. But modern critics who focus primarily on the self-expressive aspect of science are also wrong to claim that our knowledge (...) is or should be ultimately mediated by ourselves. In objective science, we represent nature as a field of phenomena determined by and within explanatorily-basic physical structures that encode the causal impact of elemental physical forces. These causally-basic forces hence ground the possibility of objective scientific theory, even though (I argue) they are systematically excluded from its representational contents. I show how my notions of force and field emerge partly through my effort to naturalize concepts of 'God' and 'Laws' in 17th-century natural philosophy. In science, we use the structure of basic forces' impact to see corresponding objects. We do not see these forces themselves—and this relates to the 'transcendence' of 'God'. I supplement this historical analysis by critiquing standard accounts of objectivity, and by synthesizing elements from neo-Kantian epistemology and current 'structural' realism into a view that I call 'dynamic structuralism'. Finally, I argue that physics systematically relies on passive characterizations of phenomena like inertia and impressed force. Dynamic alternatives that are just as empirically adequate are possible, but they are non-scientific. Poetic objectivity involves a direct presentation of nature as an order of interacting forces. I elaborate first by developing a novel theory of the relation between beauty and sublimity, mediated by a basic category of 'sensory force' (e.g. a 'singing' tone in a beautiful melody). I then describe the interaction between sensory and affective dimensions of aesthetic experience, in relation to an original historical analysis of passion and 'disinterestedness' in Kant, Schiller and Nietzsche. I synthesize these lines of analysis into a critique of the role of 'expression' in art. I also resist 'spectator'-centric aesthetics, in this connection, by developing an account of artistic objectivity in dialogue with Ruskin's critique of the 'pathetic fallacy'. I contrast artistic objectivity with Romantic ideals of self-expression, while elaborating its positive relation to certain currents within Victorian and Modernist aesthetics, including Imagists' stress on 'exteriority'. My project creatively extends Nietzsche's view that philosophical and scientific theories are 'perspectival' expressions of theorists' drives. It is a virtue of Nietzsche's account that he takes the outlet of strong human drives in creative acts of theorizing to be just one among many higher modes of 'will to power' in nature—many of which are totally impersonal. But Nietzsche is still too focused on self-expression or willing one's own power. Objective science involves external forces' 'expression' in and through us, not just 'expressing' our own powers. And Nietzsche's vitalistic 'will to power' must be replaced by a basic ontology that better accommodates inorganic phenomena, like the 'lawful' order of celestial motions. Thus I aim to de-anthropomorphize and 'de-organicize' post-Kantian notions of willful striving and organic development, while preserving for force the primary ontological and evaluative status that theorists from Schiller and Goethe to Schelling and Schlegel to Emerson and Nietzsche attributed to will or to life. (shrink)

There are concepts of freedom of mind and freedom of belief which do not depend on the freedom of agency. After discussing some impediments to such freedom of mind, the paper explores some arguments of Dennett, Michael Smith and Philip Pettit, and Josefa Toribio. Borrowing ideas from Schiller, the paper concludes that such freedom has an emotional or aesthetic dimension.

A familiar post-Kantian criticism contends that Kant enslaves sensibility under the yoke of practical reason. Friedrich Schiller advanced a version of this criticism to which Kant publicly responded. Recent commentators have emphasized the role that Kant’s reply assigns to the pleasure that accompanies successful moral action. In contrast, I argue that Kant’s reply relies primarily on the sublime feeling that arises when we merely contemplate the moral law. In fact, the pleasures emphasized by other recent commentators depend on this sublime (...) feeling. These facts illuminate Kant’s views regarding the relationship between morality, freedom, and the development of moral feelings. (shrink)

Schiller was one of many early post-Kantians who wrestled with Kant’s doctrine of radical evil, a doctrine that continues to puzzle commentators today. Schiller’s own explanation of why we are prone to pursue happiness without restriction is, I argue, subtle and multilayered: it offers us a new genealogy of reflective agency, linking our tendency to egoism to the first emergence of reason within human beings. On the reading I defend, our drive for the absolute does not lead us directly to (...) moral autonomy; rather, it misleads us to seek the absolute in the field of our own impulses and inclinations. However, since this detour is the result of cognitive error, it involves no willful subordination of the moral law to self-love, and so nothing that bears the guilt of evil. (shrink)

Uma análise metodologicamente correta da profundidade e escopo da influência de Schiller sobre o pensamento maduro de Peirce requer três passos: uma análise preliminar das passagens que poderiam sustentar a hipótese de uma influência prolongada e, assim, poderá também indicar seus vetores sistemáticos. No caso de tal análise dar resultados positivos, tornar-se-ia necessário explorar as juvenilia que documentam a recepção inicial de Peirce de Schiller, para tentar identificar aquelas ideias que tornam inteligibilidade à re-emergência de Schiller no pensamento de Peirce (...) após 1900. Com base nos resultados que nossa contextualização arquitetônica preliminar das reminiscências de Peirce de seu estudo juvenil das Cartas Estéticas resultaram em um artigo duplo. O presente artigo foca nos segundo e terceiro passos. Logo, nosso propósito é mostrar que a tríplice aparência das categorias de Schiller fazem em seu disfarce – ora como momentos de determinação lógica, ora como estados mentais coletivo e individual de mentes socializadas moldadas pelas relações de unidades psíquicas elementares, e ora como estágios de processos históricos – primeiro agindo como o catalizador para o entendimento inicial de Peirce das deficiências da categoriologia de Kant e, consequentemente, foi ‘fadado’ à re-emergência posterior em consideração a determinar desafios arquitetônicos que Peirce encontrou-se confrontado enquanto trabalhava no redesenho da cenoscopia das ciências filosóficas nos anos de 1900 a 1903. A influência de Schiller exercida sobre Peirce, portanto, origina em sua prefiguração do conceito de Peirce de categorialidade e a coerência dos usos arquitetônicos que ela permite, em especial, como um meio para a estratificação prescisiva dos componentes – fenomenal, normativa e metafísico-entelequial –da experiência comum e os modos de racionalidade ali incorporadas. (shrink)

Nietzsche consistently valorizes artistic falsehoods. On standard interpretations, this is because art provides deceptive yet salutary fictions that help us affirm life. This reading conflicts, however, with Nietzsche’s insistence that life-affirmation requires untrammeled honesty. I present an alternative interpretation which navigates the interpretive impasse. With special attention to the influence of Friedrich Schiller, the paper argues for three claims: (1) Nietzsche does not hold that art is false because it “beautifies,” but because it produces mere semblances of, its objects; (2) (...) these semblances are essentially non-deceptive; (3) he values artistic illusions because they dispose us positively to illusion more generally. Such ‘evaluative reorientation,’ I argue, is not merely consistent with, but integral to, achieving Nietzsche’s ideal of honesty. (shrink)

This article discusses Leo Tolstoy’s view of the Russian revolutionary movement. Taking as a focal point the writer’s lifelong interest in the Decembrist uprising of 1825 and particularly in the personalities of the gentry revolutionaries, the article argues that Tolstoy’s fascination for these figures was due to their superior moral qualities, rather than to their political and socioeconomic doctrines. Following Alexander Herzen, Tolstoy came to regard the Decembrists as full-fledged individualities and “beautiful souls”. Thus, Tolstoy’s much debated “conversion” and subsequent (...) attempts to transform literary art into a medium of religious and moral reform can also be viewed as extensions of his project of self-understanding and self-formation according to the model of kalokagathia provided by Russia’s aristocratic revolutionaries. (shrink)

This article seeks to analyze the theory of technology formulated by the philosopher Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979). It shows the ways in which the author repurposes fundamental concepts of classical aesthetics in order to formulate a theory of technology aimed at liberating both nature and humanity. To this end, we argue that Marcuse mobilizes the theories of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805). In the first part of the article, we tackle some important aspects of Kant’s and Schiller’s aesthetic theories. (...) We begin with an analysis of Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), focusing on central concepts that would later be absorbed by Schiller and Marcuse. Next, we try to show the reception of the Third critique in Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795) and this author’s contribution to aesthetic studies within political thought. In the second part, we focus on Marcuse’s work, highlighting two key moments in his analysis on technology. We show that his theory undergoes transformation and development until it reaches its stable form in the 1960s and 1970s, during which the author proposes a new theory of technology based on human aesthetic possibilities whose goal is the liberation of nature. (shrink)

The central concern of this paper is to explore the efforts of Schiller's post-Kantian idealism and Marcuse's critical theory to develop a new conception of free human experience. That conception is built on the notion of play. Play is said to combine the human capacities for physical pleasure and reason, capacities which the modern world has dualized. Analysis of their respective accounts of play reveals its ambivalent form in the work of both philosophers. Play supports the ideal of ‘freedom from (...) necessity’, understood as a release from all external constraint. But it also appears to serve as a model for ‘freedom as a higher necessity’. In the case of Schiller, the ambivalence encompasses idle play and an obligation to make ourselves worthy of freedom. For Marcuse, play represents a kind of libidinal idleness while also underpinning a non-alienated conception of labour. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Friedrich Schiller’s aesthetics from a compatibilist point of view. I shall argue that it is Schiller’s conception of individual self-determination that motivates his aesthetic critique of Kant’s moral philosophy. Schiller conceives of aesthetic self-determination in terms of a compatibilism between reason and nature. As such, Schiller’s aesthetics can be interpreted as an ontological category. His concepts of love, play and the aesthetic state must therefore be understood in terms of volitional structures that describe human freedom in nature, (...) history and society. (shrink)

In the Briefe über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, the focus of this article, Schiller’s ostensible aim – to complete Kant’s aesthetic theory – is progressively abandoned. The article examines the reasons for this abandonment. On the one hand, Schiller’s original purpose was overtaken by events in France. Schiller found that he could no longer sustain confidence in reason’s capacity to build a durable political republic. On the other hand, the alternative path he favours involves him in the expounding of (...) an anthropology he did not set out to undertake. The Ästhetische Briefe, for this reason, finds itself adumbrating an “unexpected science” with little remaining reference to Kant – an account of the human being whose desirable future state, that of morality, can only be made secure by passage through the aesthetic state. A by-product of this argument, and perhaps its chief consequence, is that it finally settles the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns (in favour of the moderns). (shrink)

I argue that Nietzsche’s criticism of the Kantian theory of disinterested pleasure in beauty reflects his own commitment to claims that closely resemble certain Kantian aesthetic principles, specifically as reinterpreted by Schiller. I show that Schiller takes the experience of beauty to be disinterested both (1) insofar as it involves impassioned ‘play’ rather than desire-driven ‘work’, and (2) insofar as it involves rational-sensuous (‘aesthetic’) play rather than mere physical play. In figures like Nietzsche, Schiller’s generic notion of play—which is itself (...) influenced by Kant’s claim that aesthetic pleasure is orthogonal to desire-satisfaction—becomes decoupled from his (further) Kantian view that aesthetic play essentially involves a harmony of sensuous receptivity and rational spontaneity. The result, I suggest, is a self-standing opposition between desires and passions. This motivates a recognizably Romantic vision of aesthetic disinterestedness, as freedom from desire realized in a state of creative determination by passion. (shrink)

Inspired by a passage from Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, this article considers the possibility of a “medical sublime.” It works through a history of the sublime in theory and in the arts, from ancient times to the present. It articulates therapeutic dimensions of the sublime and gives contemporary examples of its medical relevance. In addition, it develops the concept of sublime-based stress-reduction workshops and programs. These workshops bring the sublime out of the library and the museum into the lives of (...) the healthcare community—patients, families, clinicians, staff, concerned others—in the service of better navigating human vulnerability and finitude. Opening the cannon of aesthetic theory and the arts as resources for the human condition is at the heart of health humanities. The sublime can be an invaluable tool in this task. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I will show that classical Chinese artists adopted either Daoist or Chan Buddhist meditation to cultivate their mind to be in accord with the Dao, and that their view of the...

Frederick Beiser’s study, Schiller as Philosopher, is a work of outstanding philosophical intelligence and exemplary scholarship. This is good news for the student of Schiller. It is, however, somewhat less good news for the aspiring critic of Beiser—at least for this aspiring critic, for there is little that I disagree with, and a very great deal that I admire, in Beiser’s book. Particularly valuable—to mention just one of the book’s many merits—is Beiser’s subtle and illuminating account of the relation between (...) grace and dignity in Schiller’s text On Grace and Dignity (Uber Anmut und Wurde). Beiser points out that grace and dignity are not different kinds of virtue or disposition for Schiller, but different instances of a single moral virtue—a virtue that finds expression as dignity in tragic circumstances and grace in non-tragic ones. Grace and dignity are thus not at odds with one another, as it has seemed to some, but belong to one and the same Schillerian ideal of humanity. [...]. (shrink)

Este estudo ocupa-se com o debate entre Kant e Schiller a respeito do papel das inclinações e do dever na moralidade. Baseando-se em um epigrama de Schiller muitos críticos da ética de Kant afirmaram que Kant não oferece nenhum lugar aos sentimentos na ética. Entretanto, esse cenário tem mudado nos últimos anos com vários membros da Kant-Forschung ressaltando o papel que Kant confere a virtude e aos sentimentos em suas obras tardias e que a obra Sobre graça e dignidade seria (...) aquela em que se poderia melhor identificar a posição de Schiller em relação à ética de Kant. Por conseguinte, esse estudo busca mostrar como dever e inclinação ocupa um papel importante nas concepções éticas de Schiller e Kant. Além disso, Schiller suscita algumas críticas à ética de Kant e esse estudo busca esboçar algumas respostas de Kant a essas objeções em obras como A metafísica dos costumes, Vorarbeiten zur Religion e Vorlesungen zur Moralphilosophie. (shrink)

This article examines Rancière’s political reading of aesthetics through a historical analysis into the two aesthetic theories of freedom at work in Rancière’s philosophy; Kant’s freedom as self-governance and Schiller’s freedom as harmony. While aesthetic experience is considered morally conducive through its association with freedom, this article argues that Rancière translates such discussions of freedom into that of equality by extracting the political dimensions of aesthetic experience. Given that art has the unique ability to empower the spectator through its aesthetic (...) experience of equality, the true political potential of art arises from its power to redistribute the sensible rather than through the overt expression of political themes. By juxtaposing Rancière’s politics of art with Kant’s beauty as the symbol of morality, this article argues that art becomes a symbol of political emancipation for Rancière in its capacity to generate the experience of equality. Inasmuch as Rancière attributes the aesthetic revolution to the eighteenth century, it becomes evident that the empowerment of the spectator has been central to art since the inauguration of the aesthetic regime. (shrink)

Abstract In this paper I set the debate between Kant and Schiller in terms of the role that an ideal of life can play within an autonomist ethic. I begin by examining the critical role Schiller gives to emotions in tackling specific motivational concerns in Kant's ethics. In the Kantian response I offer to these criticisms, I emphasise the role of metaphysics for a proper understanding of Kant's position whilst allowing that with respect to moral psychology, Kant and Schiller are (...) in agreement about the importance of emotions in our moral lives. I conclude by returning to the themes broached in the introduction to consider the extent to which the teleological concerns that motivate Schiller can be addressed within Kant's autonomist ethics. (shrink)

Recent years have witnessed a rehabilitation of early German Romanticism in philosophy, including a renewed interest in Romantic ethics. Friedrich Schlegel (1772–1829) is acknowledged as a key figure in this movement. While significant work has been done on some aspects of his thought, his views on ethics have been surprisingly overlooked. This essay aims to redress this shortcoming in the literature by examining the core themes of Schlegel’s ethics during the early phase of his career (1793–1801). I argue that Schlegel’s (...) position stands out against both the dominant Kantianism of his era, as well as against some of fellow Romantics. I show how Schlegel anticipates contemporary philosophers such as Bernard Williams, Harry Frankfurt, John McDowell, and Stanley Cavell in both his criticisms of traditional moral theory and in his attempts to develop a positive position. (shrink)

Philosophers often mention Friedrich Schiller as the author of a famous epigram taking aim at Kant’s account of moral motivation: Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person. To this, the answer is given: Surely, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely, And then with aversion do what your duty enjoins. These joking lines capture a natural objection to Kant’s rationalist (...) picture of moral motivation, especially as it appears in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Schiller himself, however, intended his poem as a caricature of Kant’s view, reserving his considered critique of Kant’s practical philosophy for his extended treatise ‘On Grace and Dignity’. It is in this major work that Schiller begins his debate with Kant about the aesthetic aspect of morality, sets out a systematic account of his own ethics, and argues for an account of character according to which the virtuous person is inclined to do her duty and takes pleasure in moral action. This essay aims to highlight the importance of Schiller’s ‘On Grace and Dignity’, which is a valuable resource in relation to contemporary debates about Kant’s moral psychology. Section 1 outlines the main features of Schiller’s concerns with Kantian rationalism. Section 2 surveys a number of recent critical discussions of Schiller’s interpretation of Kant. Finally, Section 3 concludes with some observations about the historical and broader philosophical significance of ‘On Grace and Dignity’. (shrink)

The following paper discusses Schiller’s interpretation of the German concept of Bildung. Bildung appears to be a central term in Germany’s culture, especially (but not limited to) the educational realm. As Bildung underwent massive transformations and has been re-interpreted multiple times throughout German history, this paper will start with a definitory exercise trying to organize the dynamics surrounding the term. Secondly, a two-fold historical context – firstly regarding the wider political and social dynamics of the time and secondly, a more (...) biographical approach focusing on Schiller – will be provided. These contextualizing efforts will be succeeded by elaborations on Schiller’s concept of Herzensbildung. The paper closes with a summary of key insights and further potential endeavors. (shrink)

This article outlines arguments in Schiller's major philosophical works, including his writings on tragedy, "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man" and "On Naive and Sentimental Poetry.".

In this paper, I suggest that the notion of qiyun (spirit consonance) in the context of landscape painting involves a moral dimension. The Confucian doctrine of sincerity involved in bringing the landscapist’s or audience’s mind in accord with the Dao underpins the moral dimension of spiritual communion between artist, object, audience and work. By projecting Kant’s, and Schiller’s somewhat modified Kantian philosophy of aesthetic autonomy and the moral relevance of art into the qiyun-focused context, we shall see that reflection on (...) parallels and differences between the two cultural traditions helps to better understand the moral dimension of qiyun aesthetics. (shrink)

Are we really sure to correctly know what do we feel in front ofan artwork and to correctly verbalize it? How do we know what weappreciate and why we appreciate it? This paper deals with the problem ofintrospective opacity in aesthetics (that is, the unreliability of self-knowledge) in the light of traditional philosophical issues, but also of recentpsychological insights, according to which there are many instances ofmisleading intuition about one’s own mental processes, affective states orpreferences. Usually, it is assumed that (...) aesthetic statements are intuitivelyclear and self-evident. However, a long tradition in psychological researchhas called the idea of introspective transparency and the infallibility of self-knowledge into question (Wilson 2002). This topic has only recently beenrecognized as an interesting problem in aesthetics (Melchionne 2011, Irvin2014). In this paper I will discuss the main shortcomings in introspective self-knowledge, mostly referring to psychological findings. As a consequence, thedevelopment of a folk psychological account of aesthetic experience could beneeded, investigating how people develop intuitive and naïve theories abouttheir aesthetic reactions, taste, and feelings, distinct from a more objectiveand empirically grounded account of how judgment and preferences areactually formed in ourselves, even on a neurobiological level. However, itwill also be argued that bypassing the individual judgment and his expressedchoices in favor of allegedly more objective levels of description would notbe an innocent step to take. (shrink)

Esse estudo examina a concepção de virtude de Kant no texto pré-crítico Observações sobre o sentimento do belo e do sublime e no período crítico assim como a concepção de virtude de Schiller em Sobre a graça e a dignidade mostrando principalmente que existem algumas continuidades entre a posição de Kant a respeito da virtude no período pré-crítico e a concepção do período crítico do pensamento moral à luz do debate entre Kant e Schiller a respeito do papel dos sentimentos (...) na concepção de virtude ou perfeição moral. Palavras-chave: Virtude. Inclinação. Dever. Sublime. (shrink)

Friedrich Schiller es uno de esos autores que puede ser abordado tanto desde la perspectiva literaria como desde la filosófica. Dada la diversidad de sus obras, que comprenden poemas, novelas, así como diálogos y ensayos filosóficos, siempre ha constituido un desafío para las distinciones entre disciplinas, haciendo surgir inevitables dificultades metodológicas. Incluso su presencia en el canon aún suscita controversias entre los estudiosos: mientras que su papel como poeta destacado en la Ilustración tardía y el clasicismo weimariano está con justicia (...) fuera de toda duda, Schiller ha sido en cambio considerado o bien como un mero filósofo aficionado, completamente deudor de Kant, o bien como un pensador independiente enfrentado a Kant; estas dos consideraciones han conducido obviamente a diferentes visiones sobre su posición en el interior del canon. En ambos casos, de todos modos, las únicas obras que se han tomado en consideración son las que se refieren al pensamiento kantiano, compuestas y publicadas por Schiller en la década de 1790. Por esta razón, ha ganado peso la creencia de que Schiller como filósofo sólo existe gracias a Kant. El propósito de este artículo es poner en duda esta tesis mostrando la profundidad de la filosofía schilleriana de juventud, así como apuntando a la continuidad de sus intereses antes, después y más allá de Kant. (shrink)

Dentro de la hermenéutica filosófica, no es fácil encontrar un trabajo que se acerque con tanto respeto al pensamiento del poeta, dramaturgo y filósofo Friedrich Schiller como el de Laura Anna Macor. Si su trabajo destaca dentro de lo que Valerio Rocco ha denominado una auténtica revolución historiográfica, es porque es uno de los pocos acercamientos a la obra schilleriana que hace un deliberado esfuerzo por tomarse su relevancia filosófica en serio, con independencia de la adherencia de Schiller a la (...) filosofía transcendental kantiana. Frente a obras como la de Frederick Beiser que, por otra parte, merece un gran reconocimiento por su riguroso estudio y defensa de la filosofía schilleriana, Macor bucea en la producción médica, poética y dramática del joven Schiller para dar allí con contenidos de carácter legítimamente filosófico, con la intención de demostrar no sólo la íntima coherencia de su pensamiento, sino también su calidad filosófica antes, después y más allá de Kant. Lo interesante de este planteamiento es que, al contrario que la mayoría de los intérpretes, Macor no se acerca condescendientemente al carácter híbrido del pensamiento de Schiller, sino asumiendo que el mismo es, de hecho, una fuente de riqueza multidisciplinar que no jerarquiza los saberes. Una riqueza que, además, es una clara señal de la relevancia actual del planteamiento schilleriano. (shrink)

The present article aims to approach in detail the reasons that lead to a discussion between Schiller and Fichte in 1795 on the appropriate phi- losophical ‘style’ of writing. This discussion led Schiller to publish On the necessary limitations in the use of beautiful forms. I intend to show that, to Fichte, this argument is based exclusively on a matter of style that only relates to philosophy supplementarily, whereas in Schiller’s case the question on ‘style’ leads directly to the heart (...) of his philosophical and aesthetic-political proposal. To Schiller, as I will show, writing is a constitutive moment of truth; in consequence, an adequate philosophical presenta- tion is also one in which the truth’s most complete and perfect configuration takes place. (shrink)