Abstract

In this paper I make a reconstruction of Kant’s idea of aesthetic education and show the peculiarity of this idea in comparison with more familiar projects of Schiller and the German Romantics. In the first section I briefly outline those features of Kant’s ethics which are relevant for this problem, namely its universalistic character. In the second section I show how aesthetic experience, according to Kant, could help to make an individual less sensitive to the demands of particular interests and motives. In particular, I discuss the roles of the beautiful and of the sublime. In the conclusion I briefly compare Kant’s idea of aesthetic education with Schiller’s idea of the same