Abstract

Klemme offers a summary of one of Schiller’s most influential philosophical writings, its origin, philosophical context, and reception in the literature. Special attention is given to Kant’s impact on Schiller. On the one hand, Schiller is critical of Kant’s ethics, which has no room for grace because it constructs the concept of duty out of the opposition between freedom and nature. On the other hand, he refrains from any critical dissociation from Kant’s ethics in the section on dignity, which Schiller conceives of as more of a ‘masculine’ virtue that more closely approximates Kant’s model of human volition characterized by conflict and difference. Apart from that, Schiller’s conception of the sublime does not constitute any continuation of this doctrine in Kant.