Abstract

This chapter attempts to show that there are important convergences between Schiller’s and the young Marx’s account of alienation. The common approach to Schiller’s problem of alienation addresses the question solely from an anthropological perspective. The chapter rather focuses on alienation from a political and juridical perspective. It claims that Schiller’s account of alienation is better understood in the context of a politico-juridical debate on the relation between ‘right of mankind’ (Recht der Menschheit) and ‘state’ (Staat) following the French Revolution. Looking at Marx’s early writings, it transpires that he describes the problem of alienation in similar terms to Schiller: as a conflict between particular and universal spheres, that is, private human being (individual) and political human being (species-being, state).