Friedrich Schiller
Poet and playwright who reads Kant and makes beauty the place where sensibility and reason are reconciled: man plays only where he is fully man.
Life
Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805), born in Marbach, was a German poet, playwright and historian, and a friend of Goethe. After studying Kant he wrote essays on aesthetics, including the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), where play and beauty reconcile sensibility and reason. He matters for questions of beauty and freedom.
Main works
An early play on a son's revolt against the established order.
Argues that aesthetic play shapes the free human being by uniting sensibility and reason.
Distinguishes the poet who is nature from the one who seeks it.
Positions
click a row to see the evidenceAgainst Kant's strict duty, the ideal is the "beautiful soul" whose inclinations and duty agree.
Schiller, On Grace and Dignity (1793)
Humans can be made freer and more complete through aesthetic education, which harmonises reason and feeling.
Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795)