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The Development of Schiller’s Philosophical Attitude: Schiller’s Philosophical Education

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Abstract

Schiller’s philosophical attitude developed early on and remained unswerving thereafter, being unaffected by either intellectual or personal events. This was mainly due to the education he had received at the Stuttgart Karlsschule, which was first and foremost, although not officially, an education in philosophy. Despite the vocational nature of their specialisms, all students were in fact taught logic, history of philosophy, ethics, psychology, and aesthetics, and so from 1773 to 1780, Schiller attended courses given by Johann Friedrich Jahn, August Friedrich Bök, Jakob Friedrich Abel, and Johann Christoph Schwab, acquiring knowledge of both the German and the European Enlightenment. This chapter aims to reconstruct this initial experience of philosophy, while also pinpointing the features that were to prove key and enduring in Schiller’s subsequent thinking.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This compendium rested on the system of Christian Wolff (1679–1754) and was officially used in Württemberg as a handbook for philosophy, and more particularly logic (cf. [Knaus], 1751); on this, see the recent reevaluation by Stašková 2021, pp. 82-97.

  2. 2.

    For further details regarding Jahn’s role, see Riedel 1995, pp. 389-390. On the key notion of Selbstdenken, one may still profitably read Dierse 1995.

  3. 3.

    Abel’s life and works, with a special focus on his teaching activity in Stuttgart and Tübingen, are dealt with by: Riedel 1995, pp. 284-285; Franz 2005, pp. 88-99; Macor 2011.

  4. 4.

    Bök was professor to Hegel and Hölderlin at the Tübingen Faculty of Philosophy from 1788 to 1790, and author of the dissertation which both defended publicly in 1790 in order to obtain their master’s degree; on all this and more generally on Bök’s life, thought, and works, see Franz 2005, pp. 101-159, 405-504.

  5. 5.

    Admitted to the Berlin Real Academy of Sciences as an external member in 1749, Ploucquet was the Swabian authority in the field of philosophy—and particularly for metaphysics and logic—over the entire period of his service at Tübingen (i.e., from 1750 until 1790, although for health reasons he stopped lecturing in 1782). On his characteristic way of combining mathematics and philosophy, see Franz 2005, pp. 27-69, 527-534; Ploucquet 1782/2006.

  6. 6.

    Schwab is best known as the author of the anti-Kantian text Welche Fortschritte hat die Metaphysik seit Leibnitzens und Wolffs Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht? (What progress has metaphysics made in Germany since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff?), which was awarded the relevant prize of the Berlin Academy and was published in 1796. On Schwab’s life and intellectual contribution to the philosophy of his time, see Riedel 1995, pp. 396-397; Franz 2005, pp. 512-513.

  7. 7.

    For the description of course content, allocation of hours, and overall organization of the 1775 philosophy lessons, see NA, 41, IIa, pp. 70-71.

  8. 8.

    For a useful survey of ideas, authors, and trends in the late German Enlightenment, see Riedel 1995, pp. 402-450; Joeres 1997; Godel 2015; de Boer and Prunea-Bretonnet 2021. And additionally, see the relevant chapter in this volume by Jennifer A. McMahon.

  9. 9.

    A comprehensive, updated, and innovative presentation of the trends underlying the instruction of logic at the Karlsschule is provided by Stašková 2021, pp. 41-97; Stašková 2022, pp. 17-20.

  10. 10.

    It is impossible to list all authors that were directly studied, dealt with only partially, or simply mentioned in passing by all professors over the entire period of the school’s existence. Useful information is provided by: Riedel 1985; Riedel 1995; Riedel 1998; Macor 2010, pp. 31-44, 74-78; Riedel 2011; Robert 2011, pp. 55-80; Burtscher 2013; Wübben 2022.

  11. 11.

    Cf. Riedel 1995, p. 400. The first public mention of Kant’s name and theories by Abel dates from 1786 (Abel 1786, p. VII), and from this point on his attention to Kant’s work—with the notable exception of the short essays—showed no abatement. On all of this, see Macor 2011, pp. 42-45.

  12. 12.

    On Bardili’s contribution to the post-Kantian debate, see Paimann 2009.

  13. 13.

    For details on Jahn’s service at the Ludwigsburg Lateinschule and his capacity to generate his students’ enthusiasm, see Alt 2009, pp. 75–79.

  14. 14.

    Both theses and dissertations were usually printed with a list on the (back) cover enumerating the students participating in the public disputation, the only exception being Bök’s Theses disputatoriae (Disputatory Theses), which have remained in manuscript form with no explicit indication of the author’s name. Wolfgang Riedel deserves recognition for vindicating their role as a valuable source for research into Schiller’s education, although he first connected them with Abel (Riedel 1985, p. 18) and only later came to see that they should be ascribed to Bök (Riedel 1995, p. 394). They have finally been made available in Stašková 2021, pp. 65-71.

  15. 15.

    On Schiller’s education in law, which has only recently attracted scholars’ attention, see Nilges 2012, pp. 37-60.

  16. 16.

    For useful insights into Schiller’s treatment of political and juridical issues in his literary and theoretical work, see: High 2004; Müller-Seidel 2009; Nilges 2012; Foi 2013.

  17. 17.

    For a fresh evaluation of these speeches in terms of both content and form, with a special focus on Bök’s, see Stašková 2021, pp. 128-143.

  18. 18.

    Again, it is Stašková’s achievement (2021, pp. 113-115) to have revisited Nast’s teaching as a fruitful stimulus for Schiller’s further development well beyond philology and translation from Ancient Greek.

  19. 19.

    Cf. Riedel 1985, p. 56n.

  20. 20.

    On these and all the other writings from Schiller’s time at the Karlsschule, see the dedicated chapter in this volume by Jeffrey L. High.

  21. 21.

    For a general survey of the history of this key term in eighteenth-century German philosophy, I refer the reader to my monograph, Macor 2013.

  22. 22.

    Cf. NA, XX, pp. 10-12. On this tradition of thought, see Pollok 2010; Beutel 2014, pp. 75-86; Jurewicz 2018. For the young Schiller’s position in all this, see Macor 2010, pp. 31-44.

  23. 23.

    Sulzer has long been acknowledged as being crucial to Schiller’s thought and literary work, and scholars nowadays agree on crediting the education at the Karlsschule with a key role in this respect, cf. Riedel 1993; Hinderer 2003; Pirro 2006.

  24. 24.

    For further insight into Garve’s translation of Ferguson, see the new essay by Falduto 2021.

  25. 25.

    For the mutual relationship between philosophy and medicine in the German Enlightenment, and particularly in the works of the so-called “philosophical physicians” (philosophische Ärzte), see: Košenina 1989; Zelle 2001; Garber 2015.

  26. 26.

    I have expanded on this line of thought and interpretation in Macor (2023).

  27. 27.

    On the novel’s genesis and related details, see the dedicated chapter in this volume by Antonino Falduto. For Schiller’s further analysis, or rather deconstruction of this “economy of virtue,” see also Macor 2017.

  28. 28.

    For a comprehensive investigation into religion, aesthetics, and anthropology in Schiller’s both early and mature works, see Burtscher 2014.

  29. 29.

    On the close connection between anthropology, religious disillusionment, and aesthetics, see the pertinent contributions in this volume by Wolfgang Riedel and Violetta Waibel.

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  1. University of Verona, Verona, Italy

    Laura Anna Macor

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  1. Department of Humanities, University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy

    Antonino Falduto

  2. School of Languages and Cultures University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia

    Tim Mehigan

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Macor, L.A. (2023). The Development of Schiller’s Philosophical Attitude: Schiller’s Philosophical Education. In: Falduto, A., Mehigan, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook on the Philosophy of Friedrich Schiller. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16798-0_3

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