DOCSLIB.ORG

The Paideia of Freedom: Beauty and the Politics of Sensually Recognized Freedom in the Works of Friedrich Schiller

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Paideia of Freedom: Beauty and the Politics of Sensually Recognized Freedom in the Works of Friedrich Schiller The Paideia of Freedom: Beauty and the Politics of Sensually Recognized Freedom in the Works of Friedrich Schiller Joshua Johnson for Canadian Political Science Association Annual General Meeting, Calgary, 2016 (Rough Draft) Introduction Before he murders his fiancé, and before he kills his father, and still before he levels an entire city in a blaze of fire, before all of this, Karl of Schiller’s the Robbers is a romantic. He is, one is entitled to say, the consummate romantic. He is physically beautiful. He is charismatic. He ignites the passions of petty criminals and the virtuous alike, as he effortlessly evokes love from the both. He nourishes himself on the ballads of ancient heroes while lamenting the loss of an era of grandeur. He is adventurous, dynamic, and passionate. He speaks in high flown rhetoric for justice, freedom, and fraternity. And Karl, the consummate romantic, is a murderer of monstrous proportions. By treating Schiller’s play the Robbers as a companion piece to his “Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man,” (herein referred to as the “Aesthetic Letters,”) this paper seeks to clarify the sometimes frustratingly ambiguous function of aesthetics by suggesting a perennial problem facing the pursuit of freedom on the stage of modernity: the emergence of a character doubly capable of extraordinary moral dignity and extraordinary evil. Seeking a philosophic and psychological account of this problem in the “Aesthetic Letters,” this paper highlights Schiller’s treatment of human reason as tragically complicit in a crisis wherein the promising emergence of Kantian humanism finds an unexpected doppelganger in the political impulse towards self-actualization through self- negation. It is against this problem that Schiller’s own aesthetic project is presented as an attempt to redirect our longing for freedom towards sensually positive and expressive forms of becoming. The aesthetic is therefore treated primarily as an attempt to correct through beautification an overly rationalistic concept of freedom, rather than offering any direct cause- and-effect relationship between beauty and freedom. This paper begins with a brief treatment of the central protagonists of the Robbers, Karl and Franz, in order to bring to view the disquieting potential implicit in the dynamic and (in the case of Karl) inspired rhetoric of freedom. From the terrible outcome of Karl’s attempt to liberate himself from his humiliating subjugation to an often imperfect world, this paper then touches briefly on Schiller’s own relationship with the French Revolution before engaging an exegesis on the “Aesthetic Letters.” Here, reason is cast as something of a tragic hero in its own right, articulating humanity as an end in itself while simultaneously, through the interplay of Joshua Johnson The Paideia of Freedom CPSA 2016 our dynamic drives, opening the way to a character type who seeks self-mastery through self- negation. With this depiction of the moral fanatic in view, Schiller’s “aesthetic turn” is then considered as an attempt to rectify this problem through the reconfiguring of our concept of freedom to correspond to an idea of beauty wherein sensual longing is given proper place within a rationally acceptable ideal of perfection. The character anticipated by this ideal is seen to relate to human beings as fully anthropological (that is, moral and sensual) subjects rather than merely moral objects. Finally, this paper will touch upon the manner in which fine art may be considered a necessary (though hardly sufficient) aid in bringing about and securing this form of relationship to the world. Freedom Staged: A Dramatis Personae in The Robbers We are introduced to the beautiful and terrible Karl through his younger brother Franz, who waits upon his ailing father, the Count Moor, bringing him news of the former’s scandalous exploits abroad. The Count is duly heartbroken upon hearing the news, but from Franz’s asides we learn that the news has been fabricated with the intention of moving the father’s hand towards disowning Karl.1 Confident of his plan’s success, Franz explains his motives in soliloquy. He is, assumedly, doing it for the money; he stands to gain a great deal of power and fortune by assuming the role of direct heir to the Count. But Franz’s antipathy towards his older brother goes deeper, for it is not simply that Franz wishes he had been born before Karl so much that he wishes Karl had never been born.2 Karl, we learn, is beautiful. He is charismatic and loveable, and the virtuous and the rogue alike are drawn to his presence. Franz, on the other hand, is fully aware of his own ugliness. Physically, he is hideous. He doubts his father’s love at all when compared to the doting he bestows upon Karl, and Karl himself seems largely indifferent to his younger brother. His physical defects are accompanied with an impotence of character, and in short, nature has humiliated Franz in proportion that it has blessed Karl.3 But while this has left Franz “resentful of nature,” it has by no means made him vengeful towards nature. Quite the contrary since, by giving Karl everything and Franz nothing, nature has provided Franz an unexpected insight: a man’s worth is not determined by what nature gives but in what he can take. Thus he declares, “each man has the same right to the greatest and the least; claim destroys claim, impulse destroys impulse, force destroys force. Might is right and the limits of our strength our only law.”4 Rather than, say, lament the arbitrariness of the convention of primogeniture, Franz celebrates his own cleverness for having recognized the fact that all conventions are arbitrary insofar as they serve the interests of the stronger. He pushes this observation to its most radical conclusion, asserting that all relationships that bind human beings with one another must be based in convention, even those that appear rooted in human feeling. Thus, just as an honourable reputation is merely “valuable coin,” so too is human conscience reduced to “an excellent scarecrow, to keep sparrows from the cherry-trees.”5 1 Friedrich Schiller, The Robbers, trans. F.J. Lamport, (London: Penguin Books, 1979), 1:1, 25-32. 2 Ibid., 1:1, 33 3 Ibid., 1:13, 2-34. 4 Ibid., 1:1,33. 5 Ibid., 1:1, 33. 2 Joshua Johnson The Paideia of Freedom CPSA 2016 Most significant to Franz’s purposes, of course, is how this insight penetrates the moral obscurity of filial love. Fraternity is simply a misleading term that designates accidental proximity, and paternal love is, at bottom, the vanity of a father, a sort of self-love extended to the inevitable product of a carnal act itself unworthy of any specifically moral celebration.6 Subjected to this unrelentingly materialistic logic, natural right is reduced to an empty void into which Franz is free to assert his own will, a will that has no legitimate authority outside of its own self-referential desires. Ourselves privy to Franz’s plan, we are perhaps surprised to find in the following scene that Karl is, in fact, mired in a life of scandal. Franz’s rendition of events has been greatly exaggerated, Karl being no womanizer, and certainly no murderer. But he has been squandering his father’s money, racking up debts, and is precariously veering towards the wrong side of the law by trying his hand at pranks that border on criminal scams.7 We meet a man who has been living for pleasure and for the moment, and like Franz, a man who sets himself against convention. But for Karl, the counterpoint to convention is not self-interest and cunning, but rather the sincerity of nature and freedom. It is as though Rousseau himself has assumed a stage persona as he trumpets his love for Plutarch and the ancients in general, while decrying his as an age of petty hypocrites, whose spirits are so sapped that “the dregs of a beer- barrel must help to propagate mankind.”8 The grandeur of his spirit and imagination cannot abide the confinements of his surroundings: ...the law has cramped the flight of eagles to a snail’s pace. The law never yet made a great man, but freedom will breed a giant, a colossus... Give me an army of fellows like me to command, and I’ll turn Germany into a republic that will make Rome and Sparta look like nunneries.9 Karl’s bitterness towards “the law” in general is rendered slightly comical when he lets slip that his frustrations originate from the sternness of debt collectors who have not been moved by tearful pleas for leniency and patience. Karl, contra Franz, has learned to expect compassion when he needs it; he is owed kindness and decency, fairness is his right. A sort of personal tantrum this may be, but it is a tantrum that lacks hypocrisy. From what we learn through others, especially Amalia, Karl is a kind and compassionate man himself. He is far from being a saint, but he is a fair man. He therefore expects from the world only to the same degree that he gives to the world. This is Karl’s frame of mind when he expresses shame at his wayward exploits and commits to returning to his father’s home and his fiancés embrace. Thus we also find Karl in a transition towards maturity. He acknowledges his sins committed in the heat of moment, not helped by the heat of wine, but is certain that the sincerity of his repentance, in form of confession, itself assures his forgiveness: “I did not conceal the slightest detail from him, and where there is honesty, there too is compassion and a helping hand.”10 He is prepared to make and honour new commitments in life, to assume his proper role as dutiful son and loving husband, and far from embracing the lawlessness previously hinted, Karl submits rather to a different order of law.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Friedrich Schiller - Poems
    Classic Poetry Series Friedrich Schiller - poems - Publication Date: 2012 Publisher: Poemhunter.com - The World's Poetry Archive Friedrich Schiller(10 November 1759 – 9 May 1805) Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller was a German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life, Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential <a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/johann-wolfgang-von- goethe/">Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe</a>. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision. <b>Life</b> Friedrich Schiller was born on 10 November 1759, in Marbach, Württemberg as the only son of military doctor Johann Kaspar Schiller (1733–96), and Elisabeth Dorothea Kodweiß (1732–1802). They also had five daughters. His father was away in the Seven Years' War when Friedrich was born. He was named after king Frederick the Great, but he was called Fritz by nearly everyone. Kaspar Schiller was rarely home during the war, but he did manage to visit the family once in a while. His wife and children also visited him occasionally wherever he happened to be stationed. When the war ended in 1763, Schiller's father became a recruiting officer and was stationed in Schwäbisch Gmünd. The family moved with him. Due to the high cost of living—especially the rent—the family moved to nearby Lorch.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy Sunday, July 8, 2018 12:01 PM
    Philosophy Sunday, July 8, 2018 12:01 PM Western Pre-Socratics Fanon Heraclitus- Greek 535-475 Bayle Panta rhei Marshall Mcluhan • "Everything flows" Roman Jakobson • "No man ever steps in the same river twice" Saussure • Doctrine of flux Butler Logos Harris • "Reason" or "Argument" • "All entities come to be in accordance with the Logos" Dike eris • "Strife is justice" • Oppositional process of dissolving and generating known as strife "The Obscure" and "The Weeping Philosopher" "The path up and down are one and the same" • Theory about unity of opposites • Bow and lyre Native of Ephesus "Follow the common" "Character is fate" "Lighting steers the universe" Neitzshce said he was "eternally right" for "declaring that Being was an empty illusion" and embracing "becoming" Subject of Heideggar and Eugen Fink's lecture Fire was the origin of everything Influenced the Stoics Protagoras- Greek 490-420 BCE Most influential of the Sophists • Derided by Plato and Socrates for being mere rhetoricians "Man is the measure of all things" • Found many things to be unknowable • What is true for one person is not for another Could "make the worse case better" • Focused on persuasiveness of an argument Names a Socratic dialogue about whether virtue can be taught Pythagoras of Samos- Greek 570-495 BCE Metempsychosis • "Transmigration of souls" • Every soul is immortal and upon death enters a new body Pythagorean Theorem Pythagorean Tuning • System of musical tuning where frequency rations are on intervals based on ration 3:2 • "Pure" perfect fifth • Inspired
    [Show full text]
  • 1 Schiller and the Young Coleridge
    Notes 1 Schiller and the Young Coleridge 1. For the details of Schiller’s career and thought I am drawing on a number of works including Lesley Sharpe, Friedrich Schiller: Drama, Thought and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Walter Schafarschik, Friedrich Schiller (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam, 1999); F. J. Lamport, German Classical Drama: Theatre, Humanity, and Nation, 1750–1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); and T. J. Reed, The Classical Centre: Goethe and Weimar, 1775–1832 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), and Schiller- Handbuch, ed. Helmut Koopmann (Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner, 1998). 2. Schiller later revised the essay and published it in his Shorter Works in Prose under the title ‘The Stage Considered as a Moral Institution’ (‘Die Schaubühne als eine moralische Anstalt betrachtet’). 3. See David Pugh, ‘“Die Künstler”: Schiller’s Philosophical Programme’, Oxford German Studies, 18/19 (1989–90), 13–22. 4. See J. M. Ellis, Schiller’s ‘Kalliasbriefe’ and the Study of his Aesthetic Theory (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1969). 5. See Paul Robinson Sweet, Wilhelm von Humboldt: a Biography, 2 vols (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1978–80) and W. H. Bruford, The Ger- man Tradition of Self-Cultivation: ‘Bildung’ from Humboldt to Thomas Mann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), ch. 1; also E. S. Shaffer, ‘Romantic Philosophy and the Organization of the Disciplines: the Found- ing of the Humboldt University of Berlin’, in Romanticism and the Sciences, ed. Andrew Cunningham and Nicholas Jardine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 38–54. 6. Norbert Oellers, Schiller: Geschichte seiner Wirkung bis zu Goethes Tod, 1805– 1832 (Bonn: Bouvier, 1967).
    [Show full text]
  • Schiller's Jungfrau, Euripides's Iphigenia Plays, and Joan of Arc on the Stage
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2015 Sisters in Sublime Sanctity: Schiller's Jungfrau, Euripides's Iphigenia Plays, and Joan of Arc on the Stage John Martin Pendergast Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1090 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] SISTERS IN SUBLIME SANCTITY: Schiller’s Jungfrau, Euripides’s Iphigenia Plays, and Joan of Arc on the Stage by John Pendergast A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The City University of New York 2015 ii © 2015 JOHN PENDERGAST All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Comparative Literature to satisfy the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 21 May 2015 Dr. Paul Oppenheimer________________________ Date Chair of the Examining Committee 21 May 2015______________ Dr. Giancarlo Lombardi ______________________ Date Executive Officer Dr. Paul Oppenheimer Dr. Elizabeth Beaujour Dr. André Aciman Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract Sisters in Sublime Sanctity: Schiller’s Jungfrau, Euripides’s Iphigenia Plays, and Joan of Arc on the Stage by John Pendergast Adviser: Professor Paul Oppenheimer At the dawn of the nineteenth century, Friedrich Schiller reinvented the image of Joan of Arc in his play, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, with consequences that affected theatrical representations of Joan for the rest of that century and well into the twentieth.
    [Show full text]
  • Beauty and Instability in Eighteenth
    Transformations of the Beautiful: Beauty and Instability in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century German Literature Arthur K. Salvo Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2015 © 2015 Arthur K. Salvo All rights reserved ABSTRACT Transformations of the Beautiful: Beauty and Instability in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century German Literature Arthur K. Salvo Transformations of the Beautiful reexamines a problem that emerges during the mid- eighteenth century: the devaluation of the aesthetic category of the beautiful. In opposition to accounts that identify this problem with the rediscovery of the sublime, this dissertation emphasizes the crucial yet underexamined role that historicization played in the destabilization of beauty’s normative status in German aesthetic discourse. Additionally, I demonstrate that literary discourse became a key mode through which the beautiful’s problematic status was negotiated. Assembling literary texts from 1759-1817 that thematize beautiful objects or phenomena in terms of their historicity or instability, and transform them, I argue that these moments constitute discrete instances in which literature responds to the precarious position of beauty in modernity. With recourse to texts by Winckelmann, Schiller, Jean Paul, Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann and Eichendorff, I focus on the specific literary techniques employed by different genres— description, elegy, and narrative fiction—and how they reconfigure the relationship between the modern subject and the beautiful. In so doing I demonstrate how literary texts intervene in aesthetic discourse to reevaluate and generate alternative conceptions of the beautiful. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1.
    [Show full text]
  • |||GET||| on the Aesthetic Education of Man 1St Edition
    ON THE AESTHETIC EDUCATION OF MAN 1ST EDITION DOWNLOAD FREE Friedrich Schiller | 9780141396965 | | | | | First Edition Books Some Freemasons speculate that Schiller was a Freemasonbut this On the Aesthetic Education of Man 1st edition not been proven. The lower class was too overworked to have time to appreciate aesthetics and beauty, and instead opted for cheap and simple entertainment, such as long nights of binge drinking at taverns and going to low quality shows that were exciting and entertaining but provided no sense of beauty or value. Portrait of Schiller by Ludovike Simanowiz Views Read Edit View history. But evaluated on its own terms as a work of philosophical argument, it stands poorly. See how many words from the week of Oct 12—18, you get right! Signed Books. Aesthetics topics. View 2 comments. Most professional booksellers have all of these at their disposal and are able to accurately identify first printings. Are they true firsts? Welcome back. Friedrich Schiller. What is all this about points of issue and first state? He uses Kant as his starting point and positions himself as Kantian but actually On the Aesthetic Education of Man 1st edition a vehement critic of Kant, whose ideas he believed justified political oppression. Signed Books. Noah Webster —was a lexicographer and a language reformer. Apr 27, Christine Cordula Dantas rated it it was amazing Shelves: philosophy. Each time a publisher releases a new instance of the same title, or when a book is released in a new format, these may also be considered first edition books. Taste can therefore be seen as the first weapon used by an aesthetic soul in its struggle against raw nature, driving back the assault before it becomes necessary for reason to intervene as a legislator, and pronounce judgement.
    [Show full text]
  • Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan __,; I Ry
    Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan I __,; rY . have m the past three years set up at Annapolis the only liberal arts •,..c~l~ e m the United States. This book describes what they have done; it ts a tribute to what t ey a ' ~ R. Barr and Mr. Buchanan came to St. John's Col~ e M summer of 1937 to put into effect their answer to ~~e major problems in liberal education today-the problem o o o many people can go to college for four years, become b chel f arts, and still be uneducated. Their answer is the now amous St. Johns Program, which consists principally in the Cu~d discussion of the works of about one hundred and sevente~ut~rs in the Western tradition. ~ From the beginning one of Mr. Barr's chief ·function si- dent of the college has been to explain the St. John's P to the general public. He has made innumerable speeches assorted Rotary clubs, chambers of commerce, groups of educl'toiT," l_d domestic clubs; has written magazine articles, has started a~d on a series of radio programs describing activities at t~e, and in general has played the role of public spokesm or t e college-a role to which his congenial and somewhat ular pefsonality is well fitted. Just as important has been h. o keep the college from falling off the financial brink it as been teetering on for the past several years. Yet even though fieT k\>t very busy performing as college politician and master ~y "'~"' M,.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 1 “Ich Bin Und Bleibe Bloȕ Poet Und Als Poet Werde Ich
    “Ich bin ud bleibe bloß Poet und als Poet werde ich auch sterben.” Friedrich Schiller’s Sense of Poetic Calling and the Role of the Poetic Idea in his Emerging Professional Identity as a Dramaturge Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Cser, Agnes Judit Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 25/09/2021 13:31:04 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/627671 1 “ICH BIN UND BLEIBE BLOȕ POET UND ALS POET WERDE ICH AUCH STERBEN.“ FRIEDRICH SCHILLER’S SENSE OF POETIC CALLING AND THE ROLE OF THE POETIC IDEA IN HIS EMERGING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AS A DRAMATURGE By Agnes J. Cser __________________________ Copyright © Agnes J. Cser 2018 Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF GERMAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2018 1 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder.
    [Show full text]
  • Friedrich Schiller
    Friedrich Schiller Though not a Romanticist, Friedrich Schiller is the bridge between Kant and Romanticism. He develops and extends Kant’s discussion of the aesthetic and is the first to take up Kant’s suggestion of a higher role for art. In his Letter of an Aesthetic Education of Man Schiller, influenced by Goethe and Johann Joachim Winckelmann, puts forth a history of the whole of Western Culture. Winckelmann had developed an “aesthetic paganism” that influenced all later German thought. Winckelmann emphasized a “nobility and simplicity” of Greek life that has never since been realized. In contrast to the sharp Cartesian dualism between human beings and the natural world, for Winckelmann nature and human beings dwell together in beauty. There in the beauty of nature, a moment of “festival and play” occurs allowing human beings to dwell in his or her own beauty both as living Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) artwork and as the highest manifestation of nature. Kant had insisted this idea was unrealized and unrealizable. Wincklemann believed this ideal was actualized in Periclean Athens. Schiller takes up this exaltation of Greek culture, contrasting it with the fragmentation and alienation of modern man. Schiller is one of the first to take up the idea of modern alienation. For Schiller the cure for this alienation lies in art. In contrast to Wincklemann, the ideal “aesthetic society” is not an unrecoverable past, but rather an ideal to which society can progress toward. The aim of Schiller’s aesthetic education is to realize the Kantian ideal concretely by establishing an aesthetic state in which individual members are harmoniously related in an organic social totality.
    [Show full text]
  • The Importance of Play for Embodied Consciousness in Post-Kantian Philosophical Anthropology and Psychology
    University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Philosophy ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 8-25-2016 Finding the Self in Tension: The mpI ortance of Play for Embodied Consciousness in Post-Kantian Philosophical Anthropology and Psychology Jaime Thomas Denison Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/phil_etds Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Denison, Jaime Thomas. "Finding the Self in Tension: The mporI tance of Play for Embodied Consciousness in Post-Kantian Philosophical Anthropology and Psychology." (2016). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/phil_etds/1 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Jaime Thomas Denison Candidate Department of Philosophy Department This dissertation is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication: Approved by the Dissertation Committee: Dr. Adrian Johnston , Chairperson Dr. Iain Thomson Dr. Brent Kalar Dr. William Bristow i FINDING THE SELF IN TENSION: THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAY FOR EMBODIED CONSCIOUSNESS IN POST-KANTIAN PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND PSYCHOLOGY by JAIME THOMAS DENISON B.A., Philosophy, University of the Pacific, 2005 M.A., Philosophy, University of California, Irvine, 2008 DISSERTATION Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy The University of New Mexico Albuquerque, New Mexico July 2016 ii DEDICATION To my parents Erika and Tommy Denison for their unconditional love and life-long support of my education.
    [Show full text]
  • How Schillerian Play Can Establish Animals As Moral Agents
    60 Between the Moment and Eternity: How Schillerian Play Can Establish Animals as Moral Agents Jaime Denison Department of Philosophy University of New Mexico, Albuquerque [email protected] Abstract While concerned with how man achieves his status as a moral being, Friedrich Schiller develops a concept of play that serves as a bridge between our sensuous existence to the rational, realizing moral freedom. In what ways might we extend this concept to the non-human animal? Current research by play theorists and ethologists has shown that play behaviour in animals is both complex and crucial in determining social patterns, and Schiller’s account may have anticipated these observations. I argue that through Schiller’s theory of play and our current research on animal play, it is possible to undermine the systematic removal of the animal from the moral realm that happens in modern philosophy. Through play theory, there is a possible way to undermine the assumption that animals are incapable of achieving the status of moral agents, providing an alternate route to the standard view of animals as moral patients. Introduction In Friedrich Schiller’s On the Aesthetic Education of Man, he states “man only plays when he is in the fullest sense of the word a human being, and he is only fully a human being when he plays” (Schiller 1968, 107). While concerned as to how man achieves his status as a moral being, Schiller develops a concept of play that is to serve as a bridge between our sensuous existence to the rational. It is in this realm of play that we realize our moral freedom.
    [Show full text]
  • Friedrich Schiller
    Journal of Poetry, Science, and Statecraft Spring/Summer 2005 $10.00 Gavins Point Dam, South Dakota. development of the notion of Abelian functions applies to such cases. To trace the development of the notion of a field in modern European science, revisit Kepler’s U.S. Army Corps of Engineers/Harry Weddington development of the conception of universal gravitation, as from his The New Astronomy through the Work and Its Organization as Power implications of his World Harmony, this time viewing the ontrary to the accountants Leibniz, brings into immediate subject-area treated, in a Cand their like, economic view the way in which Carl pioneering fashion, by Kepler, science, like related functions of Gauss and Riemann dealt, from the standpoint of the work government, must define an respectively, with what I have of such as Gauss and Riemann. increase in productivity as the identified as Dirichlet’s Principle. Then, apply the same approach to outcome of the discovery and the notion of a physical-economic appropriate application of a Notion of a Field process encompassing a nation, such universal physical principle, or The only discovered manner in as the U.S.A., or our planet as a what we term, in memory of the which we can deal rationally whole. ancient Pythagoreans and Plato, with the efficient relationship as powers. with a universal physical Fallacy of ‘Globalization’ The best way to introduce the principle, is to express the The understanding of this point, relevant conception, is to focus on relevant experimental expression enables us to understand why the way in which technological of cause-effect connections in the transfer of the production of progress, as embodied within the terms of the notion of a field.
    [Show full text]