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Arts & Communication

ARTICLE
Sublime and education: The two sides of

Schiller’s esthetics

Pietro Buffagni*
Department of Human Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Verona, Verona, Italy

Abstract

The article delves into the theme of the sublime in Schiller’s philosophical works,
examining its relationship with the esthetical and educational framework outlined
in the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. In his famous 1795 essay, Schiller’s
predominant focus on the beautiful, almost to the exclusion of the sublime,
historically led to interpreting the latter as detached from Schiller’s theoretical core
on beauty and esthetic education. This study proposes a dialectical and synthetic
perspective on the relationship between beauty and the sublime, contributing to a
unified view of Schiller’s reflection on esthetic education. First, the article analyzes
the role of sensible affects in the transition from Kantian esthetics of the sublime to
Schiller’s theory of the tragic. In this metamorphosis, Schiller develops a new notion
of imagination, shifting from the Kantian transcendental structure into a faculty of
mediation between the sensible and the rational, which will become the cornerstone
of the whole experience of beauty in the Aesthetic Education. The analysis concludes
by examining Concerning the Sublime, supporting the hypothesis of later dating
*Corresponding author: and considering it as a continuation of the incomplete Aesthetic Education essay.
Pietro Buffagni This writing embodies the unity between beauty and the sublime within a single
(pietro.buffagni@univr.it) educational project, grounded on the role of imagination in estheticizing the sensible
Citation: Buffagni P. Sublime world.
and education: The two sides
of Schiller’s esthetics. Arts &
Communication. 2024;2(3):2942. Keywords: Sublime; Beauty; Esthetic education; Schiller; Kant; Hegel
doi: 10.36922/ac.2942
Received: February 15, 2024
Accepted: April 15, 2024
1. Introduction
Published Online: August 20, 2024
Throughout the history of Schillerian criticism, the theme of the sublime consistently
Copyright:© 2024 Author(s). poses a challenging issue for the hermeneutics of Schiller’s philosophical production.
This is an Open-Access article
distributed under the terms of the In his most famous 1795 essay, Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man, Schiller links
Creative Commons Attribution the esthetic experience with humanity’s historical and teleological process toward its
Noncommercial License, permitting destination (Bestimmung). However, he almost completely fails to mention the sublime
1
all non-commercial use, distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, and its role in esthetic education alongside beauty. This absence should not be considered
provided the original work is a coincidence, nor can it be exhaustively explained by the incomplete state of the essay.
properly cited. The most straightforward answer, which also provides a good starting point for critical
Publisher’s Note: AccScience research, is recognizing Schiller’s difficulty finding a suitable place for the sublime within
Publishing remains neutral with his new pedagogical program. The Aesthetic Education, indeed, represents the outcome
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional of a theoretical development that appears to be more deeply rooted in Kallias-Letters
affiliations. and On Grace and Dignity than in the writings on the sublime, which at first glance

Volume 2 Issue 3 (2024) 1 doi: 10.36922/ac.2942