The Perfection of Freedom: Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel Between the Ancients and the Moderns

by D C Schindler

Overview

The Perfection of Freedom seeks to respond to the impoverished conventional notion of freedom through a recovery of an understanding rich with possibilities yet all but forgotten in contemporary thought. This understanding, developed in different but complementary ways in the German thinkers Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel, connects freedom, not exclusively with power and possibility, but rather most fundamentally with completion, wholeness, and actuality. What is unique here is specifically the interpretation of freedom in terms of form, whether it be aesthetic form (Schiller), organic form (Schelling), or social form (Hegel). Although this book presents serious criticisms of the three philosophers, it shows that they open up new avenues for reflection on the notion of freedom; avenues that promise to overcome many of the dichotomies that continue to haunt contemporary thought--for example, between freedom and order, freedom and nature, and self and other. The Perfection of Freedom offers not only a significantly new interpretation of Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel, it also proposes a modernity more organically rooted in the ancient and classical Christian worlds. ""David Schindler has written a profound book on freedom. Through his penetrating analysis of Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel, he offers us nothing less than an alternative to the modern notion of freedom as freedom of choice . . . The Perfection of Freedom wears its erudition lightly in a compelling display of philosophical thinking and re-visioning that will take us beyond modernity by going through it."" --Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame ""This is a work marked by impressive erudition and steady, lucid thoughtfulness about the nature of freedom as perfection . . . Schindler looks to some of the great thinkers of classical German philosophy: Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel in particular. The result is a very engaging and illuminating defense of a richer notion of freedom. The scholarship is impressively informed on the historical side, matched on the systematic side with sustained insight into the issues at stake."" --William Desmond, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven D. C. Schindler is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at Villanova University. He is the author of Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth (2004) and Plato's Critique of Impure Reason (2008).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498215336
Publisher:	Cascade Books
Publication date:	11/08/2012
Series:	Veritas , #8
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.13(d)

About the Author

D. C. Schindler is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities at Villanova University. He is the author of Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Dramatic Structure of Truth (2004) and Plato's Critique of Impure Reason (2008).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

Abbreviations x

Introduction: On the German Contribution: Giving Form to Freedom xiii

1 Friedrich Schiller's Dramatic Philosophy: Freedom in Form 1

I On the Significance of Style 1

II Biographical Background 4

III Nature Speaks to Nature 9

IV Writing as a Free Gift 16

V Meaning in Motion 22

VI Elements of the Dramatic 28

VII Freestyle 38

VIII Poet or Philosopher? 41

2 An Aesthetics of Freedom: Schiller and the Living Gestalt 49

I Introduction: Schiller's Breakthrough 49

II The Analogy of Form 51

III Form Overcoming Form 55

IV Manifest Freedom in Nature 60

V Heautonomy and Heteronomy 71

VI Freedom and Human Nature 76

VII Living Gestalt and Human Wholeness 85

VIII The Seriousness of Play 91

IX A Criticism and the Question of Contradiction 98

X Nobility or Bourgeois Aestheticism? 109

3 The Dark Roots of Life: Organic Form as a Symbol of Freedom in Schelling's Naturphilosophie 111

I The Philosophy of the Future 111

II The Origins of Schelling's Naturphilosophie 117

III The Impoverishment of Nature 120

IV The Impoverishment of Spirit 132

V Naturphilosophie and the Place of the Organism 143

VI Natural Freedom 159

VII Freedom or Form? 164

4 From Organism to Incarnation: The Fall and Redemption of Finite Form in Schelling's Late Philosophy 171

I Ontological Freedom 171

II The Fate of the Real in the Early Systems 177

III The Positivity of Finite Freedom 188

IV The Actuality of Evil and Love in History 197

V Creation as Theogony 207

VI Love, Nature, and Freedom: A Final Assessment 226

5 Freedom as the Concrete Form of Reason in Hegel's Philosophy of Right 238

I Introduction: Hegel's Uniqueness 238

II Preliminary Considerations 242

III Rational Politics 248

IV Political Reason 255

V On the Meaning of Actuality 261

VI Philosophical Sources 266

VII The Importance of Being Finite 277

VIII The Will as Concrete Freedom 283

IX Conclusion 295

6 "The ?I' That Is 'We' and the 'We' That Is ?I'": On the Sociality of Freedom in Hegel and Its Excesses 301

I The Controversy Surrounding Hegel's Conception of the State 301

II Communal Spirit 305

III Sittlichkeit as Social Form 320

IV Freedom and Absolute Spirit 357

7 A Dramatic Conclusion: Opening Up Actual Possibility 373

Bibliography 385

Index 401

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"David Schindler has written a profound book on freedom. Through his penetrating analysis of Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel, he offers us nothing less than an alternative to the modern notion of freedom as freedom of choice . . . The Perfection of Freedom wears its erudition lightly in a compelling display of philosophical thinking and re-visioning that will take us beyond modernity by going through it."
—Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame

"This is a work marked by impressive erudition and steady, lucid thoughtfulness about the nature of freedom as perfection . . . Schindler looks to some of the great thinkers of classical German philosophy: Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel in particular. The result is a very engaging and illuminating defense of a richer notion of freedom. The scholarship is impressively informed on the historical side, matched on the systematic side with sustained insight into the issues at stake."
—William Desmond, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Editorial Reviews

David Schindler has written a profound book on freedom. Through his penetrating analysis of Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel, he offers us nothing less than an alternative to the modern notion of freedom as freedom of choice . . . The Perfection of Freedom wears its erudition lightly in a compelling display of philosophical thinking and re-visioning that will take us beyond modernity by going through it.
--Cyril O'Regan, University of Notre Dame

This is a work marked by impressive erudition and steady, lucid thoughtfulness about the nature of freedom as perfection . . . Schindler looks to some of the great thinkers of classical German philosophy: Schiller, Schelling, and Hegel in particular. The result is a very engaging and illuminating defense of a richer notion of freedom. The scholarship is impressively informed on the historical side, matched on the systematic side with sustained insight into the issues at stake.
--William Desmond, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

From the Publisher