56

This essay re-evaluates Schiller’s idea of beauty as “freedom in appearance,” as he put forward in Kallias, or On the Beautiful (1793), against the backdrop of early modern and modern thinking that based itself on a fundamental split between nature and freedom, world and man. Schiller’s claim that natural beauty results from freedom in nature bridges this gap. His suggestion is confirmed by modern science. Schiller’s view is recommended and defended as a way of escaping modern bigotry.