Abstract In the Briefe über die Ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, the focus of this article, Schiller’s ostensible aim – to complete Kant’s aesthetic theory – is progressively abandoned. The article examines the reasons for this abandonment. On the one hand, Schiller’s original purpose was overtaken by events in France. Schiller found that he could no longer sustain confidence in reason’s capacity to build a durable political republic. On the other hand, the alternative path he favours involves him in the expounding of an anthropology he did not set out to undertake. The Ästhetische Briefe, for this reason, finds itself adumbrating an “unexpected science” with little remaining reference to Kant – an account of the human being whose desirable future state, that of morality, can only be made secure by passage through the aesthetic state. A by-product of this argument, and perhaps its chief consequence, is that it finally settles the quarrel of the ancients and the moderns (in favour of the moderns).

中文翻译：

---

席勒·康德之后的席勒：《德国科学哲学》的“意外科学”

摘要在本文的重点中，席勒的表面目的（即完善康德的美学理论）逐渐被放弃。本文研究了这种放弃的原因。一方面，席勒的初衷已被法国发生的事件所取代。席勒发现，他不再对建立理性的政治共和国的理性能力保持信心。另一方面，他偏爱的另一条道路涉及他对他未打算从事的人类学的阐述。因此，《美学简报》发现自己是“一门意料之外的科学”，几乎没有提及康德。这说明了人类的理想未来状态，即道德观，只有通过审美状态才能得到保证。