The Nature and Value of Universal History

An Inaugural Lecture [1789]

Bibliographic Data

ID4495814
AuthorsFriedrich Schiller (corresponding author), Friedrich Von Schiller
Year1972
Volume11
Issue3
Pages321
Publication date1972-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueHistory and Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-2656 • E-ISSN: 1468-2303
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2504683
OpenAlexW2323440406
LanguageEN
Citations received18

EDITOR'S NOTE. Already the celebrated author of Die Rduber, Don Karlos, poems, essays, and other plays, Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-1805) published in 1788 his Geschichte des Abfalls der vereinigten Niederlande von der spanischen Regierung, and was almost immediately, if rather coolly, recommended by Goethe for an unpaid professorship at Jena. Appointed to this post at the age of twenty-nine, Schiller delivered his inaugural lecture-published in Wieland's Teutscher Merkur (November 1789) as Was heisst und zu welchem Enide studiert man Universalgeschichte? -on May 26th, 1789. lecture was a great success with students, who overflowed the largest lecture-hall in Jena, but for reasons the lecture wastes no time in making clear, it did not endear Schiller to his new colleagues. Although he remained a productive historical writer for several years, Schiller attracted few fee-paying students and became quickly disenchanted as a professor, never recapturing the fine rapture of his first academic hour. It was not until 1791 that Schiller seriously studied Kant's critical philosophy. But before coming to Jena he had already read, at the recommendation of Reinhold, Jena's Kantian professor of philosophy, both Kant's Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbiirgerlicher Absicht and Muthmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte, echoes of both of which appear in this lecture. R. G. Collingwood, after a highly dubious classification of lecture as Romantic rather than Enlightenment history, discusses approvingly improvements on Kant's ideas, owing no doubt to his actual experience of historical work. (The Idea of History [London, 1946], 105.) present translation is based on the text of the Sdkular-Ausgabe (Stuttgart, 1904-05), XIII, 3-24. A partial bibliography: Friedrich Ueberweg, Schiller als Historiker und Philosoph (Leipzig, 1884); Arnold Littman, Schillers Geschichtsphilosophie (Langensalza, 1926); Friedrich Meinecke, Schiller und der Individualitdtsgedanke (Leipzig, 1937); Walter Grossman, Schiller's Philosophy of History in his Jena Lectures of 1789-90, PMLA 69 (1954), 156-172; Benno von Wiese, Schiller (Stuttgart, 1959), Ch. 15; Deric Regin, Freedom and Dignity: Historical and Philosophical Thought of Schiller (The Hague, 1965). Other CLASSICS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY published by this journal are: James Fitzjames Stephen, The Study of History [1861], History and Theory, I (1961), 186-202; Jean Gaulmier, Volney et ses Leogons d'Histoire [1795], ibid., II (1962), 52-65; Craig's Rules of Historical Evidence [1699], ibid., III (1964), Beiheft 4; Giovanni Gentile, Eighteenth-Century Historical Methodology: De Soria's Institutiones [1741], ibid., IV (1965), 315-327; Wilhelm von Humboldt, On the Historian's Task, ibid., VI (1967), 57-71

Epistemology · Statistics · Universal history · Value (mathematics) · Classics · History · Humanities and Social Sciences · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy, History, and Historiography · Scientific and Historical Analyses

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