Rede über die Frage: Gehört allzuviel Güte, Leutseeligkeit und grosse Freygebigkeit im engsten Verstande zur Tugend? Socrates as Secular Jesus in Schiller’s First Karlsschule Speech

Abstract

∗ My most sincere thanks to Sophia Clark, Colleen Brown (California State University Long Beach), Lisa Beesley (Vanderbilt University), and Henrik Sponsel (University of California, Irvine) for their research support and help in preparing this manuscript. 1 Moses Mendelssohn calls Socrates “Weltburger” in his “Leben und Charakter des Sokrates” (1767). Moses Mendelssohn, Phadon oder uber die Unsterblichkeit der Seele, ed. David Friedlander, fifth edition (Berlin: Nicolai, 1814) 9. In his “Ankundigung der Rheinischen Thalia” (Announcement of the Journal Rheinische Thalia) of 11 November 1784, Schiller declares: “Ich schreibe als Weltburger, der keinem Fursten dient” (I write as a citizen of the world, who serves no prince; NA 22:93). The term “Weltburger” was by no means uncommon in the second half of the eighteenth century (see NA 23:274) and Kant had recently used the phrase “weltburgerliche Absicht” in his February 1784 essay “Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltburgerlicher Absicht,” which Schiller did not actu You are of this world; I am not of this world. — Jesus Christ (John 8:23; 1st century AD)