German Idealism Class(Session 2). The Robbers Act 1(Schiller)

In this session of The Seminar Room, we will read and discuss Friedrich Schiller’s The Robbers, one of the most explosive and formative works of the Sturm und Drang movement and a dramatic precursor to German Idealism. Written when Schiller was only in his early twenties, the play stages a fierce confrontation between rebellion and law, passion and order, brotherhood and betrayal. Beneath its theatrical intensity lies a philosophical problem that would define an entire intellectual tradition: what does it mean to be free?
At the center of the play is Karl Moor, a brilliant and charismatic young man who turns against corrupt authority and attempts to create a new moral world through sheer force of will. His revolt raises questions that later thinkers such as Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel would systematize: Is freedom the assertion of individual will against society? Or is true freedom found only in rational self-legislation and ethical life? The Robbers dramatizes the dangers of “abstract freedom,” the intoxication of self-assertion unmoored from responsibility, and the tragic consequences of trying to embody moral purity through violence.
We will explore how Schiller’s dramatic imagination anticipates Kant’s idea of autonomy, especially the notion that dignity arises from self-given law rather than impulse. We will also examine how the emotional extremity of Sturm und Drang evolves into the philosophical ambition of German Idealism. How does aesthetic experience educate moral feeling? How does rebellion become philosophy? And what happens when the longing for recognition turns destructive?
The session will include historical framing, close reading of key scenes, and open discussion. No prior background in philosophy is required. Participants are encouraged to bring curiosity and a willingness to grapple with large questions about freedom, responsibility, alienation, and the formation of the self.
Rather than treating The Robbers as merely a youthful melodrama, we will read it as a laboratory of modern subjectivity — a dramatic space in which the modern idea of autonomy is born, tested, and found both exhilarating and terrifying.