 Schiller began his philosophical retreat with a thorough study of Kant and was immediately inspired by Kant’s description of human freedom. In 1793, he wrote to his friend Christian Gottfried Körner: “It is certain that no mortal has spoken a greater word than this Kantian word … determine yourself from within yourself” (NA XXVI, 191/KL 153). But Schiller was left dissatisfied with two of Kant’s claims as regards aesthetics: one, that there could be no objective principle of beauty, and two, that aesthetic experience refers only to pleasure felt by the subject, not to any property of the object. In letters to Körner, which he never published but after his death became known as the “Kallias Letters” [“Kalliasbriefe”], he set out to correct these Kantian claims and to place aesthetics on a more secure, independent, and critical foundation.