How Far Philosophers Dare

This contribution examines Schiller’s follow-up to the more famous texts of Haldane and Russell, who, in the mid-1920s, drew inspiration from the figures of Daedalus and Icarus to portray, from opposing perspectives, the unsettling post-war world. Appropriating the myth of Tantalus, the English leader of pragmatism offered a modernized version to give voice to a proposal for a reorganization of society in which biologism and evolutionism form the backdrop to a reflection that, aided by his adherence to Galton’s eugenics, gives vent to a class-based philanthropy masquerading as humanism.