For the philosopher Gwendolin Kirchhoff, freedom is shaped unfreedom: we are unfree in relation to ourselves and in relation to the world, and whoever acknowledges this unfreedom first of all finds within it a degree of freedom, room to give things shape (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:10:44; Kirchhoff, G., 2024, Im Geiste Schillers, 1:50:55). She relates the idea to Friedrich Schiller and calls her own version “freely adapted from Schiller” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:10:44). On this reading, the meaning of freedom is not throwing off every restriction (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2025, Philosophie & Zukunft, 18:20). It begins with what has been given to us and with the room that lies within it (cf. ibid., 17:48 and 49:52).
#What does freedom mean if we are unfree?
For Gwendolin Kirchhoff, freedom is bound up with acknowledging one’s own unfreedom, and that unfreedom runs in two directions. In relation to ourselves we are unfree because we feel what we feel and think what we think; we find our life as we have lived it so far, with all its consequences (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:10:44). In relation to the world we are unfree because other people are caught up in their own processes, hear what they want to hear, and are as they are (cf. ibid.).
In her lecture on Schiller she puts the second direction like this: “We are exposed to many social conditions, we are exposed to the views of other people, we are exposed to the needs of other people. We cannot determine any of it.” (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, Im Geiste Schillers, 43:26). In a conversation with Alexander von Bismarck she says of every period of history that “there was always something that was given to us in advance, a destiny, a world inherited from our ancestors” (Kirchhoff, G., 2025, Philosophie & Zukunft, 49:52).
In her words, unfreedom is not only the lot of the powerless: “All people are unfree.” And: “The great and powerful are unfree too.” They are driven, she says, by their thoughts of power and by the compulsive actions that must follow so that they keep their power (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:12:03). If you think of freedom as the absence of compulsion, this shifts the picture: even someone with a great deal of power is not free in that sense.
#Where does the degree of freedom lie?
The degree of freedom lies within unfreedom, not beyond it. Gwendolin Kirchhoff says that “the degree of freedom arises from the acknowledgement of this unfreedom” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:12:03). The order is part of the concept: first of all the recognition of one’s unfreedom, then the look at the degree of freedom that opens up within its frame (cf. ibid., 1:10:44). In the conversation with Bismarck she describes the same step: “first I accept where I am unfree. And then I look at what could serve as a model” (Kirchhoff, G., 2025, Philosophie & Zukunft, 49:52).
Elsewhere in the same conversation she sets what this feels like against a different attitude: constantly rampaging against the world, wanting to burst every chain and get rid of anything that restricts you in any way. Acknowledging one’s own unfreedom, by contrast, she calls a softer view (cf. ibid., 18:20).
For her, acknowledgement comes with a second thought, the positive vision or inner orientation. She says: “The inner orientation is the divine solution.” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:12:03). Her concept of freedom therefore has two parts, which she sums up herself: acknowledging one’s own unfreedom and looking towards the divine solution (cf. ibid.).
For Gwendolin Kirchhoff, determinism does not abolish this degree of freedom either. Answering a viewer’s comment that asked whether everything was not pure determinism (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, Wie frei sind wir wirklich?, 55:41), she cites a sentence she attributes to Franz von Sickingen: “nothing is without a cause” (ibid., 57:09). For her it does not follow that there is no freedom: “It is not that determinism leaves no degrees of freedom at all; the question is rather, where is freedom?” (ibid., 58:08). At the end of the same line of thought she says: “Not every thought takes root in every one of us. So there is a degree of freedom.” (ibid., 1:02:05).
#Is freedom a clear mind?
Yes, in a precise sense: for Gwendolin Kirchhoff, freedom is a clear mind and the ability to observe one’s own impulses and not necessarily give in to them. In her words: “Freedom is a clear mind and the ability to… question impulses, or not necessarily give in to impulses, but to be able to observe them inwardly and so let them pass.” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, Wie frei sind wir wirklich?, 1:00:39).
She describes the way there with Spinoza: we feel free because we experience ourselves as agents, yet we do not know the causes of our impulses of will and our emotions; the only way into freedom is for the mind to know the originating spirit adequately (cf. ibid., 57:21–58:08). Her example is an everyday one. Anyone who wants to change a habit and scroll less on Instagram may find that this is not so easy and that something in them keeps driving them back into the same action: “Are we free in this, or are we driven as if by an addiction?” (ibid., 58:21–58:47).
Freedom lies for her, for example, in asking a question. Through the question and through observing your own impulses, she says, you are no longer entangled with them; with Spinoza she describes this as an increase in your power of action, which you experience as joy, and the mind becomes clearer (cf. ibid., 1:00:20–1:00:39). She points to the practice of Buddhism: simply sitting there and being present with your own impulses without acting them out (cf. ibid., 1:01:15). This does not mean a depressive self-absorption in which you analyse everything inside you all the time; some things can be let run, or acted out in art, “but we also have the possibility of neutralising thought impulses and the things that seize us through a question” (ibid., 1:01:39–1:02:04).
Later in the same conversation she describes entanglement: “It is always a space without questions; these are living thoughts” (ibid., 1:30:23). Living here means that these thoughts take hold of the life force itself and are lived out for as long as they are bound, without question, to the person who lives them out (cf. ibid., 1:30:28). “And there really is a change when I can see it; then it falls away from me.” (ibid., 1:30:51). How entanglement works in families and how it is resolved is described in the entry on entanglement and resolution.
#Is freedom the opposite of necessity?
For Friedrich Schiller, to whom the idea refers, the freedom he describes in the aesthetic letters is not the opposite of necessity. In his letters On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795), Schiller describes two opposed fundamental drives in human beings, the sensuous and the rational. In the nineteenth letter he writes: “For as soon as two opposed fundamental drives are active in him, both lose their power to compel, and the opposition of two necessities gives rise to freedom” (Schiller, 1795, Letter 19). In a note to this passage he makes clear that he does not mean the freedom that necessarily belongs to human beings considered as intelligence, but the freedom “which is grounded in their mixed nature”; a person proves it by acting “rationally within the limits of matter and materially under the laws of reason” (ibid., Letter 19, note). In a note to the twentieth letter he states that the mind in the aesthetic condition acts “freely, indeed in the highest degree free from all compulsion, but by no means free from laws” (Schiller, 1795, Letter 20, note). For Schiller, then, this freedom does not arise from the absence of necessity but from the opposition of two necessities. If you set his sentence next to Gwendolin Kirchhoff’s formula, both speak of two sides: Schiller of two fundamental drives within us, she of our unfreedom in relation to ourselves and to the world. The entry on Schiller’s philosophy covers the sense drive, the form drive and the play drive in more detail.
Schelling, too, joins the two concepts, in his Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (1809): “Necessity and freedom are in one another, as one essence that appears as the one or the other only when viewed from different sides” (Schelling, 1809). The question of free will and how it bears on the picture of a living or a dead cosmos is the subject of the entry on determinism.
The formula “freedom is shaped unfreedom” itself does not appear in this form in Schiller’s letters. Gwendolin Kirchhoff states it in her Schiller lecture (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, Im Geiste Schillers, 1:50:55) and connects it with his thought.
#How did Schiller’s aesthetic letters take effect in Denmark?
In her lecture Im Geiste Schillers, Gwendolin Kirchhoff tells how Schiller’s aesthetic letters took effect in Denmark (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2024, Im Geiste Schillers, 35:31–42:12). According to her account, the letters were addressed to the Augustenburg prince, a nobleman in Denmark, were passed around there and reached a young educator named Grundtvig. Folk high schools, she says, were set up for ordinary people, the farmers, which one could attend for three to six months. There, she says, teaching began with heroic sagas, went on with a great deal of singing, then passed on knowledge, from founding a cooperative to how the organs of the state are built, and above all involved a lot of talking together (cf. ibid.).
As a principle that also runs through Schiller, she names pressure and counter-pressure: anyone who puts forward a thought needs counter-pressure, contradiction (cf. ibid., 42:18). “The thought can mature, can mature through resistance, because this resistance is important. Here we come back to the theme of freedom, which is shaped unfreedom.” (ibid., 43:20).
#Freedom from or freedom for?
The distinction between freedom from and freedom for separates two kinds of freedom: the wish to be rid of something, and the question of what one is free for. Gwendolin Kirchhoff observes: “People always want freedom. What do they mean by freedom?” Her answer: “They want freedom from an unpleasant, tormenting feeling.” She mentions, for example, fears, a blockage, the feeling of pressure or compulsion (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:22:06).
Her father, the philosopher Jochen Kirchhoff, said in one conversation that freedom is not only the freedom of not sitting in a dungeon: “Freedom not from what, but freedom for what.” (Kirchhoff, J., 2024, conversation with Flavio von Witzleben, 16:00). The same distinction appears in Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), in the chapter “On the Way of the Creator”: “Free from what? What does Zarathustra care! But your eye shall tell me clearly: free for what?” (Nietzsche, 1883).
Where freedom proves itself in concrete terms today, Gwendolin Kirchhoff answers in a conversation with Michael Andrick: “at this moment a person’s freedom shows itself most of all in whether they hold on to their own view, whether they are able to voice disagreement in public, or whether they are even just able to treat the zeitgeist with irony” (Kirchhoff, G., 2025, Freiheit, Normalität & Transhumanismus, 56:25).
When it comes to engagement in the world, she asks what spirit gives rise to an action. Whether someone engages in activism is, in her words, up to each person and can make sense; what matters is “the spirit from which an action arises” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, Wie frei sind wir wirklich?, 1:03:10). It can be an expression of autonomy and of a degree of freedom, or it can come from a desperate need to bring something about, beyond what can be brought about (cf. ibid., 1:03:12). She expressly leaves open that the impulse to absolutely have to bring something about may itself seize a person as a power of fate, because it belongs to them (cf. ibid., 1:03:24).
#Is life a prison, a school or a game?
Whether we experience life as a prison, a school or a game depends, for Gwendolin Kirchhoff, on what we look at: “We can primarily perceive our own unfreedom, or we can primarily perceive our degree of freedom.” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, Wie frei sind wir wirklich?, 1:12:42). The question came from the audience: are we, in a cosmic sense, in a school, a game or a prison, or in all of them at once (cf. ibid., 1:11:19)?
A great deal takes hold of us, she answers: eros, which we have not freely chosen but which happens to us, our feelings, the great fate we are built into, and the practical constraints of holding our own in a capitalist power hierarchy; all of this acts on us (cf. ibid., 1:12:03–1:12:31). Many people, she says, experience life as a prison, for instance when they live in very precarious circumstances or are surrounded by violence (cf. ibid., 1:12:53).
What makes the difference for her is, on the one hand, facing up to things, which means looking at what is really happening: “A great deal of looking.” (ibid., 1:13:14–1:13:28). That includes recognising the dangers that are real and judging them where they really are (cf. ibid., 1:13:28). On the other side, life appears more like play: you see its openness and its possibilities and turn towards what is beautiful (cf. ibid., 1:14:08–1:14:24). In her words, it makes a difference whether you feel trapped in a relationship with someone or recognise a degree of freedom, whether you take the other person for a fixed program, a kind of automaton, or discover in yourself the possibility of asking a different question and interacting differently (cf. ibid., 1:14:26). Developing playfulness and a certain freedom in dealing with life comes up again and again as a major theme in her consultations (cf. ibid., 1:14:50). Life appears as a school when experiences challenge us hard and we ask what we learn from them (cf. ibid., 1:15:18–1:15:33).
All three are, to begin with, “ways of experiencing life”, and they depend to some degree on our inner state (ibid., 1:15:35–1:15:46). But life always includes suffering as well: “There is no life without suffering.” (ibid., 1:15:58). Things often become difficult, she says, when people try to avoid it completely: then they turn to numbing themselves, numbing makes you taub (numb, deaf), and taub, she says, is another word for dumm, stupid (cf. ibid., 1:16:05–1:16:19; more in the entry on stupidity).
Shortly afterwards she relates play to Friedrich Schiller, “in the Schillerian sense of the play drive”: “It is good when life becomes a game, when you look at it as a game.” (ibid., 1:17:31–1:17:34). For her, this play includes taking things seriously: it is “a balance of its own: genuine realism, that is, really looking and taking things seriously, and lightness”, just as for the Greeks tragedy and comedy both belong to life (ibid., 1:17:41–1:17:58). What Schiller means by the play drive is explained in the entry on Schiller’s philosophy.
#What does shaped unfreedom look like in practice?
In practice, shaped unfreedom begins with what one finds. Gwendolin Kirchhoff gives an example from developing organisations: whoever develops an organisation cannot simply walk in as “the great saviour”. People’s needs and the ways they resist are something one encounters as they are, and one can only go along with this process by understanding that there is no other way (cf. Kirchhoff, G., 2026, MANOVA conversation, 1:12:03). For an anthology of the Kulturkreis Pankow she published, by her own account freely adapted from Schiller, a short text on how to keep a sense of well-being while resisting (cf. ibid., 1:10:44).
In the Schiller lecture she names simple forms: giving shaped expression to what one feels, in a circle of friends or in a diary, singing in song circles and choirs. What matters, she says, is being in tune with the thing itself, with play, or, in her words, “shaped unfreedom, the power of play, becomes active when the self steps in and gives shape out of the moment” (Kirchhoff, G., 2024, Im Geiste Schillers, 1:41:57).
In the conversation with Elisa Gratias she describes a basic choice: “Either you do something yourself and go your own way, self-determined, or life lives you and you are exposed to other forms of determination by others.” (Kirchhoff, G., 2026, Wie frei sind wir wirklich?, 10:05). In the world as it is built, entrepreneurial action is for her often the only level at which a certain freedom and sovereignty is possible for people; anyone who does not act as an entrepreneur is, in her words, often forced to adapt to the circumstances that feed them, for instance an employment relationship in which they serve another’s will (cf. ibid., 09:24–10:01). The entrepreneurial path is for her “perhaps the strongest and fastest path of personal development”: something happens to you when you face up to things, including many unpleasant ones (ibid., 12:00–12:14). To begin, she says, you define a first step in that direction, “big enough to matter, small enough to win” (ibid., 12:46–13:03). She describes her own way into public life as a sequence of such steps: first the editorial work in the background with her father, then the voice off camera, then a select circle at the symposium, then the wider public (cf. ibid., 12:18).
How limits become a condition of shaping is explored in the entry on the ethical limit. How recognising bonds and origins works in order work is described in the essay on systemic order work; why transhumanism promises limitless freedom is the subject of the essay on AI and transhumanism.
#Sources
- Kirchhoff, G. (2026). “Die gefährlichste Form von Intelligenz | Gwendolin Walter-Kirchhoff&Elisa Gratias im MANOVA-Gespräch” [Video, German]. Manova, YouTube, 14 August 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI43E5jdQQw (1:10:44, 1:12:03, 1:22:06).
- Kirchhoff, G. (2024). “Im Geiste Schillers | Gwendolin Walter-Kirchhoff | Lesung & Gespräch” [Video, German]. DENKRAUM, YouTube, 16 October 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNQVQkaU91Y (35:31–42:18, 43:20, 1:41:57, 1:50:55).
- Kirchhoff, G. (2025). “Philosophie & Zukunft: Gwendolin Kirchhoff im Gespräch mit Alexander von Bismarck” [Video, German]. Alexander von Bismarck, YouTube, 20 August 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uHGb7fDm-A (17:48, 18:20, 49:52).
- Kirchhoff, G., & Andrick, M. (2025). “Freiheit, Normalität & Transhumanismus: Philosophische Betrachtungen //G. Kirchhoff & M. Andrick.” [Video, German; conversation with Dr. Michael Andrick and Flavio von Witzleben]. Flavio von Witzleben, YouTube, 4 May 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtDItzk5P3w (56:25).
- Kirchhoff, G. (2026). “«Wie frei sind wir wirklich?» Gwendolin Kirchhoff über Fremdbestimmung, Wut & die Macht der Gedanken” [Video, German; conversation with Elisa Gratias]. TransitionTV, YouTube, 10 October 2026. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTW7B162RPs (09:24–13:03, 55:41–1:03:24, 1:11:19–1:17:58, 1:30:23–1:30:59).
- Kirchhoff, J. (2024). “Gendern, Klima & Corona: “Alles Menschliche in uns wird abgeschafft” // Philosoph Jochen Kirchhoff” [Video, German; conversation with Flavio von Witzleben]. Flavio von Witzleben, YouTube, 7 January 2024. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeTzjhPOWQI (16:00).
- Schiller, F. (1795). Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen, in einer Reihe von Briefen. Letter 19 with note; Letter 20, note. Quoted from zeno.org (Sämtliche Werke, vol. 5, Munich: Hanser 1962). English translations our own.
- Schelling, F. W. J. (1809). Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände. Quoted from zeno.org. English translation our own.
- Nietzsche, F. (1883). Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. Part One, “On the Way of the Creator”. Quoted from Project Gutenberg. English translation our own.
