Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling

(17751854)

F. W. J. von Schelling is one of the great German

philosophers of the late 18 and early 19th Century. Some historians and scholars of philosophy
have classified him as a German Idealist, along with J. G. Fichte and G. W. F. Hegel. Such
classifications obscure rather than illuminate the importance and singularity of Schellings place
in the history of philosophy. This is because the dominant and most often limited understanding
of Idealism as systematic metaphysics of the Subject is applicable more to Hegels philosophy
than Schelling's. While initiating the Post-Kantian Idealism of the Subject, Schelling went on to
exhibit in his later works the limit and dissolution of such a systemic metaphysics of the Subject.
Therefore, the convenient label of Schelling as one German Idealist amongst others ignores the
singularity of Schellings philosophy and the complex relationship he had with the movement of
German Idealism.
th

The real importance of Schellings later works lies in the exposure of the dominant systemic
metaphysics of the Subject to its limit rather than in its confirmation. In this way, the later works
of Schelling demand from the students and philosophers of German Idealism a re-assessment of
the notion of German Idealism itself. In that sense, the importance and influence of Schellings
philosophy has remained untimely. In the wake of Hegelian rational philosophy that was the
official philosophy of that time, Schellings later works was not influential and fell onto deaf
ears. Only in the twentieth century when the question of the legitimacy of the philosophical
project of modernity had come to be the concern for philosophers and thinkers, did Schellings
radical opening of philosophy to post-metaphysical thinking receive renewed attention.
This is because it is perceived that the task of philosophical thinking is no longer the
foundational act of the systematic metaphysics of the Subject. In the wake of end of

philosophy, the philosophical task is understood to be the inauguration of new thinking beyond
metaphysics. In this context, Schelling has again come into prominence as someone who in the
heyday of German Idealism has opened up the possibility of a philosophical thinking beyond the
closure of the metaphysics of the Subject. The importance of Schelling for such postmetaphysical thinking is rightly emphasized by Martin Heidegger in his lecture on Schelling of
1936. In this manner Heidegger prepares the possibility of understanding Schellings works in an
entirely different manner. Heideggers reading of Schelling in turn has immensely influenced the
Post-Heideggerian French philosophical turn to the question of the exit from metaphysics. But
this Post-Structuralist and deconstructive reading of Schelling is not the only reception of
Schelling. Philosophers like Jrgen Habermas, whose doctorate work was on Schelling, would
like to insist on the continuation of the philosophical project of modernity, and yet attempt to
view reason beyond the instrumental functionality of reason at the service of domination and
coercion. Schelling is seen from this perspective as a post-metaphysical thinker who has
widened the concept of reason beyond its self-grounding projection. During the last half of the
last century, Schellings works have tremendously influenced the post-Subject oriented
philosophical discourses. During recent times, Schelling scholarship has remarkably increased
both in the Anglo-American context and the Continental philosophical context.

Table of Contents
1. Life
2. Philosophy
1. Naturphilosophie and Transcendental Philosophy
2. Identity Philosophy
3. The Middle period
4. Positive Philosophy
3. Influences
4. References and Further Reading
1. Primary Sources
2. Secondary Sources

1. Life
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was born on 27 January, 1775 in Leonberg, Germany. His
father was Joseph Friedrich Schelling and mother was Gottliebin Maria Cless. In 1785 Schelling

attended the Latin School in Nrtingen. A precocious child, his teachers soon found nothing
more to teach him. In 1790, Schelling joined the Tbingenstift, a Protestant Seminary, in
Tbingen where he befriended Hlderlin who was later to become a great German poet, and
Hegel who was to become a great philosopher. In 1794 Schelling published ber die
Mglichkeit einer Form der Philosophie berhaupt, in the same year of the publication of
Fichtes Wissenshaftlehre. Fichtes Wissenshaftlehre, along with Kants Critique of Judgment
that was published four years before (1790), proved to be of decisive importance for Schellings
early philosophical career. In 1798 at the age of just 23, Schelling was called to a professorship
at the University of Jena where he came in contact with German Romantic poets and
philosophers like the Schlegel brothers and Novalis. He also met August Wilhelm Schlegels
wife Caroline Schlegel and there begun one of the most fascinating and scandalous romantic
stories of that time, leading to Carolines divorce and her marriage to Schelling in 1803. In 1803
he left Jena for Wrzburg where he was called to a professorship. In the Autumn of 1805
Wrzburg fell to Austria. The following year Schelling left for Munich where he was to stay till
1841 apart from a break between 1820-1827 when he lived in Erlangen. In 1809 Schelling
published his great treatise on human freedom, Philosophical Inquiries Concerning the Nature of
Human Freedom. A few months later Caroline died.. Schelling was devastated. In 1812 Schelling
married Pauline who was to remain his life long companion. In 1831 Hegel died. In 1840
Schelling was called upon to the now vacant chair in Berlin to replace Hegel where he sought to
elaborate his Positivphilosophie which was attended by the likes of Sren Kierkegaard,
Alexander Humboldt, Bakunin and Engels. In 1854 on 20 August Schelling died at the age of 79
in Bad Ragaz, Switzerland.

2. Philosophy
Encounter with the works of Schelling often baffles the scholars and historians of philosophy.
Schellings works seem to exhibit the lack of consistent development or systematic completion
which most of his contemporaries possess. As a result scholars and historians of philosophy
complain of the absence of a single Schelling. Recent scholarship, however, while accepting
the often disruptive and discontinuous movement with which Schellings thinking moves that
defies and un-works the completion of a single definite philosophical system, finds issues that
are singular to Schellings continuous attention and unceasing concern. Thus the absence of a
systematic completion is what has become the source of fascination for recent Schelling
scholarship. Schelling appears to be the mark that delineates the limit of the systematic task of
philosophy, the end of philosophy and the task of thinking as Heidegger says. Prominent
Schelling scholars like Manfred Frank and Andrew Bowie (1993) have, however, pointed out
that Schelling had never abandoned the idea of system, although the idea of system was no
longer grounded on a restricted, narcissistic concept of reason as totalizing and self-grounding
but as opening to that which cannot be thought in the concept.
For the sake of convenience we can roughly divide the philosophical career of Schelling into
four stages:
a. Naturphilosophie and Transcendental Philosophy

b. Identity philosophy
c. The Middle period: Freedom essay and The Ages of the World
d. Positive Philosophy (Philosophy of Mythology and Philosophy of Revelation)

a. Naturphilosophie and Transcendental Philosophy

The significance of Schellings early philosophical works lies in its radically new understanding
of nature that departs significantly from the then dominant philosophical and scientific
understanding of nature. Perhaps the best the way to approach the Schelling of Naturphilosophie
is to see him, on the one hand, in relation to the dominant mechanistic determination of nature at
that time, that of the Newtonian mathematical determination of nature according to which nature
follows certain determinable physical laws of motion and rest, and that can be grasped in the
objective cognition that has universal and non-relative validity and on the other hand, as a
development of post-Kantian philosophy that led to a radical revision of Kant himself.
Schellings philosophy of nature thus arose out of the demand to respond to the mechanistic
determination of nature that was dominant at that time on the one hand, and to respond to the
problems that arose in Kants division of the phenomenal realm of nature and noumenal realm of
freedom. This demanded a dynamic philosophical account of nature where nature is no longer
seen as a totality of objects that are a mere inert, opaque mass, but nature that is subjected to
universal laws of causality. Such a dynamic philosophy of nature must be able to resolve the
abyss that is opened up in the wake of Kants Critique of Pure Reason. It is the abyss between
the deterministic, causal, conditioned realm of understanding on the one hand, and the
unconditioned realm of ethical self-determination on the other hand, between theoretical
philosophy and practical philosophy. The task that the Post-Kantian philosophy has given to
itself is to bridge this gap between the conceptual, constitutive realm of nature which can be
grasped by causal laws that has universal validity, and the ethical spontaneity of the practical
reason where the ethical subject is beyond the conditioned realm of determination and is thus a
free Subject of self-determination. This Subject is the Subject of freedom that cannot be
grounded in the constitutive principles of understanding but in the regulative Ideas of reason. J.
G Fichte sought to unify the theoretical reason (that is understanding) and the practical reason
by grounding them both in the dynamic activity of the self-consciousness that posits itself as
pure, unconditioned act of self-positing I. The task of accounting for the process of emergence
of the world of nature, which is thus a dynamic process, is addressed by Fichte thus: nature is an
essential self-limitation of the I. The unconditioned, infinite self-positing I, in order to know
itself as itself, divides itself into the finite I and its counter-movement Not-I. In this manner,
Fichte claimed to have resolved the problem that appeared to him and to the post-Kantian
philosophers as that which is left unresolved by Kant himself. This is the question of how to
account for the mysterious X, the thing-in-itself which, according to Kant, can never be
grounded in the constitutive principle of understanding. As the condition of possibility of
knowledge, the thing-in-itself can never be known. It is irreducible to the concepts of
understanding. Fichte in his Science of Knowledge accounts for the genesis of this thing-initself in the pure self-positing act of the I. Since the I cannot be an object of outer sense like
any other objects of cognition ( Kant prohibits this), I can only emerge in a pure, primordial act
of inner-self. This self-emerging I cannot therefore be an object of conceptual cognition, of an

empirical intuition. It can only be grasped in the inner sense in intellectual intuition which is
none but the fact of self-consciousness. According to Fichte, the thing-in-itself is this selfemerging self-consciousness which is a fact unlike any other fact. It is a fact that only
intellectual intuition grasps in the act of pure self-intuition. This is because only a being
capable of intuiting itself as simultaneously representing and represented can account for the
unity of representation and object. For such a being, that is I, there is no other predicate than
itself. It is its own object. This object for it appears as nature which is the self-limitation of the
self-positing Subject. Fichtes idealism later came to be known as Subjective Idealism.
Schellings early works flourished under the influence of Fichtes thinking. In 1797 Schelling
published an essay called Treatise Explicatory of the Idealism in the Science of Knowledge in
Philosophisches Journal edited by Immanuel Niethammer. This essay is crucial document for
understanding the transition from Kantian critical philosophy to German Idealism. While
attempting to elucidate what Kant would have intended if Kants philosophy is to prove
internally cohesive, Schelling moves to the task of unifying theoretical and practical philosophy
in a single principle in such a manner that he actually moves beyond both Kantian and Fichtean
philosophy. What allows this unification of theoretical and practical philosophy is the Spirits
infinite striving to represent the universe. The Spirit is not a static entity given, something
mysterious X, but infinite becoming and infinite productivity. It is in this ceaseless production
lies the organic nature of human Spirit that is moved by its immanent laws and that has its
purposive-ness within itself. Schelling here introduces the notion of organism which unites in its
immanence its goal and purpose, its form and matter, concept and intuition. As such each
organism is a system which is an arabesque delineation of the soul or eternal archetype that
finds expression in every plant. As immanent unity of form and matter that orients itself towards
absolute purposive-ness through successive stages, this organism is not thus mere static, lifeless
entity but is said to exhibit life. The Idealist notion of the system here takes this unified world of
organism as model. Intuition is the unity of form and matter, representation and object which is
distinguishable only in the concept that freely repeats the originary unity. With the help of the
schematic power of the imagination, concept here produces the individual object of cognition.
The succession of representation occurs alternately in a circle. To move beyond this circle of
theoretical knowledge, this circle where the object always returns, it is necessary to introduce an
act of free self-determination which cannot be further determined. This act is the absolute act of
free will which is primordial and infinite. It is with this act the theoretical and practical
philosophy is united.
In the same year Schelling published his Naturphilosophie that further elaborates the concept of
organism through analysis of natural phenomena with the help of scientific studies of the day.
This work responds to the dual tasks mentioned above. On the one hand it must give an account
of a dynamic process of the emergence of nature as against the mechanistic, deterministic
understanding of nature; and on the other hand, to resolve the problem left by Kant, that of
bridging the realm of theoretical and practical philosophy by developing a dynamic philosophy
of nature that takes into account Fichtean dialectical philosophy of consciousness. Like the
Treatise of the same year, this new philosophy of nature is not grounded in the self-positing,
unconditioned self-consciousness but by positing a non-objective, unconditioned in nature
itself which Schelling calls productivity. It is this productivity that emerges through the logic
of polar oppositions between subject and object that is shown to lead to a higher subject-object

synthesis. For Schelling such a dialectical logic is deducted as a movement of potencies. The first
potency is the movement of infinite to the finite. The second potency makes the reverse
movement, while the third potency alone, which is higher than the other two, unities preceding
potencies. In this manner Schelling explains magnetism as the first potency, electricity as the
second and chemistry as the third potency that dialectically sublates the other two. Schellings
philosophy of nature that attempts to develop the dynamic process of Idealism from the objective
side can be seen as a parallel development to the Subjective Idealism that is elaborated by Fichte.
In the Treatise Explicatory of the Idealism in the Science of Knowledge of 1797 Schelling
hints at the idea of the history of self-consciousness. The Spirit through its originary activity
presents the infinite in the finite, a movement whose goal is self-consciousness that marks the
unification of theoretical and practical philosophy, nature and history. Schelling perfects this
model in his System of Transcendenatl Idealism. Schellings publication of The System of
Transcendental Idealism in 1800 brought immediate fame to the young 25 year old philosopher.
Schelling here draws from Fichtes great insight that self-consciousness is not a mere given
entity. It is not an unknown and inaccessible X, a mysterious transcendental in-itself as the
formal ground of cognition, but a coming into presence of itself, a pure self-positing emergence
through the dialectical process of self-positing and self-limitation. In that way a history of selfconsciousness can be deduced from one principle that explains the coming into being of the
theoretical cognition that at its limit passes into the practical realm of freedom, that is, the
objective world of history . This is the task of Schellings System of Transcendental Idealism of
1800. Thus the axiomatic sense of Fichtean I=I is transformed into the dynamic deduction of the
self-consciousness by one principle. This is emergence of the Idealist notion of System whose
possibility, according to the Idealists, is already given in Kantian Critical philosophy; a
possibility is denied by Kant himself.
The history of self-consciousness comes into being in three stages or epochs. While the first
epoch manifests the coming into being of productive intuition from original sensation and
the second epoch manifests the emergence of reflection from productive intuition, the third
epoch recounts the emergence of the absolute act of will from reflection. At the end of the
third epoch, the history of self-consciousness passes into the practical realm where the
deduction of the concept of history is shown to be the realm of unity of freedom and necessity.
This has led Schelling to ask at the end of System: how the Subject which is now a completed
self-consciousness can become conscious of that moment of its origin which is now unconscious
for it, a past that appears to have receded into an immemorial origin and is inaccessible? It now
appears that the condition of possibility of consciousness as such remains irreducible to
consciousness itself. This is the problem that has become decisive, not only for Schellings
subsequent philosophical career, but for the fate of Idealism as such. It now appears as if our
self-consciousness is driven or constituted by an unconscious ground, forever inaccessible to
consciousness, which can never be grounded in consciousness itself.
For Schelling this shows the limit of philosophical cognition and at the same time the importance
of works of art. By refusing the claim to say or represent the synthesis of unconscious and
conscious, the work of art rather shows it. Therefore art can be said to be the the eternal organ
and document of philosophy whose basic character is an unconscious infinity that arises in
the work of arts synthesis of nature and freedom. While the artist initiates a work of art with a

manifest, conscious intention, she, in an unconscious and unintentional manner, depicts infinity
without representing or saying it. Such an unintentional showing exceeds the representational
acts of consciousness. It cannot be reduced to categorical statements. Therefore works of art
cannot be understood on the basis of pre-given set of rules. Works of art are not exhausted in the
normative or axiomatic definitions as to what constitutes art as such. What constitutes the
essence of art lies rather in its excess of showing over the said. In that sense works of art are
more analogous with organisms by virtue of its existing as a link between unconsciousness and
consciousness. Such a link can only be shown and therefore remains irreducible to the
propositional character of judgment. Schelling develops such insights further in his lectures on
The Philosophy of Art (1802), two years after The System of Transcendental Idealism . Unlike
Hegels lectures on Aesthetics where Hegel argues that the work of art is a thing of the past in
so far as it no longer has an essential relation to the Absolute even though works of art will
continue to be produced, and thus pass into the sobriety of philosophys Absolute Knowledge,
Schelling sees works of art and philosophy as manifesting the differential mode of the Absolute
where art retains an essential, singular and irreducible role.

b. Identity Philosophy
In 1795, Friedrich Hlderlin published an article called On Judgment and Being that has proved
to be of decisive importance for the later development of German Idealism. In this small article
Hlderlin attempts to think of an Absolute identity, a prior and originary ground of
consciousness that cannot be grasped or known within the immanence of self-consciousness.
Hlderlin calls this originary identity being( Seyn) which he distinguishes from Judgment (
das Urteil). Hlderlin here attempts to think of an originary identity that grounds the reflective
judgment. According to Hlderlin this reflective judgment which is the unity of a disjunction,
separation or difference between the subject and the object, must already presuppose an originary
identity before judgment. In so far as judgment presupposes the difference between the subject
and the object of consciousness, it must already be grounded in an identity. This identity is being
(Seyn) which, because of its ground character, remains irreducible to the reflective
consciousness. In order for judgment to be possible, it must be grounded in a principle that
exceeds judgment itself. This originary identity is being which is before or without
consciousness.
In his Identity philosophy, Schelling too attempts to move beyond the immanence of selfconsciousness and the circle of reflective judgment. With this move, Schelling decisively breaks
away from the Fichtean subjective Idealism. The question of I is no longer the point of
departure, unlike that of Fichtes absolute I that is not an inert substance but arises purely in the
act of self-positing. Rather, here it is the question of consciousness as a result of a process which
is to be grasped not merely from the side of the Subject of self-consciousness but from the other
side as well. This relation between subject and object thus can no longer be grounded within selfconsciousness itself but in an absolute indifference that is prior to this distinction and hence, that
can only be presupposed but is never accessible to reflective judgment or to the categories of
understanding. Unlike that of reflective philosophy, the question is no longer that of making a
correspondence between the subject and the object of consciousness. Such a representational
philosophy of correspondence is here abandoned. The problem is rather that of explaining the
manifestation of a finite world from a ground that is forever excluded from the infinite chain of

conditioned, finite, particular entities. In order not to fall into dualism, which Jacobi alludes is
the dualism between the unconditioned ground on the one hand and the infinite chain of
conditioned, finite entities on the other, Schelling has to explain the manifestation of the finite
world out of its unconditioned ground, from an absolute indifference, without falling into the
logic of reflective thinking which Hegel later uses to develop in his Phenomenology of Spirit.
This is the emergence of the finite world of entities that are connected to each other in an infinite
chain of predicates from an originary indifference which is unconditioned. This emergence is not
a smooth transition but a qualitative leap, a diversion, a falling away (Abfall) from its originary
ground. Later in his critique of Hegel, Schelling argues that such a leap cannot be understood on
the basis of Hegelian modality of dialectical negativity that arrives at absolute knowledge only
on the basis of the self-cancellation of the finite.
Perhaps the most lucid and systematic exposition of Schelling Identity philosophy will be found
in his posthumously published lecture called The System of Philosophy in General and of the
Philosophy of Nature in Particular (1804). Schelling gave this lecture during his brief years of
stay at Wrzburg. Schelling here begins with the proposition which according to him is the first
presupposition of all knowledge, that is: the knower and that which is known are the same.
This proposition immediately puts into question the correspondence theory of truth and
knowledge that was dominant at that time. The correspondence theory of knowledge posits two
principles the subject and the object of knowledge which are then sought to be reconciled in a
higher synthetic principle. According to Schelling, once this dualism is posited, the possibility of
knowledge itself becomes inexplicable. Therefore Schelling begins with an absolute identity of
the known and the knower, an identity that cannot be posited within subjectivity. With this notion
of absolute identity beyond subjectivity, Schelling definitely breaks with Fichtes Subjective
Idealism and Kants reflective philosophy. Distinguishing his Identittssystem from both
Empiricism and merely subjective Idealism, Schelling here introduces the notion of the Absolute
that has proved to be of crucial importance for German Idealism in general. The absolute identity
is the unconditional identity of the subject and the object, idea and Being, Ideal and Real both at
once, immediately posited and not discreetly. As immediate knowledge of the absolute, this
system of identity is distinguished from what Schelling calls common sense understanding.
The common sense understanding distinguishes conditional knowledge, which is synthetic, real
knowledge from unconditional knowledge, which is analytic and thus is no real knowledge. Here
common sense understanding comes to an irresolvable aporia: either I have real, objective
knowledge, but then I renounce the unconditional; or, I have the unconditional in which case it is
merely subjective and thus is no real knowledge. According to Schelling, this irresolvable aporia
is the aporia of Kantian philosophy which Kantian dogmatism can never resolve. This demands
a move beyond Kants critical philosophy. This move which inaugurates German Idealism
consists of going beyond the mediated knowledge of the Absolute to the immediate knowledge
of the Absolute which is an immediate affirmation of this affirmation. As immediate knowledge
of the absolute, Reason is Absolute Knowledge. From this idea Hegels notion of the Absolute is
not far. Unlike Kants regulative idea of Reason, Reason here is the idea of God as an
immediate, absolute, unconditional identity. The immediate awareness of the Spirit of its
absolute will which can never be further grounded in concept, is what Schelling calls in this
essay intellectual intuition. It is intuition because it is not yet mediated by concept, and it is
intellectual because it goes beyond the empirical in that it has as its predicate its self-affirmation.

As the unconditional ground of all knowledge, intellectual intuition does not belong even to
inner sense. Thus what Fichte calls intellectual intuition is no longer seen here as belonging to
the inner sense but to the unconditional absolute which is beyond the circle of selfconsciousness. The fact of consciousness is not originary, for there must already be a priori
identity before differences come to manifest in consciousness. The essence of Reason can be said
to be intellectual intuition whose object is exclusively the absolute which is monolithic, one and
only substance. By virtue of this affirmation, Reason recognizes the eternal impossibility of
non-being. Being is not a predicate of God as something lying outside or exterior, but God and
being is immediately, unconditionally one without duration. This absolute identity is infinite by
virtue of its idea. Therefore God can neither be thought as the end result of the self-negation of
difference, nor being involved in a process of emanation. The indivisibility and univocity of God
is neither a numerical concept nor a concept of totality as aggregate unity of finite particulars.
This is because the indivisibility and univocity of God is the ground for infinite divisibility in
form or in accidents. How can the existence of finite, particulars be explained within
Identittssystem?
In regard to the absolute identity, these finite, particulars are surely non-being, non-ens, nonessentials that can neither subtract nor add anything to the essence of the being who is the
absolute substance. The existence of the finite, particulars can only be understood, not as
modification of essence, but as modifications in form. They are non-being in respect to the
universal which is absolute identity, but considered independently, they are not completely
devoid of being. They are in part being and in part non-being. As such they are real or
concrete things, irreducibly finite, particular, multiple, whose ground of existence does not lie
within themselves but in that absolute identity of Being and essence. Schelling here deduces the
finitude of particulars which common sense understanding calls actuality, not as a process of
emanation from the absolute identity, but as negativity that adheres in all finite things. Since
these finite things cannot have positivity of being within themselves, they must therefore always
relate themselves to other finite things, all sensuous cognition of them can only be non-cognition.
Schelling here radically departs from Kant. For Kant all cognition is cognition of the sensible but
not of the supersensible. By contrast Schelling argues that all of our sensory knowledge is only a
privation of knowledge, or rather, a negation of knowledge. Hegel argues in a similar manner
in Phenomenology of Spirit (1807) where he shows in a dialectical manner, the vanity of the
supposed certitude of sensuous cognition.
One can present the schema of Schellings Identittssystem as follows. God as absolute identity
is an essential, qualitative identity. Absolute indifference follows from this essential identity of
the absolute. Therefore, absolute indifference is not in-itself essential but a quantitative identity.
There is thus a difference between absolute identity and absolute indifference. The opposition
between real and ideal, subject and object arises out of this indifference. This is the birth of the
finite world. Schelling here introduces the theory of potencies in triplicates that are the
necessary modes of appearances of the real and ideal universes. While the potencies in
triplicates are the necessary modes of appearances of the finite universes, they are not
applicable to the absolute identity. The absolute identity is thus without potency or devoid of
power. The potencies are those modes of appearances that make manifest the non-essential.
Therefore they all have equal dignity in relation to the absolute. No potency has priority over the
others temporally, for they are not posited successively in a genetic sequence but simultaneously,

with equal primordiality. As such, they constitute a circle where all the potencies are posited
together but not in an equal manner. Each time the potencies are posited, a particular potency
predominates, subjugating the others to their relative non-being. At another time another potency
predominates in an alternate manner, always returning to the same and always going away,
always being attracted and repulsed, always contracted and expanded in an alternate, circular
manner. In this alternating, rotatory movement of potencies the Real principle comes first as the
ground or condition of the Ideal Universe. The Ideal universe then overcomes the Real principle,
its conditioning and grounding factor, by relegating it to its relative non-being. Only the higher
synthetic principle can unify both the Real and Ideal universes by inhering in both and yet
separating each from the other. Schelling presents the theory of potency in the following
formula:
A3
----------------A2 = (A=B)
Where:
A=B : The domination of the Real or affirmed. It is A1
A2

: The domination of the Ideal

A3

: Indifference between the other two

With the theory of potencies Schelling explains the existence of the finite universes which are
originally one. Their existence is neither completely being nor nothing, but a relative being and
relative non-being. As relative being and relative non-being, potencies exceed each time from the
immanence of self-presence. They never arrive at the absolute equilibrium of forces without
ceasing themselves to be potencies. The circle of the potencies never comes to standstill, or that
they do not come out of the circle unless a will superior to this circle of the conditioned existence
breaks in.
Three years after this lecture, Hegel published his magnum opus Phenomenology of Spirit. In his
Phenomenology of Spirit published in 1807, Hegel apparently criticizes Schellings notion of the
Absolute indifference as the night where all cows are black. In a letter to Hegel, Schelling asks
Hegel to clarify in the Preface to the Phenomenology whether this criticism is applied to him or
to others who misuse Schellings ideas. Hegel did not incorporate this clarification in the
subsequent edition of Phenomenology that the criticism is applied, not to Schelling, but to others.
This led to the break in the friendship between the two philosophers who shared the same room
at Tbingenstift. While this friendship was profoundly important and fruitful for both of them,
the bitterness proved to be equally decisive for the development of their singular modes of
thinking, one leading to the task of systematic completion of the metaphysics of the Subject, the
other leading to the attempt to inaugurate a new thinking beyond such a metaphysics of the
Subject.

c. The Middle period

Published in 1809, Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom is perhaps the
most important book that Schelling published in his life time. Along with Hegels
Phenomenology of Spirit, Fichtes Science of Knowledge, and Kants Critique of Judgment, this
essay is one of the greatest philosophical achievements of the late 18th and 19th century Germany.
Published immediately before the death of Caroline, it evokes a deep, unappeasable
melancholy that adheres to all finite beings. Here Schelling does not pose the question
concerning the essence of human freedom as the dialectical problem between nature and
freedom. Freedom does not appear here as the free exercise of the rational Subjects will to
mastery over its sensuous nature, but as the capacity to do evil. The question thus posed is no
longer one question amongst others but the metaphysical question concerning the possibility of a
system of freedom. On the one hand, freedom appears to be that which cannot be included within
a system at all; on the other hand, the demand of Idealism that there must be a system without
which nothing is adequately comprehensible is not to be renounced. The essay attempts to
reconcile these two incommensurable demands: the demand of the unconditionality of freedom
that grounds being and the demand of the grounding act of the system. This attempt at the system
of freedom arose in the wake of what came to be known as the pantheism controversy.
The pantheism controversy is centred on the supposedly atheistic figure of Spinoza. During the
late 18th century, and early 19th century, the dominant understanding of Spinoza was that of a
pantheist and consequently an atheist. It is understood that within the pantheistic system of
Spinozas ethics wherein God is immediately identified with the world, there is no place for the
affirmation of God as unconditional reality. If the world is only a totality of conditioned, finite
beings, then the unconditioned existence of God cannot be understood to be immediately
identifiable with the world, and consequently with any dogmatic, rational system. In the famous
pantheism controversy, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi attempted to show that a system of rational
knowledge never arrives at the unconditioned since, for such a system, the unconditioned can
only arise as a result of a process where the one conditioned leads to other conditioned in an
infinite chain of negativity. To be properly concerned with the unconditioned, one must begin
with the unconditioned itself which no rational knowledge ever attains. For Jacobi it is only the
leap of faith beyond the system of rational knowledge that enables us to open to the
unconditionality of the absolute being. Therefore all system of rational knowledge for Jacobi is
nihilism. Jacobi thereby becomes the first to use the word nihilism that arose in the context of
the pantheism controversy.
Schelling here agrees with Jacobi about the limit of purely rational attainment of the
unconditioned. Schelling, however, disagrees with Jacobis use of a limited and restricted notion
of system and freedom, along with Jacobis restricted use of the metaphysical and logical
notion of judgment. In the Freedom essay Schelling attempts to re-interpret the logical and
metaphysical notion of judgment in such a manner that it opens up to the unconditioned
character of freedom without renouncing the demand of a system. Such a system must, on the
one hand, be other than a purely formal, lifeless realism of Spinoza; and on the other hand, it
must be otherwise than a conventional system of idealism that reduces the dynamic character of

freedom and the world into pure rational necessity. Only a dynamic notion of the system that
affirms the exuberance of life and the generosity of freedom can truly be system. The formal,
rational notion of freedom as the intelligible principle that overcomes sensuous impulses must be
opened to the ontological question of the beings in their becoming. The question of judgment is
thus no longer merely a formal logical question but the question of the jointure, or bond of
beings. This bond or jointure of beings is grounded in freedom which, understood in more
originary manner, is not arbitrary free will but that belongs together with highest necessity. This
jointure of beings the infinite, creative being of God and the finite, created being called man
must be essentially a free relation, a relation that is governed by freedom which in the highest
sense is also necessity. If man is free in a certain manner, then this manner is also the manner of
mans individuation. This is to say that to the extent that man is individuated by freedom, mans
freedom is distinguishable from the absolute freedom of the infinite, eternal being called God.
This peculiar essence of human freedom is the capacity to do evil.
According to Schelling, the human is distinguished from the eternal creative God by the
specificity of his freedom which is essentially and inextricably a finite freedom. God is the being
whose condition, though never completely immanent, can be actualized in its very existing. On
the other hand, the finite being can never actualize itself completely because the ground of its
existence remains inappropriable. This is the source of the fundamental melancholy of all finite
beings. The distinction between the absolute freedom of the eternal being and the finite freedom
of the mortal can be better understood with the help of Schellings distinction between the
ground of existence and existence itself. This is not a formal distinction between sensuous nature
and intelligible will, but a dynamic distinction of freedom. Eternal or finite, each being is a
jointure of the ground of existence and existence itself. In the eternal, creative being, this
jointure is indissoluble. In the mortal, however, there can occur dissolution of this jointure. It is
the possibility of the dissolution of the principles that explains the finitude of the finite being,
and the freedom of this finite being. The human is essentially finite being, and only such a finite
being is capable of evil. Therefore evil is neither divine nor beastly but essentially belongs to the
human freedom. Evil has this peculiar, specific relation to human finitude. Unlike the beasts in
whom the jointure of the principles is governed by necessity, and unlike the divine in whom the
jointure of the principles is indissoluble, human freedom partakes of the divine freedom and is
yet separated by an abyss. According to Schelling, this abyss is the possibility of dissolution of
the principles.
In the dynamic freedom there are two oppositional principles that never reach equilibrium. In the
coming to existence of the finite being there adhere these oppositional principles. There is the
dark principle which is the principle of ground, and there is the ideal principle of light. The dark
principle that operates in the realm of history as the principle of particularity is the principle of
evil. Man is the finite being that unites in himself both of these principles in an equal measure.
Since the nexus (band) of these principles in him is free and not governed by necessity, man is
free to bring permutation to this nexus. Therefore what ought to remain as mere condition of
existence, as mere principle of particularity, man can seek to elevate to totality or to universal
domination. Out of this self-affirmation of the finite being who in this self-affirmation seeks to
abnegate its very finitude, there arises evil. Thus while the possibility of evil is given to man in
the coming into existence of this being, to actualize this principle of possibility is the work of
human freedom. As mere ground, this principle is the very source of creative joy and affirmation

of life, but elevating it into the universality or totality results into the most terrible form of evil
that seeks to negate any form of its life-affirmative character. Thus the source of life and the
origin of evil is grounded in the same principle. This principle is the human freedom whose
origin remains unfathomable for man. According to Schelling, this unfathomable, inappropriable,
unconditional freedom ought to remain inappropriable and unconditional, for the human creates
a conditioned world on the basis of the unconditioned freedom. This conditioned world is
history. By beginning this new covenant, man partakes the creativity of the divine freedom.
This is the source of creative joy for the human, for through this creative act of human, the world
of nature is redeemed. But in his vain arrogance and in his self-affirmation that is pushed to the
point of absolutization and totalization, the human seeks to negate the finite character of his
freedom and thereby seeks to elevate the principle of particularity to the universal domination.
Herein lays the evil when the non-being, which is for that matter is not completely devoid of
being, seeks to attain the complete, absolute being. Evil is therefore neither being nor nothing,
but non-beings malicious hunger for being. Therefore power of evil cannot be said to be the
power of being. It is rather the power of non-being that seeks to devour itself and is never
satisfied at any point, because it never reaches being without a remainder of non-being. More it
does not reach being, more self-consuming becomes its lust. According to Schelling such is the
character of evil.
In The Ages of the World which was written between 1809-1827 and is found in various
incomplete versions, Schelling develops a narrative method that seeks to recount the stages of
the worlds becoming through the agonal movement of conflictual forces. This is the germ of
Schellings theory of potencies. The world as it exists has its ground in a dark, unfathomable past
which no work of human reason can ever elevate into thought. This non-reason is not
irrationality that is opposed to reason nor is it the negation of the possibility of reason but the
ground of reason. Human reason thus exists only as a regulated madness. On account of its
immanent force alone the human reason cannot attain the unconditioned which is the realm of
absolute freedom. The emergence of the world-order is not seen as an immanent order ruled by
the necessary principles of reason but has its source in an absolute, unconditional freedom. This
freedom can arrive to the finite, mortal being as a gift. Man can never master this gift, because it
opens man to his historicity. The essence of history is freedom. The ages of the world thus
arises out of the unconditional character of freedom. This principle of freedom manifests itself in
the agonal movement of contradictory forces, one repulsive and the other attractive. It is this
agonal movement of oppositional forces that makes possible the emergence of the ages of the
world out of the unconditional. This unconditional is that which cannot be further grounded in
thought or in self-consciousness, it is what Schelling in his Freedom essay calls the indivisible
remainder that constantly solicits from finite human beings awe or respect.
Here as elsewhere Schellings thought wrestles with the question of the unconditioned. If there is
anything that is singular to Schellings whole of philosophy, and that unifies Schellings often
discontinuous philosophical career, it is this question of the unconditioned. Schelling does not
explain the existence of the world with the help of logical categories. For Schelling, a rational
system constitutive of logical categories cannot explicate the facticity or actuality of the world. It
is the unconditional character of freedom whose ground is groundless (Abgrund), this freedom
alone opens the world. Therefore there is always something excessive about freedom. In many
texts, especially in his 1797 treatise, Schelling evokes a freedom which is not only a promise for

the human but also a danger (Gefahr). The ages of the world is grounded by a condition which
is excessive and unthinkable. The human belongs to the un-pre-thinkable ( Unvordenkliche).
This is a promise as well as danger. Schelling evokes this excess to explain the possibility of the
world and finite existence. This unconditional excess makes the world and being-in-the world as
essentially finite and irreducibly mortal. It is this aspect of Schellings work that has most
profoundly influenced the twentieth century philosophers like Franz Rosenzweig and Martin
Heidegger.

d. Positive Philosophy
On 14 November 1831 Hegel died in Berlin. In 1840 Schelling was called to the now vacant
chair in Berlin to replace Hegel. The following year Schelling began his lectures on positive
philosophy (Positivphilosophie) which was attended by Kierkegaard, Bakunin, Humboldt and
Engels. These lectures were delivered in three phases: Grounding of Positive Philosophy that
introduces and grounds Positive Philosophy vis--vis the history of Negative Philosophy from
Descartes onwards, followed by Philosophy of Mythology (Philosophie der Mythologie) and
Philosophy of Revelation ( Philosophie der Offenbarung).
Schellings grounding of Positive Philosophy begins with the distinction between the what of
being and that being. What of being is being as essence and that being is the contingent
beings pure actuality of existence. This actuality is not an attribute of being but its
existentiality, the very facticity of its coming into being. From here comes the distinction
between a negative philosophy, that is, the rational philosophy that is essentially concerned with
the essence of being (its what character) and the positive philosophy that is concerned with the
pure actuality of the existence of that being which comes into its being. Such a being (that
being) is not a settled entity that is given, but that which comes into being . Schelling calls such a
coming into being, existence. Since this coming into being is not a finished entity but yet
becoming and always contingent, it cannot be grasped in the concept. Therefore existence and
movement cannot be a logical category. There is a concept only if a being already exists, for by
definition concept can only grasp the essence of being which in turn is possible if such a being
already exists. Understood in this sense, negative philosophy is not concerned with the facticity
of something that exists at all. Therefore it is not concerned with the question why something
exists at all? The negative philosophy is rather concerned with the question: if and if something
exists, what is its essence, what is the being character of this being irrespective of the problem
whether such a being exists as this being at all.
For example, when Kant argues against the ontological proof of God, he argues neither for the
existence of God nor for its non-existence. He only argues that the concept of God is not
extendable to the existence of God because existence cannot be predicated. In so far as
existence cannot be predicated, its actuality or facticity can only be for rational philosophy a
presupposition. This presupposition is a point of beginning whose existence can only be deduced
only if such an existence is already granted; only if such and such a being has already revealed
itself. What then Kants philosophy shows, for Schelling, is the limit of negative philosophy, a
limit that constitutes the possibility of negative philosophy. Schelling does not contest the
possibility of negative philosophy, but precisely demands it however, on the condition that it
recognizes this limit that is constitutive of it and does not pretend to be able to constitute itself as

absolute system that includes the concept as well as existence of being. What Schelling finds
problematic in Hegel is not that there should not be negative philosophy, but of Hegels claim to
include existence in a system that is logical and purely negative system. For Schelling, Hegels
extension of his negative notion of system to the Absolute totality without outside is without
justification. For Schelling there always remains a remainder of such a system of negativity,
which is the positivity of existence. Hegels system is founded upon purely negative relation of
the finite being in relation to other finite beings where the unconditioned is supposed to be
reached as a self-negation of negation. According to this conception, the unconditioned is the end
result of a process of the self-cancellation of finite, conditioned entities. As early as 1804 in a
lecture in Wrzburg on The System of Philosophy in General Schelling contests this idea of the
absolute as the end result of a process of the self-negation of finitude. According to Schelling,
such a system is based upon a false premise and a presupposition. It presupposes to have reached
the unity of being and thought, while it reaches such a unity merely in thought that means, only
from negative side. It leaves out the pure actuality of existence whose unconditional character of
its being cannot be merely the result of a dialectical process of the self-cancellation of finitude.
Unlike Hegels claim, a purely negative philosophy cannot be presupposition-less. It presupposes
what it cannot incorporate within its systemic edifice. This limitation of negative philosophy
demands a positive philosophy that begins with the unconditionality of existence, with a prius
whose existence can only be proved posteriori once there is a manifest world. Schelling called
such a positive philosophy, metaphysical Empiricism. Hence the idea of a positive philosophy
is where the ground is a presupposition. This presupposition is the unconditional existence of
being whose pure actuality no rational knowledge based upon potentiality can ever attain. While
the philosophical concept that is essentially concerned with essence can only elaborate the
possibility of being, the actuality of being itself is beyond such categorical cognition, for the
existence of this being exists as absolute freedom and not as a necessary consequence of a
concept.
Here the limit of the Idealist notion of system is reached. Schelling in these lectures shows that
the (Hegelian ) notion of the Subject presupposes as its condition that which cannot be further
grounded in the Subject itself. One then has to begin from the pure actuality of existence, from a
facticity, which is already always before self-consciousness and before thoughts ability to grasp
it in the concept. This immemoriality of the origin is the exuberance of being that elicits from
us awe or respect ( Achtung), because it exposes us to the Infinite that unconditionally and
groundlessly exists. It thereby exposes us to our own finitude and mortality.

3. Influences
How deeply Schellings later philosophy has influenced Kierkegaard cannot be shown by
quoting Kierkegaard or from Kierkegaards self-understanding. This can better be shown by
understanding Kierkegaards anti-systematic notions of existence, temporality and finitude
that he understands to be irreducible to the general order of the system. Like Schelling,
Kierkegaard understands the question of existence as the highest question of philosophy. There is
in existence something that cannot be grasped in the predicative. Likewise, in the realm of
history there is a preponderant mass of contingencies that cannot be completely and exhaustively
accounted by the speculative dialectical logic. The Post-Schellingian philosophies that are
concerned with this problem have the source of their inspiration in Schellings later works. For

Schelling neither history nor existence is a homogenous process leading straight, necessarily, to a
telos of absolute knowledge by irresistible law which is auto-generative and anonymous. History
is rather a field of polemos where agonal forces are at work. Kierkegaards The Concept of
Anxiety begins with a Schellingian note. Kierkegaard here argues, in a manner that recalls
Schellings critique of Hegel, that the notion of movement does not allow itself to be thought
within the immanent speculative logic of Hegel, for the true movement presupposes
transcendence which by definition a logical category cannot grasp. The task of Kierkegaards
philosophy is to open towards an Archimedean point outside totality, or outside the general,
normative order of validity. That point cannot be attained within the realm of the ethical, that is,
within the homogenous order of universal norms, but in a quantum leap of faith. That leap of
faith must pass through an existential experience of anxiety (Angst) which no phenomenology of
spirit can thematize.
This anxiety has family resemblance with Schellings notion of anxiety of the mortal who
constantly flees from the fire of the centre and takes shelter in the periphery. In Schelling as well
as in Kierkegaard, especially in his Fear and Trembling, this anxiety manifests the irreducible
finitude of the mortal being who is seized by the gaze of the wholly other, the divine, holding his
hand, tearing him out of the totality of finite knowledge. In his Concluding Unscientific
Postscript Kierkegaard attempts to open this universal order of the ethical to the notion of
subjectivity, the subjectivity of that singular individual for whom transcendence of the wholly
other is an existential interest. This existential interest, argues Kierkegaard, cannot be addressed
within the immanent order of the system. One of the most prominent tendencies of the postSchellingian philosophy is this question of existence from the religious point of view. For
Schelling himself the question of religion remains irreducible to the rational-logical system of
knowledge. The transcendence of the absolute cannot be reduced to a theodicy of history. As
early as 1804, Schelling warned in his Philosophy and Religion against the danger of the acts of
legitimacy by the earthly power in the name of the embodiment of the divine in the profane body.
Religion for Schelling, as for Kierkegaard remains irreducible to the violence of a historical
reason that constantly evokes a theological foundation for the justification of its domination. As
against this theologico-political foundation, Kierkegaard evokes the whole other God. Thus
religion cannot be used as the foundation of the profane in order to legitimize the power of
earthly sovereignty, because religion essentially opens us to a non-foundation that eternally
delegitimizes any earthly power, like the power of the State. In his 1804 lecture Philosophy and
Religion and in his Stuttgart lectures of 1810, Schelling raises this important theologico-political
question that has profound significance for our contemporary historical world. The recent
upsurge of the question of political theology attempts to go back to Schelling to see how
Schelling helps us to think of a critique of historical reason.
Such a question is pursued further by Franz Rosenzweig, a German Jewish philosopher who is
contemporary of Martin Heidegger. Rosenzweigs first scholarly work was his doctoral thesis on
Hegel called Hegel and the State. In the wake of his horror of the First World War, Rosenzweig
soon abandoned Hegelianism; his The Star of Redemption, which he wrote on post cards to his
mother when he was in the Balkan Front, is an anti-Hegelian work. In this book, that evokes
Schellings later works as one of the main sources of inspiration, Rosenzweig envisions the
messianic notion of history and redemption beyond the closure of a historical-speculative reason.
This remarkable book begins with the question of existence which he takes from Schellings later

works. It is the notion of the individual, finite existence whose fear of death cannot be consoled
by the concept of the universal history. This demands opening up the closure of the universal
historical reason to the arrival of redemption that is always to come. This eternity which is
always to come, that alone can redeem the violence of a historical reason, does not itself belong
to the Philosophy of the All. Rosenzweigs critique of the philosophy of the All begins with
Schellingian critique of Hegel, that existence precedes thought and thus it cannot be enclosed
within the All. It is what falls outside totality or system, and in this manner opens the world to
the messianic event of pure future. The messianic arrival of eternity does not allow itself to be
reduced to the theological foundation of the profane order, like the power of the State. Thus the
State is no longer an expression of the Absolute. Like Schelling, Rosenzweigs later works are
deeply suspicious of the theodicy of history that legitimizes the political sovereignty of the State.
The question of existence is important for Martin Heideggers early philosophical works. What
Heidegger calls in his early works hermeneutics of facticity has resonance with Schellings
notion of actuality of that, the pre-predicative, pre-conceptual and pre-categorical disclosure.
The existential analytic of Dasein that Heidegger elaborates in his Being and Time and his
deconstruction of the metaphysical foundation of logic has inspiration in Schellings attempt to
open the system of negative philosophy to the more originary revelation of being. Schellings
positive philosophy seeks to release philosophy beyond its metaphysical foundation in the logic
of the thinkable to a disclosure that can only be shown a posteriori . In this sense Schellings
metaphysical empiricism is at once an exit from the metaphysics founded upon the notion of the
predicative truth. What both Heidegger and Rosenzweig have sought to complete is this exit
from metaphysics. Heideggers 1936 lecture on Schelling shows the real importance of
Schellings thinking for him.
The exit from metaphysics is a fundamental problem even for Marx. Ernst Bloch, whom Jrgen
Habermas calls Schellingian Marxist, combines a certain version of Marxism and messianism
that envisions a utopian fulfilment oriented towards the not yet. His The Spirit of Utopia and
his later work The Principle of Hope evoke a notion of history that is disruptive, opening to the
not yet, a fundamental affirmation of future which Schelling always insisted as the very
creative, free task of philosophy. While Schelling has attempted to open the radical notion of
future in a certain eschatological-theological manner, Blochs messianism is essentially an
atheistic eschatology.
Schellings influence is seen to be growing in our contemporary philosophical world. Thus Jean
Louis Chrtien, the French philosopher, has drawn on Schelling from a certain
phenomenological perspective. In his Unforgettable and the Unhoped for, Chrtien is concerned
with the immemoriality of a promise that arrives from the extremity of time, from an eschatos of
future always to come. Chrtien draws here on Schellings notion of the eternal past which has
not come to pass but that is always a past, an immemorial past that, being the principle of
foundation, always opens the world to its futurity. Schelling indeed develops such a notion of an
immemorial past in his The Ages of the World. Like Schelling in his various texts, Chrtien too
evokes Platos notion of Anamnesis as remembrance, not of what has passed, but what has
immemorially opened us to truth. What has found us, the excess that opens us to the world, is
immemorially lost. For both Schelling and Chrtien, this is not the occasion of despair but the
occasion of a creative freedom and the possibility of future. In recent years the Anglophone

philosophical world has been witnessing increased attention to Schellings works. This shows the
continuing relevance of Schelling in our contemporary historical existence. Schellings
philosophy has come to be interpreted and understood as a philosophy of affirmation and a
philosophy of the exuberance of life as against petrified system of concepts. Jason Wirths recent
work on Schelling rightly emphasizes the contemporaneity of Schelling for our concerns: our
ethical concern with the primacy of Good over truth, the affirmation of life beyond the
instrumental use of Reason, the affirmation of the more originary ecstatic temporality, and our
deep ecological concerns. The unconscious has psychoanalysis speaks of, evokes the notion of
unconscious in Schelling, the abyss that cannot be further grounded, and hence is unground. In
Jacques Lacans term, it is the Real that never stops haunting, destabilizing and disturbing the
symbolic order of the world. The indivisible remainder that Schelling speaks of in his 1809
Freedom essay is that element of eternal nature as ground that never ceases de-constituting the
cultural-historical order of totality. The symbolic order of a restrictive Reason never reaches
totality, but always opens to an eternal remnant outside. This question has profound importance
of Schelling for our time.

4. References and Further Reading

a. Primary Sources

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's Smmtliche Werke, ed. K.F.A. Schelling, I

Abtheilung Vols. 1-10, II Abtheilung Vols. 1-4, Stuttgart: Cotta, 1856-61.

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, Ausgewhlte Schriften, 6 Vols., ed. Manfred
Frank, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1985.

Aus Schellings Leben. In Briefen (three volumes), Adamant Media Corporations, 2003.

The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four early essays 1794-6 , trans. F. Marti,
Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1980.

Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature: as Introduction to the Study of this Science , trans. E.E.
Harris and P. Heath with an introduction R. Stern, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1797/1988.

System of Transcendental Idealism, trans. P. Heath with an introduction by M. Vater,

Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1800/1978.

Bruno, or On the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things , trans. with an introduction
by M. Vater, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1802/1984.

The Philosophy of Art , Minnesota: Minnesota University Press, 1802-03/1989.

On University Studies , trans. E.S. Morgan, ed. N. Guterman, Athens, Ohio: Ohio
University Press, 1803/ 1966.

Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, trans. With an introduction
by J. Gutmann, Chicago: Open Court, 1809/1936.

Clara : or On Natures Connection to the Spirit World, trans. Fiona Steinkamp, Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1811/2002.

The Ages of the World, trans. Jason M. Wirth, Albany: State University of New York,
1811-15/2000.

The Ages of the World , trans. F. de W. Bolman, jr., New York: Columbia University
Press, 1811-15/1967.

The Deities of Samothrace , trans. R.F. Brown, Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press,
1815/1977.

On the History of Modern Philosophy, trans. Andrew. Bowie, Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1833-4/1994.

Philosophie der Offenbarung . ed. M. Frank, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1841-2/1977.

Historical-Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology,

Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007.

The Grounding of Positive Philosophy: the Berlin Lectures , trans. Bruce Matthews,
Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008.

Philosophy and Religion , Spring Publications, 2010.

Idealism and the Endgame of Theory , trans. Thomas Pfau , Albany: State University of
New York, 1994.

Philosophy of German Idealism: Fichte, Jacobi and Schelling, ed. Ernst Behler ,
Contuum, 1987.

trans. Richey, M.,

b. Secondary Sources

Beach, Edward Allen, The Potencies of God(s): Schellings Philosophy of Mythology,

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Behun, William A. The Historical Pivot: Philosophy of History in Hegel, Schelling and
Hlderlin , Triad Press, 2006

Beiser, Frederick C., German Idealism: Struggle Against Subjectivism , Harvard: Harvard
University Press, 2008.

Bowie, Andrew, Aesthetics and Subjectivity: from Kant to Nietzsche, Manchester:

Manchester University Press, 1990.

Bowie, Andrew, Schelling and Modern European Philosophy: An Introduction,

London: Routledge, 1993

Brown, Robert F., The Later Philosophy of Schelling: The Influence of Boehme in the
Works of 1809-1815 , The Associated University Press, 1977

Courtine, Jean-Francois , Extase de la raison. Essais sur Schelling, Paris, Galile, 1990

Distaso, Leonardo V., The Paradox of Existence : Philosophy and Aesthetics in the Young
Schelling, Springer, 2010

Esposito, Josephe L., Schellings Idealism and Philosophy of Nature, Associated

University Press, 1977

Fackenheim, Emil, The God Within: Kant, Schelling and Historicity , ed. John W.
Burbridge, University of Toronto Press, 1996

Frank, Manfred, Der Unendliche Mangel an Sein, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1975

Frank, Manfred, Eine Einfhrung in Schellings Philosophie, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1985

Frank, Manfred, Selbstbewutsein und Selbsterkenntnis, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1991

Frank, M. (ed). with Kurz, G., Materialien zu Schellings philosophischen Anfngen,

Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1975

Freydberg, Bernard, Schellings Dialogical Freedom Essay: Provocative Philosophy

Then and Now , State University of New York Press, 2009

Geldhof, J, Revelation, Reason and Reality: Theological Encounters with Jaspers,

Schelling and Baader, Peeters, 2007

Goudeli, Kyriaki, Challenges to German Idealism: Schelling, Fichte and Kant, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2003

Grant, Ian Hamilton, Philosophies of Nature After Schelling, Continuum, 2008

Hegel, G.W. F., The Difference between Fichtes and Schellings System of Philosophy,
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977

Heidegger, Martin, Schellings Abhandlung ber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit,
Tbingen: Niemeyer, 1971. Schellings Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, trans.
Joan Stambaugh, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985

Heidegger, Martin, Die Metaphysik des Deutschen Idealismus (Schelling), Frankfurt:

Klostermann, 1991

Henrich, D. Selbstverhltnisse, Stuttgart: Reclam, 1982

Horn, Friedemann , Schelling and Swedenborg: Mysticism and German Idealism, trans.
George F. Dole , Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, 1997

Jaspers, Karl, Schelling: Gre und Verhngnis, Munich: Piper, 1955

Kierkegaard, Sren, The Concept of Irony/Schelling Lecture Notes : Kierkegaards

Writings Vol 2, Princeton University Press, 1992

Kosch, Michelle, Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling and Kierkegaard, Oxford
University Press, 201

Lauer, Christopher, Suspension of Reason in Hegel and Schelling, Continuum,201

Limnatis, Nectarios G., German Idealism and the Problem of Knowledge: Kant, Fichte,
Schelling and Hegel , Springer, 2010

Marx, W. , The Philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling: History, System, Freedom, Bloomington:

Indiana University Press, 1984

Norman, Judith and Alistair Welchman , ed. New Schelling , Continuum, 2004

OMeara, Thomas, Romantic Idealism and Roman Catholicism: Schelling and the
Theologians, University of Notre Dame Press, 1982

Shaw, Davin Jane , Freedom and Nature in Schellings Philosophy of Art , Continuum,
2011

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Tillich, Paul, Mysticism and Guilt Consciousness in Schellings Philosophical

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Author Information
Saitya Brata Das
Email: satyadx@yahoo.com
The University of Delhi
India