1

The Critique of Subjectivism in Schellings Identity Philosophy

Dustin McWherter
UNESCO World Philosophy Day Colloquium, November 21, 2013
The talk I am going to give for you today focuses on a specific critical argument from the
work of F.W.J. Schelling. This comes from the period of Schellings work that is often referred to
as the identity philosophy, from the first several years of the 19th century. In the argument I am
going to talk about today, Schelling tries to show how his principle of absolute identity cannot be
relativized to an individual epistemological subject. The main purpose of this talk will be to
develop this argument, to expand upon it, and thus to make it into a more extensive and,
hopefully, more compelling critical argument. So, this will require me to go beyond the letter of
Schellings writings to some extent, because my interest in this part of Schellings work is not
exclusively historical. I am also interested in this argument as the basis for a philosophical
critique whose legitimacy may not be restricted to Schellings historical circumstance (if it is
legitimate at all), and so I do not really care about staying true to Schelling in the long run.
However, I should also note that this is very much a work in progress, and one which I
have only very recently begun, and so it is quite provisional, and my confidence in it is cautious.
How this relates to other arguments Schelling makes for absolute idealism, and to Hegels
treatment of the relation between reflection and speculation, and Hegels critiques of Schelling,
are issues I still need to consider, among others, and there is more research I need to do in the
relevant primary and secondary literature. With that said, I will begin with a preliminary
exposition of the terms that will be used in the argument I want to consider.
I. Absolute Identity as the Unifying Context of Thinking
The argument from Schelling I am going to consider is a defence of his principle of
absolute identity against subjectivism. Here, subjectivism is just a broad term intended to
capture any epistemological position that tries to reduce knowledge and its principles to
something subjective, such as a mere idea in the mind, or even consciousness itself. So,
subjectivism is basically a foil for Schellings own position, though he probably has Kant and
Fichte in mind here to some extent. But what does Schelling mean by absolute identity? In
Schellings texts from this period, absolute identity is often presented as the most fundamental
principle of knowledge insofar as it is the unity within which subject and object, the knower and
the known, come together. Thus Schelling often speaks of absolute identity as the identity of
subject and object, or the identity of thought and being, and thus as something that overcomes all
such oppositions as the higher unity within which they become identical.
However, I want to step back from that characterization for a moment to propose a
different, and perhaps more modest, way of thinking about the epistemological function of
absolute identity, which does not have to be cast in terms of the subject-object relation. To do
this, I think it is helpful to briefly trace the philosophical genealogy of absolute identity as a
principle, because the notion that identity has an essential role to play in thinking or in
knowledge is not something that Schelling introduces, it is just something that he radicalizes.
For example, it is well known that the emphasis on a fundamental unity or identity that you often
find in German idealism ultimately comes from Kants principle of the unity of apperception,
which basically says that any kind of cognition is impossible for us unless it is unified by an
identical consciousnessThe I think must be able to accompany all my representations

2
(B131)1, as Kant says. And that basic insight is not exclusive to German philosophy: even the
Scottish common sense philosopher Thomas Reid argues that any process of reasoning is
impossible without the overarching identity of the person that reasons2.
Nevertheless, regardless of whether this identity is construed as that of a person (as Reid says) or
that of an impersonal consciousness (as Kant says), you can discern the general point here: for
any thought or thought process to be possible, all of its components must be unified by and
referred to a self-identical thinking subject. For example, for a syllogism to be thought the
premises and conclusion must all be thought by the same subjectotherwise, the syllogism has
not been thought. The same goes for simpler examples like counting through numbers in
sequence, or thinking of one thing opposed to anotherthere must be something that unifies
these thoughts for them to be thinkable.
Now, I think it is possible to distinguish an even more general point here that does not
have to refer to a subject but still preserves what is essential. In other words, I think it is possible
to at least conceptually distinguish this epistemological function of identity from its reference to
a thinking subject. If this is so, then the epistemological function of identity could be
summarized by saying that any thought requires some unifying context within which all the
components of that thought must be situated. Or, put differently: for any thought to be possible,
all of its components must be positioned within some unifying framework that allows them to be
related to each other.
Now, even if it is possible to define this epistemological function of identity without
construing it in subjective termsby just speaking of a unifying context for thinkingthat
definition by itself does not rule out the possibility that such a unifying context is something
subjective. However, my contention in what follows will be that Schelling has the resources to
rule this possibility out in arguing that absolute identity cannot be construed as something
subjective. This would entail that his principle of absolute identity, or at least one facet of it, can
be seen as a non-subjective version of this unifying context for thinking. I must stress that this is
far from being a complete account of absolute identity as Schelling conceives it. This is only a
consideration of Schellings principle insofar as it performs a basic epistemological function,
which does not even exhaust its full epistemological purpose, not to mention its metaphysical
status. Therefore, Schellings further arguments concerning what absolute identity is as an
epistemological and metaphysical principle will not be given consideration here, though I will
indicate them, along with some other outstanding issues, at the end.
II. Why Absolute Identity Cannot Be Subjective
The critical argument that interests me occurs in Schellings System of Philosophy in
General and the Philosophy of Nature in Particular, which is a lecture course from 1804, and
which is sometimes called the 1804 system, even though it was not published in Schellings
lifetime. A shorter version of this argument occurs in the 1803 Supplement to the Introduction
of Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature3, though I will keep to the text of the 1804 system.
Proceeding to this argument after presenting his principle of absolute identity, Schelling
considers and then answers possible objections from a subjectivist in the following way:
1 The passage continues: for otherwise something would be represented in me that could not be
thought at all, which is as much as to say that the representation would either be impossible or
else at least would be nothing for me (Kant 1998: 246).
2 Cf. Reid 2002: 262.
3 Cf. Schelling 1988: 46-7.

Subjective philosophy cannot oppose this () except by asking: Who, then, is

to know this eternal identity of subject and object? If you reflect on yourself in
the [act of] knowledge, you will realize (a) that it is only you who knows that
identity, (b) that this knowledge does not enable you to transcend yourself either,
moreover (c) that you do not know anything in itself, and, (d) finally, that this
identity, too, is once again a product of your knowledge and consequently only a
mere object of thought for you. () You claim, I might respond, that the
knowledge of the eternal unity is once again only my knowledge, and you ask me
to reflect on myself in order to discover that this is so. However, () I will
simply ask you to consider that this reflection, whereby you render that
knowledge your knowledge and thus render it subjective, is only your reflection,
and that thus one subjectivity cancels out the other. Hence you will have to admit
that the knowledge of the absolute identity, irrespective of the reflection by which
you effect it, is neither your knowledge nor that of any other person, but that it is
precisely absolute knowledge, a knowledge free from any further determination.
(Schelling 1994: 144-5)
So here you have a critique of subjectivism that relies on a familiar kind of internal critique
through self-reference: either the subjectivist stays consistent with his own standards and is
forced to relativize his own thought that absolute identity is relative to some individual, which
deprives that thought of any critical force, or he must abandon his subjective standards and admit
the non-subjective status of absolute identity. In other words, Schelling is arguing that, in its
attempt to relativize absolute identity, subjectivism must either simply cancel itself out or
become a different position.
Now, I think this can be extended into a more robust critique of the subjectivist attempt to
relativize absolute identity by showing exactly why the subjectivist must admit the nonsubjective status of absolute identity. Beyond this simple double bind that Schelling puts
subjectivism into, I think it is possible to argue that subjectivism must actually presuppose
absolute identity as something non-subjective, or at least as something non-relative, in its attempt
to conceive it as something relative. This is because, for the subjectivist to relativize absolute
identity by saying that this is only your knowledge, he must implicitly oppose this to something
beyond your knowledge, for it only makes sense to relativize something if there is something
more or something other than that thing. That is, the subjectivist is saying absolute identity is
only something in you, thereby insinuating that there is or could be much more to reality or
knowledge beyond your grasp of absolute identity. So, in effect, the subjectivist objection
consists in trying to position absolute identity against something else within a broader domain,
so that absolute identity is simply something in you, and beyond you there is or could be
something else.
However, it could be argued that this subjectivist objection must itself conform to the
epistemological function of identity if it is to be thinkable. In other words, for this subjectivist
objection to be thinkable, its componentsabsolute identity as something in you and whatever is
beyond youmust themselves be situated within an overarching identity so that they can be
related in a unified thought or series of thoughts. Crucially, though, it is precisely that
overarching identity that Schelling calls absolute identity, not something that can be relativized
in opposition to something else that transcends it. Thus the subjectivist cannot oppose absolute

4
identity to something beyond it in order to relativize it, because that opposition itself must be
situated within some unifying context in order to be thought, and absolute identity is that
unifying context, not the relative idea that the subjectivist is opposing to something else. That is
why absolute identity cannot be relativized, and why the subjectivist must presuppose its nonrelative status in the attempt to relativize it: because absolute identity is a non-relative condition
for any thinkable relativization. Put differently, the issue here is that the subjectivist thinks of
absolute identity as positioned in some way, whereas absolute identity is actually the nonpositioned context of thinkable positionality.
Nevertheless, even if this fairly basic subjectivism can be handled this way, one might
still object that rather than absolute identity being something in the subject as a thought or a
piece of knowledge, it could instead actually be the subject or part of the structure of the subject,
as is the case in Kants conception of transcendental subjectivity. However, I think it might be
possible to extend the previous argument to counter this objection as well, to show why it does
not make sense to construe absolute identity in terms of subjectivity. This extension of the
previous argument resembles an argument Schelling makes in another text from the same period,
Bruno, or On the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things4. The point here is that if absolute
identity is the unifying context for thinking, and as such is a non-relative condition for any
thinkable relativization, then it does not make sense to conceive it as something that is bounded,
or limited, or constituted by its relations to other things. In other words, there is no good reason
to think of absolute identity as something that can be conceptually relativized. But that is
precisely how we usually think of an epistemological subject: as something that is opposed to or
mediated by an object. Even Kants transcendental subject, despite being impersonal and
supposedly non-metaphysical, is still characterized in terms of finitude, and the unity of
apperception is dependent upon the representations it synthesizes since consciousness is
mediated by its objects5.
If that is the case, then such a subject can only be a relative identity instead of an absolute
one. This is why Schellings principle is called absolute identity: it is absolute in the sense that it
is absolved of any relation that would position it within a broader context. Only a relative
identity can be positioned that way. Absolute identity has no constitutive opposite or relative
position, because it is the unifying context within which any opposition or relation is thinkable.
As Schelling says in Bruno, every pair of opposites is really and truly an opposition only insofar
as its members must be posited in one and the same thing (Schelling 1984: 136). Absolute
identity is that one and the same thing, so why should it be conceived as something that only
occupies one part of a conceptual opposition or relation? This is not to say that absolute identity
cannot be defined or cannot be thought, but only to say that it cannot be defined or thought of as
something to which one could oppose something else beyond it, since you would need absolute
identity to think that opposition. Thus, to conceive of absolute identity as something relative or
subjective is not only to misunderstand it but also to obscure one of its epistemological functions.
III. Some Outstanding Issues
4 Cf. Schelling 1984: 157.
5 it is only because I can combine a manifold of given representations in one consciousness that
it is possible for me to represent the identity of the consciousness in these representations
itself, i.e., the analytical unity of apperception is only possible under the presupposition of some
synthetic one (Kant 1998: 247). Cf. Kants Refutation of Idealism at ibid 326-9.

5
Nevertheless, even if at this point it is clear that and how the subjectivist misconceives absolute
identity, the nature of the thought in which absolute identity is correctly conceived remains to be
elucidated. Schellings answer to this question is fairly straightforward but quite controversial:
the adequate grasp of absolute identity is non-discursive insofar as it takes place through
intellectual intuition, an immediate yet non-sensible apprehension6. However, while giving
intellectual intuition its due consideration, I would also like to explore the possibility that
absolute identity can be sufficiently captured discursively. This could perhaps involve something
like an interpretation of the conceptual content of true propositions about absolute identity, in
which that content describes absolute identity in a way that is consistent with the latters
absoluteness.
Furthermore, it is this very absoluteness that motivates Schellings ascription of metaphysical
status to absolute identity: since the latter cannot be thought of as a relative identity beyond
which there could be something else, Schelling argues that it must be an absolute totality and
thus the universe itself7. While this is an intriguing line of reasoning worthy of attention, I would
also like to consider an alternative line wherein absolute identity need not be accorded
metaphysical status so quickly and perhaps remains a purely epistemological principle instead.
Since a purely epistemological principle might be taken as a relative identity insofar as it is
something that merely pertains to thought as opposed to being, this alternative would require a
critical analysis of Schellings conception of the nature of the opposition between thought and
being. I plan to pursue these questions, among others, in future work.
Bibliography:
Kant, Immanuel (1998). Critique of Pure Reason. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Reid, Thomas (2002). Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man: A Critical Edition.
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Schelling, F.W.J. (1984). Bruno, or On the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
(1988). Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(1994). Idealism and the Endgame of Theory: Three Essays by F.W.J. Schelling.
Albany: State University of New York Press.
(2001a). Presentation of My System of Philosophy. The Philosophical Forum, Vol.
XXXII, No. 4, Winter 2001, pp. 339-71.
(2001b). Further Presentations from the System of Philosophy. The Philosophical
Forum, Vol. XXXII, No. 4, Winter 2001, pp. 373-97.

6 Cf. Schelling 2001b: 376-84.

7 Cf. Schelling 2001a: 352, 357, and 359-60.