Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling - Works

Works

In 1793 Schelling contributed to Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus's Memorabilien. His 1795 dissertation was De Marcione Paullinarum epistolarum emendatore, on the Pauline epistles according to Marcion of Sinope. In 1794, Schelling published an exposition of Fichte's thought entitled Über die Möglichkeit einer Form der Philosophie überhaupt (On the possibility of a form of philosophy in general). This work was acknowledged by Fichte himself and immediately earned Schelling a reputation among philosophers. His more elaborate work, Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie, oder über das Unbedingte im menschlichen Wissen (On Self as principle of philosophy, or on the unrestricted in human knowledge, 1795), while still remaining within the limits of the Fichtean idealism, showed a tendency to give the Fichtean method a more objective application, and to amalgamate Spinoza's views with it. He contributed articles and reviews to the Philosophisches Journal of Fichte and Friedrich Immanuel Niethammer, and threw himself into the study of physical and medical science. In 1795 Schelling published Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kritizismus (Philosophical letters on dogmatism and criticism), consisting of 10 letters addressed to an unknown interlocutor that presented both a defense and critique of the Kantian system.

In the period 1796/7 there was written the seminal manuscript now known as the Älteste Systemprogramm des Deutschen Idealismus (Oldest system-programme of German idealism). It survives in Hegel's handwriting. On its first publication (1916) by Franz Rosenzweig, it was attributed to Schelling. It has also been claimed for Hegel, and Hölderlin.

In 1797 Schelling published the essay "Neue Deduction des Naturrechts" (New deduction of natural law), which anticipated Fichte's treatment of the topic in the Grundlage des Naturrechts (Foundations of natural law). His studies of physical science bore fruit in the Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (Ideas concerning a philosophy of nature) (1797), and the treatise Von der Weltseele (On the world-soul) (1798). In Ideen Schelling referred to Leibniz and quoted from his Monadology. He held Leibniz in high regard because of his view of nature during his natural philosophy period.

In 1800 Schelling published System des transcendentalen Idealismus (System of transcendental idealism, 1800). This work has been seen as a precursor of Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams. In this book Schelling described transcendental philosophy and nature philosophy as complementary to one another. Fichte reacted by stating that Schelling was working on the basis of a false philosophical principle: in Fichte's theory nature as Not-Self (Nicht-Ich = object) couldn't be a subject of philosophy, whose essential content is the subjective activity of the human intellect. The breach became unrecoverable in 1800, after Schelling published Darstellung des Systems meiner Philosophie (Description of the system of my philosophy). Fichte thought this title absurd, since in his opinion philosophy could not be personalized. Moreover, in this book Schelling publicly expressed his estimation of Spinoza, whose work Fichte had repudiated as dogmatism, and declared that nature and spirit differ only in their quantity, but are essentially identical (Identitaet). According to Schelling, the absolute was the indifference or identity, which he considered to be an essential subject of philosophy.

The "Aphorisms on Naturphilosophie" published in the Jahrbücher der Medicin als Wissenschaft (1806–1808) are for the most part extracts from the Würzburg lectures, and the Denkmal der Schrift von den göttlichen Dingen des Herrn Jacobi was a response to an attack by Jacobi (the two accused each other of atheism). A work of significance is the Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände (Investigations of Human Freedom, Philosophische Schriften i, 1809), which carries out, with increasing tendency to mysticism, the thoughts of the previous work, Philosophie und Religion (Philosophy and religion, 1804). However, in a change from the Jena period works, now evil is not an appearance coming from the quantitative differences between the real and the ideal, but something substantial. This work clearly paraphrased Kant's distinction between intelligible and empirical character. Otherwise, Schelling himself called freedom "a capacity for good and evil."

The tract "Über die Gottheiten zu Samothrake" (On the divinities of Samothrace) appeared in 1815, ostensibly a portion of a greater work, Die Weltalter (The ages of the world), frequently announced as ready for publication, but of which little was ever written. Schelling planned Die Weltalter as a book in three parts, describing the past, present, and future of the world; however, he began only the first part, rewriting it several times and at last keeping it unpublished. The other two parts were left only in planning. Christopher John Murray describes the work as follows:

Building on the premise that philosophy cannot ultimately explain existence, he merges the earlier philosophies of Nature and identity with his newfound belief in a fundamental conflict between a dark unconscious principle and a conscious principle in God. God makes the universe intelligible by relating to the ground of the real but, insofar as nature is not complete intelligence, the real exists as a lack within the ideal and not as reflective of the ideal itself. The three universal ages — distinct only to us but not in the eternal God — therefore comprise a beginning where the principle of God before God is divine will striving for being, the present age, which is still part of this growth and hence a mediated fulfillment, and a finality where God is consciously and consummately Himself to Himself.

No authentic information on the new positive philosophy of Schelling was available till after his death (at Bad Ragatz, on 20 August 1854). His sons then began the issue of his collected writings with the four volumes of Berlin lectures: vol. i. Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology (1856); ii. Philosophy of Mythology (1857); iii. and iv. Philosophy of Revelation (1858).