Miklos Vetö has already contributed several articles and a textual analysis to Schelling studies. For the University of Turin’s series Philosophica varia he edited a second text of the Romantic Idealist’s Conferences at Stuttgart. That volume was begun by an introduction of a hundred pages containing a masterful presentation of Schelling’s thought at that crucial moment. With Le fondement Vetö, professor at Abidjan, Ivory Coast, gives us a full exposition of Schelling’s many faceted thought. This exposition is (...) arranged around the ultimate source and goal of his thought. In the early systems Schelling called it "consciousness of self" or "the absolute," but Vetö employs as the leitmotif for his book, Grund. This volume is not a precise analysis of the primal and turbulent ground of reality in one or another period of Schelling’s enterprise; it is, rather, a study of richness of Schelling’s thought arranged around the explanation of this term, both from within the various systems of Schelling and from without through his philosophical contemporaries. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is not to enter into a detailed discussion of the nature of the Absolute and the Individual, but to show that on the Hegelian conception of the Absolute the individual self is not saved. Hegel is fond of reiterating that his Absolute is not a bare one, but a one in many, an organic whole, a perfect and harmonious system of an infinite number of individual selves. The individual, as in Spinoza and Schelling, does (...) not lose itself in the Absolute. The latter is not a lion's den into which all animals enter but from which none returns, not a mere darkness in which all cows are black, but a system of different individuals. (shrink)

Throughout his life, Hegel showed great interest in physics and mathematics. His most sustained, surviving treatment of Euclidean geometry is his early work ‘Geometrische Studien’, which he completed while he was a private tutor [Hoffmeister] in Frankfurt, shortly before leaving for Jena to join Schelling.GSis not easy reading, but despite that, it seems to me that Hegel presents in it a remarkably erudite as well as interesting and insightful critique of geometry. He investigates some of the themes from the (...) foundations of geometry, in particular from the first book of theElements of Euclid. Like the mathematical philosophies of Kant and Frege, Hegel's understanding of geometry is conceptually based, but unlike them, it is also grounded in the classical Greek philosophy of mathematics, which achieved its definitive expression in Proclus's great commentary onEuclid 1. Much of this classical philosophy of geometry is forgotten nowadays, under the influence of the great modern mathematical philosophers. In my view, it well deserves reconsideration, especially since, as illustrated by Gödel's incompleteness theorems, modern mathematical philosophy has failed in its attempt to ground mathematics within the framework of formal systems.Much ofGShas not survived, and what remains is condensed and fragmentary. It seems that originally, Hegel covered all of the propositions ofEuclid 1rather than just the 14 propositions that are covered in what remains of the originalGS. I have given detailed treatment ofGStogether with related material in Hegel's Jena dissertation elsewhere. The objective of the present paper is to introduce the translation ofGS. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 77 as indicated, makes a highly convincing case, if not for his thesis, at least for his approach. We need more such research. The history of philosophy must be more than the history of philosophies. But is a method which excludes subjective elements and treats ideologies only in function of material factors really total? Refusing to admit the "idealistic" notion of a kind of freedom, of (...) human self-possession, independent not of history (of which it is a part) but of historical determinism, the materialist is driven into rationalizations as baroque as those of the idealist he fights. The substantial uses of the materialist approach, which S~ve makes clear, have been too much ignored; and ideological interpretations tend, as he says, to confuse issues too uncomfortable to face. But materialism too has its ideological confusions which cannot be discerned by autocriticism alone. For who is to see whether the tree continues to be when there's no one about in the quad? EUGEN WEBER University of California, Los Angeles THE PHILOSOPHYOF CHARLES SECRETAN 1815.1895 The philosophy of Seer&an is still important. It best illustrates the nature of the thought of Romanic French-speaking Switzerland in its perpetual attempt to keep up-to-date and to combine science (as exact knowledge) with religion (that is, Christianity). To this day Romanic Swiss thought is a strange mixture of science, speculation, civics, democracy, pedagogics, and traditional Christianity. We find all these elements in Charles Secr6tan, but his thought is also important when taken by itself. Moreover, it illustrates what some scholars call the spiritual greatness of the nineteenth century. Charles Secr6tan was born in 1815 at Lausanne. As a child he was precocious. At the age of four he read short stories fluently. In his youth he was fond of books and had a vivid sense of the beauty of nature. His father was a magistrate tending to Voltairian skepticism. His mother was a devout woman but very reserved and of few words. Charles studied law at the Academy (University) of his city. He came to accept the political liberalism of that day but also underwent the influence of the current religious Rdveil. This was an individualistic awakening of personal Christianity in opposition to the dead orthodoxy and church-conformity of the previous century. In other words, Secrdtan came to believe that adherence to a religion should involve something personally felt, rather than a mere following of the mores of the community. Between 1835 and 1840, he spent some semesters in Munich, studying under Schelling. Later he was to insist upon the originality of his philosophy and its independence of that of his early teacher. In 1837, Seer&an founded the Swiss Review. The next year he was called to teach 78 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Philosophy at the Lausanne Academy. He was suspended by the radical revolution (a sort of demagogery) of 1845. In 1850 he was called to Neuch~ttel and in 1866 recalled to Lausanne where he died in 1895--exactly eighty years old. In the Lausanne Academy, Secr6tan had as a colleague his old friend Alexander Vinet (1797-1847). He found in Vinet a religious force which uplifted his spirit. Vinet was a literary critic, a poet and a professor of the art of preaching, while Secr6tan was a philosopher. Yet Secr6tan owed to Vinet the conviction that no religious doctrine is worthy of acceptance unless it possesses a moral value in itself and in relation to man. The philosophical career of Secr6tan is characterized by three distinct stages (metaphysical, ethical, and sociological) each of which finds expression in an important work: La Philosophie de la Libertd (1849), Le Principe de la Morale (1883), and La Civilisation et la Croyance (1887). We shall therefore consider most briefly Secr~tan's metaphysics, ethics, and sociology. Metaphysics. The starting point of Secr~tan is his contrast of the domain of the conscience (wherein we find being) with the domain of external experience (phenomena). "All our ideas of being come from the fact that [when we affirm something to be] we mean that this something [which is] is analogous to that which we think of when we say 'I am' " (Philosophie de... (shrink)

The fourth volume in Luigi Pareyson’s collection of Philosophica varia inedita vel rariora published in Turin. All four have dealt with Schelling. Two presented unpublished texts edited by M. Vetö and Horst Fuhrmans. This volume and its companion, Schelling im Spiegel seiner Zeitgenossen, are large collections of hitherto unpublished documents pertaining to the life and work of the idealist philosopher.

The first published writings by Schelling, they were largely written at Tübingen at the conclusion of his seminary education and before his encounters with the new natural science and the new romanticism. Only one of these essays exists in the new critical text of Schelling which began to appear in 1979, and so the text Marti employs is that of Cotta reprinted in the edition of this century.

English summary: It was not until the publication of Schelling''s Munich and Berlin lectures that we learned the decisive source for his theory of an identity of identity or identity doubled in itself. Schelling referred to what he called an older logic that was still acquainted with the figure of reduplication, for instance in Leibniz and Wolff. Philosophers in this tradition employed this term to refer to the specification of an aspect under which the subject-term is being considered. (...) An often quoted example: As consul, Fabius Maximus has authority over his father, but as son he stands under his fathers authority. Schelling gave the following turn to reduplication: Nature as nature does not coincide with the mind; and the mind as mind does not coincide with nature. Both have different truth conditions, so as to integrate an essential moment of difference into the identity formula. There is an X, however, which is strictly (seamlessly) identical with itself (the absolute subject = X) while transitively being both of them in turn; and it is only via X that the relata (nature and mind) are indirectly identified with each other: X is B and X is A (and X is strictly identical to itself). In addition to this, Schelling held a view of predication as kind of identification. He became acquainted with this view at the Tubingen Seminary through his teacher Gottfried Ploucquet. This insight helps us understand why Schelling reasonably thought that the identity-formula A=A is the genuine matrix of all veridical judgments. Taken together with his conviction that judging (Kant''s relative position) is a minor (or inferior) form of existential being (Kant''s absolute position) sheds light on why in 1806 Schelling made the radical contention in his Aphorisms: The strict sense of being (absolutely posited seamless self-sameness) is taken over by the looser sense of the copulative is which identifies subject and predicate; yes, this copula alone is existence itself and nothing else. Why should Schelling''s conception of nature-mind identity interest recent philosophers of mind? Because Schelling presents an ontologically neutral solution: Identity is a symmetrical relation that does not favor mind or matter, and prevents the idealistic reduction of nature to the mind. Nor can we conceive of the nature-mind identity as a fact inwardly disclosed to the mind (McGinn, Levine). Consciousness remains an enigma for itself; so does its identity with nature. Schelling teaches us that identity theories are not justified by self-evidence, but by an inference to the best explanation. German description: Nie ist genau erklart worden, was Schelling unter Identitat von Natur und Geist verstand. Dabei hat er sein reifes Denken Identitatssystem genannt und sich zeitlebens um kein zweites Problem begrifflich ahnliche Muhe gegeben. Da er aber seine Uberlegungen in Schriften verpackte, deren grosser systematischer Ausgriff sie schier erdruckte, ist, was er bis hinein in die Weltalter-Periode daruber herausfand, kaum eigens gewurdigt oder auch nur klar benannt worden. Die Schellingliteratur arbeitete entweder historisch oder liess sich vom Systemgedanken oder einzelnen in die Augen springenden Problemen blenden (z. B. Natur, Organismus, Freiheit, Existenz). Dabei ist Schellings Starke in einzelnen entscheidenden Argumenten versteckt, die, waren sie bekannt, die gegenwartige, auch analytische Diskussion durchaus zu inspirieren vermochten. Wir konnen heute urteilen, dass schon der junge Schelling in seiner Schrift Form der Philosophie eine differenzsensitive Form der Identitat im Sinn hatte, die er in den kommenden Jahrzehnten immer genauer auszubuchstabieren unternahm. Seine eigentlichen Quellen hat er kunstvoll verborgen. Es sind erstens die Identitatstheorie der Pradikation seines Universitatslehrers Ploucquet, die den Stiftlern in Tubingen eingeblaut wurde und die ihre merkwurdige Fixierung auf die ganz unkantische Auffassung vom Urteil als Subjekt-Pradikat-Identifikation (mit quantifiziertem Pradikator) erklart. Und zweitens Schellings Entdeckung einer alteren Logik, die mit der Figur der reduplicatio arbeitete. - So auch das Absolute: Als Geist ist es nicht Natur (und umgekehrt; Aussagen uber beide haben unterschiedliche Wahrheitsbedingungen), aber Geist und Natur werden beide vom Absoluten gewesen (transitiv ins Sein gehoben), und dies Absolute ist im striktest denkbaren Sinne mit sich identisch. So lasst sich die Schelling''sche Formel von der Identitat der Identitat und Differenz dem gesunden Menschenverstand vermitteln und Schellings aufrichtiger Jugendgedanke (Marx) aktualisieren. Er schneidet respektabel ab im Wettbewerb mit allerlei heutigen Leib-Seele-Identitatstheorien. (shrink)

War Tubingen in der Tat eine Trutzburg der Orthodoxie, in der den Studenten nichts ubrig blieb, als einen Jakobinerclub zu bilden und revolutionare Literatur einschliesslich der grundsturzenden Philosophie Kants zu lesen? Dieser Frage geht der Verfasser zuerst nach und prasentiert dann Quellen, die das skizzierte Klischee aufheben. Es handelt sich um Archivalien, die Aufschluss uber die akademische Lehre geben. Die Autoren sind u.a. Holderlins Freunde Magenau und Neuffer, der kantische Enrage Diez und der spatere Begrunder des Philosophischen Journals Niethammer.

On 6 January 1795, the twenty-year-old Schelling—still a student at the Tübinger Stift—wrote to his friend and former roommate, Hegel: “Now I am working on an Ethics à la Spinoza. It is designed to establish the highest principles of all philosophy, in which theoretical and practical reason are united”. A month later, he announced in another letter to Hegel: “I have become a Spinozist! Don’t be astonished. You will soon hear how”. At this period in his philosophical development, (...) class='Hi'>Schelling had been deeply under the spell of Fichte’s new philosophy and the Wissenschaftslehre. The text Schelling was writing at the time was the early Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie, though his characterization of this text would much better fit the somewhat later work which is the focus of the current paper: Schelling’s 1801 Darstellung meines System der Philosophie (hereafter: Presentation). The Presentation is a text written more geometrico, following the style of Spinoza’s Ethics. While Spinoza’s influence and inspiration is stated explicitly and unmistakably in Schelling’s preface, the content of this composition might seem quite foreign to Spinoza’s philosophy, so much so, in fact, that Michael Vater—the astute translator and editor of the recent English translation of the text—has contended that “despite the formal similarities between Spinoza’s geometrical method and Schelling’s numbered mathematical-geometrical constructions, Schelling’s direct debts to Spinoza are few”. The Presentation is an extremely dense and difficult text, and while I agree that at first glance Schelling’s engagement with the concept of reason (Vernunft) and the identity formula ‘A=A’ seems to have little if anything to do with Spinoza (especially since Spinoza’s key terminology of ‘God’, ‘causa sui’, ‘substance’, ‘attribute’, and ‘mode’ is barely mentioned in the Presentation), I suspect that at a deeper level Schelling is attempting to transform Spinoza’s system by replacing God, Spinoza’s ultimate reality, with reason. Though this might at first seem bizarre, I believe it can be profitably motivated and explained upon further reflection. It is this transformation of Spinoza’s God into (the early) Schelling’s reason that is the primary subject of this study. I develop this paper in the following order. In the first part I provide a very brief overview of Schelling’s lifelong engagement with Spinoza’s philosophy, which will prepare us for my study of the 1801 Presentation. In the second part, I consider the formal structure and rhetoric of the Presentation against the background of Spinoza’s Ethics, and show how Schelling regularly imitates Spinoza’s tiniest rhetorical gestures. In the third and final part I turn to the opening of the Presentation, and argue that Schelling attempts there to distance himself from Fichte by developing a conception of reason as the absolute, or the identity of the subject and object, just as the thinking substance and the extended substance are identified in Spinoza’s God. (shrink)

La contribution de Schelling à l’esthétique aura d’abord consisté à en récuser l’appellation et le projet, expressément rattachés à la science du beau fondée par Baumgarten, parce que l’art n’est pas essentiellement axé, à ses yeux, sur le sensible, mais sur une beauté élevée au-dessus de toute sensibilité. La philosophie de l’art a pour tâche de présenter la philosophie universelle sous la puissance de l’art, de construire l’univers sous la forme de l’art. La généalogie de l’art à partir de (...) l’Absolu, en laquelle consiste une telle construction, en est aussi la reconstitution, dans l’horizon marqué d’historicité d’une théogonie (ou histoire des dieux) où l’apparition des dieux signale l’avènement de la forme. Dans quelle mesure la philosophie de l’art de Schelling demeure-t-elle comme une écharde dans la chair de l’esthétique? Est-on fondé à parler d’une réception à son propos? On posera ici quelques jalons. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 187 standing. He picks his way philosophicelly ~darough the many preludes, interludes and epilogues of the long, autobiographical poem, The Prelude. He succeeds in interpreting philosophically.Wordsworth's absorption in "the life of things" and the "immanence of the world soul." These ideas remain, it seems to me, in Wordsworth's mind as well as in.his art primarily "lyrical ballads." But Melvin Rader has given us a thoroughly intelligible account, (...) both historical and philosophical, of both Coleridge and Wordsworth as reflectiveminds, without detracting item them as artists. HERBERTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont Graduate School and Unlver~i~y Center gchelting et la R~alit~ Finis: Essai sur la Philosophic de la Nature et de l'[dentit~. By Judith E. Schlanger. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966. Pp. 162. = Biblioth~que de Philosophie Contemporaine: Histoire de ta Philosophie et Philosophie Gfin6rale. Paper, F. 12.--) L'dtude de Judith E. Schlanger pr~se~te un bref expos6 des th~mes princ~paux de la pens~e philosophlque de Schelling en retra~ant de fa~on plus ou moius syst6matique l'itindraire spirituel de ce grand penseur qui a crd6 les fondsments spdculatifs du romantisme aIlemand. La philosophie de Schelling refl~te une ardeur,constants de recherche toujours progressive miroitant lea rythmes intimes de son articulation/~ la fois subtile et intensive. Nous allons donner en raccourci la principale ligne d'6volution de cette pens~e. L'essai de Schlanger a pour objet propre le probl~me philosophique qui rdsulte de la connexion 6troite de deux th~mes constituant les fondoments de la philosophie schellingienne, notamment le bh6me d'une philosophie concrAte qui rdcupAre intdgralement l'intuition et celui de la simultan6it6 de l'absolu et du finidans une rdalitdqui n'est constitu6e que par des totas diserAtes. Pour Schelling l'absolu n'est autre chose que la rdalitd concrete constitude par l'ensemble des totalitds individuelles et particuli6res qui sent con~ues comme dtant organiques et qui sent intelligibles, c'est-~.dire leur prdsence et leur raison d'etre coincident et ne peuvent ~tre saisiesque par l'immddiatetd de l'intuition intellectuelle et non par une rationslitd ddductive. L'absolu eat organicitd intelligibleau moyen d'un mode de connaissance intdgralement intuitif, done de rationalitd/t dvidence pleine et non de rationalitd ~t mddiation conceptuelle. L'absolu est done un total, une totalitd complexe ~ cause do ses articulations ind6finiment multiples ~tl'intdrieur. La philosophie enest la transposition aussi bien dans son d6veloppement actuel que dans l'embrassement des multiples ddterminations en un totalitarisme du savoir. L'instrument opdrationnel et cognitif capable d'61aborer cette transposition est l'intuition,la "Anschauung". En effet l'intuition joue un r61e capital dans la philosophie de Schelling. Issue directement de l'exp6rience sensible, c'est-~-dire, concrbte et individuelle, ellepermet d'englober dans l'immddiatetd d'une seule dvidence ~ la fois coner ~te et totale la coprdsence et la contemporandit6 de l'absolu et du finien une unit6 positive, non-dialectique, mais organique. Il est vrai que le scheme de l'organisme et de l'organicitd detains la pensde de ScheUing. L'absolu et le finisent en correlation organique. L'actualit6 dvidents de leur opposition manifeste leur copr~ence simultande, ce qui traduit leur unit~ absolue, sous-jacente qui a rendu possible cette opposition. La liaison effective, rdelle,empiriquement constatde des deux termes opposds leur suppose un fondement commun absolu. La dichotomie n'estpas primordiale, l'antith~sea pour support affirmatifun absolu. L'absolu est le lieu de l'identitd des opposds. C'est la coincidence immddiate entre des termes antinomiques qui d6finitl'unitd absolue. Et de cet absolu, la philosophic poss~de un savoir imm6diat, c'est-~dire absolu. II en rdsulte que l'intuitionest le principe m~me de l'intelligibilitd.Le probIAme phUosophique capital qui se pose et que Schlanger dtudie dana l'ceuvre de Schelling depuis les ddbuts de sa pensde en 1794jusqu'au moment o~1la philosophie de l'Identitd eat constitude, en 1804environ s'dnonce comme suit: La vision de l'identit6 immddiate des opposds comme forme de la rdalitd absolue pourra-t-elle s'articuler dans un savoir systdmatique et objective- 188 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ment communicable de la totalit6... (shrink)

One project of philosophical research which would likely prove of little profit is a history of philosophy the epochs of which are the greatest philosophical jokes. Although philosophers have always said innumerable funny things, notable sources of humor have been few and far between: Socrates, though not Plato, Nietzsche, though not Zarathustra, and more recently perhaps Bernard Williams or Jacques Derrida. The most a scholar can usually hope for is a clever barb punctuating pages of deathly earnestness. Such is the (...) case with Hegel: although occasionally possessed of a biting wit, his sense of humor was hardly world-historical. Modernity, although many other things, simply isn't very funny. Schelling, however, had the good fortune to be the victim of Hegel's greatest jest. An "Absolute" such as Schelling's, Hegel says, would be the night in which all cows are black.". (shrink)

Kant bestimmt Weisheit als Erkenntnis des und Angemessenheit des Willens zum höchsten Gut. Dieses versteht er als Vereinigung von Moralität und Glück. Da diese nicht aus derselben Gesetzlichkeit zu begreifen sind, denkt Kant zur Vermittlung die Postulate Unsterblichkeit und Gott. Die Idee des höchsten Guts praktisch, d. i. für die Maxime unseres vernünftigen Verhaltens, hinreichend zu bestimmen, ist für Kant die Weisheitslehre, wissenschaftlich reflektiert die Philosophie. Schelling schließt sich dem an; auch für ihn ist Philosophie Wollen der Weisheit. Diese (...) sieht auf das letzte Ziel, auf das, was in Wahrheit sein soll. Dieses zu wissen und zum bestimmenden Grund des Willens zu machen ist für Schelling Weisheit. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionSchelling and the EnvironmentChelsea C. Harry (bio)Scientists overwhelmingly agree that climate change is anthropogenic, caused by our greenhouse gas emissions.1 Given the evidence that exists, we should be able to convince ourselves to change the everyday behaviors resulting in these emissions. If we hope to save ourselves, other animals, plants, and the environment from a devastating future, then why would we continue to use fossil fuels?The answer here is (...) not an easy one. And yet, the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle, provides us with a possible cause. In his most famous work on ethics,2 Aristotle argued that being weak-willed, suffering from what he called, “akrasia,” is the reason we do things that we know we shouldn’t do. It is a condition that results when desire wins over reason. For example, I eat a chocolate bar when I know I should eat a salad because my desire for chocolate wins over what I have reasoned to be best for my health. Simply put, reason might be what distinguishes us from other animals and plants, but it is not always our most powerful faculty. It stands both to experience and to reason, then, that rational decision might not be what is going to get us out of this climate crisis. Then, what is?In this special issue, we hear from five contemporary scholars of the 18th–19th century German philosopher, F.W.J. Schelling, an oft-called “protean thinker” whose prolific, sometimes creative, and diverse works spanned over seventy years. A onetime roommate of Hegel and Hölderlin, Schelling’s works are lesser-known outside specialist circles, and yet one finds that his prescient insights continue to have much to offer. This is especially true vis-à-vis the climate crisis, as Schelling was the first post-Kantian philosopher to take nature seriously. He eschewed the modern, Kantian, and post-Kantian trend to focus on [End Page 1] ipseity, the self, and on what we as humans can rationally know. Instead, he returned to metaphysics and argued for a wholistic conception and experience of life—all life. For Schelling, humans are rational as an expression of nature, rather than as an exception to nature. As John Sallis put it so well as he argued for the Platonic influence in Schelling: “For what Schelling rewrites within the text of modern philosophy is a discourse on nature.”3 Sallis then reminds us that in Schelling’s 1809 text, Philosophical Investigations of the Essence of Human Freedom (“Die Freiheitschrift”), he openly criticizes post-Cartesian philosophy generally for its exclusion of nature; “All modern European philosophy since it began with Descartes has this common defect, that nature does not exist for it and that it lacks a living ground.”4 Schelling’s intention was to resolve the defect, and because of his efforts in this regard, his work has something to say to us about our relationship to the environment.The idea to think about what Schelling can offer us in our current climate crisis is hardly new. In 2014, the North American Schelling Society (NASS), hosted by Bruce Matthews and Bard College, thematized its third international conference on “Schelling in the Anthropocene,” asking scholars to think beyond modern philosophy’s legacy of the human/nature divide and to discuss Schelling’s contribution to the anthropogenic environmental crisis we currently face. Since then, published work on this topic includes: Bruce Matthews’s, “Schelling in the Anthropocene,”5 Christopher Lauer’s, “Confronting the Anthropocene,” 6 and Vincent Lee’s, “Schelling and the Sixth Extinction.”7 Other journals have published special issues on related topics, including McGrath et al. Schelling After Theory special issue of Symposium: Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy, McGrath et al. The Many Faces of F.W.J. Schelling special issue of Analecta Hermeneutica, Tritten et al. Nature, Speculation, and the Return to Schelling special issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, and Bahoh, et al. Philosophies of Nature special issue of Comparative and Continental Philosophy. While this is by no means an exhaustive list, other contemporary thinkers who have been part of this conversation include: Kyla Bruff, Charlotte Alderwick, Manfred Frank, Markus Gabriel, Iain Grant,8 Lore... (shrink)

_Hegel and Schelling in Early Nineteenth-Century France_ is a two-volume work that documents the French reception of G. W. F. Hegel and F. W. J. Schelling from 1801 to 1848. It shows that the story of the "French Hegel" didn't begin with Wahl and Kojève by giving readers a solid understanding of the various ways in which German Idealism impacted nineteenth-century French philosophy, as well as providing the first ever English-language translations of excerpts from the most important philosophical (...) texts of the era. Inside volume two, readers will find a series of scholarly studies to help them get to grips with this neglected field in the history of ideas. The contributors are world-leading and emerging experts from Europe, UK, and North America. They highlight the stakes and trace the pathways of this reception for French and German thought during the period, including the ways in which French philosophers of the period took up the debates and concepts of German Idealism, transformed them or rejected them. In this way, the volume aims to redress the serious neglect of early nineteenth-century French thought in English-language scholarship and, in so doing, goes beyond a nation-based narrative of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

_Hegel and Schelling in Early Nineteenth-Century France_ is a two-volume work that documents the French reception of G. W. F. Hegel and F. W. J. Schelling from 1801 to 1848. It shows that the story of the "French Hegel" didn't begin with Wahl and Kojève by giving readers a solid understanding of the various ways in which German Idealism impacted nineteenth-century French philosophy, as well as providing the first ever English-language translations of excerpts from the most important philosophical (...) texts of the era. Inside volume one, readers will find a number of interpretative frameworks to help them get to grips with this neglected field in the history of ideas. In addition to excerpted translations and a narrative of Hegel’s and Schelling’s fate in France during the early nineteenth century, this volume includes an introduction on transnational reception history, as well as an analytical catalogue of the translations of their work produced in French at this time, of the publications which appropriated or interrogated their philosophical legacy, and of the journals, institutional structures and other mechanisms of dissemination that brought Hegel’s and Schelling’s philosophy into France. The book thus details the ways in which French philosophers of the period took up the debates and concepts of German Idealism, transformed them or rejected them. In this way, it aims to contribute to a reversal of the serious neglect of early nineteenth-century French thought in English-language scholarship and, in so doing, goes beyond a nation-based narrative of the history of philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Controversy Between Schelling and Jacobi LEWIS S. FORD SCHELLING, ALONGWITH FICHTE, has suffered the fate of being labelled one of tIegel's predecessors. Richard Kroner provides the classic expression of this viewpoint in his monumental study, Von Kant bis Hegel, which examines Schelling's thought primarily for its contribution to Hegel's final synthesis.I In English we have Josiah Royce's sympathetic and lively account of Schelling's early (...) romantic exuberance, regarded as a transitional stage in the development of German idealism. 2 But this emphasis on the early ScheUing has led to an unfortunate neglect of his work subsequent to the break with Hegel in 1807. Schelling's romanticism, so ably documented by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., 3 can only be regarded as one phase in the total sweep of his thought, for, after the break with Hegel, Schelling produced at least three major works: the essay •ber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit,4 wrestling with the problem of evil and human freedom, the fragmentary Weltalter, 5 which in scope and dialectical intricacy should be compared with Hegel's Logic, and the Philosophie der Mythologie und Offenbarung, 6 furnishing a fundamental critique of the whole dialectical enterprise. Save for the essay on human freedom, however, none of these works were published during his lifetinm, as Schelling withdrew from the public eye after his controversies with Hegel and Jacobi. Thus the publishing histories of Schelling and Hegel are exactly reverse. Schelling rushed into print his early speculative gropings, while Hegel suppressed his/making the Ph~nomenologic des Geistes his first major publication. Then while Hegel's Logic and Encyclopedia were being publicly acclaimed, Schelling remained silent. This accident of history is largely responsible for the illusion that Schelling is the older of the two x (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1921-24),2 vols. 2The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1892), Lecture VI, 164-189. Wordsworth and ScheUing, A Typological Study of Romanticism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960),Yale Studies in English, Vol. CXLV. 4Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph yon Sehelling, Philosophische Untersuchungen i~berdas Wesen der menschlichen Freyheit und die damit zusaramenhdngenden Gegenstdnde, 1809. Reprinted in the Sdmmtliche Werke, Erste Abtheilung, VII. Band (Stuttgart und Augsburg: J. G. Cotta, 1856), 331-416. English translation by James Gutmann: Of Human Freedom (Chicago: Open Court, 1936). 5Three fragmentary versions of the Weltalter have been published. The Urfassungen of 1811 and 1813were edited by Manfrcd SehrSter and published as a separate Naehlassband to the M~nchener Jubildumsausgabe of the collected works: Die Weltalter, Fragmente (Munich: Biederstein, Leibniz, 1946). A later version is published in S.W. I: 8, pp. 195-344,which has been translated by Frederick de Wolfe Bolman, Jr. : The Ages of the World (NewYork: Columbia University Press, 1942). 6Philosophie der Mythologie is published in S.W. II: 1-2; Philosophie der Offenbarung in S.W. II: 3-4. These essays were first collected and published by Herman Nohl in Hegels theologische Jugendschriften (Tiibingen: 1907).T. M. Knox translated them into English, with an introduction by Richard Kroner: GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Early Theological Writings (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1948). [75] 76 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY thinkers (actually he was five years Hegel's junior), who retired from the philosophical scene after making his contribution to the Hegelian synthesis. Paul Tillich's doctoral dissertations s and Ernst Cassirer's studies in post-Kantian thought 9 made serious inroads on this conception, yet the iIInsion persisted. Their insistence on the importance of the later Schelling has been brilliantly sustained by two recent studies: Horst Fuhrmans's Schellings Philosophie der Weltalter1~and Walter Schulz's Die Vollendung des deutschen Idealismus in der Spdtphilosophie Schellings, ~ and we may hope that the conventional estimate of Schelling will be drastically revised. Fuhrmans has demonstrated that the split between the early and the later Schelling must be placed in the year 1806 when he came in contact with Franz yon Bander in Munich, who encouraged him to delve deeper into the theological and cosmological ramifications of Jacob Boehme's thought. TM The reorientation this caused is apparent in the essay on human freedom, published in 1809, but it was not fully exploited until the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 187 standing. He picks his way philosophicelly ~darough the many preludes, interludes and epilogues of the long, autobiographical poem, The Prelude. He succeeds in interpreting philosophically.Wordsworth's absorption in "the life of things" and the "immanence of the world soul." These ideas remain, it seems to me, in Wordsworth's mind as well as in.his art primarily "lyrical ballads." But Melvin Rader has given us a thoroughly intelligible account, (...) both historical and philosophical, of both Coleridge and Wordsworth as reflectiveminds, without detracting item them as artists. HERBERTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont Graduate School and Unlver~i~y Center gchelting et la R~alit~ Finis: Essai sur la Philosophic de la Nature et de l'[dentit~. By Judith E. Schlanger. (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1966. Pp. 162. = Biblioth~que de Philosophie Contemporaine: Histoire de ta Philosophie et Philosophie Gfin6rale. Paper, F. 12.--) L'dtude de Judith E. Schlanger pr~se~te un bref expos6 des th~mes princ~paux de la pens~e philosophlque de Schelling en retra~ant de fa~on plus ou moius syst6matique l'itindraire spirituel de ce grand penseur qui a crd6 les fondsments spdculatifs du romantisme aIlemand. La philosophie de Schelling refl~te une ardeur,constants de recherche toujours progressive miroitant lea rythmes intimes de son articulation/~ la fois subtile et intensive. Nous allons donner en raccourci la principale ligne d'6volution de cette pens~e. L'essai de Schlanger a pour objet propre le probl~me philosophique qui rdsulte de la connexion 6troite de deux th~mes constituant les fondoments de la philosophie schellingienne, notamment le bh6me d'une philosophie concrAte qui rdcupAre intdgralement l'intuition et celui de la simultan6it6 de l'absolu et du finidans une rdalitdqui n'est constitu6e que par des totas diserAtes. Pour Schelling l'absolu n'est autre chose que la rdalitd concrete constitude par l'ensemble des totalitds individuelles et particuli6res qui sent con~ues comme dtant organiques et qui sent intelligibles, c'est-~.dire leur prdsence et leur raison d'etre coincident et ne peuvent ~tre saisiesque par l'immddiatetd de l'intuition intellectuelle et non par une rationslitd ddductive. L'absolu eat organicitd intelligibleau moyen d'un mode de connaissance intdgralement intuitif, done de rationalitd/t dvidence pleine et non de rationalitd ~t mddiation conceptuelle. L'absolu est done un total, une totalitd complexe ~ cause do ses articulations ind6finiment multiples ~tl'intdrieur. La philosophie enest la transposition aussi bien dans son d6veloppement actuel que dans l'embrassement des multiples ddterminations en un totalitarisme du savoir. L'instrument opdrationnel et cognitif capable d'61aborer cette transposition est l'intuition,la "Anschauung". En effet l'intuition joue un r61e capital dans la philosophie de Schelling. Issue directement de l'exp6rience sensible, c'est-~-dire, concrbte et individuelle, ellepermet d'englober dans l'immddiatetd d'une seule dvidence ~ la fois coner ~te et totale la coprdsence et la contemporandit6 de l'absolu et du finien une unit6 positive, non-dialectique, mais organique. Il est vrai que le scheme de l'organisme et de l'organicitd detains la pensde de ScheUing. L'absolu et le finisent en correlation organique. L'actualit6 dvidents de leur opposition manifeste leur copr~ence simultande, ce qui traduit leur unit~ absolue, sous-jacente qui a rendu possible cette opposition. La liaison effective, rdelle,empiriquement constatde des deux termes opposds leur suppose un fondement commun absolu. La dichotomie n'estpas primordiale, l'antith~sea pour support affirmatifun absolu. L'absolu est le lieu de l'identitd des opposds. C'est la coincidence immddiate entre des termes antinomiques qui d6finitl'unitd absolue. Et de cet absolu, la philosophic poss~de un savoir imm6diat, c'est-~dire absolu. II en rdsulte que l'intuitionest le principe m~me de l'intelligibilitd.Le probIAme phUosophique capital qui se pose et que Schlanger dtudie dana l'ceuvre de Schelling depuis les ddbuts de sa pensde en 1794jusqu'au moment o~1la philosophie de l'Identitd eat constitude, en 1804environ s'dnonce comme suit: La vision de l'identit6 immddiate des opposds comme forme de la rdalitd absolue pourra-t-elle s'articuler dans un savoir systdmatique et objective- 188 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY ment communicable de la totalit6... (shrink)

[1] Die Dialektik in Schellings Ansätzen zu einer Naturphilosophie.--2. Die Dialektik in Schellings Transzendental- und Identitätsphilosophie.--3. Der Durchbruch in Dialektik in Hegels Denken.--4. Kontinuität und Diskontinuität in Hegels Jenaer Anfängen.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNGEin Gutteil von Schellings Freiheitsschrift ist dem Problem der Theodizee gewidmet. Schelling setzt sich darin mit einigen Pfeilern des Leibnizschen Theodizeekonzepts auseinander, die bis heute als argumentativer Höhepunkt rationaler Theodizee angesehen werden. Aus einer berechtigten Kritik an Leibniz in drei Punkten entwickelt Schelling aber ein verbessertes Konzept, das auf der Idee eines geschichtlich mithandelnden Gottes fußt: Die von Schelling gegen Leibniz eingeforderte Positivität des Bösen macht die Möglichkeit des Bösen zum Definitionsmerkmal des höchsten durch eine Schöpfung realisierbaren (...) Gutes, nämlich der menschlichen Freiheit. Der Begriff der Möglichkeit überhaupt bedarf, um vollständig zu sein, nicht nur der Widerspruchsfreiheit ihres Inhalts, sondern auch der Kompatibilität dieses Inhalts relativ auf einen dafür vorauszusetzenden, sie vermögenden Träger. Gott als Träger ›böser Möglichkeit‹ ist auszuscheiden. Deshalb muss im Falle der Erschaffung irgendeiner Welt zuerst der geschaffene Mensch in seiner Freiheit existieren, bevor die ihn einschließende mögliche Welt in Beziehung auf die Realisierung der bösen oder aber guten Möglichkeiten bestimmt sein kann. Die Leibnizsche Voraussetzung einer Wahl Gottes zwischen vielen möglichen Welten, deren beste als conditio sine qua non dennoch das Böse enthält, als Begründung von dessen Freiheit muss daher von Schelling zurückgewiesen werden. Denn angesichts der Güte und Allmacht seines eigenen Wesens kann Gott nur eine einzige mögliche und zugleich maximal gute Welt zur Erschaffung offenstehen: das »System der Freiheit« in Gemeinschaft mit den Menschen. Gott erschafft diese einzig mögliche Welt aus freien Stücken genau dann, wenn er sich zugleich für fähig und willens erkennt, alle vorausgesehenen Folgen einer freien Entscheidung des Menschen zum Bösen durch sein eigenes geschichtliches Mithandeln wieder zum Guten zu wenden.SUMMARYIn his Freiheitsschrift, Schelling discusses some of the main arguments of the Leibnizian conception of theodicy. These are considered even today as an argumentative summit of rational elucidation of the existence of evil in a world which supposedly could be only created by a God with good intentions. However, Schelling criticizes Leibniz legitimately on three points and develops a revised solution that is based on the idea of a God that freely co-acts within human history: Schelling demands against Leibniz that evil, should it exist at all, be a positive reality and not an expression of mere defect. This turns the possibility of evil into one of the defining characteristics of the highest good that a creation might bring into being: human freedom. In order to be complete, the concept of possibility in general requires not only the absence of contradiction in its content, but also that this content be compatible with some already existent bearer which at least in principle would be capable of its realization. But God as creator of every being except of himself is necessarily incompatible with ‘evil possibility’. So it is impossible that some evil in whatever possible world would be real by a divine election. Therefore, in any case of a creation of some world, the created human being must first exist in freedom before the possible world that includes him can be determined regarding the realization of evil possibilities or, in contrast, of those that avoid evil. As a consequence, Schelling rejects Leibniz's idea of a divine choice between many possible worlds as justification of God's freedom and election of the best one which would unavoidably include, as a conditio sine qua non, the realization of some evil. Instead, there is with respect to his own moral excellence only one possible and at the same time wholly perfect world open to God's creativity: the “system of freedom”. Conscious of his own goodness and omnipotence, God creates this single possible world out of freedom if and only if he recognizes himself as willing and able to turn around, by his own co-action in history, all foreseen consequences of a free human choice of evil. (shrink)

The main theory at the core of this monograph is that the person is an entity ontologically new, since she is able to perform an act of self-transcendence, which is meant as her critical distancing from her own “self”, understood as subject of social recognition (Anerkennung), in order to open to the encounter with the world (Weltoffenheit). This allows us to consider a person in a new way, different both from confessional interpretations that see her only as a center of (...) the spirit and from reductivistic views. Schelling examines the act of self-transcendence through the concept of ecstasy, whereas Scheler associates it with the phenomenological reduction. The act of self-transcendence, that Schelling sees as originated by the “hunger of being”, is at the roots of the formation process of a person (Bildung): the person takes her shape by exiting from her own self-referential dimension and encountering otherness. If considered from this viewpoint, Plato’s “epimeleia heautou” exceeds an intimistic perspective: the “care” is no more a solipsistic self-care, but rather becomes the care through which the person transcends her own self to open to the relationships with otherness. It turns, therefore, into a care for world-openness (care for Weltoffenheit). The transformation of the individual and of society so becomes the double-faced aspect of the same process. The development of this set of problems occurs through a dialogue with Schelling’s and Scheler’s positions, but it is also supported by a historical-philosophical investigation, that for instance provides evidence of the influences of Schelling’s Berlin period on Scheler’s last theories and on the philosophical anthropology of the 20th century. Schelling was the first to conceive the concept of “eccentricity” in an anthropological sense, since until then the term had been confined to Kepler’s astronomy. Consequently, the planets’ elliptic (eccentric) movement heightens to an emblematic metaphor of human nature and freedom. The monograph also examines a possible convergence between Plato’s epimeleia heautou and Scheler’s phenomenological reduction. The book ends with a chapter on the topic of Vorbild. The exemplary testimony, that is Vorbild, becomes witnessing evidence immune from any pedagogical-moralistic intent: in fact, if it should relapse into the rhetoric of the “wish to give a good example”, it would immediately conform to the opposite logic of the model. A model is universal in so far as it makes everyone more like the others, nullifying the diversity, whereas exemplariness is universal in so far as it makes everyone more unique and motivates each one to follow her own characteristic path of existential trans-formation. Exemplarity doesn’t convey any contents, but rather encourages a kind of solidaristic involvement. Yet there are also negative exemplarities (Gegenbild) that place obstacles in the formation and block the existence of the personal center. (shrink)

It is usually assumed that the only British Romantic writer who engaged meaningfully with German philosophy was S. T. Coleridge. This edition disproves that assumption.

--Über Schellings Konstruktion des Christentums, von W. Becker.--Zur systematischen Differenz von Apriorität und Reinheit in Kants Lehre von den synthetischen Urteilen a priori, von K. Cramer.--Endlichkeit des Bewusstseins und absolulte Gewissheit bei Descartes, von H. Fahrenbach.--Objektivation und Designation, von W. Flach.--Über den spekulativen Anfang, von H.F. Fulda.--Vorgestalten der Reflexion, von H.-G. Gadamer.--Formalisierung und Formalismus von J. Glöckl.--Naturzweck und Wesenbegriff, von E. Heintel.--Fichtes ursprüngliche Einsicht, von D. Heinrich.--Zur Präsenz der transzendentalen Differenz in der dialektischen Vernunft, von W. Marx.--Zum Verhältnis von Faktizität (...) und Reflexion in der Transzendent alphilosophie, von H. Radermacher.--Beziehung und Beziehungsloses (Absolutes) von J.J. Schaaf.--Ist Metaphysik des Transzendenten möglich? von H. Wagner.--Vernunft als Kanon, Organon und Kathartikon des allgemeinen Verstandes, von R. Wiehl.--Gestaltwelt, von G. Wolandt. (shrink)

Avec Hegel, la philosophie, entendue comme ce mouvement par lequel le concept règne souverainement sur l’être, atteint son accomplissement. Elle ne peut toutefois y parvenir que dans la mesure où le concept adopte la forme de la réconciliation, c’est-à-dire de la victoire sur tout mal. Mais n’est-ce pas plutôt, comme le médita Schelling, le vouloir qui donne la mesure du mal? Et si le concept lui-même dépend du vouloir qui en libère l’éclat, le mal, plutôt que vaincu, ne doit‑il (...) pas être l’ombre même de la philosophie? Mais que reste-t‑il de cette question à l’heure du « dépassement » heideggerien de la métaphysique, lorsqu’il porte son attention vers la singularité du témoignage schellingien? (shrink)