Abstract

A notable philosopher in the Idealist tradition, but a peripheral figure for thinkers outside Germany. F. W. J. von Schelling is more than the transitional figure to Hegel. Although his thinking has been depreciated as mystical or protean, often as irrationalist, such judgments are distorted as this study shows by concentrating on his relation to Kant. There is a strong parallel to be drawn between Schelling's ontology--indifference, the real and ideal , absolute identity--and Kent's transcendental epistemology--reason, phenomena and noumenon, the supersensible. ;The focus of this project is the Freiheitschrift of 1809 which examines the essence of freedom, both human and "divine" ; the essay is clearly concerned with the ideas of metaphysics in connection with reason as a whole, both theoretical and practical. Freedom is delineated as self-constitution, a process which is intrinsically communicative. Before centering on the essay, the movement from epistemology to ontology in his earlier writings is sketched: the identification of productive imagination with self-positing: freedom as allowing for the possibility of intellectual intuition: the conception of natural purposes as real expressions of freedom; and the turn to Will as the ground of Being