Abstract

Part Three analyzes the philosophical basis of Schelling's critique of Hegel's project: for Hegel, philosophy is the science of that which could not be otherwise, while for Schelling, it must be also the science of that which in fact is. I argue that Hegel fails to treat the problems which arise on the level of the contingent--problems which plague Schelling as well as the most notorious post-Idealistic philosophers--not because he was not aware of them, or could not treat them, but rather because he did not consider them to be worthy of philosophical investigation. I argue further that while Schelling's final metaphysical teaching--his "positive philosophy"--does not ground a treatment of the anthropological problems which he recognizes as centrally important to philosophy, Hegel's ontological teaching could--and, it is arguable, should--ground a philosophically defensible analysis of the contingent. I emphasize in conclusion that since Hegel's system can, at least in principle, ground a non-nihilistic practical doctrine, it is of current--rather than merely historical--importance. ;Part Two examines Schelling's developing understanding of the nature of philosophy, guided by Schelling's own project--identified as early as 1795 and as late as 1827--that of producing the "antithesis to Spinoza's Ethics." I argue that Schelling rejects the possibility of an adequate ontological teaching--an adequate "science of the ideas"--early in his career, and later concludes in addition that any teaching which is not metaphysical must ultimately be nihilistic. ;Hegel's teaching, as ontological, is not self-destructive, but it is potentially vulnerable to what is presented as Schelling's critique of Hegel's project, the critique grounded in the claim that no teaching which is merely ontological can satisfy the philosopher's demand for wisdom. Since this critique is grounded in Schelling's teaching concerning philosophy itself, its evaluation entails the clarification of what is, for Schelling, the sole truly philosophical project. ;The first of three parts focuses on Schelling's objections to Hegel's system, that is, on the claim that that system fails to satisfy its own requirements, or to be consistent with its own principles. Schelling argues that Hegel's point of onset is arbitrary and rests on unrecognized and unjustified presuppositions; that his method is externally applied to contents dogmatically appropriated from the German scholastic tradition; that the system is incomplete in that there are identifiable inadequacies and omissions; and that the step from the Science of Logic to the Philosophy of Nature is insufficiently defended and, in fact, is indefensible. Schelling's objections are successfully countered--the internal consistency of Hegel's system is defended--through the interpretation of Hegel's account as an ontological doctrine of categories rather than as a metaphysical doctrine positing the existence of purported real entities. ;Hegel's philosophy is approached through Schelling's critique; this interpretive strategy makes possible, first, the evaluation of Hegel's claimed completion of philosophy and, secondly, the clarification of the Schellingian arguments which were an important cause of the post-Hegelian abandonment of ontology and metaphysics--the traditional bases of "first philosophy"--in favor of various sorts of philosophical anthropologies