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Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (German:

[l]; 27 January 1775 20 August 1854), Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German
philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy
make him the midpoint in the development of
German idealism, situating him between Johann
Gottlieb Fichte, his mentor in his early years,
and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, his former
university roommate, early friend, and later rival.
Interpreting Schelling's philosophy is regarded as
difficult because of its apparently ever-changing
nature.

Schelling's thought in the large has been

neglected, especially in the English-speaking
Schelling by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1835
world, as has been his later work on mythology
and revelation, much of which remains Born 27 January 1775
untranslated. An important factor was the Leonberg, Wrttemberg, Holy Roman
ascendancy of Hegel, whose mature works Empire
portray Schelling as a mere footnote in the
Died 20 August 1854 (aged 79)
development of idealism. Schelling's
Bad Ragaz, Switzerland
Naturphilosophie also has been attacked by
scientists for its analogizing tendency and lack of Alma mater Tbinger Stift, University of
empirical orientation.[7] However, some later Tbingen
philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and (17901795; MA 1792; PhD, 1795)
Slavoj iek have shown interest in Leipzig University
re-examining Schelling's body of work. (1797; no degree)

Era 19th-century philosophy

Region Western Philosophy
Contents
School German idealism
1 Life Post-Kantian transcendental
1.1 Early life idealism[1]
1.2 Jena period Objective idealism (after 1800)[2]
1.3 Move to Wrzburg and Jena Romanticism
personal conflicts Romanticism in science
1.4 Munich period Naturphilosophie
1.5 Berlin period
2 Works

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3 Periodization Institutions University of Jena

3.1 Naturphilosophie University of Wrzburg
4 Reputation and influence University of Erlangen
5 Quotations University of Munich
6 Bibliography University of Berlin
7 See also
8 Notes Main Naturphilosophie, natural science,
interests aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology,
9 References
10 Further reading philosophy of religion
11 External links Notable System of Naturphilosophie,
ideas Identittsphilosophie (philosophy of
identity), positive Philosophie
Life (positive philosophy), art as "the
eternal organ and document of
Early life philosophy" whose basic character is
an "unconscious infinity,"[3] System
Schelling was born in the town of Leonberg in der Chemie (system of chemistry),
the Duchy of Wrttemberg (now Baden- coining the term "absolute
Wrttemberg), the son of Joseph Friedrich idealism"[4]
[8]
Schelling and his wife Gottliebin Marie. He
Influences
attended the monastic school at Bebenhausen,
near Tbingen, where his father was chaplain Influenced
and an Orientalist professor.[9] From 1783 to
1784 Schelling attended a Latin school in Nrtingen and knew Friedrich Hlderlin, who was five
years his senior. On 18 October 1790,[10] at the age of 15, he then was granted permission to enroll
at the Tbinger Stift (seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Wrttemberg), despite not
having yet reached the normal enrollment age of 20. At the Stift, he shared a room with Hegel as
well as Hlderlin, and the three became good friends.[11]

Schelling studied the Church fathers and ancient Greek philosophers. His interest gradually shifted
from Lutheran theology to philosophy. In 1792 he graduated with his master's thesis, titled
Antiquissimi de prima malorum humanorum origine philosophematis Genes. III. explicandi
tentamen criticum et philosophicum,[12][13] and in 1795 he finished his doctoral thesis, titled De
Marcione Paulinarum epistolarum emendatore (On Marcion as emendator of the Pauline letters)
under Gottlob Christian Storr. Meanwhile, he had begun to study Kant and Fichte, who influenced
him greatly.[14]

In 1797, while tutoring two youths of an aristocratic family, he visited Leipzig as their escort and
had a chance to attend lectures at Leipzig University, where he was fascinated by contemporary
physical studies including chemistry and biology. At this time he also visited Dresden, where he
saw collections of the Elector of Saxony, to which he referred later in his thinking on art. On a
personal level, this Dresden visit of six weeks from August 1797 saw Schelling meet the brothers

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August Wilhelm Schlegel and Karl Friedrich Schlegel and his future wife Caroline (then married to
August Wilhelm), and Novalis.[15]

Jena period

After two years tutoring, in October 1798, at the age of only 23, Schelling was called to University
of Jena as an extraordinary (i.e., unpaid) professor of philosophy. His time at Jena (17981803) put
Schelling at the center of the intellectual ferment of Romanticism. He was on close terms with
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who appreciated the poetic quality of the Naturphilosophie, reading
Von der Weltseele. As the prime minister of the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, Goethe invited Schelling to
Jena. On the other hand, Schelling was unsympathetic to the ethical idealism that animated the
work of Friedrich Schiller, the other pillar of Weimar Classicism. Later, in Schelling's Vorlesung
ber die Philosophie der Kunst (Lecture on the Philosophy of Art, 1802/03), Schiller's theory on the
sublime was closely reviewed.

In Jena, Schelling was on good terms with Fichte at first, but their different conceptions, about
nature in particular, led to increasing divergence in their thought. Fichte advised him to focus on
philosophy in its original meaning, that is, transcendental philosophy: specifically, Fichte's own
Wissenschaftlehre. But Schelling, who was becoming the acknowledged leader of the Romantic
school, had begun to reject Fichte's thought as cold and abstract.

Schelling was especially close to August Wilhelm Schlegel and his wife, Caroline. A marriage
between Schelling and Caroline's young daughter, Auguste Bhmer, was contemplated by both.
Auguste died of dysentery in 1800, prompting many to blame Schelling, who had overseen her
treatment. Robert Richards, however, argues in his book The Romantic Conception of Life that
Schelling's interventions were not only appropriate but most likely irrelevant, as the doctors called
to the scene assured everyone involved that Auguste's disease was inevitably fatal.[16] Auguste's
death drew Schelling and Caroline closer. Schlegel had moved to Berlin, and a divorce was
arranged (with Goethe's help). Schelling's time at Jena came to an end, and on 2 June 1803 he and
Caroline were married away from Jena. Their marriage ceremony was the last occasion Schelling
met his school friend Hlderlin, who was already mentally ill at that time.

In his Jena period, Schelling had a closer relationship with Hegel again. With Schelling's help,
Hegel became a private lecturer (Privatdozent) at Jena University. Hegel wrote a book titled
Differenz des Fichte'schen und Schelling'schen Systems der Philosophie (Difference between
Fichte's and Schelling's Systems of Philosophy, 1801), and supported Schelling's position against
his idealistic predecessors, Fichte and Karl Leonhard Reinhold. Beginning in January 1802, Hegel
and Schelling published the Kritisches Journal der Philosophie (Critical Journal of Philosophy) as
co-editors, publishing papers on the philosophy of nature, but Schelling was too busy to stay
involved with the editing and the magazine was mainly Hegel's publication, espousing a thought
different from Schelling's. The magazine ceased publication in the spring of 1803 when Schelling
moved from Jena to Wrzburg.

Move to Wrzburg and personal conflicts

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After Jena, Schelling went to Bamberg for a time, to study Brunonian medicine (the theory of John
Brown) with Adalbert Friedrich Marcus and Andreas Rschlaub.[17] From September 1803 until
April 1806 Schelling was professor at the new University of Wrzburg. This period was marked by
considerable flux in his views and by a final breach with Fichte and Hegel.

In Wrzburg, a conservative Catholic city, Schelling found many enemies among his colleagues
and in the government. He moved then to Munich in 1806, where he found a position as a state
official, first as associate of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and secretary of the
Royal Academy of Fine Arts, afterwards as secretary of the Philosophische Klasse (philosophical
section) of the Academy of Sciences. 1806 was also the year Schelling published a book in which
he criticized Fichte openly by name. In 1807 Schelling received the manuscript of Hegel's
Phaenomenologie des Geistes (Phenomenology of the Spirit or Mind), which Hegel had sent to him,
asking Schelling to write the foreword. Surprised to find remarks directed at his own philosophical
theory, Schelling eventually wrote back, asking Hegel to clarify whether he had intended to mock
Schelling's followers who lacked a true understanding of his thought, or Schelling himself. Hegel
never replied. In the same year, Schelling gave a speech about the relation between the visual arts
and nature at the Academy of Fine Arts; and Hegel wrote a severe criticism of it to one of his
friends. After that, they criticized each other in lecture rooms and in books publicly until the end of
their lives.

Munich period

Without resigning his official position in Munich, he lectured for a short time in Stuttgart
(Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen [Stuttgart private lectures], 1810), and seven years at the University
of Erlangen (18201827).{{citation needed In 1809 Karoline died,[18] just before he published
Freiheitschrift (Freedom Essay) the last book published during his life. Three years later,
introduced by Goethe,{{citation needed|date=April 2017} Schelling married one of her closest
friends, Pauline Gotter, in whom he found a faithful companion.[18]

During the long stay at Munich (18061841) Schelling's literary activity came gradually to a
standstill. It is possible that it was the overpowering strength and influence of the Hegelian system
that constrained Schelling, for it was only in 1834, after the death of Hegel, that, in a preface to a
translation by Hubert Beckers of a work by Victor Cousin, he gave public utterance to the
antagonism in which he stood to the Hegelian, and to his own earlier, conception of philosophy.
The antagonism certainly was not then a new fact; the Erlangen lectures on the history of
philosophy of 1822 express the same in a pointed fashion, and Schelling had already begun the
treatment of mythology and religion which in his view constituted the true positive complements to
the negative of logical or speculative philosophy.[18]

Berlin period

Public attention was powerfully attracted by these vague hints of a new system which promised
something more positive, especially in its treatment of religion, than the apparent results of Hegel's
teaching. The appearance of critical writings by David Friedrich Strauss, Feuerbach, and Bruno

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Bauer, and the evident disunion in the Hegelian school itself, express a growing alienation from the
then dominant philosophy. In Berlin, the headquarters of the Hegelians, this found expression in
attempts to obtain officially from Schelling a treatment of the new system which he was understood
to have in reserve. The realization of the desire did not come about till 1841, when the appointment
of Schelling as Prussian privy councillor and member of the Berlin Academy, gave him the right, a
right he was requested to exercise, to deliver lectures in the university.[18] Among those in
attendance at his lectures were Sren Kierkegaard (who said Schelling talked "quite insufferable
nonsense" and complained that he did not end his lectures on time),[19] Mikhail Bakunin (who
called them "interesting but rather insignificant"), Jacob Burckhardt, Alexander von
Humboldt[20][21] (who never accepted Schelling's natural philosophy),[22] and Friedrich Engels
(who, as a partisan of Hegel, attended to "shield the great man's grave from abuse").[23] The
opening lecture of his course was listened to by a large and appreciative audience. The enmity of
his old foe, H. E. G. Paulus, sharpened by Schelling's apparent success, led to the surreptitious
publication of a verbatim report of the lectures on the philosophy of revelation, and, as Schelling
did not succeed in obtaining legal condemnation and suppression of this piracy, he in 1845 ceased
the delivery of any public courses.[18]

Works
In 1793 Schelling contributed to Heinrich Eberhard Gottlob Paulus's periodical Memorabilien. His
1795 dissertation was De Marcione Paullinarum epistolarum emendatore (On Marcion as
emendator of the Pauline letters).[9] In 1794, Schelling published an exposition of Fichte's thought
entitled Ueber die Mglichkeit einer Form der Philosophie berhaupt (On the Possibility of a Form
of Philosophy in General).[24] 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 ber 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 ber
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 1796/97 there was written the seminal manuscript now known as the "lteste
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 Hlderlin.[25][26]

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

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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). 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) could not
be a subject of philosophy, whose essential content is the subjective activity of the human intellect.
The breach became unrecoverable in 1801, after Schelling published "Darstellung des Systems
meiner Philosophie" ("Presentation of My System of 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 (Identitt).
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 Jahrbcher der Medicin als Wissenschaft
(18061808) are for the most part extracts from the Wrzburg lectures, and the Denkmal der Schrift
von den gttlichen Dingen des Herrn Jacobi[18] was a response to an attack by Jacobi (the two
accused each other of atheism[27]). A work of significance is the 1809 Philosophische
Untersuchungen ber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit zusammenhngenden
Gegenstnde (Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom), which carries out,
with increasing tendency to mysticism, the thoughts of the previous work, Philosophie und
Religion (Philosophy and Religion, 1804).[18] 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 "Ueber die Gottheiten zu Samothrake" ("On the Divinities of Samothrace") appeared in
1815, ostensibly a portion of a greater work, Weltalter (The ages of the world), frequently
announced as ready for publication, but of which little was ever written. Schelling planned
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

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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.[28]

No authentic information on the new positive philosophy (positive Philosophie) of Schelling was
available until 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).[18]

Periodization
Schelling at all stages of his thought called to his aid outward forms of some other system. Fichte,
Spinoza, Jakob Boehme and the mystics, and finally, major Greek thinkers with their Neoplatonic,
Gnostic, and Scholastic commentators, give colouring to particular works. In Schelling's own view,
his philosophy fell into three stages.[18] These were:

1. the transition from Fichte's method to the more objective conception of nature i.e. the advance
to Naturphilosophie[18]
2. the definite formulation of that which implicitly, as Schelling claims, was involved in the idea
of Naturphilosophie, that is, the thought of the identical, indifferent, absolute substratum of
both nature and spirit, the advance to Identittsphilosophie[18]
3. the opposition of negative and positive philosophy, an opposition which is the theme of his
Berlin lectures, though its germs may be traced back to 1804.[18]

Naturphilosophie

The function of Schelling's Naturphilosophie is to exhibit the ideal as springing from the real. The
change which experience brings before us leads to the conception of duality, the polar opposition
through which nature expresses itself. The dynamical series of stages in nature are matter, as the
equilibrium of the fundamental expansive and contractive forces; light, with its subordinate
processes (magnetism, electricity, and chemical action); organism, with its component phases of
reproduction, irritability and sensibility.[29]

Reputation and influence

Some scholars characterize Schelling as a protean thinker who, although brilliant, jumped from one
subject to another and lacked the synthesizing power needed to arrive at a complete philosophical
system. Others challenge the notion that Schelling's thought is marked by profound breaks, instead

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arguing that his philosophy always focused on a few common themes, especially human freedom,
the absolute, and the relationship between spirit and nature. Unlike Hegel, Schelling did not believe
that the absolute could be known in its true character through rational inquiry alone.

Schelling's thought is still studied, although his reputation has varied over time. His work
impressed the English romantic poet and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who introduced his ideas
into English-speaking culture, sometimes without full acknowledgment, as in the Biographia
Literaria. Coleridge's critical work was itself influential, and it was he who introduced into English
literature Schelling's concept of the unconscious. Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism has
been seen as a precursor of Sigmund Freud's Interpretation of Dreams (1899).[30]

By the 1950s, Schelling was almost a forgotten philosopher even in Germany. In the 1910s and
1920s, philosophers of neo-Kantianism and neo-Hegelianism, like Wilhelm Windelband or Richard
Kroner, tended to describe Schelling as an episode connecting Fichte and Hegel. His late period
tended to be ignored, and his philosophies of nature and of art in the 1790s and first decade of the
19th century were the main focus. In this context Kuno Fischer characterized Schelling's early
philosophy as "aesthetic idealism", focusing on the argument where he ranked art as "the sole
document and the eternal organ of philosophy" (das einzige wahre und ewige Organon zugleich
und Dokument der Philosophie). From socialist philosophers like Gyrgy Lukcs, he received
criticism as anachronistic. An exception was Martin Heidegger, who treated Schelling's On Human
Freedom in his lectures in 1936. Heidegger found there central themes of Western ontology: the
issues of being, existence, and freedom.

In the 1950s, the situation began to change. In 1954, the centennial of his death, an international
conference on Schelling was held. Several philosophers including Karl Jaspers gave presentations
about the uniqueness and relevance of his thought, the interest shifting toward his later work on
being and existence, or, more precisely, the origin of existence. Schelling was the subject of the
1954 dissertation of Jrgen Habermas. In 1955 Jaspers published a book titled Schelling,
representing him as a forerunner of the existentialists. Walter Schulz, one of organizers of the 1954
conference, published a book claiming that Schelling had made German idealism complete with his
late philosophy, particularly with his Berlin lectures in the 1840s. Schulz presented Schelling as the
person who resolved the philosophical problems which Hegel had left incomplete, in contrast to the
contemporary idea that Schelling had been surpassed by Hegel much earlier. Theologian Paul
Tillich wrote: "what I learned from Schelling became determinative of my own philosophical and
theological development".[31] Maurice Merleau-Ponty likened his own project of natural ontology
to Schelling's in his 1957-58 Course on Nature.

In the 1970s nature was again of interest to philosophers in relation to environmental issues.
Schelling's philosophy of nature, particularly his intention to construct a program which covers
both nature and the intellectual life in a single system and method, and restore nature as a central
theme of philosophy, has been reevaluated in the contemporary context. His influence and relation
to the German art scene, particularly to Romantic literature and visual art, has been an interest since
the late 1960s, from Philipp Otto Runge to Gerhard Richter and Joseph Beuys.

In relation to psychology, Schelling was considered to have coined the term "unconsciousness".

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Slavoj iek has written two books attempting to integrate Schelling's philosophy, mainly his
middle period works including Weltalter, with the work of Jacques Lacan.[32][33] Ken Wilber places
Schelling as one of two philosophers who "after Plato, had the broadest impact on the Western
mind".[34]

Quotations
"Nature is visible Spirit; Spirit is invisible Nature." (Ideen, "Introduction")
"History as a whole is a progressive, gradually self-disclosing revelation of the Absolute."
(System of Transcendental Idealism, 1800)
"Now if the appearance of freedom is necessarily infinite, the total evolution of the Absolute
is also an infinite process, and history itself a never wholly completed revelation of that
Absolute which, for the sake of consciousness, and thus merely for the sake of appearance,
separates itself into conscious and unconscious, the free and the intuitant; but which itself,
however, in the inaccessible light wherein it dwells, is Eternal Identity and the everlasting
ground of harmony between the two." (System of Transcendental Idealism, 1800)
"Has creation a final goal? And if so, why was it not reached at once? Why was the
consummation not realized from the beginning? To these questions there is but one answer:
Because God is Life, and not merely Being." (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of
Human Freedom, 1809)
"Only he who has tasted freedom can feel the desire to make over everything in its image, to
spread it throughout the whole universe." (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human
Freedom, 1809)
"As there is nothing before or outside of God he must contain within himself the ground of his
existence. All philosophies say this, but they speak of this ground as a mere concept without
making it something real and actual." (Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human
Freedom, 1809)
"[The Godhead] is not divine nature or substance, but the devouring ferocity of purity that a
person is able to approach only with an equal purity. Since all Being goes up in it as if in
flames, it is necessarily unapproachable to anyone still embroiled in Being." (The Ages of the
World, c. 1815)
"God then has no beginning only insofar as there is no beginning of his beginning. The
beginning in God is eternal beginning, that is, such a one as was beginning from all eternity,
and still is, and also never ceases to be beginning." (Quoted in Hartshorne & Reese,
Philosophers Speak of God, Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1953, p. 237.)

Bibliography
Selected works are listed below.[35]

Ueber Mythen, historische Sagen und Philosopheme der ltesten Welt (On Myths, Historical
Legends and Philosophical Themes of Earliest Antiquity, 1793)[9]

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1. Ueber die Mglichkeit einer Form der Philosophie berhaupt (On the Possibility of an
Absolute Form of Philosophy, 1794),[24]
2. Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie oder ber das Unbedingte im menschlichen Wissen (Of
the I as the Principle of Philosophy or on the Unconditional in Human Knowledge, 1795),
and
3. Philosophische Briefe ber Dogmatismus und Kriticismus (Philosophical Letters on
Dogmatism and Criticism, 1795).[18]

1, 2, 3 in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays 17946, translation

and commentary by F. Marti, Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press (1980).
De Marcione Paulinarum epistolarum emendatore (1795).[36]
Abhandlung zur Erluterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre (1796).[37]
Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur als Einleitung in das Studium dieser Wissenschaft
(1797) as Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature: as Introduction to the Study of this Science,
translated by E. E. Harris and P. Heath, introduction R. Stern, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (1988).
Von der Weltseele (1798).
System des transcendentalen Idealismus (1800) as System of Transcendental Idealism,
translated by P. Heath, introduction M. Vater, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia
(1978).
Ueber den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie und die richtige Art ihre Probleme
aufzulsen (1801).
"Darstellung des Systems meiner Philosophie" (1801), also known as "Darstellung meines
Systems der Philosophie", as "Presentation of My System of Philosophy," translated by M.
Vater, The Philosophical Forum, 32(4), Winter 2001, pp. 339371.
Bruno oder ber das gttliche und natrliche Prinzip der Dinge (1802) as Bruno, or On the
Natural and the Divine Principle of Things, translated with an introduction by M. Vater,
Albany: State University of New York Press (1984).
Philosophie der Kunst (lecture) (delivered 18023; published 1859) as The Philosophy of Art
(1989) Minnesota: Minnesota University Press.
Vorlesungen ber die Methode des akademischen Studiums (delivered 1802; published 1803)
as On University Studies, translated E. S. Morgan, edited N. Guterman, Athens, Ohio: Ohio
University Press (1966).
System der gesamten Philosophie und der Naturphilosophie insbesondere (Nachlass) (1804).
Philosophische Untersuchungen ber das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit und die damit
zusammenhngenden Gegenstnde (1809) as Of Human Freedom, a translation with critical
introduction and notes by J. Gutmann, Chicago: Open Court (1936); also as Philosophical
Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt,
SUNY Press (2006).
Clara. Oder ber den Zusammenhang der Natur- mit der Geisterwelt (Nachlass) (1810) as
Clara: or On Nature's Connection to the Spirit World trans. Fiona Steinkamp, Albany: State
University of New York Press, 2002.
Weltalter (181115) as The Ages of the World, translated with introduction and notes by F. de

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W. Bolman, jr., New York: Columbia University Press (1967); also in The Abyss of
Freedom/Ages of the World, trans. Judith Norman, with an essay by Slavoj iek, Ann Arbor:
The University of Michigan Press (1997).
"Ueber die Gottheiten von Samothrake" (1815) as Schelling's Treatise on 'The Deities of
Samothrace', a translation and introduction by R. F. Brown, Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press
(1977).
Darstellung des philosophischen Empirismus (Nachlass) (1830).
Philosophie der Mythologie (lecture) (1842).
Philosophie der Offenbarung (lecture) (1854).
Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (probably 18334) as On the History of Modern
Philosophy, translation and introduction by A. Bowie, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press (1994).

Collected works in German

Historisch-kritische Schelling-Ausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Edited by Hans

AA Michael Baumgartner, Wilhelm G. Jacobs, Jrg Jantzen, Hermann Krings and Hermann Zeltner,
Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1976 ff.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings smmtliche Werke. Edited by K. F. A. Schelling. 1st division
(Abteilung): 10 vols. (= IX); 2nd division: 4 vols. (= XIXIV), Stuttgart/Augsburg 18561861. The
SW
original edition in new arrangement edited by M. Schrter, 6 main volumes (Hauptbnde), 6
supplementary volumes (Ergnzungsbnde), Munich, 1927 ff., 2nd edition 1958 ff.

See also
History of aesthetics before the 20th century
Nondualism
Perennial philosophy

Notes
1. Nectarios G. Limnatis, German Idealism and the Problem of Knowledge: Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and
Hegel, Springer, 2008, pp. 166, 177.
2. Frederick Beiser, German Idealism: The Struggle Against Subjectivism, 1781-1801, Harvard University
Press, 2002, p. 470.
3. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (http://www.iep.utm.edu/schellin/) by Saitya Brata Das in
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011.
4. The term absoluter Idealismus occurs for the first time in Schelling's Ideen zu einer Philosophie der
Natur als Einleitung in das Studium dieser Wissenschaft (Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature: as
Introduction to the Study of this Science), Vol. 1, P. Krll, 1803 [1797], p. 80.
5. Joseph B. Maier, Judith Marcus, and Zoltn Tarrp (ed.), German Jewry: Its History and Sociology:
Selected Essays by Werner J. Cahnman (https://books.google.com/books?id=rvj7dbbQtwsC&dq=),
Transaction Publishers, 1989, p. 212.

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6. Robert J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe,
University of Chicago Press,, 2002, p. 129.
7. Bowie, Andrew (19 July 2012). "Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling". Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy.
8. Richard H. Popkin, ed. (31 December 2005). The Columbia History of Western Philosophy. Columbia
University Press. p. 529. ISBN 978-0-231-10129-5. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
9. Adamson & Mitchell 1911, p. 316.
10. John Morley (ed.), The Fortnightly Review, Voll. 10, 12, London: Chapman & Hall, 1870, p. 500
(https://books.google.com/books?id=LJxCAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA500&
dq=1790+%22On+the+18th+October,+Schelling%22).
11. Frederick C. Beiser, ed. (1993). The Cambridge Companion to Hegel. Cambridge University Press.
p. 419. ISBN 978-1-139-82495-8. ISBN 1-13982495-3.
12. History of Philosophy: From Thales to the Present Time, Volume 2, C. Scribner's Sons, 1874, p. 214.
13. The thesis is available online at the Munich Digitization Center (http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de
/resolve/display/bsb10888795.html).
14. Adamson & Mitchell 1911, p. 316318.
15. Robert J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe
(2002), p. 149.
16. Richards, p. 171 note 141.
17. Wallen, Martin (2004). City of Health, Fields of Disease: Revolutions in the Poetry, Medicine, and
Philosophy of Romanticism. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-7546-3542-0. Retrieved
22 July 2012.
18. Adamson & Mitchell 1911, p. 317.
19. See On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates by Sren Kierkegaard, 1841
20. Lara Ostaric, Interpreting Schelling: Critical Essays, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 218.
21. "Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling - Biography" (https://web.archive.org/web/20131104230106/http:
//www.egs.edu/library/friedrich-wilhelm-joseph-schelling/biography/) at egs.edu
22. Nicolaas A. Rupke, Alexander von Humboldt: A Metabiography, University of Chicago Press, p. 116.
23. Tristram Hunt, Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (Henry Holt and Co., 2009:
ISBN 0-8050-8025-2), pp. 4546.
24. Adamson & Mitchell 1911, p. 319.
25. Shaw, Devin Zane (10 February 2011). Freedom and Nature in Schelling's Philosophy of Art.
Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 56. ISBN 978-1-4411-5624-2. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
26. Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 76.
27. John Laughland, Schelling Versus Hegel: From German Idealism to Christian Metaphysics (Ashgate
Publishing, Ltd., 2007: ISBN 0-7546-6118-0), p. 119.
28. Christopher John Murray, Encyclopedia of the Romantic Era, 1760-1850 (Taylor & Francis, 2004: ISBN
1-57958-422-5), pp. 100102.
29. "The briefest and best account in Schelling himself of Naturphilosophie is that contained in the
Einleitung zu dem Ersten Entwurf (S.W. iii.). A full and lucid statement of Naturphilosophie is that
given by K. Fischer in his Gesch. d. n. Phil., vi. 433-692" (Adamson & Mitchell 1911, p. 318).
30. Bowie, Andrew (1990). Aesthetics and Subjectivity: From Kant to Nietzsche. Manchester University
Press ND. p. 265. ISBN 978-0-7190-4011-5. Retrieved 22 July 2012.
31. Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought 438 Simon and Schuster, 1972
32. iek, Slavoj (1996). The indivisible remainder: An essay on Schelling and related matters. London:
Verso. ISBN 9781859840948.
33. iek, Slavoj (2009). The parallax view (1st paperback ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT.
ISBN 0262512688.

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34. See Ken Wilber's A Brief History of Everything (1996), chap. 17 (pp. 297308).
35. For a more complete listing, see Stanford bibliography (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/schelling/#Bib).
36. Available online at Google Books (https://books.google.com/books?id=LJdIAAAAMAAJ&dq=).
37. Adamson & Mitchell 1911, p. 317 fn. 1.

References
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Adamson,
Robert; Mitchell, John Malcolm (1911). "Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von". In
Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopdia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
pp. 316319.

Further reading
Bowie, Andrew (1993). Schelling and Modern European Philosophy: an Introduction. New
York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415756-35-9.
Gare, Arran (2011). "From Kant to Schelling and Process Metaphysics". Cosmos and History:
The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy. Melbourne. 7 (2): 2669.
Golan, Zev (2007), God, Man and Nietzsche, NY: iUniverse. (The second chapter, listed as "A
dialogue between Schelling, Luria and Maimonides", examines the similarities between
Schelling's texts and the Kabbalah; it also offers a religious interpretation of Schelling's
identity philosophy.)
Grant, Iain Hamilton (2008). Philosophies of Nature after Schelling. New York: Bloomsbury
Academic. ISBN 1-847064-32-9.
Hendrix, John Shannon (2005). Aesthetics & the Philosophy of Spirit: From Plotinus to
Schelling and Hegel. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 0-820476-32-3.
Tilliette, Xavier (1970), Schelling: une philosophie en devenir, two volumes, Paris: Vrin.
(Encyclopedic historical account of the development of Schelling's work: stronger on general
exposition and on theology than on Schelling's philosophical arguments.)
Tilliette, Xavier (1999), Schelling, biographie, Calmann-Lvy, collection "La vie des
philosophes".
Wirth, Jason M. (2005). Schelling Now: Contemporary Readings. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana
University Press. ISBN 0-253217-00-8.
iek, Slavoj (1996). The Indivisible Remainder: an Essay on Schelling and Related Matters.
London: Verso. ISBN 1-859849-59-8.

External links
Works by or about Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling Wikiquote has
(https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject quotations related to:
%3A%22Schelling%2C%20von%22%20OR%20subject Friedrich Wilhelm
%3A%22von%20Schelling%22%20OR%20creator Joseph Schelling

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%3A%22Schelling%2C%20von%22%20OR%20creator Wikimedia Commons

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%3A%22Schelling%2C%20v%2E%22%20OR%20title Friedrich Wilhelm
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%3A%22Schelling%2C%20von
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mediatype:software%29) at Internet Archive Friedrich Wilhelm
Joseph Schelling
Works by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
(http://librivox.org/author/3027) at LibriVox (public
Wikisource has the text
domain audiobooks) of the The Nuttall
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, 1807 "On the Encyclopdia article
Relation of the Plastic Arts to Nature". Retrieved Schelling, Friedrich
24 September 2010. Wilhelm Joseph.
Martin Arndt (1995). "Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm (von)
Joseph". In Bautz, Traugott. Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in
German). 9. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 104138. ISBN 3-88309-058-1.
Friedrich Jodl (1890), "Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von", Allgemeine Deutsche
Biographie (ADB) (in German), 31, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 627
Watson, John, 18471939, 1882 "Schelling's Transcendental Idealism". Retrieved
28 September 2010.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (http://www.iep.utm.edu/schellin/) by Saitya Brata
Das in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2011
Links to texts (http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/Weber%20-%20History
/Schelling.htm)
Biography of Schelling at NNDB (http://www.nndb.com/people/321/000094039/)
A History of Philosophy: 18th and 19th century German Philosophy
(https://books.google.com/books?id=RjWCTI0OFbgC&pg=PA138&lpg=PA138&
dq=philosophy+of+mythology+and+revelation&source=bl&ots=CPqRyIw-
sM&sig=GcwDjvGmigtgRf345xCRvKZ1XjE&hl=en&ei=PGxrTtXJHoXdgQeRq9HjBQ&
sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&sqi=2&ved=0CDsQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&
q&f=false), By Frederick Charles Copleston, Continuum International Publishing Group,
2003 pp. 94ff
Bhme, Traugott (1920). "Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von". Encyclopedia
Americana.

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