This is the first translation into English of an important early work of the German idealist philosopher F.W.J. Schelling. Philosophy and Religion (1804) is considered a precursor to his major work on freedom, his Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom (1809). In Philosophy and Religion, Schelling raises the question of how philosophy can come to terms with the failure of approaching the highest principle of being, the Absolute (or God), rationally. He argues that the only possibility (...) of recognizing the Absolute lies in intellectual intuition, which goes beyond presentiment or religious intuition. For Schelling, it is the task of philosophy to lead the soul towards the intuition of the Infinite: "All philosophy begins . . . with an animated idea of the Absolute." In recent years, Schelling's philosophical ideas have been adopted by contemporary thinkers such as the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek and the French theorist of "Non- Philosophy," François Laruelle. (shrink)

RESUMEN En el libro X de la Metafísica se trazan las líneas generales de una henología. La reconstrucción de la argumentación debe hacerse desde dos pilares fundamentales: (a) la guía de problemas o aporías que proporciona el libro iii y (b) el proyecto ontológico anunciado en el libro iv, donde se señala la relación entre ontología y henología. El rasgo fundamental de dicha henología sería su subordinación a la ontología. El artículo argumenta que para Aristóteles el rol de la henología (...) es ante todo destructivo, pues con dicha doctrina se pretende establecer -ante todo- la imposibilidad de considerar al "uno" (τὸ ἓν) como principio de los entes. ABSTRACT In the Metaphysics, especially in Book X, are drawn the general lines of a henology. For the proper understanding of this doctrine it is necessary to reconstruct its argumentation from two fundamental basis: (a) the guide of puzzles or aporias that book iii provides and (b) the ontological project announced in book IV where the relationship between ontology and henology is indicated. Once the explanations of Book X are framed a theory about unity (τὸ ἓν) can be systematically assembled, whose fundamental feature would be the following: henology as a science is a subordinate part of ontology. The role of henology is for Aristotle primarily destructive, that is, with this doctrine it is intended to establish the impossibility of considering the 'one' (τὸ ἓν) as a principle of the entities. (shrink)

Schieche, W. Daten zum Leben von Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling.--Schulz, W. Freiheit und Geschichte in Schellings Philosophie.--Jacobs, W. G. Schellings Anfänge zwischen Orthodoxie und Revolution.--Benz, E. Schellings schwäbische Geistesahnen.

Ideology and politics were among the dynamics that shaped the scholarly reception of Friedrich Hölderlin and his work from the 1920s to 1940s. By taking the examples of research reports by Adolf von Grolman, Johannes Hoffmeister, and Heinz Otto Burger as well as of the controversy between Wilhelm Böhm and Ludwig Strauß, we outline the reciprocal function of Hölderlin and the DVjs. In doing so, we specifically focus on Paul Kluckhohn’s role in Hölderlin research, not only as an editor but (...) also as a public speaker and academic promoter in politically turbulent times. (shrink)

An essay by philosopher Slavoj Zizek, with an English translation of Schelling's beautiful and evocative "Ages of the World, " second draft.

Additional support is presented for the necessity of awareness of the CS-US relation in human autonomic conditioning. However, possible limitations and exceptions regarding this general rule are discussed. Limitations include the lack of relationship between conditioned response (CR) strength and degree of awareness, and an important exception may be the finding of conditioning with backwardly masked CSs of a biologically prepared nature.

In this article, we examine how white working-class women reimagine gender in the face of social and economic changes that have undermined their ability to perform normative femininity. As blue-collar jobs have disappeared, scholars have posited that white working-class men and women have become increasingly isolated, disconnected from institutions, and hopeless about the future, leading to a culture of despair. Although past literature has examined how working-class white men cope with the inability to perform masculinity through wage-earning and family authority, (...) gender has been undertheorized in these discussions, treating working-class women’s and men’s despair interchangeably. Drawing on 37 in-depth interviews conducted in a former coal-mining town in northeastern Pennsylvania, we identify three overarching strategies that women deploy in their life histories to cope with disruption: embracing pain as an opportunity for self-growth; dispelling shame and striving for equality; and enduring suffering. These strategies allow women to feel hopeful and worthy as they confront enormous challenges, whether starting over following relationship dissolution, learning to be independent from men, or simply surviving hardship for the sake of their children. We explore the implications for recreating gender identity in each strategy and question how different strategies might serve to protect women from, or alternatively solidify, sentiments of despair. (shrink)

System of Transcendental Idealism is probably Schelling's most important philosophical work. A central text in the history of German idealism, its original German publication in 1800 came seven years after Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre and seven years before Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit.

Students using Ritalin in preparation for their exams is a hotly debated issue, while meditating or drinking coffee before those same exams is deemed uncontroversial. However, taking Ritalin, meditating and drinking coffee or even education in general, can all be considered forms of cognitive enhancement. Although social acceptance might change in the future, it is interesting to examine the current reasons that are used to distinguish cases deemed problematic or unproblematic. Why are some forms of cognitive enhancement considered problematic, while (...) others are not? In this paper, we consider cognitive enhancement as the amplification or extension of core capacities of the mind, using augmentation or improvements of our information-processing systems. We will analyse cognitive enhancement in an educational setting in order to clarify the fuzzy distinction between problematic and unproblematic forms of cognitive enhancement. We will show that the apparent distinction made by many people between problematic and unproblematic enhancement is not based on any fundamental difference between these two categories. (shrink)

En 1794, Schelling propose une lecture très orientée du Timée de Platon, qui est pris comme porte-enseigne dans les débats post-kantiens sur la relation entre forme et matière de la connaissance : le travail que l'intellect ...

Die "Aphorismen uber die Naturphilosophie" (1806/07) wie auch die zugehorigen "Aphorismen zur Einleitung in die Naturphilosophie " (1805) sind in der Forschung bisher weitgehend unbeachtet geblieben, obwohl sie einen bedeutenden ubergangstext von der Natur zur Freiheitsphilosophie Schellings darstellen. SIe wurden ursprunglich in der kurzlebigen, in nur sechs Ausgaben erschienenen Zeitschrift "Jahrbucher der Medicin als Wissenschaft" veroffentlicht, die Schelling zwischen 1805 und 1808 herausgab und zu der er die maSSgeblichen Beitrage beisteuerte. DIe 469 "Aphorismen", die sich in zwei Hauptteile sowie (...) eine vorangehende Einleitung gliedern, sind in wesentlichen Teilen Reflexionen uber das Absolute und knupfen zwar noch an das "System der gesammten Philosophie" von 1804 an, enthalten aber zugleich auch den ubergang von der fruhen, von Kant und Fichte ausgehenden Identitatsphilosophie hin in "ein langsames Abdriften zu den dunklen Bereichen des Seins" (X. TIlliette), denen sich Schelling nach 1806 verstarkt zuwendet. SPrachlich und gedanklich entfernt er sich vom "System", spricht von der "Liebe" und den "Relationen" und in Wendungen, die an Jacob Bohme erinnern, von der "Seele" der Dinge, "welche also zwar an sich betrachtet gleich dem Centro, relativ aber auf das Ding, das verworrene Gegenbild ihrer Einheit, nur ein Geschopf des Centri ist". HIer vollzieht sich die systematische Voraussetzung fur das, was die folgenden Schriften wesentlich ausmacht: das Ausloten des Dunklen in der Natur und damit in uns selbst. Die Textgattung "Aphorismus" war um 1800 noch nicht auf jene Bedeutung verengt, die uns heute an ein isoliertes "Kurzestfragment" denken lasst. ES handelt sich um kurze Abschnitte einer genetischen Darstellung, die jedoch anders als ein durchkomponierter Text einzelne Motive freier variieren und von verschiedenen Seiten her beleuchten kann. (shrink)

Against the traditional – that is to say, Judaic – conception of morality as a submissive obedience to God’s commandments, and contrary to Kant’s moral doctrine that would consider both morality and religion as the consciousness of an object that the individual must attempt to reach, Schelling’s System from 1804 puts forward the idea of an « absolute morality » wherein knowledge and being are identical, the self is one with God – and thus also with himself – and (...) can only act morally as a result of this union. We propose a new translation of this passage preceded by a short presentation. (shrink)

Dieser Band bietet ausser einer kritischen Edition des Textes der Ideen, der ersten naturphilosophischen Schrift Schellings, auch eine Fulle erklarender Anmerkungen mit Nachweisen von Zitaten und Anspielungen sowie Erlauterungen zu nicht mehr gebrauchlichen Begriffen und Bezeichnungen. Ein editorischer Bericht schildert die Entstehungsgeschichte der Ideen. In addition to a critical edition of the text of the Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, Schellings first work on the philosophy of nature, this volume also provides an abundence of explanatory annotations with evidence of (...) quotations and allusions as well as explanations of terms which are no longer in use. An editorial report describes the history of the origins of the Ideas. (shrink)

En dépit de l'apparente diversité de leurs objets, les deux parties qui composent cette Introduction à la philosophie de la mythologie traduisent un unique dessein : opposer à la dialectique hégélienne alors triomphante une dialectique plus authentique, car reconduite à sa source grecque - chez Platon, mais aussi, de manière plus inattendue, chez Aristote. Le ressort de cette dialectique consiste dans l'auto-élimination progressive de tout ce qui est de l'ordre de l'hypothèse, du possible, de la " puissance ", pour que (...) surgisse, à la fin, la singularité nue et inébranlable d'un fait. La première partie, la plus anciennement rédigée, applique cette méthode à la mythologie, et, après avoir fait s'effondrer les différentes " explications "de celle-ci, débouche sur l'historicité radicale du processus au long duquel, dans la métamorphose réglée des dieux, se constitue la " religion sauvage "de l'humanité. La seconde partie, qui représente en philosophie le dernier mot de Schelling, va soumettre au travail dialectique le contenu le plus immédiat de la pensée, l'idée de l'Être (ou de l'Etant,?????, comme préfère dire Schelling, là encore fidèle aux Grecs), dont la patiente et minutieuse déconstruction dégagera le noyau caché, l'acte pur d'exister, que la raison ne peut plus contenir et qu'elle doit poser hors d'elle-même comme le point de départ d'une philosophie encore inouïe - la philosophie positive. Tentative de comprendre la religion immémoriale du passé, tentative de fonder la religion spirituelle de l'avenir, l'Introduction à la philosophie de la mythologie, mêlant la plus grandiose ambition à l'érudition la plus pointue, nous offre le testament intellectuel de celui qui fut le dernier survivant de l'idéalisme allemand. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (first published in 1797 and revised in 1803), one of the most significant works in the German tradition of philosophy of nature and early nineteenth-century philosophy of science. It stands in opposition to the Newtonian picture of matter as constituted by inert, impenetrable particles, and argues instead for matter as an equilibrium of active forces that engage in dynamic polar opposition to one another. In the (...) revisions of 1803 Schelling incorporated this dialectical view into a neo-Platonic conception of an original unity divided upon itself. The text is of more than simply historical interest: its daring and original vision of nature, philosophy, and empirical science will prove absorbing reading for all philosophers concerned with post-Kantian German idealism, for scholars of German Romanticism, and for historians of science. (shrink)

On the History of Modern Philosophy is a key transitional text in the history of European philosophy. In it, F. W. J. Schelling surveys philosophy from Descartes to German Idealism and shows why the Idealist project is ultimately doomed to failure. The lectures trace the path of philosophy from Descartes through Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Jacobi, to Hegel and Schelling's own work. The extensive critiques of Hegel prefigure many of the arguments to be found in Feuerbach, Kierkegaard, Marx, (...) Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Derrida. This is the first English translation of On the History of Modern Philosophy. In his introduction Andrew Bowie sets the work in the context of Schelling's career and clarifies its philosophical issues. The translation will be of special interest to philosophers, intellectual historians, literary theorists, and theologians. (shrink)

The following lecture, published in German under the title, Abhandlung über die Quelle der ewigen Wahrheiten, in Schelling’s Sämmtliche Werke, v. 11, pp. 575–590, was one of the last that Schelling delivered in his long career. It contains in a condensed form the central ideas of his final philosophical system. In this new system he sought to rethink the operative principles of dialectical method and thereby to redirect the movement which he had once helped to found.

In 1810, after establishing a reputation as Europe's most prolific philosopher, F. W. J. Schelling embarked on his most ambitious project, The Ages of the World. For over a decade he produced multiple drafts of the work before finally conceding its failure, a "failure" in which Heidegger, Jaspers, Voegelin, and many others have discerned a pivotal moment in the history of philosophy. Slavoj Zizek calls this text the "vanishing mediator," the project that, even while withheld and concealed from view, (...) connects the epoch of classical metaphysics that stretches from Plato to Hegel with the post-metaphysical thinking that began with Marx and Kierkegaard. Although drafts of the second and third versions from 1813 and 1815 have long been available in English, this translation by Joseph P. Lawrence is the first of the initial 1811 text. In his introductory essay, Lawrence argues for the importance of this first version of the work as the one that reveals the full sweep of Schelling's intended project, and he explains its significance for concerns in modern science, history, and religion. (shrink)

Annotation. A new translation of Schelling's Die Philosophie der Kunst, 1859 with extensive commentary by the translator, Douglas W. Stott. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Bd. 1. 1775-1809. Bd. 2. 1775-1803, Zusatzband.

All Souls' Day -- Autumn walk -- Christmas Eve interlude -- Walk before spring.