Abstract
F.W.J. von Schelling’s positive philosophy of mythology and revelation questions how one can move from the natural (the negative or mythology) to freedom (the positive or revelation), i.e. from the natural to the supernatural. The move from nature to freedom surpasses the traditional metaphysics of presence. Being is not simply the presencing of nature but the result of a decisive deed surpassing and supplementing nature. Nature can do nothing other than presence. Freedom, however, could also not be. It could remain in concealment and must not necessarily presence as nature does. The origin is a supplement because an unnecessary excess extraneous to nature. In other words, origins always supplement the natural, i.e. they are supernatural and revelatory. Origins bring something novel, i.e. something original, into being but origins themselves remain in non-being and consequently remain un-revealed. The origin cannot exist, i.e. cannot become present, because it is always qualitatively Past. The origin never was but always already has been. Primal repetition was freedom’s subjection of nature to the Past and a deferral of this deed’s consequences to the indefinite Future.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
‘Was sagt nun das Wort φύσις? Es sagt das von sich aus Aufgehende (z.B. das Aufgehen einer Rose), das sich eröffnende Entfalten, das in solcher Entfaltung in die Erscheinung-Treten und in ihr sich Halten und Verbleiben, kurz, das aufgehend-verweilende Walten.’…‘Φύσις ist das Ent-stehen, aus dem Verborgenen sich heraus-und dieses so erst in den Stand bringen.’
Note that in German the word ‘Grund’ can denote both ground and/or reason.
Psychoanalysis makes use of the fact that the consequences of the past are not knowable until their time and that the full consequences of an act are always still to come. A person is known per posterius and that means also that a person is never fully known because the future still promises something novel.
‘…(D)er Gott, der der unmittelbare Inhalt des Bewußtseyns ist, Elohim, der Gott, der als der wahre unterschieden wird, Jehovah genannt wird.’
The term ‘shit out’ has its precedence in Slavoj Žižek who employs it as a translation of ausscheiden because Ausscheidungsorgane in German indicate the digestive system in English. Nature is that which God excretes, that which He is not but nevertheless that by which He shows Himself as who He is only by expelling what He is not as excrement. The excrement presences but God cannot.
References
Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press.
Heidegger, M. (1983). Einführung in die Metaphysik. SS1935. Gesamtausgabe Band 40. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann GmbH.
Hutter, A. (1996). Geschichtliche Vernunft: Die Weiterführung der Kantischen Vernunftkritik in der Spätphilosophie Schellings. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Schelling, F. W. J. (1969). Initia Philosophiae Universae: Erlanger Vorlesung WS 1820/21. Ed. & Commentator Horst Fuhrmans. Bonn: H. Bouvier u. Co. Verlag.
Schelling, F. W. J. (1972). Grundlegung der positiven Philosophie. Münchner Vorlesung WS 1832/33 und SS 1833. Horst Fuhrmans. Torino: Bottega D’Erasmo.
Schelling, F. W. J. (1990). System der Weltalter: Münchener Vorlesung 1827/28 in einer Nachschrift von Ernst von Lasaulx. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Tritten, T. Nature and Freedom: Repetition as Supplement in the Late Schelling. SOPHIA 49, 261–269 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0182-8
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-010-0182-8