Abstract

In 1971 the French publishing house Aubier-Montaigne published Gabriel Marcel’s previously unpublished 1909 study “The Metaphysical Ideas of Coleridge and their Connection with the Philosophy of Schelling” under the title, Coleridge et Schelling. Marcel’s interest in Schelling is a neglected but very important part of Marcel’s philosophical development. There are several striking similarities between Marcel and Schelling, but I will confine the major thrust of this paper to one issue: the unique way that Marcel and Schelling deal with the relation of freedom and human suffering. This essay focuses on Schelling’s writings that are closestto Marcel’s thought on freedom and suffering, these cover the period from 1809 to around 1815 and include, most importantly for Marcel, Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and Related Matters (Hereafter referred as Of Human Freedom), and two works Schelling left unpublished the “Stuttgart Seminars,” and first draft of The Ages of the World.