Abstract

This new English rendition of Schelling’s foray into the genre of the philosophical dialogue significantly enhances the growing list of SUNY Press titles on German idealism. Bruno, published in 1802, is the centerpiece of his “identity-philosophy” writings. These in turn are the culmination and attempted reconciliation of the “idealist” and “realist” strains in his earlier thought, the high-water mark of the rational system Schelling was soon to challenge and modify as a result of his subsequent fascination with the will, evil, and what he called “positive” philosophy. Bruno contains a few tantalizing hints of these later directions. But it is mainly a retrospective piece that attempts to set forth in a single framework the philosophical foundations of all he had written before. Bruno exudes an engaging vitality missing in its better-known and austerely Spinozistic predecessor, the Darstellung of 1801. It is nevertheless heavily didactic in spots, even as philosophical dialogues go, and is beset by several conceptual difficulties and gaps in the presentation, amply discussed by Vater in the introduction and notes.