Abstract

In the period of On the Essence of Human Freedom Schelling worked out a theory of freedom which includes more than its main question about the compatibility of human freedom to do good and evil with the logical necessity of reason and freedom of God. A full comprehension of freedom in this period has to include his answers to the question how free individual actions of persons work. The main claim of this paper is that Schelling’s philosophy around 1810 contains a two-level theory of freedom. It relates a fundamental base of general freedom and unchangeable decisions about our character with a level where different grades of freedom and changes of the character of a person are possible.