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.

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.

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)

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

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)

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 ...

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)

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)

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)

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)