In this article, we present for the first time Schelling’s early critique of absolute idealism within his middle metaphysics (1804–1820), which has great relevance and influence on the subsequent course of German philosophy, and, more broadly considered, on later systematic thinking about the categories of unity and duality. We aim to show how Schelling defends a form of metaphysical duality, from 1804 onwards, without relapsing into a stronger Kantian dualism. In this sense, our author rejects both the dualism between nature (...) and spirit, necessity and freedom, as well as the monist-immanent metaphysical stance later associated with Hegelian panlogism. Against Hegel, Schelling increasingly vindicates the reality of the finite and degrades the infinite to mere ideality in a movement that resembles later existentialism. Furthermore, we defend Schelling against the accusation of irrationalism that sections of Hegelianism formulated against him and present the concept of infinity without the notion of totality, which he thinks of, much like Fichte, in the light of the concept of an ‘infinite task’. Schelling’s later criticisms of Hegel are shown to be influenced by his early idealist critique of the period at hand. (shrink)

This paper refers to the connection between the metaphysical duality of ground and existence and inner dynamic of the particular will of man. We will analyse how the metaphysical monism, which Schelling attributes to Spinoza and later to Hegel, is responsible for the abolition of the freedom of the human individual, because it does not account for the existence of evil, and consequently reduces it to the existence of a higher order reference system that over and predetermines the individual (1). (...) We will first scrutinise the principles of separation and union, ground and understanding from the human point of view, namely as the will of ground and love, as particular and universal will (2). The will of man reveals itself as the culmination and model of the will that permeates nature, an essential aspect of the process of God’s revelation and becoming. The link between the principles of separation and union shows us the difference that Schellingian thought establishes between man and God, the real and the ideal. While God, or the purely ideal principle, precedes the separation in a logical-ontological sense, the will of man remains always in an indissoluble tension between the principles, since it is unable to overcome the opposition between good and evil that is characteristic of freedom. The good remains one of the results of human freedom and thus of the particular will of man. The good lies for Schelling not in the simple actualization of the general, but in the moment ineradicable particularity needed for the attainment of a real and effective principle (3). It is to this insurmountability of the particular will in the process of the constitution of man that our proposal of Schelling’s libertarian anarchism refers. The connection of this thesis with the critique of the State is also discussed (4). (shrink)

The main aim of this work is to indirectly display, through an analysis of the concepts of world, God, and human freedom, the shift from a harmonious concept of nature to another chaotic, darker, and pre-rational. It is important to relate this transformation, which takes place around 1807, to the change in Schelling’s ideas about the relationship between God and the world to weaken a previous Spinozist monistic standpoint. These changes in turn affect Schelling’s view of the concept of unity. (...) He now modifies the notions of immanence and pantheism in favour of a dualistic doctrine of particular and finite existence that we could relate to Kierkegaard and later existentialists. Finally, we introduce Schelling’s theory of love. Love is a mode of union through free will and personal choice that neutralizes the totalizing metaphysics of identity associated to the systematic construction of idealism from Spinoza to Hegel, and that Schelling criticizes, in his middle and late philosophy, as a resource to a self-transparent and overdetermining Absolute. (shrink)

The dialogue Bruno of 1802 is arguably the natural starting point for any investigation on the concepts of finitude, evil and human freedom in Schelling’s middle metaphysics. In this dialogue the author elaborates for the first time in his system a concept of freedom and independence of the finite, which extends via his reformulation in Philosophy and Religion of 1804 to the Freedom Essay of 1809 and beyond to the works of 1810 and 1811 – Stuttgart Private Lectures and The (...) Ages of the World. The central ontological problem of the dialogue relates to the possibility of a separation between the absolute and the world as space of finite beings, which, according to the system of identity first presented in 1801, cannot exist as such. The question we will then address concerns the status of the finite as such and how would it be possible to admit both its existence for consciousness and the positing of an absolute and infinite principle of philosophy. We will show how Schelling’s interest shifts, almost unintentionally, from the infinite principle to the finite as such, as a principle of freedom and self-initiation independent of the real. (shrink)

In diesem Artikel werden wir die Begriffe System und Freiheit in Kants _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_ im Lichte ihrer späteren idealistischen Entwicklung untersuchen, die zum absoluten Idealismus von Schelling und Hegel führt, und deren anschließende Auflösung, so unsere Hypothese, in Schellings mittlerer Metaphysik. Unsere Hypothese ist, dass eine Rückkehr Schellings zu Kant in seiner Spätphilosophie sich auf den methodologischen und metaphysischen Dualismus bezieht, den letzterer zwischen theoretischer und praktischer Vernunft, zwischen Sein und Werden aufstellt und auf dem die Möglichkeit und (...) Wirklichkeit der menschlichen Freiheit, wie Schelling sie ab 1809 denkt, beruht. Wir werden hier die Voraussetzungen von Schellings Rückkehr zu Kant in zwei Momenten aufzeigen. Erstens (§ 1) werden wir die Begriffe System und Philosophie analysieren, die Kant an verschiedenen Stellen in der _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_ einführt, und wir werden kurz zeigen, wie ihre spätere idealistische Entwicklung eine Abkehr von Kants eigenem kosmischen und praktischen Philosophiebegriff hin zu einer Vorstellung von logischer oder idealer Vollkommenheit der Erkenntnis darstellt. Zweitens (§ 2) überprüfen wir die verschiedenen Bedeutungen von Kants Freiheitsbegriff in seinen kritischen Werken im Lichte des Dualismus von Schellings mittlerer Metaphysik, und wir schlagen vor, dass es nur in einem dualistischen System, das den Unterschied zwischen Sein und Sein-soll nicht aufhebt, wahre menschliche Freiheit geben kann. (shrink)

En este trabajo presentamos las bases de una teoría disposicional de la libertad en Schelling hacia 1809 y 1810 movilizando el comentario de Heidegger de 1936 sobre el escrito de la libertad (2). Vemos la constitución de la libertad en Schelling como una fusión de las teorías idealistas de la libertad y del pensamiento de la naturaleza como vida, devenir y productividad (3). El pensamiento de Heidegger en relación con concepto de libertad en Schelling se pone en juego en los (...) siguientes puntos (2). El primero refiere a la determinación de la libertad en general a través de la «esencia» de la libertad humana. Ambos autores establecen, en segundo término, el carácter paradójico de la libertad humana como indeterminación en la idea, y, al mismo tiempo, en tanto ente «siempre-ya-decidido». La escisión de la «esencia» de todo ente entre fundamento y existencia es ya un célebre locus de coincidencia entre el planteamiento ontológico de Schelling y Heidegger. La manera en que esta escisión se articula en lo que se refiere al concepto de determinación temporal, será objeto de nuestro análisis en los apartados 2 y 4. (shrink)