Schopenhauer is famously abusive toward his philosophical contemporary and rival, Friedrich William Joseph von Schelling. This chapter examines the motivations for Schopenhauer’s immoderate attitude and the substance behind the insults. It looks carefully at both the nature of the insults and substantive critical objections Schopenhauer had to Schelling’s philosophy, both to Schelling’s metaphysical description of the thing-in-itself and Schelling’s epistemic mechanism of intellectual intuition. It concludes that Schopenhauer’s substantive criticism is reasonable and that Schopenhauer does in fact avoid Schelling’s errors: (...) still, the vehemence of the abuse is best perhaps explained by the proximity of their philosophies, not the distance. Indeed, both are developing metaphysics of will with full and conflicted awareness of the Kantian epistemic strictures against metaphysics. In view of this, Schopenhauer is particularly concerned to mark his own project as legitimate by highlighting the manner in which he avoids Schelling’s errors. (shrink)

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) is often thought of as a “philosopher’s philosopher,” with a specialist rather than generalist appeal. One reason for Schelling’s lack of popularity is that he is something of a problem case for traditional narratives about the history of philosophy. Although he is often slotted in as a stepping stone on the intellectual journey from Kant to Hegel, any attention to his ideas will show that he does not fit this role very well. His later (...) philosophy suggests a materialism and empiricism that puts him outside of idealism proper; his connection with the romantic movement suggests an aestheticism that challenges traditional philosophy as such; and his mysticism allies him with medieval, pre-critical philosophies considered antiquated by the 19th century. And if Schelling was not entirely at home with his contemporaries, he seems, on the face of it, to have fared little better with his future: there has been no Schelling school, he has had no followers. No historical trajectory announces Schelling as its point of departure. -/- And yet Schelling’s influence has been an extraordinary one. He has inspired physicists, physicians, theologians, historians and poets. A wildly diverse set of philosophers have claimed that their ideas have resonance with his. Perhaps the question of Schelling’s influence can be approached by looking at what Kant says about works of genius -- that they should give rise to inspiration, not imitation. Paradoxically, to imitate genius is not to produce an imitation but a new creative work. Whether or not Schelling should be strictly viewed as a genius, Kant’s notion suggests a sense in which Schelling should be understood as a “philosopher’s philosopher”; he inspired creativity, not repetition. In this perspective, the lack of a “Schelling school” is a sign of strength; Schelling is continually being rediscovered, and his works have retained a fresh and untimely character. If Schelling does not have any obvious historical successors, it is because his influence cannot be charted by the usual methods. New philosophical tools are needed in order to understand his philosophical significance, his impact on contemporary thought and relevance for contemporary concerns. (shrink)

The purpose of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer is to offer translations of the best modern German editions of Schopenhauer's work in a uniform format for Schopenhauer scholars, together with philosophical introductions and full editorial apparatus. The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion. This second volume was added to the (...) work in 1844, and revised in 1859. Its chapters are officially 'supplements' to the first volume, but are indispensable for a proper appreciation of Schopenhauer's thought. Here we have his most mature reflections on many topics, including sex, death, conscious and unconscious desires, and the doctrines of salvation and liberation in Christian and Indian thought. Schopenhauer clarifies the nature of his metaphysics of the will, and synthesizes insights from a broad range of literary, scientific and scholarly sources. This new translation reflects the eloquence and power of Schopenhauer's prose, and renders philosophical terms accurately and consistently. It offers an introduction, glossary of names, bibliography, and succinct editorial notes. (shrink)

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854) was a colleague of Hegel, Holderlin, Fichte, Goethe, Schlegel, and Schiller. Always a champion of Romanticism, Schelling advocated a philosophy which emphasized intuition over reason, which maintained aesthetics and the creative imagination to be of the highest value. At the same time, Schelling's concerns for the self and the rational make him a major precursor to existentialism and phenomenology. Schelling has exercised a subterranean influence on modern thought. His diverse writings have not given rise (...) to a system or school of thought; rather, individual philosophers have been influenced by the resonance of his ideas and their influence on contemporary ideas and movements. The New Schelling brings together a wide-ranging set of essays which elaborate the connections between Schelling and other thinkers - such as Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Deleuze, and Lacan - and argue for the unexpected modernity of Schelling's work. (shrink)

‘Romanticism’ is one of the more hotly contested terms in the history of ideas. There is a singular lack of consensus as to its meaning, unity, and historical extension, and many attempts to fix the category of romanticism very quickly become blurry. As a result, the great historian of ideas, Arthur Lovejoy, famously concludes that: ‘the word ‘romantic’ has come to mean so many things that, by itself, it means nothing. It has ceased to perform the function of a verbal (...) sign’ But his pessimistic advice has not stopped scholars from trying to define romanticism. If anything, it has brought renewed vigour to the determination with which critics try to pinpoint the term. There are several approaches to take, for those who attempt to do so. One class of critics tries to enumerate the features shared by the authors and texts generally considered romantic. An alternative approach would try to identify the fundamental unity that informs romanticism and gives rise to the empirical commonalities. But what would this essential feature be? Both of these approaches take an external perspective on romanticism, seeing it as the object of inquiry. An alternative approach, which we will pursue, looks at romantic subjects, and romanticism as a self-constituting category, rather than merely as an externally imposed one. In other words, we will take as basic neither an (empirical) array of candidate properties constituting romanticism, nor a supposed underlying (rationalist) essence from which properties can be derived, but rather we will focus on how the romantics themselves took up the idea of romanticism and transformed it into a self-conscious movement. We will treat the question of romanticism with respect to England, but above all Germany. Although romantic movements arose and flourished elsewhere in Europe (and in France in particular), German and English romanticism were uniquely theoretically sophisticated and philosophically nuanced. (shrink)

F.W.J. Schelling's Ages of the World has just begun to receive the critical attention it deserves as a contribution to the philosophy of history. Its most significant philosophical move is to pose the question of the origin of the past itself, asking what “caused” the past. Schelling treats the past not as a past present – but rather as an eternal past, a different dimension of time altogether, and one that was never a present 'now'. For Schelling, the past functions (...) as the transcendental ground of the present, the true 'a priori'. Schelling's account of the creation of this past takes the form of a theogeny: in order to exist, God needed to separate the past from the present. By grounding the creation of the past in a free decision of God, Schelling tries to conceptualize temporality so as to preserve the sort of radical contingency and authentic freedom that he considers essential features of history. In so doing, he opens up a way of viewing time that avoids the pitfalls of the Hegelian dialectic and anticipates some of the 20th century developments in phenomenology. (shrink)

Scholars are finally fully appreciating the philosophical significance of early German Romanticism. _Brill’s Companion to German Romantic Philosophy_ is a collection of original essays showcasing not only the philosophical achievements of romantic writers such as Schlegel and Novalis, but the sophistication, relevance, and influence of romanticism today.

Beyond Good and Evil is one of the most scathing and powerful critiques of philosophy, religion, science, politics and ethics ever written. In it, Nietzsche presents a set of problems, criticisms and philosophical challenges that continue both to inspire and to trouble contemporary thought. In addition, he offers his most subtle, detailed and sophisticated account of the virtues, ideas, and practices which will characterize philosophy and philosophers of the future. With his relentlessly energetic style and tirelessly probing manner, Nietzsche embodies (...) the type of thought he wants to foster, while defining its historical role and determining its agenda. This edition offers a new and readable translation, by Judith Norman, of one of the most influential texts in the history of philosophy, together with an introduction by Rolf-Peter Horstmann that sets it in its historical and philosophical context. (shrink)

First published in 1818, The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion, in an attempt to account for the world in all its significant aspects. It gives a unique and influential account of what is and is not of value in existence, the striving and pain of the human condition and the possibility of (...) deliverance from it. This translation of the first volume of what later became a two-volume work reflects the eloquence and power of Schopenhauer's prose and renders philosophical terms accurately and consistently. It offers an introduction, glossary of names and bibliography, and succinct editorial notes, including notes on the revisions of the text which Schopenhauer made in 1844 and 1859. (shrink)

The Cambridge Critical Guides series offers cutting-edge research volumes on some of the most important works of philosophy. Each volume presents newly-commissioned essays by an international team of contributors, and will appeal to a scholarly and graduate-level audience. One of the themes that this volume brings out is the endurance and contemporary relevance of some of Schopenhauer’s most pressing concerns. In a sense, he is right to be ahistorical: is it not this reaching out of its time that makes a (...) work a classic, eternal even? Principal among these concerns of course is the question of how to respond as plagues overwhelm us (which is Schopenhauer’s description of existence in a normal state, the plague of existence rather than a plague within existence). His famous answer involves the negation of the will, the ascetic denial and rejection of desire. Of course, this response is more striking than it is clear, and several of the essays tackle the question of what is meant, entailed, and achieved by negation of the will. (shrink)

Marx and Nietzsche are often compared as practitioners of a hermeneutic of suspicion. I pursue this comparison by focusing on an overlooked similarity between the two. In strangely similar passages, Marx (in Capital) and Nietzsche (in the Genealogy of Morals) introduce explicitly theatrical scenarios into the course of their discussions, complete with what Marx calls dramatis personae, where we witness a descent into a workshop (in some sense underground) in order to learn the secrets of production—the production, in both cases, (...) of value. But neither scenario conforms to the structure of the discovery of a concealed truth—in fact, each challenges this structure directly. By looking at the specific nature of these theatrical descents, we can come to a better understanding of the task of the philosopher in both Nietzsche and Marx, as well as the distinctive position of historical knowledge within a hermeneutics of suspicion. (shrink)

Nietzsche's late works are brilliant and uncompromising, and stand as monuments to his lucidity, rigour, and style. This volume combines, for the first time in English, five of these works: The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche contra Wagner, and The Case of Wagner. Here, Nietzsche takes on some of his greatest adversaries: traditional religion, contemporary culture, and above all his one-time hero, the composer Richard Wagner. His writing is simultaneously critical and creative, putting into practice his alternative (...) philosophical vision, which, after more than a hundred years, still retains its startling novelty and audacity. These new translations aim to capture something of the style and rhythm of the original German, so that the reader can get a sense of Nietzsche as not just a philosopher but also a consummate artist, capable of 'dancing with his pen', and as untimely as he claims to be. (shrink)

Nietzsche sees base morality and traditional philosophy as reactive, essentially predicated on negation and opposition. But is it possible to reject negation? To oppose oppositionality? This issue has been addressed by a variety of 20th century thinkers who think that the paradox is insurmountable. I use the thought of Deleuze to propose a way Nietzsche can respond to the accusation of paradox. Specifically, I believe Nietzsche proposes a set of philosophical terms that allow him to refer the question of opposition (...) to a critical analysis of types of wills. Nietzsche attempts to show us a will that does not negate and oppose, but is rather affirmative. Its affirmation will be creative, rather than recognizing and reacting to an antecedent state of affairs or set of values. The purpose of this paper is to argue for the coherence and novelty of this conception of affirmative, noble will. (shrink)