English summary: It was not until the publication of Schelling''s Munich and Berlin lectures that we learned the decisive source for his theory of an identity of identity or identity doubled in itself. Schelling referred to what he called an older logic that was still acquainted with the figure of reduplication, for instance in Leibniz and Wolff. Philosophers in this tradition employed this term to refer to the specification of an aspect under which the subject-term is being considered. An often (...) quoted example: As consul, Fabius Maximus has authority over his father, but as son he stands under his fathers authority. Schelling gave the following turn to reduplication: Nature as nature does not coincide with the mind; and the mind as mind does not coincide with nature. Both have different truth conditions, so as to integrate an essential moment of difference into the identity formula. There is an X, however, which is strictly (seamlessly) identical with itself (the absolute subject = X) while transitively being both of them in turn; and it is only via X that the relata (nature and mind) are indirectly identified with each other: X is B and X is A (and X is strictly identical to itself). In addition to this, Schelling held a view of predication as kind of identification. He became acquainted with this view at the Tubingen Seminary through his teacher Gottfried Ploucquet. This insight helps us understand why Schelling reasonably thought that the identity-formula A=A is the genuine matrix of all veridical judgments. Taken together with his conviction that judging (Kant''s relative position) is a minor (or inferior) form of existential being (Kant''s absolute position) sheds light on why in 1806 Schelling made the radical contention in his Aphorisms: The strict sense of being (absolutely posited seamless self-sameness) is taken over by the looser sense of the copulative is which identifies subject and predicate; yes, this copula alone is existence itself and nothing else. Why should Schelling''s conception of nature-mind identity interest recent philosophers of mind? Because Schelling presents an ontologically neutral solution: Identity is a symmetrical relation that does not favor mind or matter, and prevents the idealistic reduction of nature to the mind. Nor can we conceive of the nature-mind identity as a fact inwardly disclosed to the mind (McGinn, Levine). Consciousness remains an enigma for itself; so does its identity with nature. Schelling teaches us that identity theories are not justified by self-evidence, but by an inference to the best explanation. German description: Nie ist genau erklart worden, was Schelling unter Identitat von Natur und Geist verstand. Dabei hat er sein reifes Denken Identitatssystem genannt und sich zeitlebens um kein zweites Problem begrifflich ahnliche Muhe gegeben. Da er aber seine Uberlegungen in Schriften verpackte, deren grosser systematischer Ausgriff sie schier erdruckte, ist, was er bis hinein in die Weltalter-Periode daruber herausfand, kaum eigens gewurdigt oder auch nur klar benannt worden. Die Schellingliteratur arbeitete entweder historisch oder liess sich vom Systemgedanken oder einzelnen in die Augen springenden Problemen blenden (z. B. Natur, Organismus, Freiheit, Existenz). Dabei ist Schellings Starke in einzelnen entscheidenden Argumenten versteckt, die, waren sie bekannt, die gegenwartige, auch analytische Diskussion durchaus zu inspirieren vermochten. Wir konnen heute urteilen, dass schon der junge Schelling in seiner Schrift Form der Philosophie eine differenzsensitive Form der Identitat im Sinn hatte, die er in den kommenden Jahrzehnten immer genauer auszubuchstabieren unternahm. Seine eigentlichen Quellen hat er kunstvoll verborgen. Es sind erstens die Identitatstheorie der Pradikation seines Universitatslehrers Ploucquet, die den Stiftlern in Tubingen eingeblaut wurde und die ihre merkwurdige Fixierung auf die ganz unkantische Auffassung vom Urteil als Subjekt-Pradikat-Identifikation (mit quantifiziertem Pradikator) erklart. Und zweitens Schellings Entdeckung einer alteren Logik, die mit der Figur der reduplicatio arbeitete. - So auch das Absolute: Als Geist ist es nicht Natur (und umgekehrt; Aussagen uber beide haben unterschiedliche Wahrheitsbedingungen), aber Geist und Natur werden beide vom Absoluten gewesen (transitiv ins Sein gehoben), und dies Absolute ist im striktest denkbaren Sinne mit sich identisch. So lasst sich die Schelling''sche Formel von der Identitat der Identitat und Differenz dem gesunden Menschenverstand vermitteln und Schellings aufrichtiger Jugendgedanke (Marx) aktualisieren. Er schneidet respektabel ab im Wettbewerb mit allerlei heutigen Leib-Seele-Identitatstheorien. (shrink)

Schelling, Freud, and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychoanalysisprovides a long-overdue dialogue between two seminal thinkers, Schelling and Freud. Through a sustained reading of the sublime, mythology, the uncanny, and freedom, this book provokes the reader to retrieve and revive the shared roots of philosophy and psychoanalysis. Teresa Fenichel examines the philosophical basis for the concepts of the unconscious and for the nature of human freedom on which psychoanalysis rests. Drawing on the work of German philosopher F.W.J. Schelling, the author explores (...) how his philosophical understanding of human actions, based as it was on the ideas of drives, informed and helped shape Freud's work. Fenichel also stresses the philosophical weight of Freudian psychoanalysis, specifically in regards to the problem of freedom and argues that psychoanalysis complicates and reinforces Schelling's basic idea: to know reality we must engage with the world empathetically and intimately. This book also serves as an introduction to Schelling's thought, arguing that his metaphysics--particularly concerning the primacy of the unconscious and of fantasy--can be read as a therapeutic endeavour. Finally, the book offers a deep re-thinking of the action and nature of sublimation through both Freud's and Schelling's texts. Fenichel suggests psychoanalytic therapy is self-interpretation--a recognition of our narratives as narratives, without for that reason taking them any less seriously. Schelling, Freud, and the Philosophical Foundations of Psychoanalysis will be of great interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists as well as scholars of philosophy. (shrink)

Andrew Bowie's book is the first introduction in English to present F W J Schelling as a major European philospher in his own right. _Schelling and Modern European Philosophy_, surveys the whole of Schelling's philosophical career, lucidly reconstructing his key arguments, particularly those against Hegel, and relating them to contemporary philosophical discussion. Dr Bowie traces how central ideas and conceptual strategies in the work of philosophers as diverse as Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida and Davidson relate closely to Schelling's often misunderstood philosophy (...) and focuses on Schelling's work as an alternative to, and critique of aspects of Hegel's thinking. (shrink)

Diese folgenden Texte betreffen allesamt die Theorieversuche über Selbstverhältnisse, welche die klassische deutsche Philosophie entwickelt hat. Sie gehen auch allesamt darauf aus, diese Theorieversuche aus ihren Prämissen neu aufzubauen und ihre Begründungen nicht allein von den Argumenten abhängig sein zu lassen, die sich in den Werken der klassischen Philosophie finden.

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Freie Universiteat Berlin, 1992/93.

These 14 essays bring Schelling in tune with such luminaries as Heidegger, Derrida, Bataille, Foucault, Deleuze, Levinas, and Irigaray and situate him squarely in the centre of current themes.

Puts Schelling in conversation with twentieth-century continental philosophy.

This book is the first collection of essays on Schelling in English that systematically explores the historical development of his philosophy. It addresses all four periods of Schelling's thought: his Transcendental Philosophy and Philosophy of Nature, his System of Identity [Identitätsphilosophie], his System of Freedom, and his Positive Philosophy. The essays examine the constellation of philosophical ideas that motivated the formation of Schelling's thought, as well as those later ones for which his philosophy laid the foundation. They therefore relate Schelling's (...) philosophy to a broad range of systematic issues that are of importance to us today: metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, our modern conceptions of individual autonomy, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, political philosophy, and theology. The result is a new interpretation of Schelling's place in the history of German Idealism as an inventive and productive thinker. (shrink)

The unconscious, cornerstone of psychoanalysis, was a key twentieth-century concept and retains an enormous influence on psychological and cultural theory. Yet there is a surprising lack of investigation into its roots in the critical philosophy and Romantic psychology of the early nineteenth century, long before Freud. Why did the unconscious emerge as such a powerful idea? And why at that point? This interdisciplinary study breaks new ground in tracing the emergence of the unconscious through the work of philosopher Friedrich Schelling, (...) examining his association with Romantic psychologists, anthropologists and theorists of nature. It sets out the beginnings of a neglected tradition of the unconscious psyche and proposes a compelling new argument: that the unconscious develops from the modern need to theorise individual independence. The book assesses the impact of this tradition on psychoanalysis itself, re-reading Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams in the light of broader post-Enlightenment attempts to theorise individuality. (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)

This comprehensive, general introduction to Schelling's philosophy shows that it was Schelling who set the agenda for German idealism and defined the term of its characteristic problems.

This book explores how and when biology emerged as a science in Germany. Beginning with the debate about organism between Georg Ernst Stahl and Gottfried Leibniz at the start of the eighteenth century, John Zammito traces the development of a new research program, culminating in 1800, in the formulation of developmental morphology. He shows how over the course of the century, naturalists undertook to transform some domains of natural history into a distinct branch of natural philosophy, which attempted not only (...) to describe but to explain the natural world and became, ultimately, the science of biology. (shrink)

This book argues that the development of German philosophy from Kant, through post-Kantian German Idealism, to the thought of Franz Rosenzweig, was largely driven by the perceived promise of Kant's philosophy for solving the conflict of reason, but also by its perceived shortcomings in solving this conflict.

F.W.J. Schelling (1775-1854), le plus precoce de philosophes puis l'un des plus ages, a pati, de son vivant comme apres sa mort, de la proximite de Fichte et surtout de Hegel qui l'a supplante dans le jugement de la posterite. Mais il est en passe de combler son retard grace en particulier a l'impulsion donnee depuis un demi-siecle aux recherches sur l'idealisme allemand. Le premier volume de cet ouvrage se propose de presenter le devenir de Schelling sous le signe du (...) systeme vivant. La derniere philosophie de Schelling est analysee dans le second tome. Elle est presque tout entiere posthume, a l'exception de la Preface a Cousin (1834) et de quelques autres textes brefs. La dualite philosophique, enseignee a Berlin, est l'ultime avatar de ce qui etait de facon latente une philosophie en deux. L'auteur s'attache ici a expliquer en detail les motifs et les problemes de cette dichotomie tardive, mais fondee. (shrink)

The absolute was one of the most significant philosophical concepts in the early nineteenth century, particularly for the German romantics. Its exact meaning and its role within philosophical romanticism remain, however, a highly contested topic among contemporary scholars. In The Romantic Absolute, I offer a new assessment of the romantics and their understanding of the absolute, filling an important gap in the history of philosophy, especially with respect to the crucial period between Kant and Hegel.