Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was born in Leonberg in 1775 and educated in Tübingen, where he became friends with Hegel and Hölderlin. In 1793 he met Fichte, came under his influence, and published several works written in a Fichtean vein. True, they already showed a number of tendencies that later gave rise to Schelling’s original philosophy. He developed an interest in Spinoza, and Schelling later said that he saw his merit in combining Spinoza’s “realistic” doctrine of nature with Fichte’s dynamic idealism.
The process of creating Schelling’s own system continued in 1797, when his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature was published, followed by other works on natural philosophy. At the same time, Schelling worked on a more precise version of Fichte’s doctrine of science – “transcendental philosophy”. Having become a professor at the University of Jena in 1798 on the recommendation of Fichte, Schiller and Goethe, he taught courses on transcendental philosophy, and in 1800 he published his famous “System of Transcendental Idealism”. During this period, Schelling joined the circle of Jena Romantics. Later, Schelling moved to Munich, where he received a position at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, and in 1808 he became the general secretary of the Academy of Arts, holding this position until 1823. In the last years of his stay in Jena, Schelling, together with Hegel, published the “Critical Philosophical Journal”, which replaced Schelling’s “Journal of Speculative Physics”. In 1801, a work appeared in it that marked a turn in Schelling’s philosophical work – “Exposition of My Philosophical System”. Here, Schelling presents a system of absolute identity of the ideal and the real (subjected to sharp criticism by Hegel in 1807), a doctrine of the Absolute, purified of elements that hindered its development in previous works. He proves that the difference between the ideal and the real, the subject and the object, exists only “in phenomenon”, in the individual, and “in themselves” they are identical. Schelling said that the “Exposition” opens a series of publications on “ideal philosophy”. But he tried to rework his natural philosophical ideas, as well as the philosophy of art, in light of the new concept. The doctrine of the Absolute is developed in the dialogue Bruno (1802), two parts of A Further Exposition of My Philosophical System (1802), Philosophy and Religion (1804) and Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom. This treatise, published in 1809 as the first volume of Philosophical Works, was the last significant work published by Schelling himself, although he continued his scientific and lecturing activities until his death in 1854. His Berlin lectures of the 1840s, attended by F. Engels, S. Kierkegaard, M. Bakunin and others, had a special resonance. After Schelling’s death, the philosopher’s son published a collection of his works in 14 volumes. Schelling’s student works were devoted to the interpretation of myths, primarily biblical ones. At the end of his life, he declared that this was what genuine “positive philosophy” consisted of. But he devoted most of his philosophical activity to attempts at a rational reconstruction of existence. Initially inspired by Fichte’s ideas, he soon realized the need for their radical transformation. Recognizing the correctness of Fichte’s teaching on the priority of activity over static being, Schelling at the same time sought to fill the gap in Fichte’s science of science, which consisted of excessive psychologization of this activity. Fichte’s attention to the human I resulted in his ignoring the natural sphere. Nature was reduced by Fichte to an abstract non-I as an instrument of moral improvement.It was as if he did not see that it was a complex organism formed by the interaction of various forces. And Schelling suggests looking at nature the way Fichte looked at the human I. At one time, Schelling believed that this step simply expanded Fichte’s scientific teaching. In fact, it led to a change in the entire ontological model. The opposition of subject and object, accepted by Fichte as a fact of consciousness, became an internal quality of being for Schelling.
Natural Philosophy. It is not surprising that in his natural philosophical works Schelling constantly emphasized that it is wrong to see in nature simply a frozen object or a collection of such objects. Nature is, albeit “sleeping,” but still a spirit. It is not only a “product,” but also “productivity” (1:1, 193). It is characterized by the original unity of these two opposite moments. Productivity is revealed in products, but does not disappear in them, but, like a stream, sweeps them away and reproduces them. The unstable identity and, at the same time, the irremovable opposition of product and productivity, ultimately reduced to the presence of an internal opposition in productive activity itself, impart dynamics to natural processes, resulting in ever new synthetic formations in which the “polarity” is invariably preserved, serving as a guarantee of further transformations. Thus, the elevation of natural potentials occurs. At the initial level, nature reveals itself in the opposition of light and matter. Light appears as the primary ideal principle, a kind of “world soul”, matter – as real. Matter at this level is reduced to gravity. The union of light and matter leads to a “dynamic process” that occurs through the “potentiation” of gravity. Above the general gravitation, a special, namely magnetic, attraction arises. Magnetism passes into the phenomenon of electricity, with the help of which Schelling wants to explain the sensually perceived qualities of the world. The polarity of electricity is removed in chemism, but not finally. At a higher, organic level, to which the “galvanic process” leads, these three moments – magnetism, electricity and chemism – manifest themselves as “sensitivity”, “irritability” and “formative force”.
The movement from the inorganic to the organic testifies to the victory of the ideal principle over the real. In the organic world, matter loses its independence and is reduced to the role of an instrument for life. Schelling speaks of a ladder of organic beings, the advancement of which corresponds to the increasing subordination of matter to the life form. Schelling showed a willingness to consider the formation of organic matter in an evolutionary sense, although he was not inclined to extend the principle of development to the inorganic world. At the same time, he believed in the heuristic value of natural philosophy, or “higher physics.” Although it needs empirical, ordinary physics, which deals with “products” and supplies material for its reflections on “productivity,” and depends on scientific discoveries that in principle can, as Schelling acknowledged, change the appearance of natural philosophy, nevertheless it is the latter that systematizes this empirical material and indicates to empirical physics the missing links, directing its research into the most promising areas. So, according to Schelling, higher physics does not grow out of experience, but is constructed by the philosopher a priori, albeit taking into account the facts of experience.
Transcendental philosophy. According to Schelling, natural philosophy is only one of the two main philosophical sciences. He wrote about this in the System of Transcendental Idealism. Natural philosophy begins with the objective, with nature, and discovers the ideal in it, approaches the boundaries of the spirit, and can even cross them. True, he later clarified that if natural philosophy moves from nature to the spirit, then it should no longer be called natural philosophy, but “philosophy of the spirit” or ideal philosophy. The entire system can still be called natural philosophy, but we must not forget that this name is given only to its first part. One way or another, but the movement of philosophical thought can begin not only with the object, but also with the subject – in order to derive the object from it. This is the path chosen by transcendental philosophy. Its first truth is the fundamental proposition “I am I” or “I exist” (1:1, 264). These theses express an act of self-consciousness in which the I makes itself an object and identifies the I that contemplates itself with the I that is contemplated. The contemplated I is the I as an object. Everything objective is limited. In order to limit itself, the I must carry out a limiting activity, and this activity must limit another, “objective” or “real” activity of the same I.
This means that the I contains two opposing activities, the ideal and the real. Self-consciousness is possible only with their coexistence. But they cannot exist without a third activity that unites them and at the same time prevents them from destroying each other. This third activity is the actual act of self-consciousness. But such a mobile equilibrium of opposing activities is conceivable only in the form of infinite progress. And Schelling actually says that transcendental philosophy, which is engaged in its reconstruction, is the “history of self-consciousness.” Its direction is determined by the fact that in the limiting case, the contemplating I of self-consciousness is completely identical to the contemplated I. However, at the beginning, this identity does not exist. The infinite I reveals itself to be finite, limited, and therefore passive.
or feeling something, not-I. This is the first era of self-consciousness. Then Schelling gradually reveals the implicit ideality of the not-I, or object (which corresponds to the deduction of the levels of organization of matter, similar to those deduced in natural philosophy). The first era ends with productive contemplation, i.e., the understanding of the I of its activity in a passive, at first glance, sensation. The next era ends with the I’s presentation of itself in the form of reflection, i.e., pure thought. The third era reduces the I to a free act of will. This signifies the transition from theoretical to practical philosophy. Freedom can exist only under the condition of the presence of other subjects, whose movement toward an ideal goal gives rise to human history. But the historical process reveals itself as a necessity opposing the free decisions of the I. In order to finally recognize itself as an infinite I, the I must somehow think the identity of freedom and necessity, conscious and unconscious.
The doctrine of art. In this he is assisted by art. Schelling interprets art based on the intuitions of Kant’s “Critique of Judgment.” A work of art is a product of genius. On the one hand, genius acts consciously. He sets certain goals for himself and has the appropriate technique. But his creation outgrows this conscious plan. There is always something more in it. And this additional element stems from the unconscious activity of genius. It is precisely this activity that allows him to invest finite sensory images with infinite meanings. Genius brings the infinite into the finite, but the infinite, embodied in the finite, is nothing other than the beautiful.
By uniting the finite and the infinite, the conscious and the unconscious, a beautiful work of art therefore turns out to be an objective expression of that very identity which is the ultimate goal of the philosopher’s aspirations (this identity is also expressed in the purposeful products of nature, but “not from the side of the I”). Therefore, the philosophical interpretation of the phenomenon of art, as well as art itself and the objects of aesthetic contemplation generated by it, can serve as an “organon”, an instrument of general philosophy, which arrives at this identity with the help of “intellectual contemplation”, from within, from the side of the subject and therefore requires objective confirmation of the correctness of its conclusions.
Theory of the Absolute. The absolute identity of the conscious and the unconscious, freedom and necessity is initially comprehended by the philosopher through the concept of Divine Providence, and it is possible only in the Absolute, the absolute Self, which cannot be confused with the individual human Self. Reflecting on this, Schelling came to the conclusion about the need to build a theory of the Absolute or the Divine as such, a theory devoid of psychological or natural philosophical nuances. In doing so, he proceeded from the previous scheme. God is an infinite activity that strives for self-understanding. This striving generates God as an object for itself. It itself exists even before this generation, before divine self-consciousness. Therefore, it can be called the dark basis of God in God himself. And Schelling compares the realization of God as God with the emergence from darkness into light. Divine self-consciousness is God as reason. The duality of divinity requires the existence of a unifying principle, the “baseless” (Ungrund), in which the dark and light principles are present without confusion or opposition, and which manifests itself on a higher level as Spirit. This entire dynamic of the generation of God from within himself cannot be interpreted as a real process in time. Therefore, it can be said that in God, the enlightened mind eternally triumphs over the dark aspirations. But with man, the situation is different. In him, these principles are separated and he can choose between good and evil. His purpose, however, is to displace evil with rational actions. On this path, man renounces the “self-will” that draws him to the periphery of the universe and returns to the original center of all existence, to God.
Positive philosophy. Soon after the appearance of his work “Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom”, where the idea of the supra-temporal dialectic of a personal God was already voiced, Schelling came to the conclusion about the need for a terminological update of his entire philosophy. In his early works, he proceeded from the idea of a gradually realized assumption of the absolute identity of the ideal and the real. It, Schelling believed, is unattainable immediately and for this reason must pass through a series of stages corresponding to different levels of organization of the material and spiritual world. With such an interpretation, he could consistently deduce all these levels. The final point of these deductions turned out to be the concept of God. But Schelling faced a problem: does the logical movement in this case correspond to reality? If so, then this movement can be interpreted in a historical sense and speak of a developing God who becomes God only at the end of the entire process. However, the doctrine of a God evolving in time contradicts Christian dogmatics, which Schelling now began to treat much more carefully than before. This means that thinking, with all its formal correctness, cannot fully correspond to being. There is always something that eludes him. This something is being itself, or existence. It is obvious that the philosopher must find approaches not only to the essence of things, their “what,” but also to their existence. Schelling proposes to call the philosophy that logically reconstructs the essence of things “negative,” and the one that deals with existence “positive.” The latter cannot be a purely logical enterprise. It must contain an empirical element, but not in the usual sense of the word, since what is usually called experience is itself permeated with logical constructions. Rather, it can be called “empirical apriorism.” It aims at being that precedes reason and sensory experience, at the prius. This circumstance gives it a sublime and deeply personal character, corresponding to the nature of the personal God that this being turns out to be. After all, it is God who is the transcendental basis of existence. The task of positive philosophy is precisely to confirm the divinity of being by means of historical analysis.
This analysis should be directed at those phenomena in which God reveals Himself to man – mythology and Revelation. Mythology is also a revelation of God, but an imperfect one, lacking the internal unity of the divine principles, scattered in polytheistic ideas. Nevertheless, it prepares the way for the monotheistic Christian Revelation, which fully reveals the trinity of divine potentials in their timeless subordination and unity, as well as (through Christology) the mystery of human nature and the proper relationship of man to God. Schelling emphasizes that, despite all the differences between negative and positive philosophy, the latter does not exclude the former, but rather presupposes it. Negative philosophy must end with the concept of the Absolute, and positive philosophy must reveal the concept of a personal God. True, this does not mean that it must necessarily follow negative philosophy. Positive philosophy can develop on its own. And only in its perspective, Schelling believes, can one adequately interpret freedom as an integral property of God. After all, negative philosophy subordinates everything to logical necessity, depriving itself of the means of understanding free action. And without clarifying its nature, it is impossible to answer the main question: “why is there something at all, and not nothing”, i.e., to understand the creation of the world. Schelling interprets creation as a kind of falling away of the world, in which man is also involved as a necessary product of the internal dialectic of divine potentials (“able to be” – “forced to be” and “ought to be”), which in turn is the result of the free self-revelation of God.
Schelling’s early philosophy played a key role in the formation of Hegel’s speculative method and basic ontological principles, and contributed to Fichte’s gradual departure from psychological idealism. Many of Schelling’s ideas were adopted by the Jena Romantics. Schelling’s natural philosophy had a certain influence on the development of natural science in the 19th century, although some scientists decisively rejected it. Schelling’s later “positive” philosophy influenced S. Kierkegaard. True, Kierkegaard believed that Schelling was never able to radically rebuild his system. Nevertheless, Schelling’s doctrine of existence gives reason to consider him a predecessor of existentialism. Schelling also had some influence on Protestant theology of the 20th century and on the views of a number of Russian philosophers, primarily V. Solovyov.
Literature
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