German Classical Philosophy

The Philosophy of F. W. J. Schelling

Theory of Knowledge and Natural Philosophy

Just as Fichte began his philosophical endeavor by "pushing off" from Kant, Schelling similarly distanced himself from Fichte in an effort to overcome his one-sidedness. Schelling's philosophical development during his youth progressed with remarkable vigor. At the age of 16, he studied Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Within three years, he had become an adherent of Fichte's philosophy, and after another three to four years, he transitioned from an interest in Fichtean epistemology to the philosophy of nature.

In the works of this period, Schelling also identifies the contradictions within Kant's framework through the assumption of the "thing-in-itself," which led to dualism, and he sought to avoid this pitfall. According to Schelling, philosophy is a science that encompasses both content and form; moreover, there can be only one scientific form of philosophy. Any science must possess unity, and this unity can only be ensured by a foundational principle, the search for which constitutes the task of epistemology or "the science of the first principles." Following Fichte, Schelling asserted that there can be only one foundational principle, which is embodied in the unconditional statement, "I am I."

In his work On the I as the Principle of Philosophy or the Unconditional in Human Knowledge, Schelling fundamentally addresses the question of the unconditional or absolute foundations of knowledge, analyzing the meaning of the term "to condition." Schelling writes, "To bedingen (to condition) means an action through which something becomes a Ding (thing), conditioned, or made a thing; from this, it is clear that nothing can be posited as a thing through itself, meaning that an unconditional thing (unbedingtes Ding) is a contradiction. The Unconditional (Unbedingt) is what is not made into a thing at all and cannot possibly become one." Thus, in the world of things, we cannot find the unconditional, as there are no unconditioned things. The unconditional can only be found within the subject. Philosophy that seeks unconditional foundations of knowledge in the world of things, outside the subject, is termed dogmatism. Conversely, critical philosophy finds the unconditional basis of knowledge in the essence of the subject. However, what does it mean to "find"? In any case, it does not imply that we find the unconditional in the subject as if it were a thing. The unconditional is neither an object nor something conditioned by the subject. It is the absolute subject or the absolute I. This absolute I, according to Schelling, serves as the starting point of the philosophical system.

In the subsequent phase of early Schelling’s thought, he transitions to the philosophy of nature, establishing a connection between epistemology and natural philosophy, underscoring its necessity within the system of knowledge. Starting from the concept of intelligence, Schelling notes that it operates either unconsciously or freely and consciously. Philosophy reconciles this dichotomy by considering unconscious activity as fundamentally identical to conscious activity, emerging from a common root.

He perceives nature as both subject and object simultaneously, embodying both productivity (subject) and product (object), whereas in Fichte's philosophy, nature is merely an object (one of the states of the non-I). Consequently, in Fichte's system, there is practically no place for a distinct branch of philosophical knowledge such as natural philosophy; it is essentially inconsequential. For Fichte, the level of self-consciousness (I) is primordial, prefigured yet not derived. For Schelling, the higher level of reflective ability is the outcome of a long evolution of inorganic and organic nature. Thus, higher human subjectivity is capable, in its unique form (natural philosophy), of perceiving the developmental line of higher forms of the dialectic between subject and object, arising from its lower forms.

Schelling posited that an object, prior to being raised to consciousness, is a reality that produces something conscious from itself. Therefore, he refers to nature as a "subject-object," even before consciousness, and considers the conjunction of "subject-object" interchangeable with the expression "ideal-real." Nature, as an object, becomes such for emerging consciousness only at the conclusion of the self-generative process of that same nature. It seems that nature, through human consciousness, recognizes itself. It is evident that once nature has traversed its entire journey from primitive forms of subjectivity to consciousness, philosophical knowledge about it remains inherently retrospective.

Nature is understood as a cosmic organism endowed with a "world soul." According to Schelling, all levels of being are eternal and absolutely simultaneous. The theme of the development of reason in the world, or the rational development of the world, later transitioned from Schelling to Hegel.