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Friedrich SchellingGerman philosopher
Date of Birth: 27.01.1775
Country:  Germany |
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Biography of Friedrich Schelling
Friedrich Schelling was a German philosopher who was born on January 27, 1775, in Leonberg near Stuttgart. He obtained a degree in philosophy from the University of Tübingen in 1792. During that time, he was captivated by the revolutionary ideas that were prevalent. After two years of working as a private tutor, he was invited by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to the University of Jena to serve as an extraordinary professor in 1798.
Academic Career
In 1803, Schelling became a professor of philosophy at the University of Würzburg. He later became a full member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in Munich in 1806, where he settled for 35 years, with a break of seven years when he was a professor at the University of Erlangen. In 1807, Schelling became the secretary general of the Academy of Fine Arts, and in 1827, he became its president. Towards the end of his life, he returned to his previous lifestyle and gave lectures in Berlin, although they were not well-received by the public. Friedrich Schelling passed away on August 20, 1854, in Ragaz, Switzerland.
Philosophical Views
Within the framework of German idealism, Schelling occupies an intermediate position between Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He and his wife, Caroline, held prominent positions in the German Romanticism movement. Schelling was a pantheist, but in his system, the absolute substance of Spinoza is replaced by a dynamic absolute Ego. This Ego exists, similar to the physical world or nature, in a state of self-forgetfulness, unaware that objects and things are merely creations of its own imagination. Gradually, the Ego awakens in culture and human history and comes to self-consciousness. However, beyond this absolute Ego, which "lives" or is what it is, in the division of itself into the subject and object of consciousness, lies the Absolute, devoid of any determinateness and consciousness. It is simply nothingness, as it "is not" since "to be" means to be "through" and "for" consciousness. This "nothingness" has not yet acquired any specific content. Every specific content as a separate possibility is reduced within it to absolute indistinguishability. Yet, precisely because of this, absolute nothingness is also absolute freedom, as it is not conditioned by any irrevocable fact of its own existence or any specific nature belonging to it. It has not yet deprived itself of infinite possibilities. It is, so to speak, the God who precedes his creation and his manifestation in the real world. However, the real world is neither dead nor static; it is not yet here, it is the reality in the act of becoming. Such an act of realization is will, arbitrariness, or, in other words, irrationality. However, the kingdom of pure possibilities (the eternal thoughts of God) can be the subject of deductive speculation because there are relations between ideas, the necessity of which can be understood apart from their actualization. Schelling calls the part of philosophy that deals with the content of reality negative. However, it is impossible to understand, anticipate, and construct the act of realization with the help of reason alone. The existence of things (the very fact of actualization) can only be perceived through consciousness in experience, and this fact is irrational. The part of philosophy that deals with this is called positive. Since the act of becoming is an act of creation, or revelation (manifestation) of God, its study is primarily the subject of theosophy. Schelling's views, characterized by voluntarism, organicism, and a tendency to consider all questions through the prism of aesthetics, had a significant influence on his contemporaries. His vision of the physical world as remnants of life was echoed in the philosophy of Henri Bergson. The idea of "positive philosophy" influenced Søren Kierkegaard and, through him, existentialism.
Major Works
Some of Schelling's major works include "Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism" (1795), "System of Transcendental Idealism" (1800), "Bruno, or On the Divine and Natural Principle of Things" (1802), "On the Relationship of the Visual Arts to Nature" (1807), "Philosophical Investigations on the Essence of Human Freedom and Related Subjects" (1809), "Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology" (1825, published posthumously), and "On the History of Modern Philosophy" (1827, published posthumously). His complete works were published under the editorship of his son, F. Schelling, between 1856 and 1861. The Bavarian Academy of Sciences prepared a critical edition of his works.
