Abstract
Schelling’s “great leap” begins by cutting adrift of two of the foundational concepts of modern metaphysics—Descartes’ I think—I am, and Kant’s thing-in-itself. The former establishes the pre-critical ‘I’ as the sovereign experiencer and consequently anoints the duality of the experiencer and experience, and the latter introduces the second key binary of modern thinking: that of the “thing-in-itself” versus “appearance.” Schelling negates both and reaches beyond to look for a way of establishing the source of our reality in “unities” rather than in binaries. Going beyond Descartes and Kant, Schelling offers two perspectives: one from the phenomena upwards to the Absolute, and the other, from the Absolute down to the particulars. Together these two perspectives show conventional thinking to be foundering in misapprehensions regarding the world of finite particulars as well as its own nature. This includes the haloed world of empirical science. Nietzsche’s intuition with respect to the “Eternal Return” is much better understood when we apply Schelling’s construction of the phenomena/essence relation. Eternal Return is not to be thought of in terms of a perpetual return to accidental aggregates or external conditions, that is, in terms of recuperating contingent social formations or personal circumstances indefinitely (the latter is both improbable and a misapprehension). Rather it is to be thought of in terms of things forever returning to their essence as an underlying principle of ontological necessity.
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- 1.
F.W.J. Schelling , System of Transcendental Idealism (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1978/1800), p. 25.
- 2.
Schelling writes: “If all knowing has, as it were, two poles, which mutually presuppose and demand one another, they must seek each other in all the sciences; hence there must necessarily be two basic sciences, and it must be impossible to set out from the one pole without being driven toward the other. The necessary tendency of all natural science is thus to move from nature to intelligence . This and nothing else is at the bottom of the urge to bring theory into the phenomena of nature . – The highest consummation of natural science would be the complete spiritualising of all natural laws into laws of intuition and thought. The phenomena (the matter ) must wholly disappear, and only the laws (the form ) remain. Hence it is, that the more lawfulness emerges in nature itself, the more the husk disappears, the phenomena themselves become more mental, and at length vanish entirely. The phenomena of optics are nothing but a geometry whose lines are drawn by light, and this light itself is already of doubtful materiality. In the phenomena of magnetism all material traces are already disappearing, and in those of gravitation, which even scientists have thought it possible to conceive of merely as an immediate spiritual influence, nothing remains but its law, whose largescale execution is the mechanism of the heavenly motions. – The completed theory of nature would be that whereby the whole of nature was resolved into an intelligence . – The dead and unconscious products of nature are merely abortive attempts that she makes to reflect herself; inanimate nature so-called is actually as such an immature intelligence , so that in her phenomena the still unwitting character of intelligence is already peeping through. – Nature ‘s highest goal, to become wholly an object to herself, is achieved only through the last and highest order of reflection, which is none other than man; or, more generally, it is what we call reason , whereby nature first completely returns into herself, and by which it becomes apparent that nature is identical from the first with what we recognise in ourselves as the intelligent and the conscious.” Ibid., p. 6.
- 3.
Martin Heidegger , Being and Time , p. 13.
- 4.
Martin Heidegger , Schelling ’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom , trans. Joan Stambaugh (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1985), p. 4. Even as we note Heidegger’s appreciation of Schelling , it must be acknowledged at the same time that Heidegger was quite skeptical of Schelling ’s system building efforts in the manner of traditional philosophers. For the purposes of the present work, however, we can safely ignore those parts of Schelling ’s oeuvre that have those ambitions, and limit ourselves to the early insights to which continental philosophy owes so much.
- 5.
F.W.J. von Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 52–53.
- 6.
Kant merely formalizes a viewpoint that has been in the making for a long time .
- 7.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 11. Further, in a later page, Schelling notes: “I maintain, however, that we as little understand empirically a life outside us as we do a consciousness inside us, that neither the one nor the other is explicable from physical causes, that in this respect it is completely indifferent whether the body is regarded as an accidental aggregate of organized particles, or as a hydraulic machine, or as a chemical laboratory,” ibid., p. 37.
- 8.
Ibid., p. 11.
- 9.
Schelling , Transcendental Idealism , pp. 8–9.
- 10.
The difference between psychic matter and ordinary (unorganized) matter is that the former is able to exert toward origin again as a self-conscious project.
- 11.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 10.
- 12.
See C.G. Jung , Collected Works, Vols. 8, 9, & 11, trans. R.F.C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975).
- 13.
We might say that the Nietzschean Overman is a man returned-to-origin and therefore signaling the death of metaphysics .
- 14.
Schelling writes: “Our present concern is not how we might present such a system, once it exists, but how in general such a system could exist. The question is not whether and how that assemblage of phenomena and the series of causes and effects, which we call the course of Nature , has become actual outside us, but how they have become actual for us, how that system and that assemblage of phenomena have found their way to our minds, and how they have attained the necessity in our conception with which we are absolutely compelled to think of them. For it is presupposed, as undeniable fact , that the representation of a succession of causes and effects external to us is as necessary for our mind as if they belonged to its very being and essence . To explain this necessity is a major problem of all philosophy .” Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 23.
- 15.
In Indian advaita philosophy of the Upanishads, there is the discussion of vikara (form ) and nirvikara (formless), and their relation.
- 16.
Schelling rejects the Kantian picture of the arising of matter on the ground that it rests on a false “form -matter distinction,” and requires the assumption of the “nonsensical things-in themselves (Kant’s ding-an-sich), and further, that the Kantian schema fails to explain how the things come to have representations in the mind .
- 17.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 216.
- 18.
Michael Vater, “Bringing Nature to Light: Schelling ’s Naturphilosophie in the Early System of Identity ,” Analecta Hermeneutica, 5, 2013.
- 19.
Ibid., p. 174.
- 20.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 14.
- 21.
To give an ordinary analogy, two iron bars may contain the same number of magnetized particles and yet only one of them might exhibit magnetic properties such as polarity due to the manner of alignment of the elements within it. To keep the discussion at a simple level, we are only considering the difference between two groups namely “sentient” bodies and inert ones, without getting into the problem of differences within each group.
- 22.
“This philosophy must accept that there is a hierarchy of life in Nature . Even in mere organized matter there is life, but the life of a more restricted kind. This idea is so old, and has hitherto persisted so constantly in the most varied forms, right up to the present day—(that the whole world was pervaded by an animating principle)—that one may very well surmise from the beginning that there must be some reason latent in the human for this natural belief. And so it is. The sheer wonder which surrounds the problem of the origin of organic bodies, therefore, is due to the fact that in these things necessity and contingency are most intimately united. Necessity , because their very existence is purposive; contingency, because this purposiveness is nevertheless actual for an intuiting and reflecting being .” Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 35.
- 23.
This is no different than, say, the phenomenon of gravity; the relative mass determines the intensity.
- 24.
This insensitivity eventually brings about ecological ruin.
- 25.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 182.
- 26.
For example, we are not able to discern the mind -like properties of, say, water, which we treat as inert.
- 27.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 47.
- 28.
Ibid.
- 29.
Ibid.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
Ibid., p. 48.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
Ibid.
- 34.
This is possibly what Buddhist doctrine calls “avijnya” or ignorance.
- 35.
The Karma theory of the Hindu Advaita or non-dual Philosophy carries similar notions.
- 36.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 51.
- 37.
It is also the reason why all decisions taken on this basis lead nowhere, and ecological debates have floundered in contradiction.
- 38.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 51.
- 39.
This is not to say that perceptional categories are irrelevant, but that they are incomplete or insufficient for apprehending the totality of the existential plane. Ordinary, or commonsense perception cannot be given up, instead, a new organ of perception must be generated through facing-toward-being . Both levels must operate together in the act of redemptive thinking .
- 40.
Martin Heidegger , “Memorial Address,” in Discourse on Thinking , trans. John Anderson and E. Hans Freund (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 54.
- 41.
Schelling , Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature , p. 55.
References
Heidegger, Martin. “Memorial Address.” In Discourse on Thinking, translated by John Anderson and E. Hans Freund. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
Heidegger, Martin. Being and Time. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. New York: SUNY Press, 1996.
Heidegger, Martin. Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom. Translated by Joan Stambaugh. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1989.
Jung, Carl Gustav. Collected Works, Vols. 8, 9, & 11. Translated by R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975.
Vater, Michael. “Bringing Nature to Light: Schelling’s Naturphilosophie in the Early System of Identity.” Analecta Hermeneutica 5 (2013). http://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1507&context=phil_fac.
von Schelling, F.W.J. Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature. Translated by Errol E. Harris and Peter Heath. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
von Schelling, F.W.J. System of Transcendental Idealism. Translated by Peter Heath. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1978/1800.
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Roy, K. (2018). Schelling’s Great Leap. In: The Power of Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96911-4_3
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