Schelling is among the most influential German philosophers in history. As a post-Kantian thinker, he is considered a midpoint between the Fichtean and Hegelian philosophical systems along the development of German Idealism. Unlike his predecessors, Schelling placed nature at the center of his philosophical investigation. In light of the dire environmental crisis we face today, the relevance of Schelling’s contributions cannot be overstated.
What Was Schelling’s Educational Background?
Schelling’s educational background was religious and philosophical. Born in Leonberg in 1775, Schelling was raised by strictly religious and intellectual parents. His father was a Lutheran minister and a professor of Oriental languages. His upbringing greatly influenced his educational choices. He was well-versed in religious texts and Greek classics from a very young age. At 15, he was accepted at the Tübinger Stift, a seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church, despite not reaching the usual enrollment age of 20.
In 1792, when he was only 17 years old, Schelling completed his master’s degree in theology. By that time, his interest has already started to shift from doctrinal theology to philosophy. He was particularly interested in the works of Immanuel Kant, the father of German Idealism, and his predecessor, Johann Gotlieb Fichte.
What is Schelling’s Contribution to German Idealism?
Schelling contributed to the development of German Idealism by his attempt at unifying subjectivity and objectivity. His works are considered the midpoint between Fichtean and Hegelian philosophy, as they built on Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre and influenced the development of Hegel’s system. Schelling’s philosophical journey was embedded in Kant and Fichte’s formulations of idealism.
His first philosophical work, On the Possibility of a Form of Philosophy in General, was Fichtean par excellence. Published in 1794, the work was celebrated by Fichte himself, allowing the young philosopher a good reputation in the German intellectual scene. He started writing in Fichte’s academic journal and later started teaching philosophy at the prestigious University of Jena, where Fichte served as Chair of Philosophy. Despite their close collaboration, tension grew between them as Schelling drifted away from Fichte’s Wissenshaftslere.
The Problem of Nature: Why Did Schelling and Fichte Diverge?
Schelling and Fichte diverge due to the fundamental disagreement of their respective philosophical systems. Although Schelling was a proponent of German Idealism, he was also a student of the natural sciences. He found that Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre lacked an adequate investigation of nature. Gradually, Schelling started developing a philosophy of nature, Naturphilosophie, which quickly made him a leading figure within circles of Romanticists. He considered nature and spirit inseparable.
As his famous formulation goes, “Nature is visible spirit, spirit is invisible nature” (Schelling, 1797). In 1800, he published System of Transcendental Idealism, where he tried to bridge Fichte’s system with his Naturphilosophie– an attempt that Fichte severely criticized. According to Fichte, nature, as an objective reality (i.e. not-I), cannot be reconciled with the Wissenschaftslehre whose foundations stand solely on subjectivity (i.e. the self-reverting activity of the ‘I’).
Schelling and Fichte’s disagreement became irredeemable after the former published Presentation of My System of Philosophy in 1801. In this book, he sought to reconcile subjectivity (i.e. spirit or mind) and objectivity (i.e. nature) by demonstrating how they inseparably unfold within one Absolute reality. Schelling not only breached the core tenets of the Wissenschaftslehre but also drew upon the works of philosophers that Fichte rebuked, such as Baruch Spinoza.
A few years later, Schelling openly attacked Fichte in several publications. Despite losing Fichte’s support, Schelling’s new system gained the respect of an emerging canonical philosopher – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Were Schelling and Hegel Friends?
Schelling and Hegel were initially friends, but their philosophical disagreements turned them into fierce rivals. Hegel was Schelling’s roommate at Tübinger Stift. When Schelling moved to Jenna, he helped Hegel secure a position at the University of Jena as a private lecturer. In 1801, Hegel published Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s Systems of Philosophy, where he triumphed Schelling over Fichte. Hegel, like Schelling, found Fichte’s subjective idealism incomplete. He supported Schelling’s conception of an Absolute that unified both mind (subjectivity) and matter (objectivity) as two autonomous and equally important counterparts. On the other hand, Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre grounded objective reality on a subjective basis, which Hegel considered one-sided.
Although he would later acknowledge Fichte’s dialectic method in his magnum opus, The Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel found Schelling’s reconciliation of opposites more holistic and balanced. In light of their philosophical alignment, Schelling and Hegel founded and co-edited the Critical Journal of Philosophy in 1802. However, their collaboration only lasted a year.
In 1803, Schelling left Jena to teach at the University of Würzburg, where he developed his philosophy of identity. Due to conflict with his colleagues and the government regarding his controversial ideas, Schelling had to flee from Würzburg and move to Munich.
It was there that he received Hegel’s manuscript of The Phenomenology of Spirit, for which he was asked to write a forward. Schelling was shocked to find criticism of his own philosophy in the manuscript and sent Hegel a letter to question his intentions, but Hegel never replied. From this point forward, Schelling and Hegel openly attacked each other in lectures and publications.
He considered Hegel’s system to be an example of negative philosophy, and promoted instead a new system of positive philosophy inspired by his studies of religion and mythology. Schelling’s critique would later inform the position of many prominent philosophers towards the Hegelian system.
