, however, the
intentions
corresponding to the systematic extension of this argument in Schelling's 10/3/1801 letter to Fichte.
Hegel_nodrm
18 This employment of reflection is not repeated in the second edition.
But the eradication of the earlier concept of speculation, which he maintains in most places in the Ideen,19 leads one to conclude that Schelling's sense of speculation had decisively drifted.
In the second edition of the Ideen, which is above all else concerned with the critique of contemporary or "reflective philosophy, one notices a marked similarity to Hegel's conceptual pair, viz. , speculation and reflection; the expression itself, "reflective philosophy" (which replaced speculative philosophy in the first edition),20 is hinted at in the subtitle of Glauben und Wissen and the conceptual pair is employed throughout the Journal essay. When Schelling speaks here of the "sublation" [Aufhebung] of the "endless estrangement" of the Reflexionsphilosophie and the "rupturings of reflection," he is openly adopting the concepts and thoughts of Hegel. Granted, Schelling spoke in similar terms of an "original division" which stood in need of being sublated [aufgehoben] in his U? ber das Verha? ltniss der Naurphilosophie zur Philosophie u? berhaupt (1802), but we can already see in that text the result of a tight collaboration between Schelling and Hegel. 21 In this revised passage in the Ideen, the term "division" - in his contrast between a natural-philosophical and a transcendental-philosophical meaning of these concepts, which Schelling also recognized earlier22 - should be understood as the condition of reflective philosophy and, moreover, a historical condition which is characteristic of an entire age (as sketched by Hegel in, above all else, the Differenz essay23). In his notion of the "sublation" [Aufhebung] of reflective oppositions and disunion, Hegel emphasizes in these years the negation, the complete annihilation of finitude, out of which a living unity
18 e. g. III, 285f; III, 501f; III, 505 f u. a.
19 Speculation in the meaning characterized above remains--probably without particular purpose--in the second edition in the following passages: XXV/15 (II,20); XLVI/41 (II, 39); LIX/60 (II, 52); 131 ftn. /302 ftn. (II, 215 ftn. ); 134/305 (II, 218); 140 ftn. /313 ftn. (II, 223 ftn. ).
20 XIX/7 (II, 14f).
21 In Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 271 ff.
22 e. g. III, 297 f; III, 301 ff; IV, 7. With regard to the division of opposing activities within the Ich, see III, 626. Also, the term "Aufhebung" in the then common parlance can be found earlier in Schelling's discussions of natural philosophy; see, e. g. , 96/247 (II, 179).
23 See Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 4, 12 ff.
? 160 Appendix
and true philosophy could emerge. 24 Schelling adopts here25 only the negative character of sublation, leaving open the possibility (contrary to Hegel's intentions) that the sublation [Aufhebung] of the division of the Reflexionsphilosophie might not coincide with the emergence of philosophy in its "absolute form. " One may well assume, in light of the indictment of Hegel in this passage of the Ideen, that Schelling meant Hegel when he refers to those "philosophers" who assume the work of critiquing the Reflexionsphilosophie. In other contexts at this time, contexts not yet discussed, Schelling was more than willing to assign a merely negative and critical function to Hegel, while reserving the positive and true presentation of the matter for himself. By restricting the meaning of negation in this way, Schelling misses what Hegel considered the decisive and positive sense of the contradiction and antinomies - viz. , that it is a negation which is brought about by reason.
In his critique of contemporary philosophy, Schelling's nemesis - with whom he argues repeatedly - is Fichte. Schelling discusses the Fichtean philosophy at the end of the appendix to the introduction in the Ideen and critiques it with arguments which come rather close to Hegel's objections. In this context, Schelling employs the concept of speculation only twice and in a sense quite distinct from the first edition. 26 Particularly in his remark at the end of this appendix, Schelling adopts Hegel's fundamental critique of Fichte - namely, that he eliminates speculation completely from true knowledge and for that reason sought the absolute in the subjectivity of faith. In this text, the presupposed meaning of speculation, as a pure rational cognition of the absolute, is the one which Hegel established in the critical essays of the Jenazeit and which he hoped to retain in his exposition of the philosophy of his time. Speculation is in this case, therefore, the opposite of reflection. Thus, this new concept of speculation may well have been the occasion for extinguishing the earlier notion of speculation as an abstract form of thought identified with the understanding and replacing it with the term "reflection. "
In the second edition of the Ideen, Schelling also uses the concept of speculation in another sense - one which diverges from the first edition - namely, as "speculative cognition" within a "speculative physics. "27 The idea of a speculative physics, and the specific notion of theory contained
24 See, e. g. , Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 4, 17; 24; also 208. 25 XIX/7 (II, 14f).
26 See (2)86 (II, 72); (2)86 Ftn. (II, 72 ftn. ).
27 (2)83 (II, 70).
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 161
within it, was developed by Schelling for the first time after 1797. Therefore, the elimination of the earlier concept of speculation in the second edition - e. g. , when Schelling no longer designates the opposing mechanistic physics as "pure-speculation" but rather as "pure-rationalistic system"28 - certainly leads one back to a transitionary concept in the development of a speculative physics. But perhaps it should be mentioned here that certain particulars within the domain of Naturphilosophie, viz. , those concerned with a speculative physics, could be credited to Hegel as well. Indeed, Schelling appears to have borrowed the notion of the "beautiful bond," which "produces both itself and the bound unity,"29 from the Timaios passage in the Schelling chapter of the Differenz essay and incorporated it into the discussion of the relationship between masses in a physical system. But since Schelling was familiar with Plato quite early in his career, one must in this case assume a reciprocal stimulation. 30
With his idea of a speculative physics, established principally in the Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (1799), Schelling had already altered his earlier concept of speculation as the divided and abstract thought of the understanding. As such, it is necessary to explain the relationship between this altered conception of speculation, within the speculative physics, and the later conception of speculation as rational cognition of the absolute; if speculation qua absolute cognition were merely an imminent development of that speculative cognition within the speculative physic, one need not admit a Hegelian influence on the new characterization of speculation in the second edition of the Ideen. Above all else, however, one must take into account the fact that Schelling did not use the concept of speculation as rational cognition of the absolute for the first time there, but rather already in his "Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie" (1801) - an essay which appeared some time prior to the Differenz essay. But if the adoption of Hegel's concept of speculation is to be assumed in the second edition of the Ideen, it will also be necessary to prove that Schelling had adopted this conception in those
28 125/292 (II, 209).
29 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 65 ftn. See Schelling: Idee (2)247 (II, 179 f. ). 30 Hegel obviously explained, in the Jenazeit, the analogy of the Timaios as well as the trinity with the help of the bond. These observations most likely do not belong to the Frankfurterzeit to which Rosenkranz attributes them (Rosenkranz: Hegel's urspruengliches System. 1798-1806 in Literarhistorisches Taschenbuch, Hrsg. v. Prutz, Leipzig 1844, 158). The Timaios passage is most likely still looming in the background for Schelling in 1806 in his remarks concerning the "absolute bond" that binds infinitude and finitude.
? 162 Appendix
texts which span from the early essays to the Identita? tssystem (1801-03). The comparison of the two editions of the Ideen merely shows that it is conceivable that Schelling's new conception of speculation, which stands in opposition to reflection, was stimulated by Hegel; a more stringent proof, however, has yet to be carried out.
II.
Schelling's development of a speculative physics implies, when compared to the first edition of the Ideen, an alteration in the concept of speculation. The function of speculative physics is characterized, quite briefly, as an a priori-like "construction" of nature - i. e. , a derivation of all appearances of nature from a singular principle. In this way, nature becomes a system; a "true system," however, is an "organic whole. "31 The decisive problem raised by this statement of speculative physics is the relationship between an a priori theoretical design on the one hand and experience on the other. In this context, Schelling identifies speculation with an a priori theory qua pure science and opposes it to the empirical (which, for Schelling, is a "mere collection of facts" and incapable of ever becoming science). 32 In the attempt to clarify the relationship between speculation and empiricism, it must nevertheless be noticed that Schelling had a very peculiar notion of an a priori judgment; for Schelling, a priori judgments were those judgments of which "one must necessarily become conscious," but whose "content is, after all, whatever one wishes it to be. "33 Therefore, special consideration must also be given to the fact that the arrangement of the particular rules, to the extent that they are unified systematically and thereby - for Schelling - already fulfill the requirement of necessity, could be expressed in an a priori judgment. Empirical and a priori judgments differ from one another merely by varying degrees of certainty and not, as in Kant, through the justification of its validity. Schelling admittedly shrinks back from the consequences of autonomy of a theory developed a priori or speculatively. He admits, then, the validity of the experiment and the empirical trial as a confirmation or disconfirmation of the theoretical design. 34 Experience is clearly the criterion by which to judge the accuracy or inaccuracy of the speculative construction of nature (the sense of which is merely regulative). Therefore,
31 See III, 278 f.
32 Ibid. , 282; also see IV, 28; IV, 32 u. a. 33 Ibid. , 278.
34 Ibid. , 277; see IV, 96 f.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 163
Schelling's teaching on the cognitive worth of pure theory or speculation is, at the very least, inharmonious. 35
In this context, therefore, speculation no longer means divided, abstract, merely formal thinking, but instead the construction - especially the self-construction - of the theory of nature; speculation apprehends nature not only as product, but at the same time productivity: as natura naturans. 36 Proceeding from this concept of speculation, whose relationship to experience remains nonetheless duplicitous, it appears again in two formulas in the essay entitled Allgemeine Deduktion des dynamischen Processes (1800); already in these texts, the notion of speculation is approaching the formulation characteristic of the Identita? tssystem: "If speculation ascends beyond this absolute unity of opposing facts, which we think in the concept of nature, then we have no other object except the absolutely identical . . . "; this is, nonetheless, according to Schelling, displayed "for the intuition" through "the absolute deficiency in nature. "37 For speculation, the absolute unity of both powers is extended to the first "relative or synthetic" unity. 38 Speculation, therefore, strives to establish an absolute identity over the dualisms of fundamental powers of nature which absolute identity takes as its basis - namely, nature itself. Already in the early essay: Von Ich, which at one point claims, e. g. , "speculation demands the unconditioned";39 this observation is made in connection with the alternative: Idealism-Dogmatism. The meaning of speculation as the demand for the absolute unconditioned may have been suggested by, when set in the context of Fichtean thought, Kant; but the representation of speculation as a striving toward the absolute identity of nature, i. e. the notion of nature as the unity of product and productivity, is clearly borrowed from Schelling's own articulation of a speculative physics. 40 This refinement of the concept of speculation within Naturphilosophie is, however, just as clearly distinguishable from Schelling's concept of
35 Metzer, however, presents Schelling construction of a speculative physics as merely an expression of a panlogism (Die Epochen:Eine Interpretation der Frueg- und Spaetphilosophie Schellings der Schellingschen Philosophie von 1795 bis 1802, Heidelberg 1911, 82 ff. ). Chr. Wild's Reflexion und Erfahrung: (Freiburg u. Muenchen 1969, 39 ff and 45 ff. ) emphasizes the task of experience for the Naturerkenntnis in the early Schelling.
36 See IV, 96f; III, 284; also III, 298 f. 37 IV, 6.
38 IV, 9.
39 I, 172; also see I, 152.
40 Compare with, e. g. , III, 287 ff; III, 304.
? 164 Appendix
speculation in Identita? tssystem as it is from Hegel's concept of speculation. Speculation, which rises to the absolute identity or nature itself, lacks all reality for the intuition; it is not therefore a rational cognition of the absolute, but instead remains an empty representation. It may be worth mentioning that alongside this systematic sense of speculation, which is grounded in the idea of a speculative physics, Schelling continued to employ the earlier meaning of speculation - namely, as the abstract and life killing thought of understanding. 41
One is also able to detect the fundamental difference between the concept of speculation, to which the speculative physics belongs, and that of the Identita? tssystem in the new systematic classification of speculative physics within the Identita? tssystem. Whereas Schelling still compared the speculative physic with the Naturphilosophie in his Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (in the Journal essay entitled Ueber das Verha? ltniss der Naturphilosophie zur Philosophie u? berhaupt),42 it was subordinated to and derived from Naturphilosophie. 43 The concept of Naturphilosophie advanced there, within which all of philosophy is contained, presupposes the construction of a system of absolute identity. In this new and systematic conception, speculation is no longer restricted to speculative physics, but also includes a completely different status: in the Identita? tssystem, it also designates the highest rational or absolute cognition; and while this meaning is found earlier, in the Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie, it appears only once and it does not serve a precise, more certain function. Therefore, Schelling says that the opposition between ideal and real principles "does not at all take place on its own or from the standpoint of speculation. "44 The opposed principles, which Schelling also considers to be the principles of subjectivity and objectivity, are in themselves or vis-a`-vis speculation alike absolute identity. They are not, therefore, divided in themselves or in the absolute. In this context, at least, speculation refers to the apprehension of absolute
41 See, e. g. , in System des transzendentalen Idealism III, 351; also see III, 370. The later, handwritten notes at the end of this work are revisions quite similar to those in the second edition of the Ideen. Speculation and reflection (III, 607 ftn. ;III, 617 ftn. ) obviously indicate here the same meaning they did in the Identitaetssystem.
42 Cf. with the inscription to the third section: "Die Naturphilosophie ist speculative Physik" (III, 274).
43 In Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 266; Cf. also 135.
44 IV, 136. The parallel passages from the System des transzendentalen Idealismus provided above (III, 385; 390) already presuppose the ideal principle and, therefore, occupy a completely different systematic role.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 165
identity. For Schelling, the "highest stage" of cognition or the "genuinely speculative" cognition consists in the insight that "only the Identity exists" [da nur die absolute Identita? t ist"]. 45 Schelling denies here, however, that speculation, which recognizes the absolute, is capable of a "return into infinity": "Speculation, which admits of no such regress, eliminates it through the totality. "46 An infinite regress, then, was not the measure of the true infinite qua totality. The argument against an infinite regress as a concept of infinity is carried out in greater detail in the Differenz essay. Hegel there shows that the understanding, in the return from the conditioned to the conditions, which are themselves further conditioned, strives to present an "objective totality" and consequently encounters an infinite regress. The understanding or reflection is not elevated above the sphere of the conditioned and restricted. 47 Fichte too, against whom Hegel's deliberations are primarily directed, refused the model of an infinite series for a systematic science. 48 And yet, according to Hegel, the infinite series of reflection cannot be overcome by those who - like Fichte - conceive of an absolute first [ein absolut Erstes] as the foundation of all other knowledge; instead, Hegel thinks that one overcomes the infinite regress only by means of the grounding-structure [Begru? ndungsstruktur] of an absolute synthesis - a synthesis which makes possible the concept of the unity of the finite and infinite (i. e. , the totality of a system not emerging from the absolute). This argument, an argument undoubtedly developed first by Hegel, presumably stands in the background of the previously cited remark by Schelling in the Darstellung (a remark which was situated, it should be noted, within the limited context of the Naturphilosophie). 49
In contrast to this infinite regress, the absolute identity in the Darstellung essay is the infinite pure and simple [Unendliche schlechthin]. 50 It is not yet, therefore, the unity of infinity and finitude as it
45 IV, 144 ftn.
46 IV, 173 ff.
47 Cf. Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 17; also 390. Compare also the so-called "Systemfragment of 1800" in Hegels theologische Jugendschriften, Hrsg. v. H. Nohl, Tuebingen, 1907, 348.
48 Cf. , e. g. , Fichte: Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1 (Werke), Bd 2 (hrsg. v. R. Lauth u. H. Jacob unter Mitwirkung v. M. Zahn), 124; also compare with Schelling (I, 163 ff; III, 363)--he did not, however, fundamentally maintain this thought (III, 349; 628). 49 Cf.
, however, the intentions corresponding to the systematic extension of this argument in Schelling's 10/3/1801 letter to Fichte.
50 Cf. IV, 118.
? 166 Appendix
was for Hegel or, roughly, as it was for Schelling himself in the Bruno or Ferneren Darstellungen; since in those texts the absolute is being in itself, pure identity, and simple infinity, there is nothing finite when considered in itself. The absolute identity does not emerge from itself. Although Schelling now views the existence of this absolute identity as belonging to its essence, he maintains a distinction of essence in the form of its existence. The existence of absolute identity is only possible in the proposition: A = A. This proposition, however, which displays the variant positions of A as subject and predicate, like the ontological difference of essence and existence, is incapable of being justified from his concept of the absolute as the pure identity without difference. (For Schelling, therefore, the absolute in this identical proposition is - once again - a simple and pure identity. ) The absolute exists, therefore, as an "identity of identity. "51 By way of contrast and according to his assertion of the identity of idea and existence in the Schelling chapter of the Differenz essay, Hegel concept of the absolute is expressed in his claim that "the absolute itself is therefore the identity of identity and non-identity. "52 Schelling first attempted to integrate this concept of the absolute into his conception of an Identita? tssystem in the Bruno.
The "standpoint of speculation," which Schelling mentions in his Darstellung,53 is clearly distinguishable in its particulars from Hegel's standpoint of speculation. For both Schelling and Hegel, the standpoint of speculation is contrasted with the standpoint of reflection. In his Darstellung essay, Schelling cautiously intimates something which Hegel argued at length in the Differenz essay, namely - that it is possible that the idealism developed by Fichte stands upon nothing more than "the standpoint of reflection. "54 Previously, viz. in the System des tranzcendentalen Idealismus, Schelling reserved this reproach for Kant alone;55 until 1801, and still in the U? ber den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie (January 1801), Schelling's disagreements with Fichte were restricted solely to the realm of Naturphilosophie. Schelling's quarrel with Fichte cannot, however, be discussed further here; it is merely intimated here that
51 IV, 121; cf. IV, 118-120. With regard to the expression "Absolute," of which the later Schelling - falsely (X, 149) - denied utilizing here, see IV, 115 and 127 ftn.
52 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 64; cf. the concept of life in the "Systemfragment of 1800" (Hegels theologische Jugendschriften, 348).
53 IV, 136; 170. The concept of speculation was used in a less distinct sense in other passages of this essay (cf. IV, 111; 111 ftn. ; 112 ftn. ).
54 IV, 109; cf. IV. 113 and, among others, 117.
55 Cf. III, 455 ff.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 167
Schelling critiqued Fichte - in his first attempt in the Darstellung mentioned above, and then more clearly in his Letter to Fichte on Nov 3, 1801 and in the Ferneren Darstellungen (1802) - with the aid of the distinction between the standpoint of speculation and reflection which Hegel developed in the Differenz essay.
Schelling, like Hegel, identified the standpoint of speculation with the standpoint of reason. Reason is itself the absolute qua cognition [Erkennen]. This concept of reason, which is grounded the Identita? tssystem, was first propounded in Schelling's Darstellung and in Hegel's Differenz essay. Reason perceives that which exists in-itself; what exists in-itself, exists in reason. Schelling discusses reason in this way in his Identita? tssystem, from the Darstellung forward, together with a new concept of the thing which corresponds to that of Hegel. The thing-in-itself is no longer, as in the case of Fichte and the early Schelling, that which exists for itself outside the Ich (which only a dogmatist could accept and which an idealist denies), but rather reason perceives or cognizes. 56 What truly exists, however, is One - i. e. , the absolute identity; and with this, Schelling and Hegel establish a new form of metaphysics which extends beyond their earlier positions respectively.
It is clear from these considerations that the introduction of these concepts, speculation and absolute rational cognition, which represent transitional concepts, were crucial to the development of a metaphysic of absolute identity. Indeed, one must carefully consider the close collaboration and reciprocal influence which existed between Schelling and Hegel in these years;57 only afterwards can one ask from whence came the decisive push toward the new concept of speculation and, perhaps even further, the conception of the Identita? tssystem. Schelling's Darstellung appeared toward the beginning of May in 1801;58 the forward to Hegel's
56 Cf. IV, 115; 119; 128; cf. also IV, 231; 355; Hegels Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 67 and others.
57 Cf. , e. g. , Schelling's mention--in a letter to Fichte on 5/24/1801--of a friend (Hegel) who "concerned himself completely" (perfect! ) with Bardilian-Reinholdian logic.
58 Cf. Schelling: Briefe und Dokumente. Hrsg. v. H. Fuhrmans, Bonn, 1962, 223ff; also 246 ff. According to Furmans, the Brief an Fichte, which Schelling appended to his Darstellung, is dated at May, 15th, 1801 and not March 1, 1801 (cf. S. 224 Amn. 7). In the March 1, 1801 Brief an Schelling, Caroline seems to make reference to what Schelling "would like to accomplish" in the Darstellung; the
? 168 Appendix
Differenz essay carries the date: July 1801. One is able to determine from his use of then recently published texts that Hegel wrote the definitive text in "the spring or perhaps the early summer" of 1801. 59 In the "Foreword", Hegel explicitly mentions Schelling's essay against Eschenmayer - viz. , ber den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie; and while Schelling announces the new method of his system in that essay, Hegel claims that the fundamental difference between the Fichtean and Schellingian systems was not discussed. 60 The Darstellung essay itself was in fact still attractive to Hegel, but not properly, as one would perhaps expect, but as the first essay of the Identita? tssytem and the foundation of the Schelling chapter. Hegel, in fact, called the concept which Schelling develops there the "qualitative difference" - adding, however, the thought of the reconstruction of the absolute from the difference, to which his method corresponds; Hegel also mentions the "dominance" [U? berwiegen] of the ideal or real poles;61 in particular, he does not agree with, e. g. , Schelling's introduction into absolute identity. One could at the very least suppose, therefore, that a large part of the Differenz essay was already complete by the time that the Darstellung appeared. Hegel's apparent lack of agreement with Schelling and numerous incorporations of his own thought into the Schelling chapter of the Differenz essay could have been, in large part, based on conversations between the two of them. Admittedly, this must still be demonstrated in detail in Hegel's presentation of Schelling.
The fact that the Differenz-essay appeared later than the Darstellung is at any rate no argument for the priority of Schelling. It should be mentioned here, with regard to the question of the origin of the philosophy of absolute identity, that the arguments of the later Schelling with Hegel are not carried out openly; Schelling is publicly credited with the first presentation of the Identita? tssystem and - according to Schelling, at any rate - the singular authentication. 62 Because of this, access to the factual and historio-developmental problems of Schelling and Hegel in the Jenaer Zeit were previously considered closed. But this thesis fails to take into account Schelling's relationship to Hegel at that time, as well as the implementation of his own earlier philosophy.
mentioned "Journal" would then be the Zeitschrift fuer spekulative Physik (a. a. O. 222 Anm. ).
59 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 4, 525 (in the publisher's Appendix).
60 Cf. IV, 102; cf. IV, 83 ff. ; 89; also IV, 78.
61 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 4, 66; 72; an inexact citation: 74. 62 Cf. X, 147.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 169
For Schelling, as for Hegel, a time of preparation preceded their collaborative step toward an absolute metaphysics. Schelling explains that he had already conceived of the new system by the winter of 1800/01;63 Hegel wrote a well-known letter to Schelling in November 1800 which seems to indicate a turn in Hegel's development, namely, that he was being driven toward a science, that the "ideal of his youth must take on the form of reflection and at the same time be transformed into a system. "64 Schelling attempts to present the transition to Identitaetssystem already in 1801 as a directly-linked extension from his earlier philosophy. Hence he says, e. g. , in the Darstellung, that he had already oriented the Identita? tssystem to the formation of nature and transcendental philosophy, and developed the former as a preparation to the system of the latter. 65 One need not, however, view this as a successful attempt to bring the various conceptions of system into harmony. The discussions of the absolute in the Darstellung are transformed from the expositions of the absolute in Schelling's early essays (Vom Ich and Philosophische Briefe u? ber Dogmatismus und Kritizismus); but already there, more clearly than in the development of the division of philosophy into natural and transcendental philosophy, the absolute remains presupposed as a unity. This unity can approach the various aspects of knowledge and therewith gain a continuity between them; after the System des transzendentalen Idealismus, however, the absolute as such can never become an "object of knowledge,"66 thought, or philosophy; instead, it is displayed only in the products of genius and in art. So while the question concerning the absolute and the unity was asked, it was held to be unachievable for thought and for philosophy. In the Darstellung essay, however, the absolute is the thought of the reason itself. When one considers this rational metaphysics as the essential tendency of the Darstellung essay, despite its high systematic pretensions and its apparently strained systematic method, one could view it as an unfinished and unsatisfactory attempt at an Identita? tssystem. Apart from what has been said above, and having noted the many problems
63 Cf. IV, 107 ff. Dilthey thereby assumed in his Hegel-Interpretation that the "outline" of the Darstellung did "not stand under Hegel's influence (Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 4, Hrsg. v. H. Nohl, 206). "
64 Letter to Schelling (Nov. 2, 1800). Briefe von und an Hegel, Hrsg. v. J. Hoffmeister, Hamburg 1952-1960, vol. 1, 59.
65 Cf. IV, 107 ff. ; also perhaps IV, 89 and (2)340 (II, 240); IV, 376.
66 III, 600 ff. That applies for the philosophy of art, which remained bound to thought, as well. It is obvious that the propositions do not go beyond the absolute identity in the Ueber den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie essay. We cannot, naturally, discuss the development of Schelling's thought in greater detail here.
? 170 Appendix
which remain to be solved with regard to the Darstellung essay, the question to be raised here is this: what is the relationship between reason and reflection in the Identita? tsphilosopie? Schelling merely contrasts the standpoint of speculation (or reason) to that of the standpoint of reflection (or understanding); he does not, however, ask whether reflection - although subordinated to the standpoint of speculation - might serve a necessary function, i. e. , whether the absolute could be the object of thought and thus capable of being developed into a system of knowledge. At bottom, the difficulty of the possibility of rational thought and perception would still not be raised, were it not for this subordination of the relationship of reflection to speculation. Perhaps what Schelling had in mind with regard to rational cognition appears for the first time sometime later.
In contrast, Hegel hinted at the positive sense of reflection for the conversion of his earlier ideal into a system as early as the aforementioned letter; Hegel also developed a new start for this thought and the concept of speculation in the Differenz essay; in his earlier thought, he would have opposed the division of reflection to the unity of life and would not have distinguished essentially "speculation" from the "speculative moralists. "67 Nonetheless, already in the Frankfurter Zeit, Hegel grounded reflection in the oppositions and disruptions into which life shapes itself. It is in the Differenz essay, then, that Hegel discusses for the first time the new concept of speculation and the absolute as something which is recognizable through reason and which remains wholly within the structure of the concept of life [Struktur des Lebensbegriff] as the necessary relationship of speculation to reflection and, as he had already insinuated in the Letter to Schelling, the legitimate function of reflection in the recognition of the absolute in a system. Thus Hegel raised the problem of the possibility of such a cognition from the very beginning. He later held fast to this foundation, namely, the structure of the relations between speculation and reflection, although his concept of a system transformed numerous times in its details. The exact determination of the relationship between speculation and reflection should be considered further.
The new concept of speculation as rational cognition of absolute identity is, therefore, not explicable in terms of Schelling's earlier essays; nor is it evident in the Darstellung, where it is merely presupposed as a possibility. In the following year, Schelling draws still closer to Hegel's
? 67 Cf. Hegels theologische Jugendschriften, 276 Anm. ; also 10; 50; 158 and others.
Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 171
line of thought, but again transforms the concept of speculation in a characteristic way and abandons the conception of an Identita? tssystem. When one combines this with the apparently decisive significance of Hegel in Schelling's turn away from Fichte, the supposition that the push toward a new formulation of the concept of speculation as well as the development of an Identita? tssystem proceeded from Hegel and was quickly discovered by Schelling and applied to his own set of problems seems more than merely plausible. This thesis should become clearer by way of a brief examination of this theme in the essays immediately following the Darstellung.
The concept of speculation was also used in the Bruno dialogue; it appears, nevertheless, for the first time at the end. Schelling mentions the destiny of every speculative doctrine and then locates the seed of the highest speculation in the system of the ages - where substance is seen as the unity of the divine and the natural. 68 Speculation is here thought of as the cognition of the Absolute. Thus for Schelling, too, idealism and realism with regard to their opposition are not to be distinguished within speculation. 69 Were we to believe in the absolute, that would be "the end of all speculation. "70
The new sense of philosophy belonging the concept of speculation is conceivable concretely, e. g. , in the relationship of philosophy to the artistic genius; but this relationship would be redefined in the System des tranzscendentalen Idealismus. The philosopher "practices from within . . . the same duty to God that the productive genius practices from without, without knowing it. "71 Hegel had already claimed in the Differenz essay that "art and speculation . . . are essentially religious service. "72 Indeed, Schelling appears - at the named passage of the Bruno - to set philosophical cognition above the unconscious production of the genius by means of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas; since the philosopher cognizes the originals [die Urbilder] or the ideas of being in themselves, e. g. , the idea
68 IV, 310.
69 IV, 321.
70 IV, 326. Cf. IV, 326/7, where one finds two further--albeit less clear--passages on speculation.
71 IV, 231.
72 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, 76.
? 172 Appendix
of beauty, the artist - by contrast - merely creates beautiful things and extracts something from beauty without knowing it. 73
Schelling draws nearer to Hegel with regard to the structure of the absolute in this essay as well; he tries to think of the absolute and infinity as Hegel did in the Differenz essay, viz. , as the identity of identity and non-identity (opposition). 74 What unites this unity of the absolute itself can be represented as the universal unity of the concept and the multiplicity of particular oppositions of intuition. The unity of the absolute is understood, therefore, as the unity of thought and intuition, of the universal and the particular. 75 This sort of unity of the universal and the particular, however, is the idea. The absolute would only be recognized as the idea of all ideas. Hegel represents this unity of universal and particular in Glauben und Wissen in reference to Kant's idea of the intuitive understanding, an idea suggested in the Differenz essay as well,76 and sees in this unity the articulation of the essential idea of reason. The possibility of such a unity and totality, which opens up into the discursivity of all philosophical knowledge, was - already in his Jungendschriften - a central problem for Hegel in the field of ethics. Thus, one may well suppose that this formulation of the structure of the absolute on the one hand and of reason on the other was originally developed by Hegel.
In the second edition of the Ideen, which is above all else concerned with the critique of contemporary or "reflective philosophy, one notices a marked similarity to Hegel's conceptual pair, viz. , speculation and reflection; the expression itself, "reflective philosophy" (which replaced speculative philosophy in the first edition),20 is hinted at in the subtitle of Glauben und Wissen and the conceptual pair is employed throughout the Journal essay. When Schelling speaks here of the "sublation" [Aufhebung] of the "endless estrangement" of the Reflexionsphilosophie and the "rupturings of reflection," he is openly adopting the concepts and thoughts of Hegel. Granted, Schelling spoke in similar terms of an "original division" which stood in need of being sublated [aufgehoben] in his U? ber das Verha? ltniss der Naurphilosophie zur Philosophie u? berhaupt (1802), but we can already see in that text the result of a tight collaboration between Schelling and Hegel. 21 In this revised passage in the Ideen, the term "division" - in his contrast between a natural-philosophical and a transcendental-philosophical meaning of these concepts, which Schelling also recognized earlier22 - should be understood as the condition of reflective philosophy and, moreover, a historical condition which is characteristic of an entire age (as sketched by Hegel in, above all else, the Differenz essay23). In his notion of the "sublation" [Aufhebung] of reflective oppositions and disunion, Hegel emphasizes in these years the negation, the complete annihilation of finitude, out of which a living unity
18 e. g. III, 285f; III, 501f; III, 505 f u. a.
19 Speculation in the meaning characterized above remains--probably without particular purpose--in the second edition in the following passages: XXV/15 (II,20); XLVI/41 (II, 39); LIX/60 (II, 52); 131 ftn. /302 ftn. (II, 215 ftn. ); 134/305 (II, 218); 140 ftn. /313 ftn. (II, 223 ftn. ).
20 XIX/7 (II, 14f).
21 In Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 271 ff.
22 e. g. III, 297 f; III, 301 ff; IV, 7. With regard to the division of opposing activities within the Ich, see III, 626. Also, the term "Aufhebung" in the then common parlance can be found earlier in Schelling's discussions of natural philosophy; see, e. g. , 96/247 (II, 179).
23 See Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 4, 12 ff.
? 160 Appendix
and true philosophy could emerge. 24 Schelling adopts here25 only the negative character of sublation, leaving open the possibility (contrary to Hegel's intentions) that the sublation [Aufhebung] of the division of the Reflexionsphilosophie might not coincide with the emergence of philosophy in its "absolute form. " One may well assume, in light of the indictment of Hegel in this passage of the Ideen, that Schelling meant Hegel when he refers to those "philosophers" who assume the work of critiquing the Reflexionsphilosophie. In other contexts at this time, contexts not yet discussed, Schelling was more than willing to assign a merely negative and critical function to Hegel, while reserving the positive and true presentation of the matter for himself. By restricting the meaning of negation in this way, Schelling misses what Hegel considered the decisive and positive sense of the contradiction and antinomies - viz. , that it is a negation which is brought about by reason.
In his critique of contemporary philosophy, Schelling's nemesis - with whom he argues repeatedly - is Fichte. Schelling discusses the Fichtean philosophy at the end of the appendix to the introduction in the Ideen and critiques it with arguments which come rather close to Hegel's objections. In this context, Schelling employs the concept of speculation only twice and in a sense quite distinct from the first edition. 26 Particularly in his remark at the end of this appendix, Schelling adopts Hegel's fundamental critique of Fichte - namely, that he eliminates speculation completely from true knowledge and for that reason sought the absolute in the subjectivity of faith. In this text, the presupposed meaning of speculation, as a pure rational cognition of the absolute, is the one which Hegel established in the critical essays of the Jenazeit and which he hoped to retain in his exposition of the philosophy of his time. Speculation is in this case, therefore, the opposite of reflection. Thus, this new concept of speculation may well have been the occasion for extinguishing the earlier notion of speculation as an abstract form of thought identified with the understanding and replacing it with the term "reflection. "
In the second edition of the Ideen, Schelling also uses the concept of speculation in another sense - one which diverges from the first edition - namely, as "speculative cognition" within a "speculative physics. "27 The idea of a speculative physics, and the specific notion of theory contained
24 See, e. g. , Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd. 4, 17; 24; also 208. 25 XIX/7 (II, 14f).
26 See (2)86 (II, 72); (2)86 Ftn. (II, 72 ftn. ).
27 (2)83 (II, 70).
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 161
within it, was developed by Schelling for the first time after 1797. Therefore, the elimination of the earlier concept of speculation in the second edition - e. g. , when Schelling no longer designates the opposing mechanistic physics as "pure-speculation" but rather as "pure-rationalistic system"28 - certainly leads one back to a transitionary concept in the development of a speculative physics. But perhaps it should be mentioned here that certain particulars within the domain of Naturphilosophie, viz. , those concerned with a speculative physics, could be credited to Hegel as well. Indeed, Schelling appears to have borrowed the notion of the "beautiful bond," which "produces both itself and the bound unity,"29 from the Timaios passage in the Schelling chapter of the Differenz essay and incorporated it into the discussion of the relationship between masses in a physical system. But since Schelling was familiar with Plato quite early in his career, one must in this case assume a reciprocal stimulation. 30
With his idea of a speculative physics, established principally in the Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (1799), Schelling had already altered his earlier concept of speculation as the divided and abstract thought of the understanding. As such, it is necessary to explain the relationship between this altered conception of speculation, within the speculative physics, and the later conception of speculation as rational cognition of the absolute; if speculation qua absolute cognition were merely an imminent development of that speculative cognition within the speculative physic, one need not admit a Hegelian influence on the new characterization of speculation in the second edition of the Ideen. Above all else, however, one must take into account the fact that Schelling did not use the concept of speculation as rational cognition of the absolute for the first time there, but rather already in his "Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie" (1801) - an essay which appeared some time prior to the Differenz essay. But if the adoption of Hegel's concept of speculation is to be assumed in the second edition of the Ideen, it will also be necessary to prove that Schelling had adopted this conception in those
28 125/292 (II, 209).
29 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 65 ftn. See Schelling: Idee (2)247 (II, 179 f. ). 30 Hegel obviously explained, in the Jenazeit, the analogy of the Timaios as well as the trinity with the help of the bond. These observations most likely do not belong to the Frankfurterzeit to which Rosenkranz attributes them (Rosenkranz: Hegel's urspruengliches System. 1798-1806 in Literarhistorisches Taschenbuch, Hrsg. v. Prutz, Leipzig 1844, 158). The Timaios passage is most likely still looming in the background for Schelling in 1806 in his remarks concerning the "absolute bond" that binds infinitude and finitude.
? 162 Appendix
texts which span from the early essays to the Identita? tssystem (1801-03). The comparison of the two editions of the Ideen merely shows that it is conceivable that Schelling's new conception of speculation, which stands in opposition to reflection, was stimulated by Hegel; a more stringent proof, however, has yet to be carried out.
II.
Schelling's development of a speculative physics implies, when compared to the first edition of the Ideen, an alteration in the concept of speculation. The function of speculative physics is characterized, quite briefly, as an a priori-like "construction" of nature - i. e. , a derivation of all appearances of nature from a singular principle. In this way, nature becomes a system; a "true system," however, is an "organic whole. "31 The decisive problem raised by this statement of speculative physics is the relationship between an a priori theoretical design on the one hand and experience on the other. In this context, Schelling identifies speculation with an a priori theory qua pure science and opposes it to the empirical (which, for Schelling, is a "mere collection of facts" and incapable of ever becoming science). 32 In the attempt to clarify the relationship between speculation and empiricism, it must nevertheless be noticed that Schelling had a very peculiar notion of an a priori judgment; for Schelling, a priori judgments were those judgments of which "one must necessarily become conscious," but whose "content is, after all, whatever one wishes it to be. "33 Therefore, special consideration must also be given to the fact that the arrangement of the particular rules, to the extent that they are unified systematically and thereby - for Schelling - already fulfill the requirement of necessity, could be expressed in an a priori judgment. Empirical and a priori judgments differ from one another merely by varying degrees of certainty and not, as in Kant, through the justification of its validity. Schelling admittedly shrinks back from the consequences of autonomy of a theory developed a priori or speculatively. He admits, then, the validity of the experiment and the empirical trial as a confirmation or disconfirmation of the theoretical design. 34 Experience is clearly the criterion by which to judge the accuracy or inaccuracy of the speculative construction of nature (the sense of which is merely regulative). Therefore,
31 See III, 278 f.
32 Ibid. , 282; also see IV, 28; IV, 32 u. a. 33 Ibid. , 278.
34 Ibid. , 277; see IV, 96 f.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 163
Schelling's teaching on the cognitive worth of pure theory or speculation is, at the very least, inharmonious. 35
In this context, therefore, speculation no longer means divided, abstract, merely formal thinking, but instead the construction - especially the self-construction - of the theory of nature; speculation apprehends nature not only as product, but at the same time productivity: as natura naturans. 36 Proceeding from this concept of speculation, whose relationship to experience remains nonetheless duplicitous, it appears again in two formulas in the essay entitled Allgemeine Deduktion des dynamischen Processes (1800); already in these texts, the notion of speculation is approaching the formulation characteristic of the Identita? tssystem: "If speculation ascends beyond this absolute unity of opposing facts, which we think in the concept of nature, then we have no other object except the absolutely identical . . . "; this is, nonetheless, according to Schelling, displayed "for the intuition" through "the absolute deficiency in nature. "37 For speculation, the absolute unity of both powers is extended to the first "relative or synthetic" unity. 38 Speculation, therefore, strives to establish an absolute identity over the dualisms of fundamental powers of nature which absolute identity takes as its basis - namely, nature itself. Already in the early essay: Von Ich, which at one point claims, e. g. , "speculation demands the unconditioned";39 this observation is made in connection with the alternative: Idealism-Dogmatism. The meaning of speculation as the demand for the absolute unconditioned may have been suggested by, when set in the context of Fichtean thought, Kant; but the representation of speculation as a striving toward the absolute identity of nature, i. e. the notion of nature as the unity of product and productivity, is clearly borrowed from Schelling's own articulation of a speculative physics. 40 This refinement of the concept of speculation within Naturphilosophie is, however, just as clearly distinguishable from Schelling's concept of
35 Metzer, however, presents Schelling construction of a speculative physics as merely an expression of a panlogism (Die Epochen:Eine Interpretation der Frueg- und Spaetphilosophie Schellings der Schellingschen Philosophie von 1795 bis 1802, Heidelberg 1911, 82 ff. ). Chr. Wild's Reflexion und Erfahrung: (Freiburg u. Muenchen 1969, 39 ff and 45 ff. ) emphasizes the task of experience for the Naturerkenntnis in the early Schelling.
36 See IV, 96f; III, 284; also III, 298 f. 37 IV, 6.
38 IV, 9.
39 I, 172; also see I, 152.
40 Compare with, e. g. , III, 287 ff; III, 304.
? 164 Appendix
speculation in Identita? tssystem as it is from Hegel's concept of speculation. Speculation, which rises to the absolute identity or nature itself, lacks all reality for the intuition; it is not therefore a rational cognition of the absolute, but instead remains an empty representation. It may be worth mentioning that alongside this systematic sense of speculation, which is grounded in the idea of a speculative physics, Schelling continued to employ the earlier meaning of speculation - namely, as the abstract and life killing thought of understanding. 41
One is also able to detect the fundamental difference between the concept of speculation, to which the speculative physics belongs, and that of the Identita? tssystem in the new systematic classification of speculative physics within the Identita? tssystem. Whereas Schelling still compared the speculative physic with the Naturphilosophie in his Einleitung zu dem Entwurf eines Systems der Naturphilosophie (in the Journal essay entitled Ueber das Verha? ltniss der Naturphilosophie zur Philosophie u? berhaupt),42 it was subordinated to and derived from Naturphilosophie. 43 The concept of Naturphilosophie advanced there, within which all of philosophy is contained, presupposes the construction of a system of absolute identity. In this new and systematic conception, speculation is no longer restricted to speculative physics, but also includes a completely different status: in the Identita? tssystem, it also designates the highest rational or absolute cognition; and while this meaning is found earlier, in the Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie, it appears only once and it does not serve a precise, more certain function. Therefore, Schelling says that the opposition between ideal and real principles "does not at all take place on its own or from the standpoint of speculation. "44 The opposed principles, which Schelling also considers to be the principles of subjectivity and objectivity, are in themselves or vis-a`-vis speculation alike absolute identity. They are not, therefore, divided in themselves or in the absolute. In this context, at least, speculation refers to the apprehension of absolute
41 See, e. g. , in System des transzendentalen Idealism III, 351; also see III, 370. The later, handwritten notes at the end of this work are revisions quite similar to those in the second edition of the Ideen. Speculation and reflection (III, 607 ftn. ;III, 617 ftn. ) obviously indicate here the same meaning they did in the Identitaetssystem.
42 Cf. with the inscription to the third section: "Die Naturphilosophie ist speculative Physik" (III, 274).
43 In Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 266; Cf. also 135.
44 IV, 136. The parallel passages from the System des transzendentalen Idealismus provided above (III, 385; 390) already presuppose the ideal principle and, therefore, occupy a completely different systematic role.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 165
identity. For Schelling, the "highest stage" of cognition or the "genuinely speculative" cognition consists in the insight that "only the Identity exists" [da nur die absolute Identita? t ist"]. 45 Schelling denies here, however, that speculation, which recognizes the absolute, is capable of a "return into infinity": "Speculation, which admits of no such regress, eliminates it through the totality. "46 An infinite regress, then, was not the measure of the true infinite qua totality. The argument against an infinite regress as a concept of infinity is carried out in greater detail in the Differenz essay. Hegel there shows that the understanding, in the return from the conditioned to the conditions, which are themselves further conditioned, strives to present an "objective totality" and consequently encounters an infinite regress. The understanding or reflection is not elevated above the sphere of the conditioned and restricted. 47 Fichte too, against whom Hegel's deliberations are primarily directed, refused the model of an infinite series for a systematic science. 48 And yet, according to Hegel, the infinite series of reflection cannot be overcome by those who - like Fichte - conceive of an absolute first [ein absolut Erstes] as the foundation of all other knowledge; instead, Hegel thinks that one overcomes the infinite regress only by means of the grounding-structure [Begru? ndungsstruktur] of an absolute synthesis - a synthesis which makes possible the concept of the unity of the finite and infinite (i. e. , the totality of a system not emerging from the absolute). This argument, an argument undoubtedly developed first by Hegel, presumably stands in the background of the previously cited remark by Schelling in the Darstellung (a remark which was situated, it should be noted, within the limited context of the Naturphilosophie). 49
In contrast to this infinite regress, the absolute identity in the Darstellung essay is the infinite pure and simple [Unendliche schlechthin]. 50 It is not yet, therefore, the unity of infinity and finitude as it
45 IV, 144 ftn.
46 IV, 173 ff.
47 Cf. Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 17; also 390. Compare also the so-called "Systemfragment of 1800" in Hegels theologische Jugendschriften, Hrsg. v. H. Nohl, Tuebingen, 1907, 348.
48 Cf. , e. g. , Fichte: Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1 (Werke), Bd 2 (hrsg. v. R. Lauth u. H. Jacob unter Mitwirkung v. M. Zahn), 124; also compare with Schelling (I, 163 ff; III, 363)--he did not, however, fundamentally maintain this thought (III, 349; 628). 49 Cf.
, however, the intentions corresponding to the systematic extension of this argument in Schelling's 10/3/1801 letter to Fichte.
50 Cf. IV, 118.
? 166 Appendix
was for Hegel or, roughly, as it was for Schelling himself in the Bruno or Ferneren Darstellungen; since in those texts the absolute is being in itself, pure identity, and simple infinity, there is nothing finite when considered in itself. The absolute identity does not emerge from itself. Although Schelling now views the existence of this absolute identity as belonging to its essence, he maintains a distinction of essence in the form of its existence. The existence of absolute identity is only possible in the proposition: A = A. This proposition, however, which displays the variant positions of A as subject and predicate, like the ontological difference of essence and existence, is incapable of being justified from his concept of the absolute as the pure identity without difference. (For Schelling, therefore, the absolute in this identical proposition is - once again - a simple and pure identity. ) The absolute exists, therefore, as an "identity of identity. "51 By way of contrast and according to his assertion of the identity of idea and existence in the Schelling chapter of the Differenz essay, Hegel concept of the absolute is expressed in his claim that "the absolute itself is therefore the identity of identity and non-identity. "52 Schelling first attempted to integrate this concept of the absolute into his conception of an Identita? tssystem in the Bruno.
The "standpoint of speculation," which Schelling mentions in his Darstellung,53 is clearly distinguishable in its particulars from Hegel's standpoint of speculation. For both Schelling and Hegel, the standpoint of speculation is contrasted with the standpoint of reflection. In his Darstellung essay, Schelling cautiously intimates something which Hegel argued at length in the Differenz essay, namely - that it is possible that the idealism developed by Fichte stands upon nothing more than "the standpoint of reflection. "54 Previously, viz. in the System des tranzcendentalen Idealismus, Schelling reserved this reproach for Kant alone;55 until 1801, and still in the U? ber den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie (January 1801), Schelling's disagreements with Fichte were restricted solely to the realm of Naturphilosophie. Schelling's quarrel with Fichte cannot, however, be discussed further here; it is merely intimated here that
51 IV, 121; cf. IV, 118-120. With regard to the expression "Absolute," of which the later Schelling - falsely (X, 149) - denied utilizing here, see IV, 115 and 127 ftn.
52 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 64; cf. the concept of life in the "Systemfragment of 1800" (Hegels theologische Jugendschriften, 348).
53 IV, 136; 170. The concept of speculation was used in a less distinct sense in other passages of this essay (cf. IV, 111; 111 ftn. ; 112 ftn. ).
54 IV, 109; cf. IV. 113 and, among others, 117.
55 Cf. III, 455 ff.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 167
Schelling critiqued Fichte - in his first attempt in the Darstellung mentioned above, and then more clearly in his Letter to Fichte on Nov 3, 1801 and in the Ferneren Darstellungen (1802) - with the aid of the distinction between the standpoint of speculation and reflection which Hegel developed in the Differenz essay.
Schelling, like Hegel, identified the standpoint of speculation with the standpoint of reason. Reason is itself the absolute qua cognition [Erkennen]. This concept of reason, which is grounded the Identita? tssystem, was first propounded in Schelling's Darstellung and in Hegel's Differenz essay. Reason perceives that which exists in-itself; what exists in-itself, exists in reason. Schelling discusses reason in this way in his Identita? tssystem, from the Darstellung forward, together with a new concept of the thing which corresponds to that of Hegel. The thing-in-itself is no longer, as in the case of Fichte and the early Schelling, that which exists for itself outside the Ich (which only a dogmatist could accept and which an idealist denies), but rather reason perceives or cognizes. 56 What truly exists, however, is One - i. e. , the absolute identity; and with this, Schelling and Hegel establish a new form of metaphysics which extends beyond their earlier positions respectively.
It is clear from these considerations that the introduction of these concepts, speculation and absolute rational cognition, which represent transitional concepts, were crucial to the development of a metaphysic of absolute identity. Indeed, one must carefully consider the close collaboration and reciprocal influence which existed between Schelling and Hegel in these years;57 only afterwards can one ask from whence came the decisive push toward the new concept of speculation and, perhaps even further, the conception of the Identita? tssystem. Schelling's Darstellung appeared toward the beginning of May in 1801;58 the forward to Hegel's
56 Cf. IV, 115; 119; 128; cf. also IV, 231; 355; Hegels Gesammelte Werke, Bd 4, 67 and others.
57 Cf. , e. g. , Schelling's mention--in a letter to Fichte on 5/24/1801--of a friend (Hegel) who "concerned himself completely" (perfect! ) with Bardilian-Reinholdian logic.
58 Cf. Schelling: Briefe und Dokumente. Hrsg. v. H. Fuhrmans, Bonn, 1962, 223ff; also 246 ff. According to Furmans, the Brief an Fichte, which Schelling appended to his Darstellung, is dated at May, 15th, 1801 and not March 1, 1801 (cf. S. 224 Amn. 7). In the March 1, 1801 Brief an Schelling, Caroline seems to make reference to what Schelling "would like to accomplish" in the Darstellung; the
? 168 Appendix
Differenz essay carries the date: July 1801. One is able to determine from his use of then recently published texts that Hegel wrote the definitive text in "the spring or perhaps the early summer" of 1801. 59 In the "Foreword", Hegel explicitly mentions Schelling's essay against Eschenmayer - viz. , ber den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie; and while Schelling announces the new method of his system in that essay, Hegel claims that the fundamental difference between the Fichtean and Schellingian systems was not discussed. 60 The Darstellung essay itself was in fact still attractive to Hegel, but not properly, as one would perhaps expect, but as the first essay of the Identita? tssytem and the foundation of the Schelling chapter. Hegel, in fact, called the concept which Schelling develops there the "qualitative difference" - adding, however, the thought of the reconstruction of the absolute from the difference, to which his method corresponds; Hegel also mentions the "dominance" [U? berwiegen] of the ideal or real poles;61 in particular, he does not agree with, e. g. , Schelling's introduction into absolute identity. One could at the very least suppose, therefore, that a large part of the Differenz essay was already complete by the time that the Darstellung appeared. Hegel's apparent lack of agreement with Schelling and numerous incorporations of his own thought into the Schelling chapter of the Differenz essay could have been, in large part, based on conversations between the two of them. Admittedly, this must still be demonstrated in detail in Hegel's presentation of Schelling.
The fact that the Differenz-essay appeared later than the Darstellung is at any rate no argument for the priority of Schelling. It should be mentioned here, with regard to the question of the origin of the philosophy of absolute identity, that the arguments of the later Schelling with Hegel are not carried out openly; Schelling is publicly credited with the first presentation of the Identita? tssystem and - according to Schelling, at any rate - the singular authentication. 62 Because of this, access to the factual and historio-developmental problems of Schelling and Hegel in the Jenaer Zeit were previously considered closed. But this thesis fails to take into account Schelling's relationship to Hegel at that time, as well as the implementation of his own earlier philosophy.
mentioned "Journal" would then be the Zeitschrift fuer spekulative Physik (a. a. O. 222 Anm. ).
59 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 4, 525 (in the publisher's Appendix).
60 Cf. IV, 102; cf. IV, 83 ff. ; 89; also IV, 78.
61 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 4, 66; 72; an inexact citation: 74. 62 Cf. X, 147.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 169
For Schelling, as for Hegel, a time of preparation preceded their collaborative step toward an absolute metaphysics. Schelling explains that he had already conceived of the new system by the winter of 1800/01;63 Hegel wrote a well-known letter to Schelling in November 1800 which seems to indicate a turn in Hegel's development, namely, that he was being driven toward a science, that the "ideal of his youth must take on the form of reflection and at the same time be transformed into a system. "64 Schelling attempts to present the transition to Identitaetssystem already in 1801 as a directly-linked extension from his earlier philosophy. Hence he says, e. g. , in the Darstellung, that he had already oriented the Identita? tssystem to the formation of nature and transcendental philosophy, and developed the former as a preparation to the system of the latter. 65 One need not, however, view this as a successful attempt to bring the various conceptions of system into harmony. The discussions of the absolute in the Darstellung are transformed from the expositions of the absolute in Schelling's early essays (Vom Ich and Philosophische Briefe u? ber Dogmatismus und Kritizismus); but already there, more clearly than in the development of the division of philosophy into natural and transcendental philosophy, the absolute remains presupposed as a unity. This unity can approach the various aspects of knowledge and therewith gain a continuity between them; after the System des transzendentalen Idealismus, however, the absolute as such can never become an "object of knowledge,"66 thought, or philosophy; instead, it is displayed only in the products of genius and in art. So while the question concerning the absolute and the unity was asked, it was held to be unachievable for thought and for philosophy. In the Darstellung essay, however, the absolute is the thought of the reason itself. When one considers this rational metaphysics as the essential tendency of the Darstellung essay, despite its high systematic pretensions and its apparently strained systematic method, one could view it as an unfinished and unsatisfactory attempt at an Identita? tssystem. Apart from what has been said above, and having noted the many problems
63 Cf. IV, 107 ff. Dilthey thereby assumed in his Hegel-Interpretation that the "outline" of the Darstellung did "not stand under Hegel's influence (Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. 4, Hrsg. v. H. Nohl, 206). "
64 Letter to Schelling (Nov. 2, 1800). Briefe von und an Hegel, Hrsg. v. J. Hoffmeister, Hamburg 1952-1960, vol. 1, 59.
65 Cf. IV, 107 ff. ; also perhaps IV, 89 and (2)340 (II, 240); IV, 376.
66 III, 600 ff. That applies for the philosophy of art, which remained bound to thought, as well. It is obvious that the propositions do not go beyond the absolute identity in the Ueber den wahren Begriff der Naturphilosophie essay. We cannot, naturally, discuss the development of Schelling's thought in greater detail here.
? 170 Appendix
which remain to be solved with regard to the Darstellung essay, the question to be raised here is this: what is the relationship between reason and reflection in the Identita? tsphilosopie? Schelling merely contrasts the standpoint of speculation (or reason) to that of the standpoint of reflection (or understanding); he does not, however, ask whether reflection - although subordinated to the standpoint of speculation - might serve a necessary function, i. e. , whether the absolute could be the object of thought and thus capable of being developed into a system of knowledge. At bottom, the difficulty of the possibility of rational thought and perception would still not be raised, were it not for this subordination of the relationship of reflection to speculation. Perhaps what Schelling had in mind with regard to rational cognition appears for the first time sometime later.
In contrast, Hegel hinted at the positive sense of reflection for the conversion of his earlier ideal into a system as early as the aforementioned letter; Hegel also developed a new start for this thought and the concept of speculation in the Differenz essay; in his earlier thought, he would have opposed the division of reflection to the unity of life and would not have distinguished essentially "speculation" from the "speculative moralists. "67 Nonetheless, already in the Frankfurter Zeit, Hegel grounded reflection in the oppositions and disruptions into which life shapes itself. It is in the Differenz essay, then, that Hegel discusses for the first time the new concept of speculation and the absolute as something which is recognizable through reason and which remains wholly within the structure of the concept of life [Struktur des Lebensbegriff] as the necessary relationship of speculation to reflection and, as he had already insinuated in the Letter to Schelling, the legitimate function of reflection in the recognition of the absolute in a system. Thus Hegel raised the problem of the possibility of such a cognition from the very beginning. He later held fast to this foundation, namely, the structure of the relations between speculation and reflection, although his concept of a system transformed numerous times in its details. The exact determination of the relationship between speculation and reflection should be considered further.
The new concept of speculation as rational cognition of absolute identity is, therefore, not explicable in terms of Schelling's earlier essays; nor is it evident in the Darstellung, where it is merely presupposed as a possibility. In the following year, Schelling draws still closer to Hegel's
? 67 Cf. Hegels theologische Jugendschriften, 276 Anm. ; also 10; 50; 158 and others.
Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 171
line of thought, but again transforms the concept of speculation in a characteristic way and abandons the conception of an Identita? tssystem. When one combines this with the apparently decisive significance of Hegel in Schelling's turn away from Fichte, the supposition that the push toward a new formulation of the concept of speculation as well as the development of an Identita? tssystem proceeded from Hegel and was quickly discovered by Schelling and applied to his own set of problems seems more than merely plausible. This thesis should become clearer by way of a brief examination of this theme in the essays immediately following the Darstellung.
The concept of speculation was also used in the Bruno dialogue; it appears, nevertheless, for the first time at the end. Schelling mentions the destiny of every speculative doctrine and then locates the seed of the highest speculation in the system of the ages - where substance is seen as the unity of the divine and the natural. 68 Speculation is here thought of as the cognition of the Absolute. Thus for Schelling, too, idealism and realism with regard to their opposition are not to be distinguished within speculation. 69 Were we to believe in the absolute, that would be "the end of all speculation. "70
The new sense of philosophy belonging the concept of speculation is conceivable concretely, e. g. , in the relationship of philosophy to the artistic genius; but this relationship would be redefined in the System des tranzscendentalen Idealismus. The philosopher "practices from within . . . the same duty to God that the productive genius practices from without, without knowing it. "71 Hegel had already claimed in the Differenz essay that "art and speculation . . . are essentially religious service. "72 Indeed, Schelling appears - at the named passage of the Bruno - to set philosophical cognition above the unconscious production of the genius by means of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas; since the philosopher cognizes the originals [die Urbilder] or the ideas of being in themselves, e. g. , the idea
68 IV, 310.
69 IV, 321.
70 IV, 326. Cf. IV, 326/7, where one finds two further--albeit less clear--passages on speculation.
71 IV, 231.
72 Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, 76.
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of beauty, the artist - by contrast - merely creates beautiful things and extracts something from beauty without knowing it. 73
Schelling draws nearer to Hegel with regard to the structure of the absolute in this essay as well; he tries to think of the absolute and infinity as Hegel did in the Differenz essay, viz. , as the identity of identity and non-identity (opposition). 74 What unites this unity of the absolute itself can be represented as the universal unity of the concept and the multiplicity of particular oppositions of intuition. The unity of the absolute is understood, therefore, as the unity of thought and intuition, of the universal and the particular. 75 This sort of unity of the universal and the particular, however, is the idea. The absolute would only be recognized as the idea of all ideas. Hegel represents this unity of universal and particular in Glauben und Wissen in reference to Kant's idea of the intuitive understanding, an idea suggested in the Differenz essay as well,76 and sees in this unity the articulation of the essential idea of reason. The possibility of such a unity and totality, which opens up into the discursivity of all philosophical knowledge, was - already in his Jungendschriften - a central problem for Hegel in the field of ethics. Thus, one may well suppose that this formulation of the structure of the absolute on the one hand and of reason on the other was originally developed by Hegel.
