No More Learning

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.
The particular is now thought of as finite and the universal as infinity would be thought in opposition to finitude, thus producing the idea of the absolute as the unity of finitude and infinitude. This unity is, for Schelling, the true or rational infinity. 77 This notion dominates Schelling's Identita? tssystem as the essential conception of the absolute. In the Darstellung essay, Schelling still thought of the absolute as - above all else - a simple infinity [Unendlichkeit schlechthin]. The question of the relationship of infinity to finitude and, simultaneously, the possibility and necessity of finitude was not solved. 78 This problem, to which the development and realization of
73 Concerning the relationship between philosophy and art, also compare with Schelling's "Jenaer Vorlesungen," V, 348 ff; 368 ff. --Similarly, the philosophy of the "high and equally quiet completion of spirit" is opposed to religion for Schelling at this stage (VI, 19 ff; IV, 357 Anm. ).
74 Cf. IV, 264; 295; 298; also cf. IV, 236; 239.
75 Cf. IV, 240 ff; 292; 304; cf. also IV, 367 ff; 405.
76 Cf. Hegel: Gesammelte Werke, vol. 4, 340 ff; 69.
77 Cf. , e. g. , IV, 239; 247; also IV, 383.
78 Cf. also IV, 128. Nonetheless, the "identity of the finite and the infinite" formulation also appeared for the totality of the Absolute. Schelling saw this unity earlier, like Fichte, in the Ich.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 173
the Identita? tssystem must be applied, and which Schelling considers in the Bruno,79 cannot be discussed in detail here. That the treatment of this problem belonged to the Identita? tssystem is something that Schelling and Hegel held in common; the stimulation may have been reciprocal. But Schelling and Hegel differ in their attempted solutions to the problem. In Schelling's very first essays dealing with the Identita? tssystem, there appear thoughts on splitting-off and falling-away [Absonderung und Abfalls] from the absolute, thoughts which clearly deviate from Hegel, which Schelling presents comprehensively for the first time in his Philosophie and Religion (1804). 80
And while Schelling certainly used the notion of speculation in the sense of absolute, rational cognition in the Bruno, it appears first in the context of his discussion of various fundamental orientations in philosophy; in this one observes a certain affinity to the use of this concept in the Kritischen Journal. Schelling there critiques contemporary philosophy in a way similar to Hegel - in particular, distinguishing speculative motives and thoughts from merely reflective concepts and common human understanding. This distinction, therefore, was taken as the standard of judgment. To this we should select but one pregnant example taken from Schelling's Journal essays; Schelling says of Hoyer and his Abhandlung u? ber die philosophische Construction: "The substance, which his speculation really achieved, in which he seized the absolute point of identity [Identita? tspunct] of his system. "81 In Schelling's estimation, Hoyer "seized upon" [bema? chtigt]82 - in spite of several mistakes - "the true speculative standpoint," namely, the cognition of absolute identity. Hegel was mentioned nominally for the first time by Schelling in a publication, in ber das absolute Identita? ts-System, in reference to a distinction between an absolute and a subordinate identity; the former identity is "an abstract understanding-identity [Verstandes-Identita? t], as nicely articulated by Hegel. "83 This identity is a scant concept of reflection; it is to be fundamentally distinguished from the absolute identity of speculation or reason. Schelling himself appeals explicitly to Hegel in the context. The true identity is characterized in this essay by Schelling as "the absolute
79 Cf. , above all else, IV, 257.
80 Cf. IV, 167 ftn. ; 259; 284 ff. ; 389; 398; VI, 28 ff. ; also see Habermas: Das Absolute und die Geschichte. Von der Zweispa? ltigkeit in Schellings Denken. Diss. Bonn 1954, 184 ff.
81 In Hegel: Gesammelte Werke. Bd 4, 288.
82 Ibid. , 290.
83 Ibid. , 147 (for an enumeration of the relevant passages, 581).
? 174 Appendix
point of indifference of all speculative truth" [absoluten Indiffernzpunct aller speculativen Wahrheit]. 84 The original, pure identity, however, has been lost in the modern world view; as such, Schelling claims - in his ber das Verha? ltniss der Naturphilosophie zur Philosophie u? berhaupt - that he sees no other means of return "to the serenity and purity of the Hellenistic view of nature" than the "restoration of the lost identity through speculation, and the re-sublation [Wiederaufhebung] of the disunion [Entzweiung] in a higher potency. "85 This formulation, at least, presupposes the concept of speculation and the idea of the situation of disunion as the need of philosophy and speculation presented in the Differenz-Schrift.
Schelling had quite clearly now adopted the conceptual pair [Begriffspaar], speculation and reflection, as the basis of his Ferneren Darstellungen aus dem System der Philosophie (1802) - and not only as a critique of other systems, but in the applications of his own system as well. Speculation qua cognition of absolute reason is here also the basis for the development of certain natural-philosophical [naturphilosophisher] problems; thus the new concept of speculation can even be applied to the speculative physics. Section VII of the Ferneren Darstellungen carries the title: "The Speculative Meaning of the (Keplerian) Laws of the General World Plan. "86 These essays show that reason comprehends "only the absolute and real identity of both unities" in the orbit of the planets - something which "reflection divides into centripetal and centrifugal force. " The phenomena of the solar system are to be approached, like everything "which in the appearance bears the stamp of the ideas," only within the "depths of speculation";87 in reference to this theme, he mentions Hegel's Habilitationsschrift: De orbitis planetarum (1801) three times. 88 One could view this as proof that in the field of Naturphilosophie, with which Schelling at that time was primarily busied, Hegel not only took, he also gave. Schelling sees Hegel's merit chiefly in the critique of a merely quantitative consideration of mathematical physics; that was "recognizable and shown with sufficient clarity in Hegel's treatment de orbitis Planetarum. The view intention or function of these laws, which I consider absolute and purely speculative, is presented in the discussion of
84 Ibid. , 134.
85 Ibid. , 275. Cf. also the revised introduction to the Ideen (1803): (2)5-7 (II, 13 ff. ).
86 IV, 431.
87 IV, 441. With regard to the meaning of speculation, also see IV, 448.
88 Cf. IV, 432; 436; 439.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 175
the godly and natural principle. "89 Still in the Bruno, to which he here refers, Schelling "calls with conviction on the earlier efforts of a friend" for the "speculative sense" of the laws of Kepler, for the cognition of these laws "in their purity," and for liberation from the "mechanical mindset. "90 In the Ferneren Darstellungen, therefore, Hegel's contribution was in large part limited to critique, while the positive - i. e. , speculative - standpoint would be reserved for the Bruno dialogue. 91 In addition to this, consider how Schelling in the second edition of the Ideen, in reference to the "laws of the planetary system," refers to the Bruno and the Ferneren Darstellungen, but fails to mention Hegel's Habilitationsschrift. 92 Schelling clearly believed that he had moved far beyond Hegel's initial suggestion. This example discloses a gradual transformation in Schelling and Hegel's collaborative enterprise.
Schelling's definition of absolute cognition as speculation, however, is more meaningful systematically than this limited natural-philosophical theme. There is, according to Schelling, an "immediate cognition of the absolute . . . and that is the first speculative cognition, the principle and ground of the possibility of all philosophy. "93 Schelling called this cognition "absolute knowledge" and the complete science, which accords to this principle, "absolute science";94 such knowledge of the absolute and the absolute itself are, for him, one and the same. 95 This concept of speculative cognition agrees completely with that of Hegel. Schelling clearly diverges from Hegel, however, when he identifies this cognition with "intellectual intuition" alone or when he defines "rational intuition" [Vernunftanschauung] or rather "speculative intuition" in opposition to reflection. 96 Indeed, for Hegel, speculation also contains a transcendental intuition, though nonetheless only as one side of speculation. 97 Hegel later dismisses, to the benefit of a pure thought of reason, the distinction
89 IV, 432.
90 IV, 330 ftn. .
91 Cf. also O. Closs: Kepler und Newton und das Problem der Gravitation in der Kantischen, Schellingshen und Hegelshen Naturphilosophie. Heidelberg, 1908, 66 ff. .
92 Cf. (2)262 ff (II, 190). Cf. also (2)278 (II, 200); V, 328 ff.
93 IV, 368.
94 IV, 345 ff. ftn. ; 369, ftn. ; 403 ff. ; also cf. IV, 326.
95 Cf. IV, 361; 369; 404; (2)68 (II, 59); (2)71 (II, 61).
96 IV, 368 ff. ; 361; 451. Also cf. VII, 158, where Schelling calls speculation ein "schauen," eine "Contemplation Gottes. " Schelling had already thought about such an intuition in the Darstellung.
97 Cf. Hegel: Gesammelte Werke. Bd 4, 27ff. ; 16; 29; 77.
? 176 Appendix
between concept and transcendental intuition. For Schelling, on the other hand, pure intuition and that which is intuited are always immediately absorbed into one another in speculation; thus, he tried to metaphorically represent the absolute as both the Light and an all seeing eye. 98 All [discursive] access is closed off from this intuition; in this, Schelling reasserts his original view of intellectual intuition.
In order to explain the possibility and necessity of the finite, Schelling developed the theory that the finite and the infinite coalesce completely within the absolute. The absolute as totality produces particularity and finitude from within itself as its ideal; but since the absolute intuits itself, the finite ideal as such is already infinite. The Platonic relationship between prototype and likeness, which Schelling also continued to utilize, was here transformed into the relationship between model and counterpart [Vorbild und Gegenbild] and the unity [Ineinsbildung] of both. 99 Schelling often called the finite determinations of reflection 'Reflexe' as well, the finite and imperfect counterparts to the absolute. This theory, too, is distinctive to - very distinct from Hegel--Schelling's design with regard to the realization of the Identita? tssystem. In the presentation of the image and unity, divine intuition is still presupposed. It is clearly very difficult, however, to unify indiscursivity and absolute indifference - in which all multiplicity, considered in itself, must be dissolved - with the conception of a systematic development of identity. Only now, through this formulation of intellectual intuition and indifference, is the thought of a splitting-off and falling-away from the absolute possible at all; indeed, this formulation of intellectual intuition and indifference is also the place to look for the reason for the later abandonment of the Identita? tsphilosophie.
Since absolute rational cognition or speculation is pure intellectual intuition for Schelling, he can analogically refer to the philosophical method as a geometrical proof qua construction and a philosophical proof qua demonstration. 100 Every particular is to be construed within and known through the intuition of the absolute. This "absolute method" of philosophical construction is distinguished in reflection as thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The synthesis, however, is "not the third, but rather the first,
98 Cf. IV, 404 ff.
99 Cf. IV, 394. The postscripts to the second edition of the Ideen attempt to develop in detail such a theory.
100 Cf. IV, 407 ff; cf. Schelling_s Journal essay: Ueber die Construction in der Philosophie in Hegel: Gesammelte Werke. Bd 4, 277 ff.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 177
absolute unity. "101 This thought is also found in Hegel in the Kritischen Journal. 102 Schelling is alluding here to the form of triplicity presented earlier, e. g. the triplicity of powers in nature. 103 This new notion of synthesis distinguishes Schelling from the Fichtean notion of the synthesis through divisibility to which Schelling previously - regardless of ulterior motives - remained true. 104 The decisive foundation for this new notion of synthesis, in which totality is considered the first term, lay in the relationship of reflection to speculation. The question posed here, then, is whether one ought not to search for the original problem of dialectic in this relationship; if so, reflection must have a necessary, though certainly subordinate, function in the systematic cognition of the Absolute.
An answer to this question, which requires a specific definition of the correlation between reflection and speculation, is first suggested in Schelling's reference to true skepticism in the Ferneren Darstellungen, a passage which quite clearly goes back to Hegel's Skeptizismus essay. Schelling characterizes "criticism," as opposed to "true philosophy," as a "bad skepticism"105; this "bad skepticism" stands completely on the side of reflection and believes that "it has annihilated speculation. " "True skepticism is diametrically opposed to reflective cognition rather than the principle of true speculation - although he cannot say this categorically, since he would otherwise abandon his skepticism. "106 In the Skeptizismus essay, Hegel distinguishes genuine skepticism from the other varieties of skepticism; genuine skepticism is one with true philosophy and represents "the negative side" and presupposes that "unmediated reason is the positive side of the cognition of the absolute. "107 Schelling does not distinguish, as Hegel did, between a form of skepticism which is to be distinguished from philosophy and genuine skepticism which is not. For Schelling, therefore, skepticism in general is "something merely private";108 he also denies here the positive sense of the oppositions which reflection
101 IV, 399; cf. IV, 378 ff. ; cf. also in Bruno IV, 261; 267; 290; in the second edition of the Ideen (2)139 (II, 107).
102 Cf. Hegel: Gesammelte Werke. Bd. 4, 319; 335; 399.
103 Cf. , e. g. , III, 449 ff.
104 Cf. , e. g. , III, 394; 480 and others.
105 Hegel had already characterized Criticism in the Habilitationsthesen as the "imperfecta . . . Scepticismi forma" (Rosenkranz: Hegels Leben, 159). Cf. also Schelling IV, 350 ff.
106 IV, 365 ff. ; cf.