No More Learning

108: But because, in speculation, it is possible to conceive of attractive and repulsive forces as distinct from matter, people suppose (through a deception by no means uncommon) that what can be separated in thought is also separate in fact.
266: But because, in reflection, it is possible to conceive of attractive and repulsive forces as distinct from matter, people suppose (through a deception by no means uncommon) that what can be separated in thought is also separate in fact (1988: 154).
108: The same illusion of speculation which led people astray about these principles, extends its influence over all the sciences.
267: The same illusion of reflection which led people astray about these principles, extends its influence over all the sciences (1988: 154).
109: Even when Newton found himself faced with the alternatives, of regarding the universal force of attraction either as an occult quality, which he did not want and could not do, or as merely seeming, i. e. , as the effect of an alien cause, he never, so it seems, himself worked out the speculative reason which drove him back and forth uncertainly between two contradictory claims.
268: Our age, which not only discovers itself, but also investigates the possibility of the earlier inventions, has has found out this error of reflection, which runs through all sciences (1988: 155).
154 Appendix
109: Our age, which not only discovers itself, but also investigates the possibility of the earlier inventions, has has found out this error of speculation, which runs through all sciences.
110: Philosophy itself, in the meantime, however much its principles agree with what is generally known to and assumed by common sense, has still not succeeded, as yet, in getting rid of that obscure scholasticism which, ignorant in regard to all the demands which experience and the empirical sciences make upon philosophy, continues even now to indulge its speculative illusions, and, priding itself upon a supposed knowledge of the real, to look down with distain upon all attempts to confine our knowledge solely to the world of experience. People have not seen that things are not distinct from their effects, and are preoccupied even now with fancies about things that are supposed to be present externally to things themselves. Because speculation is able to separate what in itself is never separated, because the fancy can divide the object from its property, the actual from its action, and thereby keep a hold upon them, the supposition is that these real objects without properties, things without action, can also exist outside the fancy - regardless of the fact that, apart from speculation, every object is present for us only through its properties, everything through its action alone.
268f. Philosophy itself, in the meantime, however much its principles agree with what is generally known to and assumed by common sense, has still not succeeded, as yet, in getting rid of that obscure scholasticism, which carries over to sensory things what is valid only in an absolute sphere, that of reason; which degrades Ideas into physical causes; and which, while in actuality not advancing a step beyond the world of experience, still prides itself on a real acquaintance with things supersensible. People have not yet seen, for the most part, that the ideality of things is also the only reality, and are preoccupied with fancies about things external to sensory objects, which still retain their properties about them, nonetheless. Because reflection is able to separate what in itself is never separated, because the fancy can divide the object from its property, the actual from its action, and thereby keep a hold upon them, the supposition is that these real objects without properties, things without action, can also exist outside the fancy - regardless of the fact that, apart from reflection, every object is present for us only through its properties, every thing through its action alone (1988: 155-6).
Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 155
275: So the concept of these two forces, as Kant defines it, is a purely formal concept engendered by reflection (1988: 158).
278: For knowledge of these exhalted relationships, the understanding is thus wholly dead - they are evident only to reason (1988: 160).
125: The mechanical physics is a purely speculative system.
292: The mechanical physics is a purely ratiocinatory system (1988: 167).
127: The whole system [of le Sage] proceeds from speculative concepts, which cannot be represented in any intuition.
295: The whole system [of le Sage] proceeds from abstract concepts, which cannot be represented in any intuition (1988: 169).
318: The two first dimensions in physical things are related as quantity and quality; the first is their determination for reflection or the concept, the other for judgment (1988: 181).
142: The basic forces of matter are thus nothing else but the expression of those original activities for the understanding; and thus it will be easy for us to specify them with perfect completeness.
322: The basic forces of matter are thus nothing else but the expression of those original activities for the understanding, for reflection; not the true in-itself, which exists only in intuition; and thus it will be easy for us to specify them with perfect completeness (1988: 183).
149: But the object is never without its limit, or matter without its form. The two may be separated in speculation; to think of them divided in reality is absurd.
331: But the object is never without its limit, or matter without its form. The two may be separated in reflection; to think of them divided in reality is absurd (1988: 187).
156: Speculation alone is able to separate what reality always unites.
343: Reflection alone is able to separate what reality always unites (1988: 193).
156 Appendix
From the comparison of these passages (i. e. , the original and the revised edition of the Ideen), it is evident that in most cases Schelling merely replaced the earlier concept of speculation with that of reflection. Speculation meant, in the first edition, a separation of that which is originally united in nature and reality. This concept of speculation has consequences for both the scientific character of the Naturphilosophie and the life of the self-conscious Ich in the world. According to Schelling, then, it is by means of speculatively constructed propositions alone that the fundamental forces of matter, which are essentially united in nature, came to be understood as something divided. Speculation is incapable, therefore, of comprehending the real in its origin; it remains a mere formula, thought abstracted from reality;6 this thought, through which the propositions of Naturphilosophie are determined, is grounded in a relationship to the world characterized by speculation. The first act of speculation and, subsequently, the beginning of philosophy consists in the separation of self-consciousness from the world. This division was proceeded by an early stage in history in which humanity lived in an original unity of nature and itself. The self, which through its freedom has become conscious of itself, is able to produce a reciprocating interaction and, subsequently, a renewed unity with the world. 7 From this starting point, Schelling is able to characterize "mere speculation" - when it gains control over an individual - by diagnosing it as a "mental illness" which disturbs the unity of individual with the world and, at the same time, undermine the necessary foundation of their existence. 8 This anthropological-historical notion of the elementary unity of the individual with the world, which once constituted their whole reality and always remains the unconscious foundation of their existence, is reinterpreted in the second edition as an ideal derivation of their loftier being and the spiritual life intrinsic to absolute identity.
6 See, e. g. , 149/331 (II, 234); 156/343 (II, 242). The number just prior to the slash means here and in the following the page number in the first edition, while that behind the slash refers to the second edition; in passages which are found only in the second edition, we designated by placing a (2) ahead of the page reference. The additional roman and arabic numbers in parethases refer to their position within the Werken (see ftn. 3 above).
7 Schiller's distinction between the state of nature and the state of culture, and their mutual development into a higher unity may well, above all else, stand in the background here.
8 XVIII/6 (II, 13ff. ). See XVII/5 (II,13); also see I, 341.
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 157
In contrast to this "mental illness" of merely divided and abstracted thought, which is called "speculation" in the first edition, Schelling now sees "health" as a "balance of powers" - as a reciprocity and unity in the world similar to that which is also possible in the self-conscious Ich. 9 Indeed, this philosophy presupposes the opposition of the self to the world and, therefore, requires speculation; but there is another philosophy within which speculation is employed merely as a means, which Schelling calls "healthy philosophy" - i. e. , a philosophy aimed at reproducing or reestablishing the unity and wholeness of humanity. Perhaps Schelling substitutes "true philosophy"10 for "healthy philosophy" in the second edition in order to avoid any allusion to the healthy and common human understanding with which Hegel and he now opposed so fiercely in the Kritischen Journal. 11
Scientific and philosophic knowledge presupposed, therefore, a division between the self and the world. [Since it tends to think that what is separable in speculation is also separable in actuality, speculation - designated here as dependent on the capacity to separate and abstract - must constantly ward off appearance and illusion. ] Schelling displays this paradigmatically in his discussion of the fundamental powers of matter. Speculation can only grasp matter in divided determinations, namely, in the powers of attraction and repulsion; the "speculative illusion" consists in viewing these separated determinations as also separated in the thing. 12 But it would then follow that one must assume that matter, which one must think of as unified, is different from and independent of these two powers/forces. In this way, the powers of attraction and repulsion were not at all the conditions for the possibility of matter. Employing Kantian terminology, Schelling here characterizes the confusion between the
9 XVIII/6 (II, 13).
10 XVIII/7 (II, 14). See also LV/52 (II, 47); 110/268 (II, 194). In similar contexts, Schelling also often allows the attribute "healthy" to stand, e. g. 125/292 (II, 209); 172/371 (II, 260).
11 See also Hegel's Differenz essay: Gesammelte Werke. Bd 4, 20-3. With regard to the (hier vor allem zugrunde gelegten) interpretation of Schelling's "Introduction" in the Ideen, see Wieland: Die Anfaenge der Philosophie Schellings und die Frage nach der Natur in Natur und Geschichte, K. Loewith (on his 70th Birthday), Stuttgart 1967, 420-426.
12 See 108ff. /266ff. (II, 192 ff. ) At LV/52 (II, 47), the aforementioned "appearance" had another meaning.
? 158 Appendix
conditions of thought and speculation with the conditions of being itself - a confusion based on a "speculative deception" - as "dogmatism. "13
Exposing this speculative deception proves that speculation, when it is viewed as alone sufficient for the recognition of reality, plainly fails to capture reality. In reference to its understanding of actuality, speculation is more dependent on another act of the human spirit in which thought first actually professes something real, viz. , intuition. For Schelling, intuition is a more original and more highly intellectual capacity than speculation; and since its highest potency is expressed in the production of the genius, it is more than that (something which Schelling does not discuss in the Ideen). Intuition holds a higher position of priority in the Naturphilosophie as well; in the Naturphilosophie, the real is given through intuition alone and the fundamental determination of matter in its original unity is reserved for intuition itself. The understanding merely brings the pre-conscious products of intuition to a state of consciousness in which it separates and, then, isolates those determinations. 14 This "idealist" foundation of matter15 and its fundamental determinations in the productive intuition of the Ich was - for the early Schelling - an initial vindication of the objective reality of nature and, thereby, an answer to the skeptical denial [of every form of cognitive reality. 16] Therefore, speculation - characterized here as abstracted and separated thought, i. e. as understanding - is dependent on the productive activity of intuition; Schelling emphasized this dependence much more clearly in several of the revised passages in the second edition. 17
Although the notion of speculation is - in most contexts - characterized as it was in the first edition of the Ideen, it is replaced in the second edition by the term reflection. Prior to his encounter with Hegel in Jena, Schelling
13 111/270 (II, 195). With regard to the concept of a speculative appearance, Schelling was inspired by Kant - although uses it in a completely different context. Schelling way of arguing corresponds earliest to that of the "Amphibolie der Reflexionsbegriffe" (see Kritik der reinen Vernunft, B 319ff. ). With regard to Schelling's critique of Newton's "Scheinbrauch" of principles of attraction and repulsion in particulars, also see Kant's Metaphysische Anfangsgruend der Naturwissenschaft in Bd 4 of Kant's gesammelten Schriften (Akademieausg. ), 514 f. .
14 See 131f/301ff. (II, 215f); 138ff/311ff (II, 221ff. ). Also see 127/295 (II, 211); I, 355; I,359 f u. a.
15 See (2)339, (II, 239).
16 See also 131 ftn. /302 ftn. (II, 215 ftn. ); I, 353; I, 361 f.
17 See (2)52 (II, 47); (2)322 (II, 228).
? Hegel: Hovering Over the Corpse of Faith and Reason 159
had already assigned the role of supervening, segregating, and abstracting to the understanding and opposed it to the activity of the intuition. 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.