Philosophy and Religion

by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Klaus Ottmann (Translator)

This is the first translation into English of an important early work of the German idealist philosopher F.W.J. Schelling. Philosophy and Religion (1804) is considered a precursor to his major work on freedom, his Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom (1809). In Philosophy and Religion , Schelling raises the question of how philosophy can come to terms with the failure of approaching the highest principle of being, the Absolute (or God), rationally. He argues that the only possibility of recognizing the Absolute lies in intellectual intuition, which goes beyond presentiment or religious intuition. For Schelling, it is the task of philosophy to lead the soul towards the intuition of the "All philosophy begins . . . with an animated idea of the Absolute." In recent years, Schelling's philosophical ideas have been adopted by contemporary thinkers such as the Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist Slavoj Žižek and the French theorist of "Non- Philosophy," François Laruelle.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Religion

112 pages, Paperback

First published April 30, 2009

About the author

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German Idealism, situating him between Fichte, his mentor prior to 1800, and Hegel, his former university roommate and erstwhile friend. Interpreting Schelling's philosophy is often difficult because of its ever-changing nature. Some scholars characterize him as a protean thinker who, although brilliant, jumped from one subject to another and lacked the synthesizing power needed to arrive at a complete philosophical system. Others challenge the notion that Schelling's thought is marked by profound breaks, instead arguing that his philosophy always focused on a few common themes, especially human freedom, the absolute, and the relationship between spirit and nature.

Schelling's thought has often been neglected, especially in the English-speaking world. This stems not only from the ascendancy of Hegel, whose mature works portray Schelling as a mere footnote in the development of Idealism, but also from his Naturphilosophie, which positivist scientists have often ridiculed for its "silly" analogizing and lack of empirical orientation. In recent years, Schelling scholars have forcefully attacked both of these sources of neglect.

Reviews

[Erick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book came as a response to criticism from a friend of Schelling's, and a notable adherent of the philosophical movement termed "Nonphilosophy": Adam Karl von Eschenmayer. Like Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Eschenmayer was critical of Idealism and countered "reason" with "faith". Eschenmayer also criticized the role that the "Absolute" played in Schelling's system, since it basically was a synonym for God. For Eschenmayer, only faith could bridge the gap between the world of created things and God. He was also willing to acknowledge some role for the "Absolute" but not as God.
Schelling wrote the treatise here to deal with many of Eschenmayer's criticisms, but it also foreshadowed his essay on human freedom as well. For Schelling, difference and particularity had to come about through some kind of "leap" or "fall" from original undifferentiated divine unity. While on the surface that may seem superficially to recall the Biblical idea of the fall, it seems more to mimic the Valentinian Gnostic myth of the fall of Sophia. He also includes in this "leap" or "fall" the creation of an evil image or "idol" that makes one immediately think of the gnostic myth of the creation of Ialdabaoth. It is hard not to see Schelling and the Idealists as promoters of, if not a gnostic Christianity, at least a very (Neo)Platonist one. Schelling even dedicates a section of this work to endorsing mystery schools and esoteric religion.
Even though I like Schelling, when given a choice on the one hand to believe that God can be grasped by reason and believing knowledge to be salvific, and on the other hand, the Biblical endorsement of faith, hope and love as being the sole means of relationship with God, I will always choose the latter. Hamann, Jacobi and Eschenmayer were certainly choosing the more Christian perspective and Hegel, Schelling and Fichte the more gnostic one. In many ways, the former foreshadowed the Christian existentialism of Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard. I would never want my interest in Idealism, and philosophy in general, to be construed as some metaphysical or utopianist grand scheme or pseudo-religious hope. Unfortunately, the Idealists often had grand hopes and grand designs for philosophy and for their systems; far beyond what was reasonable or appropriate. I think philosophy is interesting and is helpful in exercising the mind God gave us but I would never accord to it what Schelling does in this work. Still, he was always sincere and as with all of his writings, there's some profound ideas here and there. If there was some room for agreement between Schelling's notion of "intuition" and mine, there may be more of value here, because my take on intuition could be allied to faith when it is spiritually lead. The problem is, Schelling's take on intuition is probably similar but not exactly the same as mine given that he accords way too much to an Idealistic process of ratiocination.
This has made me want to read Jacobi and Eschenmayer. Unfortunately, the latter has never been translated into English. Jacobi was translated relatively recently and, thankfully, I have a copy of his works.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In a word, there is no continuous transition from the Absolute to the actual; the origin of the phenomenal world is conceivable only as a complete falling-away from absoluteness by means of a leap [Sprung]...The Absolute is the only actual; the finite world, by contrast, is not real. Its cause, therefore, cannot lie in an impartation [Mittheilung] of reality from the Absolute to the finite world or its substrate; it can only lie in a remove [Entfernung], in a falling-away [Abfall] from the Absolute."

[Fnaught · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vitally important text to the philosophy of the innate imagination. What Schelling gets right, most of the time, is exactly what Kant gets wrong. When you're dealing with immensely complex purely theoretical psychological models, what matters isn't the exact specification of which category or mental machine does what, but rather the impression that you leave on your reader or initiate of the truth. In this regard, Heinrich Heine's dismissal of this book as falling flat on its face and turning into 'poetry' is to me an accidental compliment. For as well as speaking to the front of the brain, where the Lord Ego sits in the theatre of the mind, Schelling projects to the back of the brain as well as throwing his voice in amongst the groundlings: people, like me, who read philosophy as art.