Influencia de Goethe en Schelling

From a Philosophy of Self to a Philosophy of Nature: Goethe and the Development of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie

by Dalia Nassar (Villanova)

Abstract: One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism is Schelling’s break from his mentor Fichte. On account of its significance, there have been numerous studies examining the origin and meaning of this transition in Schelling’s thought. Not one study, however, considers Goethe’s influence on Schelling’s development. This is surprising given the fact that in the fall of 1799 Goethe and Schelling meet every day for a week, to go through and edit what came to be Schelling’s most path-breaking work. This paper considers Goethe’s influence on the development of Schelling’s thought, and argues that it was by appropriating Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis that Schelling was able to put forth a conception of nature as independent from the mind.

One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism is the move from a philosophy of self to a philosophy of nature. Rather than beginning with the act of self-positing, namely self-consciousness, and from there deducing the not-self, the philosophy of nature begins with the not-self (nature) and from there derives the self. Therefore, while the philosophy of self takes the activity of self-intuition to be primary, both ontologically and epistemologically, the philosophy of nature accords such primacy to nature.1 The heart and culmination of this debate is Schelling’s break with his mentor Fichte.

The break can be understood as nothing less than a fundamental disagreement on the meaning and methodology of idealism. While Fichte repeatedly emphasized that philosophy can only be transcendental, i.e., its goal is to examine the conditions that make experience possible, Schelling came to argue that a transcendental procedure fails to account for its own possibility. In other words, Fichte claimed that philosophy must begin with the I’s self-positing, and Schelling maintained that the act of self-positing presupposes a not-I, and thus cannot serve as the foundation of philosophy.

Because these questions reveal the complexity of idealism and extend beyond idealism to encompass fundamental philosophical concerns, much attention has been devoted toward understanding the nature of this break and the origin of Schelling’s understanding 1

In the case of Schelling, the primacy of nature does not undermine the primacy of the self. Rather, as he sees it, within the philosophy of nature, i.e., the study of nature as absolute, nature must be conceived of as primary. In turn, from within transcendental philosophy, the self must be perceived as absolute. From the perspective of the absolute, however, both self and nature are expressions of (or two sides of) the absolute.

The radical claim therefore concerns the equality Schelling grants to nature and the self, and, in turn, his inauguration of a philosophy of nature which posits nature as primary.

Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 92. Bd., S. 304–321 © Walter de Gruyter 2010 ISSN 0003-9101

DOI 10.1515/AGPH.2010.014

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of and interest in nature. Schelling’s interest in nature has been traced back to his Tübingen student years.2 Furthermore, his early works Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie (1795) and Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kriticismus (1795–1796) already suggest a non-Fichtean approach to philosophy.3 However, his first two publications on the philosophy of nature, the Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797) and the Weltseele (1798) remain squarely within the paradigm of transcendental philosophy. In contrast, his Erster Entwurf einer Philosophie der Natur – and especially the Einleitung to the Entwurf – both composed and published just one year after the Weltseele, reveal a radical shift in Schelling’s understanding of the essence of idealism.4

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The “origin” of Schelling’s philosophy of nature, or more accurately, the seeds of what later came to be his philosophy of nature, remains a disputed topic. Many scholars trace his work in Naturphilosophie back to his Timaeus fragment from his time in Tübingen in 1794, prior to his encounter with Fichte’s work. See Schmied-Kowarzik 1996, 67; Baum 2000. H. Fuhrmans argues that Schelling’s “turn to the philosophy of nature was in no way sudden”. Its roots go back to his time in Tübingen and reveal the “true Schelling” (Fuhrmans 1962, 75). For A. Denker, it is “the pietistic belief in the connection of everything [which] was the origin of Schelling’s pantheism, and thus one can claim, that he had been working out this problem throughout his life” (Denker 1997, 37).

The absolute I, as elaborated in Vom Ich, has little in common with Fichte’s conception of the pure I – something which Reinhold points to Fichte in a letter from December 1795, writing that “I had until now believed that the pure I […] arises from out of moral laws – not that the moral laws must be deduced from it. I remain afraid that the true sense of the moral law can be in danger, if one derives it from the absolutely posited absolute I […] in Mr. Schelling’s writing [Vom Ich] there are expressions on this point […]” (J. G. Fichte Gesamtausgabe 3/2, Nr. 330). The Philosophische Briefe grant equal status to criticism and dogmatism, idealism and realism, thereby moving in a direction that Fichte, later on, would find problematic. Thus in his May 23, 1801 letter (sent on the 7th of August of that year), Fichte writes, “your claim in the Philosophische Journal concerning two philosophies, one idealistic, one realistic, both of which are true, and could stand next to one another, which I immediately opposed [i.e., in the Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre] because I saw it to be wrong, lead me to think that you had not penetrated the Wissenschaftslehre” (Traub 2001, 194). See also Beiser 2002, 477.

It was not until about a year later, however, following Schelling’s publication of the System des transcendentalen Idealismus (1800), that Fichte became aware of Schelling’s move. This has to do with the fact that Fichte did not read Schelling’s work on the philosophy of nature, and was himself embroiled in the atheism controversy, which lead to his dismissal at the University of Jena. The disagreement is most clear in their letters from that year. Schulz argues that it was only after 1800 that their letters came to have the philosophically rich content in which a difference of opinion can be gleamed. See Schulz 1968. Jacobs writes, “The letters written in the year 1799 reveal no difference at all” (Jacobs 1984, 24). Fuhrmans similarly claims that the letters from 1794 till 1800 suggest a “unity of thought between Fichte and Schelling”, and that it was only after 1800 that the correspondences begin to reveal a “break”, and gain “substance” (Fuhrmans 1962, 201–209). More recently, H. Traub argues that 1) the letters pre-1800 were philosophically rich and 2) that already there you can see implicit differences (Traub 2001, 55, note 79, and 23). What Traub sees as the fundamental difference between the two is Schelling’s insistence on idealism and Fichte’s transcendental-philosophical or critical idealism, which puts him on the side of Kant.

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The question is, what inspired this shift, and why did it come about at exactly that time?

There have been a plethora of responses to this question: Spinzoa’s influence on Schelling’s philosophy of nature, Hölderlin’s critique of Fichtean philosophy, with which Schelling was familiar already in 1795, and Schelling’s early interest in Plato as well as Leibniz’ monadology have all been identified as sources of inspiration.5 Though the presence of these various influences is evident in Schelling’s philosophy of nature, it is Spinoza’s presence, most especially in Schelling’s claim in the Einleitung, that the philosophy of nature is a “Spinozism of physics”, that is most evident and that has therefore been most elaborated (HKA 1/8, 30). Yet, Schelling is never entirely sympathetic to Spinoza’s position. In the Briefe, the text in which he places dogmatism and criticism on almost equal levels, Schelling identifies Spinoza with dogmatism and argues that dogmatism is ultimately selfcontradictory in that it wishes to eliminate the self, yet retain a way by which to know the non-self.6 In the Ideen, he critiques Spinoza on similar grounds: “I myself was only one of the Infinite’s thoughts, or rather just a constant succession of presentations. But Spinoza was unable to make it intelligible how I myself in turn became aware of this succession” (HKA 1/5, 90). In later writings from the time in which he is considered to have been most sympathetic to Spinoza, Schelling retains this critique of Spinoza, writing in the essay “Ueber das Verhältnis der Naturphilosophie zur Philosophie überhaupt”, “Spinoza made a mistake in that he did not go back far enough in construction [daß er nicht weit genug zurück construirt]”, and thus did not fully consider the fact that philosophy “is not only a knowledge [ein Wissen], but always and necessarily also again a knowledge of this knowledge [ein Wissen dieses Wissens]” (SW 1/5, 127). Spinoza, according to Schelling, could not explain self-conscious knowledge. Schelling’s concern with knowledge does not disappear in the Entwurf. Thus, although the primary aim of the text is to ground a philosophy of nature, the possibility of knowing nature remains a key question. In fact, the first part of the Einleitung is dedicated to explaining precisely this possibility.

This is not, however, the only difficulty with such an interpretation of the transformation in Schelling’s thought. What Schelling was unable to accomplish in his early writings on Naturphilosophie and what he does accomplish in the Einleitung to the Entwurf is establishing the independence of nature from the mind. He does this by showing that nature is self-producing. In his earlier writings, Schelling had struggled with the problem of the productivity of nature. On the one hand, he argued that nature, as a mere object, could not produce itself. Only a subject, i.e., a self-intuiting being, could produce itself. On the other hand, he saw that natural relations could not be reduced to mechanical, external relations. Thus nature appeared to necessitate a notion of self-productivity.

However, given his basic assumption that only a subject can produce itself, Schelling was unwilling to grant self-productivity to nature, concluding that nature is a product of our intuition (HKA 1/1, 386). The question then is, how does Schelling’s thought shift, such

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In light of his early work on Plato’s Timaeus, some interpreters see Schelling’s shift as in some way related to his Platonist inheritance, see for example Holz 1977. See also note 1 above. Others consider Hölderlin to be the most formative influence on Schelling. See Frank 1985, 108 f. and more recently Beiser 2002, 476–478. The influence of Spinoza has been traced in detail by Grun 1993. That Schelling developed a conception of nature comparable to Leibniz’s monadology has been argued by Rudolphi 2001, 145–154.

See HKA 1/3, 88 f. This critique may have been posed against Hölderlin, who had already been developing his anti-Fichtean position in 1795.

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that he is able to grant to nature self-productivity, and, thus independence from the mind?

The answer to this question is the key to understanding the transformation in Schelling’s conception of nature, and his break from Fichtean idealism. As I will show in the following, however, this transformation had little to do with Spinoza, and much to do with Schelling’s appropriation of Goethe’s understanding of nature as metamorphosis.

Beginning in 1798, Goethe came to play a significant role in the development of Schelling’s thought. Not only was Schelling deeply impressed by Goethe’s optics and his theory of colors, undertaking experiments with Goethe during his first visit to Weimar in May 1798, but he also found in Goethe’s conception of plant metamorphosis the key to understanding nature as a self-producing, organic whole. Thus, in a letter to Goethe from the 26th of January 1801, Schelling writes, Your presentation of the metamorphosis of plants has proven indispensable to me for understanding the emergence of all organic beings, and the inner identity of all organic forms amongst themselves and with the earth […] thus the organic was never created but has always existed.7 The question then is, in what sense did Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis become so central to Schelling’s own conception of nature, and how did it prove to Schelling that the organic was never “created”, but always “existed”. It is the goal of this paper to answer precisely this question, and in this way illustrate the role that Goethe’s natural-scientific work played in the development of Schelling’s philosophy in particular, and in the development of German idealism in general.

Although there has been a tremendous amount of scholarship dedicated to understanding the shift in Schelling’s conception of nature, and his break with Fichtean idealism, no one has taken into consideration Goethe’s role in this development.8 In turn, while there have been several studies which consider the influence of Schelling on Goethe, Goethe’s influence on Schelling has not been accorded the same degree of attention.9 By demonstrating the significance of Goethe’s thought on Schelling, and explicating the way in which the idea of metamorphosis enables Schelling to put forth a theory of nature as selfproductive and independent of the mind, this paper hopes to remedy the lacuna in the present literature.

The paper will proceed as follows. First, I briefly outline Goethe’s understanding of plant metamorphosis which he began to develop on his Italian journey, and which he elaborates in his Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790). I then provide an overview of Schelling’s relationship to Goethe, as witnessed in their correspondences as well as 7 8

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Fuhrmans 1962, 243.

See notes 2, 4 and 5 above. See also Jacobs’s Introduction to the Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe, in which he mentions Goethe only in passing (HKA 1/8, 8 ff.).

While there have been studies of Schelling’s influence on Goethe, these works have only cursorily attended to the significance of Goethe for Schelling. See Richards 2002, 463–471; Jäckle 1937; Schmidt 1984, 111 f.; Breidbach 2006, 214–225, esp. 225. J. Adler, in an article on Goethe and Schelling, takes a more promising approach, writing that he wishes to understand the “dialogue” between the two thinkers. Thus, he is careful to note the influence of Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis on Schelling’s development; he does not, however, detail the significance of this theory, nor does he explicate its importance in relation to Schelling’s break with Fichte. Adler’s primary interest lies in a historical investigation of Schelling’s poetic works, and Goethe’s influence on those in particular. See Adler 1998.

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in their collaboration. I go on to consider Schelling’s understanding of nature in his early writings, up to the 1798 Weltseele, and explicate Schelling’s reasoning as to why nature could not be independent of the mind. Finally, I provide an analysis of Schelling’s conception of nature in the Einleitung to the Entwurf, the text in which Goethe’s influence is most palatable. Not only did Schelling seek Goethe’s advice in editing this text, but he and Goethe also met for a week in November of 1799 to go through it together. It is in this work that Schelling grants to nature an independence from the self, and justifies this conception through a theory of metamorphosis. I elaborate what Schelling means by metamorphosis and show how, through metamorphosis, Schelling was able to put forth a philosophy of nature as self-productive, and, as such, independent.10

1. Goethe It was on his first Italian journey (1786–1787) that Goethe began to clearly formulate his idea of an archetypal plant or Urpflanze. In the garden in Palermo, he was “confronted with so many kinds of fresh, new forms, I was taken again by my old fanciful idea: might I not discover the Urpflanze amid this multitude? Such a thing must exist after all! How else would I recognize this or that form as being a plant, if they were not all constructed according to one model” (HA 11, 266).11 What Goethe seeks in the garden is that which makes it possible for him to recognize all these varieties of plants as plant – the unifying principle of plants. Importantly, he does not seek it outside of the multiplicity, but “amid this multitude”.

In a letter to Herder, dated exactly one month following his visit to the garden, Goethe writes that he has come to comprehend “the secret of plant generation and structure” (HA 11, 323). He has realized that the unity he is after is integrally connected to plant growth and development. Given this insight, Goethe claims that he can now imagine an infinite variety of plants, which, although non-existent, could exist.

It is not until July of that year, however, that Goethe arrives at a deeper understanding of the plant. In a report in which he includes the two passages quoted above, he adds the important conclusion: “it has become apparent to me that in the plant organ we ordinarily call the leaf a true Proteus is concealed, who can hide and reveal himself in all formations. From top to bottom, a plant is all leaf, united so inseparably with the future bud that one cannot be imagined with the other” (HA 11, 375). By this Goethe does not mean that the plant is reducible to the leaf, but that the parts of the plant are various manifestations of what he saw as the archetype of all plant life, namely the leaf.

In the first four paragraphs of his Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790) Goethe elaborates on the way in which the plant parts are manifestations of the plant whole. An observation of the plant, he begins in the first paragraph, reveals “that certain

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The influence of Goethe on Schelling need not – indeed should not – be limited to his theory of plant metamorphosis. In fact, Schelling’s theory of knowledge in the Einleitung reveals an incredible proximity to Goethe’s own theory of knowledge. Richards, for example, sees Schelling’s emphasis on “experience and experimentation” to be the outcome of Goethe’s influence (Richards 2002, 141 f.). Though I agree with Richards, I think it is only the tip of the iceberg. At this time, however, I limit my considerations to the theory of metamorphosis.

The letter is dated April 17, 1787.

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of their external parts sometimes undergo a change and assume, either entirely or in greater or lesser degree, the form of the parts adjacent to them” (HA 13, 64, Nr. 1). If the plant’s parts are perceived alongside one another, one begins to recognize continuity between the parts, and it becomes clear that each part assumes a form that is to some degree related to the other parts.

The parts are moments in the plant’s developments – particular manifestations of the transformation which the plant undergoes from seed to fruit (or seed). Transformation in nature, he elaborates in the third paragraph, is the bringing forth of “one part through another, achieving the most diversified forms through modification of a single organ” (HA 13, 64, Nr. 3). The parts relate to one another such that they “develop one after another, and apparently from one another”. This, he concludes in the fourth paragraph, is the “process by which one and the same organ makes its appearance in multifarious forms [and] has been named the metamorphosis of plants” (HA 13, 64, Nr. 4).

In these first four paragraphs, Goethe brings together the insights gained in his observations, concluding that what makes a plant a plant, what grants it an integral unity and coherence, is the way in which each of its parts develops from other parts, and is, in this way, a manifestation of the whole of the plant. What grants the plant unity, then, is not a static substance or idea, but the fact that the plant is in a process of metamorphosis, wherein each part is a physical manifestation of the different stages of metamorphosis. Although Goethe makes no mention of the archetypal plant, it is this generative or developmental unity – the plant in transformation – that is the archetypal plant.

Plant metamorphosis takes place on two levels simultaneously. First, the plant transforms through a process of contraction and expansion, such that each of the parts of the plant is a moment of either contraction or expansion. While the seed is a contraction, the stem leaves are the first expansion. The calyx is a contraction, and the petals are an expansion. The sexual organs are once again a contraction, while the fruit is the “maximum expansion” and the seed within it is the “maximum concentration”. Alongside this development, is a second development – that of progression or intensification (Steigerung). Each of the parts comes progressively closer toward reaching the goal of growth, attained in the final parts of the plant, the reproductive organs (HA 13, 79, Nr. 50; HA 13, 99, Nr. 113). “In these six steps”, Goethe writes, “nature ceaselessly carries on her eternal work of reproducing the plants by means of two sexes” (HA 13, 86, Nr. 73).

As the developing interrelation between inherently connected parts, the archetypal plant is not a static substance or a quasi-platonic form that simply precedes its parts.12 Rather, the archetypal plant is the lawful process of metamorphosis. This means that the archetypal plant is only in its parts, but is nevertheless not reducible to any of its parts.

Therefore, although the archetypal plant is an ideal reality, it is not separable from the real. It is what constitutes the real, informing its growth and transformation. This implies two things. First, although the archetypal plant informs the parts, it does not in any substantial way precede the parts. Second, the archetypal plant is not a thing or a completed product, but productivity. Thus it cannot be made equivalent with any one of its products.

What Goethe attempts to show in the Metamorphose der Pflanzen is how the whole of the plant kingdom is in a process of metamorphosis, and, in turn, how each species is a particular expression of the possibilities inherent in metamorphosis. By seeing not only the separate parts of the plant or the plant kingdom, but seeing the connections between 12

For Goethe’s conception of metamorphosis as not merely a structural principle, but as the very development of nature – as nature itself – see Breidbach 2001, 52.

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each of these parts, Goethe was able to recognize the successive and simultaneous production underlying the plant’s form and development.

2. Biographical Sketch In his 1798 Von der Weltseele, Schelling is clearly familiar with Goethe’s conception of metamorphosis and quotes the Metamorphose der Pflanzen, invoking Goethe’s understanding of plant growth to show the underlying law of natural development. Growth, Schelling explains, takes place through the two opposing forces of expansion (Ausdehnung) and contraction (Zusammenziehung) (HKA 1/6, 221).13 The goal of growth is individuation, which, once attained, leads to reproduction (HKA 1/6, 222).14 What at first appear as two different laws of productivity in nature – growth and reproduction – are in fact two aspects of the same law.15 Schelling agrees with Goethe that the essential characteristic of nature is transformation or Bildung.

However, in spite of the clear similarities between Goethe’s conception of metamorphosis and Schelling’s understanding of nature in the Weltseele, Schelling remains within the paradigm of transcendental philosophy. For one, he opposes the empirical and the transcendental. Then, he argues that those who rely on experimentation cannot, on the basis of physical evidence, explain the original antithesis in nature – the antithesis that makes movement and change possible (HKA 1/6, 86). “The origin of this antithesis”, he writes, “is to be sought in the original duplicity of our spirit [Geist]” (HKA 1/6, 91). Therefore, although Schelling has appropriated some of Goethe’s ideas concerning metamorphosis, he either does not completely understand or agree with Goethe’s fundamental premise – namely, that metamorphosis is an ontological principle in which the empirical and the transcendental, the real and the ideal, are not separated. In other words, that the metamorphosis of the plants refers to a real formative principle that is not imposed upon the organism by the mind is a claim which Schelling, at this point, does not concede.

In fact, this is precisely the criticism which Goethe levels against Schelling’s writings on nature. In a letter to Schiller from the 6th of January 1798, he criticizes Schelling’s conception of nature and his method in the Ideen. “I happily admit”, Goethe begins, “that he is not speaking of the nature which we recognize, rather of a nature which we take in by way of certain forms and capabilities of our spirit […] the idealist can try as much as he likes to defend himself against things-in-themselves, but he will nevertheless stumble up against them before he knows it” (MA 8.1, 489). In a letter written just a week later, on the 13th of January, Goethe once again complains to Schiller about the newest philosophy. He writes, “In reading Schelling’s book I have realized that there is little hope for help from the most recent philosophy” (MA 8.1, 494).

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Goethe writes, “From seed to fullest development of stem leaves we noted first an expansion; thereupon we saw the calyx developing through contraction, the petals through expansion, and the sexual organs again through contraction; and soon we shall become aware of the maximum expansion in the fruit and the maximum contraction in the seed” (HA 13, 85, Nr. 73).

See also HA 13, 99, Nr. 113.

Schelling writes, “the growth of all organization is only an advanced individualizing, whose pinnacle is reached in the developed reproductive force [Zeugungskraft] of opposing sexes” (HKA 1/6, 222).

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This critical attitude soon changed, however, following Schelling’s visit to Jena in May 1798. In a letter to Christian Voigt, Goethe expresses his interest in having Schelling become a professor in Jena, writing that “he is a very clear, energetic and […] organized mind”, concluding that Schelling “would do us a great honor if he were to become useful in the academy” (MA 6.2, 922). Less than a month later (21st of June 1798) Goethe writes to Voigt to repeat his plea, emphasizing that “Schelling’s brief visit was a great pleasure for me; it would be beneficial for both him and us [if he came here] […] [for him] so that he would be introduced to experience and experimentation and an assiduous study of nature […]” (MA 6.2, 922 f.). Just a couple of weeks later, Schelling received an invitation from Goethe to join the university in Jena.16 In the winter semester of 1798/99, Schelling offered a course on the philosophy of nature.17 In October of 1799 he published his Erster Entwurf einer Philosophie der Natur and in November of that year published the Einleitung to that work. Goethe read the Erster Entwurf toward the end of 1798 prior to its publication (TAG 2, 264 f., 277, 314), and following his reading of the Einleitung (September 1799), went through the work with Schelling in October of 1799 (TAG 2, 318–320). In a letter from the 9th of November of that year, Schelling remarks that “just a while ago [Goethe] and I spent a lot of time together. I was at his place daily and had to read and work through my text on the philosophy of nature with him. What a growth of ideas these conversations were for me, you can only imagine […]” (HKA 3/1, 244).

3. Schelling 3.1 Schelling’s early work In his early writings, Schelling developed a conception of intellectual intuition based on his understanding of the absolute I. As unconditioned and thus non-objectifiable, he argued that the absolute I can only be given or determined through non-sensible, intellectual intuition. Thus, although not entirely in agreement with Fichte’s conception of intellectual intuition as an act of self-consciousness, Schelling’s claim is that intellectual intuition pertains only to a self – to an absolute I – and not to any (necessarily determined) object.

In the Briefe, he describes intellectual intuition as an act of self-reflection, which involves a turning back or return of the self into itself. He writes, “we awaken through reflection, i.e., through the necessary return into ourselves” (HKA 1/3, 95). Thus, he limits

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There is clear indication that Goethe’s transformed attitude toward Schelling has much to do with Schelling’s sympathetic reception of Goethe’s scientific writings.

During their brief meeting at the end of May, Goethe learned that Schelling was familiar with his scientific writings – both his work on the plants and his optics. Following this meeting, Schelling sent Goethe a copy of the Weltseele, in which Goethe’s influence in his thinking is clear. Goethe was so impressed by this work, that he recommends it to Voigt (MA 6.2, 923). Nevertheless, as is clear from his letter to Voigt, Goethe thinks that Schelling has much to learn in the study of nature.

Henrik Steffens, who was present at the lecture, writes: “He spoke on the idea of a philosophy of nature, of the necessity to grasp nature in its unity, of the light that would be thrown over all objects if one dared to consider them from the standpoint of the unity of reason […]” (Tilliette 1974, 28).

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intellectual intuition to an intuition of a self, i.e., a being which, in turning back onto itself, gains self-consciousness. He also limits intellectual intuition to the first person perspective: we can only intuit our selves. Schelling contrasts intellectual and sensible intuition, explaining that while the latter concerns itself with objects outside of ourselves, which we do not produce but which are already given, the former only concerns itself with its own products.

This leads to the second point, namely that intellectual intuition is productive. In Vom Ich Schelling draws a distinction between the unconditioned (das Unbedingte) and the conditioned object or thing (Ding) on the ground that the unconditioned is self-productive. While “the unconditioned realises itself, brings itself forth through its thinking”, the conditioned is brought forth by something other than itself, i.e., the thinking subject (HKA 1/2, 87). In the unconditioned, therefore, there is no separation between being and thinking, for in thinking itself, the self brings itself forth, and therefore necessarily is. The thought of the object, however, does not imply its existence. “I can think its reality”, Schelling writes, “without at the same time positing it as exiting” (HKA 1/2, 88). For this reason, the absolute or unconditioned can never be an object, i.e., something whose reality is not self-determined.

As a non-object, the absolute cannot be known through either concepts (discursive understanding) or sensible intuition. Only intellectual intuition can grasp the absolute (HKA 1/2, 106). In the Briefe Schelling elaborates that this “secret, wonderful capacity” does not concern already given objects (and is therefore not determined by such objects), but is free because it brings forth its object, or, more to the point, it is itself “brought about through freedom” (HKA 1/3, 87). In other words, intellectual intuition does not concern an already given object, but the act of producing an object. Therefore, when Schelling writes in the Briefe that all knowledge begins with experience, he does not intend the common sense of (external) experience, but the most immediate experience of the self, the experience of the self as a non-object (HKA 1/3, 88).

That intellectual intuition does not concern an object implies that it also does not grant knowledge of external objects, i.e., objects as they are in themselves as opposed to and determined by the subject. In intellectual intuition, Schelling explains, we are not given over into an object – we do not vanish into it, but it is lost “in us”18. Schwärmerei, he writes in the Briefe, arises out of an “objectivised intellectual intuition”, in which one “takes his own self-intuition as an intuition of an object outside of himself, [takes] the intuition of the intellectual world for the intuition of a supersensible world outside of himself ” (HKA 1/3, 90). The fact that dogmatism takes its object as already realized means that its object is an object of knowledge. In contrast, the object of criticism is merely realizable, it is “an infinite task”, and is therefore an object of freedom (HKA 1/3, 102). For criticism, the absolute is unreachable, for it is not an object but an act.

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To this Schelling adds that Spinoza “deceived himself, in that he believed this” (HKA 1/1, 88). Although Schelling is sympathetic to dogmatism in the Briefe, placing it on an equal footing with criticism, his preference for criticism ultimately rests on what he sees as the desire for self-elimination in the dogmatic conception of intuition. The desire to see the object completely and thus overcome himself, Schelling explains, is impossible. “For, insofar as the dogmatist intuits himself in the absolute object, he is still intuiting himself. He cannot think of himself as eliminated [vernichtet], without at the same time thinking himself as existing” (HKA 1/1, 89). See also HKA 1/1, 97–99.

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Schelling’s conception of nature as a product of self-intuition is most explicitly put forth in his “Abhandlung zur Erläuterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre” (1796–1797). He begins by stating that there are two ways by which to understand the relation between matter and form: either matter and form are given from something outside of me, or they are given to nature by me. The first case implies that matter is something “in itself ”, which in turn implies that it is also “for itself ”. However, Schelling continues, matter is not something that is for itself, since it is something which is not self-intuiting (SW 1/1, 373). Even if it were for itself, he argues, then it would be impossible for us to know how it is for itself. In order to gain such knowledge, we would have to be matter.

However, insofar as we are not matter, but knowing subjects, such knowledge is impossible. Therefore, he concludes, so long as we presuppose, i.e., assume, that matter is something that precedes our knowledge, then we do not know what we’re talking about. Instead of going further with such incomprehensible concepts, it is better to ask what it is that we originally understand and can understand. Originally, however, we understand only ourselves.

Since there are only two possible systems, one which makes matter the principle of spirit, the other which makes spirit the principle of matter, there remains for us only one system which we can understand, namely not that spirit is born out of matter, but rather that matter is born out of spirit […]. (SW 1/1, 373 f.)

Matter, as Schelling puts it some pages later, is nothing other than the product of our spirit (Geist). This, he continues, is what it means to say that “intuition is fully active and thus productive and immediate [thätig, eben deswegen productiv und unmittelbar]” (SW 1/1, 379 f.). Importantly, Schelling’s reasoning in this text, as in the others, rests on what he sees as a deficiency in matter. Intellectual intuition grasps what is self-forming and selforganizing, i.e., the absolute. Matter, however, does not have any such “power [Kraft]”, because it is only turned outward, while the self is turned both outward and inward. In other words, it is only a self that can turn back into itself, and thus produce itself, that can be absolute and known through intellectual intuition (SW 1/1, 380). Matter, in contrast, possess no interiority (ein Inneres), and is therefore neither self-productive nor absolute and hence excluded from intellectual intuition (ibid; see also SW 1/1, 387).

That the self produces itself implies a duplicity, an interiority and an exteriority, which matter does not have. This duplicity, in turn, is the ground of all being, the ground of production, or what Schelling calls “construction”. He writes, in that both tendencies of the self are simultaneity penetrating one another, a product arises, a real construction of the soul itself. This product is in the self, is not distinguished from the self, is immediately present to the self, and this is in fact the place where everything immediate and thus certain in our knowledge lies. (SW 1/1, 380) That all things that appear in intellectual intuition are constructions of the self is what guarantees and secures the immediacy and certainty of the knowledge given in intellectual intuition. The self only can know with certainty what it produces.

Schelling’s concern with nature appears to be with the impossibility of explaining organic nature. Nature, as he sees it, does not have an inner activity. Lacking such interiority, nature is not a self-causing cause (an organism). Yet, nature is also not merely a set of mechanically caused and related objects. This leads Schelling to claim that the only way by which to understand nature as self-causing and hence organic is to see it as equivalent to the self (SW 1/1, 386). It is only by understanding nature as the product of our selfintuition, then, that we can understand how nature functions in a non-mechanistic manner.

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3.2 Metamorphosis in the ‘Einleitung’ In the first paragraph of the Einleitung, Schelling plunges into a critique of the primacy of the Wissenschaftslehre. He admonishes the idea that nature’s ground is something other than nature itself. Rather, the goal is to think nature “as independent and real” (HKA 1/8, 30). As such, instead of attempting to derive nature from mind, or the real from the ideal, as he had done in his previous works, Schelling proclaims that “the ideal must arise out of the real and admit of explanation from it” (HKA 1/8, 31). For this reason, he continues, “there is no place in this science for idealistic methods of explanation, such as transcendental philosophy is fitted to supply […]” (ibid.). Naturphilosophie will proceed by following “the first maxim of all true natural science, to explain everything by the forces of nature […]” (ibid.).

As is clear, Schelling’s methods and goals in the Einleitung reveal a radical shift in his thinking about both the ontological reality of nature as well as the way in which to know nature. Nature is no longer imagined as an inert matter, void of any interiority and selfmovement. Rather, nature has its own forces, out of which natural products arise. In turn, nature need no longer be known by means of transcendental philosophy – i.e., as the product of the duality of spirit. We are no longer seeking the cause of nature in something outside of nature – in a self that can grant nature activity and interiority – but in nature itself, in nature as self-production. Thus, Schelling introduces the distinction between nature as productivity, natura naturans, and nature’s products, natura naturata.19 The implication of Schelling’s statements is not only that there must be methods other than the idealistic ones, but also that self-consciousness is itself a product or an outcome of nature’s activity. Thus, Schelling writes, there is nothing impossible in the thought that the same activity by which nature reproduces itself anew in each successive phase, is reproductive in thought through the medium of the organism […] in which case it is natural that what forms the limit [Gränze] of our intuitive faculty [Anschauungsvermögens] no longer falls within the sphere of our intuition [Anschauung] itself. (HKA 1/8, 31) In other words, what was understood to be absolutely self-producing – the intuition of the self – is no longer absolute. In fact, it falls within the domain of nature’s activities, and is therefore one manifestation of the forces of nature. Or, as Schelling puts it in one of his letters to Fichte, the I is nothing other than the “highest potency” of nature’s activity (SFB, 178).

In essence, it is Schelling’s introduction of a philosophy of nature which he claims to be on par with transcendental philosophy that gives way to a conception of the self as produced by something other than itself. This is not to say that Schelling entirely forgoes the

19

Jacobs writes in the “Editorischer Bericht (Editorial Report)” to the Einleitung that the investigations of Paul Ziche have shown that the word “productivity [Produktivität]” does not appear in the first published version of the Entwurf, though it does appear in Schelling’s handwritten notes of the Entwurf. In the earlier works on the philosophy of nature, this word does not appear at all. However, it is present in later editions of the Entwurf (HKA 1/8, 10). This is not the case with the Einleitung, in which the term is used already in the first edition. Remarkably, it is precisely the Einleitung which Goethe had Schelling read and re-read, and, which he supposedly helped Schelling edit. See TAG 2, 318–320, and HKA 3/1, 244.

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independence of the self, and the conception of intellectual intuition as productive – as evidenced in the System des transcendentalen Idealismus written one year later (1800) as well as in his 1801 and 1802 essays in which he renames intuition as reason and provides a deduction of nature out of reason. Nevertheless, Schelling does ultimately grant primacy to nature, writing in the “Allgemeine Deduction” (1800), “[…] the true direction for that which is valid for knowledge everywhere, is the direction which nature itself has taken [die wahre Richtung für den, dem Wissen über alles gilt, ist die, welche die Natur selbst genommen hat]” (HKA 1/8, 366).20 The most significant difference in Schelling’s conception of nature in the Einleitung is that nature is a self-productive organic whole. This means that nature has within itself a capacity which Schelling had previously only identified with the self. Radically, this implies that self-production is not limited to a self-conscious being – self-production is no longer identified with the act of reflection in which the self brings itself forth and in so doing becomes aware of itself as a self. Thus Schelling rethinks the meaning of original or self-productivity such that a non-conscious being, nature, can be understood as self-productive. How does he do this?

The key to thinking of nature as self-productive is to recognize that what nature is cannot be reduced to the products of nature. In other words, nature as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Thus, nature is not a composite of its parts, but that which underlies and constitutes these parts. Nature is what brings these parts forth in the first place. Thus, the first step toward an adequate conception of nature requires an understanding of nature not merely as product, but as productivity, i.e., as that which underlies and produces the products.

However, to speak of nature as both products and productivity implies that nature contains within itself an original duplicity or opposition. Nature as productivity is opposed to nature as product.

Yet, it is not clear how the transition from productivity to product (and back) can take place. In other words, how can productivity be limited in such a way that it can produce a particular product, without, however, transforming completely into product. Or, how can the product – as a finite particular thing – be maintained within infinite productivity? Essentially, how does nature maintain the necessary equilibrium, the necessary duality, between productivity and product?

20

In the “Allgemeine Deduction” Schelling explains that the idealistic method of explaining nature is not ultimately incorrect, insofar as it seeks to understand reason as the intention of nature, i.e., as originally grounded within and thus continuous with nature. He writes: “the idealist is right, when he makes reason into the self-creator of everything, for reason is grounded in nature itself. His intention is to make nature for the human being. But because this is in fact nature’s intention (if one were allowed to say, because nature knows that the human being would separate himself form her in this way!), such idealism becomes illusion. It becomes something explainable, and thus the theoretical reality of idealism comes together [Der Idealist hat Recht, wenn er die Vernunft zum Selbstschöpfer von allem macht, denn dieß ist in der Natur selbst gegründet – er hat die eigne Intention der Natur mit dem Menschen für sich, aber eben weil es die Intention der Natur ist – (wenn man nur sagen dürfte, weil die Natur darum weiß, daß der Mensch auf solche Art sich von ihr losreißt!) – wird jener Idealismus selbst wieder zum Schein; er wird selbst etwas Erklärbares – und damit fällt die theoretische Realität des Idealismus zusammen]” (HKA 1/8, 365).

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Indeed, the question concerning to the possibility of a finite product within infinite nature is, according to Schelling, the chief problem of Naturphilosophie.21 A product, Schelling begins his explanation, is a point of limitation (Hemmung) to the infinite productivity of nature. As such, it emerges out of the encounter between infinite productivity and its opposition, namely, infinite limitation. However, insofar as this encounter is between two infinite oppositions, it would seem that the result of the encounter is always necessarily null or zero. The only way that this meeting does not result in zero, Schelling explains, is through the infinite reproduction of the product – i. e., of the encounter. He writes, “Absolutely no subsistence of a product is thinkable without a continual process of being reproduced. The product must be thought as annihilated at every step, and at every step reproduced anew” (HKA 1/8, 45). In other words, the product of nature is the infinitely reproduced point of contact between productivity and limitation, and, as such contains within itself both infinite productivity and infinite limitation.

It is for this reason, Schelling continues, that the product of nature is only “apparently finite”. After all, the “infinite productivity of nature concentrates itself in it”, such that the product is not simply an empirical presentation of nature’s infinite productivity, but contains productivity within itself (HKA 1/8, 46). In turn, the productivity within the product is precisely what enables the product to grow, sustain itself and ultimately regenerate. Or, as Schelling puts it, “this product is a finite one, but as the infinite productivity of nature concentrates itself in it, it must have a drive toward infinite development” (ibid.).

This capacity for self-production and reproduction, the drive toward infinite development, is, according to Schelling, nothing other than metamorphosis (HKA 1/8, 56). However, unlike his earlier conception of metamorphosis in the Weltseele, in the Entwurf Schelling describes metamorphosis as an “interior relation [eine innere Verwandtschaft] of the forms [Gestalten] that is unthinkable without an archetype [Grundtypus], which underlies everything” (HKA 1/8, 55). Metamorphosis in other words, is an essential characteristic of nature, an “archetype” that underlies and constitutes the relations of nature’s parts or forms. Metamorphosis, then, is nothing less that the “inner construction” of nature (HKA 1/8, 33 and 71).

Metamorphosis, Schelling goes on, takes place on two levels. The first concerns the relations of the parts of the organism to one another, i.e., the growth and sustainability of the particular organism. The second involves the organism’s capacity to reproduce itself, and as such, concerns the organism’s relation to its species. In both cases, the organism is participating in a process of development and progression (Steigerung).22 The two levels of metamorphosis brought together reveal a unity in nature: on the one hand, the organism is an integral unified being, whose parts are manifestations of the underlying whole; on the other, the organism relates to other organisms through reproduction and evolution, and thus represents a different stage of development or further expression of the archetype which underlies all of nature’s products.23

21

22

23

Schelling writes that the chief problem of Naturphilosophie is not to explain productivity and movement, but the stable or the permanent (HKA 1/8, 47).

Schelling describes this process in detail in the Entwurf. See for example, his description of the growth and reproduction processes of plants, butterflies and bees, HKA 1/7, 43 ff.

For Schelling, as it was for Goethe, there was no difference between the ideas of metamorphosis and evolution. The terms meant for them the capacities for growth and generation – production and reproduction – of the particular organism and the

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The question now is, how does Schelling’s conception of metamorphosis in the Entwurf not only differ from his previous understanding of metamorphosis in the Weltseele, but also – and more significantly – how does it enable him to put forth the view that nature is independent of the mind. In the Weltseele, Schelling describes the development of nature; however, he does not locate the origin of this development, i.e., the ground or source of the development, within nature itself. Rather, as noted above, the original duality necessary for the productivity of nature is located in the duality of our spirit (Geist). In the Entwurf, in contrast, Schelling understands metamorphosis in the same way that Goethe understood it – as the very ground or the archetype (Grundtypus) of nature, as nature itself. This, in turn, enables Schelling to make the claim that duality is original to nature. For it is only through the “infinite development” of the “apparently finite” product, that the opposition between productivity and limitation – i.e., the original duality in nature – can be adequately explained and justified. In other words, the duality of nature is possible if and only if the products of nature are also productivity. Nature can uphold and balance its opposing tendencies only because the products of nature are themselves in a state of infinite development, or metamorphosis.

This in turn enables Schelling to think of nature as an organic whole. As noted above, Schelling had already seen that a mechanistic conception of nature was inadequate; however, insofar as he denied nature the capacity to self-produce, he could not explain how nature was a self-causing (as opposed to mechanical) cause. By introducing the idea of metamorphosis, he makes it possible to conceive of nature as a self-producing whole, which informs all the parts such that they “mutually bear and support each other” (HKA 1/8, 36).

As independent organic whole, nature is not reducible to any one (or all) of its parts.

When speaking of nature as a whole, Schelling is not speaking of an empirical reality, any one part or all the parts of nature brought together to make up “the whole of nature”.

Rather, the whole of nature is an idea or archetype that precedes and constitutes the parts.

As idea, however, nature is neither a concept of the understanding imposed upon nature, nor an ethical ideal that is ultimately unrealizable.24 Rather, it is the constitutive ground of

24

species with the implication that the organism is simultaneously participating in a larger natural evolution. See Richards 2002, 299–306, 485 f. For an opposing view, see Engelhardt 1984.

Given Schelling’s immanent ontology – in which nature as ideal or idea and the product are absolutely unified – it is highly unlikely that Schelling’s philosophy of nature works out of the paradigm of practical philosophy, as Rudolphi argues. Rudolphi’s thesis is that Schelling’s understanding of nature as “subject” implies that the philosophy of nature is no longer part of theoretical philosophy, in which the concern is with determined, conditioned objects, but is part of practical philosophy, wherein the subject is absolute and unconditioned. There are several difficulties with this thesis. For one, it does not account for the fact that Schelling is concerned with the knowledge of nature, and thus with theoretical philosophy. Furthermore, the unrealizable nature of the ideal of reason in the practical sense and the absolutely immanent sense of nature as productivity are irreconcilable ideas. In fact, Rudolphi often contradicts himself on precisely this point. On the one hand, he does not think that Schelling means idea heuristically, writing, for example, “should the unity of nature not be merely regulative of reflective judgment, but relates constitutively to nature, then it must precede the particular objects and determine them a priori. Speculative physics therefore undertakes the task of grounding the order of nature, such that it posits [setzt] the productive acts [Akte] of the nature-subject as the principles which found the organiz-

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nature, through which the parts of nature “mutually bear and support” one another. In other words, it is only insofar as nature is an original idea, an idea that precedes and is not the outcome of its parts, that the parts of nature can relate to one another organically.25 Although the idea of nature must be distinguished from the parts, as the very productivity that brings the natural products forth, it is neither outside of nor unrealizable in its products. For there are no products without productivity, and productivity is productivity of products. In light of this, Schelling contrasts the work of art with nature, explaining that in art “the concept [Begriff] precedes the act or execution, [while] in nature idea and act are simultaneous and one, the concept passes immediately into the product and cannot be separated from it” (HKA 1/8, 41). Nature as a whole, as idea, is then in each of its parts and in their relation to one another.

As idea, the unconditioned of nature is not heuristic – it is not a creation of the mind for the sake of ordering and understanding nature. Rather, as nature’s productivity, it is inseparable from nature’s products. It is ideal and not empirical because it is what underlies empirical phenomena, and thus cannot be equivocated with them (HKA 1/8, 51). Therefore, when Schelling calls the principles of nature a priori, he distinguishes his use of the

25

ation of nature” (Rudolphi 2001, 141). On the other hand, he understands by the “idea” of the totality of nature as an idea of reason (practical reason), explaining that the unity of nature “is given through the construction of reason” (140). That this unity “is given [gegeben]” through reason makes it seem as though it is not ineherent to nature, but brought to it through the work of construction which reason undertakes in order to order and understand nature. While I don’t think Rudolphi wants to make this latter claim, his thesis that the philosophy of nature is a practical philosophy, working within the premises of practical reason, undercuts Schelling’s conception of the “idea” of nature as wholly immanent to nature. For as soon as the idea of nature is placed in reason, without further explanation (as Rudolphi does not provide it), then it seems that the idea of nature as a whole is something that is contructed for the sake of human understanding, which is exactly what he says on the next page: “For one, it [speculative physics] strives to construct the idea of nature, such that we can grasp it as a rational order [daß wir sie als vernünftige Ordnung begreifen können]” (141). The most striking aspect of Rudophi’s interpretation, however, is that he does not take into consideration the letter exchange between Fichte and Schelling, in which Schelling clearly distinguishes his philosophy from what he sees as Fichte’s practical philosophy.

In a letter from the 19th of November 1800, Schelling draws a distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy on the basis of their respective relation to the I. While theoretical philosophy is concerned with “the pure (merely objective) subjectobject […]” practical philosophy is concerned with the I, i.e., “the subject-object of consciousness”, which, Schelling continues, is “the highest potency” of the former. “It is the principle of idealitic (until now called practical) part of philosophy, which receives its foundations only through the theoretical part” (SFB, 179).

For this reason, I disagree with the so-called “materialist” readings of Schelling. His emphasis on nature or the material of nature does not imply that there is no reason or ideal that is underlying and constructing nature. As is clear from the passages I have quoted and explicated, for Schelling the material form of nature (i.e., nature as product) is not separable from its ideal form (nature as productivity). One of the main readers of Schelling as a materialist is M. Frank, who argues that it was only in his later philosophy that Schelling came to develop a non-idealist materialism, which in turn provided Feuerbach with his critique of Hegel. See Frank 1975. There are, however, Marxist-materialist readings of Schelling’s early philosophy, including his philosophy of nature. See, for example, Cˇern´y 1984.

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term from Kant’s. By a priori, he does not mean what is prior to experience, since everything, according to Schelling, is only given to us in experience (HKA 1/8, 35). Rather, nature itself is a priori; thus a priority implies what is inherent to nature – the regularity and necessity of its own constitutive principles.

4. Conclusion Though Schelling’s influences are numerous, Goethe’s role in the development of Schelling’s conception of nature, and in his understanding of nature as independent of the self, is possibly one of the more significant. Although Schelling was familiar with Goethe’s conception of metamorphosis and had employed it already in his 1798 work, Weltseele, it was not until 1799, following his meeting and collaboration with Goethe, that he developed an understanding of nature as metamorphosis. In the Einleitung to the Entwurf, the text in which Schelling’s break with his earlier philosophy is most clear, Goethe’s influence cannot be overlooked. For one, Schelling, like Goethe, argues that metamorphosis is not simply a description of nature’s development, but the very source or ground of nature, the archetype that underlies and constitutes nature’s parts and their relations. In addition, he understands metamorphosis to be an ideal that is nevertheless within the real, the unity within the multiplicity, as Goethe puts it. Furthermore, Schelling sees metamorphosis as taking place on two planes – in the particular organisms, and within nature as a whole. In other words, not only are the parts of each organism different manifestations of the idea of the whole of the organism (like the Urpflanze), but each organism also partakes of the development of nature as a whole (evolution). To use Goethe’s terminology: metamorphosis is growth and production as well as reproduction and Steigerung.

For Schelling, metamorphosis in Goethe’s sense was the key to explaining and justifying the original duality of nature, and, as such nature’s self-productivity. Nature could only be self-productive, Schelling surmised, if there is an original opposition in nature.

Such an opposition, however, is only possible if and only if the products of nature are in a state of infinite development – i.e., metamorphosis. For it is only through “infinite development” that infinite productivity and infinite limitation can exist alongside and with one another. Thus, what had until then appeared to Schelling to be impossible – i.e., a duality within a non-reflective, non-conscious being – became, through the idea of metamorphosis, possible. In this way, Schelling overcomes his earlier understanding of duality and productivity as born out of self-reflection, and, as such, grants to nature precisely that which he had previously only granted to the self – independence.

As I have tried to show, Goethe’s influence on Schelling’s Naturphilosophie is immense.26 In light of this, I think it is necessary that we rethink the history of German idealism, and recognize the role that Goethe’s natural-scientific work played in its development.27 It is also in light of this that we can fully appreciate Schelling’s letter to Goethe from the 26th of January 1801. It is thus with this letter that I conclude:

26

27

I thus disagree with E. Förster’s claim that “Goethe’s influence on Schelling’s philosophical development is rather negligible” (Förster 2002, 189).

The major accounts of the development of German idealism have paid no attention to Goethe. See for example, Henrich 1992 and Beiser 2002.

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Your presentation of the metamorphosis of plants has proven indispensable to me for understanding the emergence of all organic beings, and the inner identity of all organic forms amongst themselves and with the earth […] thus the organic was never created but has always existed.28

Works by F. W. J. Schelling All citations to Schelling’s works are made in the body of the text as follows: HKA Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe. Eds. H. M. Baumgartner et al. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1976 ff.

SFB Schelling-Fichte Briefwechsel. Ed. H Traub. Neuried 2001.

SW Schelling Werke. Ed. K. F. A. Schelling. Stuttgart 1856–1861.

I cite SW only in the case where the HKA is not available. In both cases, I cite the division (Abteilung) number, followed by “/” and then the volume and the page numbers.

Works by J. W. Goethe All citations to Goethe’s works are made in the body of the text as follows: GSW Sämtliche Werke. Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche. Eds. Hendrik Birus et al.

40 vols. Frankfurt a. M. 1985.

HA Werke (Hamburger Ausgabe). Eds. E. Trunz et al. 14 vols. Hamburg/München 1949–1971/1971–1976.

LA Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Hg. im Auftrag der deutschen Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina. Eds. D. Kuhn et al. Weimar 1947 ff.

MA Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens (Münchner Ausgabe). Eds. K. Richter et al. Munich 1985–1998.

TAG Tagebücher. Eds. W. Albrecht/E. Zehm. Stuttgart 2000.

All citations contain volume and page numbers. Division (Abteilung) numbers are only given when appropriate, followed by a “/” and then the volume number. In cases where there are separate parts to a volume, the volume number will be followed by a “.” and then the part number.

Adler, J. 1998. “The Aesthetics of Magnetism: Science, Philosophy and Poetry in the Dialogue between Goethe and Schelling”. In The Third Culture: Literature and Science.

Ed. E. S. Shaffer. Berlin, 66–102.

Baum, M. 2000. “Die Anfänge der Schellingschen Naturphilosophie”. In Schelling: Between Fichte and Hegel. Eds. C. Asmuth/A. Denker/M. Vater. Amsterdam, 95–112.

Beiser, F. 2002. German Idealism: the Struggle against Subjectivism 1781–1801. Cambridge, MA. Breidbach, O. 2001. “Transformation statt Reihung – Naturdetail und Naturganzes in Goethes Metamorphosenlehre”. In Naturwissenschaft um 1800. Eds. O. Breidbach/ P. Ziche. Weimar, 46–65.

–. 2006. Goethes Metamorphosenlehre. Munich.

Cˇern´y, J. 1984. “Von der natura naturans zum ‘unvordenklichen Seyn’. Eine Linie des Materialismus bei Schelling?” In Natur und geschichtlicher Prozeß. Studien zur Naturphilosophie F. W. J. Schellings. Ed. H. J. Sandkühler. Frankfurt a. M., 127–144.

28

Fuhrmans 1962, 243.

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Denker, Alfred. 1997. “Freiheit und das höchste Gut des Menschen. Schellings erste Auseinandersetzung mit der Jenaer Wissenschaftslehre Fichtes”. In Sein – Reflexion – Freiheit. Aspekte der Philosophie J.G. Fichtes. Ed. C. Asmuth. Amsterdam, 35–68.

Engelhardt, D. von. 1984. “Schellings philosophische Grundlegung der Medizin”.

In Natur und geschichtlicher Prozess: Studien zur Naturphilosophie F. W. J. Schellings.

Ed. H. J. Sandkühler. Frankfurt a. M., 305–325.

Förster, E. 2002. “Die Bedeutung von §§ 76, 77 der Kritik der Urteilskraft für die Entwicklung der nachkantischen Philosophie”. Zeitschrift für philosophische Forschung 56, 169–190.

Frank, M. 1975. Der unendliche Mangel an Sein. Frankfurt a. M. –. 1985. Eine Einführung in Schellings Philosophie. Frankfurt a. M. Fuhrmans, H. 1962. “Einleitung”. In Schelling: Briefe und Dokumente. Ed. H. Fuhrmans.

Bonn.

Grun, K.-J. 1993. Das Erwachen der Materie: Studie über die spinozistischen Gehalte der Naturphilosophie Schellings. Hildesheim.

Henrich, D. 1992. Der Grund im Bewusstsein. Stuttgart.

Holz, H. 1977. “Das Platonische Syndrom beim jungen Schelling: (Hintergrundtheoreme in der Ausbildung seines Naturbegriffs)”. In Die Idee der Philosophie bei Schelling.

Metaphysische Motive in seiner Frühphilosophie. Ed. H. Holz. Freiburg, 19–63.

Jacobs, W. G. 1984. J. G. Fichte. Reinbeck bei Hamburg.

–. 2004. “Editorischer Bericht”. In HKA 1/8, 3–19.

Jäckle, E. 1937. “Goethes Morphologie und Schellings Weltseele”. Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literatur und Geisteswissenschaft 15, 295–440.

Richards, R. 2002. The Romantic Conception of Life: Science and Philosophy in the Age of Goethe. Chicago.

Rudolphi, M. 2001. Produktion und Konstruktion. Zur Genese der Naturphilosophie in Schellings Frühwerk. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt.

Schelling, F. W. J. 1962. Schelling: Briefe und Dokumente. Ed. H. Fuhrmans. Bonn.

Schmidt, A. 1984. Goethes herrlich leuchtende Natur. Philosophische Studie zur deutschen Spätaufklärung. Munich.

Schmied-Kowarzik, W. 1996. Von der wirklichen, von der seyenden Natur. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt.

Schulz, W. 1968. “Einleitung”. In Fichte-Schelling Briefwechsel. Frankfurt a. M., 7–50.

Tilliette, X. (ed.) 1974. Schelling im Spiegel seiner Zeitgenossen. Turin.

Traub, H. 2001. “Einleitung”. In Schelling-Fichte Briefwechsel. Neuried, 9–118.