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[(First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature)] [Author: F.W.J. Schelling] published on
Appearing here in English for the first time, this is F. W. J. Schelling's vital document of the attempts of German Idealism and Romanticism to recover a deeper relationship between humanity and nature and to overcome the separation between mind and matter induced by the modern reductivist program. Written in 1799 and building upon his earlier work, First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature provides the most inclusive exposition of Schelling's philosophy of the natural world. He presents a startlingly contemporary model of an expanding and contracting universe; a unified theory of electricity, gravity magnetism, and chemical forces; and, perhaps most importantly, a conception of nature as a living and organic whole.
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First published January 1, 1799
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About the author
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
542 books248 followersFriedrich 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 25, 2024
Through a sequence of bizarre yet strangely compelling 'deductions', Schelling proves that the organic is simply the higher power of the inorganic and moreover, that the existence of the former is scandalous. Nature, being absolute productivity (nonobjective, nonconceptual even), abhors products, much less 'productive products' such as living things. But if Nature is simply furious activity than no products can come about. Therefore to account for the existence of products we must posit an original duplicity in universal Nature, a prime contradiction which fuels all other oppositions:
"The opposites must forever shun,in order forever to seek each other;and forever seek,in order never to find each other;it is only in thiscontradiction that the ground of all the activity of Nature lies."
From the standpoint of intuition (synthesis) everything is continuously and monstrously productive, but from that of reflection (analysis) discontinuous, inhibited, retarded, consolidated. Therefore, properly speaking it is only from the standpoint of reflection that there arises an opposition between organic and inorganic, for Nature as absolute productivity 'transcends' the opposition. Nature as Subject must objectify itself by folding in on itself in order to appear as product at all.
A weary reader may want to skip straight to page 193 for a quick and dirty outline of the whole treatise and to get a grasp of the explicit theoretical aims of Schelling's project of "speculative physics". Schelling's main gripe with transcendental philosophy, to which he supplements his own philosophy of nature, is that it one-sidedly traces the ideal from the real, subordinating the latter to the former. In contrast speculative physics or the philosophy of nature seeks to explain the ideal by the real. Sounds modest, right? Except it isn't:
The first maxim of all true natural science, to explain everything by the forces of Nature,is therefore accepted in its widest extent in our science,and even extended to that region at the limit of which all interpretation of Nature has until now been accustomed to stop short:for example,to those organic phenomena which seem to presuppose an analogy with reason. For,granted that there really is something which presupposes such analogy in the actions of animals,nothing further would follow on the principle of realism than that what we call “reason”is a mere play of higher and necessarily unknown natural forces.For,inasmuch as all thinking is at last reducible to a producing and reproducing,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 (very much in the same manner in which,through the action and play of light,Nature,which exists independently of it,is really created immaterially,and as it were for a second time),in which case it is natural that what forms the limit of our intuitive faculty no longer falls within the sphere of our intuition itself
By suggesting that 'Reason' is a play of unknown natural forces Schelling is proposing that the so called naturalistic fallacy, that we cannot reduce an 'ought' to an 'is' might turn out on the last instance to be a blind-spot intrinsic to sophisticated information processing system combining feedback loops with 'control' and 'stimulation'. The purported irreducibility then stems from the fact that we literally cannot cognize our own cognitive processes the way we cognize our environment. Needlessly to say, this has scandalous ramifications for the autonomy of transcendental philosophy--ramifications which we have only begun to unpack.
"The opposites must forever shun,in order forever to seek each other;and forever seek,in order never to find each other;it is only in thiscontradiction that the ground of all the activity of Nature lies."
From the standpoint of intuition (synthesis) everything is continuously and monstrously productive, but from that of reflection (analysis) discontinuous, inhibited, retarded, consolidated. Therefore, properly speaking it is only from the standpoint of reflection that there arises an opposition between organic and inorganic, for Nature as absolute productivity 'transcends' the opposition. Nature as Subject must objectify itself by folding in on itself in order to appear as product at all.
A weary reader may want to skip straight to page 193 for a quick and dirty outline of the whole treatise and to get a grasp of the explicit theoretical aims of Schelling's project of "speculative physics". Schelling's main gripe with transcendental philosophy, to which he supplements his own philosophy of nature, is that it one-sidedly traces the ideal from the real, subordinating the latter to the former. In contrast speculative physics or the philosophy of nature seeks to explain the ideal by the real. Sounds modest, right? Except it isn't:
The first maxim of all true natural science, to explain everything by the forces of Nature,is therefore accepted in its widest extent in our science,and even extended to that region at the limit of which all interpretation of Nature has until now been accustomed to stop short:for example,to those organic phenomena which seem to presuppose an analogy with reason. For,granted that there really is something which presupposes such analogy in the actions of animals,nothing further would follow on the principle of realism than that what we call “reason”is a mere play of higher and necessarily unknown natural forces.For,inasmuch as all thinking is at last reducible to a producing and reproducing,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 (very much in the same manner in which,through the action and play of light,Nature,which exists independently of it,is really created immaterially,and as it were for a second time),in which case it is natural that what forms the limit of our intuitive faculty no longer falls within the sphere of our intuition itself
By suggesting that 'Reason' is a play of unknown natural forces Schelling is proposing that the so called naturalistic fallacy, that we cannot reduce an 'ought' to an 'is' might turn out on the last instance to be a blind-spot intrinsic to sophisticated information processing system combining feedback loops with 'control' and 'stimulation'. The purported irreducibility then stems from the fact that we literally cannot cognize our own cognitive processes the way we cognize our environment. Needlessly to say, this has scandalous ramifications for the autonomy of transcendental philosophy--ramifications which we have only begun to unpack.
March 28, 2020
Things I learned in this book:
Nature is Bisexual
Life is what happens when stinky heterosexuality emerges
Cool proto-process philosophy tho
Nature is Bisexual
Life is what happens when stinky heterosexuality emerges
Cool proto-process philosophy tho
February 18, 2019
Some very interesting development upon the idea of nature as absolutely active, and through this, unconditionedness can be ascribed to nature.
'To philosophize about nature means to heave it out of the dead mechanism to which it seems predisposed, to quicken it with freedom and to set it into its own free development—to philosophize about nature means, in other words, to tear yourself away from the common view which discerns in nature only what “happens”—and which, at most, views the act as a factum, not the action itself in its acting''
'To philosophize about nature means to heave it out of the dead mechanism to which it seems predisposed, to quicken it with freedom and to set it into its own free development—to philosophize about nature means, in other words, to tear yourself away from the common view which discerns in nature only what “happens”—and which, at most, views the act as a factum, not the action itself in its acting''
October 8, 2017
The butler did it.
November 17, 2023
Hate this mf
November 12, 2016
This was a confusing text - possibly due to translation issues. In any event the text often seems messy (despite Schelling's rigorous attempts to systemize phenomena) and critical concepts are casually introduced with little explanation as to how they fit into Schelling's larger picture. In some ways this writing style seems fairly typical of German idealism at the time. I would argue that this text is messier than most of Hegel's writings and leagues behind Fichte's oeuvre in terms of clarity. Still, there are some compelling ideas.
One of the more valuable aspects of this text is Schelling's development of something that we could now call an "ontology of nature" as it relates to practical philosophical thought. It comes as no surprise that Hegel would later adopt similar naturalistic terms and extol biology as a chief science rather than root philosophy in the theoretical sciences of his day. Schelling, more than Hegel, tends to analyze and systemize natural phenomena in scientific terms we may be more familiar with in a modern context (at least I assume that's the case with the first section of the book - I don't know enough about the physics sections to comment on Schelling's lexicon). I would imagine sections of this book might make the text as a whole more approachable to those with a background in the history and philosophy of the sciences.
One of the more valuable aspects of this text is Schelling's development of something that we could now call an "ontology of nature" as it relates to practical philosophical thought. It comes as no surprise that Hegel would later adopt similar naturalistic terms and extol biology as a chief science rather than root philosophy in the theoretical sciences of his day. Schelling, more than Hegel, tends to analyze and systemize natural phenomena in scientific terms we may be more familiar with in a modern context (at least I assume that's the case with the first section of the book - I don't know enough about the physics sections to comment on Schelling's lexicon). I would imagine sections of this book might make the text as a whole more approachable to those with a background in the history and philosophy of the sciences.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews