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The Ages of the World: (Fragment) from the handwritten remains, Third Version, ca. 1815
A new translation of the third and most sustained version of Schelling's magnum opus, this great heroic poem is a genealogy of time. Anticipating Heidegger, as well as contemporary debates about post-modernity and the limits of dialectical thinking, Schelling struggles with the question of time as the relationship between poetry and philosophy. Thinking in the wake of Hegel, although trying to think beyond his grasp, this extraordinary work is a poetic and philosophical address of difference, of thinking's relationship to its inscrutable ground.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1815
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About the author
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
542 books252 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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February 24, 2024
The Language of the Heart
The Ages of the World is a great mystical treatise that rates with those of John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and Meister Eckhart (and Spinoza and Seneca depending upon how one views mysticism). As philosophy, it is a self-acknowledged failure. As a documentary of the agony involved in approaching an experience of unmediated reality, it is probably unsurpassed given the more than 20 versions which Schelling obsessively drafted over decades. He knows throughout his experience of accumulating and expressing knowledge that “knowledge consists only in not-knowing.” What more concise statement of his mystical intent could there be?
But the Ages of the World is also an exit from the genre of religious mysticism and and entry into its modern secular replacement, existentialism.* The transition is painful, primarily because it becomes clear through Schelling that the barrier to an appreciation of reality, which mysticism has always attempted to overcome, is precisely the instrument used by science and philosophy in trying to capture reality and tame it: language itself. This is clear in the subjugation of even being itself to its expression: “Being (das Seyn) as such can never be the one that actually is (das Seyende), but for this reason there is no pure being, no empty objective something that has no trace of anything subjective in it.” In other words, what is must be named in order to be seen to be, but naming robs it of its being - a sort of a generalisation of the future Heisenberg Principle in quantum physics.
Language is a virtual reality in which we hide from the terrors of life outside language. The reality outside language is a frightening darkness whose truth we really do not wish to know. Wirth points out: “The danger science brings with it is its implicit identification of simulated reality with true reality.” Language, including the language of science and philosophy, constructs and controls. It imposes order and allows us to tell ourselves stories about a progressively developing past, and a benignly unfolding future. Language is unlimited power. But language has a crack in its power structure. Through language we become aware of a mode of behaviour - love (apparently defined as the submission of one’s will to the interests of another) - which does not employ power and eliminates fear, so making power unnecessary.
Thus Schelling engages in the obviously paradoxical effort to reveal the true “language of the heart.” This is his personal dialectic of contraction into language and subsequent expansion through its negation. Unity, real being which can be identified by the suffering involved, exists only on that passing moment between one version and the next. He wrote, and rewrote, only to begin again and again but never publishing Ages of the World. How could he publish since the language of the heart had the same impulse to power as any other language? But how could he stop writing when both he and the rest of humanity needed to understand what was at stake?
As the translator notes in his introduction: “The importance of his work was something he so deeply felt that he could only be disappointed, over and over, at his inability to articulate it appropriately.” Schelling had the same problem that the ancient Hebrew prophets had: he couldn’t express what needed to be expressed to an audience who didn’t want to hear what he had to express anyway. His own experience demonstrated the bankruptcy of whatever he had to say. Both he and God were trapped in existence. Although he never quite makes it explicit, God’s existence is language itself so that “nothing can exist outside of God.” God has put himself in the hands (and the mouth) of mankind from whence God controls the existence of Man.
Schelling is a name that represents German Romanticism. But that classification masks the depth of the man’s personal reaction to his own intellect. He had been shaped by the Age of Enlightenment, that period during which constraints placed on language by the Church, civil authority, and traditional philosophy had been largely removed. This meant freedom - of speech, of writing, of ideas. Unless, like Schelling, one pushed the conceits of freedom to demonstrate their real effects. At that point it became clear that it didn’t matter very much who was nominally in charge. Language itself was running the show. Again as his translator notes, “As was already clear to [Schelling] as a boy caught up in the fervor of the French Revolution, the political fantasy that a new world order could be established simply by replacing those in power is just that, a fantasy.”
This is a tragedy, the explanation for which is beyond human comprehension. It can only be expressed in mythical terms. The eternal separation in the Christian Trinity of the Father (contraction) and the Son (expansion) who are mediated by the communicative Spirit of Love is one version. Another is that of language as the eternal god Cronos (later to become the eternally-threatening Time Lord of Dr. Who). Language, that is to say Cronos, is the creator of time as the god struggles with primordial nature to generate his own birth. His children are human beings whom he consumes.** We submit to his demands because he promotes our stories of resurrection and eternal life. It is this dialectic of death and resurrection that maintains Cronos’s power. It is the origin of time as well as of the divine becoming.
So Schelling did not abjure Enlightenment. But he recognised that the freedom it generated for ideas had uncovered yet a more fundamental constraint on human freedom which had a remarkable resemblance to Original Sin. Language is an abyss of unfreedom. We are born into it. And we can do nothing to escape it. We cannot even be alone with ourselves since it mediates between experience and reflection: “there are two beings, one that questions and one that answers,” Schelling says with a mixture of pride in discovery and philosophical regret. The true-believer grasps on to language as firmly as any monk did to his doctrine of the Trinity or courtier to his self-interested commitment to the divine right of kings.
What Schelling offers is not a nostalgic return to the old time religion, but a vague hope that love might in some way undermine Cronos’s structure of power in language in a sort of ecstasy of self-surrender. Such has always been the goal of mystics. And the world does not treat them kindly for it. Neither does Cronos who continues to devour them at breakfast.
* Not to mention an anticipation of Darwinian evolution and the not unlikely poetic inspiration for relativity theory and quantum physics a century in the future.
** It is interesting to note Schelling’s critique of the idea of ‘eternity.’ He recognised it as an oxymoron. On the one hand, if time were not part of Creation, it is by definition God. If it is part of Creation, then it has a beginning. Cronos exists as his own dialectic, language consuming itself. It is appropriate therefore that the Egyptian god Osiris is depicted consuming his own tale. Thoth, the divine inventor of writing assisted in the resurrection of Osiris and the subsequent birth of Horus who is a key figure in the justification of pharaonic power. Christianity cuts through the dialectic with its eternal Word, promoting language itself to divine status. The birth of dogmatic religion and idolatrous faith in language.
The Ages of the World is a great mystical treatise that rates with those of John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, and Meister Eckhart (and Spinoza and Seneca depending upon how one views mysticism). As philosophy, it is a self-acknowledged failure. As a documentary of the agony involved in approaching an experience of unmediated reality, it is probably unsurpassed given the more than 20 versions which Schelling obsessively drafted over decades. He knows throughout his experience of accumulating and expressing knowledge that “knowledge consists only in not-knowing.” What more concise statement of his mystical intent could there be?
But the Ages of the World is also an exit from the genre of religious mysticism and and entry into its modern secular replacement, existentialism.* The transition is painful, primarily because it becomes clear through Schelling that the barrier to an appreciation of reality, which mysticism has always attempted to overcome, is precisely the instrument used by science and philosophy in trying to capture reality and tame it: language itself. This is clear in the subjugation of even being itself to its expression: “Being (das Seyn) as such can never be the one that actually is (das Seyende), but for this reason there is no pure being, no empty objective something that has no trace of anything subjective in it.” In other words, what is must be named in order to be seen to be, but naming robs it of its being - a sort of a generalisation of the future Heisenberg Principle in quantum physics.
Language is a virtual reality in which we hide from the terrors of life outside language. The reality outside language is a frightening darkness whose truth we really do not wish to know. Wirth points out: “The danger science brings with it is its implicit identification of simulated reality with true reality.” Language, including the language of science and philosophy, constructs and controls. It imposes order and allows us to tell ourselves stories about a progressively developing past, and a benignly unfolding future. Language is unlimited power. But language has a crack in its power structure. Through language we become aware of a mode of behaviour - love (apparently defined as the submission of one’s will to the interests of another) - which does not employ power and eliminates fear, so making power unnecessary.
Thus Schelling engages in the obviously paradoxical effort to reveal the true “language of the heart.” This is his personal dialectic of contraction into language and subsequent expansion through its negation. Unity, real being which can be identified by the suffering involved, exists only on that passing moment between one version and the next. He wrote, and rewrote, only to begin again and again but never publishing Ages of the World. How could he publish since the language of the heart had the same impulse to power as any other language? But how could he stop writing when both he and the rest of humanity needed to understand what was at stake?
As the translator notes in his introduction: “The importance of his work was something he so deeply felt that he could only be disappointed, over and over, at his inability to articulate it appropriately.” Schelling had the same problem that the ancient Hebrew prophets had: he couldn’t express what needed to be expressed to an audience who didn’t want to hear what he had to express anyway. His own experience demonstrated the bankruptcy of whatever he had to say. Both he and God were trapped in existence. Although he never quite makes it explicit, God’s existence is language itself so that “nothing can exist outside of God.” God has put himself in the hands (and the mouth) of mankind from whence God controls the existence of Man.
Schelling is a name that represents German Romanticism. But that classification masks the depth of the man’s personal reaction to his own intellect. He had been shaped by the Age of Enlightenment, that period during which constraints placed on language by the Church, civil authority, and traditional philosophy had been largely removed. This meant freedom - of speech, of writing, of ideas. Unless, like Schelling, one pushed the conceits of freedom to demonstrate their real effects. At that point it became clear that it didn’t matter very much who was nominally in charge. Language itself was running the show. Again as his translator notes, “As was already clear to [Schelling] as a boy caught up in the fervor of the French Revolution, the political fantasy that a new world order could be established simply by replacing those in power is just that, a fantasy.”
This is a tragedy, the explanation for which is beyond human comprehension. It can only be expressed in mythical terms. The eternal separation in the Christian Trinity of the Father (contraction) and the Son (expansion) who are mediated by the communicative Spirit of Love is one version. Another is that of language as the eternal god Cronos (later to become the eternally-threatening Time Lord of Dr. Who). Language, that is to say Cronos, is the creator of time as the god struggles with primordial nature to generate his own birth. His children are human beings whom he consumes.** We submit to his demands because he promotes our stories of resurrection and eternal life. It is this dialectic of death and resurrection that maintains Cronos’s power. It is the origin of time as well as of the divine becoming.
So Schelling did not abjure Enlightenment. But he recognised that the freedom it generated for ideas had uncovered yet a more fundamental constraint on human freedom which had a remarkable resemblance to Original Sin. Language is an abyss of unfreedom. We are born into it. And we can do nothing to escape it. We cannot even be alone with ourselves since it mediates between experience and reflection: “there are two beings, one that questions and one that answers,” Schelling says with a mixture of pride in discovery and philosophical regret. The true-believer grasps on to language as firmly as any monk did to his doctrine of the Trinity or courtier to his self-interested commitment to the divine right of kings.
What Schelling offers is not a nostalgic return to the old time religion, but a vague hope that love might in some way undermine Cronos’s structure of power in language in a sort of ecstasy of self-surrender. Such has always been the goal of mystics. And the world does not treat them kindly for it. Neither does Cronos who continues to devour them at breakfast.
* Not to mention an anticipation of Darwinian evolution and the not unlikely poetic inspiration for relativity theory and quantum physics a century in the future.
** It is interesting to note Schelling’s critique of the idea of ‘eternity.’ He recognised it as an oxymoron. On the one hand, if time were not part of Creation, it is by definition God. If it is part of Creation, then it has a beginning. Cronos exists as his own dialectic, language consuming itself. It is appropriate therefore that the Egyptian god Osiris is depicted consuming his own tale. Thoth, the divine inventor of writing assisted in the resurrection of Osiris and the subsequent birth of Horus who is a key figure in the justification of pharaonic power. Christianity cuts through the dialectic with its eternal Word, promoting language itself to divine status. The birth of dogmatic religion and idolatrous faith in language.
May 26, 2020
Schelling's Ages of The World contains a lot of the same thought and material as his Positive Philosophy lectures. Starting this while I was still reading the Philosophy of Revelation made the preceding very evident. As I said in my review to that work, his notion of a conflicted Godhead is problematic to say the least. Schelling's transcendent principal is largely negative because it wills nothing. The next two modes of being consist of the will to limitlessness firstly, and a will that seeks to limit, secondly. Schelling labels this second mode of being mindless, i.e. it's a chaotic movement. The third mode of being controls the preceding and puts a limitation on it. This whole scheme does not solve the problem as to why there is something rather than nothing. If creation can only burst into being through the contrast of these modes, it remains that Schelling has two largely negative modes, his first and third mode, and one positive mode, which is the second. How does the movement towards created being not cancel itself out? The only positive movement is mindless and chaotic, the other two don't help here because they both seem to move toward the oblivion of non-creation. The idea that such a schizmatic Godhead could accomplish anything at all is simply amazing. Indeed, a miracle. All of this theosophizing seems to stem from Jacob Boehme. He posited the same kind of conflicted Godhead, right down to the will that spawns out of an abyss of chaos.
There's plenty in the work I found interesting though. I want to call attention to some of it with quotes. Even with the understanding that Schelling's idea of the Trinity is idiosyncratic and fraught with issues, his take on the third person of the Trinity isn't all that far removed from orthodoxy:
"But the will of the Father in relation to the Son and of the Son in relation to the Father is the will of the Spirit. The Spirit recognizes the proper measure by which the eternal concealment of the Father should be opened and posited as past. The Spirit is thus the one that divides and orders the different times. For the variety and succession of times rests only on the difference of what in each is posited as past and as present and as future. Only the Spirit can investigate everything, even unto the depths of divinity. In the Spirit alone dwells the knowledge (Wissenschaft) of all things to come. It alone is allowed to lift the seal under which the future lies hidden away. Prophets are therefore driven by the Spirit of God, for the Spirit alone opens up the ages. It is then the task of the prophet to discern the way they cohere together."
Apart from the problematic theological context of it, I have very little issue with the above sentiment. One has to realize the Schellingian context though. Some of his more problematic trinitarianism is exemplified by this quote:
"Freedom in a moral sense, even in God, is something that is only possible for the first I or the Father—insofar as he is understood as coming to himself through the constant scission of forces that is the accomplishment of his Son. It is without doubt the free will of the Father to acquiesce to the suspension within him of the original equilibrium of forces. His free will is thus the will of creation."
Scission means to divide. Schelling makes it apparent here that division is within Godhead itself. He also is contradicting his view that the first principal (or the A1 mode of being in the Philosophy of Revelation) wills absolutely nothing and is content in his oblivion. Why he would ever will creation through the second mode of being is not clear. Schelling's view of the Son is also rather denigrating as well. The Son, or his second mode of being (A2 in the Philosophy of Revelation) is said to be mindless and chaotic. Here he says specifically that it is a dividing and not a uniting force. This undermines divine unity clearly. This brings us to the third mode of being (or the A3 of the Philosophy of Revelation): The Spirit, which basically is the only part of Schelling's Trinity that has any positive activity at all, but it really is only to limit the largely negative activity of the second mode. Because the Spirit is the only mode that seems to have inherent reason and a positive role is why the former quote above is a far better depiction. His views of the Father and the Son leave much to be desired. Not only is it impossible to see how any actual movement can be initiated, it is impossible to see how there is any actual divine unity here. What we seem to be left with is first a divine oblivion that moves not at all and is even opposed to such movement, and then a chaotic force that does move but seeks to divide and not to unite. Then we finally come to the third component that is the only one that is capable of doing anything positively, but how we could even get to movement at this point is not clear to me at all. The two initial modes seem to negate each other, and the third is technically a rational limiting. The movement of opposing forces on each other when utilizing a common stratum would be a process like torsion. I'm sure that Schelling is thinking of such a process here because he uses terms like contraction and dilation to describe the process. I can't see torsion even entering into the picture until we've already moved into creation though. I don't deny the validity of torsion within nature because a balancing process like that is certainly evident, but I cannot subscribe to such a process within the Godhead itself. Creation could never even take place if torsion was the metaphysical substrate. It would be a nullification, not a positive movement towards creation. Torsion can only be a process of balancing once the cosmos has come into being and an actual stratum is established that separates the opposing forces but still allows them to coexist.
Some of Schelling's terminology also reminds me of Gnostic cosmology. I've studied the various Gnostic writings to a fair degree. Schelling says this:
"The force that drives the essence back is blind and unconscious so that the birth that is facilitated by the contraction is one that is necessary... the essence that the force would negate, is blindly cast forth as an independent being. As a result of this first birth the primordial living being first comes to feel itself as something excluded and cast out, threatened by something that opposes it."
Such cosmology seriously evokes the Gnostic cosmology of the Valentinians regarding Sophia's fall and her giving birth to the blind god Ialdabaoth. It doesn't take much imagination to see the similarities, even if some of the parallels are a bit confused. Schelling's ultimate source for his cosmology, i.e. Jacob Boehme, has been accused of Gnosticism by many people. Cyril O'Regan specifically labeled Boehme a Valentiniain Gnostic. Out of all the Gnostic groups, I found the Valentinians to be the most intriguing. Their utilization of mythological structures and outlandish revelations make them a fascinating study in subconscious images and symbolism. That was one of the reasons Jung found them worth studying. I reject their theology of course, but as a revelatory system of belief it has some interesting facets. It's one of the reasons I find certain kinds of heterodox Christian mysticism, such as Boehme, interesting as well.
Speaking of Jung, there was one passage in the section titled Notes and Fragments I found incredibly interesting because of its relevance to the then incipient field of psychology. Unfortunately, the passage breaks off. The translator also included Schelling's marginal corrections in angle brackets:
"There is in human beings a principle that stems from that past age and as such reaches out beyond the condition and creation of the present world. Just as the past in general is only the foundation of the present, by which it is repressed or at least covered over, so it is that in human beings the oldest part of their nature is pushed back and subordinated to them . However it is also the consciousness of the past that slumbers in this part of us and, pushed back into darkness, only steps forth , if either this principle itself..."
Here we have some ideas that certainly point to the theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. One does wonder how much Jung was influenced by Schelling. It is a matter of record that he owned his complete works, but he rarely ever mentioned him.
There's plenty in the book that is worth studying. I should mention that the translator did a good job with the translation, but I must say his introduction and notes often left me with the impression that he is a part of that socialist and far left wing of academia that I would never choose to patronize or listen to for any length of time if I had the choice. His introduction was more like an essay that only related to Schelling tangentially. When someone uses the term "patriarchy" in a non-ironical sense when discussing Schelling, one can safely take anything they say with a grain of salt. I give the book around 4 stars. I will now read the second version of the Ages of the World.
There's plenty in the work I found interesting though. I want to call attention to some of it with quotes. Even with the understanding that Schelling's idea of the Trinity is idiosyncratic and fraught with issues, his take on the third person of the Trinity isn't all that far removed from orthodoxy:
"But the will of the Father in relation to the Son and of the Son in relation to the Father is the will of the Spirit. The Spirit recognizes the proper measure by which the eternal concealment of the Father should be opened and posited as past. The Spirit is thus the one that divides and orders the different times. For the variety and succession of times rests only on the difference of what in each is posited as past and as present and as future. Only the Spirit can investigate everything, even unto the depths of divinity. In the Spirit alone dwells the knowledge (Wissenschaft) of all things to come. It alone is allowed to lift the seal under which the future lies hidden away. Prophets are therefore driven by the Spirit of God, for the Spirit alone opens up the ages. It is then the task of the prophet to discern the way they cohere together."
Apart from the problematic theological context of it, I have very little issue with the above sentiment. One has to realize the Schellingian context though. Some of his more problematic trinitarianism is exemplified by this quote:
"Freedom in a moral sense, even in God, is something that is only possible for the first I or the Father—insofar as he is understood as coming to himself through the constant scission of forces that is the accomplishment of his Son. It is without doubt the free will of the Father to acquiesce to the suspension within him of the original equilibrium of forces. His free will is thus the will of creation."
Scission means to divide. Schelling makes it apparent here that division is within Godhead itself. He also is contradicting his view that the first principal (or the A1 mode of being in the Philosophy of Revelation) wills absolutely nothing and is content in his oblivion. Why he would ever will creation through the second mode of being is not clear. Schelling's view of the Son is also rather denigrating as well. The Son, or his second mode of being (A2 in the Philosophy of Revelation) is said to be mindless and chaotic. Here he says specifically that it is a dividing and not a uniting force. This undermines divine unity clearly. This brings us to the third mode of being (or the A3 of the Philosophy of Revelation): The Spirit, which basically is the only part of Schelling's Trinity that has any positive activity at all, but it really is only to limit the largely negative activity of the second mode. Because the Spirit is the only mode that seems to have inherent reason and a positive role is why the former quote above is a far better depiction. His views of the Father and the Son leave much to be desired. Not only is it impossible to see how any actual movement can be initiated, it is impossible to see how there is any actual divine unity here. What we seem to be left with is first a divine oblivion that moves not at all and is even opposed to such movement, and then a chaotic force that does move but seeks to divide and not to unite. Then we finally come to the third component that is the only one that is capable of doing anything positively, but how we could even get to movement at this point is not clear to me at all. The two initial modes seem to negate each other, and the third is technically a rational limiting. The movement of opposing forces on each other when utilizing a common stratum would be a process like torsion. I'm sure that Schelling is thinking of such a process here because he uses terms like contraction and dilation to describe the process. I can't see torsion even entering into the picture until we've already moved into creation though. I don't deny the validity of torsion within nature because a balancing process like that is certainly evident, but I cannot subscribe to such a process within the Godhead itself. Creation could never even take place if torsion was the metaphysical substrate. It would be a nullification, not a positive movement towards creation. Torsion can only be a process of balancing once the cosmos has come into being and an actual stratum is established that separates the opposing forces but still allows them to coexist.
Some of Schelling's terminology also reminds me of Gnostic cosmology. I've studied the various Gnostic writings to a fair degree. Schelling says this:
"The force that drives the essence back is blind and unconscious so that the birth that is facilitated by the contraction is one that is necessary... the essence that the force would negate, is blindly cast forth as an independent being. As a result of this first birth the primordial living being first comes to feel itself as something excluded and cast out, threatened by something that opposes it."
Such cosmology seriously evokes the Gnostic cosmology of the Valentinians regarding Sophia's fall and her giving birth to the blind god Ialdabaoth. It doesn't take much imagination to see the similarities, even if some of the parallels are a bit confused. Schelling's ultimate source for his cosmology, i.e. Jacob Boehme, has been accused of Gnosticism by many people. Cyril O'Regan specifically labeled Boehme a Valentiniain Gnostic. Out of all the Gnostic groups, I found the Valentinians to be the most intriguing. Their utilization of mythological structures and outlandish revelations make them a fascinating study in subconscious images and symbolism. That was one of the reasons Jung found them worth studying. I reject their theology of course, but as a revelatory system of belief it has some interesting facets. It's one of the reasons I find certain kinds of heterodox Christian mysticism, such as Boehme, interesting as well.
Speaking of Jung, there was one passage in the section titled Notes and Fragments I found incredibly interesting because of its relevance to the then incipient field of psychology. Unfortunately, the passage breaks off. The translator also included Schelling's marginal corrections in angle brackets:
"There is in human beings a principle that stems from that past age and as such reaches out beyond the condition and creation of the present world. Just as the past in general is only the foundation of the present, by which it is repressed or at least covered over, so it is that in human beings the oldest part of their nature is pushed back and subordinated to them . However it is also the consciousness of the past that slumbers in this part of us and, pushed back into darkness, only steps forth , if either this principle itself..."
Here we have some ideas that certainly point to the theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious. One does wonder how much Jung was influenced by Schelling. It is a matter of record that he owned his complete works, but he rarely ever mentioned him.
There's plenty in the book that is worth studying. I should mention that the translator did a good job with the translation, but I must say his introduction and notes often left me with the impression that he is a part of that socialist and far left wing of academia that I would never choose to patronize or listen to for any length of time if I had the choice. His introduction was more like an essay that only related to Schelling tangentially. When someone uses the term "patriarchy" in a non-ironical sense when discussing Schelling, one can safely take anything they say with a grain of salt. I give the book around 4 stars. I will now read the second version of the Ages of the World.
December 7, 2017
Along with The Philosophy Of Mythology, this has been the most engaging book I've read by Schelling; and with his essay on human freedom, those three works mark Schelling at his most mature and most original. He hasn't lost all of his dependence on Fichte but it isn't as prominent as it was in earlier works.
Here, as with the essay on human freedom, Schelling shows a little more dependence on Jacob Boehme, the Gorlitz mystic. While I do like Boehme to a degree, I have some misgivings regarding some of his ideas--and specifically the ones Schelling here uses. These issues do not take up a lot of the book, so it's not enough to affect my rating. His dependence on Boehme isn't all encompassing. It's noticeable in various places, but it's clear that Schelling isn't simply regurgitating Boehme's theosophy. He definitely has some unique ideas in here. I don't know if Schelling may be dependent on Franz von Baader in some of his thought. Baader has yet to be translated into English, apart from brief extracts, so I have not been able to research him adequately. It is known, however, that Schelling was influenced by Baader, so some dependence is probably a safe bet.
This work does fit rather well with the lectures that make up his Philosophy of Mythology, which I was quite impressed with. In that work, Schelling investigated the philosophical continuity of revelation through religion and mythology up through Judaism and Christianity. In this work, he more or less investigates theosophy (not in the Blavatskian sense, of course). This book really strikes me as being strongly Neo-Platonist. There is an undercurrent of pantheism, or, at least, panentheism. It's not that I support either, but the investigation I thought was so intriguing that I cannot give the book any less than the highest rating. It is clear to me why the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (who I am well acquainted with) was a follower of Schelling and this work in particular. This work does seem to be at least partially what the system of sophiology was based on--at least in the case of Solovyov. Bulgakov seems to have been more circumspect in regards to Schelling; but I think Berdyaev probably was influenced by this work.
This concludes my reading of Schelling for the time being. Very good book to end with. I would have to say that even though Fichte was the true originator of German Idealism, Schelling certainly applied it in ways that I think were often more interesting.
Here, as with the essay on human freedom, Schelling shows a little more dependence on Jacob Boehme, the Gorlitz mystic. While I do like Boehme to a degree, I have some misgivings regarding some of his ideas--and specifically the ones Schelling here uses. These issues do not take up a lot of the book, so it's not enough to affect my rating. His dependence on Boehme isn't all encompassing. It's noticeable in various places, but it's clear that Schelling isn't simply regurgitating Boehme's theosophy. He definitely has some unique ideas in here. I don't know if Schelling may be dependent on Franz von Baader in some of his thought. Baader has yet to be translated into English, apart from brief extracts, so I have not been able to research him adequately. It is known, however, that Schelling was influenced by Baader, so some dependence is probably a safe bet.
This work does fit rather well with the lectures that make up his Philosophy of Mythology, which I was quite impressed with. In that work, Schelling investigated the philosophical continuity of revelation through religion and mythology up through Judaism and Christianity. In this work, he more or less investigates theosophy (not in the Blavatskian sense, of course). This book really strikes me as being strongly Neo-Platonist. There is an undercurrent of pantheism, or, at least, panentheism. It's not that I support either, but the investigation I thought was so intriguing that I cannot give the book any less than the highest rating. It is clear to me why the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov (who I am well acquainted with) was a follower of Schelling and this work in particular. This work does seem to be at least partially what the system of sophiology was based on--at least in the case of Solovyov. Bulgakov seems to have been more circumspect in regards to Schelling; but I think Berdyaev probably was influenced by this work.
This concludes my reading of Schelling for the time being. Very good book to end with. I would have to say that even though Fichte was the true originator of German Idealism, Schelling certainly applied it in ways that I think were often more interesting.
December 4, 2024
Studying Schelling for my PhD so I have begun going through his corpus. Very impressed by this unfinished work. Contains the best explication of his theogony and the pre historic movements of God in se all the way to the birth of god as the creation of the world (revelation).
The influence of Böhme is clear, and it’s also clear to see Schelling’s influence on your guys like Moltmann and Tillich after reading through this. Schelling by this time has moved beyond Fichte and is also responding to Hegelian criticisms, as he is adamant that through this organic process there is no sublimation but rather contradictions held in tension / unity.
The creation of the world is a completely free act in the part of God, as the primordial negative unconscious “nicht” is overcome by the positive desire “Lust” to actualize through spirit and matter. From there god becomes a deity that is actualizing through freedom and becoming. Through love and death, joy and pain, ecstasy and suffering: so goes the constant inhalation and exhalation of a god of becoming who ironically overcomes the no of necessity for a yes in freedom, this creation is both a display of madness and artistic beauty, a whirlwind of chaos and order.
Much more can be said but I’ll spare it here so I can write it in my dissertation!
Reading Mythology by Schelling next.
The influence of Böhme is clear, and it’s also clear to see Schelling’s influence on your guys like Moltmann and Tillich after reading through this. Schelling by this time has moved beyond Fichte and is also responding to Hegelian criticisms, as he is adamant that through this organic process there is no sublimation but rather contradictions held in tension / unity.
The creation of the world is a completely free act in the part of God, as the primordial negative unconscious “nicht” is overcome by the positive desire “Lust” to actualize through spirit and matter. From there god becomes a deity that is actualizing through freedom and becoming. Through love and death, joy and pain, ecstasy and suffering: so goes the constant inhalation and exhalation of a god of becoming who ironically overcomes the no of necessity for a yes in freedom, this creation is both a display of madness and artistic beauty, a whirlwind of chaos and order.
Much more can be said but I’ll spare it here so I can write it in my dissertation!
Reading Mythology by Schelling next.
February 26, 2019
Excellent discussion of God and nature
"But to tell the truth, in true science as little as in history are there propositions properly speaking, that is, assertions which are valid in and by themselves or apart from the movement by which they are produced, or which have an unlimited and universal validity. What is essential in science is movement; deprived of this vital principle, its assertions die like fruit taken from the living tree. Propositions which are unconditioned, that is, valid once for all, are antagonistic to the nature of true science, which consists in progress. "
"But to tell the truth, in true science as little as in history are there propositions properly speaking, that is, assertions which are valid in and by themselves or apart from the movement by which they are produced, or which have an unlimited and universal validity. What is essential in science is movement; deprived of this vital principle, its assertions die like fruit taken from the living tree. Propositions which are unconditioned, that is, valid once for all, are antagonistic to the nature of true science, which consists in progress. "
December 16, 2025
How did Nature get caught in the net of Reason in the first place? Why is there something rather than nothing? How did heteronomic nature ever give rise to freedom and subjectivity? What is at stake is precisely the genesis of judgement itself, or put it differently, the space of reasons within which such judgings occur. Unfortunately, given that reasons "break down" in the singularity (or the abyss of Nature, as Schelling calls it), Reason cannot be of much aid to us in these investigations. What is the alternative, then? Schelling's answer--and an audacious one at that--is that we need to think in terms of forces rather than reasons (reasons 'sublimate' each other but forces produce a real, continual tension). The act of thinking is not a cozy adventure in the space of reasons that a psychological "I", like a transcendental tourist, can simply sign up for. No, to take Schelling's proposal for a Naturephilosophie seriously is to treat thinking as a reiteration and reproduction of the terrifying forces of the originary, annular drama that grounded, grounds and will continue to ground the present and future world. Here the risk of failure is colossal, but such is the price of all true science, especially the science of transcendental philosophy. As strange as it may sound, the whole treatise can be conceived as mature Schelling's attempt to work out as a transcendental aesthetic more energetic, radical and thoroughgoing than the one offered by his Königsberg predecessor. The infernal motors of this new aesthetic are the three so-called "potencies", designated as A1(the negating potency or contractive force of nature) A2 (the affirming or expansive light of Spirit) and A3 (the indifference of the Soul). Departing from Kant, Schelling intimates that the forms of intuition themselves must have a history or prehistory, albeit one that is logical rather than chronological. That is, one finds here an attempt at a genetic deduction of space and time, which for Schelling, just happens to a deduction of the concept of god as the 'Living' being (or Being) in which necessity and freedom are united. For what else is the negating or attracting potency but the before, the affirmative potency the after and the unity of the two what we call "simultaneity". In a similar fashion, what else is the ground but the "under" and consequence the "above" (37-38). These three times, eons or eternities are co-eval, but a relationship of priority and posterity, ground and consequent obtains between them. In a speculative maneuver characteristic of postkantianism, Schelling ascribes successions to and in eternity such that the past, present and future become distinct but remain inseparable, one sinking into the ground as the condition of possibility for the other two. But the transition from the hyperchaos of "eternal nature" in which the three potencies each yearn for Being incessantly, yet unable to achieve such stability to "eternal freedom" in which each potency is given what it is due albeit in the presence of the higher Other is achieved through a "cision" within Nature itself. Yet this cision has to be de-cided by the pure freedom of the Godhead itself which, because of the fact that it is neither being nor non-being, is at complete liberty to be a Yes, No and the unity of both. The most striking aspect of Schelling's deduction is the claim that what is lower (in general, and not just in Nature, we think) attracts what is Higher through a kind of 'yearning' or 'desire'; Nature yearns for Spirit, becomes Corporeal-Spiritual, while Spirit, in turn, desires to attain self-awareness...
March 14, 2025
"The past becomes known, the present recognized, and the future divined."
"This is the dire fate of all life, that to become comprehensible to itself, it seeks constriction, demanding narrowness over breadth. But after constricting itself and discovering what it feels like to be, it demands once again to return into openness."
"Without the light of revelation a scholarly researcher would never be in the position to follow with natural ease the inner going forth of the first divine actions, guided by concepts that are as straightforward and human as they need to be."
"This is the dire fate of all life, that to become comprehensible to itself, it seeks constriction, demanding narrowness over breadth. But after constricting itself and discovering what it feels like to be, it demands once again to return into openness."
"Without the light of revelation a scholarly researcher would never be in the position to follow with natural ease the inner going forth of the first divine actions, guided by concepts that are as straightforward and human as they need to be."
October 9, 2024
I actually read all three versions. The third (1815) version is the most speculatively clear but it might be something put together by Karl Schelling. I suggest starting from this version and then going back to the first two. The 1811 version is somewhat mystical and hard to understand but it contains the fullest exposition of the emergence of time in finite beings that the 1815 version does not contain. The first version is also featured by a subject-object dialectic that reminds readers of his earlier System of Transcendental Idealism. Up to this point I do not think that Schelling has ever changed his philosophy, he just elaborated it in various aspects in various periods. Before 1800 he focused on the two-sidedness (natural and transcendental philosophy) of his project; from 1801 to 1808 he emphasised the essential unity. From 1809 to 1827 he basically furnished his identity philosophy into a dynamical system.
I do not know whether I will give a proper review of this book some time.
I do not know whether I will give a proper review of this book some time.
February 20, 2024
This is pretty much the weirdest philosophy book ever written. Never has there been a more perfect alignment between content and form.
January 2, 2025
Nederlandse vertaling 2024: “Levensfasen van de wereld”, uitgeverij Damon. De fascinerende tekst die niet zozeer over de ontwikkeling van de wereld in de moderne zin van het woord gaat, maar over de ontwikkeling van God en van daaruit ook de kosmos, komt uiteindelijk uit op een herneming en verheerlijking van de triniteitsleer. Moeilijke tekst voor wie het Duitse idealisme niet kent, maar de inleiding van de vertalers helpt. Belangrijke tekst om de Duitse theologie van de 20e en 21e eeuw, o.a. Pannenberg, Moltmann en Jüngel te kunnen begrijpen. Bespreking voor Kerk en Theologie.
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August 2, 2008This is a tough read, but so intriguing!
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March 2, 2016 Visión de Paralaje Pág.327
November 1, 2024
I read the 1811 version of Schelling's Weltalter. It was quite thematically similar to his Essay on Human Freedom. Compared with the Freedom Essay, he talks less on the question of Radical Evil & Free Will, and added some intriguing but extremely cryptic ideas about Time that reminded me a bit of Heidegger, especially insofar as it is, whatever its merit, a complaint about Kant's overly scientific view of abstract, linear time in favor of a individualized, "phenomenological" time where Past/Present/Future frames every perception.
It also elaborates much more on the Theogeny than the Freedom Essay does, making great use of psychological analogies, which he intends to be quite literal. He's clearly influenced by Christian neo-Platonism: a Monad develops into a Dyad which is united back into one, with the mediating link between the two then being counted alongside them to form a Trinity. Perhaps I am just forgetting, but I don't recall the Trinity taking such a large place in the Freedom Essay.
He's playing with a lot of dualities: Light/Dark, Male/Female, Inward/Outward. I think the valences of some of these has changed since the Freedom Essay - he's now very clear that in the Beginning was Pure Light, that Contraction is identified with Darkness (& Fire? some images related to a Stoic Conflagration/Big Crunch appear), and that the opposition between Expansion and Contraction leads to a period of Conflict. He's somewhat less moralizing about this conflict, regarding it not just as a chaos which needs to be locked away but as generative and necessary, even if is converted from conflict into play by the birth of the Father. This distinction between conflict and play reminded me of different models people have for dialectics, eg. Kojeve focusing on conflict, Schiller on harmonious play.
I believe this Pure Light, which the translator plausibly suggests is the Divine Feminine, ends up impregnated by the Father (which had developed within her??), giving birth to the Son. The translator really emphasized the gendering of various words in their footnotes, as Schelling doesn't literally talk about the Divine Feminine, just uses feminine nouns. I suspect this plays into Bachofen's idea of primitive matriarchy.
Schelling makes a very interesting (albeit hard to translate) distinction between "das Seyn", the Being, and "das Seyende", the One Who Is. It is as if the One Who Is wears his Being like a shell, which gives the appearance of fixed qualities that hide the true depths which remain in flux and potentiality. I tried to figure out what the origin of the "das Seyende" terminology is - it seems to appear in Hegel but with less of a clear distinction, and might come from a translation of Exodus 3:14 from the Greek "ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν" to the German "ich bin der Seyende". As this common translation is not what is in Luther's bible, I wondered if it was used in the German mystical tradition, eg. Meister Eckhart, but I couldn't find anything definitive.
I was disappointed that he did not flesh out his opening line "The past is known, the present is recognized, the future is divined" much, outside of some introductory remarks about the way that pre-human history can be sought by analogy with the human psyche. An astute remark, given the way much speculative prehistory about a Golden Age is (merely?) a veiled commentary on the forgetting of one's early childhood. The only fragment of the later books is a piece of Book 2, The Present, which seems like it would incorporate Schelling's Nature-Philosophy - but the fragment is just Schelling ranting about how Newton totally misunderstood gravity. He thinks that Newton's model for orbits in terms of centrifugal/centripetal force implies that just as planets orbit stars, the stars need to orbit a bigger star ad infinitum, and that this infinite sequence of larger and larger stars is a contradiction, for the cosmos would need a Biggest Star of infinite magnitude to hold everything fixed in their orbits. While he's obviously wrong, this relates back to his old idea that two objects could orbit a shared center of mass, the "Indifferenz-punkt", to avoid this infinite regress. This image has always been the inspiration for his dialectics. Anyways, I would have been much more interested in a fragment of Book 3.
It also elaborates much more on the Theogeny than the Freedom Essay does, making great use of psychological analogies, which he intends to be quite literal. He's clearly influenced by Christian neo-Platonism: a Monad develops into a Dyad which is united back into one, with the mediating link between the two then being counted alongside them to form a Trinity. Perhaps I am just forgetting, but I don't recall the Trinity taking such a large place in the Freedom Essay.
He's playing with a lot of dualities: Light/Dark, Male/Female, Inward/Outward. I think the valences of some of these has changed since the Freedom Essay - he's now very clear that in the Beginning was Pure Light, that Contraction is identified with Darkness (& Fire? some images related to a Stoic Conflagration/Big Crunch appear), and that the opposition between Expansion and Contraction leads to a period of Conflict. He's somewhat less moralizing about this conflict, regarding it not just as a chaos which needs to be locked away but as generative and necessary, even if is converted from conflict into play by the birth of the Father. This distinction between conflict and play reminded me of different models people have for dialectics, eg. Kojeve focusing on conflict, Schiller on harmonious play.
I believe this Pure Light, which the translator plausibly suggests is the Divine Feminine, ends up impregnated by the Father (which had developed within her??), giving birth to the Son. The translator really emphasized the gendering of various words in their footnotes, as Schelling doesn't literally talk about the Divine Feminine, just uses feminine nouns. I suspect this plays into Bachofen's idea of primitive matriarchy.
Schelling makes a very interesting (albeit hard to translate) distinction between "das Seyn", the Being, and "das Seyende", the One Who Is. It is as if the One Who Is wears his Being like a shell, which gives the appearance of fixed qualities that hide the true depths which remain in flux and potentiality. I tried to figure out what the origin of the "das Seyende" terminology is - it seems to appear in Hegel but with less of a clear distinction, and might come from a translation of Exodus 3:14 from the Greek "ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν" to the German "ich bin der Seyende". As this common translation is not what is in Luther's bible, I wondered if it was used in the German mystical tradition, eg. Meister Eckhart, but I couldn't find anything definitive.
I was disappointed that he did not flesh out his opening line "The past is known, the present is recognized, the future is divined" much, outside of some introductory remarks about the way that pre-human history can be sought by analogy with the human psyche. An astute remark, given the way much speculative prehistory about a Golden Age is (merely?) a veiled commentary on the forgetting of one's early childhood. The only fragment of the later books is a piece of Book 2, The Present, which seems like it would incorporate Schelling's Nature-Philosophy - but the fragment is just Schelling ranting about how Newton totally misunderstood gravity. He thinks that Newton's model for orbits in terms of centrifugal/centripetal force implies that just as planets orbit stars, the stars need to orbit a bigger star ad infinitum, and that this infinite sequence of larger and larger stars is a contradiction, for the cosmos would need a Biggest Star of infinite magnitude to hold everything fixed in their orbits. While he's obviously wrong, this relates back to his old idea that two objects could orbit a shared center of mass, the "Indifferenz-punkt", to avoid this infinite regress. This image has always been the inspiration for his dialectics. Anyways, I would have been much more interested in a fragment of Book 3.
February 27, 2024
This is Schelling’s book of Genesis—the story of how the cosmos as we know it has come to be.
Ages of the World is actually a part of a part of a larger project. What is published here is Schelling’s (incomplete) reflections on the past. He never got around to publishing about the present and future.
Schelling considers the past, not as yesterday or last week, but as the age that preceded the present age. The past, in other words, is a sort of time before time.
From his past texts, he maintains the idea that creation happens through opposition. Discontent and content give rise to reality, and you cannot have content without discontent. Life itself is only possible because it has been forged through conflict.
Ages of the World is actually a part of a part of a larger project. What is published here is Schelling’s (incomplete) reflections on the past. He never got around to publishing about the present and future.
Schelling considers the past, not as yesterday or last week, but as the age that preceded the present age. The past, in other words, is a sort of time before time.
From his past texts, he maintains the idea that creation happens through opposition. Discontent and content give rise to reality, and you cannot have content without discontent. Life itself is only possible because it has been forged through conflict.
July 21, 2021
Read for my Historical Archetypes & Mythology class.
November 1, 2025
Heel interessant maar je voelt dat het heel haastig enthousiast neergeschreven is.
October 26, 2025
Did this mfer really just roll up and reconcile totality and pluralism?
Beyond the totalized reasoning of Hegelian Dialectic and the pure difference of Deleuzian postmodernism, Schelling seems to have identified a third way that involves rational numbers and the powers of Elohim.
My understanding is that dialectical reason is the progress of change from a lower to a higher order unity (identity-in-difference), and transcendental empiricism is the emergence of differentiation on an immanent field (difference-in-itself), but what Schelling has done is grounded both difference and identity in some primordial soup of potentiality. I'm still not sure I totally understand the formula he provides for The One and The Many. It seems I will have to learn calculus or read the Old Testament in order to crack it...
Beyond the totalized reasoning of Hegelian Dialectic and the pure difference of Deleuzian postmodernism, Schelling seems to have identified a third way that involves rational numbers and the powers of Elohim.
My understanding is that dialectical reason is the progress of change from a lower to a higher order unity (identity-in-difference), and transcendental empiricism is the emergence of differentiation on an immanent field (difference-in-itself), but what Schelling has done is grounded both difference and identity in some primordial soup of potentiality. I'm still not sure I totally understand the formula he provides for The One and The Many. It seems I will have to learn calculus or read the Old Testament in order to crack it...
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