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Schellings Abhandlung Über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809)
In the course of Heidegger's philosophical development we find a recurrent engagement with Schelling's ideas, to which he devoted a number of lectures and seminars. Of central concern to him was Schelling's »Philosophical Investigations into the Nature of Human Freedom and Related Subjects« (= »Of Human Freedom«). The present edition combines the script of the 1936 lecture with an annex containing pertinent extracts from the 1941 lecture and selected seminar notes from subsequent years. For this second edition the text has been carefully emended, printing errors excised and deviations from the original manuscript corrected.
- GenresPhilosophy
246 pages, Hardcover
Published March 2, 1994
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About the author
Martin Heidegger
515 books3,232 followersMartin Heidegger (1889-1976) was a German philosopher whose work is perhaps most readily associated with phenomenology and existentialism, although his thinking should be identified as part of such philosophical movements only with extreme care and qualification. His ideas have exerted a seminal influence on the development of contemporary European philosophy. They have also had an impact far beyond philosophy, for example in architectural theory (see e.g., Sharr 2007), literary criticism (see e.g., Ziarek 1989), theology (see e.g., Caputo 1993), psychotherapy (see e.g., Binswanger 1943/1964, Guignon 1993) and cognitive science (see e.g., Dreyfus 1992, 2008; Wheeler 2005; Kiverstein and Wheeler forthcoming).
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December 22, 2024
Heidegger And Schelling
Martin Heidegger (1889 -- 1976) is best-known as the author of a seminal work of 20th Century philosophy, "Being and Time." (1927) Heidegger saw himself as rejecting metaphysical philosophy and as redirecting its questions. In his classroom courses, he frequently engaged in philosophical hermeneutics by lecturing in detail on a specific text and trying to understand it from the inside. By all accounts, Heidegger was a charismatic lecturer. His ability to bring seemingly abstract philosophical questions to life, for all their difficulty, inspired many students such as Hannah Arendt.
In 1936, Heidegger lectured on a treatise by the German idealistic philosopher Frederick Schelling (1775 -- 1854) called "The Essence of Human Freedom" (1809), itself a highly difficult work of some 90 pages. Schelling had been a college friend of both Hegel and the poet Holderlin. Hegel published his most famous work "The Phenomenology of Mind" in 1807, two years before Schelling's Treatise. In the "Phenomenology" Hegel attacked his friend's version of philosophical idealism for its alleged mystical, intuitive character. Schelling took the criticism hard, and the friendship ended. At the time Heidegger wrote, Schelling had been neglected for many years, even in Germany. Schelling's Treatise remains little read, due to its romanticism and its anthropomorphism, qualities of which Heidegger was fully aware, in addition to its obscurity. This translation of Heidegger's lectures on Schelling's Treatise dates from 1985 and is by the American philosopher Joan Stambaugh. It is as readable and accessible as this text is likely to be.
Philosophers tend not to be the best interpreters of one another's work because their own thought gets in the way. Heidegger is notorious for his idiosyncratic readings of other thinkers to bend them to his own lights. Heidegger's s book on Schelling, while by no stretch a "neutral" evaluation of his predecessor is a sympathetic and plausible account of the Treatise. It aims for and achieves more. Reading Heidegger's lectures, I got the sense of struggling with both Schelling and Heidegger. The text convinced me that something important was being said, however obscurely. As with other Heidegger, much of this book is seeming gibberish. Impenetrable discussions are often followed by passages of great insight and respective clarity. Some of the difficulty may be due to the difficulty of transferring spoken lectures to the printed page. Frequently, after long obscure passages in this book, Heidegger will proclaim in his own voice that the discussion makes little sense. I felt frustrated, but I remembered that while speaking Heidegger probably delivered these really obscure analyses with a tone of irony in his voice that would not communicate to the page. Heidegger in fact appears to be a good as well as a charismatic lecturer. He organizes his material and repeats and summarizes what he has said when he moves from one section to another. He appears to try to make himself understood. The lectures are filled with asides, readily understood examples, and even touches of humor.
Heidegger's lectures, which exceed considerably Schelling's text in length, consist of opening remarks, and extended discussion of Schelling's own introduction to his text and a shorter and much more difficult discussion of the "Main Part" of Schelling's Treatise. Why lecture on Schelling's Treatise rather than on a different text? Here is Heidegger's response (p. 11)
"We stated that no further explanation was necessary why we have chosen this treatise -- unless in terms of the treatise itself. For it raises a question in which something is expressed which underlies all of man's individual intentions and aspirations, the question of philosophy as such. Whoever grasps this question knows immediately that it is meaningless to ask why and to what purpose we philosophize. For philosophy is grounded only in terms of itself- or else not at all, just as art reveals its truth only through itself."
Schelling was a philosopher of absolute idealism. Heidegger rejected absolute idealism although its impact on him was profound. His discussion of the nature of philosophical system building and of the aims of German idealism after Kant are deeply insightful. Schelling's Treatise was intended as both a tribute to and a refutation of the philosophical system of Spinoza. Heidegger thus engages in this work with Spinoza, something he was faulted for not doing in "Being and Time".
Heidegger saw himself as a philosopher of questioning and as a philosopher of Being. He engages with Schelling, more than with Hegel, because of the limitedlessness, poetical character of Schelling's thought. Heidegger wants to understand what philosophical Absolutism is, and how, if at all, it comports with freedom. Schelling had thought that the claimed absolutism of Spinoza resulted in fatalism. Heidegger then explores Schelling's treatment of the nature of evil. Philosophical idealism is frequently rejected on these two broad issues among others: 1. it leads to determinism and fatalism and 2. it cannot account for the existence of evil.
Heidegger offers a long and in places tortorous account of Schelling's idealism, understanding of human freedom, and understanding of evil. As an absolute idealist, Schelling tried to combine in a difficult way the Absolute and infinite with the individual. Heidegger rejects the absolute, but his own concept of Being appears to me to owe much to it. Heidegger is a philosopher of becoming, human finitude, and approaches to Being.
This book is a difficult commentary on a text which, if anything, is more difficult. Early in his study, (p 9), Heidegger quotes his subject as saying "It is a poor objection to a philosopher to say that he is incomprehensible." Readers without a strong background in Heidegger's "Being and Time" and in Kant and his successors will be unduly frustrated by this book. Readers with a passion for philosophical issues will be engaged by this work.
Robin Friedman
Martin Heidegger (1889 -- 1976) is best-known as the author of a seminal work of 20th Century philosophy, "Being and Time." (1927) Heidegger saw himself as rejecting metaphysical philosophy and as redirecting its questions. In his classroom courses, he frequently engaged in philosophical hermeneutics by lecturing in detail on a specific text and trying to understand it from the inside. By all accounts, Heidegger was a charismatic lecturer. His ability to bring seemingly abstract philosophical questions to life, for all their difficulty, inspired many students such as Hannah Arendt.
In 1936, Heidegger lectured on a treatise by the German idealistic philosopher Frederick Schelling (1775 -- 1854) called "The Essence of Human Freedom" (1809), itself a highly difficult work of some 90 pages. Schelling had been a college friend of both Hegel and the poet Holderlin. Hegel published his most famous work "The Phenomenology of Mind" in 1807, two years before Schelling's Treatise. In the "Phenomenology" Hegel attacked his friend's version of philosophical idealism for its alleged mystical, intuitive character. Schelling took the criticism hard, and the friendship ended. At the time Heidegger wrote, Schelling had been neglected for many years, even in Germany. Schelling's Treatise remains little read, due to its romanticism and its anthropomorphism, qualities of which Heidegger was fully aware, in addition to its obscurity. This translation of Heidegger's lectures on Schelling's Treatise dates from 1985 and is by the American philosopher Joan Stambaugh. It is as readable and accessible as this text is likely to be.
Philosophers tend not to be the best interpreters of one another's work because their own thought gets in the way. Heidegger is notorious for his idiosyncratic readings of other thinkers to bend them to his own lights. Heidegger's s book on Schelling, while by no stretch a "neutral" evaluation of his predecessor is a sympathetic and plausible account of the Treatise. It aims for and achieves more. Reading Heidegger's lectures, I got the sense of struggling with both Schelling and Heidegger. The text convinced me that something important was being said, however obscurely. As with other Heidegger, much of this book is seeming gibberish. Impenetrable discussions are often followed by passages of great insight and respective clarity. Some of the difficulty may be due to the difficulty of transferring spoken lectures to the printed page. Frequently, after long obscure passages in this book, Heidegger will proclaim in his own voice that the discussion makes little sense. I felt frustrated, but I remembered that while speaking Heidegger probably delivered these really obscure analyses with a tone of irony in his voice that would not communicate to the page. Heidegger in fact appears to be a good as well as a charismatic lecturer. He organizes his material and repeats and summarizes what he has said when he moves from one section to another. He appears to try to make himself understood. The lectures are filled with asides, readily understood examples, and even touches of humor.
Heidegger's lectures, which exceed considerably Schelling's text in length, consist of opening remarks, and extended discussion of Schelling's own introduction to his text and a shorter and much more difficult discussion of the "Main Part" of Schelling's Treatise. Why lecture on Schelling's Treatise rather than on a different text? Here is Heidegger's response (p. 11)
"We stated that no further explanation was necessary why we have chosen this treatise -- unless in terms of the treatise itself. For it raises a question in which something is expressed which underlies all of man's individual intentions and aspirations, the question of philosophy as such. Whoever grasps this question knows immediately that it is meaningless to ask why and to what purpose we philosophize. For philosophy is grounded only in terms of itself- or else not at all, just as art reveals its truth only through itself."
Schelling was a philosopher of absolute idealism. Heidegger rejected absolute idealism although its impact on him was profound. His discussion of the nature of philosophical system building and of the aims of German idealism after Kant are deeply insightful. Schelling's Treatise was intended as both a tribute to and a refutation of the philosophical system of Spinoza. Heidegger thus engages in this work with Spinoza, something he was faulted for not doing in "Being and Time".
Heidegger saw himself as a philosopher of questioning and as a philosopher of Being. He engages with Schelling, more than with Hegel, because of the limitedlessness, poetical character of Schelling's thought. Heidegger wants to understand what philosophical Absolutism is, and how, if at all, it comports with freedom. Schelling had thought that the claimed absolutism of Spinoza resulted in fatalism. Heidegger then explores Schelling's treatment of the nature of evil. Philosophical idealism is frequently rejected on these two broad issues among others: 1. it leads to determinism and fatalism and 2. it cannot account for the existence of evil.
Heidegger offers a long and in places tortorous account of Schelling's idealism, understanding of human freedom, and understanding of evil. As an absolute idealist, Schelling tried to combine in a difficult way the Absolute and infinite with the individual. Heidegger rejects the absolute, but his own concept of Being appears to me to owe much to it. Heidegger is a philosopher of becoming, human finitude, and approaches to Being.
This book is a difficult commentary on a text which, if anything, is more difficult. Early in his study, (p 9), Heidegger quotes his subject as saying "It is a poor objection to a philosopher to say that he is incomprehensible." Readers without a strong background in Heidegger's "Being and Time" and in Kant and his successors will be unduly frustrated by this book. Readers with a passion for philosophical issues will be engaged by this work.
Robin Friedman
May 10, 2014
Heidegger asks in the first few chapters if system and freedom are compatible. Because of the nature of evil, the absolute must be an "eternal becoming." The first chapters are much clearer than the last chapters. It is very difficult to understand, but basically the absolute is ground and existence. The absolute is in "eternal becoming" from ground to existence. This isn't something that occurs in time so it is difficult to comprehend. I may be mangling heidegger, but it seems the absolute is becoming existence from ground but in a way ground is in the absolute without being the absolute. Freedom is not for good or evil but for good and evil. Evil is the finite self- will of man or his understanding identifying with the ground of being. This may be off but I think evil is the self-craving of man for the ground. It is difficult to understand ground but it reminds me of schopenhauers unconscious will of everything in nature, like blind instinct in man possibly.
May 3, 2020
H's discussion of the question of the 'system' in German Idealism is long winded but extremely fruitful. In the wake of Kant's failure to explain how the Ideas (God, World, Man) of Reason want to gravitate towards each other and cohere into a system, every speculative philosopher and their mother is trying to crack this question of the possibility of a system. H's recap of the whole Spinoza-Pantheism controversy also helps the reader get a sense of the 'forces' motivating Schelling to write this treatise for above all, as H says, Schelling is a thinker not of abstractions and concepts but of forces and he "thinks from positions of the will" (110). To put it somewhat flippantly, Schelling wants to inject vitalism into Spinoza's phlegmatic God and force it to become alive and become a living force. Only a living, continually becoming god can assume responsibility for evil at the same time laying the seeds from evil's self-obseletion.
July 20, 2021
A great book which deals with the system of being by putting freedom as the center of its system. And he then lays out the necessity of evil for such freedom to exist vis-a-vis the system itself. The middle parts were heavy and I got lost within the words and idea but I read it as a stream of consciousness and that made it a little bit easier to grasp than what I'd got when I was reading it more meticulously.
February 6, 2024
Heidegger takes a serious shot at the core of metaphysics here – mainly by focusing on the metaphysics's culmination in German Idealism, and within German Idealism by focusing on its later representative Shelling and his treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom. Heidegger's intention is to show a fundamental impasse at the core of metaphysics – that between ground and existence as laid down by the Ancient Greeks - and thus to advocate a new beginning.
Metaphysics is concerned with beings in their being (or with the being of beings) and with the distinction between “ground” and “existence” in each such being. As such, this distinction between “ground” and “existence” is at the core of metaphysics. For German Idealism - system is the essence of the beings as a whole, and according to Shelling at the center of this system lies freedom; thus Shelling tried to develop “a system of freedom”. Since freedom is human freedom - the main question is how human freedom belongs to this system/beings as a whole/ground/God. But for Shelling, the will of the understanding exists in opposition to the will of the ground, and this opposition is excluded from the system; and thus a system is no longer a system with regard to beings as a whole. This difficulty (i.e., the two factors ground and existence become less and less comparable and moreover are driven apart) turns into an impasse for Shelling, for the entire German Idealism, and for the whole Western tradition. Since these difficulties were posited at the beginning of Western philosophy and they proved to be insurmountable over the next two millennia, a second beginning is in order for Heidegger.
I really liked Heidegger's extensive questioning and understanding of the system in this book: what is a system, why philosophy tended to build such systems, why was a system the most essential requirement for German Idealism, and why the conditions for the possibility of forming a system are at the same time the essential presuppositions for the origin and existence of the modern sciences? For Heidegger, these condition are: (1) the preponderance of the mathematical as the criterion of knowledge, (2) the precedence of certainty over truth – and this is the same as the preponderance of the method/procedure over the content, (3) the founding of certainty on the self-certainty of “I think”, (4) thinking understood as ratio determines what can and cannot be - and what Being means in general, (5) church faith breaks down in the face of self-certainty of pure thinking with regard to its correctness, and (6) the setting free of man for the creative conquest, rule, and new formations of beings in all areas of human understanding.
Metaphysics is concerned with beings in their being (or with the being of beings) and with the distinction between “ground” and “existence” in each such being. As such, this distinction between “ground” and “existence” is at the core of metaphysics. For German Idealism - system is the essence of the beings as a whole, and according to Shelling at the center of this system lies freedom; thus Shelling tried to develop “a system of freedom”. Since freedom is human freedom - the main question is how human freedom belongs to this system/beings as a whole/ground/God. But for Shelling, the will of the understanding exists in opposition to the will of the ground, and this opposition is excluded from the system; and thus a system is no longer a system with regard to beings as a whole. This difficulty (i.e., the two factors ground and existence become less and less comparable and moreover are driven apart) turns into an impasse for Shelling, for the entire German Idealism, and for the whole Western tradition. Since these difficulties were posited at the beginning of Western philosophy and they proved to be insurmountable over the next two millennia, a second beginning is in order for Heidegger.
I really liked Heidegger's extensive questioning and understanding of the system in this book: what is a system, why philosophy tended to build such systems, why was a system the most essential requirement for German Idealism, and why the conditions for the possibility of forming a system are at the same time the essential presuppositions for the origin and existence of the modern sciences? For Heidegger, these condition are: (1) the preponderance of the mathematical as the criterion of knowledge, (2) the precedence of certainty over truth – and this is the same as the preponderance of the method/procedure over the content, (3) the founding of certainty on the self-certainty of “I think”, (4) thinking understood as ratio determines what can and cannot be - and what Being means in general, (5) church faith breaks down in the face of self-certainty of pure thinking with regard to its correctness, and (6) the setting free of man for the creative conquest, rule, and new formations of beings in all areas of human understanding.
September 14, 2020
It took me a month and half to get through this. 10 pages could take me 4 hours to get through. For all of the necessary obscurity, I am somehow left convinced that it's all right there, even if only between all the innumerable crevices and shadows.
The first 2/3 of the book is the easier bit, and could profitably be enjoyed by any student looking for a brief (and good) history on the development of German Idealism.
Schelling is a strong non-dualist more than any sort of monist. God is the self-caused cause, bringing itself into existence. From whence? the ground. This is the understanding/longing dynamic: ground/existence. Being IS Becoming. These two aspects are held together/kept apart in their unity/dischord of Eternal Being by that other dynamic of love/strife. The existent (eternal/timeless) God stares into his abyss of a longing ground (God searching for itself) and utters the Word (understanding, re-presentation). All that is in the ground is already in the understanding and vice versa. Love/Spirit wants to BE the union of these opposites of itself, however, and so utters the Word/understanding into the ground. So now we have creation and creatures...
Nature is ground. Humans emerged from the ground that we share with all of its other creatures. When we re-represent God to ourselves, this is the non-eternal analog to God's looking back into the abyss and recognizing himself. Humans are both ground and understanding. Where we differ from God, though - where we differ absolutely from it - is that our becoming is eternally temporal, never-ending...SO: non-being=not-yet-become God=ground vs being=God become=existent --> 'evil' = ground vs 'good' = existent AND...wait for it...freedom the decision we make to following one or the other.
How to put this LIFE in a SYSTEM however? and WHAT CAUSED THE FALL from Absolute indifference to the love and strife that has begotten this world of ours?
The first 2/3 of the book is the easier bit, and could profitably be enjoyed by any student looking for a brief (and good) history on the development of German Idealism.
Schelling is a strong non-dualist more than any sort of monist. God is the self-caused cause, bringing itself into existence. From whence? the ground. This is the understanding/longing dynamic: ground/existence. Being IS Becoming. These two aspects are held together/kept apart in their unity/dischord of Eternal Being by that other dynamic of love/strife. The existent (eternal/timeless) God stares into his abyss of a longing ground (God searching for itself) and utters the Word (understanding, re-presentation). All that is in the ground is already in the understanding and vice versa. Love/Spirit wants to BE the union of these opposites of itself, however, and so utters the Word/understanding into the ground. So now we have creation and creatures...
Nature is ground. Humans emerged from the ground that we share with all of its other creatures. When we re-represent God to ourselves, this is the non-eternal analog to God's looking back into the abyss and recognizing himself. Humans are both ground and understanding. Where we differ from God, though - where we differ absolutely from it - is that our becoming is eternally temporal, never-ending...SO: non-being=not-yet-become God=ground vs being=God become=existent --> 'evil' = ground vs 'good' = existent AND...wait for it...freedom the decision we make to following one or the other.
How to put this LIFE in a SYSTEM however? and WHAT CAUSED THE FALL from Absolute indifference to the love and strife that has begotten this world of ours?
Read
February 2, 2009Mind blowing penumbral metaphysics: the God begotten God reveals to the begetting God his innermost essence, and it can't be done without human freedom to choose between good and evil.
July 14, 2016
This is both a valuable commentary/explanation of Schelling's short book and an introduction to some of the themes in the philosophy of Heidegger.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews