Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent (Routledge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy) [1 ed.] 9781032351544, 9781032351551, 9781003325550, 1032351543

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Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent

This book offers a cutting-​edge interpretation of the philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling by critically reconsidering the interpretations of some of his “successors.” It argues that Schelling’s philosophy should be read as an ontology of immanence, highlighting its relevance for ongoing debates on ethics and freedom. The book builds on a key notion from Schelling’s Philosophy of Revelation where he outlines the process through which transcendence must return to immanence in order to be grasped and understood. The author identifies Jaspers, Heidegger, and Deleuze as the main interpreters of Schelling’s philosophical activity, highlighting their relevance for subsequent Schelling scholarship. Heidegger and Jaspers refer to Schelling’s philosophy in negative terms, namely as an incomplete and unviable philosophical system, whereas Deleuze holds the immanent core of Schelling’s ontological discourse in high regard. The author’s analysis demonstrates that reading Schelling’s philosophy as an ontology of immanence not only avoids Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s criticisms but is also more fitting to Schelling’s original meaning. Accordingly, his reading allows us to fully grasp Schelling’s thought in all its strength and consistency: as a philosophy that avoids metaphysical abstractions and maintains the concreteness of concepts like God, nature, freedom by binding them to a solid and material account of Being. Finally, the author uses Schelling to propose an innovative reading of freedom as a matter of resistance and of philosophy as an activity whose main purpose is that of seeking the actual extent and place of (human) life and freedom within nature. The author originally emphasises the relevance of these conclusions on contemporary debates in Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent. From Philosophy of Nature to Environmental Ethics will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in 19th-​century Continental philosophy, German idealism, and Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. Daniele Fulvi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University node of the ARC Centre of Excellence in Synthetic Biology, Australia. His published work has appeared in journals such as Sophia, Critical Horizons, and Ethics, Policy and Environment.

Routledge Studies in Nineteenth-​Century Philosophy

Hegel’s Encyclopedic System Edited by Sebastian Stein and Joshua Wretzel Kierkegaard, Mimesis, and Modernity A Study of Imitation, Existence, and Affect Wojciech Kaftanski Interpreting Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit Expositions and Critique of Contemporary Readings Ivan Boldyrev and Sebastian Stein Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy Edited by Luca Corti and Johannes-​Georg Schülein Nietzsche as Metaphysician Justin Remhof Kierkegaard and Bioethics Edited by Johann-​Christian Põder Hegel and the Present of Art’s Past Character Alberto L. Siani Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent From Philosophy of Nature to Environmental Ethics Daniele Fulvi

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​Routle​dge-​Stud​ies-​ in-​Nin​etee​nth-​Cent​ury-​Phi​loso​phy/​book-​ser​ies/​SE0​508

Schelling, Freedom, and the Immanent Made Transcendent From Philosophy of Nature to Environmental Ethics Daniele Fulvi

First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 Daniele Fulvi The right of Daniele Fulvi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​35154-​4 (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​032-​35155-​1 (pbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​003-​32555-​0 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003325550 Typeset in Sabon by Newgen Publishing UK

To Mietta, my perfect match.

Contents

Acknowledgements Abbreviations Declarations Introduction

ix x xii 1

PART 1

Transcendence of Being?

15

1 Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil

17

2 Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling

70

3 Other Transcendentist Readings: Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson

94

PART 2

Immanence and Nature

127

4 Nature, Difference, and Indifference: Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling

129

5 Naturalistic Interpretations of Schelling: From Merleau-​Ponty to Contemporary Readings

148

viii  Contents PART 3

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy: From Philosophy of Nature to Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics

177

6 The Immanent Made Transcendent: Schelling’s Ontology of Immanence

179

7 Freedom as a Matter of Resistance: The Meaning and Foundation of Freedom in Schelling’s Philosophy

204

8 What Next? The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates

233

Bibliography Index

262 275

Acknowledgements

First of all, I acknowledge that this book was written on the unceded land of the Gadigal People of the Eora Nation. Sovereignty was never ceded, and this always was and always will be Aboriginal Land. I have to wholeheartedly thank A/​Prof. Diego Bubbio and Prof. Dennis Schmidt for their fundamental help and advice in shaping up this book’s project –​and for their supervision of my PhD dissertation, from which this project originates. I also want to sincerely thank Dr. Charlotte Alderwick and Prof. Jason M. Wirth for their invaluable insights and feedback on the contents and structure of this book. Without their help, this book could not have been written. My sincere thanks also go to A/​Prof. Jennifer Mensch, whose mentorship allowed me to strengthen my research skills in environmental ethics –​and to apply these skills in the writing of the conclusion of this book. In this respect, I also thank Dr. James Gourley and Dr. John Hadley for their helpful advice. The biggest thanks, however, goes to my wife Mietta. I could not have made it without her love, kindness, tireless support, and patience. Meeting her is truly the best thing that ever happened to me, and I love her more than words can express. I never thought I’d be lucky enough to have someone like her in my life. I also want to thank and give all of my love to my father Antonello, my mother Stefania, my grandmothers Gianna and Maria, my brothers Alessio and Leonardo, and my future sister-​in-​law Rachele for their love and support during these years. I owe them everything and they have always been in my heart and in my mind, no matter how many thousands of kilometres separate us. Last but not least, I want to thank my father-​in-​law Mike, my mother-​ in-​law Georgia, my brother-​in-​law James, my sister-​in-​law Laura, and all of my Greek-​Australian family (sorry guys, there’s too many of you!). I will be forever grateful for the way they welcomed me into the family and made me feel loved and appreciated.

Abbreviations

When citing from Schelling’s works, I will include two references: the first one from the English translation, and then from the original German Complete Works (Sämmtliche Werke). In doing so, I will use the following abbreviations: German Works SW for Sämmtliche Werke, 14 vols, ed. K.F.A. Schelling (Stuttgart: Cotta, 1860). English Translations AW for The Ages of the World, trans. and with an introduction by Jason M. Wirth (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000). IPN for Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature as Introduction to the Study of This Science, edited by E. Harris, P. Heat, and R. Stern (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). NR for New Deduction of Natural Right, in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays 1794–​ 1796, edited by Fritz Marti (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1980). PI for Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, translated and with an introduction by Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt (Albany: SUNY Press, 2010). PL for Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism, in The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays 1794–​1796, edited by Fritz Marti (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1980). PM for Historical-​Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology, trans. M. Richey and M. Zisselsberger, with a foreword by Jason M. Wirth (Albany: SUNY Press, 2007).

Abbreviations  xi PP for The Grounding of Positive Philosophy: The Berlin Lectures, translated and with an introduction by Bruce Matthews (Albany: SUNY Press, 2007). SPN for First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature, translated and with an introduction and notes by Keith R. Peterson (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004). STI for System of Transcendental Idealism, translated by P. Heath, edited by Michael G. Vater (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993). Other works by Schelling will be referenced without using abbreviations.

Declarations

This book’s project originates from my PhD dissertation that I submitted in 2020 and whose title was The Ontology of Evil: Schelling and Pareyson. My dissertation was also awarded the 2020 Dean’s Best PhD Prize in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University. However, this book consists in a significant reworking of that dissertation. In this book, I have included materials that I previously published in various academic journals. Specifically, I am referring to the following works (in order of appearance): “Immanence in Schelling and Hegel in the Jena Period,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, vol. 60, no. 3 (2022), 353–​87 (co-​authored with Paolo Diego Bubbio) “The Ontological Nature of Intuition in Schelling,” Idealistic Studies, vol. 50, no. 1 (2020), 1–​17; “Schelling as a Thinker of Immanence: contra Heidegger and Jaspers,” Sophia, vol. 60, no. 4 (2021), 869–​87; “Schelling as a ‘Post-​Heideggerian thinker’: Luigi Pareyson’s interpretation of Schelling,” Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 26, no. 1 (2021), 131–​51; “Freedom as a Matter of Resistance in the Philosophy of Schelling,” Critical Horizons, vol. 3, no. 1 (2022), 78–​92. Additionally, this book includes materials from the archives of the Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “L. Pareyson” at the University of Turin, including Pareyson’s personal notes and unpublished excerpts, which I have had the opportunity to consult in 2018. All the abovementioned materials are reproduced here with kind permission from publishers, home institutions, and co-​authors.

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Declarations  xiii I also acknowledge the support of the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University, through the award of a “Capacity” research grant that allowed me to develop a research expertise in environmental ethics and integrate it in my research for this book. Finally, I acknowledge the assistance of Christopher Brennan in the preparation of the index for this book.

Introduction

Why “the Immanent Made Transcendent”? Since the first half of the 20th century, there has been a revival of interest in the philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling, especially among Western philosophers. As I show more in detail in this book, a particular merit goes to Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Luigi Pareyson, Paul Tillich, Maurice Merleau-​Ponty, and Gilles Deleuze, since their works have been crucial to positively reconsider Schelling’s contribution to Western philosophy –​and it is no mystery that Schelling paved the way for a significant part of their philosophical activities. Even today, Schelling is still the object of study of leading international scholars, such as Jason M. Wirth, Iain Hamilton Grant, Charlotte Alderwick, Dalia Nassar, Sean McGrath, and Daniel Whistler (just to name a few). However, it seems to me that there are two main and opposing trends in Schelling scholarship: in fact, current interpretations of Schelling are developed either into a philosophy of immanence or into a philosophy of transcendence. The former account, which I will call immanentism, maintains that there is no ontological detachment between God and nature and between Being and particular beings –​that is, Being and God are not to be conceived of on a superior or supernatural ontological level, as opposed to particular beings and entities. By contrast, the latter account, which I will call transcendentism, is the one according to which the true principle of Being and of God is beyond every possible immanent reality –​that is, it belongs to a different, detached, and superior ontological level and cannot be fully unified nor identified with particular beings. In this book, I reject transcendentism and advocate for immanentism. As Schelling himself says in his 1842 lectures on positive philosophy, if one wants to honor a philosopher, then one must grasp him here, in his fundamental thought, where he has not yet gone on to the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-1

2  Introduction consequences. […] The true thought of a philosopher is precisely his fundamental thought from which he proceeds.1 Through this statement, I believe, Schelling gives us not only an important indication about how to approach the work of a philosopher (and the history of philosophy in general) but also a fundamental insight into his own way of philosophising. Ironically, Heidegger mentioned the same passage in his introductory remarks to his lectures on Schelling during the Summer Semester of 1936.2 I say “ironically” because, even though Heidegger stated the intention to use Schelling’s words as the point of reference to fully understand Schelling’s discourse on freedom, part of the aim of this work is to develop a novel reading of Schelling that radically differs from Heidegger’s. In fact, in this book, I argue that the traditional and largely accepted readings developed by great thinkers such as Heidegger and Jaspers are in fact outdated and not consistent with Schelling’s meaning –​while acknowledging that they undoubtedly played a fundamental role in the most recent developments of Schelling scholarship. On the one hand, both Heidegger and Jaspers acknowledge the merits of Schelling’s philosophy, which consist in his challenging the foundation of traditional Western metaphysics, in an attempt to overcome its subjectivist outlook. However, on the other hand, they argue that Schelling fails to achieve his goal and falls back into an equally abstract and fallacious form of metaphysics that ultimately indulges in an incoherent and transcendent account of Being. This reading of Schelling has vastly influenced subsequent studies on his thought, becoming a fundamental point of reference for major Western philosophers, such as Gabriel Marcel, Paul Tillich, and Xavier Tilliette. My analysis demonstrates that reading Schelling’s philosophy as a form of immanentist ontology not only avoids Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s criticisms but is also preferable to their reading and more fitting to Schelling’s original meaning. Accordingly, I demonstrate that my reading allows us to fully grasp Schelling’s thought in all its strength and consistency: as a philosophy that avoids metaphysical abstractions and maintains the concreteness of its concepts (like God, nature, and freedom) by binding them to a solid and material account of Being. In this sense, I partly build on Deleuze’s interpretation, as well as on contemporary positive readings of Schelling (such as those developed by the scholars mentioned above). However, my analysis expands on these studies by developing an innovative and potentially ground-​breaking reading of Schelling, overcoming Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s objections and retaining Deleuze’s positive reception of Schelling’s philosophy. Indeed, although Deleuze does not engage with Schelling in a systematic way, he unquestionably draws from Schelling’s thought to develop his own philosophy of immanence

Introduction  3 and materialism. Against this background, I demonstrate that, through a deeper analysis of Schelling’s works, the kernel of his speculation remains the ontology of immanence, which radically excludes a primarily transcendent account of Being. More specifically, I demonstrate that Schelling maintains his radically immanentist ontology even in his late works on the philosophy of religion and mythology –​and that Schelling’s entire philosophical system should be read as an immanentist ontology. In my analysis, I use the terms “immanentist ontology” and “ontology of immanence” interchangeably. In this sense, his definition of God as “the immanent made transcendent” is key to grasp the kernel of his entire philosophical activity. Additionally, I innovatively deploy Schelling’s key concept of resistance as essential to the meaning and foundation of freedom. In other words, I develop an original account of freedom as a matter of resistance, meaning that freedom can be real and effective only when it encounters resistance and demonstrating that without resistance, freedom remains a sheer theoretical possibility. Thus, I outline a reading of Schelling that is very relevant to major contemporary issues, such as the question about the practices and concrete meaning of freedom, as well as the human–​nature relationship, resonating with studies in Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. In other words, consistent with Schelling’s own recommendation, in this book, I will not merely provide a rigid summary of Schelling’s thought, but rather I will focus on those points that can actually “catch his fundamental thought where he has not gone yet” and grasp the deep rationale of the problems that lead him to develop his own concepts –​particularly the concepts of evil, God, freedom, and nature. Needless to say, Schelling builds on accounts of such concepts as he finds them in previous philosophical traditions –​but then he provides us with very original insights into those concepts through an original way of addressing the philosophical problems of his time. The main argument is developed based on the idea that, according to Schelling, the sheer, pure, and transcendent existence of God cannot occur without moving from immanence; that is, Schelling maintains that God and nature (as well as Being and particular beings) are not to be conceived on two distinct and incommensurate ontological levels –​in continuity with my previous definition of immanentism. Accordingly, this conception will also be used as the cornerstone of this book’s analysis and main thesis. In this respect, I rely on a specific definition of God as “the immanent made transcendent” that Schelling provides in the abovementioned 1842 Berlin lectures –​which I discuss in greater details in Chapter 6. For now, suffice to say that through this definition Schelling outlines the ontological process through which transcendence must return to immanence in order to be grasped and understood. That is, Schelling develops a conception of a

4  Introduction transcendence that is immanent-​made, hence arguing that God Godself originates in immanence, which in turn is transcended only in order to then return to immanence as a concept of reason. I maintain that this passage is key to retrospectively understand Schelling’s entire philosophical activity as a form of radically immanentist ontology –​namely, an account of Being that concretely integrates nature and God in the living unity of everything that exists. Furthermore, I contend that this very notion not only is key to understand Schelling’s philosophy in its entirety but also allows us to understand Schelling’s works on freedom and nature under a new and innovative light. Under this new light, I also demonstrate that Schelling’s immanentist ontology provides a meaningful contribution to contemporary debates in Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. I now provide some brief introductory remarks on the early stages of Schelling’s philosophical activity in order to show that his interest in developing an ontology of immanence dates back to his Jena years. Then, I conclude by outlining the plan of the book. A Young Philosopher of Immanence: Schelling in Jena3 In 1797, when he was only 22, Schelling obtained his first professorship and moved to Jena, where he soon became a member of the so-​called Jena circle, which was active approximately from 1798 to 1804 and represented the first phase of German Romanticism. Led by Ludwig Tieck, the circle included some of the most prominent figures of the German cultural life of that period, such as August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel, Novalis, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Adam Karl August von Eschenmayer.4 Four years later, in 1801, Schelling invited his friend G.W.F. Hegel to join him in the then capital of German culture. From 1802 to 1803, Schelling and Hegel worked side by side as editors of the Critical Journal of Philosophy (Kritisches Journal der Philosophie), with the aim of rethinking Kant’s critical philosophy in light of Schelling’s early philosophical works and against moral dogmatism. In the same period, Schelling and Hegel distanced themselves from Jacobi’s theism and Fichte’s subjective idealism. Benjamin Berger and Daniel Whistler highlight that in the Jena years Hegel and Schelling developed, in opposition to Fichte, an analogous understanding of identity not as mere sameness but as including difference and opposition in itself.5 Current scholarship also highlights how in those years both Schelling and Hegel developed a similar criticism of Fichte, particularly of the latter’s notion of the Absolute. In this respect, Frederick C. Beiser argues that in the Jena period Schelling affirms his independence from Fichte’s subjective idealism, since Schelling believes that “the Absolute could no longer be merely the ego, as Fichte once thought, because as the pure identity of subject and object, it is the center of both transcendental

Introduction  5 and natural philosophy,”6 so it must be characterised by the unity of subject and object, rather than by a predominance of the former. Similarly, Charlotte Alderwick emphasises that Hegel endorses Schelling’s critique of Fichte’s notion of the Absolute and its lack of unity between subject and object. According to this critique, “as the freedom of the I and the necessity of the not-​I remain antithetically opposed Fichte has failed to present a complete system, instead presenting a purely subjective and therefore one-​sided account of reality.”7 The German cultural climate of the 1780s had been deeply marked by the so-​called Pantheism controversy (Pantheismusstreit), which revolved around discussions concerning Spinoza’s doctrine and Jacobi’s view that one must “take a leap of faith” to believe in God, meaning that “we have to choose either a rational skepticism or an irrational faith.”8 Later on, in 1798, the publication of Fichte’s essay On the Ground of our Belief in a Divine World-​Governance9 sparked the so-​called Atheism controversy (Atheismusstreit) and Fichte was accused of atheism by Jacobi. The latter harshly criticised the former’s idea according to which God can be conceived as the moral world-​order, which in turn can be grasped by human reason, since the only way we as humans can relate to God, Jacobi claimed, is through faith and religious belief.10 Consequently, Fichte was forced to resign from his professorship at the University of Jena and moved to Berlin. A historical reconstruction of such disputes exceeds the goal of this work, and I will just limit myself to note that Fichte’s conception of God is quite complex and evolves over time, especially in the subsequent editions of the Wissenschaftslehre.11 However, here my goal is neither to provide an exegetical interpretation of Fichte’s account of God nor to examine the abovementioned Pantheism and Atheism controversies in detail. Rather, I intend to highlight how Schelling in the Jena years employed Fichte’s notion of God as a polemical target to develop his own conception of immanence –​which in turn will inform his entire philosophical production. The influence that Fichte exerted on the young Schelling and, slightly later, on Hegel is well known. And yet, very early, both Schelling and Hegel showed signs of discomfort with Fichte’s idea of a transcendent moral God. In the period immediately following Hegel’s graduation from the Tübingen seminary in 1793, Hegel and Schelling initiated a correspondence in which it is possible to identify some of the reflections that will be further developed in their philosophical activity in Jena. The correspondence clearly shows that Shelling and Hegel engaged in a deep philosophical dialogue, which resulted into a shared rejection of the identification of God with the moral world-​order.12 In January 1795, Hegel writes to Schelling that “Fichte […] reasons from the holiness of God, from what by virtue of His purely moral nature He must do, etc., and has thereby reintroduced

6  Introduction the old manner of proof in dogmatics.”13 In his reply of February 1795, Schelling maintains a Fichtean standpoint, according to which “there is no other supersensible world for us than that of the Absolute Self. God is nothing but the Absolute Self, the Self insofar as it has annihilated everything theoretical.”14 In this respect, Hegel suggests that the conception of God as the supersensible Absolute Self pertains to “esoteric philosophy,”15 thus failing to provide a viable account of God. Consequently, Schelling further distances himself from Fichte’s account of the Godhead, finally endorsing Hegel’s critique of dogmatism. It is apparent that the criticism is directed at Fichte’s understanding of God, which according to Schelling and Hegel is purely conjectural and fails to grasp God in its concreteness. As Yolanda Estes claims, for Fichte “a moral world order, as something supernatural, or intelligible, cannot be grounded on the concept of the natural, or sensible, world but must be grounded on some concept of a supernatural, or intelligible world.”16 Instead, Schelling maintains that the Godhead cannot be identified with a moral world-​order whose condition of possibility is the I, and which the I is called to realise but should be conceived as the living unity of everything that exists.17 In a letter to Fichte dated October 3, 1801, Schelling objects that in order to maintain your [i.e., Fichte’s] system, one must first decide to start from seeing and end with the absolute (the genuinely speculative), almost as in the Kantian philosophy the moral law must come first and God last if there is to be a system. The necessity to proceed from seeing confines you and your philosophy in a thoroughly conditioned series [of phenomena] in which no trace of the absolute can be encountered.18 The critique that Schelling moves to Fichte is relevant also insofar as it represents an important preliminary step towards the thematisation of Schelling’s immanentist conception of God. The opposition between immanence and transcendence was a key aspect of the philosophical debate of that time. As shown by Johannes Zachhuber, this conceptual opposition has its roots in “Kant’s critical philosophy with its sharp distinction of transcendent and immanent principles of cognition”19 and assumed an increasingly important role in the years following the Pantheism controversy. Zachhuber argues that the conceptual opposition between immanence and transcendence was openly thematised as central in the debate around the “system of immanence” in the 1830s, namely in the aftermath of Schelling’s and Hegel’s works on this topic. Schelling’s and Hegel’s interest for an immanentist understanding of reality had already emerged during the time they had spent together in Tübingen. However, it is only in the Jena years that Schelling frees his speculation from the Fichtean elements that are still noticeable in the Tübingen period. That is, it is in the Jena

Introduction  7 years that Schelling’s interest solidifies in a proper philosophical project, and that the opposition between immanence and transcendence becomes central. Such a project, as I intend to show through his book, consists in developing an ontology of immanence. God and the Absolute: The Young Schelling contra Fichte’s Moral God Jena’s cultural climate was a great stimulus for Schelling and a decisive moment for the development of his own philosophical production. In the early years of the 19th century, as already mentioned above, Schelling felt the need to develop an autonomous philosophy and to dispose of Fichte’s influence, which was very prominent (alongside with, and in light of, Kant’s philosophy) in the very early stages of his activity. This was a slow process, which began in 1795, when Schelling wrote his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism, and culminated in 1803, when he published the second edition of his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature. In particular, 1801 was arguably the year when Schelling definitively put aside any form of morally grounded philosophical approach in order to develop his own philosophical system.20 The starting point of Schelling’s speculation –​and of his collaboration with Hegel in Jena –​is the idea that there is only one viable philosophy and only one reason, in which there is identity of subject and object, ideal and real, thought and Being. Schelling’s objection to Fichte is a relatively simple one: if we are looking for a unity of subject and object that is prior to both, why should we refer to that unity as an “I,” thus implementing a subjectivist drift? In Schelling’s view, the starting point of a philosophical system cannot be the I positing itself as I –​as in the Fichtean subjective idealism21 –​but the absolute coincidence of subject and object, to be then grasped by reason. As Schelling and Hegel put it in the Introduction to the Critical Journal of Philosophy, the fact that philosophy is but one, and can only be one, rests on the fact that Reason is but one […]. For Reason absolutely considered, and Reason when it becomes object for itself in its self-​cognition (and hence philosophy) is again just one and the same thing, and therefore completely equal.22 Such a claim has to be understood in continuity with Schelling’s early systematic understanding of philosophy, which he developed in his 1800 System of Transcendental Idealism –​and which I discuss more in detail in Chapter 1.

8  Introduction Even though it may seem redundant, by maintaining that there is only one philosophy, one reason, and one truth, Schelling and Hegel are also arguing that those who claim that philosophy, reason, and truth are manifold are in error. This means that it is not possible to philosophise without acknowledging the absolute identity of subject and object as the highest standpoint of reason. Thus, admitting the possibility of a transcendent moral law and of a transcendent will aimed at its realisation above the oneness of reason and philosophy, namely above the absolute identity of subject and object, is simply unconceivable for Schelling, since it leads to an arbitrary and unviable conception of philosophy, or better to “unphilosophy” (Unphilosophie).23 In Schelling’s view, arguing (as Fichte does in his Critique to All Revelation) that there is a moral principle that is above reason and the world24 amounts to dismissing the oneness of philosophy and to slipping into unphilosophy. As Alderwick argues, this “represents an important shift from Fichte’s subjective idealism as Schelling’s system implies that the subject and the object are equally fundamental to the actualisation of the absolute: both are necessary together, and neither is reducible to the other.”25 This is precisely the core meaning of Schelling’s conception of the unity between subject and object, since such identity is the only one that can be conceived of as prior to both the subject and the object, hence avoiding Fichte’s subjectivist drift. However, Schelling’s goal is not merely or primarily to prove Fichte’s subjective idealism wrong; by using Fichte as his polemical target, he wants to demonstrate that the immanentist philosophy he is developing is the only true and viable one. In 1801, Schelling published On the True Concept of Philosophy of Nature, in which he had already outlined his aversion to subjective idealism –​even though in that case his main polemical target was the philosophy of Eschenmayer. In this essay, Schelling reinstates once again that a proper and viable philosophical system is one “in which all dualism is forever annihilated and everything becomes absolutely one,”26 leaving behind merely theoretical and abstract philosophy. That is, the assumption of pure self-​consciousness, which is also the absolutisation of the I and the subject as the principle of philosophy, leads to the misconception according to which the identity between subject and object is to be understood as the act through which the subject –​the I –​embeds in itself the object –​the non-​I. As Schelling puts it, “the doctrine of science [Wissenschaftslehre] is not philosophy itself, but philosophy about philosophy:”27 the unity that it reaches is an unviable one, since it implies the annihilation of the objective side in favour of the subjective one and hence cannot act as the very foundation of philosophy.28 In other words, the doctrine of science “can never construct this [absolute] identity, thereby never escaping the circle of consciousness. As such,

Introduction  9 it can only construct what immediately appears to consciousness,”29 hence being unable to grasp the fundamental ontological structure of reality as defined by Schelling himself. A similar concern is expressed in the Introduction to the Critical Journal of Philosophy, where Schelling and Hegel write that if one moves from the arbitrary and inadequate starting point of sheer subjectivity, “the Absolute remains an Idea, a Beyond –​in other words, it is afflicted with a finitude.”30 Indeed, on these premises, one cannot expect to give philosophy a stable ground, since subjective idealism misses the essence of reason as absolute unity and reaches the concept of Absolute only through performing theoretical abstractions and without taking into account the immanent nature of absolute identity. Accordingly, pure self-​consciousness is just such a certainty since, qua starting point, it is posited as a pure [consciousness] in immediate opposition to the empirical [consciousness]. In and for itself the concern of philosophy cannot be with finite certainties of this kind.31 This being the case, it follows that the infinite then comes on the scene precisely and only as a requirement, as something thought of, only as an Idea. For although it is the necessary and comprehensive, all-​inclusive, Idea of Reason, it is still, ipso facto, one-​sided, since the Idea itself and that which thinks it (or whatever else the determinate was from which the start was made) are posited separately.32 Schelling and Hegel point out quite strongly that Fichte’s subjective idealism can only attain a volatile and transcendent account of the Absolute, since it is abstractly postulated through mere self-​consciousness and without considering absolute identity in its concreteness. Indeed, such absolute identity can only be understood as the indifference of subject and object, which is neither sheer sameness nor the withdrawal of the latter in favour of the former, but the immanent ground of all reality where the two principles mutually imply each other. In fact, Schelling finally dismisses Fichte’s equation of God with the moral world-​order and outlines an absolute identity of subject and object that coincides with the fundamental law of reason and immanent cause of Being. Schelling, in his On The Relationship of The Philosophy of Nature to Philosophy in General (written in 1802 for the Critical Journal of Philosophy), maintains that “there is only one philosophy and one science of philosophy; what we call different philosophical sciences are only presentations of the one undivided whole of philosophy under different

10  Introduction conceptual [ideell] determinations.”33 Indeed, in perfect continuity with his 1801 essays, Schelling argues that “where dogmatism concludes to God from a world which it would not comprehend without him, this form of philosophy called ‘idealism’ only assumes God in order to be able to harmonize the moral ends instead.”34 However, according to this approach, God might just as well not be, if we were only able to manage without him in the moral world […]. God exists, not for the sake of his absolute nature, as the Idea of all Ideas –​the Idea which of itself comprehends absolute reality within itself immediately –​but in a connection with rational beings which is still one-​sided towards them.35 Once again, it is clear that Schelling rigorously opposes not only Fichte’s but also any moral account of God, since understanding God in moral and transcendent terms amounts to relying on an abstract and arbitrary conception and to dismissing the foundation of true philosophy, namely the absolute identity of principles. That is, according to such a conception, “it is only within an ethical order that nature can be delineated and have reality” so that “without the categorical imperative there is no world at all.”36 However, by postulating God as a transcendent and moral will, namely as the sheer guarantor and origin of the moral world-​order, philosophy becomes a trivial abstraction. Schelling argues that such a trivialisation can be avoided once we reject any cognition of the Absolute which emerges from philosophy only as result [… that is,] precisely because the spirit of ethical life and of philosophy is for us one and the same, we reject any doctrine according to which the object of the intellect [das Intellectuelle] must like nature be just a means to ethical life, and must on that account be deprived, in itself stripped of the inner substance of that life.37 This brief introductory overview is enough to show that Schelling endorsed a fully fledged philosophy of immanence since the Jena period; indeed, he firmly argues that God should not be understood as a transcendent moral world-​order but rather as the manifestation of the absolute identity which, in its immanence, overcomes any abstract and one-​ sided opposition. Accordingly, God is conceived of neither in teleological nor in anthropomorphic terms but rather as the living expression of the immanence of the Absolute. This, however, does not mean that God’s will is simply dismissed or denied: what Schelling opposes here is the idea that God’s will stands above nature towards the realisation of an ultimate and transcendent moral goal. Instead, from his understanding of immanence emerges a precise account of God’s will, which is neither annulled nor contradicted by

Introduction  11 the immanence of the absolute identity but rather perfectly complies with that which Schelling defined as the fundamental law of reason and the immanent cause of Being. This approach to philosophy, I argue in this book, animates Schelling’s thought in its entirety, and even his late philosophy –​although it is not a mere reiteration of his early thought –​clearly maintains the kernel of his early ontology of immanence. Plan of the Book I begin my book by providing an exhaustive research case for interpreting Schelling’s thought in an immanentist sense and then I move to a discussion of Schelling’s ontology in relation to the interpretations of Heidegger and Jaspers. Subsequently, I also examine those readings of Schelling that have drawn on Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s –​namely the readings of Paul Tillich, Gabriel Marcel, and Luigi Pareyson. This will serve to highlight both the centrality of Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s interpretation within Schelling scholarship and to demonstrate that such readings erroneously identify the core of Schelling’s thought in the philosophy of religion and the transcendence of Being. I argue that this approach to Schelling’s philosophy fails to acknowledge its actual significance, which I identify in Schelling’s understanding of “the immanent made transcendent” –​as explained above. In the second part, I begin by examining Deleuze’s positive reception of Schelling’s ontology and more specifically of the notions of difference and Ungrund, namely the unconscious and original ground of Being –​which in turn are two key concepts for the philosophy of Deleuze himself. Then, I move to analyse contemporary readings that emphasise Schelling’s philosophy of nature as the cornerstone of his philosophical thought –​such as Grant, Alderwick, Wirth, and Whistler. In this part of the book, I aim at demonstrating that Schelling’s philosophy does not lead to irrationalism nor to spiritualism but to an ontology perfectly grounded on the concreteness of nature, thereby entailing a radically immanentist account of Being. This will be a significant addition to current scholarship that does not seem to fully acknowledge this aspect of the philosophy of Schelling. In the third and final part, I reinforce the conclusions of the previous chapters by demonstrating that Schelling’s ontology of immanence consists in a pragmatic discourse aimed at revealing the immanence of things in God, as well as the material connection between all existing entities in nature. In this sense, such an ontology is not based on a revelation of a transcendent and dogmatic truth solely based on religious faith, but rather it is an acknowledgement through reason of the material and concrete structure of Being. Hence, the dynamics through which the immanent is made transcendent becomes clear: the source of God and of Being itself is

12  Introduction not given in a supernatural and immaterial formulation, but on the concrete interplay and interdependence of material forces and occurrences. Accordingly, God is a living being involved in the process of Becoming, namely God is ontologically bonded to –​and can only occur at the same ontological level of –​nature and particular beings. In conclusion, I advance an original definition of freedom as a matter of resistance –​as I briefly sketched it above. Subsequently, I show how Schelling proposes a thought aimed at decentering the self from philosophical speculation, which leads to rethink the main purpose of philosophy itself as seeking the actual extent and place of life and specifically of human life and freedom within nature. Finally, I discuss how Schelling’s thought provides a valuable critical input to the works of Fred Moten, Pheng Cheah, and Brian Burkhart, as well as with an original account of the human–​nature relationship and a major contribution to contemporary Environmental Ethics. Notes 1 PP, 130; SW, II, 3, 60. 2 See Martin Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. J. Stambaugh (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005), 9. 3 This section, as well as the following one, is largely taken from sections 1, 2, 3, and 5 of a work that I co-​authored with Paolo Diego Bubbio, “Immanence in Schelling and Hegel in the Jena Period,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 60, no. 3 (2022): 353–​87. Reproduced with kind permission from Paolo Diego Bubbio and Wiley-​Blackwell. 4 On the Jena circle and German Romanticism, see Frederick C. Beiser, 2004. The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), Georg Mehlis, Die deutsche Romantik (Nikosia, Cyprus Erscheinungsjahr: TP Verone Publishing, 2017), and Dalia Nassar, The Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy, 1795–​1805 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014). 5 See Benjamin Berger and Daniel Whistler, The Schelling-​Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801: Nature and Identity, translations by Judith Kahl and Daniel Whistler (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020), 117ff. 6 Beiser, The Romantic Imperative, 552. 7 Charlotte Alderwick, Schelling’s Ontology of Powers (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021), 63. 8 Frederick C. Beiser, The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2009), 80. 9 I am referring to Johann G. Fichte, “On the Ground of our Belief in a Divine World-​Governance,” in J.G. Fichte and the Atheism Dispute (1798–​ 1800), edited by Curtis Bowman and Yolanda Estes (London: Routledge, 2016), 17–​30. 10 For a more detailed discussion of these controversies, see George di Giovanni, “From Jacobi’s Philosophical Novel to Fichte’s Idealism: Some Comments

Introduction  13 on the 1798–​99 ‘Atheism Dispute’,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 27, no. 1 (1989): 75–​100, and Richard Berkeley, Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2007), 59–​68. For a more specific focus on Fichte, see Curtis Bowman, “Fichte, Jacobi and the Atheism Controversy,” in New Essays on Fichte’s Later Jena Wissenschaftslehre, edited by Daniel Breazeale (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2002), 279–​98, and Yolanda Estes, “J. G. Fichte, Atheismusstreit, Wissenschaftslehre, and Religionslehre,” “Commentator’s Introduction” to Fichte and the Atheism Dispute, 1–​16. In relation to Schelling, see Ana Carrasco Conde, “Pantheism and Panentheism: Schelling, Schlegel and the Controversy over Pantheism,” Daimon 54 (2011): 93–​109. 11 On this point, see Daniel Breazeale, Thinking through the Wissenschaftslehre: Themes from Fichte’s Early Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 8, 11, 16, 19, 25, 70, 106. 12 See Michael G. Vater, “The Trajectory of German Philosophy after Kant, and the ‘Difference’ between Fichte and Schelling,” “Introduction” to Johann G. Fichte and F.W.J. Schelling, The Philosophical Rupture between Fichte and Schelling, edited by Michael G. Vater and David Wood (Albany: SUNY Press), 1–​20. 13 G.F.W. Hegel, The Letters, translated by Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler, with commentary by Clark Butler (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 31. 14 Ibid., 32. 15 Ibid., 35. 16 Commentary to Fichte, “Divine Governance,” 18. 17 It is interesting to note that the term “God” is rarely employed by Schelling in the early stages of his philosophy: indeed, it is only after his 1804 essay Philosophy and Religion that such term appears more often in Schelling’s writings (see Klaus Ottman, “Schelling’s Fragile God,” in Models of God and Alternative Ultimate Realities, edited by Jeanine Diller and Asa Kasher (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), 411–​20). However, this does not mean that the concept of God does not play a pivotal role even in the Jena period and in Schelling’s ontology of immanence in general. 18 Fichte and Schelling, Philosophical Rupture, 61. 19 Johannes Zachhuber, “Transcendence and Immanence,” in The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-​Century Christian Theology, edited by Daniel Whistler (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 174. 20 On this point, see Robert Stern, “Introduction” to IPN, ix. 21 See Johann G. Fichte, The Science of Knowledge, translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 122. 22 G.W.F. Hegel and F.W.J. Schelling, “The Critical Journal, Introduction: On the Essence of Philosophical Criticism Generally, and its Relationship to the Present State of Philosophy.” Translated by H.S. Harris. In Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-​Kantian Idealism, edited by George di Giovanni and H.S. Harris (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2000), 275. 23 Unphilosophie could also be translated with “non-​ philosophy;” however, the translator maintained the prefix un-​ in the English translation in order to

14  Introduction further stress the meaning of being the exact opposite and antithesis of philosophy. See ibid., 276ff. 24 See Johann G. Fichte, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation. Edited by A. Wood. Translated by G. Green (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 65ff. 25 Alderwick, Schelling’s Ontology of Powers, 85. 26 F.W.J. Schelling, On the True Concept of Philosophy of Nature and the Correct Way of Solving Its Problems, in Berger and Whistler, The Schelling-​ Eschenmayer Controversy, 61. 27 Ibid., 49. Schelling is obviously referring to Fichte’s core doctrine of the science of knowledge. See Johann G. Fichte, The Science of Knowledge, translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). 28 In this respect, Fichte also acknowledges the profound and almost unbridgeable difference between Schelling’s transcendental idealism and his Wissenschaftslehre, since for him “all being is only in relation to knowing,” whereas for Schelling “all knowing is only a kind of being.” (Fichte’s Commentaries on Schelling’s “Transcendental Idealism” and “Presentation of My System of Philosophy” (1800–​1801), in Philosophical Rupture, 120). This acknowledgement, I argue, further testifies Schelling’s early commitment to an ontology of immanence –​which he maintains in his late philosophy too. 29 Schelling, On the True Concept, 49. 30 Hegel and Schelling, “Introduction,” 281. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., 282. 33 F.W.J. Schelling, On the Relationship of the Philosophy of Nature to Philosophy in General, in Between Kant and Hegel, 366. The authorship of this essay has been a matter of dispute among scholars, as some claimed that Hegel was its real author. However, there is now an overall consensus that the essay was written by Schelling alone. For more details, see H.S. Harris’s introductory notes to this essay in ibid., 365–​6. 34 Ibid., 373. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., 372. 37 Ibid., 374.

Part 1

Transcendence of Being?

1 Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil

1.1  From a Moral to an Ontological Point of View: Schelling’s Conception of Evil In 1809, Schelling published his Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (hereafter Freiheitsschrift), which should read as a significant effort to ontologically rethink in a positive way the question of evil. In this sense, Schelling claims that it is not possible to philosophise relying only on idealism or only on realism, as these two philosophical systems, taken separately, can grasp the nature of things only partially. Such a claim has to be intended (or understood) in continuity with Schelling’s early systematic understanding of philosophy, according to which the intrinsic notion of everything merely objective in our knowledge, we may speak of as nature. The notion of everything subjective is called, on the contrary, the self, or the intelligence. The two concepts are mutually opposed […] the one [i.e., intelligence] as the conscious, the other [i.e., nature] as the nonconscious. But now in every knowing a reciprocal occurrence of the two […] is necessary.1 By “realism,” Schelling refers to that doctrine that arises from nature and is focused on the external reality of things and considers things as dogmatically independent from human knowledge. Conversely, he intends idealism as the highest philosophical system, which shows the reality and effectiveness of concepts such as freedom, life, and activity in their original arising in the I, that is, in self-​consciousness; however, idealism risks remaining a pure abstraction if it ignores that these concepts can become effective only through real and concrete matter. For this reason, “idealism, if it does not have as its basis a living realism, becomes just as empty and abstract a system as that of […] any other dogmatist.”2

DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-3

18  Transcendence of Being? This conception has its roots, as mentioned above, in Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), where he claims that if I reflect merely upon the ideal activity, there arises for me idealism, or the claim that the boundary is posited solely by the self. If I reflect merely upon the real activity, there arises for me realism, or the claim that the boundary is independent of the self. If I reflect upon the two together, a third view arises from both, which may be termed ideal-​ realism, or what we have hitherto designated by the name of transcendental idealism.3 Put simply, he is convinced that convergence between idealism and realism is the only suitable approach for a far-​reaching and reliable philosophy. In fact, Schelling thinks that a correct deduction of the principles (the idealist side) must be construed from the Naturphilosophie (the realist side) and, vice versa, philosophy of nature cannot be conceived of without its idealist counterpart. By applying this conception to the discourse on evil, Schelling claims that “since nothing is prior to, or outside of, God, he must have the ground of his existence in himself.”4 Therefore, it inevitably follows that evil itself can be considered neither as non-​Being nor as a lack of good, as this possibility is ruled out as soon as we correctly approach the question of philosophy. In other words, defining evil as non-​Being or as lack of good is equivalent to approaching the question erroneously: so, not only is it incorrect to postulate the unreality of evil, but it is also incorrect to assume that a moral principle can occur outside Being and God’s will. “Will is primal Being [Ursein] to which alone all predicates of Being apply;”5 hence, it is not possible to argue that something could occur in opposition to Ursein. Consequently, Schelling argues, “God himself requires a ground so that he can exist; but only a ground that is not outside but inside him and has in itself a nature which, although belonging to him, is yet also different from him.”6 However, in order to fully understand Schelling’s thorny statement, the relation between God’s existence and the ground of God’s existence must be clarified. Indeed, the claim that the ground of God’s existence has to be understood as being different from Godself could be seen as an outright contradiction, especially after arguing that nothing can occur outside Ursein. Nevertheless, the alleged contradiction can easily be avoided by defining the aforesaid relation in dynamic terms. God, to wit, is not the immobile creator of the universe and does not have an immutable and eternally fixed nature. Ground and existence then relate to each other in the same way as darkness and light, contraction and expansion, or potency and act. Indeed, “the relation is rather one of the ground’s being a condition or medium

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  19 through which God’s existence first comes to light; it is the condition for the appearance of the light.”7 The ground cannot be conceived of as absolutely independent of God, as it is posited by God so that light can emerge. Light, indeed, can occur only in opposition to darkness and is meaningless outside its opposition to darkness. Also, “the tension between ground and existence is not one of attraction and repulsion but rather of contraction and expansion;”8 and, as Judith Norman writes, “Schelling’s idea is that contraction grounds and makes possible an anti-​contractive force of freely flowing expansion, an act of affirmation in which God says yes to existence.”9 Therefore, my point is that precisely because, according to Schelling, Ursein and will coincide, God has to be considered as a living being involved in the process of Becoming (namely the process which subtends and forms the ontological structure of every existing thing and of which God is the architect), rather than as an abstract and transcendent intellect or the source of a rigid set of maxims. However, it follows that this conception of God can be asserted only by positing a ground on which God can base God’s own existence without identifying Godself with it. Put simply, Schelling presupposes a counterpart to God’s existence, which is a necessary moment of contraction in order to allow expansion to occur, a primordial and original darkness above which light can Werden, that is, come into Being. The latter point, moreover, has the merit of further enlightening and stressing how Schelling’s understanding of God has neither a static nor a moral nature but is conceived organically within the process of Becoming (which God Godself produces). “The whole spatially extended cosmos,” Schelling maintains, “is nothing but the swelling heart of the Godhead that continues, retained by invisible forces, in a continuous pulsation or in an alternation of expansion and contraction.”10 Furthermore, God can only be personal, because of the coincidence between Ursein and will, which makes Godself “a living unity of forces.”11 Moreover, “because in God there is an independent ground of reality and, hence, two equally eternal beginnings of self-​revelation, God also must be considered in regard to his freedom in relation to both.”12 This means that God’s freedom is equivalent to the process of continuously becoming free by overcoming the dark ground through the rising up of light into existence. All of the above, consequently, shows that God can no longer be understood as the guarantor of the world’s moral order nor as some sort of supernatural entity, because God neither dogmatically provides moral rules nor is ontologically detached from the material world. That is, “God is something more real than a merely moral world order and has entirely different and more vital motive forces in himself than the desolate subtlety of abstract idealists attribute to him.”13 In other words, God is a living being that constantly resolves in Godself the contrast of the

20  Transcendence of Being? two opposed forces and provides life in its purest occurence. As Schelling puts it, according to the necessary correspondence between God and his basis [Basis], precisely that radiant glimpse of life in the depths, of darkness in every individual flares up in the sinner into a consuming fire, just as in a living organism a particular joint or system, as soon as it has strayed from the whole, perceives the unity and cooperative effort itself to which is opposed as fire (=​fever) and ignites from an inner heat.14 The same conception can also be found in Schelling’s early writings, showing both that there is a degree of continuity in his philosophical activity and that his divergences from dominant idealist thinking (and particularly from Fichte) are anything but unforeseen and impulsive. Back in 1795, indeed, in his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism, Schelling wrote that “the idea of a moral God […] not only signifies nothing sublime, but signifies nothing whatsoever; it is as empty as every other anthropomorphic representation.”15 Schelling, in fact, directs his argument against the prejudice that our finite mind, in the impossibility of knowing the real nature of God, cannot leave aside the idea of God, and so it is forced to presuppose a moral law grounding the idea of the Godhead. Even in the Freiheitsschrift, Schelling maintains that “the deity cannot be affected by the weakness of your reason; though you could arrive at the deity only through the moral law, this is not in turn the only yardstick by which deity is to be measured.”16 In other words, Schelling points out that grounding the nature of God on the idea of an absolute moral law results in weakening God by subordinating God to an alleged highest moral principle. As already said, the real nature of God, as outlined in Schelling’s discourse on evil and freedom, is not about prescribing rules for human conduct but is about grounding the potentiality of human actions; it is not about providing guidelines for our personal experience but is about making our personal experience possible; simply put, it is not about morality but about ontology. This is a fundamental claim, and my point here is that this is precisely what characterises Schelling’s discourse on evil as ontological, namely as a crucial element of his immanentist ontology (which I will discuss more in detail in Part 3 of this book). In fact, in Schelling’s philosophy (and particularly in his Freiheitsschrift), there can be no room for a negative conception of evil nor for a privative one. Evil, on the contrary, can only be conceived of within (and never without) Ursein, that is, the original will of God. Accordingly, evil is as real as good is, rather than subordinate to good or coincident with non-​Being. Indeed, evil is a positive principle that lies in the primal ground of God’s

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  21 existence: the tension between expansion and contraction, then, is nothing but the tension between good and evil. Evil, to wit, is “the incomprehensible base of reality in things, the indivisible remainder, that which with the greatest exertion cannot be resolved in understanding but rather remains eternally in the ground.”17 Schelling claims that the order of things is derived by God’s self-​ revelation, which in turn is “the utterance of the logos or ratio, […] the pure principle of form and intelligibility that is God.”18 Also, the emergence of God by means of the ground is not in fact the transition from nothingness to being […] but the point of revelation of a being that in some sense was always already there, even if “dormant”; [… therefore] the ground only emerges with the revelation [… which is] the latter’s condition of possibility.19 Therefore, the order of things is constantly threatened by the yearning of the ground to subvert the existing order itself. This is an irrational tendency, an incomprehensible craving, an unconscious attempt to subvert the hierarchy of principles. Evil, then, is an effort to turn harmony into chaos and to realise the uprising of “randomness” (das Regellose) against orderliness. Such effort, moreover, occurs as a struggle, namely as a conflict between good and evil or between orderliness and randomness (or also chaos). I will focus in particular on the nature and crucial role of this struggle in the next section. Here, we have to understand evil in terms of Möglichkeit, that is, the perennial possibility that cannot but keep recurring as such and constantly missing its realisation: in this sense, being a perennial possibility implies the impossibility of its actualisation, that is, of its becoming real and the persistence of its being potential. This is an essential condition for God’s revelation, which coincides with the ultimately Real (which I capitalise as it refers to the ontological structure of the world). In fact, the abovementioned struggle, together with evil’s ontological condition of perennial possibility, generates the conditions “in which God reveals himself as spirit, that is, as actu real [actu wirklich].”20 This precisely is the Real, as I have put it: in other words, Schelling, in a famous letter to Eschenmayer (1812), speaks about it as “being as such, this ‘is’ of which we can indeed be spiritually conscious,”21 that is, the Real understood as the fundamental ontological structure of the world as it originally occurs in God’s revelation. In other words, Schelling’s point is that evil is the underlying possibility that constantly threatens the Real, aspiring to become itself the Real. However, this is a possibility posited by God only in order to be overwhelmed by the Real, the dark ground from which the light principle springs, the ontological contraposition that gives sense and effectiveness to

22  Transcendence of Being? the affirmation and the revelation of Godself. That is, evil is the perennially unrealised possibility whose grounding is fundamental and essential to provide value and concreteness to the Real, which otherwise would be a mere abstraction. Schelling is also convinced that “all birth is birth from darkness into light,”22 from which it follows that the two forces cannot be but in a relationship of complementarity, which in turn is the only way they can relate to each other, according to their positive features. Therefore, “both principles are indeed in all things, yet they are without complete consonance due to the deficiency of that which has been raised out of the ground.”23 Hence, being the two principles in all things and being all things within Ursein, then they must be united, though complementarily, in God. God, to wit, embodies the two principles as the two opposite poles of God’s indissoluble ontological structure. This, once more, indicates that God is neither a moral being nor a moral ruler: rather, God’s ontological structure is based on a dynamic process of contrast between two complementary forces. Thereby, morality is dethroned as the highest and indisputable goal of humanity, as it is no longer considered the principle of reality or as provider of transcendent and immutable rules for human conduct. In this context, the traditional conception of the absolute coincidence of God with good [das Gute] is no longer applicable, as it fails to acknowledge both the effective features of evil and the real nature of the relationship between good and evil. As Schelling puts it, the ground of evil must lie, therefore, not only in something generally positive but rather in that which is most positive in what nature contains, as is actually the case in our view, since it lies in the revealed centrum or primal will of the first ground.24 This is the reason why, Schelling argues, the object of philosophical inquiry is not “how evil becomes actual in individuals, but rather in its universal activity [Wirksamkeit] or how it was able to break out of creation as an unmistakably general principle everywhere locked in struggle with the good.”25 More specifically, that which Schelling calls “the universal activity of evil,” that is, its Wirksamkeit, is nothing but its effectiveness and operativeness. Consequently, a suitable philosophical examination of evil has to focus on what makes evil itself become actual, effective, and operative, that is to say, its positive essence. Such an approach immediately excludes any negative or privative conception of evil, insofar as their “structural limits” make these negative conceptions of evil unable to grasp evil itself in its effectiveness. It is not possible, indeed, to grasp the Wirksamkeit of evil by conceiving of evil itself as a lack of good or as non-​Being: how could something that is neither real nor autonomous be understood in its

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  23 Wirksamkeit? This, however, is a mistake that arises from the same old prejudice of the moral God, according to Schelling. Therefore, as already mentioned, we have to understand Schelling’s conceptions of good and evil not in a moral sense, as they are not sheer moral principles, but as two ontological forces that animate life itself by virtue of their contrast. Accordingly, evil is neither the immoral converse nor the logical contradiction of good but rather the latent ontological counterpart of good. Thus, they are not dogmatically given in a set of general rules but keep fighting for supremacy over the Real and fight to direct (but also to subvert and pervert) the dynamic structure of the Real itself. It is in this sense that, yet again, evil is to be understood as an endless threat to the divine harmony, as a “perverted desire” to subvert the nature of things. However, we have already seen that this inclination is eternally defeated by God and persists only in its eternal defeat. On the contrary, the same cannot be said for humankind, for whom the perversion of the ground still threatens to realise itself through human actions; that is, “there must be a general ground of solicitation, of temptation to evil, even if it were only to make both principles [i.e., good and evil] come to life in man, that is, to make him aware of the principles.”26 The latter point, according to Schelling, emphasises precisely the uttermost difference between God and humankind: indeed, if ground remains a condition in God, it does not necessarily have to do so in man […]; hence, the danger of man, his inner dissonance, lies in the possibility that the ground may subordinate expansion to itself, that contraction may triumph over expansion by perverting it.27 In this case, “the ground ceases being a condition by which existence may become what it is, but seeks to become that for the sake of which existence becomes what it is, it seeks to become absolute,”28 meaning that “the same unity [of the two principles] that is inseverable in God must therefore be severable in man –​and this is the possibility of good and evil.”29 The possibility of good and evil always arises in the field of freedom, which is the fundamental and indelible feature both of God and of humankind. In other words, the very nature of God’s freedom and existence cannot be conceived of but within the dynamics of life.30 That is, Schelling claims –​paraphrasing the Gospel of Mark, 12: 26–​7 –​that “God is not a god of the dead but of the living,”31 which also means that, if the foundation of God’s life is God’s freedom, then we are also free, since God shares with human beings the same concept of “life.” Indeed, according to Schelling, the human being follows and complies with the divine ontological structure, so that humankind is free because God is free and cannot reveal and perpetuate God but through freedom. Schelling’s conception of freedom

24  Transcendence of Being? will be explored in detail in §1.3 –​and again in Chapter 7; for now, the points that have been made are enough to state the following: given that evil is a positive ontological occurrence that lies in the ground of God’s existence, and given that the possibility of good and evil arises within the domain of freedom (as referred to above), Schelling manages to grasp evil in its positive features, by placing its origin in God, but at the same time Schelling avoids attributing to God responsibility for its realisation. The latter, I argue, is precisely the core and aim of the “ontological shift” made by Schelling: namely that only by putting the question of evil in the field of ontology, rather than in that of morality, is it possible to deal with this question (as well as that of the relation between good and evil) without dogmatic restrictions. Good and evil, then, are two positive forces, two coessential and complementary principles. This means that they both originate in God’s will but occur in different moments of God’s life (i.e., as ground and existence, darkness and light). Moreover, as already argued, in the Godhead, they are unified and inseparable, while human beings operate an arbitrary distinction between them and perpetrate the realisation of evil (which is impossible for God). In Schelling’s words, “in the divine understanding there is a system; yet God himself is not a system, but rather a life.”32 Again, God is not the provider of transcendent moral values but the immanent living unity of everything that is. This idea is also outlined in Philosophy and Religion, a brief essay dated 1804 where Schelling argues that “God is the ideal par excellence, and without further mediation God is also the real par excellence;”33 that is, in God, there is that immediate and original unity, that absoluteness and that “Being-​One” that embodies the whole structure of the universe in an organic living structure. As we will see in §1.4, this essential unity can be grasped only by intuition, rather than by description. This also entails that the unity of ideal and real, of good and evil, of ground and existence, is always already posited by God’s revelation, so that it is innate, original, and irreducible. Indeed, as already stated, the distinction between the principles made by humankind is a purely arbitrary one and has neither absolute nor structural value. Therefore, the origin and the primary source of evil can only be in the irrational ground of God’s existence, but, its realisation being a matter of freedom, practical responsibility for it exclusively belongs to those who concretely enact it, that is, to human beings. This point is extremely important: indeed, it is to be considered as one of the most remarkable attempts made in the history of Western philosophy to systematically distinguish the origin of evil from its realisation, that is, to avoid the reduction of ontology to morality. In God, indeed, Schelling recognises Ursein, that is, the primal will of the universe, which, in turn, coincides with primal Being, in which everything

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  25 is, and outside of which nothing is. God, to wit, is the absolute unity and coincidence of opposites, the absolute undifferentiation of principles, the absolutely Real. However, my point is that this absolute unity is not given as a dialectical synthesis (in the Hegelian sense) nor as a negative process but as an organic and immanent process that continuously becomes Real and could not be (nor become) otherwise. Therefore, interpreting God, as well as the Absolute or the Real, either in moral or in dialectical terms is nothing more than a human misconception with no real ground. Moreover, I argue that Schelling’s account can be seen as a form of radical monism. The dualism of principles, consequently, is only apparent, since it turns out to be a mere human convention that does not comply with the ontological structure of the Godhead. In other words, by saying that in God the principles of good and evil, lightness and darkness, ideal and real, and so on become united and undifferentiated does not mean to say that they are turned into a unitary principle because they were separated in the first place. Rather, saying that they become united and undifferentiated means to say that they keep recurring as united and undifferentiated as they were in the first place: that is, they can only become what they are and not something different from what they used to be. Becoming, in other words, is an organic process through which God exercises God’s “Being-​ One” freely and willingly; that is, through the process of Becoming, God reiterates Godself’s dynamic “oneness,” which constantly evolves, keeping its ontological core unharmed. Therefore, it is not the monism that follows and arises from an original dualism of the principles, but rather it is the dualism of the principles that is a human arbitrary separation of that which is (and cannot be but as) originally united and undifferentiated. This reading also resonates with an immanentist ontology, as opposed to a transcendentist one, as I defined them in the Introduction. It still remains to clarify how evil can be present in God without God’s being responsible for its realisation. That is, as already mentioned, since God, in the act of revealing Godself (in the terms in which I defined it above), overcomes evil, making it a perennial and unrealisable possibility (as per above), then it becomes impossible for God Godself to actualise evil. Therefore, the only way in which evil itself can be actualised, that is, in which it can satisfy its irrational craving for actuality, is through humankind’s actions. Indeed, when human beings elevate their self-​will above and in contrast with Ursein and God’s revelation, then evil becomes real. That is, in this way evil is able to reverse the relation of the principles, to elevate the ground over the cause [… Hence,] human will is to be regarded as a bond of living forces; now, as long as it remains in unity with the universal will, these same forces exist in divine measure and balance. But no sooner than

26  Transcendence of Being? [human] self-​will itself moves from the centrum at its place, so does the bond of forces as well.34 However, Schelling is convinced that when this happens, an impure form of life occurs, namely a faulty and tainted one, since it deliberately deceives Ursein. Moreover, this cannot be but insanity, as evil strives to actualise itself irrationally and in opposition to God’s revelation. It follows, then, that the only agents responsible for this kind of action, or, better, for this kind of life, are human beings, as it all depends on their free will. In this respect, Schelling compares evil to a disease, using a significant metaphor that he borrows from von Baader, as he himself acknowledges.35 In this sense, he claims that “the most fitting comparison here is offered by disease which, as the disorder having arisen in nature through the misuse of freedom, is the true counterpart of evil or sin.”36 That is, since the equilibrium of the forces is the highest and most perfect form of life, such an equilibrium will also coincide with the highest Good and healing. Therefore, every alteration and rupture of this equilibrium will bring to be a different form of life, which will be equally free but affected by evil and disease, due to the perversion, that is, to the reversal or the overwhelming, of the forces. That is precisely what Schelling defines as the misuse of freedom. Borrowing Dale Snow’s words, for Schelling evil is a willful disorder, a false life. Schelling’s central metaphor of disease conveys both the parasitism and secondary nature of evil, as well as recognizing the reality of evil […]. Disease is the paradigm case of an entity inappropriately subsuming everything to itself at the expense of the whole of which it is a part. This also explains, in Schelling’s view, why we are horrified by evil in a way that we are not horrified by mere weakness or impotence, which at most inspire pity.37 Under these circumstances, it should be clear that moral responsibility for the realisation of evil cannot be attributed to God, despite its origin being in God. In fact, Schelling reminds us that in the Freiheitsschrift he is focusing on the possibility of evil and that “the reality of evil is the object of a whole other investigation.”38 Far from contradicting himself, Schelling is claiming that, in order to grasp the true essence of evil, it is necessary to focus on its emergence as an ontological possibility, which is absolutely and continuously suppressed by God, but its re-​emergence in humankind is due to humankind’s misuse of freedom and separation of the principles. Consequently, the efficacy and positivity of evil does not originally lie in “bad behaviour” but in its arising as a condition of the possibility of our experience in the world. Then, it inevitably follows that moral responsibility for the practical realisation of evil is to be attributed to humankind,

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  27 as humans are the only beings who can realise and actualise it. However, moral responsibility is only a secondary feature concerning the nature of evil, which is also why such responsibility is not attributable to God. In conclusion, the way in which Schelling addresses the question of evil has another significant outcome, which is often overlooked but can now be glimpsed. That is, I argue that shifting the focus from morality to ontology can lead us to take into account the domain of pure experience: since evil is no longer a matter of morality but of ontology, then it does not merely coincide with what is morally wrong or despicable: it is a force that concretely grounds our experience in the world and makes it possible through its struggle against the Good. As mentioned above, philosophising on good and evil does not mean dealing with moral guidelines for our personal experience, but it means looking at the conditions of the possibility of our personal experience, as the features that ground and make it possible, that is, as that original moment in which experience emerges before it becomes my personal experience. I explore this argument in the next section. To sum up, in this section, I have shown how Schelling shifts the question of evil from the point of view of morality to one of ontology, with the aim of grasping evil itself in its very ontological concreteness and of rejecting any reduction of it to a mere lack of good or to a non-​ Being. Moreover, I maintain that such a conception of evil is key to understand Schelling’s immanentist ontology, which I will discuss in Part 3 of this book. Specifically, I have argued that Schelling outlines good and evil as two opposing ontological principles that clash and fight in order to actualise themselves and overcome the opposing principle. Also, although the origin of evil is ascribed to God, its realisation pertains exclusively to human beings, who alone are responsible for it. In the next section, I will focus on the essential features of the abovementioned struggle, arguing that not only has it to be understood as the fundamental condition of the possibility of life (as Schelling does) but also as that of pure and absolute experience. 1.2  “Where There Is No Struggle, There Is No Life”: The Struggle between Good and Evil as the Fundamental Condition of the Possibility of (Absolute) Experience Since evil is a positive ontological principle, complementary to and coessential with good, it also unfolds itself through opposition to, and consequently struggle against, good. Therefore, as Schelling claims in the Freiheitsschrift, evil is “only explicable in terms of an arousal of the irrational or dark principle in creatures –​in terms of activated selfhood –​ having occurred already in the first creation [… and] announces itself in nature only through its effects.”39 In other words, the complementarity

28  Transcendence of Being? and ontological positivity of good and evil mean that neither of the two principles is passive and static; rather, just as the light principle, in order to actualise itself, needs a dark ground to overcome, the dark ground itself keeps reacting to this overwhelming, aiming at subverting the current order of things. Moreover, “this principle is the very spirit of evil that has been awoken in creation by arousal of the dark ground of nature, that is, the turning against each other [Entzweiung] of light and darkness.”40 Schelling also argues that the dark ground is characterised by a being-​ active-​for-​itself [Für-​sich-​wirken], from which evil can emerge. Evil, in other words, is not the ground but coincides with (and emerges from) the activity of the ground itself, or its being active (i.e., its Wirksamkeit). Accordingly, I argue that the Entzweiung (literally “division, separation”) and the struggle between good and evil are not to be understood as a dialectical opposition in which the negative moment (ground or evil) opposes the positive one (light or good) only in order to finally overcome the opposition itself through a superior synthesis. Rather, the Entzweiung of good and evil is made possible only by the fact that both of them are positive moments: that is, they do not negate each other dialectically, but they oppose each other as two ontological forces contending for supremacy over the Real, or as two potencies each struggling for its own actualisation. However, only one of them can hold that supremacy and fully actualise itself, at the expense of the other one: it is an aut/​aut, and in this sense, no dialectical synthesis is possible. Moreover, the principle [of evil], to the extent that it comes from the ground and is dark, is the self-​will of creatures which, however, to the extent that it has not yet been raised to (does not grasp) complete unity with the light (as principle of understanding), is pure craving or desire, that is, blind will.41 I have already explained how the unity of the principles is a primordial condition in God’s essence, and that their severability depends only on human freedom; consequently, in its failing to grasp the absolute unity of the principles, the self-​will, namely the individual perversion of the primordial will of Ursein, tries to set itself up as the centrum and the ruler of human conduct. Also, it is blind because it loses sight of the universal will, making its action partial and (then) selfish. It is no coincidence that Schelling refers to the two principles in terms of light and darkness: activity arising from the dark ground cannot be but blind if it is not illuminated by the light of its counterpart. For this reason, evil is nothing other than –​literally –​ groping around in the dark. How is this possible? “In man,” Schelling writes, “there is the whole power of the dark principle and at the same time the whole strength of

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  29 the light. In him there is the deepest abyss and the loftiest sky of both centra.”42 Accordingly, man is placed on that summit where he has in himself the source of self-​movement toward good or evil in equal portions […] but he cannot remain undecided because God must necessarily reveal himself and because nothing at all can remain ambiguous in creation.43 Therefore, humankind is required to act in accordance with one of the two principles; that is, every human being has to make a choice, which is always a free one, and cannot escape from this condition, as it grounds humankind’s life itself. The latter is a fundamental point in Schelling’s speculation: indeed, if God is not morally responsible for the actualisation of evil (as already said), then humankind is, and such a responsibility cannot be but the result of a free choice. In other words, although the struggle between good and evil is a constitutive and necessary part of human life and experience, humankind can deal with it only by exercising humankind’s freedom. The relationship between freedom and necessity will be broadly analysed later in this chapter; at this point, however, I would rather focus on the nature of the struggle between good and evil, which I define as the ground and primal source of human life and experience in Schelling’s philosophy. In this regard, Schelling clearly argues that “where there is no struggle, there is no life,”44 meaning that the conflict between good and evil, existence and ground, attraction and repulsion is the fundamental condition of possibility for human life and experience in general. Accordingly, “all existence demands a condition so that it may become real, namely personal, existence;”45 and even God is not immune to that condition, which is the struggle itself. That is, as has been said, from the ground (and not from God), this appetite for selfhood and individuality arises, an appetite that, however, is always overcome by God through the prevalence of the absolute unity and the abovementioned oneness. The point here is that Schelling thinks that this craving for selfhood and selfishness is an essential impulse triggering the struggle between good and evil, which in turn is the only means through which good itself can be fully actualised; that is, the ground provides that unavoidable stimulus that activates the process of actualisation of God. Therefore, borrowing Schelling’s words, “activated selfhood is necessary for the rigor of life; without it there would be sheer death, a falling asleep of the good.”46 Hence, it follows that the struggle between good and evil is a constitutive element of life, but not in the sense that it is just one part (as important as it could be) of life; rather, it is life, in the sense that it represents the coming to life of Being, for, it is worth repeating, Schelling

30  Transcendence of Being? is convinced that with no struggle, there is no life either. Consequently, my point here is that this struggle, in the form in which it is defined by Schelling himself, can be considered the ground and primal source not only of human life but of human experience in general. That being the case, the struggle between good and evil coincides with the fundamental condition of pure and absolute experience. In this specific context, the term “absolute” is meant to recall its etymology (from the Latin ab-​solutus), its being “free from any constraint” from singular beings. In other words, the latter is the original form of experience, which occurs in every single human being without being identified with any of them but rather being (as just mentioned) free from any constraint from them. The concept of absolute experience, however, is not directly and explicitly used by Schelling (who refers to “mere experience” in his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature), so the way I have defined it above has to be understood as my use of it. Nevertheless, I argue that such a concept can help us both to better grasp Schelling’s meaning and to interpret this meaning in a fruitful and original way. Indeed, not only does the abovementioned understanding of absolute experience fit well into Schelling’s thinking, but it also expands the range of his philosophy by enriching it with a further element. I will go into more details about this matter later in this chapter. For now, suffice to say, a strong and direct link exists between the concept of absolute experience and Schelling’s account of the struggle between good and evil. Put differently, the contrast between good and evil leads us to the deepest ontological core of life and experience, namely “the origin and life of the system;”47 in turn, evil introduces an imbalance, or an ontological tension, that is “the essential medium of life, of the organic struggle of forces that constitutes the true basis of the whole [of life].”48 Given all that, the fundamental function of the struggle between good and evil is even more evident: that is, once we establish that evil is an ontological principle or force, opposing and struggling against its coessential counterpart (i.e., the good), it follows not only that the struggle between them has an undisputable ontological value but also that the struggle itself coincides with the starting point of the ontological process of the emerging of life and experience in themselves, that is, in their original condition of possibility. Put differently, for Schelling, the struggle between good and evil is not meant to be understood in terms of moral dilemmas, that is, in terms of the questions we human beings ask ourselves –​whether something is good or bad, right or wrong, in the context of particular situations. Instead, the aforesaid struggle consists in an organic dynamism that makes life and experience possible, that is, it activates the process of life itself, rather than merely result in moral or axiological determinations. In fact, the struggle between good and evil, according to the points made earlier in this chapter,

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  31 is the ontological foundation of human experience, that is, the primordial origin and conditio sine qua non, the coming to life of life itself. Therefore, it does not arise as a moral (and secondary) moment of human experience, but it grounds experience itself, being its concrete basis and only condition of possibility. Since it concerns the field of ontology, the latter can also be linked to what has previously been said about the Real. I have already pointed out that the struggle between good and evil provides a basis for the realisation of God’s revelation, which would otherwise have no way of being transformed from potentiality into actuality. In fact, that being the case, the struggle represents the critical moment of God’s revelation; in this context, the term “critical” has to be referred to the German krisis, which Schelling uses in his discourse on evil and is very important in order to understand the key role of the struggle within the Real. Generally speaking, krisis is a decisive turning point, in which stasis is impossible and mutation is inevitable. The Greek term κρίσις (krisis), indeed, derives from κρίνω (krino, “to judge”) and from κριτικός (kritikós, “able to distinguish”); it indicates judgement, as well as a capacity for drawing distinctions and for choice. Moreover, Hippocrates originally used it to refer to a decisive moment in a patient’s clinical state, that is, to that moment in which the patient’s state of health could only get better or get worse but could not remain as it is. It is no coincidence, therefore, that Schelling often uses the concepts of health and disease to metaphorically refer to good and evil. Accordingly, Schelling writes that the primal ground of existence also continues to be active in evil as health continues to be active in disease [… so that life] is posited by the attraction of the ground itself in an ever higher tension against unity until it arrives at self-​destruction and final crisis [krisis].49 Again, evil expresses itself through an irrational craving, that is, the tension against the absolute unity of principles, in order to break and subvert the unity itself: this, for Schelling, is the moment in which the struggle emerges and results in the coming into life of Being. In other words, with no craving, no tension, and no struggle, life itself would not be possible. For this reason, “God is a life, not merely a Being. All life has a destiny, and is subject to suffering and becoming;”50 indeed, the conditions for the emerging of life, which have been set by God, affect even God Godself. In other words, God, in order to create life, has to have life, has to be a life; consequently, God cannot escape the dynamics of life, the process of Becoming, and the tension between ground and existence. As already said, God eternally resolves the tension between ground and existence, as well as the struggle between good and evil, into the original unity of principles,

32  Transcendence of Being? but this resolution cannot take place outside the process of Becoming, that is, in an inert and inanimate form of Being. As Schelling puts it, “Being becomes aware of itself only in becoming. In Being, there is admittedly no becoming; rather, in the latter, Being itself is again posited as eternity; but, in its realisation by opposition, it is necessarily a becoming.”51 The latter statement is extremely important to further clarify my point. That is, not only can the realisation of Being not occur except within Becoming but also this realisation can be effective only through opposition. Once again, this is not a merely dialectical opposition but rather the result of the interaction of two opposite ontological forces –​attraction and repulsion, good and evil, potentiality and actuality. This is why the struggle represents a critical moment of the actualisation of God, as Schelling himself points out. The ground, indeed, opposes the unity of the principles and, following its (free) craving, tries unsuccessfully to definitively break this unity. However, all of that is necessary so that God can reveal Godself: using Schelling’s words, “in its freedom, the ground therefore effects separation and judgement [krisis] and, precisely in doing so, the complete actualization of God.”52 Schelling is convinced that the krisis is a necessary moment for the inevitable restoration of the original unity, in the same way in which a passing disease is required for final healing. Accordingly, all original healing consists in the reconstruction of the relation of the periphery to the centrum, and the transition from disease to health can in fact only occur through its opposite, namely through restoration of the separate and individual life into the being’s inner glimpse of light. From which restoration division [Krisis] once again proceeds.53 Furthermore, Schelling is also very attentive to the issue of the conditions of the possibility of matter, as well as of experience, in the period after his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (first edition 1797; second revised edition 1803) in which there is a whole chapter (book II, ­chapter 6) devoted to the “contingent determinations of matter and to the following transition into the domain of mere experience.” Let me leave aside, for the moment, the question of contingency and necessity, which will be closely analysed in the next section in its connection with key concepts such as freedom and intuition. For now, it is important to stress the way in which Schelling interprets the relationship between the forces of attraction and repulsion and its consequences, since it is also important to understand Schelling’s discourse on evil. That is, he argues that “we have to presuppose as possible a free play of the two forces [… which] is also to occur in Nature, and thus according to natural laws.”54 Moreover, this free play cannot be determined by matter itself and has to be implemented

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  33 by external causes; hence, “since attractive and repulsive forces pertain to the possibility of matter as such, these causes must be thought in a narrower sphere.”55 What is relevant, at this point, is the fact that Schelling clearly refers to pure experience in terms of the conditions of the possibility of matter as such and of a free play of physical forces, that is, in a non-​dialectical way. In this sense, there is a marked similarity with what Schelling himself will argue a few years later in the Freiheitsschrift: the struggle between good and evil, as I have already shown, is undoubtedly drawn from the organic account of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. In other words, the struggle between good and evil has the same structure, or occurs in the same manner, as the free play of attraction and repulsion. Therefore, in addition to attraction and repulsion being the conditions of the possibility of matter, good and evil (as ontological rather than moral principles) are the conditions of the possibility of life and experience. This analogy is further legitimised by Schelling’s conception of the unity of the principles: indeed, we human beings perceive good and evil, as well as attraction and repulsion, as separate and irreconcilable. However, I have already said (and will further argue later in this chapter) that this separation of the principles is a purely human and arbitrary one and does not have to be reflected in God’s mind. Indeed, for the latter, there is always unity of principles, coincidentia oppositorum and absolute identity, which have originally been posited by God Godself. In this context, moreover, the act of positing such absolute identity is not referred to a transcendent imposition made by God from above but rather such absolute identity naturally flows from God’s nature. In view of all the above, I want to reiterate the main argument of this section: it is possible to interpret the struggle between good and evil, as Schelling puts it, as the fundamental condition of possibility of absolute experience. In this sense, I have already shown how good and evil have to be understood as ontological principles (rather than moral ones), related respectively to the existence of God and its ground, light and darkness, attraction and repulsion. So, the struggle itself assumes the role of the ontological basis of life, without which there would be no life at all. Similarly, from the struggle between good and evil experience emerges, in its most pure and absolute form, that is, the struggle grounds the possibility of experience as such, in its being ab-​soluta, or free from any constraint from singular beings. The latter indicates the most fundamental and primordial form of experience, that is, in its general emergence before becoming personal and singular. However, this does not mean that it is possible to conceive of experience independently of the experiencer; rather, following Schelling’s arguments, it is possible to identify the conditions according to which experience becomes possible. Therefore,

34  Transcendence of Being? these two aspects are mutually interrelated and make no sense independently of each other. In conclusion, and in addition to what has already been said, a few more issues should be addressed. Given the ontological nature of the principles of good and evil, the “battlefield” of the consequent struggle is the one of immanence. Indeed, as I will show more in detail in the next section, immanence is a fundamental point for Schelling’s philosophy, from its early period until its late phase, passing through the Freiheitsschrift. This is clearly confirmed by the aforesaid concepts of free play of the forces and Ursein. Regarding the former, Schelling clearly argues, as I have already shown, that the interaction of the forces cannot take place outside nature; regarding the latter, I have already pointed out how, for Schelling, nothing can occur or simply be outside of it. Moreover, I argue that such an understanding is nothing but a form of monism and immanentism; if not, it would be possible to admit the existence of something exceeding God’s will, that is, a principle ontologically independent of it, resulting, however, in a mere and unsubstantiated abstraction. In this regard, Schelling is convinced that he has “sufficiently shown that all natural beings have mere Being in the ground of the initial yearning that has not yet achieved unity with the understanding, that they are therefore merely peripheral beings in relation to God.”56 This dynamic should now be clear enough; however, it is worth repeating that the centrum, that is, God, is not ontologically detached from the peripheries, that is, finite beings (including humankind). Similarly, as has been said, even if the ground of God’s existence is different from God, this does not mean that it is ontologically separate from God (or even that it is not at all, i.e., has no being) but rather that it is the necessary counterforce for the activation of the dynamics of life and Becoming. Put simply, Schelling is describing an immanent process, as all things are in God and God neither is a transcendent one nor has an ontological status per se. Being, for Schelling, is always univocal. Once again, here it is possible to see the influence of Spinoza: as Whistler writes, “in Spinoza’s Ethics, this univocity [of being] becomes immanence. Substance (or God) is neither an occult force standing behind its phenomenal manifestations nor a thing-​in-​itself external to appearances. Substance is its phenomena; it exists only in the phenomena themselves.”57 Schelling, for his part, takes up this conception and applies it to his own philosophy, as I have tried to show. On this basis, he also refuses every static and passive conception of the world: indeed, only in Becoming and in struggle, there can be life. Again, stasis is inconceivable, as it brings death, and life is conceivable only because of the critical moment of the struggle of the forces. Finally, it should also be clear how and why the struggle between good and evil, in addition to being the critical moment of the coming to

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  35 life of Being, can also be considered as the grounding condition of possibility of absolute experience, without distorting or altering the core of Schelling’s philosophy.58 To sum up, in this section, I have argued that the struggle between good and evil consists in the very ontological ground and source of life, that is, it makes life possible in the same way in which the contrast between attraction and repulsion makes matter possible. In this sense, I have also highlighted the continuity between Schelling’s early Naturphilosophie and his Freiheitsschrift. Moreover, I have also demonstrated that the abovementioned struggle, given that it has to be understood exclusively in ontological terms rather than in moral ones, leads us to grasp what I have defined as absolute experience, meaning experience in its being ab-​soluta, that is, free from any constraints from singular beings. Put simply, I have argued that the struggle between good and evil consists in the conditions of the possibility of experience in its purest occurrence, that is, in its emerging moment and before becoming personal. Finally, I have also shown that such a conception has to be characterised in a clearly immanentist sense. I will return to the latter point in the following chapters. 1.3  Freedom, Necessity, and Temporality In §1.1, I have shown that Schelling is convinced that idealism alone is not sufficient to build a suitable philosophical system, that is, a system able to provide an adequate account of the reality of concepts and to grasp them in their very concreteness. Schelling, as already said, defines this approach as a form of ideal-​realism, according to which the only reliable form of philosophy is the one that grasps the original unity of spirit and nature, of form and matter. He also applies this conception to the discourse on freedom, saying that idealism gives “on the one hand, only the most general conception of freedom and, on the other hand, a merely formal one. But the real and vital concept is that freedom is the capacity of good and evil.”59 Therefore, the moral responsibility for the realisation of evil, as well as of good, falls entirely on the individual agent, who freely chooses to act in accordance with one principle and in contrast with the other one: that is, human freedom plays a crucial role in this choice. This original unity brings us immediately to the core of the problem of this section, namely, how Schelling characterises human freedom in relation to necessity and temporality. In the previous section, I have shown that for Schelling the possibility of good and evil is always given within the domain of freedom; now, I aim at focusing in more detail on the Schellingian conception of freedom itself. In this respect, Schelling maintains the idealist standpoint, which has the merit of raising “the doctrine of freedom to that very region where it is alone comprehensible;”60

36  Transcendence of Being? that is, Schelling agrees that “the intelligible being of every thing and especially of man is outside all casual connectedness as it is outside or above all time.”61 However, according to Schelling, the latter statement needs a further integration in order to avoid the risk of turning freedom itself into a speculative abstraction with no effective relevance. Therefore, the abovementioned “intelligible being of man” cannot be but a sort of preliminary condition for human actions that is determined neither by temporality nor by any other external cause. In other words, it can be portrayed as an original tendency to act in a certain way, that is, a natural inclination common to all human beings, but its effects vary within each single being. Therefore, it is nothing but the individual nature of human beings. This may seem a convoluted argument, and in fact, it is very challenging and not effortlessly understandable. Schelling’s position is that I freely choose to act, but I cannot do so other than in accordance with the essential character of my being, hence, I freely choose to be according to what I already am, hence, I freely choose to be what I am.62 But how is this possible? How can my choice be free if my choice itself could not be any other way? Solving this alleged contradiction is not simple, also because Schelling’s point might seem strongly counterintuitive. At a closer look, however, Schelling’s account effectively integrates freedom and necessity without reducing one to the other. Indeed, saying that our intelligible being is neither determined by an external causal chain nor subject to temporality does not mean that freedom has to be understood as an unlimited possibility of unleashing our will and of shaping the universe the way we like the most. In the same way, saying that I am free to choose what I already am and could not choose any differently does not mean that my freedom is an illusion and that my actions are predetermined by a superior will. Put simply, I am neither the undisputed master of the universe, whose will transcends every other existing thing nor an automaton mechanically driven and devoid of any will and freedom. As Schelling puts it, the intelligible being “precedes all else that is or becomes within it, not so much temporally as conceptually, as an absolute unity that must always already exist fully and complete so that particular action or determination may be possible in it.”63 In this context, the “absolute unity” Schelling is talking about is the one between freedom and necessity, which must be seen as two reciprocally interacting and strictly interrelated concepts, rather than as diametrically opposed and incompatible. That is, our actions, which follow our intelligible being, are

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  37 essentially free, as there cannot be external determination or coercion that prevents human beings from choosing to act. Nevertheless, these actions are immediately and necessarily determined: indeed, in order to be able to determine itself, it [the intelligible being] would already have to be determined in itself, admittedly not from outside, which contradicts its nature, also not from inside through some sort of merely contingent or empirical necessity […]; but rather it would have to be its determination itself as its essence, that is, as its own nature.64 Thus, Schelling states that “individual action results from the inner necessity of a free being and, accordingly, from necessity itself, which must not be confused […] with empirical necessity based on compulsion.”65 That being the case, there is no room for contingency within human actions, meaning that, again, the principle of our actions cannot be determined by particular occurrences; if so, indeed, there would be no freedom at all. In other words, how could I consider myself free if my actions are always and continuously driven by contingency? That is, how could I be free if the primary conditions of my actions are constantly at the mercy of unstable and incidental circumstances? For this reason, Schelling is convinced that free is what acts only in accord with the laws of its own being and is determined by nothing else either in or outside itself [… Consequently,] this inner necessity is itself freedom; the essence of man is his own act; necessity and freedom are in one another as one being that appears as one or the other only when considered from different sides, in itself freedom, formally necessity.66 In order to better understand this point, it will be useful to briefly recall the historical background of Schelling’s philosophy. Schelling moves from the Kantian conceptions of radical evil and of dynamic matter,67 trying to fit them into a general Spinozan perspective, namely a monist and immanentist one. In other words, Schelling himself admits that the concept of free action following the intelligible nature of humankind is a Kantian one; however, it is impossible not to see the Spinozan tone assumed by Schelling’s statement. Indeed, the way in which Schelling defines the intelligible being of humankind, rather than reiterating the idea of conformity (or non-​conformity) to an alleged transcendent moral law, is not far from the Spinozan idea of conatus, according to which each living being tends to preserve itself and persevere in its own being.68 This is why an intelligible being can be understood only in individual terms: it has nothing to

38  Transcendence of Being? do with moral integrity or moral corruption but rather it concerns the conatus of each being, that is, its conformity to its own nature. Preserving and persevering in one’s own being is indeed a choice that is simultaneously free (as every single being wants to preserve and persevere in its own being) and necessary (as the inner tendency of the conatus does not allow any exceptions). Accordingly, it is incorrect to counterpose necessity and freedom, considering the former as a set of moral rules to be followed and the latter as the possibility (exclusively depending on our free will) to decide whether to follow or to break those rules. In this way, indeed, both freedom and necessity would turn into abstract and obscure concepts, responding more to a human need for a stable belief than to the effective reality of things. Once again, this is not about moral principles but rather about ontological forces. Therefore, human acting responds to the unfolding of ontological forces, through which we come into being and we concretely build our own experience through the struggle between the forces of good and evil (which I have already discussed in §1.2). Moreover, I freely choose to act, and to come into being and take part in the struggle between good and evil, primarily because I can freely choose only if I am; and, conversely, I am only if I freely choose to be what I (already) am. It follows that freedom and necessity cannot be considered in a dualistic way (that is, as ontologically separate), as they are deeply and essentially interrelated and are possible only if they presuppose each other. Here, also, the conatus comes in: that is, I am suggesting reading Schelling’s argument as a co-​ occurrence of freedom and necessity, which reciprocally ground each other. Put simply, there is only one possible choice (necessity), which responds to the exigencies of the conatus, and it coincides with the one I want to choose (freedom), because in order to be I cannot choose but be driven by my conatus. Otherwise, I would not be at all. By choosing to be, every human being makes a decision. This may seem self-​evident, but it is worth emphasising, as it gets straight to the core of the relation between freedom and temporality. As already shown in the previous sections, Schelling thinks that human beings originally come into life as undecided beings and that they have to “give effect” to their own being by determining themselves through a free decisional process. Moreover, Schelling argues that such a free decision cannot occur within time; it occurs outside of all time and, hence, together with the first creation (though as a deed distinct from creation). [… Therefore] the act, whereby [human] life is determined in time, does not itself belong to time but rather to eternity: it also does not temporally precede life but goes through time (unhampered by it) as an act which is eternal by nature.69

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  39 Sean McGrath further expands on this point by clarifying that Schelling speaks of a beginning outside of time, but we should not cling too tightly to the image of a prelapsarian state of being “prior to” the creation of the world; rather, we should understand that the inside of every moment is a timeless ground that can always appear as always past.70 In this regard, Charlotte Alderwick speaks about an atemporal essence that determines the agent’s (i.e., the single human being who acts) temporal life, bringing into play the notions of essence and form and their relationship. Indeed, she argues that “we should understand the relationship between atemporal essence and temporal acts in [Schelling’s] account of human freedom in the same way that we understand the relationship between the two terms in the law of identity,”71 namely, in a reciprocal implication rather than in a radical and insuperable opposition. This means that “for Schelling essence relies on and is determined by form to exactly the same extent that form relies on and is determined by essence;”72 so, on the one hand, “essence depends on form in order to exist at all,”73 as otherwise it would remain a mere abstraction, and on the other hand, “form is dependent on essence for its manner of being.”74 Put simply, the form is the concretisation and actualisation within time of the essence, which is a sort of guideline above time. This is also why “essence is not exhausted in form, therefore different forms will actualize different aspects of the same essence; and as form is not fully determined by essence different forms will actualize their essences in different ways.”75 To fully understand Schelling’s position, I will also rely on Melissa Shew’s point, according to which we have to consider Schelling’s idea of temporality not in a chronological way but rather in a kairological one. That is, the moment of choice is not a chronological one, falling within a series of regular intervals, meaning that it is neither at the beginning nor in the middle, nor at the end of a series. A kairological moment, rather, is a qualitatively different one; it cannot be assimilated to chronos (Χρόνος), but rather to kairos (καιρός). The latter is an ancient Greek word referring to the right, opportune, and critical moment. In Shew’s own words, the temporal dimension of kairos “opens an originary experience –​of the divine, perhaps, but also of life or being. Thought as such, kairos as a formative happening –​an opportune moment, crisis, circumstance, event –​ imposes its own sense of measure on time.”76 Furthermore, Shew is right to say that Schelling highlights a primordial feeling of co-​creation present in human life in accord with something beyond our merely happening to be in

40  Transcendence of Being? time. In reaching the “beginning of creation,” Schelling does not intend to speak of an original causal principle to which human life appeals; rather, his emphasis is on the way in which a feeling of freedom […] seizes us in our decisions and in our thinking.77 Accordingly, the traditional idea of linear and chronological time does not seem appropriate to grasp the meaning of Schelling’s account in all its complexity. That is, within Schelling’s speculation kairos serves as a measure that speaks to an opportune moment in which a person is at risk. Bounded between an “already” and a “not-​ yet” –​such is the uncanny time for philosophizing, a time at which […] all things are at risk.78 In other words, kairos is not subject to the domain of causality, that is, it is not to be thought of as either a cause or an effect; rather, it is the expression of the unity of the principles. Again, it is the timeless ground of temporality itself, as kairos is not subject to the flow of time (as we experience it) but rather it is its condition of possibility. Also, Shew connects the concepts of kairos and crisis. I build on her position in order to argue that that there is a strong connection between kairos and krisis (in the terms in which I have analysed it in the previous section): as krisis is that condition in which stasis is impossible and mutation is inevitable, so kairos is that moment in which the mutation and the change occur. That is, while krisis represents the inevitability of change, kairos is the moment when the inevitable happens; in fact, I have defined kairos as a critical moment, precisely in order to emphasise the theoretical bond that exists between krisis and kairos. However, kairos is also, as already mentioned, the right and opportune moment, meaning that it is not due only to necessity, that is, to the critical impossibility of stasis; rather, it includes in itself also the impetus of freedom, since, as already stated above, freedom and necessity presuppose and found each other. Therefore, I argue that the kairological conception of temporality is the expression of the unity of principles, namely of good and evil, as well as of freedom and necessity, which could not be grasped from a chronological point of view, as this unity does not occur in time but rather it grounds time itself. Additionally, the relation between kairos and krisis follows the model of the relation between freedom and necessity: indeed, kairos does not causally follow nor is determined by krisis but rather each presupposes the other in order to be effective. In the same way as I am only if I freely choose to be, and I can freely choose only what I am, so the inevitable and critical necessity of mutation can occur only through the right and opportune moment, and the right and opportune moment can happen only in

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  41 a situation of krisis and of the impossibility of stasis. In other words, the inevitability of change would be ineffective without being realised in the right, opportune, and critical moment, and the latter would be pointless without its necessary and unavoidable counterpart. However, this is not a cause-​and-​effect relationship but rather a relationship of coessentiality and of co-​occurrence, just like that between freedom and necessity and between good and evil. In such a context, as already said, temporality (intended kairologically) is that which holds everything together and expresses the absolute unity of the principles. The latter also adds a further important piece to the conception of absolute experience. That is, I argue that the possibility of experience as such, grounded (as we have already seen in the previous section) by the struggle between good and evil, is a kairological moment of experience itself. Indeed, the emergence of the conditions according to which experience becomes possible is nothing but the right, opportune, and critical moment for the genesis of experience itself, that is, for its original occurring as ab-​soluta, as free from any constraint from singular beings. In other words, absolute experience consists in a kairological moment, as it pertains to the abovementioned timeless ground of our actions, that as such can be conceived of (by us) only as always past. In this sense, then, I want to reiterate that referring to absolute and impersonal experience does not mean to implicitly admit the possibility of conceiving of experience itself independently of an experiencer. Once again, absolute and personal experience have to be conceived of as correlated to each other, that is, they have to presuppose each other in order to make sense and be possible. Hence, there is no personal experience (experience within time, i.e., chronologically) without ab-​solute experience (experience above time, i.e., kairologically), and vice versa; therefore, this correlation is analogous to the ones between good and evil, freedom and necessity, chronos and kairos, that is, it responds to the unity of principles, which grounds Schelling’s philosophy. Again, it is temporality, intended as co-​ essence and coincidence of chronology and kairology, that conceptually binds all this together. As stated by McGrath, Schelling remains convinced, from his earliest treatises to his last lectures, that all intelligible structure, mental or material, physical or metaphysical, finite or divine, is characterised by polarity, opposition, and the creative and dynamic tension between incommensurables, a tension which must not be abrogated in a spurious logic that presumes to deny the principle of contradiction.79 This statement is fundamental to correctly understanding Schelling’s thought: in the previous section, we have already seen how there is a tension

42  Transcendence of Being? that animates the struggle between good and evil and what the outcomes of this struggle are. On this basis, it should be easier to understand how the same kind of ontological and non-​dialectical tension pervades all the aspects of the real, from good and evil to freedom and necessity, and that temporality is the way in which the ontological tension unfolds itself. I will come back to the issues of the tension and the unity of the principles in the next section, which will be devoted to the relationship between freedom and intuition. At this point, however, there are a few more aspects that require closer examination. That is, as McGrath points out, for Schelling my beginning is never available to me. I did not experience it consciously, for there was no I to experience it, nor can I revisit it in consciousness. The beginning is the past that was never present. I cannot experience my birth, for my birth makes all my experiencing possible. The person becomes who he is in an unconscious decision for good or for evil. In a non-​temporal, eternally past, unconscious but free act, the person chooses the character that undergirds his temporal existence. He can only experience his free decision in time as something irretrievably past, that is, as necessity.80 In this sense, then, that which Schelling calls intelligible being (which has already been mentioned above) can be understood as the primordial act of our being, living, and experiencing; that is, as already said, such intelligible being is a natural inclination or, using Schelling words, a “basic disposition”81 that is common to all but differs according to individual manifestation. Moreover, as Schelling himself puts it, “this sort of free act, which becomes necessary, admittedly cannot appear in consciousness to the degree the latter is merely self-​awareness and only ideal, since it precedes consciousness just as it precedes essence, indeed, first produces it.”82 Accordingly, it becomes clear that the original act, in which both freedom and necessity operate, is not determined by our consciousness but rather has an unconscious basis that eludes our arbitrary control. Consequently, I argue that, alongside the ontological primacy of the unconscious within human experience (as is stated nearly unanimously by the current literature), consciousness can be defined and understood as the object of experience, rather than as its subject. I will return to this in the next section. In using the term “object,” I refer to its etymological meaning, that is, to the Latin ob –​(“in front of, against, towards”) and –​ iectum (“thrown, lying”). Similarly, with the term “subject,” I intend to recall its etymological roots, which are the Latin sub –​(“under”) and –​iectum. Therefore, an object is that which is thrown in front of, and lies against, something, whereas a subject is that which is thrown and lies under something. In this sense, following Schelling’s thought, consciousness cannot be considered

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  43 as the subject, but rather as the object of experience, as it does not lie under experience (i.e., it does not found experience or make it possible) but lies against and is thrown towards experience itself (i.e., it arises at a later stage and is produced by experience). In other words, consciousness is not the motor or the driving force of the original act but its product and final result. By using this terminology, I aim at radicalising Schelling’s position (but without distorting or misinterpreting it) in order to legitimate the conception of absolute experience (which I have already outlined). This also resonates with my interpretation of Schelling’s philosophy as an immanentist ontology, which I will develop in detail in Part 3 of this book. I now want to reiterate a distinction that might be useful to better understand the concept of absolute experience. I have implicitly assumed that the Schellingian concept of experience is twofold, meaning that it designates both empirical experience and that which I have defined as absolute experience. In the light of this distinction (which, once again, does not imply two ontologically different types of experience, but two moments of the same process), the unconscious and original act consists in providing the conditions of the possibility for experience as such, that is, ab-​ soluta and impersonal, while empirical and individual experience consists of conscious actions. Also, the unconscious and original act consists in the inescapable source and driving force of all our conscious actions; moreover, the former requires the latter for its realisation. Therefore, the unconscious and original act is the sub-​iectum not only of experience but of life in general, as it lies under (or underlies) life itself. Indeed, it is in the framework of the unconscious act, which in turn occurs within a kairological temporality, that the struggle between good and evil takes place; and I have already stated in the previous section how this struggle leads to absolute experience, that is, how it provides the conditions of the possibility for experience in general. I have also shown that Schelling is convinced that the occurrence of the struggle itself coincides with life, or, better, with the coming into life of Being. All of this, then, must be framed within Becoming, which I have already defined as the process that subtends and forms the ontological structure of every existing thing and of which God is the immanent architect, and whose processing is articulated by temporality, here intended as unity of chronos and kairos. Conversely, consciousness cannot be but the ob-​iectum of life and experience, as it emerges at a later stage. Consciousness, indeed, arises only when the unconscious act has already taken place, when the struggle between good and evil is already determined in one sense or another, when freedom and necessity have already crossed paths. However, as already stressed, the word “after” in the previous sentence does not indicate a chronological time, that is, a certain amount of time (minutes, days, years) afterwards but rather that primordial state of temporality that

44  Transcendence of Being? Shew identifies with kairos and that, precisely because of its primordiality, paradoxically manifests itself and keeps recurring as perpetually past. Moreover, as this form of temporality is qualitatively different from mere chronology, it seems to create a sort of temporal suspension, in which all the chronological dimensions of past, present, and future become blurred and almost indistinguishable. Only by referring to this kind of temporality is it possible to understand and explain the dynamics of unconsciousness and absolute experience. In this sense, in his unfinished work The Ages of the World, not far –​either chronologically or conceptually –​from the Freiheitsschrift,83 Schelling reiterates that “all consciousness is grounded on the unconscious and precisely on the dawning of the consciousness the unconscious is posited as the past of consciousness.”84 Indeed, as Judith Norman writes, “Schelling refers to time as ‘an organism’, a form of life that, like all forms of life, only develops by continually overcoming a resistant, unconscious ground –​the past.”85 Furthermore, Schelling says that time presents in itself a conflict between two principles, according to which something inhibiting, something conflicting, imposes itself everywhere: this Other is that which, so to speak, should not be and yet is, nay, must be. It is this No that resists the Yes, this darkening that resists the light, this obliquity that resists the straight, this left that resists the right, and however else one has attempted to express this eternal antithesis in images.86 Incidentally, the resisting moment within the field of ontology –​and especially in relation to freedom –​is of great importance for my argument, but I will deal with it in greater detail in Part 3 of this book. Concerning, instead, the structure of time, Schelling specifies that “it is a contradiction that something is one and the same and also the exact opposite of itself.”87 Indeed, this “essential contradiction would be immediately sublimated again, or, rather, transformed into something merely formal and literal, if the unity of the being were taken to mean that that which has been set apart are themselves one and the same.”88 In order to avoid this contradiction, Schelling claims that “God can never come to have being. God has being from eternity [… therefore,] from eternity the necessary is subject to freedom.”89 Borrowing Wirth’s words, Schelling resolves the contradiction about the unity of the principles by maintaining that “God, the whole, the cosmos, das Urwesen […] is the living tension of times within Being itself.”90 That is, Schelling ascribes to time the same structural tension of the principles that he developed in his Freiheitsschrift. Additionally, we can understand the term “subject” precisely as a sub-​iectum, that is, as that which lies

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  45 under our life and experience. This, then, recalls the interplay between freedom and necessity: the principle striving towards development is stimulated by freedom, while the principle striving against development is stimulated by necessity. This interplay and opposition, again, is analogous to the one between good and evil and is the source of life itself. As Norman points out, life begins with contraction, an envelopment that resists development. But this is only the beginning: life itself consists in a continual overcoming, a struggle against obstacles. It can only begin if an obstacle is placed at its ground, something to be continually overcome. The obstacle, moreover, must persist, or else the struggle that constitutes life would come to an end [… In this way,] the necessary course of time is thus freely produced, making present a manifest, comprehensible world.91 Therefore, the unity of principles, that is, the coincidentia oppositorum, is confirmed again: that is, the antithesis is not enough if, at the same time, the unity of the being is not known, or if it is not known that, indeed, the antithesis is one and the same, that it is the affirmation and the negation, that which pours out and that which holds on.92 Similarly, McGrath further clarifies that for Schelling nature in itself is a primordial unconditioned unity which divides itself into opposing forces in order to become manifest. One force is expansive and directed outward to infinity, the other is contractive and directed inward to a single point. The opposed forces collaborate in striving to bring about a return of the original unity and, at the same time, in blocking that return by producing finite beings. The end result is endless manifestation and concealment, ceaseless activity, which consists in tension (blockage of flow) and release (freeing of flow).93 This ceaseless activity is life itself, and from this interaction between forces, it emerges that which I have identified as absolute experience. In this section, I have introduced the idea that the ontological ground of our actions is an unconscious one, and that it is the sub-​iectum of our experience (i.e., lies under it). In this sense, moreover, the very struggle between good and evil, which (as I have said in the previous section) provides the conditions of the possibility for experience intended as ab-​ soluta and impersonal, can be equally defined in subjective terms, as it is

46  Transcendence of Being? in fact the sub-​iectum, that is, that which lies under, our personal experience in the world. In other words, the occurrence of the struggle, as it has been outlined in the previous section, creates a condition where experience (intended as ab-​soluta and impersonal experience) arises but is still not experienced (that is, it is not yet personal experience), so it provides the ground for, that is, lies under, life itself and its becoming personal and moving from potentiality to actuality (I have already shown that, for Schelling, life cannot be but personal –​even in the case of God). Accordingly, the ground, that is, the sub-​iectum of our actions, cannot be but unconscious and above time, coinciding with intelligible being, the primordial act that directs our actions and exceeds our conscious control. That being the case, consciousness, intended as mere self-​awareness, is not a feature of the ground of our life, that is, of the sub-​iectum; rather, it is produced by the latter, so that consciousness is the ob-​iectum –​it lies against our actions and our experience in the world. Put simply, it is not our consciousness that determines our way of acting and experiencing but rather it is our way of acting and experiencing that determines our consciousness. Moreover, I have also examined the relationship between freedom and necessity, which is, as Schelling outlines it, one of strict interrelation and reciprocal implication. That is, my actions are the result of my free choice, but at the same time my choice is tightly determined by the abovementioned intelligible being. This does not mean that freedom and necessity are the same thing (because they actually oppose each other) nor that their opposition makes them annul each other. Rather, they interplay with and oppose each other in order to allow life to emerge. This interrelation between freedom and necessity also leads us to a peculiar and suggestive conception of temporality: indeed, as I have repeatedly said, the primordial act and the original choice do not occur within time but above time. However, in such a context, we do not have to think of time in a chronological way but rather in a kairological way. In conclusion, the sub-​iectum itself can be considered in kairological terms, as its activity of grounding and providing the conditions of the possibility for experience in general occurs in turn above chronological time. Similarly, the ob-​iectum, that is, our consciousness, pertains to chronology, as it follows the primordial and original grounding moment. 1.4  Freedom and Intuition94 Within the discourse about freedom, Schelling’s conception of intuition cannot be ignored, as it represents a fundamental part of his philosophy. However, here, I will focus exclusively on the (cor)relation between freedom and intuition, as it will help us to better understand the nature

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  47 of freedom and its role within the goal of this work. Schelling maintains the Kantian distinction between empirical intuition, that is, a wholly contingent sense perception of a single object, and intellectual intuition, that is, the object necessarily joined to all empirical intuitions in advance of any particular perception.95 However, while Kant believes that intellectual intuition is inaccessible to human beings, Schelling is convinced (as we shall see in detail later in this section) that it represents the principal and higher instrument of philosophy itself. It should be noted that the German word for “intuition,” Anschauung, does not let itself be easily translated into English. Generally, it is translated “intuition,” but such term does not always carry forward the very literal meaning of the German Anschauung; hence, a preliminary terminological explanation is required. Etymologically, the term Anschauung derives from Anschauen (“to look at”), and it refers to a form of contemplation and to a careful observation of an object. Moreover, the word “intuition” etymologically refers to an insight and a direct and immediate cognition of an object: it derives from the Latin in –​(“at, on”) and –​tuere (“to look at, to watch over”), resulting in the act of looking at things in their immediacy. For Schelling, intellectual intuition is the main instrument of philosophy, since it consists in a form of intuition according to which we can have an immediate knowledge of an object; that is to say, through intellectual intuition, we can grasp all the existing things in their immediate presence. Not surprisingly, Schelling himself claims, in his 1803 Lectures on the Method of Academic Study (published in the same year as the second edition of his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature), that “without intellectual intuition [there is] no philosophy.”96 So, from now on, I will use the word “intuition” in this sense and so refer to intellectual intuition rather than to empirical or sensible intuition, as I consider the former more relevant to my topic and more congruent with the conception of Anschauung. Such an understanding of intuition also applies to Schelling’s conception of the absolute, in which all the things are in their immediate presence and in a fundamental and primordial unity, a unity which in turn is disclosed in intuition itself. However, philosophy only begins when this unity is disrupted through an arbitrary act of our reason, that is when being and thought –​and subject and object –​are understood as separate entities. Then, it is precisely in order to restore and grasp such absolute unity that intuition comes into question: indeed, the absolute cannot be empirically experienced by human beings, and consequently, it does not pertain to the domain of empirical intuition, understood in the Kantian sense. Rather, the absolute can be grasped only through intellectual intuition, which exceeds our consciousness, meaning that the latter yields to the absolute unity of principles. In other words, the restoration and reconciliation of

48  Transcendence of Being? the original unity operated by intellectual intuition has to be understood as that act through which being and thought and subject and object occur as coincident and unified with one another. Hence, as Alan White puts it, in the absolute, all is one; the “original conflict in human spirit” starts with the emergence of human individuals from the unity of the absolute […] and the philosophical conflict starts when philosophers reflect, not on the absolute itself, but rather on its relation to the world of human experience.97 However, the Absolute cannot be empirically experienced by human beings, and consequently, it does not pertain to the domain of empirical intuition, intended in the Kantian sense of the term; rather, the Absolute can be grasped only through intellectual intuition, which exceeds our consciousness, meaning that the latter, in the terms in which I defined it above, yields to the absolute unity of principles. This account characterises the philosophy of Schelling from its very beginning: indeed, in his Philosophical Letters, he argues that “intellectual intuition takes place when I cease to be an object for myself, when –​withdrawn into itself –​the intuiting subject is identical with the intuited.”98 Accordingly, “this [intellectual] intuition is distinguished from every sensuous intuition by the fact that it is produced by freedom alone.”99 At first, Schelling characterised intuition in a chiefly aesthetic way, with the aim of theorising a point of encounter between nature and spirit. In fact, in his System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), Schelling “introduces the philosophy of art, which demonstrates how the intellectual intuition of the identity of subject and object ‘become[s]‌objective’ through an aesthetic intuition –​the production of the work of art.”100 However, in his following works, and especially in the second edition of the Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1803) and the Freiheitsschrift (1809), Schelling develops a stronger ontological understanding of intuition, more solidly connected with freedom and through which it is possible to penetrate into the essence of things. Intellectual intuition plays an equally important role even in Schelling’s philosophy of nature. As stated with commendable clarity by Michael G. Vater, Schelling offers three overlapping definitions of intellectual intuition, as: (1) a generalised or God’s-​eye-​point-​of-​view version of what we call, from the outside, the ontological proof for divine existence; (2) a double-​coincidence of thought and being, so that intuitive thinking comprehends absolute reality and, conversely, reality expresses itself as intuition (“formally absolute cognition”) of the absolute; and

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  49 (3) immediate insight into the uniqueness of this point where cognition wholly comprehends its object. [… So] the philosopher deploys his constructions in a rational intuition that is the presupposition of all non-​temporal and non-​spatial thinking.101 In this regard, Schelling opens his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, saying that “philosophy is not something with which our mind, without its own agency, is originally and by nature imbued. It is throughout a work of freedom.”102 Indeed, if (as already mentioned) intellectual intuition is produced by freedom and is “the principle and ground of possibility of all philosophy,”103 then it follows that philosophy itself cannot but arise from freedom, that is, cannot be but an act of freedom as such. Therefore, “all intuition is an identification of thought and being and […] only in intuition as such is reality [… so that] the mere thought of the absolute […] is in no way yet a true cognition of the absolute.”104 As explained by Vater, Schelling’s point here is that “all cognition involves a convergence or interpenetration of factors that can be distinguished in analysis, but are real only when working together, unified in the immediate confluence of intuition.”105 Furthermore, in his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, Schelling also argues that how a world outside us, how a Nature and with it experience, is possible –​these are questions for which we have philosophy to thank; or rather, with these questions philosophy came to be. Prior to them humankind had lived in a (philosophical) state of nature. At that time man was still at one with himself and the world about him. In obscure recollection this condition still floats before even the most wayward thinker. Many never lose it and would be happy in themselves, if the fateful example did not lead them astray; for Nature releases nobody willingly from her tutelage, and there are no native sons of freedom. Nor would it be conceivable how man should ever have forsaken that condition, if we did not know that his spirit, whose element is freedom, strives to make itself free, to disentangle itself from the fetters of Nature and her guardianship, and must abandon itself to the uncertain fate of its own powers, in order one day to return, as victor and by its own merit, to that position in which, unaware of itself, it spent the childhood of its reason.106 The latter excerpt is emblematic of the way Schelling structures the relation between freedom and intuition. Philosophy, indeed, begins when humankind deliberately separates itself from the external world, exerting its own freedom, since Nature, as Schelling argues, tends to preserve the

50  Transcendence of Being? original unity, rather than break it. This separation, that is, is a purely human exigency and as such cannot but result in the restoration of the unity itself, as this unity can be broken only theoretically and in order to allow humankind to better understand its practical indissolubility. In other words, this separation is means and not end, as Schelling identifies in (capitalised) Nature the coincidence of opposites, the identification of the principles. “Originally in man there is an absolute equilibrium of forces and consciousness. But he can upset this equilibrium through freedom, in order to reestablish it through freedom. But only in equilibrium of forces there is health.”107 I have already shown how the upsetting of the original equilibrium has an important role also in Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift –​and particularly with regard to the struggle between good and evil. Philosophy, then, is not mere reflection, which for Schelling “is a spiritual sickness,”108 but has to conciliate reflection itself with action; that is, it is not passive contemplation but an activity, that is, the act of thinking, a sort of inner “being active” of humankind that complies with its inner free necessity (and necessary freedom). In other words, philosophy presupposes the separation of action and reflection only in order to reconcile them through freedom; or, more to the point, philosophy is the moment where action and reflection are the one and indistinguishable act, of which intuition is the highest expression. Therefore, philosophy “assigns to reflection only a negative value. It proceeds from that original divorce to unite once more, through freedom, what was originally and necessarily united in the human mind, i.e., forever to cancel out this separation.”109 The starting point of philosophy is this separation, or, better, this attempt at separation of the original unity but also “a necessary evil, a discipline of errant reason,”110 that is, an arbitrary disunion of subject and object, mind and matter, ideal and real. However, this separation, far from being a definitive and irreparable destruction, is instrumental for a final reconciliation. Hence, Schelling argues, when I question how I can have ideas, I raise myself above ideas themselves and perceive myself as originally and necessarily free. Indeed, “through this question itself I become an entity which, independent of external things, has being in itself.”111 This statement underlines again the active core of humankind, refusing any passivity; moreover, the being that I become is not something that arises ex novo but precisely the abovementioned restoration of the original unity of the principles. Thus, recalling the conception of Becoming (already shown in the previous section) and the relation between freedom and necessity, I do not become something else than what I used to be but rather I become what I already and originally am. For Schelling, this is a further argument in support of his monism, which I have already outlined in the previous section.

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  51 Moreover, by raising myself above external things, I access the domain of intuition. For this reason, borrowing White again, Schelling maintains that there can be no rationally compelling theory of the absolute. Etymologically, “theory” is closely bound to the notion of seeing; to theorise is to look at something, either physically or with the mind’s eye, and to describe and explain what is seen.112 Accordingly, intellectual intuition, which (as already mentioned) is the highest moment of philosophy, coincides with the moment in which there is no distinction between the seer and the seen. The root of this conception can be found in Schelling’s 1795 Philosophical Letters, where he argues that intuition [Anschauung] as such is usually explained as the most immediate experience [… as well as] the closer to disappearance. […] Still, as long as intuition is intent upon objects, that is, as long as it is sensuous intuition, there is no danger of losing oneself. […] However, where sensuous intuition ceases, where everything objective vanishes, there is nothing but infinite expansion without a return into self. Should I maintain intellectual intuition I would cease to live: I would go “from time into eternity.”113 There are two relevant aspects that I want to stress from the latter passage. First, I consider it as providing further support for my argument on the objective nature of self-​consciousness, namely that the raising of oneself above external things of which Schelling is speaking about has to be understood as the withdrawal of the ob-​iectum, that is, of consciousness itself in its lying against our experience. In other words, as already said, being the Anschauung, the vanishing of everything objective and, as White puts it, the vanishing of consciousness itself, then it follows that, once more, consciousness is not the subjective moment of experience, that is, it does not lie under experience and cannot be understood in subjective terms nor can it be the grounding moment, the sub-​iectum, of experience. Accordingly, since in intellectual intuition, there is no longer any difference between the seer and the seen, we are faced with the vanishing of the differentiation of the two opposing sides, resulting in an absolute sub-​iectum, which includes the ob-​iectum in itself rather than completely annihilating it. The second aspect I want to stress, which is related to the first one, is that the going “from time to eternity,” as Schelling puts it, can be understood in the same way I outlined the conceptual distinction between chronology and kairology. In this respect, indeed, Schelling argues that “we

52  Transcendence of Being? awaken from intellectual intuition as from a state of death,”114 meaning not that we arise from an actual condition of lack of life or of nothingness but rather that the very act of intuition, of the absolute coincidence of sub-​iectum and ob-​iectum, pertains to a different dimension of temporality. This dimension, in other words, is the kairological one, so that the Anschauung itself, that is the act of looking at things in their immediate occurrence, can be defined as the kairological event (in the terms by which I defined it in the previous section), which, as such, cannot be grasped within the chronological flowing of time. In addition, Schelling says that “we awaken through reflection, that is, through a forced return to ourselves,”115 so laying the groundwork for the conceptions he will develop both in his Naturphilosophie and in his Freiheitsschrift. In this respect, White points out that “intuition is always followed by reflection, vision is always followed by the attempt to understand what has been seen. Reflection on the absolute poses unique problems, however, for in the vision of the absolute, nothing is seen.”116 That is to say, nothing is seen because there is nothing external, ontologically separated and differentiated from the seer to be seen; conversely, the intuition results in an absolute vision that grasps everything that is in the very act of looking at them in their immediacy. As McGrath explains, “Intuition” signifies immediacy between knower and known [… so that] there is no gap between the intellect and the absolutely intelligible; they are, to use Schelling’s preferred term, “indifferent.” Intellectual intuition, therefore, could never be reflective; it is not a self-​conscious act, not a representation accompanied by “I think.” […, it] is a non-​ dual state of knowing, which is just as accurately described as a state of being, the non-​objective condition of the possibility of reflectively cognizing an object, and the a priori horizon of identity within which things can show themselves as what they are.117 After all, I have already shown that Schelling is convinced that mere reflection, if not accompanied by action, is a spiritual sickness, as reflection alone is incapable of overcoming the state of passivity. Drawing a parallel, the act of intuition can be considered as the sub-​iectum of knowledge, while the reflection, conceived of as a self-​conscious representation accompanied by “I think,” is its ob-​iectum. Building on Vater’s definition I mentioned above, according to which Schelling’s conception of intuition also refers to the God’s-​eye point of view, I argue that Schelling maintains this immanentist position both in his Freiheitsschrift and in his late philosophical reflection –​as I explain in greater detail in Part 3 of this work. Indeed, Schelling writes that “God looks at the things in themselves,”118

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  53 where “to look at” is the translation for Anschauen, from which is derived Anschauung, the meaning of which has been already discussed above. In this sense, God intuits things in themselves, looks at them in their immediacy, meaning that there is, again, no difference between the seer and the seen. The latter is a further element in support of Schelling’s monism and immanentism; that is, it is a further argument for the immanence of things in God and against the transcendence and ontological detachment of God from things themselves. Consequently, in the act of intuiting and looking at things in themselves, God intuits and looks at the Godhead. Therefore, as Schelling writes in the Freiheitsschrift, only the eternal is in itself as based in itself, will, freedom. […] So little does immanence in God contradict freedom that precisely only what is free is in God to the extent it is free, and what is not free is necessarily outside of God to the extent that it is not free.119 This clearly shows how freedom and intuition are strictly interrelated within Schelling’s speculation; to some extent, it is also possible to understand intuition as the immanent ontological process of freedom par excellence. In fact, to be more precise, intuition is the only act capable of grasping the relation between freedom and necessity, namely their reciprocal implication, interrelation, and undifferentiation into the absolute, which has already been explained in the previous section. In this regard, I would add that intuition, intended as looking at things in their very ontological core, is the only way through which we can render the real interplay that occurs between freedom and necessity. Again, in this process, reflection as such is not enough and it also requires the activity of freedom in order to make intuition possible. Borrowing Wirth’s words, “reflection must first return from the periphery to which it first withdrew as it breaks the grip of the seeming iron cage of necessity that it had originally identified with nature.”120 At this point, however, a clarification about the meaning of “God’s-​eye point of view” is required. I have already shown that Schelling considers God neither as a transcendent and supernatural demiurge nor as a provider of incontrovertible moral decrees but rather as an immanent living being that is subject to the conditions of life itself. Accordingly, Schelling maintains the immanence of things in God and the idea that God grasps in Godself the absolute unity of principles, that is, of good and evil, subject and object, ideal and real. That is to say, God grasps the original unity as God is the original unity, according to which the Anschauung pertains to the field of being, rather than the one of knowing. Also, as already said, Schelling considers philosophy as an arbitrary break of the unity of principles, whose only goal is to restore the unity itself. So, it follows that,

54  Transcendence of Being? precisely by virtue of the immanent nature of God and the ontological nature of intuition, the reconciliation of the unity of principles cannot be but the looking at things from the God’s-​eye point of view. In other words, taking the God’s-​eye point of view does not mean abstracting from the concreteness of the material world and assuming a sort of supernatural position; rather, it means to look at things from inside, that is, from their ontological core, as grasping the original unity means being the original unity. This means, as already said, that the unity and undifferentiation of the principles is not an arbitrary or a merely theoretical declaration, but rather a response to the original state of Being, that is, to Ursein. Therefore, grasping the original unity and undifferentiation of principles is not a cognitive activity but recalls the way in which all existing things are; put simply, looking at things in their immediacy does not mean to know or understand things in a certain way, but to be in a certain way, namely to be in conformity with the original unity of principles. Thus, being this original unity, the Godhead, the Anschauung can only be possible then from the God’s-​eye point of view. Moreover, it also emerges that Schelling, as already mentioned, while he maintains the Kantian distinction between empirical and intellectual intuition, is convinced (unlike Kant) that the latter is accessible to human beings. This also implies that when Schelling speaks about the ontological core of things, he does not mean to refer to the Kantian noumenon, that is, to an object as it is in itself independent of the subject who knows it. Rather, Schelling is outlining, once again, a form of radical monism, according to which the subject and the object of knowledge cannot be conceived of as ontologically detached from each other. The “thing-​in-​itself,” then, is not something essentially unattainable for our finite minds, but rather coincides with Ursein, that is, primal Being, and then reflects the inner structure of Being, which characterises and conditions (or better: which is) even our being human. Therefore, in the light of the above, I want to reaffirm that it is only through intuition that we can grasp the indissoluble unity of freedom and necessity and that we can acknowledge that the unity of principles, initially broken by humankind in order to make philosophy possible, can only be a means to and cannot but result in a reconciliation and undifferentiation of the opposites. Accordingly, due to the relation between freedom and necessity (analysed in the previous section), it must be acknowledged that this process, that is, the break of the unity and its subsequent restoration, is at the same time both free and necessary. In other words, breaking the unity is a free act performed by humankind, but at the same time it responds to an inner necessity, namely that original tendency to act in a certain way, or that which has been defined by Alderwick (as mentioned in the previous section) as the atemporal essence that determines the agent’s temporal life.

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  55 That being the case, it follows that, when it comes to the very core of human actions, there can be no room for contingency, intended as mere and absolute fortuitousness. Indeed, Schelling argues that freedom is not to be understood “as a wholly undetermined capacity to will one or the other of two contradictory opposites, without determining reasons but simply because it is willed.”121 Accordingly, contingency is impossible [since] it contests reason as well as the necessary unity of the whole; and, if freedom is to be saved by nothing other than the complete contingency of actions, then it is not to be saved at all.122 In addition, contingency itself cannot be a constituent part of the process of intuition; or rather, to put it simply, intuition is not (and cannot in any way be) a contingent process. If it were to be so, indeed, philosophy would be at risk, since it would be grounded on a very unstable and weak base –​ it should not be forgotten that Schelling is convinced that intuition is the ground of all philosophy. Also, by claiming that philosophy is a work of freedom, as already said, Schelling does not mean to say that it is a merely arbitrary discipline or a fanciful product of human imagination; on the contrary, he means to strongly claim that philosophy itself is the very expression of freedom, which in turn is strictly interrelated with necessity. Therefore, philosophy is the highest form of knowledge, as it is the only way to grasp the absolute unity of the principles, which would otherwise be inaccessible. In other words, if intuition means (as argued above) looking at things in themselves from the God’s-​eye point of view, then the core of philosophy itself lies precisely in this divine form of looking at things. Consequently, intuition raises humankind to a greater level of potency, in the sense that it expands humankind’s “visual field” and allows human beings to look at things in greater depth, namely at how things are in themselves. So, in a way, it is possible to say that Schelling uses the concept of intuition in order to make humankind capable of looking from the God’s-​eye point of view, overcoming Kant’s statement according to which intuition exclusively pertains to God and is never accessible to human beings. It follows that pretending that the act of looking at things in their immediacy is a contingent process is simply untenable. It is not possible, in fact, to argue that the process through which we can grasp the very essence of things is one of contingent nature, that is, casual and fortuitous, because if that were to be the case, freedom would be annihilated and our actions would be entirely determined by external causes. I will get back to the issue of causality in the next section, but what needs to be said now is that Schelling’s immanentism is another argument against contingency.

56  Transcendence of Being? That is, since all things are in God and nothing is possible outside Ursein (conceived of as that will that coincides with primal Being –​i.e., as God’s will), any form of contingency is automatically excluded. Indeed, the acceptance of contingency as the core of human actions would imply the admission that the primal cause of our actions is an external one, that is, outside and beyond Ursein –​but that is impossible, according to what I have argued in §1.1. Hence, given that the core of our actions has to be necessarily free, that is, at once free and necessary, it must be acknowledged that intuition constitutes the only possible way to grasp this unity of the principles, according to which the seer and the seen become one and the same thing. Also, this is precisely the reason why Schelling considers intuition as the ground of all philosophy: that is, only through grasping, or better through looking at things in their immediacy, is it possible to give philosophy a stable foundation and to fulfil its function, thereby restoring the (necessary) unity of principles after the original (free) break. In this sense, any other foundation is purely arbitrary and inconsistent, as well as unable to look at things in their immediacy. Therefore, borrowing Dalia Nassar’s words, if intellectual intuition is truly non-​objective, then there cannot be any difference or objectification between the knower and the known. Thus, what is intuited has to be identified with they who intuit, so that neither of them can be reduced to an object –​or a subject.123 That is –​it is worth repeating –​since intuition means looking at things from a God’s-​eye point of view, it would be mistaken to reduce the latter to a mere object or a mere subject, that is, solely to the knower or to the known object, to the seer or the seen, where “or” implies an exclusive disjunction that radically dismisses the unity and identity of the two sides. In other words, according to what has already been said, intuition can only occur as the grasping of the absolute unity of the principles and the absolute coincidence of knowing agent and known object, subject and object. This conception, moreover, has also some implications for the notion of causality, which I will consider in the next section. To sum up, in this section I have argued that for Schelling the Anschauung, namely intellectual intuition, is the highest form of knowledge, as it coincides with the act of looking at things in their immediacy from a God’s-​eye point of view (building on Vater’s definition). This means that intuition is the only way through which we can effectively grasp the unity of the principles and the undifferentiation of sub-​iectum and ob-​ iectum, seer and seen, knowing agent and known object. Accordingly, I have argued that this act of looking at things in their essence, namely intuiting, things, is the kairological moment of knowledge, since Schelling

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  57 conceives Anschauung itself as a moving “from time into eternity,” that is, as an looking at things from the God’s-​eye point of view, which cannot occur in chronological time but is conceivable only kairologically (in the sense, I defined it in §1.3). Finally, I have also claimed that this account further legitimises Schelling’s monism and immanentism and at the same time excludes any possibility of contingency within human actions. This is even more evident when we recall the Schellingian conception of Ursein, which decidedly excludes both contingency and the transcendence of the principles. Furthermore, all of the above is due to the unity and undifferentiation of the principles, which, as has repeatedly been stated, is the leitmotif and the recurring pattern of Schelling’s philosophy. 1.5  Freedom and Causality In order to complete the picture of Schelling’s ontological account of evil, his conception of causality, particularly in its relationship with freedom, still needs to be considered. Therefore, I now focus on the argument (that Schelling outlines in his Freiheitsschrift) according to which his conception of pantheism does not exclude the possibility of freedom, and the idea of causality that follows from such a pantheistic conception is not a mechanistic and deterministic one but rather an organic one. That is, precisely because Schelling maintains a strong conception of freedom within his philosophical system, then even cause-​and-​effect dynamics must reflect the structure of freedom itself (in the terms in which I defined it in previous sections). On top of that, I maintain that the argument from the Freiheitsschrift is in continuity with that which Schelling argued in his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, in order both to show the internal coherence of his thought and to further stress the organic and immanent nature of causality in its relationship with freedom. Schelling is convinced that the very fact of being caused does not rule out the freedom of those who are caused. As Schelling himself puts it in the Freiheitsschrift, it is not inconsistent […] that he who is God is at the same time begotten and vice versa; just as little is it a contradiction that he who is the son of a man is also himself a man. On the contrary, it would be far more contradictory, if the dependent or consequent were not independent.124 This recalls the previously outlined arguments concerning the immanent nature of God: indeed, I have already shown that Schelling clearly argues that God is life, and as such Godself must be subject to the dynamics of life itself, namely to suffering and Becoming.125 This leads us to understand

58  Transcendence of Being? the notion of causality in a very organic sense, which for Schelling means that causality itself is not given as a chain of events, in which the (chronologically) previous one determines the following one; rather, it is an act of free generation, in which the two terms reciprocally cause each other, that is, they are simultaneously cause and effect. This is why God begets and is begotten at the same time; otherwise, life itself could not perpetuate itself and would not be possible at all. It is no coincidence, then, that Schelling depicts the relation between causality and freedom through the image of a living organism, writing that “an individual body part, like the eye, is only possible within the whole of an organism; nonetheless, it has its own life for itself, indeed, its own kind of freedom.”126 That is, every part of an organism must necessarily be free and contribute to the achievement of the freedom of the whole organism; if this were not to be the case, there would be no organism, but a mechanism, in which case there would be no room for freedom. Indeed, I have already said (in §1.1) that Schelling believes that a proper philosophical system cannot be built without freedom, as in that case it would be dogmatic and unreliable. Hence, freedom is still a fundamental and inescapable moment of Schelling’s ontology, since every part of an organism cannot contribute to the life of the organism itself but freely. Moreover, Schelling argues that every part of the organism “obviously proves [its life and freedom] through the disease of which it is capable.”127 This clearly recalls what I have already discussed in §1.2 about the nature of disease and the concept of krisis. That is, through its own freedom, a single part of an organism can cause a change in the whole organism: in this sense, I argue (in the light of the conclusions of the previous sections) that this kind of freedom is a critical one, as it brings the whole organism to a condition where stasis is not possible and change is inevitable (which, again, is the very meaning of the concept of the Greek κρίσις, as well as the German krisis). In other words, the kind of freedom that Schelling attributes to the part of an organic body does not contradict the freedom of the whole organism, neither does the latter contradict the freedom of its single parts. Rather, they reciprocally cause each other, and could not be otherwise: indeed, first, as already said, according to Schelling, it is not possible to conceive of life without freedom; and secondly, it is not possible to conceive of an organism without attributing life (and then freedom) to all its components. Finally, the organism Schelling is talking about is not exclusively a human being but also God Godself, so his organic conception embraces all the modalities of Being. Accordingly, Schelling provides a notion of causality that is strictly interrelated with his notion of freedom. Hence, I argue that such an account of causality can be better understood through the concepts of krisis and kairos. Indeed, if we accept that every part of an organism has a critical

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  59 freedom, as it brings the whole organism to the impossibility of stasis and the inevitability of change, then also the notion of causality has to convey the same structure. Furthermore, recalling the relation between krisis and kairos (which I explained in §1.3), I argue that causality should be placed in the kairological temporal dimension, rather than in the chronological one. Rather than repeating what the difference is between kairological and chronological temporality, I will simply argue that Schelling’s account of causality does not stretch across chronological time, but occurs as that critical, right and opportune moment in which cause and effect imply and produce each other. Put simply, causality here is not a chronological chain of causes and effects, but the emerging of the free interplay and interaction between an organism and its parts (as well as between the parts themselves). That is, again, causality is not a lifeless mechanism, but an organic dynamism. This also recalls the unity and identity of principles, which is, as I have already shown in §1.3, above chronological time. In this sense, it needs to be specified that when Schelling talks about the unity and identity of principles, he is reinterpreting the law of identity in a very pantheistic and ontological sense. That is, Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt explain that, for Schelling, the law of identity implies “that the predicate is contained in the subject [… that is,] the subject contains all its possible predicates; [… therefore] the subject merely needs to be unfolded.”128 Again, Schelling’s account stresses the primordial nature of the identity of principles, which are not only logically identical but also ontologically identical; this reading is further legitimised both by the repeatedly mentioned immanence of things in God and by the nature of Ursein, that is, primal Being. Furthermore, the subject that contains all its predicates, and that just needs to unfold itself in order to be, is nothing but the sub-​iectum, which I outlined in previous sections, namely that which “lies under” our life and experience. Accordingly, “the unity of this law [of identity] is an immediately creative one.”129 meaning that it is part of the process of God’s creation (in the sense in which I defined it above); that is, such unity is inherent in the very ontological structure of reality, rather than being a mere logical construct. Therefore, it is creative itself, in the sense that it is neither mere cause nor mere effect, but reproduces the abovementioned dynamics of causality in relation to freedom. Indeed, Schelling argues that “however one may conceive of the way in which beings proceed from God, the way can never be mechanical, not mere production or installation whereby the product is nothing for itself;”130 rather, beings dynamically flow from Godself into the process of Becoming. Thus, the procession [Folge] of things from God is a self-​revelation of God. But God can only reveal himself to himself in what is like him, in free

60  Transcendence of Being? beings acting on their own, for whose Being is no ground other than God but who are as God is.131 The German term Folge is particularly significant in the latter sentence, where it has been translated with “procession,” but it also means “consequence,” “succession,” and “sequence” (in the mathematical sense). So, God’s self-​revelation, as well as God’s creation, is the immanent Folge of things from Godself: indeed, if (as already said) the creation is nothing but the actualisation of the Real, then the whole process is characterised as a necessary self-​affirmation of the Godhead. That is to say, things proceed from God as a natural con-​sequence, or as a “mathematical” sequence (which is in turn a natural sequence and not an arbitrary one). The latter is even truer if we recall Schelling’s immanentism: if, indeed, things are immanent in God and God is not ontologically detached from them, then the Folge of things from God is an immanent process as well, meaning that their way of being naturally follows the immanent nature of Godself. This is, according to Schelling, the only proper way to deal with the nature of creation and God’s revelation; otherwise, we would fall back into a transcendentist and supernatural conception of God, which is inadequate to give a truthful account of reality. Such an immanentist conception follows from Schelling’s rejection of the old-​fashioned Platonic “two-​world metaphysics.” Indeed, as Daniel Whistler points out, in Schelling’s Identitätphilosophie, there is a rejection of the idea according to which “pre-​existing archetypes produce inferior copies of themselves, and these subordinate and dependent entities constitute the material world.”132 Indeed, “all there is is the absolute and the absolute does not produce anything else,”133 which in turn means that the abovementioned Folge cannot be but an absolute process. In other words, saying that only the Absolute exists and that it does not produce anything else but the Absolute itself means that things are immanent in God and that God Godself is within nature, rather than being ontologically separate from it. Therefore, for Schelling, immanentism (and the following rejection of any metaphysical transcendentism) is the only suitable philosophical approach to avoid abstractions and maintain the concreteness of concepts (like freedom, intuition, good, evil, etc.) by binding them to a solid and material account of nature. This is also why, once again, the roots of this idea of causality can be found in Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Indeed, in Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, Schelling argues that every organic product carries the reason of its existence in itself, for it is cause and effect of itself. No single part could arise except in this whole, and this whole itself consists only in the interaction of the parts.

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  61 In every other object the parts are arbitrary; they exist only insofar as I divide. Only in organised beings are they real; they exist without my participation.134 Thus, an organism’s cause and effect cannot be separated, as the organism is simultaneously cause and effect of itself, in the same way as the parts of an organism exist only in relation to the whole organism itself. In other words, according to Schelling’s argument, to conceive of cause and effect separately would be as incorrect as to conceive of the parts of an organism separately from the whole organic system they form; on the contrary, cause and effect can be conceived of only in their mutual implication and interaction, and the parts of an organism can be conceived of only within the whole organism itself. This account of causality follows, once again, from Schelling’s presupposition of the unity of principles, according to which every organization is therefore a whole; its unity lies in itself; it does not depend on our choice whether we think of it as one or many. Cause and effect is something evanescent, transitory, mere appearance (in the usual sense of the word).135 In this respect, when he mentions appearance “in the usual sense of the word,” Schelling is referring to the German Erscheinung, which is a Kantian term referring both to appearance and to phenomenon. Indeed, Kant argues that appearance is not just a mere semblance or an illusion, but a datum that affects our sensible faculty;136 it is also the foundation of sensible intuition, in opposition to the noumenon, the unattainable thing-​ in-​itself and hypothetical object of intellectual intuition (which exclusively belongs to God, and in turn is inaccessible to human beings). As already said, Schelling does not endorse the Kantian argument about intellectual intuition, but he maintains the idea that the Erscheinung is not just a mirage due to the unreliability of our senses. That is, he argues that the division of cause and effect is transitory and evanescent in the sense that it does not correspond to the unity of the principles and that it must be recognised as arbitrary and mistaken, but still necessary. Put differently, Schelling is clearly not endorsing some sort of mysticism, that is, he is not claiming that our senses are inherently illusory and misleading, and that only through detaching ourselves from the sensible world can we reach the truth. Rather, Schelling is aiming at pointing out that the Erscheinung, the evanescent and transitory moment, is a necessary one in order to restore the unity of principles. As I have already shown in §1.4, Schelling is convinced that the very beginning of philosophy is a free act of disruption of the original unity, which in turn cannot but result

62  Transcendence of Being? in its final restoration. Hence, it follows that the Erscheinung has to be understood not as something misleading and to be avoided, but rather as the negative and necessary moment through which philosophy itself can become positive (I will return to negative and positive philosophy in Chapter 6). Simply put, the only way through which we can grasp the original unity of principles is philosophy, meaning that the unity has to be disrupted and be restored; accordingly, without Erscheinung, there is no unity of principles either. Moreover, the abovementioned original unity of the principles, according to Schelling, implies that cause and effect relate to each other as inseparable parts of the same process. However, when we break the unity they appear, momentarily and transitorily, as separated (as is the case of freedom and necessity, ideal and real, good and evil); but, once the Erscheinung is overcome, the unity is restored, and we can look at things for what they really are (as already said in §1.4). Indeed, Schelling claims that such absolute unity “is inexplicable in terms of matter as such. For it is a unity of the concept, a unity that exists only in relation to an intuiting and reflecting being.”137 Bearing in mind that for Schelling (as already said earlier in this chapter) philosophy is not only mere reflection and that intuiting is equivalent to looking at things in themselves, namely from a God’s-​eye point of view, then we can conclude that the intuiting and reflecting being of whom Schelling is speaking is not only humankind, but the Godhead. Moreover, this unity, Schelling maintains, cannot be explained through the concept of a transcendent divine intelligence, that is, it cannot be understood as an effect whose cause is a supernatural purposiveness. Indeed, accepting a supernatural purposiveness would be equivalent to saying that the purpose of nature is imposed on nature itself from outside or above; consequently, creation itself, as Schelling conceives of it, would be impossible, and God would not be the creator but the mere artificer of nature. In other words, by doing this, “you destroy all idea of Nature from the very bottom, as soon as you allow the purposiveness to enter her from without, through a transfer from the intelligence of any being whatever.”138 That is, Schelling is convinced that a supernatural intelligence, and with it a supernatural purposiveness, would lead us to conceive of the relation between cause and effect in a transcendent way, and consequently to accept a form of dualism. Yet, as I have repeatedly said, Schelling constantly advocates for immanentism and monism, which remain the grounding strongholds of his thought. The latter conception is also present in Schelling’s Presentation of My System of Philosophy (published in 1801, i.e., four years after Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature and two years before the second edition of that work –​in which, as already said, Schelling made some substantial

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  63 changes –​but also eight years before the Freiheitsschrift). Indeed, in §52, he writes, The essence of absolute identity, insofar as it is immediately the ground of reality, is power. –​This follows from the concept of power. For every immanent cause of reality is designated a power. But if absolute identity is the immediate ground of a reality, it is immanent cause as well. This is so because it is really only the immanent cause of a being.139 Here, it is impossible not to notice once again the Spinozan style of Schelling’s argument:140 indeed, Schelling understands the concept of power in a very Spinozan sense, namely as that inner force that animates the conatus. Thus, that being the immanent cause of reality, external causality and transcendent purposiveness must be excluded from Schelling’s philosophy. Indeed, he clearly argues that “absolute identity is not cause of the universe, but the universe itself. For everything that is, is absolute identity itself.”141 That is, as already mentioned, the law of identity inheres the fundamental ontological structure of the universe, that is, the real itself. Consequently, such an account cannot but result into a monist and immanentist conception of causality, according to which every being carries its own cause in itself and cannot be caused by something external. In conclusion, I argue that Schelling’s conception of causality also has implications about the relation between agents and acts. That is, on the one hand, Schelling rejects any mechanist conception of causality, and on the other hand, he also rejects the idea of God as purest actuality. As he himself puts it, “nothing can be achieved with such abstract concepts of God as actus purissimus [purest actuality], [… as it is equivalent] to remov[ing] God quite far indeed from all of nature,”142 which is simply inconceivable for Schelling, as I have repeatedly shown. In the previous sentence, the actus purissimus is understood by Schelling as a pure and abstract act with no agent, which for him is the same as postulating an abstract principle of reality from which life emanates, which in turn is passively received by “inferior beings.” Similarly, Schelling cannot accept the account according to which God is the purest and highest agent, whose acts are just a secondary moment, that is, a mere effect of God’s agency. This also recalls the Schellingian idea of philosophy, namely the idea according to which (as already said in §1.1) in order to correctly philosophise an integration between idealism and realism is needed. As I have already shown above, Schelling’s idea of causality does not have to be understood as a chronological chain of causes and effects, but rather as a kairological occurrence where cause and effect imply and generate each other. Accordingly, I argue that the relation between act and agent works in the same way: that is, neither of the two is merely cause

64  Transcendence of Being? nor merely effect of the other, but rather they emerge as a kairological co-​occurrence. This, of course, does not mean agent and act are blended together into one and indistinguishable thing, but rather that they cannot be conceived of or occur without each other. Put simply, there is no act without agent, but there is also no agent without act. This could seem self-​evident, but it is actually a complex statement, as it does not correspond to the common belief according to which my acts are nothing more than the effects of my actions, but it means something different. Indeed, I am arguing that claiming that there is no act without agent means that agents cannot have ontological and causal priority over their acts, and that agents are such only through their acts and not because they fully determine them. Furthermore, for Schelling, an act is to be understood as a process in which reality and Being actualise themselves. However, as already mentioned, this does not mean that it excludes or is diametrically opposed to potentiality, but rather includes and resolves potentiality in itself, that is, by actualising it. After all, I have already mentioned that God’s creation is an act, and more specifically the act of God’s self-​revelation; therefore, it would be inconceivable, according to Schelling’s position, to attribute to God an act that does not include and resolve potentiality in itself, namely a partial act that opposes itself to potentiality rather than actualise it. Moreover, the unity of principles can only take place through an absolutising act, namely an act able to resolve in itself all the contrapositions that we have progressively encountered in Schelling’s philosophy (e.g., good and evil, freedom and necessity, contraction and expansion). Finally, I also argue that it is possible to rely on the latter argument to conclude that within Schelling’s philosophical system it is not the agent that grounds the act and makes it possible, but rather the act that grounds the agent and makes it possible. Indeed, if God’s creation is the very source of everything that is, and being the creation itself the act of God’s self-​ revelation, it follows that that which produces reality itself is nothing but the abovementioned absolutising act. However, this does not mean that God coincides with the actus purissimus, which for Schelling is nothing but a mere conceptual abstraction, as it disposes of any concrete and natural (i.e., within nature) grounding of Godself; the act of creation and of self-​revelation, indeed, has an agent, namely the Godhead. Therefore, God is, at the same time, both the agent and the act, both the cause and the effect of reality. Similarly, in God there is the coincidence of freedom and necessity, good and evil, form and substance; that is, as repeatedly said, God is the living unity of the principles. I will return to God’s creation and revelation in Chapter 6. To sum up, in this section, I have shown how Schelling’s conception of causality is strictly related to freedom, in the sense that he is convinced

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  65 that all caused entities preserve their freedom and cannot be conceived without freedom itself. That is, Schelling outlines an organic conception of causality, arguing that causality and freedom relate to each other in the same way in which all the parts of an organism relate to the organism itself. Indeed, every part of an organism must preserve its own life and freedom, which is the only way it can contribute to the freedom of the organism as a whole. This is not a contradiction as, Schelling points out, if the parts of an organism were not free but determined by an external force, then the organism itself would not be free but determined and we would have a lifeless mechanism. Moreover, I have also shown how the latter conception is related to the concept of krisis, that is, that state in which stasis is impossible and mutation is inevitable. This also leads us to argue that causality, as Schelling defines it, takes place according to a kairological dimension, rather than a chronological one. Indeed, it is not a chronological chain of causes and effects, but a kairological occurrence in which the two terms in play mutually cause each other, so that they are at once cause and effect. This further reinforces an immanentist reading of Schelling, because such a conception of causality radically excludes any transcendent and supernatural cause. Also, this conception is based on the unity of principles, which is the cornerstone of Schelling’s philosophy, to which I will return later in this book. Lastly, I have also briefly outlined how Schelling’s understanding of act is related to the discourse on causality, saying that Schelling conceives God’s creation as the act of God’s self-​revelation, which in turn resolves in itself and actualises potentiality, rather than oppose to it. Therefore, I have argued that, within Schelling’s thought, it is possible to argue that the act (in the latter sense) grounds and makes the agent possible, rather than the converse. Notes 1 STI, 5; SW, I, 3, 339. 2 PI, 26; SW, I, 7, 356. 3 STI, 41; SW, I, 3, 387. 4 PI, 27; SW, I, 7, 357. 5 PI, 21; SW, I, 7, 350. 6 PI, 42; SW, I, 7, 375. 7 PI, 149n32. 8 Ibid. 9 Judith Norman, “Schelling and Nietzsche: Willing and Time,” in The New Schelling, edited by J. Norman and A. Welchman (London: Continuum, 2004), 96. 10 AW, 94; SW, I, 8, 326. 11 PI, 59; SW, I, 7, 394. 12 Ibid.

66  Transcendence of Being? 3 PI, 26; SW, I, 7, 356. 1 14 PI, 56; SW, I, 7, 391. 15 PL, 157–​8; SW, I, 1, 285. 16 PL, 160; SW, I, 1, 289. 17 PI, 29; SW, I, 7, 360. 18 Love and Schmidt, “Introduction” to PI, xx. 19 Ibid., xxi. 20 PI, 47; SW, I, 7, 380. 21 Schelling, “Schelling’s Answer to Eschenmayer,” in Schelling’s Practice of the Wild: Time, Art, Imagination, edited by Jason M. Wirth [CE: this book is authored by Jason M. Wirth, not edited by him, so this change should be rejected] (Albany: SUNY Press, 2015), 175. 22 PI, 29; SW, I, 7, 360. 23 PI, 32; SW, I, 7, 363. 24 PI, 37; SW, I, 7, 369. 25 PI, 40; SW, I, 7, 373. 26 PI, 41; SW, I, 7, 374. 27 PI, 150n32. 28 Ibid. 29 PI, 33; SW, I, 7, 364. 30 On this point, see Werner Marx, The Philosophy of F.W.J. Schelling. History, System, and Freedom, trans. T. Nenon (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 67. 31 PI, 18; SW, I, 7, 346. 32 PI, 62; SW, I, 7, 399. 33 F.W.J. Schelling, Philosophy and Religion, trans., annotated and with an introduction by K. Ottmann (Putnam, CT: Spring, 2010), 14; SW, I, 6, 25. 34 PI, 34; SW, I, 7, 365. 35 See Schelling’s footnote in PI, 35; SW, I, 7, 367. 36 PI, 34; SW, I, 7, 366. 37 Dale Snow, Schelling and the End of Idealism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996), 166. 38 PI, 33; SW, I, 7, 364. 39 PI, 43; SW, I, 7, 376. 40 PI, 44; SW, I, 7, 377. 41 PI, 32; SW, I, 7, 363. 42 Ibid. 43 PI, 41; SW, I, 7, 374. 44 PI, 63; SW, I, 7, 400. 45 PI, 62; SW, I, 7, 399. 46 PI, 63; SW, I, 7, 400. 47 Love and Schmidt, “Introduction” to PI, xx. 48 Ibid. 49 PI, 66; SW, I, 7, 403. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 PI, 67; SW, I, 7, 404. 53 PI, 34–​5; SW, I, 7, 366.

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  67 4 IPN, 200; SW, I, 2, 251. 5 55 Ibid. 56 PI, 72; SW, I, 7, 410. 57 Daniel Whistler, Schelling’s Theory of Symbolic Language: Forming the System of Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 77. 58 On this point, see Bubbio and Fulvi, “Immanence in Schelling and Hegel in the Jena Period,” 367–​8. 59 PI, 23; SW, I, 7, 352. 60 PI, 49; SW, I, 7, 383. 61 Ibid. 62 PI, 161n70. 63 PI, 49; SW, I, 7, 383. 64 PI, 49–​50; SW, I, 7, 384. 65 PI, 50; SW, I, 7, 384. 66 Ibid. 67 On this point, See Michelle Kosch, Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling and Kierkegaard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 57–​60. 68 See Spinoza, Ethics, III, 6. 69 PI, 51; SW, I, 7, 385. 70 Sean McGrath, “Schelling on the Unconscious,” Research in Phenomenology 40, no. 1 (2010): 77. 71 Charlotte Alderwick, “Atemporal Essence and Existential Freedom in Schelling,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23, no. 1 (2015): 128. 72 Ibid., 130. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid., 131. 76 Melissa Shew, “The Kairos of Philosophy,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 27, no. 1 (2013): 48. 77 Ibid., 54. 78 Ibid., 53. 79 Sean McGrath, The Dark Ground of Spirit: Schelling and the Unconscious (London: Routledge, 2012), 2. 80 McGrath, “Schelling on the Unconscious,” 88. 81 PI, 51; SW, I, 7, 388. 82 PI, 51–​2; SW, I, 7, 388. 83 The first draft of The Ages of the World (Die Weltalter) dates back to 1811, while the second one was written in 1813, and then Schelling definitively abandoned the project in 1815. 84 AW, 44; SW, I, 8, 262. 85 J. Norman, “Ages of the World: Text and Context of the Translation,” “Translator’s Note” in Slavoj Žižek and F.W.J. Schelling, The Abyss of Freedom/​Ages of the World, trans. and with an intro. by J. Norman (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997), 109. 86 AW, 6; SW, I, 8, 211. 87 AW, 7; SW, I, 8, 213.

68  Transcendence of Being? 88 AW, 8; SW, I, 8, 213. 89 AW, 38; SW, I, 8, 254. Italics mine. 90 Wirth, “Translator’s introduction” to AW, xvii. 91 Norman, “Ages of the World,” 108–​9. Italics mine. 92 AW, 7; SW, I, 8, 212–​13. 93 McGrath, The Dark Ground of Spirit, 89. 94 This section is largely taken from my article “The Ontological Nature of Intuition in Schelling,” Idealistic Studies 50 (1-​2020): 1–​17. Reproduced with kind permission from the Philosophy Documentation Center. 95 On this point, see Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Doctrine of Elements, Pt. II, Div. II, Book I. 96 F.W.J. Schelling, On University Studies, trans. E.S. Morgan, edited by N. Guterman (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1966), 49; SW, I, 5, 255–​6. 97 Alan White, Schelling: An Introduction to the System of Freedom (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983), 30. 98 PL, 181; SW, I, 1, 319. 99 PL, 180; SW, I, 1, 318. 100 Devin Zane Shaw, “The ‘Keystone’ of the System: Schelling’s Philosophy of Art,” in The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism, edited by Matthew C. Altman (Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2014), 518. 101 Michael G. Vater, “Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity and Spinoza’s Ethica more geometrico,” in Spinoza and German Idealism, edited by E. Forster and Y. Melamed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 159–​60. 102 IPN, 9; SW, I, 2, 11. 103 F.W.J. Schelling, Further Presentations from the System of Philosophy (1802), trans. M. Vater, Philosophical Forum 23, no. 4 (2001): 382; SW, I, 4, 368. 104 Ibid. 105 Michael G. Vater, “Introduction” to Schelling, Further Presentations, 374. 106 IPN, 10; SW, I, 2, 12. 107 IPN, 11; SW, I, 2, 13. 108 Ibid. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid. 111 IPN, 13; SW, I, 2, 16. 112 White, Schelling, 31. 113 PL, 185; SW, I, 1, 325. 114 Ibid. 115 Ibid. 116 White, Schelling, 31. 117 McGrath, The Dark Ground of Spirit, 97. 118 PI, 18; SW, I, 7, 347. 119 PI, 18–​19; SW, I, 7, 347. 120 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 150. 121 PI, 48; SW, I, 7, 382. 122 PI, 48–​9; SW, I, 7, 383.

Schelling’s Ontological Account of Evil  69 123 Nassar, “Spinoza in Schelling’s Early Conception of Intellectual Intuition,” in Spinoza and German Idealism, edited by E. Forster and Y. Melamed (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 152. 124 PI, 17; SW, I, 7, 345. 125 See above, §1.3. 126 PI, 18; SW, I, 7, 346. 127 Ibid. 128 PI, 140n13. 129 PI, 17; SW, I, 7, 345. 130 PI, 18; SW, I, 7, 346. 131 Ibid. 132 Whistler, Schelling’s Theory of Symbolic Language, 87. 133 Ibid., 88. 134 IPN, 31; SW, I, 2, 40. 135 Ibid. 136 On this point, see Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, “Transcendental Doctrine of Elements,” I, 2, 3. 137 IPN, 31; SW, I, 2, 42. 138 IPN, 34; SW, I, 2, 45. 139 Schelling, Presentation of My System of Philosophy, in Fichte and Schelling, Philosophical Rupture, 371; SW, I, 4, 145. 140 On this point, see my discussion in §4.1. See also Nassar, “Spinoza in Schelling,” and Bubbio and Fulvi, “Immanence in Schelling and Hegel.” 141 Schelling, Presentation of My System of Philosophy, 359; SW, I, 4, 133. 142 PI, 26; SW, I, 7, 356.

2 Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling1

2.1  Schelling’s “Disjointed” Account of Being: Heidegger’s Interpretation From Chapter 1, it emerges that Schelling’s understanding of evil and freedom is undoubtedly complex and non-​ reducible to a simplistic approach; on the contrary, a great effort is required in order to understand it in all its complexity. Schelling’s philosophy, despite its density and intricacy, deals with critical issues in a way that was certainly original for his time. For instance, as I have discussed in Chapter 1, understanding evil as an ontological force, and no longer as a moral concept, put Schelling in a position of strong disagreement with a significant portion of his contemporaries (especially Fichte); yet, since his time, Schelling’s thought has been increasingly taken into consideration by many leading Western philosophers, from Heidegger and Jaspers to Merleau-​ Ponty and Deleuze. In particular, it is thanks to the work of Martin Heidegger that Schelling has been reconsidered independently from the shadow of Hegelianism in 20th-​century scholarship. Therefore, Heidegger’s reading of Schelling is worth being discussed, both because it demonstrates the philosophical independence of Schelling and because it has considerably influenced other important philosophers, including Karl Jaspers. For these reasons, Heidegger’s interpretation can also be considered as a very good starting point for looking at Schelling’s philosophy from a different point of view, that is, one of a radically immanentist ontology of the world –​ although Heidegger’s reading legitimises some of the misconceptions of transcendentism, as I discuss more broadly in §2.3. In the 19th-​century philosophical debate, according to Heidegger, there was a strong and unquestionable predominance of Hegel’s ideas, which hindered a correct understanding of Schelling’s philosophical system. Indeed, Heidegger points out (quite rightly) that “Hegel didn’t see that just this single thing, freedom, was not single for Schelling, but was thought and developed as the essential foundation of the whole, as a new DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-4

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  71 foundation for a whole philosophy.”2 Therefore, according to Heidegger, Hegel’s misunderstanding of Schelling’s conception of freedom was the starting point of several misinterpretations of Schelling’s philosophy in general and of his Freiheitsschrift in particular. This is why Heidegger’s goal is to liberate Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift from the shadow of Hegel’s misconception. It is useful to bear in mind that Heidegger’s effort in taking up Schelling is not ultimately to provide an interpretation of Schelling’s philosophy but to engage Schelling as part of his own philosophical project. Here, I will not go into details about the exegetical accuracy of Heidegger’s interpretation of Schelling, but rather I will focus on only those elements of Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s readings that are more relevant for my work. Therefore, here, I will just say that I agree with Lore Hühn’s argument, according to which the goal of Heidegger’s critique of Schelling is to legitimate his own philosophy, rather than to make a real effort to understand Schelling’s project. Hühn also argues that “on the one hand, a precise analysis of Heidegger’s Schelling interpretation certainly demonstrates the essential structural relation between the two, but on the other hand, it is not altogether free of its own distortions [of Schelling’s philosophy].”3 Consequently, it is important to have a proper understanding of some of Heidegger’s key concepts in order to gain a proper understanding of his reading of Schelling. I now move to the notion of “jointure,” which plays a key role in Heidegger’s reading of Schelling; also, it is crucial for the aim of my reading, as it is the kernel of Heidegger’s analysis of Schelling. Indeed, Heidegger’s main criticism of Schelling is that in Schelling’s philosophy the factors of the jointure of Being, ground and existence and their unity not only become less and less compatible, but are even driven so far apart that Schelling falls back into the rigidified tradition of Western thought without creatively transforming it. But what makes this failure so significant is that Schelling thus only brings out difficulties which were already posited in the beginning of Western philosophy, and because of the direction which this beginning took were posited by it as insurmountable.4 First, it needs to be clarified what Heidegger means with the term “jointure” and how he relates this concept to Schelling’s philosophy. Here, “jointure” stands for the German Gefüge, which refers to the inner structure of a thing or to a coherent whole with a certain internal order; moreover, das Gefüge can be more simply translated also as “structure.” This concept became quite important for Heidegger after the late 1930s, that is, when he wrote both his essay on Schelling (which, in turn, is taken from

72  Transcendence of Being? a lecture course he taught in 1936) and the Contributions to Philosophy (which he composed between 1936 and 1938). However, this concept is a very complex one and requires a deeper examination, in order to properly understand how Heidegger uses it. Etymologically, the word Gefüge is composed of the prefix Ge-​, which indicates a chain (e.g., Ge-​birgskette is a mountain chain) and Fuge, whose meaning is ambiguous and equivocal; that is, “the German word ‘Fuge’ means not only a musical fugue but also ‘joint’, ‘seam’, ‘cleft’, or ‘fissure’.”5 Indeed, it is both a carpentry word that indicates a joint (intended not as a welding into one but as a dovetail that pieces things together while holding them somewhat independently), and the interweaving of repetitive elements or themes (for instance, in a musical composition). So, the word Fuge has to be referred to the idea of holding some elements together while maintaining their differences. Moreover, the same can be said for the term Seynsfuge, that is precisely that “jointure (Fuge) of Being (Seyn),” since Heidegger’s main criticism of Schelling consists in the fact that Schelling’s Seynsfuge cannot be understood as a valid foundation for his philosophical system. As already mentioned, the term Fuge (and with it Gefüge and Seynsfuge) plays a crucial role in Heidegger’s Contributions to Philosophy, where he defines das Fuge (i.e., the jointure) as “the disposal which is compliant to the call [of the event] and which thereby grounds Da-​sein.”6 In this context, “event” (Ereignis) means “the meaning of beyng [Seyn], understood as its truth and essence, in other words, as its essential occurrence.”7 Put simply, what Heidegger is trying to say in the abovementioned passage is that the jointure is nothing more than the most original ground on which Being emerges; and the main reason he uses the spelling Seyn (“Beyng”) rather than Sein (“Being”) is that the former is the older German spelling of Being and therefore a preferable option to recall the “originarity” of Being itself. In other words, despite the controversial terminology, Heidegger argues that “beyng ‘is’ the appropriating event of the ap-​propriation of the ‘there’ [Da-​],”8 that is, it is that act through which we concretise and actualise our being, by emerging as a “Being-​there” (Da-​sein). The Heideggerian concepts of Fuge, Seyn, and Ereignis clearly recall the Schellingian conception of the struggle between good and evil, which also coincides, as already seen in Chapter 1, with the emerging of life and the coming to life of Being. That is, both conceptions are meant to be referred to the very original core of Being, intended not in an abstract metaphysical sense but as the material condition of the coming to life of Being itself (which also determine the process of Becoming, as I have already outlined in Chapter 1). Also, both the Schellingian struggle between good and evil and the Heideggerian appropriation of the “there” require humankind to be an active part in the process of Becoming, rather than passively to

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  73 let this process occur. More specifically, Heidegger talks of jointure of Being (Seynsfuge) to refer to the Schellingian distinction between ground and existence (which I have already explained in Chapter 1), which he understands “not [as] a distinction between two beings or kinds of beings, but between two aspects of being itself […] since the distinction is a feature of the immanent creator of all being.”9 In this sense, Heidegger claims that “we can already see here the sameness of Being and jointure shining through. Insofar as we understand ‘Being’ at all, we mean something like jointure and joining.”10 Moreover, he draws a very interesting parallel between the concepts of jointure (Fuge) and disjointure (Unfuge), and Anaximander’s notions of díke (δίκη) and adikía (άδικία), which literally mean “justice” and “injustice.” However, Heidegger specifies that “here we must keep at a distance all moral and legal and even Christian ideas about justice and injustice,”11 interpreting the two terms in a strictly ontological sense. As early as 1932 (four years before his lecture course on Schelling), Heidegger had already defined díke as “compliance” (der Fug) and adikía as “noncompliance” (der Un-​fug), arguing that compliance means harmonization, the dovetailing of the totality of something coordinated in itself. Compliance therefore characterizes something inter-​related; we see this in phenomena such as day-​night, birth-​death, etc. Its opposite is noncompliance, where the being is somehow out of order; άδικία is noncompliance, in this original sense.12 Consequently, Heidegger also understands Seynsfuge not only as the jointure of Being but also as a compliance with Being: indeed, once we link together (as Heidegger does) the concepts of jointure, Fuge and díke, then it immediately follows that the only way to conceive of Seynsfuge is to define it as a fulfilment of the inner structure of Being. In other words, it is that “wholeness” that achieves and realises the inner order of Being itself. In this sense, Fuge is also right, but not because it is morally preferable to an alternative potential compliance (in a moral account of justice); rather, its rightness is due to the accordance with the inner structure of Being. This is also why, Heidegger says, in Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift “evil is not treated in the sphere of mere morality, but rather in the broadest sphere of the ontological and theological question.”13 I have already shown how Schelling, when outlining his conception of good and evil, shifts the focus of the question from morality to ontology, so I will not repeat this at this stage. The point here is that Heidegger, while agreeing with the basic ontological approach on evil that Schelling takes, is yet convinced that that same (and correct) approach might yield different conclusions. That is, as already mentioned, Heidegger clearly defines Schelling’s effort to provide

74  Transcendence of Being? an ontological account of evil a failure, since Schelling himself could not see that “positing the jointure of Being as the unity of ground and existence makes a jointure of Being as system impossible.”14 What Heidegger means is that Schelling’s own philosophical system is based on a misleading conception of unity between ground and existence, which in fact can never take place because of the fundamental incompatibility of those two metaphysical elements. Moreover, he argues that Schelling’s conception of evil fails to differentiate itself from traditional Western metaphysics and its partial and subjective statements; therefore, “the manner of its saying must become a performance of its content –​a performance, that is, of the act in which the claim to be absolute is renounced.”15 To further paraphrase, the main reason for Heidegger’s negative judgement (but not total rejection) of Schelling’s conception of evil is that Heidegger believes that it cannot grasp Being in its absoluteness, as it is still vague and not capable of being the ground of a valid and stable philosophical system. Hence, Heidegger considers the Schellingian jointure between ground and existence as extremely fragile, as it breaks immediately because of the fundamental incompatibility and discordance of its components. That is, as already mentioned above, Heidegger means to grasp the very inner structure of Being, which he identifies as the Seynsfuge, namely with Being in its wholeness and its consequent inner order. However, in the Seynsfuge theorised by Schelling the discordance between ground and existence takes over and rules out any possibility of a stable and enduring jointure, that is, of a valid and binding ontological order of things. Borrowing Hühn’s words, Heidegger vehemently denies that Schelling actually took the final step beyond the fundamental stance of a metaphysics of the will. Yet according to Heidegger, it was Schelling who first addressed this distinction [i.e., between ground and existence] in the history of philosophy, even if he did not recognize all of its consequences.16 That being the case, it follows that from a Heideggerian point of view, the concept of Seynsfuge provided by Schelling can neither grasp the inner core of Being nor be the starting point of life and experience (as Schelling himself puts it), since it fails to put and keep together all the different components of Being itself. Put differently, Schelling confounds jointure and disjointure, without realising that the latter makes the former impossible and that therefore his whole discourse on Evil loses credibility and becomes unsustainable. Indeed, this means that there is no longer a valid foundation for Schelling’s conception and therefore the whole system needs to be refounded on a different and more stable philosophical ground. In other words, as soon as the jointure of Being is found to be a disjointure of

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  75 Being, all the speculation built on it immediately and irreparably becomes precarious, and the only way to amend it is to give it a stronger basis, namely a proper Seynsfuge. 2.2  Schelling’s “Fixation of Transcendence:” Jaspers’s Criticism of Schelling The way Heidegger approaches these philosophical issues is highly regarded by Jaspers. There is a reciprocal influence and admiration between the two philosophers; also, an extensive correspondence took place between them, in which they openly confront and discuss their reciprocal ideas with great respect and admiration for one another but without hiding their deep philosophical and political divergencies.17 Heidegger and Jaspers faced similar issues and highly regarded the other’s opinion and understanding of those issues, despite the fact that they saw those issues differently and therefore they often came to different conclusions. In other words, the relation between Heidegger and Jaspers is made both of mutual esteem and of sincere philosophical debate, which brings them, in some cases, to a basic agreement on some issues, as shown by their reciprocal understanding of Schelling’s philosophy.18 Without going into details of the affinities and divergencies between Heidegger and Jaspers, I will now focus on the latter’s interpretation of Schelling, which always bears in mind the former’s one. In order to do that, it is necessary to take a step back and briefly focus on those aspects of Jaspers’s thought that are relevant for our purposes. First, Jaspers moves from the idea that “philosophy is an activity, a movement of thought that knows no ends and produces no set of doctrines, theories, or even concepts;”19 rather, it aims at reaching the source of knowledge and being. As Richard F. Grabau shows, for Jaspers, philosophy is different from both science and religion and yet is bound to both. From science it gains critical, factual and objective knowledge. From religion it receives the idea of transcendence, although in a determinate and hence unacceptable form. […] Living thus at the boundaries of knowledge and religious faith, philosophy grasps the truth of being itself lying beyond those boundaries but coming to expression only within them.20 Therefore, philosophy has to go beyond objective and scientific knowledge, that is, mere empirical experience, since its very source exceeds the limits of human experience. Hence, Grabau continues, “Jaspers calls this source transcendence. […] In this way Jaspers comes to the realization that both the thinker and reality are more than what can

76  Transcendence of Being? be known about them in objective terms.”21 Indeed, as Jaspers himself puts it, “whatever becomes an object for me is always a determinate being among others, only a mode of being. [… Therefore] No known being is being itself.”22 All of this is due to the fact that I am given as a being-​in-​a-​world, namely in a particular spatio-​temporal situation that prevents me from grasping being in itself and then has to be overcome and transcended through the activity of philosophising. In other words, Being itself always seems to recede from us, in the very manifestations of the appearances we encounter. This being we call the encompassing. But the encompassing is not the horizon of our knowledge at any particular moment. Rather, it is the source from which all new horizons emerge, without itself ever being visible even as a horizon.23 Borrowing Alan M. Olson’s words, “as a given, my being-​in-​a-​world is a fact, a precondition for any questions raised concerning its meaning,”24 and it is precisely that precondition that needs to be transcended in order to properly philosophise. Immediately connected to the latter question is the experience of die Trennung, that is, “disjunction” or “separation” between the self and the world: in this respect, one’s experience of the disjunction between self and world generates the notion that the world as a Whole or Unity is something far more than that which is cognizable as mere object, or the controlled management of an environment of objects.25 Accordingly, I immediately experience an unbridgeable ontological discrepancy between my own particular being and being itself, since Jaspers “believes that the intuitive apprehension of disjointness is not only a primal philosophical experience initially giving rise to reflection but that it is characteristic of the very act of thinking itself.”26 Some clarifications need to be made at this point, in order to correctly understand Jaspers’s concepts in relation to Schelling’s philosophy. First, Jaspers refers to the encompassing as an articulated process through which we first discover the distinction between ourselves and the world, then we understand ourselves immanently as existence, consciousness and spirit, and finally we move from immanence to transcendence. “This articulation –​as Jaspers himself puts it –​[…] does not mean cogent deduction from a principle, but rather an encounter at the limits. It means an acceptance of the modes of the originary presence of being.”27 In this sense, Jaspers speaks about “all-​encompassing” (das Umgreifende), which explicitly refers to an act of grasping every form and mode of being and requires the transcending

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  77 of my particular and limiting situation for making new horizons of knowledge emerge. Moreover, die Trennung (i.e., the “disjunction”) between ourselves and the world terminologically recalls the Schellingian separation of the principles of good and evil made by humankind (Schelling uses the same word when he refers to the arbitrary separation that we make between good and evil). Indeed, die Trennung means “separation,” “division,” “laceration,” and so it has to do with the abovementioned ontological discrepancy between myself and the world, between subject and object, spirit and nature. However, differently from Schelling’s definition of the term (which, once again, refers to something that is arbitrary and freely performed by humankind), Jaspers’s understanding of die Trennung seems to have some sort of constitutive value, as it is both a primal philosophical experience and a fundamental step for final and necessary transcendence. That is, as Olson explains, “this awareness of world, which both does and does not have to do with me, drives me beyond the particularity of my givenness-​in-​a-​world to a more comprehensive standpoint whereby I may develop a unified world orientation.”28 Finally, a few words need to be said in relation to Jaspers’s notion of transcendence. Stephen Erickson clearly argues that “Jaspers construes philosophy as a self-​generating act of the thinker’s nature. Philosophy’s generation is the result of human nature touching upon Transcendence. Philosophy, thus, is more reactive and responsive than analytical.”29 Put simply, in this context, “to touch upon transcendence” means that I, as a human being given in a particular spatio-​temporal situation, become able to overcome my particular situation and embrace and know being itself. Erickson also sees a Kantian influence on this point: indeed, he states that Kant could see ideas both as limiting concepts and as regulative ideals. […] Surely in this, Jaspers follows Kant, enriching Kantian Ideas both by derationalising them into unfathomable boundaries of Transcendence and by suggesting an unpredictably productive encounter with them, the productivity of which, however, is manifested not beyond, but within, this world in a myriad of enriching intellectual consequences and personal deepenings.30 Accordingly, for Jaspers, the idea of transcendence does not correspond to a supersensuous world, but it is still meant to outline a hierarchical order within beings, according to which the human condition, being confined to spatio-​temporal limits, consists in a lower and less pure expression of Being itself, which indicates, on the contrary, Being in its most originary and deep sense, namely beyond all human dichotomies –​including the one between subject and object. Hence, as argued by Paul Tillich (whose

78  Transcendence of Being? reading will be discussed in Chapter 3), it cannot be grasped dialectically, but rather we know by way of ciphers, or symbols ([Jaspers] uses both terms) of Transcendence. In the symbol, he says, Being-​Itself is present, and it is there and only there that you can find it. And Transcendence is present in its fullest power […] just where it appears in sense perceptions. The visible symbol, therefore, is the place where the all-​ embracing Transcendence reveals itself to us. Thus the symbol, he says, opens itself up for Being and shows us the depths of Being.31 These few points about Jaspers’s philosophy are enough now to properly understand his interpretation and critique of Schelling, which is one of the two main issues considered in this section. First, we must bear in mind that Jaspers reads and interprets Schelling in the light of his own philosophical view, as is the case for Heidegger. In general, Jaspers believes that Schelling, despite his indisputable originality and depth of thought, was unable to give to his thought a systematic coherence. In other words, Jaspers is convinced that Schelling’s philosophy is devoid of a central and coherent insight, losing sight of the real essence of some fundamental concepts, such as freedom. Regarding the latter, as put by Krystyna Gorniak-​Kocikowska, Jaspers claims that the human being is free; however, according to him the human being is not free on the empirical plane nor in the sphere of transcendence. […] Only existential freedom is the true freedom. In freedom, there is a movement that aims at transcendence, but freedom itself does not reach transcendence.32 As a result, Jaspers thinks that Schelling’s conception of freedom is unclear and somehow irrational, meaning that Schelling, far from radically renewing Western metaphysics, takes as its foundation an arbitrary concept of freedom, which is therefore inadequate to be the kernel of philosophy itself.33 Indeed, Jaspers claims that philosophical criticism that draws assurance from the origins runs as follows: The fundamental experience of freedom takes place in relation to transcendence, through which it knows itself as a gift to itself. It amounts to a denial of the essence of existential freedom and to a violation of transcendence, if freedom is ascribed to the latter as its essence. “There is no freedom without transcendence” –​this is the experience, to be sure, not of arbitrariness but of every substantial freedom.34

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  79 That is, Jaspers is convinced that freedom can be thought of in different modes, which are all interrelated; for this reason, he refuses to conceive freedom in an absolute metaphysical sense, as he thinks Schelling does. Jaspers continues by stating that “in transcending, Schelling arrives, appropriately, at thinking Supra-​Being, which neither is nor is not, at the Being of everything, at the unthinkable,”35 the appropriateness of which probably lies in the fact that Jaspers sees a similarity between his abovementioned symbolic conception of being itself and Schelling’s Supra-​ Being. However, Schelling relinquishes such transcending […] in favor of a fixation of transcendence. He thinks transcendence itself, that is, as freedom, as master of Being, and he defines this freedom as being able to act or not to act, hence as arbitrariness, as the form of freedom that is the worst for us.36 In Jaspers’s understanding, freedom cannot be defined as pure and absolute arbitrariness but has to be conceived of within the spatio-​temporal conditions that determine my existence. In other words, true freedom, according to Jaspers, can be given only within our “being-​ in-​ time” (Zeitdasein) and makes no sense without this condition. In turn, freedom occurs in different degrees; first, in the empirical world, there is formal freedom, which manifests itself in “freedom as knowledge” and “freedom as willfulness.” Other kinds of freedom are transcendental freedom, which is self-​ confidence in obedience toward an obvious law (in a Kantian sense); freedom as idea, which is life in a whole; and finally existential freedom, which is the self-​confidence of the historical source of decision.37 This gradual division of freedom, which culminates in existential freedom, allows Jaspers to avoid (in his opinion) any conception that may turn freedom into a rigid and objectified metaphysical absolutisation. Nevertheless, as Gorniak-​Kocikowska points out, “existential freedom includes all other kinds of freedom. However, existential freedom cannot be objectively conceived, according to Jaspers.”38 That being the case, Jaspers argues that “[Schelling’s] use of the idea of freedom makes him speak of possibility and capability. Using the categories of possibility, actuality, necessity –​the categories of modality –​he thinks first an inner-​divine life, and the theogonic and cosmogonic process.”39 However, Jaspers believes that this conception of freedom inevitably yields an ontology that fails to take into account what he has called existential freedom, resulting conversely in an abstract objectification of freedom itself. In this sense, for Jaspers, “[Schelling’s] philosophizing first

80  Transcendence of Being? appears of the knowledge of how things should be, and subsequently like the forgetting of this knowledge,”40 meaning once again that the philosophy of Schelling results in an abstract metaphysical speculation, since he “confounds conjuring something up in order to make it present with objectification, or illumination of Existenz with gnosis.”41 Jaspers, in fact, thinks that Schelling becomes a victim of his own argument on the negative value of mere reflection (which I mentioned in Chapter 1), because he himself fails to combine reflection and action, or theoretical and practical philosophy, in a coherent philosophical system; on the contrary, Schelling develops nothing but a merely reflexive thought that has nothing to do with his own conception of philosophy. Using Jaspers’s words, in his passionate struggle for actuality, Schelling neglects the task of arriving at actuality by the way in which he thinks actuality. His failure consists in his preserving in “the pure ether of thought” and in being satisfied with the noncommittal intuition of fancies, fixating the objects in the bottomlessness of such fantasies.42 It follows that not only can such a conception of freedom not be a stable ground for a philosophical system but also that it can be proven wrong using Schelling’s own argument on the negativity of mere reflection. Moreover, Jaspers also overturns Schelling’s conception of the struggle between good and evil, arguing that the struggle itself does not have an absolute value and does not give rise to absolute freedom, but occurs only within some precise and limited spatio-​temporal conditions. As explained again by Gorniak-​Kocikowska, for a human being, freedom is the beginning sense of one’s existence which, as a continuous “becoming” (das Werden), is the only absolute truth. However, this “becoming,” this self-​ creation, even in relation to oneself is limited by numerous external conditions. For that reason Jaspers denies the possibility of absolute freedom. If such freedom did exist, […] it would have to be the freedom of totality. Nothing could exist outside of it; all contradictions would necessarily be contained within it. Without contradictions, however, freedom is impossible, because freedom must develop itself in a process, and this process is a struggle.43 Put simply, according to Jaspers, the fact that freedom arises from a struggle between good and evil does not bring us, as Schelling thinks, to the very core of the emerging of life and freedom in an absolute sense but rather shows how freedom is conceivable and experienceable only within the spatio-​temporal frame of our particular existence. Accordingly, Jaspers

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  81 concludes that freedom itself can never be fully realised, since this would imply its absolutisation and objectification, which is impossible. In this sense, as already mentioned, in freedom, we move towards transcendence, to the full actualisation of freedom itself, but we do not reach it, since it is impossible to go beyond the boundaries of our Zeitdasein. Jaspers himself clarifies that freedom is not being-​in-​itself. In transcendence freedom ceases because decision has an end; in transcendence there is neither freedom nor unfreedom. Being free […] is not the same as being transcendent. Confined to itself, even freedom withers. It seeks its fulfillment in transcendence, which as such opens only to freedom, and whatever this fulfillment is will turn into a possibility for freedom: into the possibility of perfection or of reconciliation, of redemption or of pain at transcendent being. In every case the end of possible self-​sufficiency is freedom’s ultimate satisfaction in temporal existence.44 Jaspers also insists on the misleading objectification that he ascribes to Schelling’s philosophy. Thinking, for Jaspers, always entails objectification. As he puts it, “[o]bjectification is essential. But it must be carried out philosophically, that is, in such a manner that what is objectified remains in suspension, that it is always a foothold in a movement that lets it disappear again.”45 Therefore, the objectivity of concepts cannot be claimed “as a fixed possession,”46 as Schelling so claims, according to Jaspers’s reading, but it has to be considered as being just a phase of the process towards transcendence. This is also why Jaspers believes that Schelling’s philosophy is twofold and equivocal, since it raises philosophy to its highest level, but then it reveals itself as inadequate for such an “altitude” (Höhenlage); in other words, Schelling’s philosophy shows us the peaks that could be reached by our intellect through a proper philosophical knowledge but is unable to lead us to actually reach such peaks and grasp such knowledge.47 Concluding on this point, Jaspers claims that Schelling’s thinking frees us from the accepted commonplaces. He leads us to the comprehension of the finite as finite; he shows how we gain assurance in the speculative ascent of Being. As long as we avoid slipping into the entanglements and bewitchments of his concrete intuitions about nature, myth, revelation, we arrive at the wondrous possibilities of philosophy.48 Indeed, Jaspers comes to the conclusion that the main failure of Schelling’s thinking is that it cannot be considered a viable philosophical system

82  Transcendence of Being? because Schelling is unable to properly follow the path that he himself discovers and indicates. Put simply, Schelling’s philosophical system is grounded on a misleading and fallacious ground; therefore, the system itself turns out to be misleading and fallacious, despite its deep originality and innovativeness. Jaspers’s conclusion is not very different from Heidegger’s, since they both contend that Schelling’s attempt to build a philosophical system ended up in a failure, despite the greatness of his philosophical insights. In this regard, Jaspers writes to Heidegger that not only Schelling’s indifference and all other phrases of the idealists, but also mysticism in its obsession with images, which always say the same thing, seem to me to be a great temptation to run away from the world and from men and from friends –​and to get nothing in return, when it succeeds, but an endless light, an unfillable abyss.49 Thus, despite their different approaches to the same philosophical questions, they both set up a similar critique of Schelling, whose philosophy is defined as inadequate in the light of their own philosophical arguments. That is, they both tried to point out the limits and deficiencies of Schelling’s philosophy, although through different approaches. Indeed, while Heidegger tries to delegitimise Schelling’s philosophy as if the latter could not have reached the results that Heidegger himself has reached, Jaspers aims at stressing the weaknesses and contradictions of Schelling’s work, attributing them to the misunderstanding of some basic concepts of philosophy. Thus, the fact that Jaspers and Heidegger, despite taking two different approaches, share the same basic idea about Schelling proves that their interpretations are mutually and interestingly interrelated, as largely shown by the current scholarship.50 To sum up, I have shown that the main point of Heidegger’s criticism of Schelling is that his idea of Seynsfuge, or “jointure of being,” is inadequate to be the foundation of a philosophical system. Indeed, Heidegger argues that an analysis of Schelling’s jointure brings us to the conclusion that it is in fact a disjointure, since its component parts (namely ground and existence) are fundamentally and essentially incompatible with each other. Consequently, the very possibility of a jointure is immediately ruled out, and that which Schelling defines as jointure is in fact a disjointure; for this reason, Heidegger points out that Schelling was unable to fully understand and develop the conclusions of his own thinking and succumbed to the illusion that an arbitrary conception could ground and sustain a trustworthy philosophical system. Analogously, Jaspers affirms that Schelling was unable to develop a coherent philosophy, because he misinterpreted the real core of freedom and transcendence. In other words, Jaspers is convinced that Schelling,

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  83 under the pretence of objectifying and absolutising freedom, lost sight of its real meaning and disregarded his own philosophical project. In this sense, he provides a very ambiguous and arbitrary idea of freedom, relating it to a misleading account of transcendence. That is, for Jaspers, what makes the Schellingian account untrustworthy is the fact that Schelling pretends to absolutise freedom and detach it from the concrete Zeitdasein, and to understand transcendence as a fixed and reachable concept. Put simply, Jaspers is convinced that Schelling lost himself in the intricacies of his own speculation, which remains limited to a pure and abstract speculation and therefore is able neither to grasp the reality and concreteness of the concepts of freedom and transcendence themselves nor to found a wide-​ ranging philosophical system. In the next section of this chapter, I distance my reading on Schelling from Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s interpretations, in order to show that it is possible to read Schelling’s philosophy not as a failure to build a valid system, but as an internally coherent speculation that can legitimately be used to develop a concrete and immanentist ontology, avoiding the pitfalls of a transcendentist approach. 2.3  An Alternative Reading of Schelling: Schelling as a Thinker of Immanence In this section, I provide an alternative reading of Schelling to that of Heidegger and Jaspers, in order to show that it is possible to consider Schelling’s discourse on evil as a viable philosophical speculation. This, in turn, will be useful for the purpose of showing how Schelling’s account can be understood as an immanentist ontology, and that it is possible to establish a strong and clear degree of continuity between Schelling’s early and late thought –​as I show in the following chapters. In doing so, however, I will not criticise Heidegger and Jaspers on the basis that their interpretation can be read as an improper forcing or a lack of understanding of Schelling’s original insight; rather, my point of criticism will be that their readings of Schelling, despite being legitimately subordinated to their own philosophical projects, do not provide for the possibility of a positive philosophical outcome, which I think would be preferable. A positive reading of Schelling, that is, one that does not dismiss his philosophy as a mere failure or as inconclusive speculation, allows one, I argue, to see more clearly the actual relevance of Schelling’s philosophy and opens up to speculation on a notion of immanence that concretely integrates nature and God in the living unity of everything that exists. Regarding Heidegger, I have already mentioned that a large part of the current scholarship accepts that his reading of Schelling is strongly influenced and determined by his own philosophical ideas and that it is

84  Transcendence of Being? mostly limited to the sole Freiheitsschrift, resulting in a misrepresentation of Schelling’s philosophy. However, this does not necessarily imply that Heidegger’s interpretation has to be a priori refused as incorrect and distorting and cannot be used to stimulate further reflection. Indeed, Heidegger partly denies the extent of Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift; however, as Hühn points out, “it is possibly indicative of the productivity of Heidegger’s misunderstanding that it continues to give rise to opportunities to rethink, at its very core, the constellation of the history of philosophy.”51 In other words, my point is not that Heidegger’s reading of Schelling has to be rejected because it is inaccurate, non-​objective, and not true to the original; indeed, a good philosopher is not the one who faithfully reports the words of other philosophers, but the one who is able to originally reinterpret other philosophers’ thoughts in the light of new philosophical achievements. Accordingly, I argue that it is possible and legitimate to provide a different interpretation of Schelling without considering his philosophical thought as a failure or as an incomplete system but as speculation responding to a precise philosophical need, namely to draw a radically immanentist ontology –​whose original implication will be discussed in detail in Part 3 of this book. Heidegger is right to say that Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift is the first and foremost philosophical attempt to understand God’s will as Ursein, that is, as primal Being, which in turn results in a unification of theology and ontology. That is, Heidegger rightfully claims that theo-​logy means here questioning beings as a whole. This question of beings as a whole, the theological question, cannot be asked without the question about beings as such, about the essence of Being in general. [… Thus,] philosophy’s questioning is always and in itself both onto-​logical and theo-​logical in the very broad sense. Philosophy is Ontotheology. The more originally it is both in one, the more truly it is philosophy. And Schelling’s treatise is thus one of the most profound works of philosophy because it is in a unique sense ontological and theological at the same time.52 However, such a correct interpretation does not prevent Heidegger from finally criticising Schelling’s philosophy, mainly due to some misunderstandings that I now point out. First, Heidegger seems to underestimate and sometimes to misconceive Spinoza’s influence on Schelling, which I have already outlined in Chapter 1. Indeed, Heidegger is firmly convinced that “the fact that Schelling’s philosophy was interpreted as Spinozism belongs to that remarkable history of the misinterpretations of all philosophies by contemporaries. If Schelling fundamentally fought against a system, it is Spinoza’s system.”53

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  85 Yet, the latter affirmation is quite unfounded and can be easily proven wrong. Without going again into detail, I would simply reiterate the claim that Schelling is constantly aiming at rethinking Spinozan pantheism and immanentism by integrating them with stronger ontological accounts of freedom and evil, as well as of God and nature. Put simply, Schelling does not fight against Spinozism but tries to reassess it in the light of philosophical developments of his time. In other words, it is true that Schelling is convinced that a mechanistic interpretation of Spinozism would exclude every possibility of freedom and therefore needs to be rejected, but this brings Schelling neither to reject Spinozism as a whole nor to fight against it and try to prove it wrong. Again, I think that what I have shown in Chapter 1 is sufficient to demonstrate how positively remarkable Spinoza’s influence is on Schelling. In this sense, the ontotheology that Heidegger correctly attributes to Schelling is the clearer example of how Schelling himself rethinks Spinozism, rather than prove his opposition to it: indeed, Schelling’s ontotheology recalls the immanence of things in God, that is, the fact that everything that is, is in God and cannot be conceived outside God. In addition, even Schelling’s conception of the relation between freedom and necessity, as I have shown in Chapter 1, clearly recalls the Spinozan conatus, that is, the conformity of each being to its own nature. As already mentioned, Schelling’s engagement with a reinterpretation of Spinozism gave rise to lengthy disputes between him and his contemporaries. In his reading of Schelling, Heidegger seems to follow a misleading path, or at least a very problematic path. As Hühn shows, “according to Heidegger, a subject which empowers itself to comprehend itself as ‘primordial and fundamental willing, which makes itself into something’ and therefore is grounded in nothing, is the expression of a preconceived notion of nihilism.”54 Moreover, as explained by Michael E. Zimmerman, Heidegger thinks that “[n]‌ihilism refers to the fact of the ‘withdrawing’ (Entziehung) of Being, which began at the beginning of and continues throughout the history of metaphysics. This, of course, means that the history of metaphysics is essentially Nihilistic.”55 In this sense, saying that metaphysics results in nihilism means to say that it forgets Being as such, namely “the lighting-​ process in which beings can be encountered. By forgetting Being, man comes to believe that he himself is the ground for being in the whole. He thus forgets his own belongingness to and ultimate ground in Being.”56 Put simply, by forgetting Being as such, namely the fundamental ground of humankind, the very fundamental question of Being itself remains unquestioned and then forgotten. That being the case, at least according to Heidegger’s view, giving metaphysics a purely subjective ground, as Schelling does, cannot but lead to nihilism. That is, the subjectification of metaphysics yields the withdrawal of Being itself because it turns the

86  Transcendence of Being? fundamental question of Being itself into an anthropomorphic one, losing sight of the originality of Being itself.57 Indeed, Heidegger claims that, by equating Ursein and God’s will, Schelling falls back into the same mistakes made by Western metaphysics and reinstates nihilism rather than overcome it. In other words, overlapping the lack of objectivity of traditional metaphysics with a subjectivist principle does nothing but reiterate the forgetfulness and withdrawing of Being itself, as it fails to give Being itself a new and permanent ground. This is one of the key points of Heidegger’s criticism of Schelling, namely the fact that Schelling was unable to formulate an adequate account of the Seynsfuge and therefore failed to provide an adequate foundation to his philosophical system. That is, the Schellingian jointure of ground and existence, rather than grasping the inner core of Being itself, reveals itself as an abstract and arbitrary speculation, because of its subjective core. Indeed, it pretends to keep together two discordant elements (namely ground and existence) without realising that they are compatible only by virtue of a subjective construct, rather than according to their own nature. Consequently, a subjective and abstract construct can neither act as the foundation of a viable philosophical system nor grasp Being itself, which always transcends subjectivity. At this point, I want to outline the most controversial points of Heidegger’s interpretation, in order to reinforce the points I have made in the first two sections of this chapter. First, I want to point out that Heidegger’s critique of Schelling seems to rely on a form of subjectivism that does not fully comply with the depth of Schelling’s speculation. That is, Heidegger is convinced that Western metaphysicians (including Schelling) “concern themselves with beings, with man’s relation to them, and ultimately with how man can control them,”58 resulting in the already mentioned forgetfulness and withdrawal of Being itself. The point here is that, as I have already argued in §1.3, it is definitely possible to understand the Schellingian notion of subject as sub-​iectum, namely as that which is thrown and lies under our experience in the world, rather than in the traditional sense of self-​conscious and self-​determining principle of the world. Thereby, Heidegger’s objection falls, allowing us to argue that Schelling’s philosophy neither makes the same mistakes as traditional metaphysics nor results in nihilism, since the sub-​iectum on which his discourse is grounded has nothing to do with Heidegger’s understanding of subjectivism. In other words, Heidegger applies to Schelling a notion of subjectivism that understands the subject as the experiencer, namely as the one who experiences the world; however, the notion of sub-​iectum, as I have defined it in §1.3, does not refer to the experiencer, but rather to that which lies under the experiencer, namely that which grounds and makes experience possible. In this sense, moreover, not only is the question of Being itself, as Heidegger poses it, not forgotten, but it provides an original

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  87 and solid response that points out the process of coming into being of Being itself. Therefore, there are no grounds for considering Schelling as a traditional subjectivist metaphysician and consequently some sort of forerunner of nihilism, as his discourse on evil and freedom relies on a strong and concrete ontological basis. In addition, this yields an incomplete understanding of Schelling’s philosophical demand, which I have repeatedly outlined throughout Chapter 1. Besides the fact that Heidegger’s argument on Schelling is limited almost to only his Freiheitsschrift, it needs to be said that Schelling’s Seynsfuge is immune to Heidegger’s criticism. Indeed, as I have largely shown in Chapter 1, ground and existence are not only compatible, but necessary to each other in order to allow life and experience to be. This is even truer a fortiori if we consider that no subject in the traditional sense of the term is involved in the process; rather, the concept of sub-​iectum does nothing but strengthen the validity and inner coherence of Schelling’s speculation on these issues. I will give a final statement of the latter validity in Chapters 6 and 7; for now, what I have pointed out is enough to claim that there can be an alternative reading of Schelling that is preferable to Heidegger’s, in order to preserve the legitimacy of Schelling’s thought. I now consider some objections that can be made to Jaspers’s interpretation of Schelling, along the lines of the ones made to Heidegger’s. Indeed, I consider Jaspers’s critique of Schelling unconvincing, and I argue again that an alternative reading of Schelling is preferable. For instance, a different interpretation of Schelling is provided by Xavier Tilliette, who argues that Jaspers’s assessment of Schelling is very severe, since it states that in the end Schelling’s philosophy spoils authentic existential experience.59 In his turn, Tilliette thinks that Schelling’s philosophy, being a reinterpretation of Spinoza in the light of Fichte’s conception of the I, assumes freedom as its cornerstone, or better its Alpha and Omega, its beginning and its end.60 Therefore, Schelling is able, according to Tilliette, to grasp the core of the Absolute in a very religious and Christian sense; that is, Schelling provides a philosophy that emanates from eternal and absolute freedom, grasping the Absolute as the infinite subject that comes from nothing and makes philosophy begin.61 Without going into the details of Tilliette’s understanding of Schelling, I want to simply point out that Tilliette’s objection to Jaspers consists in the fact that the latter distorts Schelling’s philosophy and does not see its fundamental unity beyond its ostensible ambiguity. Moreover, Tilliette remarks, both Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s readings have had a significant influence on Schellingian scholarship: for instance, even Habermas reads Schelling relying on Heidegger, claiming that Schelling himself deceived the intuition of existence and of historicity.62 However, I do not want to explore Habermas’s interpretation of Schelling at this point; rather, I mention it just to further stress

88  Transcendence of Being? the relevance of both Jaspers’s and Heidegger’s works on Schelling, showing once more that they have to be taken seriously when dealing with Schelling’s philosophy. Returning to Jaspers, I now argue that the weaker point of his critique of Schelling lies in his notion of transcendence. In other words, I argue that the way Jaspers applies this notion to Schelling’s speculation leads to a distortion of Schelling’s speculation itself. More specifically, Jaspers’s notions of transcendence and of the necessity of going beyond my particular situation of being-​in-​a-​world, that is, my spatio-​temporal condition, actually leads to some sort of ontological dualism, or at least conflicts with Schelling’s monism and immanentism. In this regard, Jaspers uses the term “encompassing” (das Umgreifende), by which he means to refer to the mutual overlapping of subject and object, which he understands as inseparable but irreducible to each other.63 Moreover, encompassing is also the process through which we first discover the limits of our reason in relation to truth and to our possible experience of it. Therefore, truth can never be fully grasped by human reason, since the absolute inseparability of subject and object refers to the necessary being of God, which in turn transcends our particular selves. Accordingly, such a conception paves the way for a transcendentist and dualist account of Being, which again does not fit into Schelling’s speculation. A clear example of this dualist outcome is the different views of the concept of die Trennung (“disjunction,” but also “separation,” “division,” “laceration”) that the two philosophers have. Indeed, while Schelling defines it as an arbitrary separation of the principles of good and evil made by humankind, Jaspers characterises it as an ontological “disjunction,” meaning that the separation is not an arbitrary human action but recalls the deep ontological discrepancy between our being-​in-​a-​world and Being itself. Put simply, Jaspers argues, as already said in the previous section, that so-​called Being itself ontologically exceeds our particular being-​in-​ a-​world and is irreducible to it; therefore, we can never fully grasp it. However, it seems that the latter conception is much more abstract than the Schellingian one; that is, by putting an ontological “disjunction” (as Jaspers does) between Being itself and particular being makes Being itself abstract and unreachable, and therefore a chimera. On the contrary, this is not the case for Schelling, since his philosophy relies on a solid immanentist base, which makes the very structure of Being fully graspable by human beings. Therefore, Schelling is aiming neither at a “Supra-​Being” nor at a “fixation of transcendence,” which lead (according to Jaspers) to a further abstraction from the real concept of freedom, namely existential freedom. For Schelling, indeed, the very idea of a Supra-​Being is simply inconceivable, due to his immanentism, according to which (as I have already said

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  89 in Chapter 1), Ursein is the living unity of everything that is. That being the case, a Supra-​Being, that is, a superior form of being that somehow surpasses Ursein, is impossible. Additionally, since freedom is an essential feature of Being for Schelling, he defines it as immanently present in all the aspects of Being and as the fundamental and inescapable co-​occurrence both of necessity and of intuition. By doing so, Schelling avoids both falling into empty forms of mysticism and putting freedom itself on a transcendent and unattainable level. Finally, Schelling does not objectify freedom: he does not understand it as an object, either in the Jaspersian sense (i.e., as a being among beings, or as a thing that can be possessed by us), or as an ob-​iectum, in the sense I defined it in §1.3, that is, as that which is thrown forward and lies against our experience. Indeed, for Schelling, philosophy is essentially a work of freedom, originating from the arbitrary separation of the principles, which in turn cannot but be necessarily restored through freedom itself. In this sense, the very act of philosophising coincides with the very act of freedom, which yields intellectual intuition and the reconciliation of action and reflection, real and ideal, freedom and necessity. Therefore, as already said, acting freely for Schelling means exclusively acting according to one’s own nature, which in turn means that freedom and necessity co-​ exist and co-​occur as the one fundamental and essential act. Moreover, it is only through that act that humankind can reach intellectual intuition and the God’s-​eye point of view, which means to be able both to look at things in their immediacy and to grasp the core of their essence; in a word, it means to grasp the Absolute, as I already explained in §1.4. That being the case, Jaspers’s argument according to which Schelling objectifies and absolutises (in an abstract sense) freedom is not sustainable. As I understand it, Schelling’s account of freedom is not objectifiable or a naïve and intellectualist abstraction; rather, it is the most concrete and all-​embracing foundation for the essence of human being. Furthermore, as I have already argued, the strongest point of Schelling’s account lies in the fact that it does not require any further metaphysical explanation, since it is firmly grounded on the level of the immanence of Being, whence it derives its self-​sufficiency and self-​evidence. I will discuss Schelling’s immanentist ontology in greater detail in Chapter 6, while now I just focus on the limits of Jaspers’s criticism of Schelling. In the light of what I have just pointed out, even the objection according to which Schelling maintains his arguments at the level of mere speculation is not supported by enough evidence, excluding Jaspers’s own understanding of transcendence and disjunction. That is, Schelling is so attentive to the “active moment” of philosophy that his description of the process of co-​occurrence and interrelation of freedom and necessity radically excludes abstract speculativeness. In other words, as I have shown

90  Transcendence of Being? in Chapter 1, Schelling unquestionably provides an ontological account of freedom that refuses to understand freedom itself as a supernatural and unattainable principle, but rather he defines it as the most concrete and practical ground of our own being, which occurs together with (and inseparably from) necessity. Consequently, it is not Schelling who fails to create a valid and stable philosophical system, as Jaspers claims; rather, it is Jaspers himself who fails to understand Schelling’s philosophy by applying to it his misleading conceptions of transcendence and die Trennung. To sum up, after having highlighted both Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s interpretations of Schelling, I have shown how they, despite their being so relevant and challenging, still have some controversial and unconvincing points. That is, I have argued that both Heidegger and Jaspers deal with Schelling in a philosophically original way, trying to understand and reinterpret his thought in the light of the philosophical achievements of their time. However, despite that, a different reading of Schelling, one that avoids considering him as a philosopher unable to complete the task of setting up a suitable philosophical system, is preferable because it shows the internal coherence of Schelling’s thinking and because it allows us to use Schelling’s philosophy to develop a theory of pure experience, through a different understanding of the concept of subject, object and freedom. This also resonates with Schelling’s ontological immanentism, which will be explained at length in Chapter 6. In particular, I have argued that both Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s interpretations of Schelling rely on a partial understanding of Schelling himself. Indeed, on the one hand, Heidegger reads Schelling through the lenses of his conviction that Schelling himself makes the same mistake as all other Western metaphysicians, namely that of falling back into a rigid form of subjectivism and nihilism; on the other hand, Jaspers argues that Schelling comes up with an abstract philosophy that fails to take into account the real meaning of concepts such as freedom and Existenz. Thus, both think that Schelling fails to develop a coherent philosophy, despite his understanding that philosophy itself could have been built a different way from the one followed by traditional Western philosophy. In this respect, Heidegger and Jaspers, while having the merit of having reconsidered Schelling’s thought as a philosophical system independent from Hegel’s, their interpretation in fact paves the way for the subsequent transcendentist readings of Schelling’s philosophy. At this stage, however, I think I have sufficiently shown that it is possible to provide a different and preferable understanding of Schelling by preserving the validity of his immanentist ontology and rejecting both Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s criticisms. Thus, in Chapter 3, I will discuss other transcendentist interpretations of Schelling, provided by eminent philosophers such as Paul Tillich, Gabriel Marcel, and Luigi Pareyson in order to further demonstrate

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  91 that such an approach is impracticable, despite being very widespread and influential in 20th-​century Schelling scholarship. Notes 1 This chapter is largely taken from my article “Schelling as a Thinker of Immanence: contra Heidegger and Jaspers,” Sophia 60, no. 4 (2021): 869–​87. Reproduced with kind permission from Springer. 2 Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise, 13. 3 Lore Hühn, “A Philosophical dialogue between Heidegger and Schelling,” Comparative and Continental Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2014): 19. 4 Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom, 161. 5 Daniela Vallega-​Neu, Heidegger’s “Contributions to Philosophy”: An Introduction (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), 32. 6 Martin Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event), edited by R. Rojcewicz and D. Vallega-​Neu (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 66. 7 Friedrich W. von Hermann, “Editor’s Afterword” to Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy, 403. 8 Heidegger, Contributions to Philosophy, 189. 9 Sonya Sikka, “Heidegger’s Appropriation of Schelling,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 32 (1994): 424. 10 Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise, 50. 11 Ibid. 12 Martin Heidegger, The Beginning of Western Philosophy: Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides, edited by R. Rojcewicz (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012), 11. 13 Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise, 97. 14 Ibid., 161. 15 Sikka, “Heidegger’s Appropriation of Schelling,” 443. 16 Hühn, “A Philosophical Dialogue between Heidegger and Schelling,” 17. 17 On this point, see Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers, The Heidegger–​ Jaspers Correspondence (1920–​ 1963), edited by W. Biemel and H. Saner (Amherst: Humanity Books, 2003). 18 For a deeper understanding of the philosophical relation between Heidegger and Jaspers, see Alan M. Olson (ed.), Heidegger and Jaspers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994). 19 Richard F. Grabau, “Preface” to Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence, translated and with an intro. by Richard F. Grabau (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971), xii. 20 Ibid., xv. 21 Ibid., xiii–​xiv. 22 Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence, 17. 23 Ibid., 18. 24 Alan M. Olson, Transcendence and Hermeneutics. An Interpretation of the Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Hague and Boston: M. Nijhoff, 1979), 10.

92  Transcendence of Being? 5 Ibid., 11. 2 26 Ibid., 10n2. 27 Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence, 21. 28 Olson, Transcendence and Hermeneutics, 11. 29 Stephen A. Erickson, “The Space of Transcendence in Jaspers and Heidegger,” in Olson, Heidegger and Jaspers, 126. 30 Ibid., 130. 31 Paul Tillich, “Heidegger and Jaspers,” in Olson, Heidegger and Jaspers, 26. 32 Krystyna Gorniak-​ Kocikowska, “The Concept of Freedom in Jaspers and Heidegger,” in Olson, Heidegger and Jaspers, 144. 33 See Karl Jaspers, Schelling: Größe und Verhängnis (Munich: Piper, 1955), 173ff. 34 Karl Jaspers, The Great Philosophers, vol. III, Xenophanes, Democritus, Empedocles, Bruno, Epicurus, Boehme, Schelling, Leibniz, Aristotle, Hegel, edited by M. Ermarth and L. Ehrlich (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993), 150. 35 Ibid., III:151. 36 Ibid. 37 Gorniak-​Kocikowska, “The Concept of Freedom,” 142–​3. 38 Ibid., 143. 39 Jaspers, The Great Philosophers, III:151. 40 Ibid., III:155. 41 Ibid., III:159. 42 Ibid., III:160. 43 Gorniak-​Kocikowska, “The Concept of Freedom,” 143. 44 Karl Jaspers, Philosophy, vol. 3, trans. E.B. Ashton (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971), 6. 45 Jaspers, The Great Philosophers, III:164. 46 Ibid. 47 See Jaspers, Schelling, 341ff. 48 Jaspers, The Great Philosophers, III:166. 49 Heidegger and Jaspers, Correspondence, 140. 50 About this, both the abovementioned volume Heidegger and Jaspers and their Correspondence provide clear evidence of the confrontation between the two philosophers and their mutual influence. 51 Hühn, “A Philosophical Dialogue,” 30. 52 Heidegger, Schelling’s Treatise, 51. 53 Ibid., 34. 54 Hühn, “A Philosophical Dialogue,” 18. 55 Michael E. Zimmerman, “Heidegger on Nihilism and Technique,” Man and World 8, no. 4 (1975): 404. 56 Ibid., 398. 57 On this point, see also Günter Figal, “Schelling zwischen Hölderlin und Nietzsche–​Heidegger liest Schellings Freiheitsschrift,” in Hühn and Jantzen, Heideggers Schelling–​Seminar, 45–​58. 58 Zimmerman, “Heidegger on Nihilism and Technique,” 398.

Heidegger and Jaspers Interpreters of Schelling  93 59 On this, see Xavier Tilliette, “Actualité de Schelling,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale 3 (1959): 358. 60 See Xavier Tilliette, “L’absolu et la philosophie de Schelling,” Laval théologique et philosophique 412 (1985): 205–​6. 61 Ibid., 213. 62 Tilliette, “Actualité de Schelling,” 361. 63 See Karl Jaspers, Truth and Symbol, trans. and with an intro. by J.T. Wilde, W. Kluback, and W. Kimmel (Albany: NCUP, 1959), 23ff.

3 Other Transcendentist Readings Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson

3.1  Mysticism and Rationalism: Tillich’s Reading of Schelling Tillich’s engagement with Schelling’s philosophy dates back to 1912, when he was a doctoral student in Breslau. It is interesting to note how Tillich’s interest in Schelling’s thought predates that of Heidegger, reflecting not only that Schelling’s philosophy was able to attract the interest of students who were destined to become leading philosophers in Europe but also that Schelling was mainly received in a negative way –​as demonstrated by Heidegger’s and Jaspers’s interpretations. Tillich himself stated that “the influence of [his] Schelling studies on the whole of [his] further development is very strong,”1 and that he maintained the validity of his transcendentist interpretation of Schelling’s thought in his later works on philosophy and theology. In this respect, as Christian Danz explains, “Tillich’s understanding of philosophy took shape as part of the early twentieth-​century renaissance of Idealism […]. Tillich’s most significant contribution to this Idealism-​renaissance, following his interest in Fichte, is his work on Schelling.”2 Tillich’s main goal in his early studies on Schelling was to investigate “how to unite mysticism and the Protestant principle; [namely,] how to unite the principle of identity, the participation of the divine in each of us, and the principle of detachment, of moral obedience, without participation in the divine.”3 In Tillich’s reading, Schelling tried to engage with this theoretical problem, and the answer he provided lies in a form of theology able to synthesise in itself mysticism and rationalism. That is, Schelling tries to maintain the primacy of practical reason and to avoid the dogmatic approach of some of the Kantians of that time. The philosophy of Kant, according to Tillich, “emphasizes the principle of distance, the principle of finitude which man must accept, the transcendence of the divine beyond man’s grasp and lying outside his center.”4 This poses a very specific and complex issue: that of explaining how human beings can overcome their finitude and understand the infinity of the Godhead. Schelling, like most of DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-5

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  95 Kant’s successors, tried to provide a solution to this problem through his identity principle in the domain of philosophy of nature. More specifically, Tillich claims that in facing this problem Schelling construed two or three principles in the ground of the divine, the unconscious or dark principle, the principle of will which is able to contradict itself, on the one hand, and the principle of logos, or the principle of light, on the other hand. There is here the possibility that the unconscious will, the drive in the depths of the divine life, might break away from the identity. But it cannot do so in the divine life itself. The spiritual unity of the two principles keeps them always together. But in man, in the creature, it can break away. In the creature freedom can turn against its own divine substance, its own divine ground. So the myth of the fall is interpreted by him, following the line of Plato, through Origen and Boehme, as the transcendent fall. The fall is not something which happened once upon a time, but something which happens all the time, in all creatures. This fall is the breaking away from the creative ground from which we come in the power of freedom.5 However, Tillich does not consider Schelling’s solution as a viable one, since Christianity is not a religion in which the relation to God is that of physical or mechanical dependence, but is that of teleological dependence, a dependence on God as the giver of the law and showing the goal toward which we have to go. This teleological dependence means that God is the whence of our unconditional moral imperative. Here you see clearly the Kantian element in him. It is not as in Schelling’s philosophy of nature where men are dependent on the ultimate through nature.6 Accordingly, an immanence that is not originated from transcendence –​ and that denies the transcendent moral world-​order in favour of a merely physical and materialistic account of nature –​is in fact unable to grasp the transcendent and divine source of the world and of its moral-​order. Instead, Tillich claims that “in order to explain the world, the philosopher must raise God above the absolute. In order to explain the world, the theologian must make the absolute on the basis of the Godhead.”7 In the latter statement, I argue, it is possible to identify the kernel of Tillich’s interpretation of Schelling’s thought, which in turn he uses to legitimate his own theology of transcendence. That is, Tillich clearly aims at preserving the ontological priority of transcendence over immanence and of morality over ontology. As we shall see later, such an understanding of the relation between transcendence and immanence is also reiterated by Pareyson, although in an independent and quite original way.

96  Transcendence of Being? Even in his Systematic Theology (1951), Tillich openly states that Schelling’s conception of identity of spirit and nature (which I already discussed in Chapter 1) indicates “that the a priori which directs the induction and the deduction is a type of mystical experience.”8 Therefore, Tillich continues, “the theological concepts of both idealists and naturalists are rooted in a ‘mystical a priori’, an awareness of something that transcends the cleavage between subject and object.”9 That is, drawing upon Schelling’s conception of God as “Being-​One,” Tillich claims that the original unity between spirit and nature, ideal and real, subject and object –​which is key to Schelling’s philosophy of nature, as discussed in Chapter 2 –​effectively transcends empirical reality, as it pertains to the Godhead. Indeed, he subsequently argues that God is being-​itself, not a being. On this basis a first step can be taken toward the solution of the problem which usually is discussed as the immanence and the transcendence of God. As the power of being, God transcends every being and also the totality of being –​the world. Being-​ itself is beyond finitude and infinity; otherwise it would be conditioned by something other than itself, and the real power of being would lie beyond both it and that which conditioned it.10 Here, Tillich identifies an important point of Schelling’s thought, which in turn he uses to legitimate a crucial element of his own philosophy: that is, the abovementioned transcendence of God –​and of the unity of subject and object –​is neither a form of naturalism nor of supernaturalism. In other words, Schelling’s principle of identity (and philosophy of nature in general) paves the way to an understanding of God which is neither passively identified with nature nor dogmatically and irremediably detached from the human world. Indeed, Tillich clearly argues that the existing dichotomy between the two abovementioned positions, that is, naturalism and supernaturalism, is obsolete and needs to be definitively overcome, and that his reading of Schelling plays a fundamental role to overcome such dichotomy. Additionally, Tillich also claims that The main argument against naturalism in whatever form is that it denies the infinite distance between the whole of finite things and their infinite ground, with the consequence that the term “God” becomes interchangeable with “universe” and therefore is semantically superfluous. This semantic situation reveals the failure of naturalism to understand a decisive element in the experience of the holy, namely, the distance between finite man, on the one hand, and the holy numerous manifestations, on the other. For this, naturalism cannot account.11

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  97 In other words, God can neither be reduced to sheer and impersonal nature –​as that would leave no room for God’s will and omnipotence –​ nor be identified with an entirely supernatural being with no relation to the material world –​as that would make God a mere intellectual abstraction. Simply put, Tillich believes that God is both transcendent –​as God is “being-​itself” and not a finite and mortal being –​and present in the empirical world through the moral law. In this sense, Tillich theorises a third way of understanding God as “self-​transcendence” and “ecstatic.” As he explains, the term “self-​transcendence” has two elements: “transcending” and “self.” God as the ground of being infinitely transcends that of which he is the ground. He stands against the world, in so far as the world stands against him, and he stands for the world, thereby causing it to stand for him. This mutual freedom from each other and for each other is the only meaningful sense in which the “supra” in “supranaturalism” can be used. Only in this sense we can speak of “transcendent” with respect to the relation of God and the world. To call God transcendent in this sense does not mean that one must establish a “superworld” of divine objects. It does mean that, within itself, the finite world points beyond itself. In other words, it is self-​transcendent.12 Therefore, God is not transcendent in the sense that God belongs to an entirely supernatural and detached realm of Being; rather, God is transcendent because God embodies all existing beings while exceeding their totality. God, that is, grounds the immanent world but transcends such ground(ing). For this reason, the immanent world “points beyond itself,” namely it must be acknowledged that the origin and the moral order of the world lies beyond the world itself, without however constituting a totally separate and incommensurate ontological dimension. Tillich further explains that the finitude of the finite points to the infinity of the infinite. It goes beyond itself in order to return to itself in a new dimension. This is what “self-​transcendence” means. In terms of immediate experience it is the encounter with the holy, an encounter which has an ecstatic character. The term “ecstatic” in the phrase “ecstatic idea of God” points to the experience of the holy as transcending ordinary experience without removing it. Ecstasy as a state of mind is the exact correlate to self-​ transcendence as the state of reality. Such an understanding of the idea of God is neither naturalistic nor supranaturalistic. It underlies the whole of the present theological system.13

98  Transcendence of Being? Such “ecstatic character” of “self-​transcendence” is a key element of what Tillich calls ethical mysticism. Indeed, it is precisely by going beyond ourselves as finite beings that we can finally grasp the transcendent nature of the Godhead, which lies irremediably outside the limits of human finitude. Moreover, this leads us towards the fundamental structure of Being and of reality, highlighting what ought to be –​which in turn coincides with the moral world-​order and with the telos towards which our actions must tend. That is to say, Tillich maintains that the act of self-​transcendence implies the realisation of such moral world-​order, in compliance with God’s very nature. As mentioned above, this understanding derives directly from Tillich’s doctoral studies on Schelling. Indeed, since his dissertation, Tillich sees Schelling’s principle of identity as “purified of all empiricism,”14 maintaining that the unity between subject and object exclusively pertains to the sphere of transcendence, in the sense specified above. Accordingly, transcendence precedes and grounds immanence, and God manifests Godself in the immanent world through the transcendent moral telos that God Godself posited as the fundamental element of God’s own Being –​ and towards which we must tend with our actions. Borrowing Tillich’s words again, God is the moral world order that is realized in particular moral acts without ever being actual in its totality. God is not, but he ought to be brought into being in an infinite progress. These statements comprise the typical form of ethical mysticism. It considers identity with God to be immediately given in particular moral acts of the will. The principle of identity is preserved, but with an important limitation that lies in the essence of the actual will and is the basis of the expression of the inner antinomy implicit in every form of ethical mysticism.15 From this, Tillich continues, it follows that Schelling’s philosophy of nature can be understood only in light of its religious meaning. Indeed, Tillich claims that nature alone cannot grasp the totality of Being, and that it must transcend itself to do so. As Tillich himself puts it, in Schelling objective reality no longer contradicts the idea of God, but rather affirms it most powerfully. Nature is not the embodiment of emptiness, of the nonego to which the ego is exclusively opposed; rather, it is, in the deepest sense, spirit and will, creative identity. [… Thus,] [t]‌he identity of spirit and nature, to which the teleological proof of the existence of God leads, is given in nature as productive act. God is creative nature.16

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  99 In this sense, nature is not incommensurate with God’s transcendence but rather is the immanent manifestation of God’s being and creativity. That is to say, the immanence of nature is conceivable only insofar as God Godself posits it in order to reinstate God’s original transcendence. Here lies the transcendentist core of Tillich’s reading of Schelling: indeed, it is evident that for Tillich transcendence has ontological priority over immanence, meaning that transcendence is the source and origin of immanence, and that immanence can only occur and be justified in its return to transcendence. Simply put: with no transcendence, there is no immanence either. The goal of Tillich’s ethical mysticism, then, is to restore the unity of principles within the realm of transcendence, overcoming the immanent contradiction and struggle between the principles, as Schelling understands it. I have already explained how Schelling understands the separation, contradiction and struggle between the principles in §1.2, so I will not get back to this now. Rather, here it is important to emphasise once again that Tillich maintains that the unity of the principles can be restored only in the transcendent realm of ethical mysticism. As stated by Rachel Sophia Baard, Tillich’s God “is a God whose transcendence lies in immanence.”17 In fact, Baard continues, Tillich’s conception of God “allows for a more intimate divine presence, the presence of the God that is not the Totally Other who ‘comes down on’ the passive recipient of grace, but is the transcending-​yet-​immanent reality in which the accepted one is rooted.”18 Nevertheless, as already explained above, it is also true that the originating point of God as “being-​itself” undoubtedly belongs to the realm of transcendence. Therefore, immanence has to be abandoned in favour of transcendence in order to fully grasp God’s nature, and the moral world-​order that follows from it. For this reason, Tillich believes that God’s transcendence “lies in immanence” not in the sense that God’s transcendence could not occur without moving from immanence; instead, God posits immanence only in order to restate God’s transcendence, allowing the latter to rest on the former, and maintaining transcendence as the first and original element of the relation. As I show later in this chapter (and then in greater details in Chapter 6), Schelling understands the relation between immanence and transcendence in opposite terms. 3.2  Marcel and the “Safeguarding of Transcendence” Similar to Tillich, Gabriel Marcel developed a very early interest in the philosophy of Schelling, with a particular emphasis on the theme of religious transcendence. His doctoral thesis, which he completed in 1910, was indeed titled Coleridge et Schelling, and was published only in 1973.19 However, as Xavier Tilliette also notes, the main focus of Marcel’s dissertation was undoubtedly Coleridge, whereas Schelling is mainly discussed

100  Transcendence of Being? as Coleridge’s intellectual point of reference.20 It is only in 1957, in the wake of the centenary of Schelling’s death –​and of Jaspers’s and Walter Schulz’s respective works on Schelling21 –​that Marcel decided to return his attention to Schelling, publishing his very well-​known 1957 article “Schelling fut-​il un précurseur de la philosophie de l’existence?”22 Since his early studies, Marcel maintains that Schelling’s philosophy is based on the attempt to re-​establish and safeguard of transcendence, against the illusion that immanence alone is the purest expression of reality. There is indeed a principle of transcendence in the world and in human beings too, according to which faith transcends pure reason, and morality transcends sheer intellect. Namely, Schelling aims at discovering a principle of philosophy that is beyond Being itself and can reconcile transcendence and absolute idealism. Hence, a philosophy of absolute immanence is ultimately unable to satisfy such need. According to Marcel, this emerges with particular clarity from Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift, where Schelling theorises an Übersein, a supra-​Being emerging above the identity of subject and object, which in turn testifies Schelling’s definitive shift to irrationalism and philosophy of religious transcendence.23 Despite Marcel himself acknowledging that his mature thought is very distant from his early work on Coleridge and Schelling,24 he holds firm that Schelling’s philosophy is essentially a philosophy of religious transcendence. Borrowing Daniel Whistler’s words, it is undeniable that Marcel “speaks of Schelling’s ‘fundamental philosophical question’ as ‘the problem of transcendence’, continuing that Schelling’s central motivation throughout his career was the guaranteeing of transcendence, and his entire epistemology, including its master-​ concept, intellectual intuition, is intended to achieve this.”25 Indeed, Marcel makes it very clear that Schelling, in opposition to the Hegelian dialectics aimed at reabsorbing transcendence into immanence, “attempts to safeguard transcendence in philosophy, for this will to safeguard is the active moment in that tendency towards the unconditioned which finds expression in his own personal way of conceiving intellectual intuition.”26 Therefore, Marcel claims, Schelling theorises an unconditioned principle of philosophy, which coincides with an absolute form of transcendence that can be achieved only through intellectual intuition. Moreover, this absolute transcendence is “nothing objective” but rather is the highest form of the Ego, which is beyond the separation between subject and object and is in itself indifference between subject and object.27 The latter coincides with God, which is able to “break the power of reason on Godself” and “arises as a pure transcendence that, in its reality, is no longer susceptible to be [rationally] understood.”28 In this respect, Whistler argues that Marcel reads Schelling’s thought on transcendence neither as a “poetic relation in which one unites entirely with what is

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  101 outside the order of the known at the expense of conceptual thinking,” nor as an advocate of the idea that “transcendence is reabsorbed back into the immanent dialectic of thought. [Indeed, in that case] [t]‌ranscendence is cancelled under the hegemonic authorities of thought and critique.”29 Instead, according to Marcel, Schelling attempts to negotiate “a via media” that safeguards transcendence within philosophy. In other words, the transcendent is not to be located outside the immanent, but as the immanent, as an irreducible moment of thought –​“the transcendence of thought itself.” Hence, Marcel takes over the ecstatic dynamics of Schelling’s late “higher empiricism” to describe this third way: there is “a change in the orientation of reason itself,” such that “thought transcends itself” –​or, as Marcel also puts it, “auto-​ determination” becomes “extra-​ determination.” [Accordingly,] [t]‌ ranscendence becomes the proper name for the very movement of thought.30 However, Marcel conceives the relation between transcendence and immanence in a very similar way to Tillich: immanence is posed only to be transcended, namely transcendence is the source from which immanence originates. Thus, Marcel attributes to Schelling a form of religious transcendence which stands above mere rationality and cannot be grasped in immanent terms –​and to safeguard such transcendence means to move philosophy itself beyond the immanentist dialectic of Hegelianism and allow it to embrace the prerational and transcendent source of everything that is. However, Marcel also agrees that Schelling’s attempt ultimately ended up in a failure. Referring to Jaspers’s interpretation, he writes that if [Schelling] gives us wings when he treats of principles, he deceives us when he moves to concrete explanations. Schelling is right in saying that philosophy can truly illuminate our existence through a transcendence to which no path can lead if it is not already at the origin. But this affirmation becomes false when God is thought as a reality that we will be given to know and from which one can deduce that which is.31 In other words, Marcel also thinks that Schelling ultimately falls back into the old conceptual ways of traditional Western metaphysics, without being able to effectively account for the kind of absolute religious transcendence that he established as the main source of existence. To put it differently, Schelling’s philosophy cannot satisfy that need for transcendence which, according to Marcel, is the source and origin of all philosophical investigations. Marcel already expressed these views in the years preceding his article on Schelling. Indeed, in his Gifford

102  Transcendence of Being? Lectures –​delivered at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1949 and 1950 and then published as The Mystery of Being (Le Mystère de l’être) in 1951 –​he already identified a “need for transcendence,” which he understands as a deep exigence that is inherent to the human condition. Marcel himself writes that the need of transcendence, which all human beings experience, “presents itself above all, is deeply experienced above all, as a kind of dissatisfaction,”32 but not as a desire for something material and external to one’s self –​e.g., material possessions –​but rather a yearning for something that is within one’s self and that cannot be attained through rationality alone. That is, Marcel’s transcendence is not a transcendence of all experience, but rather an experience of transcendence, namely something that refers not to a sheer intellectual and metaphysical speculation, but rather to life in its concrete occurrence. Borrowing Marcel’s words again, “[n]‌ ot only does the word ‘transcendent’ not mean ‘transcending experience’, but on the contrary there must exist a possibility of having an experience of the transcendent as such, and unless that possibility exists the word can have no meaning.”33 In other words, such need for transcendence coincides with a pure mode of experience that “revolves upon the centre of an experiencing self [… and] gradually substitutes one centre for another.”34 Indeed, transcendence entails “a straining oneself towards something, as when, for instance, during the night we attempt to get a distinct perception of some far-​off noise.”35 However, that towards which we strain is not to be grasped through rational analysis, nor can it be reduced to a sheer material occurrence. To further paraphrase, the experience of transcendence described by Marcel is an actual occurrence in which the focus of one’s experience is moved away from oneself and towards the source of one’s self and experience. This source, however, is primarily a transcendent one, and its immanent manifestation only serves to highlight the originarity of transcendence and the subsequent dependence of immanence on it. In this respect, for Marcel transcendence is not to be understood as the object of an experience, nor can experience be considered an object itself. The experience of transcendence is not something that we find standing before us, or that we encounter among other experiences. It is something that is both at the very ground of our being in the world, and that irremediably transcends ourselves. Subsequently, “to say that the transcendent is still immanent in experience, is to persist in objectifying experience and in imagining it as a sort of space of which the transcendent would be, so to say, one dimension.”36 Immanence, then, is nothing but a “bump in the road,” or a merely provisional manifestation of the original and fundamental transcendence. Thus, immanence can never refer to the essential features of life and Being, but at most can point towards these inherently and inescapably transcendent features.

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  103 Even though discussing Marcel’s philosophy in detail exceeds the scope of this chapter, it is important to highlight that Marcel undoubtedly has Schelling as one of his points of reference when he develops his reflections on transcendence. That is to say, there is little doubt that Marcel’s early transcendentist reading of Schelling’s philosophy influenced his own work. For instance, Marcel’s discourse on the experience of transcendence clearly recalls Schelling’s discourse on pure experience –​indeed, Marcel himself uses that expression in a few cases.37 In this concept, Marcel identifies an attempt to push traditional idealism beyond its limits, and attributes the merits of such push to Schelling, which is why Schelling himself can be ascribed to the category of “post-​idealist philosophers,” to whom also Heidegger belongs –​precisely because of his closeness to Schelling’s ideas. It is interesting to notice that Pareyson, in acknowledging the intellectual connection between Heidegger and Schelling, defined the latter as a “post-​ Heideggerian thinker.” I will discuss this point more in detail in the next section. In conclusion, I argue that like Tillich, Marcel maintains the ontological priority of transcendence over immanence in Schelling’s discourse, attributing Schelling’s alleged failure to his inability to practically account for such ontological primacy without falling back into the philosophical categories of traditional Western metaphysics. Moreover, I argue that the latter position is in fact unable to grasp the immanentist core of Schelling’s philosophy. Marcel is indeed convinced that immanence is posited by God to give further prominence to transcendence, and transcendence is located in immanence only in order to point beyond immanence itself. Immanence, then, does not represent the fundamental structure of Being but is rather its provisional manifestation, pointing towards a form of transcendence that is irremediably above and before immanence itself. Indeed, even though it is true that Marcel understands transcendence as occurring within immanence, it is also true that for Marcel immanence can only be explained and understood by referring it back to the original transcendence –​and he attributes this thought to Schelling as well. Once again, in Chapter 6, I demonstrate that this reading does not correspond to the one developed by Schelling, who reads the relation between immanence and transcendence in opposite terms. 3.3  Pareyson: Schelling as a “Post-​Heideggerian Thinker”38 Although still understudied in the Anglophone world, Pareyson’s thought deserves some attention for a couple of reasons. First, Pareyson can legitimately be considered as one of the fathers of 20th-​century philosophical hermeneutics; second, he developed his hermeneutic view between the late 1940s and the early 1950s, in fact forerunning the philosophies

104  Transcendence of Being? of Gadamer and Ricoeur. Indeed, Gadamer’s Wahrheit und Methode was published in 1960, while the early works on hermeneutics by Ricoeur were published in the late 1950s.39 However, here I only discuss his reading of Schelling, which I consider emblematic of the transcendentist approach of 20th-​century Schelling’s interpreters. Moreover, Pareyson’s interpretation contains some innovative elements that cannot be found in other transcendentist readings.40 Pareyson’s philosophy is deeply influenced by several thinkers: indeed, he draws inspiration not only from philosophers of the past, such as Kierkegaard, Fichte, and Schelling, but he also works side by side with some of the most prominent philosophers of his time, such as Jaspers, Heidegger, Marcel, and Barth –​as well as Gadamer41 and Ricoeur. More specifically, Pareyson innovatively reads Schelling as a “post-​Heideggerian thinker” –​ that is, in light of his early engagement with Jaspers and Heidegger, and in light of his general conception of the meaning of philosophy. Philosophy, as Pareyson understands it, needs to go beyond the traditional rationalistic metaphysics, which Pareyson sees as culminating in Hegel’s idealism and in Italian forms of neo-​idealism; the latter in particular are regarded by Pareyson as merely abstract formalisms. Accordingly, Pareyson believes that proper philosophical reflection cannot but be centred on concrete human existence, but without ever forgetting to give due weight to religious experience. That is, Pareyson thinks that neo-​idealism, leaving the issue of the nature of personhood unsolved, paved the way for existentialism, which was the only philosophy left to shoulder the entire burden of Western thought after the “crisis and dissolution of idealism.”42 According to Pareyson, concrete existence is to be understood as the proper object of philosophy, and therefore philosophy has to focus on the living person, rather than on any sort of metaphysical and idealistic abstraction. Simply put, through philosophy Pareyson aims at grasping existence in its very concreteness, namely as singular, finite, and personal existence. On these grounds, Pareyson claims that the highest task of philosophy is to answer the fundamental question “Why is there Being rather than nothingness?”; accordingly, Pareyson reads the philosophy of Schelling in relation both to this fundamental question, and to his early studies on Jaspers and Heidegger, which are instrumental in assessing his later interpretation of Schelling.43 In fact, Pareyson claims that the philosophies of Jaspers, Heidegger and Schelling are essentially an attempt at answering the fundamental question of philosophy, that is, “Why is there Being rather than nothingness?” However, contrary to his studies on Jaspers and Heidegger, Pareyson engages with Schelling only in the mature phase of his intellectual activity; more specifically, Pareyson’s most relevant writings on Schelling date back to the mid and late 1970s, but Schelling was also the subject of some of Pareyson’s university courses

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  105 on moral and theoretical philosophy in the late 1960s. As also argued by Claudio Ciancio, Schelling does not represent a fully fledged turning point in Pareyson’s thinking, but rather he is crucial and essential for Pareyson in the development of his own philosophical reflection.44 In Ontology of Freedom (1991), Pareyson claims that, in the modern era, Schelling is the philosopher who has given more relevance to and focused more deeply on the abovementioned fundamental question.45 Even Heidegger’s formulation of (and answer to) this question is largely drawn on Schelling’s philosophy, Pareyson highlights. In addition, he argues that Schelling, in order to solve the dilemma of the relationship between Being and nothingness, emphasises the absolutising necessity of Being, which derives from the inner positivity of God, which in turn makes it impossible for nothingness to be. Put simply, the idea of God undermines the possibility of nothingness, so that “the possibility itself of nothingness is dispelled by the necessity of Being.”46 That is, Pareyson explains Schelling’s idea of God as the expression of the purest and highest positivity, which coincides with the necessity of Being and in turn categorically excludes the possibility of nothingness. In Schelling’s account, Pareyson further clarifies, “the alternative to ‘nothingness’ is not ‘somethingness’, but ‘wholeness’, the unitotality [unitotalità] of Being, which as such makes nothingness impossible.”47 By the word “unitotality,” Pareyson means to stress the features of unity and univocity of Schelling’s conception of totality (namely the resolution of the finite into the infinite), and also to underline the monist nature of Schelling’s necessitarian understanding of Being (which I have explained in Chapter 1). Therefore, the positivity of Being is the absolute negation of nothingness; nothingness is eternally impossible; the opposite of nothingness is wholeness, and wholeness is that which is impossible not to be, and nothingness is that which is impossible to be; Being is necessary, nothingness is nothing.48 Such a denial of nothingness is the direct consequence of Schelling’s Identitätphilosophie, Pareyson believes. Being a philosophy of necessity, Schelling’s Identitätphilosophie not only negates the possibility of nothingness but also distrusts its thinkability. Accordingly, “the fundamental question is ultimately a rhetorical question, whose purpose is –​if anything –​to highlight the fullness and brightness [solarità] of Being.”49 It is no wonder, therefore, that something exists rather than nothing, or, better, it is no wonder that there is Being rather than nothingness. However, “it follows that those who marvel that something rather than nothing exists remain at an inferior level of knowledge,”50 since they do not grasp the

106  Transcendence of Being? fullness and wholeness of Being and the nature of God. That is, while God is “the indissoluble nexus of unity and multiplicity,” they see only “mere unity, with neither contrast nor life,”51 and therefore, they keep marvelling because they miss the necessary inner structure of Being. Moreover, Pareyson adds, God is not to be conceived of as the mere and inert unity of finite and infinite, because such a conception would lead to a mechanistic understanding of the world and to the inevitable denial of freedom. Accordingly, such a conception cannot grasp the radical feature of the fundamental question, since it does not grasp the abovementioned unitotality of Being. Conversely, by shifting to the level of the unitotality of Being, namely to that level in which one can see how, at the same time, the finite resolves itself into the infinite and the infinite concretely manifests itself in the finite, there emerges “a sense of wonder, or rather of fear and of sacred terror.”52 In this way, the fundamental question plays a different and more radical role in Schelling’s thought, as Pareyson argues, since it grasps “both the whole in the one [uno] as life-​flow and the one in the whole as the pure existing being [puro esistente].”53 Consequently, looking at the fundamental question from a different angle leads to a different understanding of nothingness: as Pareyson himself puts it, we need nothingness not to be so easily dissolved before the brightness [solarità] of Being, […] we need wonder and awe to be accompanied by dark and painful aspects, […] we need to face, on the one hand, the harsh and steep bareness of Being, and on the other hand, the dark and anguished side of reality.54 Accordingly, this means dealing with the living bond that connects finite and infinite, God and singular beings, Being and nothingness; therefore, we do not marvel because something rather than nothingness exists, but instead we marvel and experience awe because of the “dizziness” caused by the act of looking at the very heart of Being from the greatest heights that the human intellect can reach. Such a dizziness, and the accompanying awe, is a sort of ecstasy, that is, a “being out of oneself,” that occurs in the presence of the abovementioned “pure existing being.” This assumes a key role in Pareyson’s reading of Schelling, so it is worth taking a closer look at this fundamental conception and giving a more detailed explanation of it. In some of his personal notes on Schelling (which date back to 1978–​1979 and have been included in Ontology of Freedom), Pareyson writes that “the pure existing being is the absolute prius, against which everything else, namely concepts, essence, possibility and potency is nothing but posterius;”55 in other words, Pareyson defines the pure existing being as that which is not the essence of any existence and is not preceded by any possibility or any potency, but

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  107 rather is that bare reality that comes before every essence, potency, and possibility. Borrowing Ciancio’s words, “reality intended as pure existence can indeed be thought as irreducible to possibility and necessity.”56 “The pure existing being –​Pareyson continues –​is such not only because it does not have before itself any concept, any essence, any possibility, but also because it itself precedes every possibility, every essence, every concept.”57 Since it is not preceded by anything, pure existing being has no past but is itself the past, that is, the absolute past and the antecedent of everything that exists. Such an account recalls what I earlier stated about Schelling’s discourse on temporality in Chapter 1, and more precisely, it refers to its kairological dimension. However, here Pareyson’s intention is likely to further emphasise the transcendent nature of Being: indeed, by preceding every possibility, every essence, and every potency, the pure existing being in fact transcends them, so it is beyond every human experience and is not reducible to it. It is also in this sense that Pareyson speaks about the inexhaustibility of Being, which can only be known and possessed as irreducible to and perennially exceeding finite beings. From Schelling, Pareyson also draws the conclusion that reality is neither necessity nor possibility but freedom. As Pareyson points out in the abovementioned “Introduction” to Existence and Person, reality is ungrounded, that is, it has no foundation, since it is incorrect to argue both that it is the realisation of a possibility and that it is the actualisation of a necessity. Indeed, of reality which is sole reality, not promoted by possibility nor reclaimed by necessity, nay anterior to the former and free from the latter, […] only one thing can be said: that it is because it is; which is nothing but another formulation of its ungroundedness, since it is not because, given that it could not be, it supposes a ground, nor because, given that it could not but be, gives itself a ground, but because, in fact, it is ungrounded.58 Hence, reality is gratuitous and dependent exclusively on freedom, which leaves it suspended over an abyss, rather than resting on stable ground. Being suspended over the abyss of freedom means both that the abyss itself has to be understood as the origin of reality (rather than as nothingness), and that God is pure positivity, or, better, the ontological priority of positivity over negativity.59 Following this line of reasoning, Pareyson also calls into question Schelling’s discourse on good and evil and develops his own interpretation of it. That is, Pareyson associates good and evil respectively with God’s positivity and God’s negativity. Therefore, the ontological priority of the former over the latter corresponds to the priority of good over evil, but not to the definitive annihilation of evil and negativity: if that were so, there would be no evil at all. In other words, evil

108  Transcendence of Being? and negativity keeps subsisting as eternally overcome by God’s will and freedom. Freedom, in this sense, is characterised by Pareyson as freedom for good and evil, so the possibility of evil is still latently present even in God Godself. That is, Pareyson claims that God is freedom and also that freedom is preceded only by freedom itself; accordingly, evil is not only in the human being but also in God. In support of this statement, Pareyson argues that God freely created the world, that is, God was not forced to create anything and in fact could have not created anything and remained alone. The latter possibility, although unrealised and eternally defeated and overcome by God, consists precisely in the possibility of Evil in God.60 God, to wit, could have chosen egoism instead of the abovementioned gratuitousness; nevertheless God freely decided to reject evil and nothingness in favour of good and Being. Pareyson also claims that Schelling provides a similar understanding of the relationship between reality and freedom, according to which reality presupposes freedom, but in turn freedom presupposes freedom, from which follows the abovementioned abyss of freedom itself. Furthermore, Pareyson attributes a certain melancholy to Schelling’s philosophy, which is, once again, strictly related to the fundamental question. Indeed, Schelling’s philosophy is melancholic “not because finite reality could fall back into nothingness […] but because one is rather than one is not.”61 Therefore, Pareyson seems to suggest that the fundamental nature of the question “Why is there Being rather than nothingness?” is due not to the rational speculation that it generates, but rather to the depth of the abyss that such a question reveals. The essay The “Awe of Reason” in Schelling [Lo “stupore della ragione” in Schelling], first published in 1979, is a fundamental text for understanding Pareyson’s interpretation of the late philosophy of Schelling, since in it Pareyson focuses in detail on that which he considers the very core of Schelling’s philosophy, that is, the awe of reason, which in turn is related to the passage from negative to positive philosophy, to the abovementioned concept of “pure existing being” and to the fundamental question of philosophy. Put differently, Pareyson tries to exploit the concept of the awe of reason in order to provide a common thread for his reading of Schelling, that is, to use it as the main key to interpret Schelling’s philosophy in an existentialist manner. So now, I simply report Pareyson’s argument in support of his reading, while I critically discuss it in the final section of this chapter. Negative and positive philosophy, Pareyson argues, are in contrast with each other, since the former deals with “pure concepts,” remaining at a level of speculative abstraction, while the latter concerns concrete existence, at the level of reality and facing the pure existing being (as I have defined it above). In this sense, Pareyson continues, the transition from

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  109 negative to positive philosophy is not automatic, meaning that negative philosophy does not necessarily need to resolve itself into the positive one. Conversely, this transition is a fully-​fledged turning point, which consists in a leap, because it is about starting back from the beginning moving from real existence, and in an overturning, because existing Being from which positive philosophy moves is the opposite of the idea of Being to which negative philosophy refers.62 In this sense, then, Pareyson argues that Schelling’s conception of reason includes an ecstatic feature but not in a mystical sense; rather, Pareyson acknowledges that Schelling’s idea of reason needs to move further and be “out-​of-​itself” (ἔκ-​σ τασις, ek-​stasis) in order to be able to grasp the pure existing being. As Pareyson himself puts it, Reason realizes that despite all its efforts it cannot reach reality by itself, because its movements are purely conceptual […]. Hence it is the reason itself that, […] once it has verified that existence is really existence only outside thinking, precisely for finding it, goes beyond its boundaries and out of itself.63 Accordingly, the awe of reason is not due to the simple and obvious fact that there is Being instead of nothingness but rather that reason finds existence, or, better, the pure existing being, as something other than reason itself, that is, as something that exceeds and takes place outside reason itself. Otherwise, if awe were just simple marvelling at the mere existence of Being, awe itself would still be limited to only negative philosophy; therefore, in order to be the moment of transition between the two philosophies, awe has to coincide with that revelatory act through which reason discovers the pure existing being as something other than reason itself. Only by so doing can the awe of reason be the unique moment of the transition from negative to positive philosophy. The pure existing being manifests itself as incomprehensible, inaccessible, and irreducible to anything else, and so reason cannot but become impotent, mute, and subjugated in its presence. As Pareyson writes, reason is stupefied in front of the incomprehensibility of the pure existing being, from which its impotence; amazed by the appearance of the pure existing being up to the point it becomes speechless, from which its mutism; enchanted by the transcendence of pure existing being before which it just has to kneel, from which its submission.64

110  Transcendence of Being? As already mentioned, the pure existing being exceeds rational speculation and conceptual schematisation, and consequently, it comes before every essence and possibility, and in general before every thinking. To grasp it as such we need to present it in its characteristic non-​conceptuality, on the one hand not anticipated by any concept, and on the other hand prior to every concept, not preceded by anything and precisely for that preceding everything, independent from the idea and then exceeding the idea.65 For this reason, facing the pure existing being means for reason to go out of itself, to exceed its capacity and therefore to be caught up by dizziness, confusion and awe. The pure existing being, according to Pareyson, is also intransitive, undoubted, and immemorable. It is intransitive since “it is not first possible and then real, but is immediately and solely real: it is already there, irrevocably existing.”66 So, the awe of reason occurs because reason itself is directly faced with the immediate and unavoidable existence of something that exceeds its categories of understanding. Moreover, the pure existing being is undoubted because it is not subject to possibility but exists directly and unequivocally; hence, there can be no doubt about it since, as Pareyson argues, doubt would be justified only if we had two or more possibilities to choose from, but this is not the case. Finally, it is immemorable because, as already explained, the pure existing being is the “absolute prius,” that is, it precedes every other existing being and has no past but rather is itself the past; this also recalls the kairological temporal dimension, which in turn makes it not reducible to thought and memory. More specifically, Pareyson seems to refer to the same discourse on temporality that I have already outlined in §1.3; that is, Pareyson acknowledges that in Schelling’s philosophy there is a temporal dimension that occurs outside time as we understand it, namely outside chronological time. In other words, Pareyson thinks that the pure existing being pertains to a temporal dimension that is not preceded by anything and therefore precedes every existing being. However, rather than providing the inner and unconscious ground of our actions (like what I argued in §1.3), Pareyson aims at strongly emphasising the transcendence of the pure existing being, against which the finiteness of the human condition is indisputable and ineludible. Concluding his analysis, Pareyson reaffirms that the awe of reason is the key concept to properly understand the transition between negative and positive philosophy, whose main goal consists “not in demonstrating that God exists, but in proving that that which exists is God.”67 In other words, Schelling’s twofold demonstration of the existence of God consists first in “the definition of the concept, which is up to the negative philosophy, and

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  111 [then in] the denomination of the existing being, which is up to the positive philosophy.”68 In this context, the awe of reason serves as a fundamental nexus between negative and positive philosophy, a sort of “break in continuity” between the two philosophies. That is, it is both the act of division of the philosophical discourse into a negative and a positive moment and the only possible act through which the philosophical discourse itself can be conceived of as one. Put simply, the awe of reason occurs when reason acknowledges itself as insufficient and faces the transcendence of the pure existing being and of God, which goes beyond rational categories of understanding and against which human reason can only be stupefied and experience awe. Moreover, in his last lecture at the University of Turin (held in 1988 and published in the final part of his Ontology of Freedom), he claims that Schelling, together with Heidegger, has the great merit of having developed a philosophy of freedom independent of any metaphysical rationalism and of any identification with morality. Indeed, Pareyson argues that there is a strong affinity between the philosophies of Schelling and Heidegger, from which it can be inferred that freedom can be properly understood “only if it is related not to necessity, as modern philosophy has unsuccessfully done, but to nothingness, which was so propitiously evoked by Heidegger.”69 In his turn, Heidegger draws his own understanding of freedom from Schelling, “who regarded ‘the question of despair’ as the fundamental question;”70 accordingly, Pareyson believes that both Schelling and Heidegger belong to existentialist philosophy, since they deal with the obscure and disturbing aspects of existence. But it is necessary to free Schelling from any residual concern for the idea of necessity, and Heidegger from the thorny question of the relationship between nothingness, Being and beings; so that from Schelling comes the clear echo of freedom in all its purity, and from Heidegger the neat and genuine image of nothingness.71 In support of this argument, Pareyson recalls the abovementioned discourse on the categories of modality, that is, possibility, necessity, and reality. That is, Pareyson reaffirms the gratuitousness and groundlessness of reality, which are neither anticipated by the possible nor determined by the necessary; then, such gratuitousness and groundlessness have ontological priority over the other two categories of modality, that is, sheer possibility and necessity. Therefore, reality is neither contingent nor predetermined but exclusively dependent on freedom, which in turn “is not a foundation but an abyss, that is, a foundation which always denies itself as a foundation”72 (as repeatedly mentioned above). In this sense, reality presents itself in its duality: on the one hand, “in its gratuitousness, it appears as

112  Transcendence of Being? something extra: an authentic gift owed to an act of generosity, a pure surplus that becomes an object of admiration,”73 and on the other hand, “in its groundlessness, however, reality shows its dark aspect: life appears as a punishment, which provokes both sorrow for existing and regret for not existing: better not to be than to be.”74 Pareyson continues by arguing that “reality simultaneously elicits [awe] and horror, anguish and wonder: its basic characteristic is ambiguity;”75 this ambiguity is directly related to the abyssal nature of freedom and to the following duality of freedom itself, which is “simultaneously positive and negative, anxious to affirm and strengthen itself and capable of denying and losing itself.”76 Such a duplicity, moreover, also determines the relationship between Being and nothingness, which Pareyson understands (as I have already said) as a mutual implication of the two terms, meaning that ontology always implies meontology and vice versa. Consequently, freedom too must be understood in relation to nothingness, since freedom carries in itself the possibility of its own annihilation; this discourse also applies to the question of evil, as I show later in this chapter. For now, it is important to stress both the connection that Pareyson establishes between Heidegger and Schelling, and the conclusion he draws from his reading of the two of them. Pareyson fundamentally (and paradoxically) reads Schelling as a “post-​ Heideggerian thinker,” both in Truth and Interpretation77 and in the last edition of Existence and Person. More specifically, in the latter book, Pareyson claims that Schelling can be considered as a post-​Heideggerian philosopher since “the interpretation of the late Schelling can be innovated starting from Heidegger precisely because Heidegger originated his thought from Schelling,”78 and then Heidegger’s interpretation of Schelling results in actualising and in revitalising Schelling’s philosophy by laying the foundation for a different interpretation of his philosophy, free from the influence of Hegel. Hence, Schelling is both a post-​Hegelian thinker, since he is the main instigator of the abovementioned dissolution of Hegel’s philosophical system, and a post-​Heideggerian, since Heidegger’s (re)interpretation of his philosophy allows us to see Schelling himself in a different light and to associate him with the issues of existentialism. In other words, the prefix “post-​” does not refer to chronology, but to the fact that Schelling’s philosophy can be understood both as a conceptual “overtaking” of Hegelianism and as the natural outcome of Heidegger’s thought. It is in this light that we must read Pareyson’s appropriation of Schelling; first, it is important to underline that Pareyson highlights Schelling philosophy in the following maxim: “being affirmed more by Being than by consciousness,” which implies the “anteriority of the human being to herself [and the] foundation of human temporality.”79 Once again, Pareyson

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  113 intends to draw our attention to the transcendent nature of Being, which also characterises our singular existences; in other words, by saying that the human being is anterior to herself, Pareyson means to argue that our ontological structure precedes our consciousness of it, and not the opposite, and then that Being precedes and cannot be reduced to consciousness. Put simply, this is nothing but one more restatement of the transcendence of Being towards humankind and its inexhaustibility and irreducibility to human reason and consciousness. Accordingly, once again, reality cannot but have ontological priority over the other categories of modality, that is, necessity and possibility, otherwise Being would not transcend singular beings and would not be inexhaustible. In conclusion, Pareyson claims that for Schelling (especially in his late phase) philosophy is not about thinking through the relationship between God and the world, but rather “the main issue is God’s freedom towards God’s being,”80 from which follows the conception of freedom as abyss. That is, as Pareyson himself writes in one of his latest personal notes in 1990, “creation reveals God’s pure freedom,” which means that God has to be thought of in terms of freedom and that “as the origin of Godself, [as that which] could have not been.”81 Accordingly, Schelling’s philosophy cannot be conceived of merely as “the second stage of the history of [German] idealism; [but rather as that philosophy that] prepares and dissolves [the philosophy of] Hegel.”82 This highlights once again how Pareyson understands Schelling at the same time as a post-​Hegelian and a post-​Heideggerian thinker, as I have explained above. To sum up, I have shown how Pareyson interprets the philosophy of Schelling in continuity with his previous readings of Jaspers and Heidegger, namely in relation to the so-​called fundamental question, “Why is there Being rather than nothingness?” Even though, in the first place, Schelling tried to solve this issue through the idea of the necessity of Being and the following identity philosophy, Pareyson believes that in his mature phase Schelling introduces into his philosophical system some new concepts that allow him (and us) to answer the abovementioned question differently and from a perspective that is closer to the philosophy of existence. Indeed, Pareyson highlights the relevance of that which I have called the pure existing being [puro esistente], that is the bareness of Being in its immediate existence and so that which precedes every necessity, every possibility and every existing thing. The impact with the pure existing being generates the awe of reason, which Pareyson interprets as the main reading key of Schelling’s philosophy, with particular reference to the passage from negative to positive philosophy. Finally, Pareyson repeatedly insists on the ontological priority of reality over necessity and possibility, which directly follows from the abovementioned elements of his reading of Schelling.

114  Transcendence of Being? 3.4  The Fallacy of Transcendentism and the Ontological Primacy of Immanence: A Critique of Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson Based on the reading of Schelling that I provided in §2.3, I will now argue that the transcendentist readings developed by Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson reiterate the same inaccuracies of those of Jaspers and Heidegger. Although I will present a more detailed account of Schelling’s ontology of immanence in Chapter 6, the elements discussed so far provide a solid basis to distance myself from the abovementioned transcendentist readings. Similar to my argument against Heidegger and Jaspers, my criticism of Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson is based on the fact that they, in their legitimate attempt to interpret Schelling’s work in light of their own philosophical ideas, overemphasise specific and isolated features of Schelling’s philosophy and use them to justify its alleged transcendentist nature. As already stated above, Tillich clearly attributes to transcendence an ontological priority over immanence, which he originally ascribes to Schelling’s philosophy. Tillich, then, develops his own theory of Being reiterating the ontological priority of transcendence into his own philosophy. Indeed, for Tillich the transcendence of Being manifests itself in every act of knowing, as well as in aesthetic intuitions. As Tillich himself puts it in his 1962 essay What is Religion?,83 thought and being become one in every act of knowing; however, thought can never fully absorb being into itself, due to the fundamental transcendent essence of Being itself. That is, there is an inaccessible dimension of Being that thought as such can never grasp, but only strive towards. Thus, Tillich claims that “without this transcendence, being would be dissolvable in thought.”84 Accordingly, “the transcendence of being expresses itself in the infinite demand contained in every act of thought to state truth, i.e., to be a necessary member in the totality of the logical claims through which thought apprehends being.”85 We find therefore –​Tillich continues –​in every particular stance of the knowing act on the one hand an awareness of the infinite reality of all being, striving as it does against thought and at the same time providing a basis for thought, and on the other hand a demand for a universal knowledge of being, a demand driving out beyond the particular, the individual. It is now possible for the spirit to orient itself […] to the unconditioned being that is the basis for everything particular and yet transcends everything particular.86 Tillich applies the same reasoning to the aesthetic sphere, which also reflects the transcendence of Being through the apprehension of an original significance that exceeds rationality. That is, he argues that aesthetic intuition, namely that which allows us to look upon an object of art as an

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  115 occurrence of the absolute indifference between subject and object, points towards the notion of absolute experience, which I have outlined it in Chapter 1. As Tillich himself puts it, the significance of the real that is apprehended in aesthetic feelings never remains attached to a particular significance and is never to be apprehended through empirical emotional states. The unconditional significance pulsates in and through every aesthetic experience, and every aesthetic feeling is a transcendent feeling, that is, one in which the empirical emotional agitation includes a kernel of experience pointing to the Unconditional.87 I do not intend to go into further details of Tillich’s discourse of Being, nor do I intend to take a position on such discourse, as that would exceed the scope of this work. Instead, what is relevant for the purpose of my investigation is that in his reflection Tillich implicitly recalls Schelling’s notions of Ursein, the Real, and absolute experience, which I have already discussed in Chapter 1. In this respect, I have already argued that, according to Schelling, Ursein is the primal Being, which in turn is the immanent foundation of reality, within which every existing thing is and outside of which nothing can be. In turn, Schelling refers to the Real as the fundamental and immanent ontological structure of the world, as it occurs in God’s revelation. Similarly, for Schelling the foundation of experience is also given immanently, namely in the immanent struggle of good and evil, as I have already shown. In this context, God is also to be understood as a living being that does not transcend nature, but rather as the immanent living unity of everything that is. This, I argue, is the kernel of Schelling’s immanentist ontology, and I will return on this specific point in Chapter 6. For now, suffice to say that Tillich explicitly turns these concepts into instances of transcendence that clearly do not belong to Schelling’s philosophy. It is no coincidence, indeed, that these conceptual premises lead Tillich to understand God in a radically transcendent way that is diametrically opposite to that of Schelling. That is, in his History of Christian Thought, Tillich advocates for a conception of God that is absolutely and fundamentally transcendent. Drawing upon Luther’s claim that God, although being essentially above and beyond human “body and spirit,” “is nearer to all creatures than they are to themselves,”88 Tillich concludes that such claim shows “the greatness of God, the inescapability of his presence, and at the same time, his absolute transcendence.”89 As I outline in greater detail later, Schelling too talks of absolute transcendence, as opposed to relative transcendence, in his 1842 Berlin lectures.90 According to Schelling, relative transcendence is a form of transcendence that is related to and

116  Transcendence of Being? dependent from the transcended object, hence failing to grasp the meaning of both immanence and transcendence. Instead, Schelling understands absolute transcendence as that process in which transcendence, originating from immanence, returns to immanence in order to be grasped and understood. Without such return, Schelling maintains, transcendence is nothing but a sheer intellectual abstraction. Now, Tillich’s discourse on God’s self-​ transcendence and absolute transcendence seems to recall Schelling’s notion of relative transcendence: that is, from a Schellingian perspective it can be argued that God’s transcendence, as Tillich articulates it, implies that transcendence itself is the original and starting point, through which immanence is subsequently posed. Hence, such transcendence is unable to effectively embody all existing things because it does not originate from immanence. Rather, Tillich’s transcendence ontologically precedes immanence and arbitrarily poses it, hence failing to properly return to immanence. That is to say, transcendence can return to immanence only if it originates in immanence; otherwise, transcendence remains essentially removed from immanence and unable to grasp Being and God in their concreteness. Consequently, Tillich’s transcendence is irremediably dependent to the transcended object, which is arbitrarily posed in an abstract manner, rather than being that immanent living unity that is at the core of Schelling’s ontology. A similar objection can be moved against Marcel’s transcendentist reading of Schelling. First and foremost, it should be noted that Marcel’s statement that Schelling, in his Freiheitsschrift, theorises an Übersein, that emerges above the identity between subject and object, is simply incorrect. As I have clearly demonstrated in Chapter 1, Schelling’s discourse is based on a different notion, namely that of Ursein, or primal Being, which is the exact opposite of a transcendent supra-​Being. Just as Tillich, here Marcel seems to invert the ontological relation between immanence and transcendence as Schelling outlines it. That is, Marcel maintains the ontological priority of transcendence over immanence; however, from a Schellingian perspective, the latter coincides with a form of relative transcendence, as discussed above. In his interpretation of Schelling, Marcel attempts to understand transcendence within immanence, namely as occurring in immanence. However, in doing so, Marcel poses transcendence as the fundamental and original moment of Being, in fact inverting the terms of Schelling’s discourse. Indeed, in his Berlin lectures, Schelling explicitly states that Everything transcendent is actually something relative, since it is this only in reference to something that is transcended. If I infer from the idea of the most supreme being its existence, then this is a transcending: I

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  117 first posited the idea and now wish to pass from it over into existence –​ here is then a transcendence. If, however, I proceed from that which is anterior to all concepts, then I have surpassed nothing, and, on the contrary, if one calls this being transcendent and I advance within it to its concept, then I have surpassed the transcendent and in this way again become immanent.91 It is very clear, then, that “that which is anterior to all concepts” is not a transcendent instance: in fact, Schelling specifies that such instance is indisputably immanent, since in order to grasp it, we actually surpass transcendence and return to immanence again. Schelling’s use of the term “again” leaves no room for doubt and uncertainty on this point: that is, becoming immanent again can only mean that the starting point –​namely the Ursein, or that primal Being which precedes all concepts –​lies in immanence. In other words, it is clear that calling primal Being transcendent allows us to immediately surpass its transcendence and return to its original and essential immanence. To make things even clearer, Schelling continues his discourse by arguing that “[o]‌nce I have made myself immanent, that is, enclosed myself in pure thought, then a transcendence is hardly possible; however, if I start from the transcendent (like the positive philosophy), then there is nothing that I have to exceed.”92 That is, making myself immanent equals to put immanence as a secondary and subsequent moment of an original transcendence, whereas the point is to become again immanent, namely to restate the original and fundamental immanence of Being. Once again, Marcel does not seem to acknowledge the immanent nature of the abovementioned process, instead arguing for a need of transcendence that leads us to experience transcendence itself. Moreover, in doing so Marcel poses the kernel and origin of our experience in the original and fundamental transcendence of Being. However, I have already shown how Schelling does the exact opposite, developing a clearly immanentist account of pure experience, conceived of as the material conditions of possibility not only of experience, but of life in general. Accordingly, I argue that Marcel’s statement that Schelling’s main philosophical purpose is to preserve transcendence is also incorrect. Indeed, I have already shown that Schelling’s immanentism also implies a form of radical monism, according to which the unconditioned principle of philosophy is not the expression of an original and pure transcendence but rather the original and immanent unity of the principles of good and evil, ideal and real, and subject and object. That is, in arguing that there is an original unity of the principles, Schelling is not arguing that such unity lies in transcendence, but rather that it is the immanent ontological structure of the Godhead. Rather, transcendence occurs in the arbitrary separation of the principles

118  Transcendence of Being? that we carry out –​with the inevitable outcome of restating the original unity of these principles. The latter is precisely the process of the “immanent made transcendent:” once again, it is not an original transcendence that poses immanence only to exceed and overcome it, but rather transcendence is immanent-​made, namely it originates in immanence and cannot but return to immanence to be properly grasped and understood. Therefore, the opposite of Marcel’s statement is true: through his philosophical activity, Schelling is attempting to safeguard immanence from the inconsistencies of a transcendentist approach. I think that what I have discussed in Chapter 1 is enough to substantiate this claim at this point; however, in Chapter 6, I will return to Schelling’s formula, which I identify as the core of his immanentist ontology. In conclusion, I argue that Pareyson’s interpretation of Schelling also leads to a transcendentist account, which is ultimately alien to Schelling’s philosophy. Indeed, although Pareyson’s reading of Schelling is quite original and thought-​provoking, there is very little doubt that such reading reiterates the ontological priority of transcendence over immanence, similar to Tillich and Marcel. According to Pareyson, once we establish that the fundamental task of philosophy is to investigate why there is Being rather than nothingness, such investigation can only lead to the very source and origin of Being itself, namely God, which in turn cannot be but transcendent. It is precisely this conclusion, however, that does not resonate in Schelling’s philosophy. It is true, as Pareyson argues, that the late Schelling tried to provide an answer to what has been identified as “the fundamental question of philosophy.” Indeed, Schelling inaugurates his 1842 Berlin lectures by claiming that thus far from man and his endeavors making the world comprehensible, it is man himself that is the most incomprehensible and who inexorably drives me to the belief in the wretchedness of all being […]. It is precisely man that drives me to the final desperate question: Why is there anything at all? Why is there not nothing?93 This approach reflects Pareyson’s fundamental idea that the only proper philosophy is the philosophy of existence, hence shifting the primary focus of philosophy itself to the concrete and living person and not on metaphysical concepts. That is, for Pareyson existence should be understood as a relation both with itself and with its transcendence, namely as that which is both closed to itself and opened to the other-​than-​self, in-​sistentia and ex-​ sistentia.94 It follows, then, that objectivity alone is not sufficient to grasp reality and existence, since existence is reducible neither to objectivity nor

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  119 to sheer subjectivity. Simply put, existence cannot be understood as a mere conceptual objectification of a living process but only as the living process itself. This critique of objectivity, that Pareyson borrows from Jaspers, has to be intended as the statement of the impossibility of the activity of philosophising without including oneself in such activity. Objectivity, then, cannot be absolutised but has to be conceived of as an insufficient and limited perspective that needs to be transcended. That is, Pareyson believes that dealing with the question of Being is equivalent to dealing with the question of personhood, since one can only deal with Being through one’s personal existence. In other words, the activity of philosophising essentially means dealing with the fundamental question “Why is there Being rather than nothingness?”; accordingly, in such activity, there is always an element that cannot be objectified, that exceeds a merely rational understanding and calls transcendence into question. Such a critique of objectivity, according to Pareyson, is reflected in the philosophy of Schelling. That is, Pareyson argues that Schelling’s attempt to demonstrate the existence of God ultimately leads us back to the pure existing being, which in turn exceeds human rationality and transcends our experience.95 Schelling’s conclusion, Pareyson emphasises, is not merely “ ‘that God exists’ but rather ‘that God exists in a necessary manner, that is, if he exists’.”96 This, for Pareyson, means that the pure existing being cannot be thought or grasped by human reason and is precisely this “unthinkability” that testifies its transcendence, which in turn constitutes the beginning of positive philosophy. Accordingly, the awe of reason comes into play, together with the sense of dizziness and ecstasy that it generates. Moreover, Pareyson adds, such ecstasy provides the mere existence without essence, that has neither a name nor a concept, namely something that is not God, but that can become God, once one gets to give it a name and to recognize in it not only Being, but the lord of Being.97 It is exactly this process that attributes divinity to the pure existing being; hence, through this process reason becomes able to grasp the fundamental unity of Being and thought, and to render into immanent terms that which is originally and irremediably transcendent. In other words, by attributing divinity to pure existing being, reason brings the concept of God to the level of immanence, after God’s original transcendence caused its awe and ecstasy. However, Pareyson clearly maintains the ontological primacy of transcendence, while immanence is only the outcome of a speculative process that occurs at a later stage of Being.

120  Transcendence of Being? In this respect, it must be noted that Pareyson’s account of transcendence also seems to recall that “relative transcendence,” insofar as it is given in relation with the transcended object, which Schelling rejects in favour of an “absolute transcendence,” as I have already explained. Secondly, Pareyson also misunderstands Schelling’s interrelation between immanence and transcendence: indeed, Pareyson writes that for Schelling “God is not, as many imagine, the transcendent, but the transcendent made immanent.”98 Instead, Schelling makes the exact opposite claim: “God is not, as many imagine, the transcendent, he is the immanent (that is, what is to become the content of reason) made transcendent.”99 By so doing, Pareyson inverts the terms of the question, in fact giving Schelling’s statement an opposite meaning. That is, it is one thing to move from the immanent and make it transcendent (as Schelling does), and another thing to move from the transcendent and make it immanent (as Pareyson does). In the first case, it is possible to understand transcendence in an absolute sense, since it is not given in its relation with the transcended object but in its sheer existence; in the second case, conversely, transcendence cannot but be relative, since it makes sense only in its relation with that which is transcended and therefore assuming it as an absolute starting point is nothing but an arbitrary statement. Furthermore, I argue that the abovementioned passage from Schelling’s Berlin lectures, that Pareyson quotes to legitimate his thesis, clearly shows Schelling’s immanentist approach. Indeed, Schelling argues that if [God] exists, he can only be in and, as it were, before himself, that is, he can only be that which is [das Seyende seyn] before his divinity [Gottheit]; but if before he is divine he is that which is, then for this very reason he is that which precedes his concept, and, thus, all concepts.100 In this respect, Schelling aims at disposing of the static concept of God that results from Anselm’s ontological proof (and so does Pareyson, to be fair). Instead, Schelling moves “from that which just exists [dem bloß Existirende], in which nothing at all is thought other than just that which just exists, to see whether the divine is to be reached from it.”101 It is precisely on these grounds that Schelling provides his definition of God as “the immanent made transcendent:” as I have repeatedly stated, the primal and original Being that precedes all concepts is conceived of in immanent terms by Schelling. Accordingly, the divinity of God is the transcendent moment that is preceded by the immanent nature of God Godself which “precedes all concepts.” Therefore, Schelling’s claim about God’s immanence should be interpreted as follows: God is not the transcendent –​namely not the abstract and immutable God of the traditional metaphysics –​but rather the immanent –​that primal Being that concretely grounds reality and is

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  121 involved in its living process –​made transcendent –​namely God’s divinity is subsequent to God’s immanent core. Schelling also specifies that the immanent is “what is to become the content of reason” precisely to emphasise that the idea of Being is grounded and preceded by its immanent existence, and that the transcendent attribute of divinity could not be actualised without returning to immanence. Simply put, God transcends God’s original immanence only in order to return to such immanence as a concept of reason. I will return to this point in Chapter 6, but what I have stated so far should be enough to show that Schelling’s approach is clearly immanentist, and that his purpose is to develop an immanentist ontology. That is, transcendence cannot be the source and origin of Being, because if that was the case we would have, once again, a relative transcendence. Accordingly, the immanence of Being –​and of God –​must be both the starting and the end point of a viable ontological discourse. In this respect, transcendence is that necessary moment of abstraction before returning to immanence again. Therefore, I argue that by inverting the terms of Schelling’s claim, as Pareyson does, we arrive at a form of transcendentist philosophy that is both alien to Schelling’s thought and fallacious from an argumentative point of view. That is, moving from transcendence to understand immanence inevitably amounts to basing philosophical reflection on an unstable ground, which rather than certifying the finitude of human experience and rationality through a speculative analysis, dogmatically assumes them as inescapable facts on which to build a specific line of reasoning. In other words, positing transcendence as the first term of the relation with immanence automatically entails an arbitrary foundation of philosophy that does not account for that which precedes all concepts, namely the immanent origin and actual existence of God Godself. In this chapter, I have discussed the interpretations of Schelling developed by Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson, showing how all these interpretations ultimately maintain the ontological priority of transcendence over immanence. More specifically, I have shown that Tillich believes that Schelling’s main philosophical goal was to unite mysticism and rationalism, and that he uses this interpretation to justify an ethical mysticism aimed at restating the transcendent and divine source of the world and of its moral order. I have also shown how Marcel reads Schelling’s philosophy as an attempt to re-​establish and safeguard transcendence, against the illusion that immanence alone is the purest expression of reality. On these grounds, Marcel identifies in Schelling’s philosophy the theorisation of an Übersein emerging above the unity of subject and object and restating the fundamental transcendence of God. Furthermore, I also discussed how Pareyson’s reading of Schelling is centred on the notion of “awe of reason,” and how he defines Schelling as a “post-​Heideggerian

122  Transcendence of Being? thinker,” since Heidegger’s philosophy allows us to innovatively reinterpret Schelling’s philosophy in a transcendentist way. Subsequently, I have shown how these transcendentist readings do not resonate with Schelling’s philosophy, which in turn is to be understood as an immanentist ontology –​laying the groundwork for a more detailed discussion of this point in Chapter 6. In the next part of this work, I begin by examining Deleuze’s positive use of Schelling’s ontology of immanence and more specifically of the notions of difference and Ungrund, namely the unconscious and original ground of Being –​which in turn are two key concepts for the philosophy of Deleuze himself. Then, I move to analyse contemporary readings that emphasise Schelling’s philosophy of Nature as the cornerstone of his philosophical thought –​such as Alderwick, Wirth, and Grant, as well as Merleau-​Ponty. My purpose is to demonstrate that Schelling’s philosophy does not lead to irrationalism nor to spiritualism but to an ontology perfectly grounded on the concreteness of nature, thereby entailing a radically immanentist account of Being. Notes 1 Paul Tillich, “Foreword” to Gesammelte Werke, vol. 1 (Stuttgart: Evangelisches Verlagswerk, 1959), quoted in the Translator’s Introduction to Paul Tillich, Mysticism and Guilt-​ Consciousness in Schelling’s Philosophical Development, translated with an Introduction and Notes by Victor Nuovo (Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1964), 9. 2 Christian Danz, “Tillich’s Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich, edited by Russel Re Manning (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 174. 3 Paul Tillich, A History of Christian Thought. From Its Judaic and Hellenistic Origins to Existentialism, edited by Carl E. Braaten (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), 370–​1. 4 Ibid., 369. 5 Ibid., 445. 6 Ibid., 405. 7 See Paul Tillich, Ergänzungs-​und Nachlassbände zu den Gesammelten Werken von Paul Tillich, vol. X (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1999), 11. Quoted in Danz, “Tillich’s Philosophy,” 175. 8 Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology: Combined Volume, vol. 1 (Welwyn, Herts: Nisbet, 1968), 11. 9 Ibid, vol. 1, 12. 10 Ibid., vol. 1, 263. 11 Tillich, Systematic Theology, vol. 2, 7. 12 Ibid., vol. 2, 8. 13 Ibid., vol. 2, 8–​9. 14 Tillich, Mysticism and Guilt-​Consciousness, 46.

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  123 5 Ibid., 49–​50. 1 16 Ibid., 54. 17 Rachel Sophia Baard, “Tillich and Feminism,” in Cambridge Companion to Tillich, 282. 18 Ibid. 19 Gabriel Marcel, Coleridge et Schelling (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1971). 20 See Xavier Tilliette, “Schelling e Gabriel Marcel: Un ‘compagno esaltante’,” Annuario Filosofico 3 (1987): 245. 21 I am referring to Jaspers, Schelling and to Walter Schulz, Vollendung der deutschen Idealismus in der Spätphilosophie Schellings (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1955). 22 See Gabriel Marcel, “Schelling fut-​ il un précurseur de la philosophie de l’existence?,” Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, Janvier–​Mars 1957, 62e Année, No. 1 (Janvier-​Mars 1957): 72–​87. 23 Marcel, Coleridge et Schelling, 239–​ 40. See also Tilliette, “Schelling e Marcel,” 247. 24 See Marcel, “Schelling,” 74. See also Daniel Whistler, “The Schelling of Religious Existentialism,” International Journal of Philosophy and Theology 80, no. 1–​2 (2019): 180. 25 Whistler, “Religious existentialism,” 186. 26 Marcel, “Schelling,” 77. English translation quoted from Whistler, “Religious existentialism,” 187. 27 See Marcel, “Schelling,” 77. 28 Ibid., 80. 29 Whistler, “Religious existentialism,” 187. 30 Ibid. 31 Marcel, “Schelling,” 84 32 Gabriel Marcel, The Mystery of Being. I. Reflection and Mystery. The Gifford Lectures, translated by G.S. Fraser (London: The Harvill Press, 1950), 42. [Later reprinted for South Bend, Indiana: Gateway, 1978] 33 Ibid., 46. 34 Ibid., 48. 35 Ibid., 47. 36 Ibid. 37 See ibid., 55. 38 A significant amount of this section has already been published in my article “Schelling as a ‘Post-​Heideggerian thinker’: Luigi Pareyson’s interpretation of Schelling,” Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 26, no. 1 (2021): 131–​51. Moreover, this section includes Pareyson’s personal notes and unpublished excerpts, which I have had the opportunity to consult at the Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “L. Pareyson,” University of Turin. To the best of my knowledge, most of this material has never been released to the public before. The article and Pareyson’s unpublished materials are reproduced with kind permission from the Philosophy Documentation Center and the Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “L. Pareyson.” 39 See Francesco Tomatis, Pareyson: Vita, filosofia, bibliografia (Brescia: Morcelliana, 2003), 47.

124  Transcendence of Being? 40 For a good and exhaustive overview of Pareyson’s philosophy, see Silvia Benso and Brian Schroeder (ed.), Thinking the Inexhaustible: Art, Interpretation, Freedom in the Philosophy of Luigi Pareyson, foreword by D. Schmidt (Albany: SUNY Press, 2018). See also Paolo Diego Bubbio, “Luigi Pareyson: The Third Way to Hermeneutics,” “Introduction” to Luigi Pareyson, Existence, Interpretation, Freedom: Selected Writings, trans. by A. Mattei, edited by with an introduction and notes by P.D. Bubbio (Aurora: Davies Group, 2009). 41 It is worth highlighting that, in his Wahrheit und Methode, Gadamer cites Pareyson’s works on hermeneutics and aesthetics, acknowledging their relevance and innovativeness. See Hans-​Georg Gadamer, Hermeneutik I: Wahrheit und Methode; Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik (Tübingen: Mohr, 1990), 66n110 and 124n219. See also Gadamer, Hermeneutik II: Wahrheit und Methode; Ergänzungen, Register (Tübingen: Mohr, 1993), 433. 42 See Luigi Pareyson, Studi sull’esistenzialismo (Milan: Mursia, 2001) 187 and Esistenza e Persona (Genoa: Il Melangolo, 2002), 87–​8. All English translations from Pareyson’s works and unpublished excerpts mentioned in this chapter are mine –​except for those from Existence, Interpretation, Freedom. 43 On this point, see my abovementioned “Schelling as a ‘Post-​Heideggerian thinker’.” 44 See Claudio Ciancio, “Pareyson e l’ultimo Schelling,” Annuario filosofico 24 (2008): 231. All English translations from this work are mine. 45 See Luigi Pareyson, Ontologia della libertà: Il male e la sofferenza, edited by A. Magris, G. Riconda, and F. Tomatis (Turin: Einaudi, 1995), 376. 46 Ibid., 377. 47 Ibid., 378. 48 Ibid., 379. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid., 382. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Luigi Pareyson, Schellingian Meditation: Notes on Awe, XI.2.6.2 (1978–​ 79), n. 686, Archivio Luigi Pareyson, Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “Luigi Pareyson.” 56 Ciancio, “Pareyson,” 241. 57 Pareyson, Schellingian Meditation: Notes on Awe, XI.2.6.2 (1978–​79), n. 686, Archivio Luigi Pareyson, Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “Luigi Pareyson.” 58 Pareyson, Esistenza e Persona, 25. 59 Luigi Pareyson, Notes on the Course on Schelling (1983), II.2, n. 62, Archivio Luigi Pareyson, Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “Luigi Pareyson.” 60 See Luigi Pareyson, Miscellaneous Notes (1984), IX, n. 267, Archivio Luigi Pareyson, Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “Luigi Pareyson.” 61 Ibid. 62 Luigi Pareyson, “Lo ‘stupore della ragione’ in Schelling,” in Prospettive di filosofia moderna e contemporanea (Milan: Mursia, 2017), 511.

Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson  125 3 Ibid. 6 64 Ibid., 513–​14. 65 Ibid., 514. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid., 519. 68 Ibid., 520. 69 Pareyson, Existence, Interpretation, Freedom, 238. 70 Ibid., 239. 71 Ibid., 239. 72 Ibid., 240. 73 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid., 241. Here, I have replaced the term “astonishment” (used by the translator) with “awe,” since I think it fits better with the Italian stupore, which Pareyson uses both in the abovementioned essay “Lo ‘stupore della ragione’ in Schelling” and in his own philosophical reflection. 76 Ibid. 77 See Luigi Pareyson, Truth and Interpretation, trans. and with an introduction by R.T. Valgenti, rev. and edited by S. Benso, foreword by G. Vattimo (Albany: SUNY Press, 2013), 143. 78 Pareyson, Esistenza e Persona, 246. 79 Luigi Pareyson, Notes on Kierkegaard, Luther, St. Paul, Dostoevskij, Schelling, Fichte, Nietzsche, Dilthey, Castelli (1986), IX, n. 272, Archivio Luigi Pareyson, Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “Luigi Pareyson.” 80 Ibid. 81 Luigi Pareyson, Notes on Atheism, Existentialism, Schelling, Abyss, Freedom, Rebellion, Awe of Reason, Language, Thought as Adventure (1990), IX, n. 299, Archivio Luigi Pareyson, Centro Studi Filosofico-​religiosi “Luigi Pareyson.” 82 Ibid. 83 Originally published as Religionsphilosophie (Frankfurt/​main-​Berlin: Verlag Ullstein GmbH, 1962); Trans. What Is Religion?, edited and with an introduction by James Luther Adams (New York: Harper & Row, 1973). 84 Tillich, What Is Religion?, 66. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid., 67. 88 Tillich, Christian Thought, 248. 89 Ibid. 90 PP, 208–​9. SW, II, 3, 169–​70. 91 PP, 208. SW, II, 3, 169. 92 Ibid. 93 PP, 94; SW, II, 3, 7. 94 See Luigi Pareyson, Karl Jaspers (Genoa: Marietti, 1983), 44. See also my “Schelling as a Post-​Heideggerian Thinker,” Bubbio “Introduction” to EIP, and Francesco Paolo Ciglia, Ermeneutica e libertà. L’itinerario filosofico di Luigi Pareyson (Rome: Bulzoni, 1995), 31–​5 and 170. 95 Pareyson, “Lo stupore della ragione,” 519.

126  Transcendence of Being? 96 Ibid. Note that Pareyson is quoting from Schelling’s SW, II, 3, 158. See also PP, 200. 97 Pareyson, “Lo stupore della ragione,” 519. 98 See Ibid. 99 “Gott ist nicht, wie viele sich vorstellen, das Transcendente, er ist das immanent (d. h. das zum Inhalt der Vernunft) gemachte Transcendente.” SW, II, 3, 170; PP, 209. I discuss the English translation of this claim in §6.1. 100 PP, 200; SW, II, 3, 158. 101 Ibid.

Part 2

Immanence and Nature

4 Nature, Difference, and Indifference Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling

4.1  Two (Not-​So) Different Spinozisms: Indifference and Immanence in Schelling and Deleuze In his 1968 work Difference and Repetition, Gilles Deleuze shows his appreciation for Schelling by highlighting the ontological merits of his Freiheitsschrift. Indeed, he writes that the most important aspect of Schelling’s philosophy is his consideration of powers. How unjust, in this respect, is Hegel’s critical remark about the black cows! Of these two philosophers, it is Schelling who brings difference out of the night of the Identical, and with finer, more varied and more terrifying flashes of lightning than those of contradiction: with progressivity.1 Hence, it is immediately clear that, according to Deleuze, Schelling’s ontological discourse touches upon a fundamental issue, namely one with which Deleuze is deeply concerned: the issue of difference. In turn, this issue also brings into play key ontological concepts that are common to both philosophers, such as Becoming, Absolute, and ground. Moreover, the mutual interest in purely ontological issues also highlights that which is probably the main thread that unites the thoughts of Schelling and Deleuze: their intellectual debt to Spinoza. Needless to say, such a debt cannot but consist in the emphasis that both thinkers put on the notion of immanence and its key ontological value. Hence, I now focus on the latter, and I will return to the notion of difference in the next section of this chapter. According to Kyla Bruff, “there is an indirect influence of Schelling in Deleuze’s work. More specifically, they both share certain analogous, triadic, metaphysical structures, originating from a common historical background in Spinoza.”2 Deleuze himself seems to confirm the validity of

DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-7

130  Immanence and Nature Bruff’s claim in his 1968 book Expressionism in Philosophy, in which the French philosopher acknowledges the affinity between Spinoza, Schelling, and himself. In Spinoza’s philosophy, Deleuze argues, God, that is the absolutely infinite, possesses two equal powers: the power of existing and acting, and the power of thinking and knowing. If one may use a Bergsonian formulation, the absolute has two “sides,” two halves. If the absolute thus possesses two powers, it does so in and through itself, involving them in its radical unity. […] The two powers are thus in no way relative: they are the halves of the absolute, the dimensions of the absolute, the powers of the absolute. Schelling is a Spinozist when he develops a theory of the absolute, representing God by the symbol “A3” which comprises the Real and the Ideal as its powers.3 I will return to the symbol A3 later in this chapter. For now, it is important to point out that Deleuze’s conclusion clearly recalls my argument in §1.5, where I highlighted the Spinozan nature of Schelling’s conception of power, which in turn he equates with the essence of absolute identity and the immediate ground of reality.4 In this respect, I concur with Deleuze’s reading and maintain the clear and deep influence that Spinoza had on Schelling’s Identitätphilosophie –​as well as on his subsequent philosophical production. However, some scholars have argued that Schelling’s Spinozism is only apparent and superficial. For instance, Michael Vater argues that “despite formal similarities between Spinoza’s geometric method and Schelling’s numbered mathematical-​geometrical construction, Schelling’s direct debts to Spinoza are few.”5 Similarly, Yitzhak Y. Melamed writes that, in the 1801 Presentation of my System of Philosophy, Schelling tries to imitate Spinoza’s argumentative style while being aware of their philosophical distance.6 However, while it is true that Schelling is not necessarily a fully fledged Spinozist, there is very little doubt that Schelling often employs Spinozan concepts to develop his arguments and actually endorses some of Spinoza’s key ideas. This view is supported by Frederick C. Beiser, who shows that after an initial rejection of Spinozism, in the Jena period “Schelling considers Spinoza the apostle of the principle of subject –​object identity itself, the first spokesmen for that broader view of the universe that encompasses the unity of the subjective and objective, the truth of both dogmatism and criticism.”7 Indeed, by arguing that nothing can be outside reason, and that absolute identity is the immanent cause of reality, Schelling is echoing Spinoza’s concept of substance, which is necessarily infinite,8 indivisible,9 and possesses infinite attributes10 –​that is, it is God immanently understood within nature.11

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  131 As I already discussed in Chapter 1, since God immanently exists in nature, God is the Ursein and the primal Being in which there is the undifferentiation of the principles. It is precisely Schelling’s notion of indifference of the principles, Deleuze maintains, that encapsulates the immanence of God. Nevertheless, as Bruff shows, “Deleuze’s positive references to Schelling concern first and foremost the Ungrund, whose derivatives appear in Deleuze as the […] plane of immanence and plane of life.”12 That is, by referring to the Ungrund, Deleuze is referring to the Absolute as the primal instance of the immanence of Being which lies in the principle of indifference. In this sense, Iain Hamilton Grant claims that “Deleuze borrows overtly from Schellingianism in the rethinking of the concept of ground,” and that their philosophies “are strikingly similar”13 for this reason. However, Bruff maintains “Deleuze directly references the Ungrund rather than the Principle of Indifference because only the former is ontologically expressive and productive.”14 In fact, Deleuze understands such principle as an “universal ungrounding [… that is] the freedom of the non-​mediated ground, the discovery of a ground behind every other ground, the relation between the groundless and the ungrounded.”15 To put it simply, the Ungrund coincides precisely with that immanent and primordial identity and undifferentiation of the principles, or with the Absolute as the immanent condition of possibility for the process of Becoming. As Schelling himself puts it in his Freiheitsschrift, the Ungrund is precisely that absolute indifference –​but not sheer identification –​of the principles. Hence, the distinction of the principles is not annulled but rather “posited and confirmed” by the Ungrund.16 However, this does not mean that there is an original duality that is subsequently turned into unity. Rather, the non-​ground divides itself into the two exactly equal beginnings, only so that the two, which could not exist simultaneously or be in it as the non-​ground, become one through love, that is, it divides itself only so that there may be life and love and personal existence.17 This theoretical move, that originates in Spinoza’s philosophy, is particularly appreciated by Deleuze, who acknowledges its practical and immanentist nature. Indeed, Deleuze seems to commend the fact that, through the Ungrund, Schelling is able to grasp the dynamic and productive core of God as a living being involved in the process of Becoming (as I discussed it in §1.1). That is, Deleuze describes a radically immanent process in which God posits two separate and yet undifferentiated principles, which in turn allows for the existence of the world independent of God Godself. However, this separation does not mean that God is ontologically separated and

132  Immanence and Nature detached from the world; rather, this is precisely that immanent process “which ‘transforms dualities’ and brings us beyond mechanistic causality and representation.”18 In other words, Deleuze is not postulating a transcendent duality of the principles in Schelling’s thought, which would coincide with an abstract conception of Being and with a dogmatic and superficial account of the Absolute. Instead, as Bruff argues, “the power of existing and acting (subjective) and the power of thinking and knowing (objective) are the two ‘halves’, ‘dimensions’ and ‘powers’ of the absolute itself which are always unified.”19 It seems clear that Deleuze and Schelling share an immanentist and materialist approach to philosophy, that is –​borrowing Alberto Toscano’s words –​“a determination of philosophical practice.”20 Moreover, such practice is not aimed at identifying moral principles or an alleged moral world-​order; rather, the philosophical practice that both Schelling and Deleuze seek to establish consists in identifying the very conditions of possibility of life and experience and to investigate the deepest features of Being. Such depth, then, implies precisely that there can be neither a supra-​ Being nor a fully fledged transcendent source of Being, since the principle of indifference fully unfolds in the “plane of immanence.” In this respect, the expression “radical immanence” is to be understood in its very literal sense: that is, both Deleuze and Schelling aim at getting to the roots of Being –​and such roots can only be found if one ventures into the concrete and material depths of Being, and not in some transcendentist abstraction. Joshua Ramey and Daniel Whistler are commendably clear on this point, as they argue that for both Deleuze and Schelling The contrast with two-​world Platonic metaphysics is worth pursuing. Schellingian metaphysics consists in “the solicitation of the depths,” rather than a flight into the heights. [… Moreover,] for Schelling, to neglect the depths is to impoverish reality: it is to fail to comprehend what reality can do, the extent of its productivity. Such is the reason Schelling berates all philosophers who have failed to appropriate nature, the unruly and all less potentiated phenomena into their systems. A guiding methodological principle throughout Schelling’s oeuvre can be reconstructed as: what is foreclosed from philosophy necessarily weakens it.21 This is a fundamental element that Schelling and Deleuze share. In Difference and Repetition, Deleuze states that “the ground [fond] as it appears in a homogeneous extensity is notably a projection of something ‘deeper’ [profond]: only the latter may be called Ungrund or groundless.”22 The notion of depth is key here: every existing thing is endowed with its “shadow,” or its dark ground, from which it can subsequently emerge.

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  133 Or better: such dark shadow, that is such depth, is the immanent counterpart from which light can emerge. We have seen in §1.1 how this is a critical moment in Schelling’s ontological discourse on good and evil; here, Deleuze proposes a similar dynamic, also aimed at exploring the deepest reaches of Being, highlighting the essentially immanent nature of Being itself. In this respect, Deleuze writes, Depth is like the famous geological line from NE to SW, the line which comes diagonally from the heart of things and distributes volcanoes: it unites a bubbling sensibility and a thought which “rumbles in its crater.” Schelling said that depth is not added from without to length and breadth, but remains buried, like the sublime principle of the differend which creates them.23 Deleuze relates this “buried” sublime principle to the notions of indifference, which also recalls Schelling’s ontological struggle between the principles. That is, “at the heart of things” is precisely that indifference which precedes specific and individual determinations and make them possible. It is no coincidence that Deleuze, in the Logic of Sense, defines such indifference in terms of “neutrality” and “battle,” referring to the “Event of Being” and to the “ideational singularities which communicate in one and the same Event.”24 Moreover, these singularities strive for their temporal actualisation in a battle that “is not an example of an event among others, but rather the Event in its essence.”25 In other words, Deleuze here is referring to the same undifferentiation of and fundamental struggle between the principles, which in turn is the starting point of life and experience, namely their immanent condition of possibility.26 As such, this struggle is “never present but always yet to come and already passed,”27 recalling the atemporal essence that determines one’s temporal life and actions, as well as that unconscious and primordial Being that immanently grounds all conscious and temporal manifestations of Being itself.28 In this sense, Deleuze echoes the unity and interplay between freedom and necessity that I discussed in §1.3, according to which I can only be free since I take part in the struggle between the principles, which in turn determines my actions and experience, so that I can only be if I freely choose to be what I already am. Subsequently, there is no doubt that this discourse belongs to “the plane of consistency, the plane of immanence, and the plane of life,”29 both for Deleuze and for Schelling: indeed, both Deleuze’s battle and Schelling’s struggle represent the coming to life of Being, so that –​paraphrasing Schelling’s argument in §1.2 –​where there is no struggle or no battle, there is no life either. Moreover, it is worth repeating that the “battlefield” that Schelling and Deleuze refer to cannot be but the plane of immanence, which is the only

134  Immanence and Nature way to grasp the ontological nature of the principles in their concreteness. This also indicates another Spinozan element of their philosophy, namely the concept of conatus. I have already discussed in the importance of such a concept in Schelling’s philosophy in §1.3; in the final section of this chapter, I will also show how Deleuze uses the concept of conatus in a clearly Schellingian manner as part of his analysis of the concept of resistance. At this stage, however, it is useful to point out that Deleuze’s discourse on the Ungrund also recalls Schelling’s notion of absolute experience, as I defined it in §1.2. That is, in its being essentially irreducible to the present moment, the battle for the temporal actualisation of the different singularities in fact lies the groundwork for absolute experience –​namely that experience that occurs in every single human being but is free from any constraint with each of them. Or, to put it simply, such battle provides the condition of possibility for our actual experience in time and space –​ hence coinciding with the immanent ground of life that is the kernel of Schelling’s ontological discourse. Although this does not make Deleuze a Schellingian, it is undeniable that Deleuze decidedly emphasises the immanent features of Schelling’s philosophy. Indeed, it is only through an immanent ontological discourse that life can be grasped in its concrete and material conditions –​which would not be possible if one assumes Being to be transcendent and separated from nature. As Christopher Groves puts it, Schelling considers absolute indifference as the ontological condition of our experience of natural objects, is somewhat like Spinoza’s natura naturans, being an ontological unity which Schelling calls “absolute productivity” or primordial Life. [… However,] this condition cannot be thought of as externally imposed, as this would imply that the primordial Life is not itself absolute.30 Deleuze also endorses such a reading, as for him what is “buried” and lies in the depths of Being, hence preceding individual and temporal actualisation, is characterised by an undifferentiation of the principles that is itself productive –​namely it immanently produces life and experience by making them possible in the first place. Therefore, I argue that Deleuze’s reception of Schelling, although not necessarily enthusiastic, represents a clear shift towards immanentism, emphasising the ontological aspects of Schelling’s thought without reducing it to a sheer philosophy of religious transcendence. This does not mean that Deleuze does not identify problematic elements in Schelling’s philosophical discourse and legacy: however, he definitely avoids the inconsistencies of the transcendentist readings that I discussed in Chapters 2 and 3. The problematic features that

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  135 Deleuze identifies in Schelling’s philosophy will be discussed in the next section. I will then return to the affinity between these two thinkers, by focusing on a specific notion –​namely that of resistance as an ontological occurrence –​which in turn will be more broadly discussed in Chapter 7, as it is key to my original reading of Schelling’s philosophy as an immanentist ontology. 4.2  The Risk of Transcending the Plane of Immanence Similar to the transcendentist readings developed by Heidegger and Jaspers, Deleuze’s main concern regarding Schelling’s philosophy is its own foundation –​and the risk to move such foundation away from the plane of immanence. As Groves rightfully points out, Deleuze’s positive remarks on Schelling have to be set against other, less positive comments: for example, Schelling’s Absolute “cannot sustain difference,” and lies beyond familiar forms of transcendence such as the Self as an abyssal “nothing,” an “unknown identity of contraries” of a kind that Deleuze associates with “spiritualist and dolorist philosophy.”31 Indeed, Deleuze seems to claim that Schelling’s Ungrund is essentially devoid of singularity and individuality, and thus also “devoid of any difference.”32 In other words, the original unity of the principles, that is the core of Schelling’s absolute, would not be compatible with an immanentist ontological discourse. It would then appear that there is a clear and perhaps unbridgeable divergence between Deleuze and Schelling. On this point, Bruff clarifies that Deleuze seems to overlook the specificity of this final unity or reuniting in the middle Schelling. Once ground and existence are separated from one another, they are never unified again in a state of initial identity, only separately in love. Their separation is the necessary condition of free, dynamic, unpredictable life in creation and of God’s self-​authoring personality. Such love and independence is only possible if God is both free to create and is more than his creation, that is, he must transcend it. This un-​Deleuzian element lingering in Schelling’s middle philosophy means that “what is expressed” is not modal for Schelling. We are not merely expressions of the essence of substance, but self-​authoring, free beings separate from God. However, the correspondence of opposites in the Ungrund, which “was everywhere lacking in Cartesianism,” is common to both thinkers.33

136  Immanence and Nature To put it differently, the problem seems to lie in the fact that Deleuze allegedly neglects the dynamics of Schelling’s Absolute and of the unity of the principles. As I already discussed in §1.1, such unity does not mean that the principles were originally united, then separated in the act of God’s creation and finally reunited through a transcendent act. Likewise, the unity of the principles does not occur subsequently to their separation. Indeed, in the former case the unity would be a mere intellectual abstraction, whereas in the latter case the unity would not be original. For Schelling, the original unity implies the occurrence of the principles as united and undifferentiated as they were in the first place; hence, it constitutes a form of monism and immanentism. Consequently, this occurrence is not a static one, but rather an inherently dynamic unity that animates the process of Becoming, through which God reiterates God’s “oneness” without harming God’s immanent ontological core. On top of this, I argue that such a dynamic represents the core of Schelling’s notion of “the immanent made transcendent.” Indeed, for Schelling it is not the original unity that occurs on the level of transcendence; rather, such original unity is the clearest expression of the immanence of God and Being in nature. Instead, it is the momentary separation of the principles, that occurs through an arbitrary act of our will, that is characterised by a transcendence that cannot but return to the original immanence. Indeed, such a separation is nothing but a necessary abstraction to grasp the principles in their immanent and original unity; in other words, the separation of the principles is the moment when the immanent unity is made transcendent through an abstraction only in order to return to immanence as a concept of reason. Thus, transcendence is neither the starting point, nor the end point: it is a necessary middle point that is posed only to be overcome, and through which one has to go to effectively grasp the immanent core of the Absolute. In this respect, I argue that Deleuze is not as critical of Schelling as it may seem from the above citations. Rather, there is very little doubt that Deleuze in fact endorses Schelling’s understanding of oneness as the immanent core of the Absolute, and of immanence as the original ground of Being. As Wirth claims, To think the One as multiplicity, as difference, is to think the immanence of difference without recourse to remote causes, transcendent grounds, or any other ruses of what Deleuze and Guattari later call the “illusion of transcendence.” The latter is perhaps the premiere mirage to which thinking is subject, rendering immanence immanent to something and therefore always finding a way to magically rediscover transcendent objects lurking within immanence. Univocity thinks multiplicity without a “something beyond,” but with the infinite depth of the earth and the unprethinkability of the future.34

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  137 It is clear, once again, how the kernel of Being is to be found in the depths of immanence, and not in the deceptive heights of transcendence. Indeed, neither Schelling nor Deleuze fall into the “illusion of transcendence,” and neither of them make “immanence immanent to something,” namely to an alleged transcendent original ground of Being. Instead, Schelling does exactly the opposite and claims that transcendence is always transcendent to an original immanence from which it originates and of which it is an abstraction. In other words, transcendence is not the original occurrence of Being which exceeds immanence and through which immanence is posited and understood, but transcendence can only be grasped and understood by returning to immanence. Therefore, transcendence is transcendent to immanence in the sense that it abstracts from immanence and remains at the level of a sheer lifeless abstraction if it does not return to immanence –​which in turn is the only viable and concrete ground of Being. While it is undoubtedly true that Deleuze is not a fully fledged Schellingian, and that he identifies some problematic elements in Schelling’s thought, it is also true that Deleuze does not seem to explicitly criticise Schelling’s philosophy for its alleged transcendentism. That is, although Deleuze states that Schelling’s Ungrund cannot sustain difference, he also maintains that the Ungrund “resonates the true nature of that profound and that groundlessness which surrounds representation,”35 reiterating once again the fundamental immanent essence of this concept. Hence, Deleuze’s point is not that Schelling’s Ungrund cannot sustain difference because of its transcendent core: Deleuze does not think that, in Schelling’s thought, God transcends God’s creation and that the Absolute is to be placed on an ontologically detached level from concrete and material nature –​and neither does Schelling himself. Rather, “Deleuze appears to merge Schelling’s ground with the Ungrund,”36 which in turn implies that the Ungrund itself is nothing but a “nongrounding ground” which embodies the fundamental conflict between opposing forces that I discussed in Chapter 1. Accordingly, the Ungrund is not an incomprehensible transcendent principle, but rather an immanent occurrence that strives to “unground the ground” and is simultaneously grounded by the ground itself, in a dynamic but essential conflict that animates the process of Becoming. Schelling’s problem, then, is the lack of an explicit and unmistakeable acknowledgement of this process, according to Deleuze. However, the immanent core of Schelling’s philosophy is not being questioned here. On the contrary, Deleuze comes to Schelling’s rescue again, commenting on the unfairness of Hegel’s well-​known definition of Schelling’s Principle of Indifference as the night in which all cows are black. Far from annulling individual differences and representations, such “blackness” is “differenciated and differenciating […], even though

138  Immanence and Nature these differences remain unidentified and barely or non-​individuated.”37 Therefore, it is not Schelling’s thought per se that is unable to sustain difference, but rather the transcendentist readings that reiterate Hegel’s unfair criticism. Indeed, such criticism is based on the “illusion of representation” according to which “groundlessness should lack differences, when in fact it swarms with them.”38 In other words, the Ungrund precedes individuality and representation, namely it is merged with the deepest roots of Being, instead of transcending them and occurring on a supernatural and transcendent level. It is on this level that difference cannot be sustained –​ which is not the level on which Schelling identifies the kernel and foundation of Being. On this point, Wirth also agrees that for Schelling “[i]‌ndifference is not one[ness] nor does it lack individuality and singularity because time is not homogeneous.”39 Accordingly, Deleuze’s claim that Schelling’s absolute “cannot sustain difference” does not account for the inherently dynamic fashion of the conflict between the principles –​which in turn animates the process of Becoming and allows difference to occur. In fact, Wirth continues, in Schelling’s Naturphilosophie “philosophy in its own way expresses nature’s infinite, differential prodigality.”40 In this respect, there is little doubt that both Schelling and Deleuze “conceptually articulat[e] an infinite yet immanent plane of thinking. Working in tandem, relevant concepts strive to allow the prephilosophical ground of philosophy to emerge within philosophy.”41 Similarly, the elements of a “spiritualist and dolorist philosophy”42 do not belong to Schelling’s thought but rather to a transcendentist interpretation of it. As Deleuze himself puts it, “it is not difference which must ‘go as far as’ contradiction [… Rather,] it is the contradiction which must reveal the nature of its difference as it follows the distance corresponding to it.”43 Indeed, according to Matthew Linck, “difference is not a concept for Deleuze; it is the name for being,”44 meaning that Being immanently manifests itself into a multiplicity of singular beings, which emerge through the conflict of opposing ontological forces.45 To put it simply, difference is not to be understood as preceding –​or better, as transcending –​a static contradiction, but rather it is contradiction, namely the dynamic and fundamental conflict of forces, that substantiates difference and makes it possible. Accordingly, the mistake of spiritualist and dolorist philosophy is that it poses “some unknown identity of contraries,”46 which is an irremediably transcendent one, in fact incompatible with the immanent core of the Absolute. Indeed, Schelling’s Principle of Identity is not an “unknown identity of the contraries,” but rather –​by Deleuze’s own admission –​an essentially productive and immanent principle of Being –​clearly identifiable in the depths of Being itself and not imposed from a transcendent and supernatural divinity.47 Hence, I maintain that Deleuze’s criticism is

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  139 not necessarily directed against Schelling’s philosophy as such, but rather against the translation of Schelling’s philosophy into transcendentist terms. In fact, all of Deleuze’s negative remarks concern the reception of Schelling’s thought, and most of them are actually followed by a defence of Schelling. To put it differently, the problem with Schelling’s philosophy is that it presents elements that could be distorted to corroborate a philosophy of transcendence –​and not that it is an actual philosophy of transcendence. Indeed, Groves highlights that, by depicting a fundamental conflict of forces as the ground of life, “Schelling’s thought depicts reason as undergoing a self-​inflicted trauma that places it in an impasse.”48 To overcome such an impasse, Deleuze proposes “a convalescence that affirms the trauma as the means to a new kind of health […] namely, [the renunciation of] the desire for the universally representative instance and for grounded a priori knowledge.”49 According to Groves, Schelling’s impossibility to reach such universal and a priori knowledge reveals a lack of unity and impossibility to provide a stable ground for knowledge, which Deleuze diverts by defining “the lack of unity as itself the Ungrund or unconditional condition of experience.”50 Hence, the main point of divergence between Schelling and Deleuze allegedly lies in the fact that Schelling’s Absolute and Ungrund are unable to operate as the condition of possibility of experience. However, as I have shown in §1.3, Schelling identifies in the struggle between the principles not only the starting point of life but also the condition of possibility of experience, namely for the original occurrence of experience as pre-​personal and ab-​soluta. In other words, this is precisely the “unconditional condition of experience” that Deleuze (and Groves) refer to. Moreover, as I largely discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, the argument according to which Schelling’s philosophy ultimately lacks unity, and Schelling’s Principle of Identity simply does not hold, is itself fallacious and unconvincing –​and it is quite evident that Deleuze does not endorse such a transcendentist reading. Thus, this shows once again that the alleged disagreement and divergence are not between Deleuze and Schelling, but rather between Deleuze and those who interpret Schelling’s thought as a philosophy of transcendence. In other words, although it is clear that Deleuze sees in Schelling’s philosophy the risk of transcending the plane of immanence, and of grounding philosophy on an abstract and inconsistent notion of the Absolute, Deleuze always retains the immanent core of Schelling’s ontological discourse. On top of this, I also argue that Schelling and Deleuze also share a very similar account of the concept of resistance, that they both understand in immanentist and ontological terms. This similarity will be the focus of the next (and final) section of this chapter.

140  Immanence and Nature 4.3  Resistance, Immanence, and Intuition While existing scholarship has largely discussed the affinities and similarities between Schelling and Deleuze –​as well as their differences –​there is an understudied further element that is common to both thinkers: the notion of resistance. I already stated in the Introduction that such notion should be regarded as crucial to understand Schelling’s account of freedom, and of key importance for Schelling’s ontological discourse around the struggle between principles. In this respect, I now discuss how Deleuze uses the notion of resistance in a clearly ontological and immanentist sense, just as Schelling does. I will discuss Schelling’s notion of resistance in greater detail in Chapter 7, where I outline how such notion is crucial in Schelling’s account of freedom. Instead, in the final part of this chapter, I outline Deleuze’s use of such notion, against the background of Schelling’s use of it, that I sketched in the Introduction. In his 1986 essay Foucault, Deleuze defines resistance as “the thought of the outside,” also arguing that “the thought of the outside is a thought of resistance.”51 In turn, for Deleuze “the outside” is that latent and pre-​ personal ontological dimension which is necessary for the occurrence of the struggle of forces –​which in turn animates life and singular existence. Through this definition, Deleuze characterises resistance in a clearly ontological fashion –​and in a way that recalls Schelling’s use of it. To better understand Deleuze’s definition, it is helpful to look back at the conclusion of his Difference and Repetition. When discussing the immanent core of the Ungrund –​as I outlined in the previous section –​Deleuze identifies that core in that pre-​personal field in which the fundamental ontological struggle of forces occurs and from which singularity arises. Indeed, he writes that the self in the form of passive self is only an event which takes place in pre-​existing fields of individuation: it contemplates and contracts the individuating factors of such fields, and constitutes itself at the points of resonance of their series.52 Borrowing Françoise Proust’s words, for Deleuze “the ‘Outside’ is an unfettered, unformed, and wild multiplicity of forces. It is a space of aleatory dispersion of points of singularity,”53 namely that same immanent battlefield in which Schelling locates the struggle between the principles of good and evil, expansion and contraction, or darkness and light. In other words, Deleuze’s outside does not merely coincide with the ontological principle and counterforce that opposes Schelling’s good and light, but rather is where those principles engage in a struggle for the supremacy over the Real –​as I defined it in §1.2. Therefore, using a Schellingian

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  141 terminology, the outside is also where the absolute indifference and unity of the principles actually occurs before such unity is arbitrarily separated by humankind. Or better: the outside, being the pre-​personal ontological dimension of the absolute unity and undifferentiation of the principles, precedes the sphere of personality and individuality, in which such unity is momentarily broken through that “work of freedom” which is philosophy.54 This ontological dynamic shows, as Ramey and Whistler point out, that “what exists explicate in humanity exists complicate in nature, or man is a microcosm of the All,”55 which means that both Schelling and Deleuze, far from falling prey to pure transcendentism, outline a clearly immanentist ontology aimed at grasping the core of Being –​that is, investigating the depths of Being, and not the possibility of a supernatural Being. Similarly, Wirth claims that Deleuze describes the complication of nature such that attributes in their individual modes implicate substance and substance explicates itself in attributive modalities. The pli, the fold, is at once an evolution and an involution, a complicare of implicare and explicare. A explicates (folds out) itself as A1, and the A1 implicates (folds back into) itself as an explication of A (=​A2). A1 and A2, explicare and implicare, belong together as a complicare or A3.56 In Schelling’s philosophy, the symbol “A3” refers to that force –​or “third potency” –​that actually comprises the original absolute unity of the principles, restoring it after our arbitrary disruption of it. That is, A1 is the inward contractive force (that Schelling identifies with the Real), while A2 is the outward expansive force (which Schelling identifies with the Ideal). Such forces inevitably generate a tension and conflict between each other, which ultimately coincides with the fundamental struggle between the principles, namely the kernel of Schelling’s philosophy and of the dynamic of coming to life of Being.57 As Schelling himself puts it in his 1810 Stuttgart Seminars, “both unities or powers are once again comprised by the absolute unity, the latter, understood as the common position of the first and the second power, thus being A3.”58 Judith Norman explains this conception in an admirably clear way, as she explains that Schelling’s ontological discourse is characterised by “a nexus of forces.”59 More specifically, she argues that First, a negative, contracting force (Schelling calls it A=​B [or A1]) pulls inward and resists all expansion and development. Second, an affirmative, expansive force (A2) flows outward, overcoming the first force. Finally, the obvious antagonism between the two forces is overcome in

142  Immanence and Nature the form of a third force (A3), which is the unity of the first two. Yet this achieved unity is immediately negated by the first force, and the cycle begins again with a renewed antagonism.60 In his own discourse, then, Deleuze reiterates such a dynamic, and it is precisely here, I argue, that resistance comes into play. In Deleuze’s account, resistance is that implication which explicates what exists complicated in nature. In fact, resistance is an inescapable ontological occurrence that is implied in nature, and that explicates our personhood –​namely it makes it possible. The complication, therefore, refers to the absolute unity of the principles, namely to the two opposing principles being folded together (com-​plicated). To put it simply, Deleuze is referring to the unity of resistance and freedom, Real and Ideal, contraction and expansion. Resistance is therefore the thought of the outside as it is a clear and fundamental ontological implication of nature that explicates itself in Being and in us qua singular beings –​rather than being a rational and deliberate act. In this respect, Deleuze understands resistance as key to the actualisation of difference: that is, if on the one hand we should understand “reason as a process of identification and equalisation tending towards identity,” on the other hand there is “the absurd or irrational as the resistance of the diverse to that identificatory reason.”61 Difference, then, in its fundamentally ontological meaning, is a form of resistance, in the very Schellingian sense of the term. In other words, since Being manifests itself through difference and through the fundamental conflict of forces –​as I already explained in the previous section –​and resistance is a constitutive part of such conflict, it follows that difference itself cannot be conceived without resistance, and that resistance is to be understood as a key ontological element for difference and individuality to occur. It is precisely in this sense that Deleuze states that “resistance comes first:”62 indeed, he is not referring to sheer societal and power relations, but to a deeper ontological feature that inexorably determines our individual and singular existence. Resistance, once again, means resistance to simplification, namely to the annihilation of difference through utter and indiscriminate identification. Resistance is precisely that which “brings difference out of the night of the identical”63 and allows for individual existence to occur –​so much so that, borrowing Wirth’s words again, “if difference is destroyed, there will be no resistance.”64 Resistance is then an act of differentiation that does not arise from freedom, but rather an ontological feature that allows being to immanently manifest itself through singular and different beings. Similarly, Schelling’s notion of resistance operates on an immanent and ontological level; however, such notion is directly connected to that of freedom, to the point that freedom should be understood as a matter of

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  143 resistance. By this definition –​which will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter 7 –​I mean that freedom can be real and effective only when it encounters resistance, and that without resistance, freedom remains a sheer theoretical possibility. That is, for Schelling freedom cannot be conceived of simply as the pure self-​affirmation of our will, but rather it becomes concrete only to the resistance that nature opposes to our will. The striking similarity with Deleuze’s notion of resistance resides in the fact that both thinkers directly ascribe resistance to the field of ontology –​ namely understand it as an inherently immanent feature of Being –​and regard such notion as a fundamental one for the occurrence of individual freedom (as in the case of Schelling) and of individual existence (as in the case of Deleuze). Concluding on this point, it is worth pointing out that Deleuze’s conception of resistance also resonates with Spinoza’s notion of conatus –​ which is a fundamental point of reference for Schelling too, as I have shown in §1.3. As shown by Cesare Casarino, for Spinoza “resistance is the standard of itself and of power,”65 meaning that it is inscribed in the conatus. In this respect, conatus has to be understood not only as the innate tendency to preserve and persevere in one’s own being, but –​precisely because of this –​as “absolute outside or plane of immanence: conatus is […] force that affects and that is affected by other forces.”66 In this respect, Deleuze writes that such a force possesses “a third power which presents itself as capacity for ‘resistance’,”67 not only clearly recalling Schelling’s third potency (A3) but also characterising conatus “as relation of force expressed as resistance at the level of the outside (namely, at the level of the absolute outside or plane of immanence, which is always becoming […]).”68 Therefore, the ontological nature of resistance emerges in all its clarity here: resistance is a product of the struggle between the forces of matter, namely it emerges in that immanent and pre-​personal field which is the Deleuzian outside. Hence, resistance is not just a deliberate act of opposition to something, but a fully fledged ontological feature of life itself, since it precedes and grounds our freedom and life itself. Furthermore, as Casarino points out, The fullest fulfillment of conatus […] is to know the essence of things, to know their conatus. Conatus fulfills itself in knowledge of conatus qua essence –​a knowledge that can be achieved only at the point of tangency with the outside, namely, there where conatus becomes force of resistance. In its highest realization and redetermination, conatus is resistance. To intuit is to resist: intuition takes place on the line of the outside where the striving to persevere in one’s being turns into the striving to resist.69

144  Immanence and Nature Here, it is impossible not to see the convergence with Schelling’s use of intuition as the capacity to look at things in their immediacy and grasping their ontological core. In intuition, subject and object, seer and seen, knower and known, coincide; that is, intuition is that God’s-​eye point of view which allows us to look at things at their essence and immediacy, and to grasp the original unity of the principles.70 In this context, knowing the essence of things means knowing that freedom does not occur separately from necessity, and that their separation is a merely arbitrary one and cannot but result into the acknowledgement of their original unity and co-​occurrence. Resistance becomes then fundamental in order to restore the original unity –​which in turn means to persevere in one’s conatus: as already explained in Chapter 1, restoring the original unity of the principles after breaking it through freedom means not to become something else than one used to be, but rather to become what one originally and already is. Accordingly, resistance is “the thought of the outside” precisely because it entails intuition in its very ontological sense of Anschauung: indeed, in line with Schelling’s argument, looking at things from the inside and grasping their ontological core –​that is, grasping the original unity of the principles –​means being the original unity, and not merely knowing it. Therefore, just as intuition, resistance also belongs not to the domain of knowing and of conscious reason but to that of being and of pre-​personal inclinations. In other words, resistance is for Deleuze that immanent and ontological feature that characterises the struggle between the principles, and not a deliberate product of human will. Ultimately, resistance comes first since it is a fundamental element of the struggle of the principles that is key to the philosophy of both Schelling and Deleuze. Indeed, without such struggle, life itself would not be possible, and Being would be unable to actualise itself and to concretely exist. However, precisely because the dynamic of Being consists in the immanent made transcendent, resistance is then a fundamental occurrence for such a dynamic to effectively occur. That is to say, with no resistance, there would only be utter transcendence, namely a sheer abstraction without any concrete features. To further clarify, for both Schelling and Deleuze resistance is that which keeps freedom and existence rooted to the immanent ground of Being, by opposing the expansive force of unrestricted self-​affirmation (Schelling) and the indiscriminate and transcendent identity of the contraries (Deleuze). Resistance is the real that opposes to the mere ideal, allowing philosophy to be focused on the immanence of Being –​and to go into its depths. Additionally, resistance is also inscribed in the conatus, hence constituting an essential part of intuition. To sum up, in this chapter I have shown that Deleuze’s reception of Schelling represents a significant breaking point from the transcendentist

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  145 readings of Heidegger, Jaspers, Tillich, Marcel, and Pareyson. That is, I have shown that Deleuze firmly maintains the immanentist core of Schelling’s philosophy, and that Deleuze’s occasional criticisms are not necessarily directed against Schelling’s philosophy as such: rather, Deleuze’s problem is that Schelling’s philosophy presents elements that could be distorted to corroborate a philosophy of transcendence –​and not that it is an actual philosophy of transcendence. In this respect, I have outlined how both Schelling and Deleuze have a clear debt to Spinoza’s philosophy, as shown by their similar understanding of God as immanent in nature. I have also discussed how Schelling and Deleuze share an immanentist approach to philosophy, as they both seek to identify the very conditions of possibility of life and experience and to investigate the deepest features of Being –​with the notion of Ungrund playing a crucial role in their respective discourses. Finally, I have shown Deleuze’s analysis of the notion of resistance is developed in clearly ontological terms and refers to the fundamental struggle between the forces of matter. As I demonstrate in Chapter 7, Schelling’s notion of resistance is also a clearly ontological one and is strictly related to his account of freedom. In Chapter 5, I discuss other immanentist and naturalist interpretations of Schelling, starting from that of Maurice Merleau-​Ponty and then moving to contemporary scholars such as Charlotte Alderwick, Jason M. Wirth, and Iain Hamilton Grant –​among others. Notes 1 Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, translated by Paul Patton (London/​ New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 250. 2 Kyla Bruff, “Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling,” in Deleuze’s Philosophical Lineage II, edited by Graham Jones and Jon Roffe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 30. 3 Gilles Deleuze, Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza, translated by Martin Joughin (New York: Zone Books, 1992), 118. 4 On the influence of Spinoza on the early philosophy of Schelling, see the already mentioned Nassar, “Spinoza in Schelling,” and also Errol Harris, “Schelling and Spinoza: Spinozism and Dialectic,” in Spinoza: Issues and Directions. Proceedings of the Chicago Conference (1986), edited by E. Harris and P.F. Moreau (Leiden and New York: Brill, 1990), 359–​72. 5 Michael G. Vater, “Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity,” 158. 6 Yitzhak Y. Melamed, “Deus Sive Vernunft: Schelling’s Transformation of Spinoza’s God,” in Schelling’s Philosophy: Freedom, Nature, and Systematicity, edited by G.A. Bruno (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), 101. 7 Frederick C. Beiser, German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781–​ 1801 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 554. 8 Spinoza, Ethics, I, 7. 9 Ibid., I, 13.

146  Immanence and Nature 0 Ibid., I, 11. 1 11 See Bubbio and Fulvi, “Immanence in Hegel and Schelling,” 367–​8. 12 Bruff, “Schelling,” 36. 13 Iain Hamilton Grant, Philosophies of Nature After Schelling (London: Continuum, 2006), 202. 14 Bruff, “Schelling,” 36. 15 Gilles Deleuze, Logic of Sense, translated by Paul Patton (London/​ New York: Bloomsbury, 2014), 84. On this point, see also Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 63 and ff. 16 PI, 69; SW I, 7, 407. 17 PI 70; SW, I, 7, 409. 18 Bruff, “Schelling,” 38. 19 Ibid. 20 Alberto Toscano, “Philosophy and the Experience of Construction,” in The New Schelling, 110. 21 Joshua Ramey and Daniel Whistler, “The Physics of Sense: Bruno, Schelling, Deleuze,” in Gilles Deleuze and Metaphysics, edited by Alain Beaulieu, Edward Kazarian, and Julia Sushytska, foreword by Arnaud Villani (London: Lexington Books, 2014), 99–​100. 22 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 302. 23 Ibid., 302–​3. 24 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 53. 25 Ibid., 100. 26 See above, §1.2. 27 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 100. 28 See above, §1.3. See also Alderwick¸ “Atemporal Essence” and McGrath, “Schelling on the Unconscious.” 29 Bruff, “Schelling,” 39. 30 Christopher Groves, “Ecstasy of Reason, Crisis of Reason: Schelling and Absolute Difference,” Pli 8 (1999): 30. 31 Groves, “Ecstasy of Reason,” 25. 32 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 362. 33 Bruff, “Schelling,” 38–​9. 34 Jason M. Wirth, “The Reawakening of the Barbarian Principle,” in The Barbarian Principle. Merleau-​Ponty, Schelling, and the Question of Nature, edited by Jason M. Wirth with Patrick Burke (Albany: SUNY Press 2013), 10. 35 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 363. 36 Bruff, “Schelling,” 40. 37 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 363. 38 Ibid. 39 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 91. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 65. 42 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 173. 43 Ibid.

Deleuze’s Immanentist Reading of Schelling  147 44 Matthew S. Linck, “Deleuze’s Difference,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies 16 (4-​2002): 516. 45 On this point, see also Gavin Rae, “Deleuze on Being as Becoming: Multiplicity, Difference, and Virtuality,” in Ontology in Heidegger and Deleuze. A Comparative Analysis, edited by Gavin Rae (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 116–​44. 46 Deleuze, Logic of Sense, 173. 47 See Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 303. 48 Groves, “Ecstasy of Reason,” 44. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid., 44–​5. 51 Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, translated and edited by Seán Hand, foreword by Paul Bové (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 90. 52 Difference and Repetition, 362. 53 Françoise Proust, “The Line of Resistance,” translated by Penelope Deutscher, Hypatia, Volume 15, Number 4, Fall 2000, 25. 54 See above, §1.4. 55 Ramey and Whistler, “Physics of Sense,” 96. 56 Wirth, Conspiracy of Life, 73. 57 See above, §1.1. 58 F.W.J. Schelling, “Stuttgart Seminars (1810),” in Idealism and the Endgame of Theory. Three Essays by F.W.J. Schelling, translated and edited, with a Critical Introduction by Thomas Pfau (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 202; SW, I, 7, 427. 59 Judith Norman, “The Logic of Longing: Schelling’s Philosophy of Will,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 10, no. 1 (2002): 92. 60 Ibid. 61 Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, 295. 62 Deleuze, Foucault, 90. 63 See above, footnote 2. 64 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 114. 65 Cesare Casarino, “Grammars of Conatus: Or, On the Primacy of Resistance in Spinoza, Foucault and Deleuze,” in Spinoza’s Authority. Volume I, edited by A. Kiarina Kardela and Dimitris Vardoulakis (London/​New York: Bloomsbury, 2018), 71. 66 Ibid., 73. 67 Deleuze, Foucault, 79. 68 Casarino, “Grammars of Conatus,” 74. 69 Ibid., 78. 70 See above, §1.4.

5 Naturalistic Interpretations of Schelling From Merleau-​Ponty to Contemporary Readings

5.1  Nature as the “Autoproduction of Meaning:” Merleau-​Ponty Reads Schelling It is well known that Schelling’s influence on Maurice Merleau-​Ponty is a decisive one, especially if one considers Merleau-​Ponty’s late works on nature.1 However, in this section, I do not intend to discuss whether Merleau-​ Ponty actually aligns his thought to that of Schelling, but rather to show that his interpretation of Schelling clearly diverges from the transcendentist readings discussed in Chapters 2 and 3, and that he maintains the centrality of nature and immanence in Schelling’s thought. That is, although Merleau-​Ponty’s knowledge of Schelling is often filtered through Jaspers’s Schelling,2 he never endorsed the transcendentist reading of Schelling developed by Jaspers and Heidegger. Instead, the main merit of Merleau-​Ponty’s reading of Schelling relies in its acknowledgement of the prominent role played by Naturphilosophie in Schelling’s thought. In fact, for Merleau-​Ponty, philosophy of nature is a fundamental part of every ontological system: in other words, even though philosophy of nature alone is not sufficient to constitute a sound ontology, it should not be relegated to being a merely secondary or accessory part of an ontological system. Only in this way, Merleau-​Ponty believes, it is possible to avoid “immaterial” approaches and develop a solid and viable form of ontology.3 Such a conception clearly recalls Schelling’s definition of philosophy as a form of ideal-​realism, which he presents in his System of Transcendental Idealism –​and that I explained in §1.1. That is, just as Schelling argues that idealism remains a sheer abstraction if it is not grounded in a “living realism,”4 Merleau-​Ponty similarly affirms that an organic and immanent account of nature is an indispensable element of a valid and reliable ontology. To put it differently, Merleau-​Ponty clearly rests on a Schellingian standpoint when he claims that an ontology that does not include a solid account of nature (namely without including a “living realism”) ends up DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-8

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  149 being a sheer and immaterial abstraction since it accounts only for the “ideal activity” of Being.5 Hence, Merleau-​ Ponty reiterates Schelling’s notion that nature must serve as the organic and material ground for actual existence, and that such a ground is inherently active and productive. As Wirth highlights, For Schelling, Naturphilosophie was not an account of something called Nature, but it was rather philosophy endeavoring to think with, of and from Nature. It was the retrieval of a robustly natural way of thinking, so to speak, without resorting to the expulsion of the living shadow of Nature to an ontologically distinct domain (as in all onto-​theology). It was an attempt to think of Nature as a progressive and dynamic whole, beyond the duality of appearance and reality, phenomenon and noumenon, immanence and transcendence, and Merleau-​Ponty found this very attractive.6 That is, Merleau-​Ponty identifies in Schelling’s philosophy an element of originality that grasps the primordial core of nature, which is an inherently productive one. According to Merleau-​Ponty, “there is nature wherever there is a life that has meaning, but where, however, there is not thought […]. Nature is what has a meaning, without this meaning being posited by thought: it is the autoproduction of a meaning.”7 However, such a meaning does not arise from a supernatural source that transcends nature, but rather is immanent within nature, namely it is intrinsic to life itself in its fundamental occurrence in nature. In this respect, Merleau-​Ponty reaffirms the immanent essence of nature, while also denying any transcendent source of life and its meaning. Indeed, “nature is the primordial –​that is, the nonconstructed, the noninstituted [form of reality …]. It is our soil [sol] –​not what is in front of us, facing us, but rather, that which carries us.”8 In other words, nature is not that which constantly escapes and transcends our finitude, and to which we have to elevate ourselves. Rather, nature is precisely that very concrete and material ground on which we rest our feet –​both literally and metaphorically. To put it simply, nature is not above us, but is beneath us and sustains our existence and thought. It is precisely on this point that the affinity with Schelling’s notion of nature emerges: nature is an immanent ontological domain that precedes and grounds our life and existence, but without transcending the very concreteness of life and existence themselves. In this respect, nature is that “pre-​being, which, as soon as we arrive on the scene, is always already there,”9 exceeding our consciousness and yet not pertaining to a supernatural ontological dimension. The merit of Schelling’s thought, then, lies precisely in the fact that he is able to “describe this ‘over-​Being’ (Übersein, in the sense of the word ‘surrealism’),

150  Immanence and Nature which cannot be thought ahead of time, which is not yet posited by God, but which is in God as a preliminary condition.”10 It should be noted, however, that Merleau-​Ponty does not identify the notion of Übersein with a transcendent supra-​Being, as Tillich and Marcel do.11 Instead, he clearly maintains the ontological primacy of immanence of nature and its foundational role for the occurrence of life. In this sense, nature is to be identified with the Abgrund, which makes it “both passive and active, product and productivity, but a productivity that always needs to produce something else (for example, human generation, which ceaselessly repeats without end).”12 Hence, nature does not coincide with pure rationality, but includes in itself an essential element of irrationality (whence the use of the term “surrealism” by Merleau-​Ponty, since not everything that is real is rational) that exceeds our conscious understanding. For this reason, Merleau-​Ponty reads Schelling’s notion of nature as “a producer that is not all-​powerful, which does not succeed in ending its production: it is a rotary movement that produces nothing definitive.”13 According to Merleau-​Ponty, Schelling’s goal is to make sure that we rediscover Nature in our perceptual experience prior to reflection. Our perception is probably no longer altogether a natural exercise, having been perverted by reflection. It no longer gives us the things, but rather an envelope, similar to a cocoon left behind by the butterfly when it emerges from its chrysalis. In order to retrieve the meaning of external nature, we have to make an effort to retrieve our own nature in the state of indivision where we exercise our perception […]. It is in my own nature that I find the originary state of the interior of things. This subjectivity inherent to Nature is not the result of a projection of a non-​I outside of the I. We have to say, on the contrary, that what we call the I and what we call a living being have a common root in pre-​ objective Being.14 Such a “pre-​objective Being” undoubtedly refers to nature as that which precedes and grounds our conscious experience and reflection –​hence referring to the sub-​iectum of our life and experience, namely as that which lies under our life and experience, as I defined it in §1.3. The immanentist fashion of Merleau-​Ponty interpretation is also evident through his use of the expression “common root,” which clearly recalls the immanent depths of Being and not some alleged transcendent and supernatural source of Being itself. Therefore, nature is the utmost expression of the Absolute and of the original and primordial unity of the principles: it is precisely this unity that constitutes the abovementioned “pre-​ objective Being” and in which our existence has its roots –​together with all living things. As

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  151 Merleau-​Ponty himself puts it, “unity is given at the beginning more than in the development. By this intuition of a primordial ground, philosophy is a Naturphilosophie.”15 This statement perfectly resonates with Schelling’s definition of philosophy in his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, which I explained in §1.4. That is, for Schelling philosophy is a work of freedom that breaks the original and immanent unity of the principles in nature –​ however, such a separation is a sheer arbitrary act that cannot but result into the restoration of the original unity, since the unity can be broken only theoretically in order for us to understand its practical indissolubility. Moreover, in §3.4, I have also shown that this dynamic is precisely that of the immanent made transcendent: once we break the immanent and absolute unity of the principles, we attempt to transcend such a unity but the inevitable restoration of the unity brings transcendence back into the originary immanence, so that transcendence can be properly grasped and understood as a concept of reason. Hence, philosophy is made possible. Merleau-​ Ponty further acknowledges the immanentist fashion of Schelling’s thought by stating that Schelling is neither a finalist nor vitalist. Indeed, through his conception of nature, Schelling clearly rejects both that there is a transcendent purpose or end in life and in the universe, and that the principle of life has to be identified as something that transcends life itself. That is, Merleau-​Ponty claims that a finalist or a vitalist account is fundamentally incompatible with –​and diametrically opposed to –​ Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Indeed, Merleau-​Ponty agrees with Schelling that there is no “essential difference between organic and inorganic Nature. ‘There is not inorganic Nature in itself’, [Schelling] says, wanting to show thereby that there is not a break between organized beings and sensible qualities (which also have an organization).”16 Accordingly, even God Godself is conceived by Schelling not as a supernatural and transcendent being, but rather as an immanent living being that participates in the process of Becoming and is not ontologically detached from nature.17 As Merleau-​Ponty himself puts it, The catchphrase of Naturphilosophie is to consider the existence of God as an empirical fact or to understand that it is at the base of all experience. Whoever understood this also understood that Naturphilosophie is in no way a theory, but rather a life within Nature. God is not known apart from experience, but we take hold of him in the finite. The equivocation of the two movements finite-​infinite and infinite-​finite belongs to the very fabric of things.18 Accordingly, Merleau-​ Ponty argues that Schelling understands the “human being as a species of the re-​creation of the world, as the advent of an opening,”19 which in turn (implicitly) encapsulates the fundamental

152  Immanence and Nature dynamic of the immanent made transcendent. Indeed, “by this opening, Nature, when it succeeds in creating human being, finds itself overcome by something new. But the inverse is also true. Not only must Nature become vision, but human being must also become Nature.”20 In other words, here it is evident that Merleau-​Ponty is describing an ontological process that has both its origin and its culmination in immanence and in nature. In this process, the human being is originally created and situated in the immanence of nature; then, the human being abstracts from the immanence of nature and envisions an opening to transcendence –​namely the human being makes immanence transcendent. In this opening, a transcendent dimension of Being is superimposed on nature as a result of human will and intellectual activity. However, such a transcendent dimension of Being, precisely because it is superimposed on nature through human will, cannot be the original and fundamental one. Therefore, just as nature leaves room for human life and speculation, the human being must return to nature due to the inescapable primacy and originarity of its immanence. Simply put, transcendence originates from and can be grasped only through immanence and not the contrary. In this respect, Patrick Burke notes that Merleau-​Ponty presents a notion of “immanence that has been dislodged, along with transcendence and intentionality, from subjectivity and ascribed to the world. Immanence is now the groundless abyssal depth of the world, the ‘barbaric principle’, the Urgrund, Ungrund, or Abgrund, of which Schelling spoke.”21 In fact, there is no doubt that here Merleau-​Ponty provides an interpretation of Schelling that fundamentally diverges from the transcendentist readings of Jaspers and Heidegger. Just as Schelling, Merleau-​Ponty “is not searching for a transcendent organizing principle, but one that is immanent within Nature.”22 However, the main point here is not that Merleau-​Ponty fully endorses the immanentist account of Being that lies at the ground of Schelling’s thought; yet, he unquestionably acknowledges that Schelling’s philosophy of nature is a radically immanentist one. In one of his recent works, Josep Maria Bech highlights how Merleau-​ Ponty’s “lectures on Schelling intensified and deepened his own philosophical involvement with the idea of Nature.”23 Accordingly, it is precisely thanks to his engagement with Schelling’s Naturphilosophie that Merleau-​Ponty comes to the conclusion that a sound ontology must include nature as its primary and fundamental element, in lieu of être brut –​namely “brute or raw Being.” By so doing, Merleau-​Ponty aims at rejecting a form of ontology that “conceives Being over the background of nothingness,” according to which “Being must be conceived as embracing all determinations. If Being were not completely what it is, it would not be at all.”24 Such an ontology would inevitably imply that Being itself comes into being as être brut, namely as coinciding with and being inseparable

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  153 from its sheer manifestation. If this was the case, Being would also encapsulate nothingness, overcoming it through a wholly transcendent act that leaves no room for the immanent autoproduction of meaning that nature operates. Being the very ground that sustains our existence, nature cannot be reduced to a mere constructed reality that has its origin outside of itself. While it is true that nature –​as well as its autoproductivity –​exceeds our sheer rationality, that does not imply that the meaning that nature produces transcends the very concrete life to which it applies. On the contrary, it is precisely the ceaseless autoproduction of meaning that nature operates that places nature itself in the domain of immanence. Indeed, if on the one hand it is true that for Merleau-​Ponty “our relationship to Being is not one of an adequation of ideas to their objective referents or the immanence of Being within us,”25 on the other hand, it cannot be denied that Merleau-​ Ponty embraces Schelling’s notion of nature and its immanent core. Therefore, a transcendent Being that encompasses and overcomes an originary nothingness would not be compatible with Merleau-​Ponty’s account of nature –​which in turn is built upon Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Although Merleau-​Ponty is not necessarily persuaded by the dynamic of the immanent made transcendent, he clearly aims at justifying the relationship between immanence and transcendence without regarding the latter as the original term of such relationship. This approach is evident since his 1945 Phenomenology of Perception, where he argues that that which defines our consciousness and our very existence is a contradiction between immanence and transcendence –​namely between the co-​ occurrence of one’s being situated in this present moment and this specific place as opposed to one’s intuition of a spatio-​temporal “elsewhere.” As Merleau-​Ponty himself puts it, If I say that I am enclosed in my present –​since after all one passes through an unnoticeable transition from the present to the past, or from the near to the far –​[…] then the transcendence of distant landscapes invades my present and introduces a suspicion of unreality even into the experience with which I believe I coincide. If I am here and now, I am neither here nor now.26 In other words, we perceive and experience the constant presence of spatio-​ temporal elements that fundamentally escape our limited and constrained perspectives. However, that does not mean that our consciousness is misleading or illusory, and that those spatio-​temporal elements are the expression of a transcendent and supernatural essence of Being and of the world. Indeed,

154  Immanence and Nature if I want to remove consciousness from every place and every temporality, and if I am everywhere that my perception and my memory take me, then I cannot inhabit any time and the privileged reality that defines my current present disappears, along with the reality of my previous presents or my eventual presents. If the synthesis could be actual, if my experience formed a closed system, if the thing and the world could be defined once and for all, if spatio-​temporal horizons could (even ideally) be made explicit and if the world could be conceived from nowhere, then nothing would exist. I would survey the world from above, and far from all places and times suddenly becoming real, they would in fact cease to be real because I would not inhabit any of them and I would be nowhere engaged. If I am always and everywhere, then I am never and nowhere.27 Therefore, at the very core of reality –​and of our experience of reality –​lies the fact that immanence and transcendence mutually imply one another, “since each of these terms, when it is affirmed by itself, makes its contradiction appear.”28 However, Merleau-​Ponty explicitly rules out the option that transcendence –​understood as a supernatural principle that is ontologically detached from nature –​is the first and originary moment of its conflicting relationship with immanence. While it is true that our immanent situatedness indicates a spatio-​temporal dimension that exceeds the sheer here-​and-​now, it is even truer that if such a transcendent dimension were to be considered as the originary and primal one, then the world would not exist at all –​since it would “be conceived from nowhere” and preclude the possibility of immanently engaging with it. Instead, it is precisely due to the immanent situatedness of our consciousness and experience that such a transcendent dimension becomes conceivable. In this context, then, it is almost self-​evident that Being did not emerge from nothingness and that nature cannot but be the immanent and material ground on which we stand and that makes our life and experience possible. To further consolidate the immanentist reading of Schelling’s philosophy, there is one more Schellingian element that Merleau-​Ponty retrieves: the concept of resistance. Such a concept, for Merleau-​Ponty, has a clearly ontological meaning and pertains to the core of nature: indeed, he has no doubt that “Nature resists. It cannot be entirely established in front of us. The body is a nature at work within us.”29 Resistance, then, consists in a fundamental aspect of nature, playing a key role in Merleau-​Ponty’s ontological discourse. For this reason, Merleau-​Ponty maintains that “what resists phenomenology within us –​natural being, the ‘barbarian’ source Schelling spoke of –​cannot remain outside phenomenology and should have its place within it.”30 To put it differently, the “barbarian source” that

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  155 Merleau-​Ponty is referring to is precisely the ceaseless autoproductivity of nature, which is key to both Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and to Merleau-​ Ponty’s own conception of nature. Resistance is then a constitutive element of the contradictory dynamic between immanence and transcendence –​which in turn makes it a key element of truth. As Ted Toadvine explains, Merleau-​Ponty’s goal is “to reveal that any ‘true’ sense of the world is to be gained only through the process of perception, relying on the norms of the body and its pre-​ reflective dialogue with the world.”31 In other words, Merleau-​Ponty identifies a form of resistance that pertains to nature and to matter and that one encounters when facing external objects in the natural world. That is, our experience of the natural world is one of a reality that simultaneously correlates to and rejects our body, namely of an “absolute Other” that the knowing subject carries within herself and that yet radically differs from herself.32 The world that we experience is already formed, and its ontological structure precedes our bodily experience of its material occurrence, as well as my appropriation of it through consciousness –​highlighting a heteronomy of nature that precedes and opposes my autonomy. Therefore, “the resistance of matter and life [should be understood] not as hindrances to the achievement of truth but precisely as the condition of truth in a richer sense.”33 In fact, the key element here is “the thing’s transcendence of my body. We experience this transcendence concretely as the ‘non-​human’ aspect of the thing by which it resists the dialogue with the body.”34 However, this transcendence refers to a radical otherness and irreducible alterity of things that constitute our experience as knowing subjects –​and not to an alleged supernatural foundation of the ontological discourse. This fundamental ambivalence of things and of the natural world itself is the utmost and clearest expression of the abovementioned contradictory dynamic between immanence and transcendence. As Merleau-​Ponty himself puts it, “although lived by us, the thing is no less transcendent to our life, because the human body, along with its habits that outline a human environment around itself, is crossed by a movement toward the world itself.”35 Thus, resistance occurs precisely in that preconscious foundation of our consciousness and pre-​empirical foundation of our experience which is the autoproductivity of nature and exceeds human finitude while not pertaining to an ontologically superior (that is, supernatural) dimension of Being. Once again, this does not mean that Merleau-​Ponty actually endorses the dynamic of the immanent made transcendent that I ascribe to Schelling’s thought; and yet, he clearly reiterates Schellingian elements in his account of nature and of the relationship between immanence and transcendence. As he states in his 1956–​1957 lectures on nature,

156  Immanence and Nature In this idea of the resistance of a Nature that does not want to be left closed up in a preformed matrix, and which is only the nondogmatic affirmation of synchronisms, is it not necessary to discover a new meaning of the word “Nature” as the residue that we cannot eliminate, as, e.g., the romantic idea of a savage Nature?36 The “new meaning” that Merleau-​ Ponty attributes to nature, namely the ceaseless autoproductivity of meaning that is inherent to life itself, has its roots in Schelling’s Naturphilosophie, as already demonstrated. In this sense, Merleau-​Ponty aims at opposing an exclusively materialist reading of nature (such as the Marxist one), but without ever assuming a transcendentist standpoint. In Marxist readings of nature, Merleau-​Ponty argues, “never does the resistance of Nature appear as an essential fact,”37 which means that nature itself can never be understood in its essential features. This implies a sheer return to immanence that fails to grasp the contradictory dynamic between immanence and transcendence, resulting in an incomplete and unviable ontology.38 At this point, however, I think I have successfully demonstrated that Merleau-​ Ponty acknowledges the immanentist fashion of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and does not endorse the transcendentist reading of Jaspers and Heidegger. Indeed, I maintain that there is very little doubt that Merleau-​Ponty sees in Schelling a fully fledged philosopher of nature whose main concern is to maintain the ontological primacy of immanence, and that transcendence can only be grasped if it originates from –​ and returns to –​the originary immanence of nature. This, however, does not equal to say that Merleau-​Ponty is a Schellingian himself, nor that he wholeheartedly endorses the Schellingian dynamic of the immanent made transcendent; and yet, I have shown that he undeniably emphasises the relevance of such a dynamic and the centrality of immanence in Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. In the next section, I discuss some of the most recent readings of Schelling that similarly emphasise the centrality of the notion of nature and immanence –​specifically, I focus on the works of Charlotte Alderwick, Jason M. Wirth, and Iain Hamilton Grant, among others. 5.2  Schelling’s “One-​World Ontology:” Contemporary Immanentist Readings Among those which I call the naturalistic interpretations of Schelling –​namely those interpretations that emphasise the central importance of Naturphilosophie for Schelling’s philosophical system –​stands the work of Iain Hamilton Grant. Indeed, Grant affirms not only that Schelling’s entire philosophical system should be read as a consistent and coherent production with no breaks or discontinuity but also that the

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  157 common thread and ongoing concern of Schelling’s thought is precisely philosophy of nature. More specifically, in his seminal book Philosophies of Nature After Schelling, Grant argues that Schelling’s Naturphilosophie stands in clear opposition to the so-​ called “two-​ world metaphysics,” according to which nature and thought, real and ideal, and physics and metaphysics pertain to separate ontological statuses and dimensions. Schelling, then, clearly distances his philosophy of nature from such a metaphysical theory, that Grant traces back to Kant and Fichte, and that has also dominated the philosophical and ontological discourse on nature in the post-​Enlightenment era. As Grant himself puts it, Schelling’s philosophy has “neither its immanent historicity nor its transcendent anachrony as its focus.”39 Rather, the main concern of Schelling’s work is to demonstrate “that metaphysics cannot be pursued in isolation from physics.”40 Accordingly, he retrieves the Platonic “physics of the All” in order to overcome the Kantian (and Aristotelian) separation of nature and thought, real and ideal. Drawing on Böhme’s reading, Schelling maintains that “Plato […] still has a concept of nature, that is of phusis, which means Being itself. And since for him the Ideas are genuine beings, they too are nature in the strict sense.”41 In other words, Schelling’s aim is to emphasise the inherent productivity of nature and the fundamentally dynamic fashion of the Absolute. In this respect, Schelling’s argument is premised on the abolition of the restriction of agency to consciously purposive rational beings, on the one hand, and the consequent location of activity to nature itself, on the other. This in turn clearly opposes the Aristotelian and Kantian accounts of physics as “the physics of all things” or “bodies” (somatism), since it proposes that “things,” beings or entities, are consequent upon nature’s activity, rather than this latter being inexplicably grounded in the properties or accidents of bodies. The philosophy of nature itself, in other words, is no longer grounded in somatism, but in the dynamics from which all ground, and all bodies, issue.42 This inevitably follows from the fact that, according to Schelling, the Absolute is not a transcendent and eternally fixed principle but a lively and ever-​changing (or better: ever-​Becoming) one. In fact, as I already explained in §1.1, Schelling’s Absolute is to be understood in immanent terms, meaning that the absolute unity and indifferentiation of the principles is constantly reiterated through the process of Becoming, rather than being statically posited for all eternity. Therefore, this process is a radically immanent one and does not entail a separate and transcendent ontological dimension that is removed from nature. Similarly, Grant highlights that “Platonic physics concerns the

158  Immanence and Nature emergence of order from disorderly and unceasing motion, which creates a post-​Aristotelian conception of Platonism: no longer a formal or moralizing two-​worlds metaphysics, but a one-​world physics.”43 What is relevant here is not so much Grant’s Neoplatonic appraisal but rather the fact that he clearly contends that Schelling’s entire ontological discourse is developed on the level of immanence, and that there can be no supernatural foundation of nature, as well as of Being, God, and the Absolute. As Ben Woodard explains, “a one-​world dynamics allows [Schelling] to give idealism a physical utility: since the ideal is part of the real, continuity is not reduced to an abstract geometrical artefact, but reorients thought as part of a continuum with nature.”44 The very notion of phusis (φῠ́σῐς), namely of nature, refers precisely to the activity of spontaneously growing and coming into being45 of nature itself. Accordingly, the intrinsic productivity of nature consists precisely in the immanent ground and source of life, hence ruling out all transcendentist and supernatural explanations. Indeed, this results in a one-​world ontology that comprises the immanent and material occurrence of transcendence, which in turn is not the primal and original moment of being but only emerges as a momentarily abstraction from the original immanence –​hence, it cannot but return to immanence in order to become real and actual. This is the only viable form of ontology, and transcendence can only be grasped as a concept of reason in its return to immanence, whereas a two-​world metaphysics that posits the primacy of transcendence and its ontological detachment from immanence fails to grasp the very core of phusis, namely of Being itself. Additionally, as obvious as it sounds, Grant’s abovementioned statement that for Schelling “metaphysics cannot be pursued in isolation from physics” does not necessarily justify the complementary claim that even physics cannot be pursued in isolation from metaphysics. That is to say, the point here is not simply that for Schelling physics and metaphysics mutually presuppose each other, just as immanence and transcendence do. His discourse is a bit more complex than that, and includes an additional element that should not be neglected: physics and metaphysics, namely immanence and transcendence, are not merely complementary concepts, but the former is ontologically prior to the latter. Consequently, metaphysics neither relates to a supernatural and transcendent dimension of Being, nor can be assumed as the starting point of a viable ontological and philosophical discourse. To put it simply, while it is true that immanence and transcendence are epistemically interrelated, these should not be conceived as equivalent and interchangeable starting points, as only the former can provide a solid foundation to philosophy. This is a necessary clarification, since it is key to understand the core of Schelling’s philosophical system –​and of his Naturphilosophie in particular.

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  159 The complexity of Schelling’s account is perfectly explained by Charlotte Alderwick. I already discussed her work on Schelling and temporality in Chapter 1, whereas here I focus on her remarkable ontological reading of Schelling’s thought. In her recent work Schelling’s Ontology of Powers, Alderwick claims that As undifferentiated whole the absolute cannot concretely exist: it can only actualise itself through concrete particulars. This necessitates that the undifferentiated absolute has to divide, to introduce differentiation within itself, in order to give rise to distinct entities (Ideas, 150; SW II, 118). Schelling characterises this differentiation in a number of ways: the absolute is said to divide into essence and form, universal and particular, ideal and real, subject and object, productivity and product, productivity and limitation. The crucial aspect of all of these distinctions is that both terms are mutually dependent: essence or the universal cannot exist without its instantiation in concrete forms or particulars, and conversely form or particularity cannot come to be without the essence or universal which it instantiates.46 In other words, the fact that the absolute can only manifest itself through concrete particulars instead of existing as a separate and removed form of reality demonstrates precisely its originary immanence –​and in turn the impossibility of its transcendence. Similarly, the arbitrary differentiation of the principles, which then results in the restoration of the originary unity and indifference of them, is not sheer sameness. Accordingly, the mutual dependence of the “distinct entities” that Alderwick outlines does not result into the exchangeability of indistinguishable principles, but rather is possible on the basis of the ontological primacy of immanence: indeed, only moving from immanence can we grasp the Absolute in its concrete manifestation and actualisation. Therefore, although it is undoubtedly true that “Schelling’s system implies that the subject and the object are equally fundamental to the actualisation of the absolute [since] both are necessary together, and neither is reducible to the other,”47 it is even truer that such an actualisation can occur only at the level of immanence, and never at that of transcendence. In fact, “if nature was purely a product, the conditions of its productivity would lie outside it, which would mean invoking a transcendent entity and an extrinsic purpose, both of which Schelling is committed to denying.”48 That is to say, Alderwick highlights how the (auto)productivity of nature is such precisely because it is immanent to and within nature –​and is not an outward directed activity, externally determined by a supernatural principle. If that was the case, nature would be a merely still and closed system with neither vitality nor possibility of change and

160  Immanence and Nature evolution –​if not through an imposition from above. It follows that, in order to be a lively and active system that produces and endures life, nature cannot but develop itself on the plane of immanence. As I already discussed in §1.2, what animates and gives life to matter is the struggle between two opposing and coessential forces, which Schelling identifies with good and evil, attraction and repulsion, expansion and contraction, lightness and darkness. In this respect, Alderwick argues that such forces –​ or powers –​are more fundamental than matter, and in fact constitute the ground of matter itself. Accordingly, natural objects are inherently active and interconnected entities, and the properties and causal activities of these objects are immanent to them, instead of stemming from a far-​fetched supernatural source. Alderwick calls this account “ontology of powers,” which “enables [Schelling] to think of all natural phenomena as unified by being instances of the same process, but in such a way that also emphasises and makes sense of the important differences between natural phenomena conceived as products.”49 Therefore, the opposition between organic and inorganic nature is merely apparent, and is due only to a failure to understand the fundamental unity of nature. Indeed, we should see “all natural products as expressions of the same fundamental forces,”50 and the differences between these products are differences in form, organisation, and complexity –​but never differences of substance. The basic forces of matter, by interacting with each other, give life to different natural forms, both inorganic (e.g., chemical processes) and organic (e.g., living, sensible, and reproductive bodies). “Organic nature –​Alderwick writes –​is therefore a synthesis of the stages of inorganic nature which preceded it; the organism constitutes a higher form of organisation of the inorganic.”51 This means that there is a hierarchy of natural forms and products; however, such a hierarchy neither exceeds the plain of immanence, nor implies the existence of a transcendent or supernatural substance. That is, “organic and inorganic forms are unified as they are both grounded in the activity of the same basic natural forces.”52 Everything that exists in nature exists in continuity with other things in the process of Becoming, and not as an isolated and disjointed entity.53 However, in nature exists a progression from lower forms of organisation and complexity to higher ones –​and while the latter depend on the former, the higher forms cannot be reduced to the lower ones. As Alderwick herself puts it, for Schelling nature evolves through various forms in its attempt to produce the closest possible approximation of its original unity. This is found in the unity of real and ideal which exists in the human subject: agents represent the third aspect of the absolute’s progression as the real and ideal aspects of being are united in the agent. The agent has a real

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  161 corporeal body, but also is the location of the emergence of reason which Schelling characterises as the ideal in nature.54 Schelling’s immanentism, then, has deeper ontological implications that do not regard only nature but also apply to the structure of Being in general –​and of human beings in particular. Indeed, human agency can only be grasped through the theoretical separation of the original unity of the principles, which in turn can only result into its practical restoration. Alderwick also clarifies that this conception “does not, however, imply that the agent has some kind of priority over other natural products or that the rational capacities of the agent represent something transcendent.”55 Rather, the process that Alderwick describes unfolds itself at the level of immanence and grasps the very concreteness of both natural productivity and human agency. For these reasons, Schelling’s ontological account “enables a conception of agents as fundamentally natural beings which emerge from the activity of natural powers” and through which “Schelling is still able to claim that consciousness and reason are not transcendent properties as they too are fundamentally natural powers.”56 In other words, as I already explained in §1.2, just as matter emerges from the contrast between the two opposing forces of attraction and repulsion, human life and agency is made possible by a similar conflict between good and evil, which in turn are immanent natural powers and not transcendent moral principles. Therefore, precisely because human agents are nothing but natural beings –​that is to say parts of that whole which is nature –​then human agency, consciousness, and rationality are undisputedly immanent occurrences. Alderwick also adds that such a conception is potentially problematic when it comes to the issue of human freedom and of the agent’s control over her choices and actions. Although Alderwick’s concerns are justified, I hope that the account of freedom that I develop in Chapter 7 will provide a viable solution. Now, returning to Schelling’s ontological account, the immanentist fashion of his discourse is also at the core of Daniel Whistler’s reading. According to Whistler, Schelling’s Identitätssystem consists precisely in the rejection of “all distinction between the absolute and reality” and of a “ ‘two-​world’ metaphysics. [In fact,] [t]‌he ground of reality is not beyond reality but is itself reality.”57 In other words, Schelling holds that the relationship between reality and the Absolute is “one of absolute immanence,”58 meaning that the Absolute, far from occurring at an ontological level separate from reality, becomes one of the names that Schelling gives to reality itself. As Whistler puts it, For the early Schelling, “the absolute” names the ground of reality as something distinct from reality itself; it implies some form of distinction

162  Immanence and Nature between them. After 1801, “the absolute” does not in any way name something distinct from reality; it is reality itself under a different name.59 In this respect, Whistler maintains that Schelling’s Identitätssystem is a fully fledged philosophy of immanence, and that Schelling’s “resolute rejection of transcendence”60 is the core principle of his works between 1801 and 1805. Hence, Schelling’s ontology is a monist and immanentist one, meaning that the Absolute encompasses every existing thing, and that reality is characterised by the same fundamental unity and oneness that characterise the Absolute itself. Furthermore, for Schelling such oneness contains in itself difference and resolves it; namely, it does not arise from a transcendent or dialectical process, but is the immanent core of Being itself. As I repeatedly pointed out, this does not mean that the unity of principles comes at a later stage as if they were originally separated. Rather, to claim that they become united and undifferentiated means to say that they keep recurring as united and undifferentiated as they were in the first place: that is, they can only become what they are and not something different from what they originally were. Accordingly, a viable and far-​reaching philosophy must embrace this ontology of immanence and reject any transcendent account of Being. While I agree with Whistler that Schelling’s philosophy is a clearly immanentist one, I have already shown in Chapter 1 (as well as in the Introduction) that Schelling’s commitment to an ontology of immanence predates both his Naturphilosophie and his Identitätssystem and dates back to his Jena years. Indeed, since his early works, for Schelling “all there is is the immanence of the Absolute –​and Schellingian reality is free from transcendent entities.”61 Such an immanent approach, then, is precisely what differentiates Schelling from Fichte, who advocated for a dualism resulting in the coincidence of God with a moral world-​order, which in turn makes this world-​order transcendent. Instead, Schelling argues for an understanding of immanence according to which the reality of any entity has to be maintained within nature; that is, for Schelling there is no ontological detachment between God and the world, and between Being itself and particular beings; namely, Being and God are not to be conceived of on a superior ontological level, as opposed to particular beings and things. This also allows Schelling to overcome the dichotomy between Fichte’s moral and transcendent God and Spinoza’s impersonal God; indeed, Schelling manages to provide an account of God that is simultaneously immanently bonded to nature and a free and living being. In fact, there is no doubt that Schelling understands God as the living unity of everything that exists, hence being coincident with the absolute identity of the principles.62 In other words, this absolute identity

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  163 is nothing but the ontological core of God, which in turn reveals God’s immanent nature. As Whistler explains in a commendably clear way, for Schelling “[t]‌here is nothing beyond the absolute, because to posit something beyond in this manner would limit the absolute’s unconditional absoluteness. To posit a transcendent God would be to negate the absolute.”63 Indeed, Schelling argues that God’s will is to be understood in immanent terms and in conformity with the absolute unity of principles. To put it simply, for Schelling, God is a living being that embodies the absolute identity and makes it the fundamental law of reason and the immanent cause of being. Accordingly, in his Further Presentations from the System of Philosophy, Schelling claims that we clearly discern the Absolute, the eternal mediator, the all-​seeing and all-​disclosing eye of the world, the source of all wisdom and cognition. For it is within this form and through it that the ideas are known; they furnish the unique possibility of comprehending absolute profusion within absolute unity, the particular in the universal, and precisely by that also the Absolute in the particular –​blessed beings, as some designate the first creatures who live in the immediate sight of God, which we shall more accurately say are gods themselves, since each is for itself absolute, and yet each is included in the absolute form.64 In the latter passage, Schelling is also aiming at providing a concrete and transcendental –​but not transcendent –​understanding of Spinoza’s idea of substance, by integrating it with a stronger conception of freedom, that is, without negating freedom itself nor reducing it to sheer determinism. Indeed, he particularly appreciates Spinoza’s idea according to which true knowledge (i.e., the knowledge of adequate ideas) is self-​sufficient and does not need any further legitimation,65 which he sees as the perfect conciliation between the rigid ontological structure of the world (i.e., the law of identity) and a non-​mechanistic account of freedom.66 In order to reconcile God’s immanent nature with God’s freedom, Schelling argues that God posits a ground that is other than God Godself, and yet not outside God –​as I explained in §1.1. This means that the abovementioned oneness is never transcended, nor is preceded by a supernatural ontological principle. Rather, God is fundamentally immanent since God’s ontological core coincides with the immanent oneness of the Absolute. Borrowing Richard Velkley’s words, God or the One has a presupposition, a ground, which as such must be other to God or the One. This presupposition is natural beings as

164  Immanence and Nature becoming infinitely different from God, hence not contained in God in the manner of dead immanence. But all the same, nothing can exist outside the One, and so this presupposition cannot be prior to the One. The One is the presupposition of its own ground, of its own presupposition.67 Schelling himself, in his Freiheitsschrift, argues that “the concept of immanence is to be set aside completely in so far as thereby a dead containment of things in God is supposed to be expressed,” whereas “the concept of becoming is the only one appropriate to the nature of things.”68 That is to say, if God were a transcendent creator, God’s ground would be contained in Godself “in the manner of dead immanence” precisely because it would be posited outside of God and on a separate ontological dimension –​ hence being unable to take part in God’s life. Instead, since nothing can exist outside of –​or prior to –​God, then transcendence can never be the starting point of a viable ontological discourse, since that would either make God unattainable or posit God’s ground as a lifeless occurrence. Instead, the very notion of becoming perfectly grasps the process through which every existing thing, while being “different from [God] toto genere or infinitely,”69 still unfolds at the same ontologically immanent ground from which God Godself originates. Such a reading also resonates with what Bruce Matthews has called an “immanent reconstruction” of Schelling’s thought: according to Matthews, Schelling’s philosophy is not a form of “otherworldly dualism, but rather [shows] a radical immanence of transcendence.”70 More specifically, he maintains that the kernel of Schelling’s thought is his conviction that life is the schema of freedom, an understanding of life as that which manifests the active presence of freedom, and which parallels the influx of the divine in the immanent world of nature. As such, an organic form of philosophy is the only form capable of accounting for the self-​organizing reality of our world, both in its divine and in its natural manifestation, in a systematically unified manner.71 In this sense, Schelling develops a “monistic dualism” according to which, although there are two opposing principles struggling for the supremacy over the Real, there is no transcendent and ontologically detached dimension of reality to which God pertains. Instead, the only reality is the “immanent preestablished harmony” provided by the oneness of the Absolute, that is the organic unity and the concrete ground on which life itself unfolds.72 Along these lines is also the reading of Jason M. Wirth –​which I have already partly discussed in Chapters 1 and 4. Strictly speaking, Wirth’s

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  165 account is not a naturalistic one, meaning that he does not consider Schelling’s Naturphilosophie as the kernel of Schelling’s philosophical system; and yet, although he highlights the theological and religious significance of Schelling’s reflections on life, Wirth never falls into the pitfalls of transcendentism. In Wirth’s reading, the passage from Schelling’s 1798 On the World Soul, in which he writes that “immanence and transcendence are completely and equally empty words, since even they precisely suspend this contradiction, and everything flows together into one, God-​filled world,”73 is undoubtedly key and emblematic of Schelling’s ontology. According to Wirth, Schelling’s philosophy should be read as a “natural religion” whose goal is “to think and dwell with and on the sovereign autogenesis of nature.”74 However, Wirth also clarifies that Schelling’s natural religion is stricto sensu neither a pantheism nor a panentheism –​but not even a form of “emanationism in which the θεός simply transcends that which it creates.”75 Recalling Schelling’s doctrine of the potencies of being (that I discussed in §4.3), Wirth explains that in Schelling’s discourse the A1 denotes the eternal birthing or generation of the πάν, while the A2 marks the reemergence of the sovereignty of its origin, as if it were the explosive and annihilating force of death or madness. […] Higher than either is the conjunction of the two, […] which Schelling calls the A3. This clearly describes an immanent process in which the inherent productivity of nature is that which provides the condition of possibility of life itself. Once again, the contractive force of the Real (A1) fundamentally opposes the expansive force of the Ideal (A2), resulting into a fundamental struggle that allows the coming to life of Being and is resolved only in the absolute unity of the principles (A3). Accordingly, nature is not a still and closed system but rather a self-​organising living organism. The fundamental purpose of Schelling’s natural religion, then, is to reject any transcendent source of life and to identify the ground of life itself with the immanent autoproductivity of nature. This conception of nature as living system is also quite relevant to contemporary debates in Environmental Ethics, which I will discuss more in detail in Chapter 8. However, Wirth also clarifies that Schelling does not theorise an utter coincidence or a sheer sameness between God, nature, and things. In fact, Wirth argues that God and things “are opposites, and there is nothing in the idea of God, an idea whose ideatum eternally transcends it, that includes the idea of things, whose ideata have, however inadequate, some connection with ideas.”76 Similarly, God and nature “are not one and the same, but rather the oppositional poles revolving about the aporetic

166  Immanence and Nature ‘cision’ of nature itself.”77 And yet, the very oppositional relationship between God, nature, and things shows that they are not on separate ontological dimensions. In other words, the absence of sheer sameness between God, nature, and things does not mean that God is a transcendent demiurge who is irremediably removed and separated from nature and things. If that was the case, nature would be nothing but a debris or a lifeless machine with no spontaneity. As I already discussed in §1.2, for Schelling, there can be no life if there is no struggle and no opposition of principles and of forces: subsequently, conceiving God and nature on two separate and disjointed ontological dimensions makes opposition impossible. Two opposite poles can be such only if they revolve around the same ontological core, whereas if only one of them possesses true life, creativity, and productivity, while the other one is a mere lifeless debris, no opposition is possible. In this sense, by saying that God’s ideatum eternally transcends the idea of God, Wirth is referring to the fact that God’s actual existence is not a matter of ideal speculation but rather that of real living being taking part in the process of Becoming.78 Hence, it seems to me that the use of the verb “transcend” does not have an ontological connotation in this case; rather, Wirth is presenting a distinctive epistemic argument, according to which God is neither an utterly immanent being that is identical to nature nor a wholly transcendent being whose existence is fully otherworldly and immaterial. Therefore, this means that, just as God is not the same as nature, God’s actual existence fundamentally exceeds the idea of God –​ and also that, since God is the living unity of everything that is, God’s existence must move from immanence in order to surpass it and encompass it within Godself. Only in this way God can be both “the ideal par excellence” and “the real par excellence.”79 To put it simply: God is the immanent made transcendent. Schelling’s account does not rely on a God that ontologically transcends nature but rather on a God that is immanent in the world and yet is more than the immanent world. As Wirth himself puts it, It is true that Schelling is trying to think what cannot be properly thought, that he is attempting to articulate an idea whose ideatum transcends it, but in so doing he is thinking and enacting this very mode of transcendence.80 It is precisely for this reason, then, that Schelling claims that “immanence and transcendence are equally empty words,”81 since neither of them, if taken alone, is able to grasp reality –​and they both flow into the “God-​ filled world.” This implies that that transcendence cannot be ontologically prior to immanence –​but not the opposite. As Wirth shows, “[f]‌or

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  167 Schelling religion has nothing to do with a stupid, utterly arbitrary, and philosophically embarrassing commitment to believe in some kind of transcendent thing.”82 Therefore, if religion refutes the arbitrary notion of a wholly transcendent deity, it inevitably follows that religion itself relies on the acknowledgement that the primal and fundamental ontological dimension is that of immanence. Accordingly, nature becomes the very starting point of religion, and the immanence of nature itself is only provisionally transcended by God, whose ontological status is precisely that of the immanence elevated to transcendence only in order to later return to its original immanence as a concept of reason. In this sense, nature operates as a productive ground that allows life to occur. However, precisely by virtue of its being the primal productive ground of life, nature is not preceded by anything, not even by space and time. In fact, it is not space and time that allow nature to exist, but rather it is nature that allow space and time to occur and unfold themselves. As Wirth puts it, for Schelling “Nature is not in time. Nature is the aporia of time. That is to say, that things do not happen in time and space, but […] that time and space happen as nature.”83 Hence, God is to be sought not in the heights of an alleged supernatural dimension of Being but in the depths of this very life –​ since “[t]‌here is no other life than this life, but it is all that we could need or want.”84 On these grounds, Wirth concludes that Schelling “reject[s]‌the transcendence of an ontotheological God in favor for the divine depths of the earth, depths that can neither be conflated with the earth nor detached from it.”85 While I fully concur that Schelling rejects a transcendent God and accepts an immanent one, I also maintain that this is the core of his immanentist ontology. That is to say, precisely because God is immanent to the world and cannot be ontologically separated from the “depths of the earth,” Schelling’s ontological discourse implies theology and vice versa. Thus, as I will discuss more in detail in Chapter 6, Schelling’s philosophy is not aimed at identifying God with a supreme and transcendent Being, whose existence is to be ascribed to an alleged ultimate reality that is completely detached from the immanence of nature. Rather, since the opposite is true, Schelling’s philosophy is an immanentist ontology. However, there is no unanimous agreement on this last point, and a non-​negligible part of Schelling’s contemporary scholarship sustains that Schelling is not a thinker of immanence, and that his Naturphilosophie is not the core of his philosophical activity. Therefore, before moving to the next and final part of this book, where I outline my immanentist reading of Schelling’s thought, I discuss the most relevant contemporary transcendentist readings of Schelling.

168  Immanence and Nature 5.3  Remnants of Transcendence? Contemporary Transcendentist Readings As Whistler correctly observes, “many critics still attribute to [Schelling] some sliver of transcendence or remnant of a ‘two-​world’ metaphysics.”86 Usually, these readings uphold transcendence as the original and fundamental element of Schelling’s philosophical and ontological discourse –​especially in his late phase –​at the expense of immanence –​which is regarded as a secondary and transitory moment of Schelling’s philosophy. So, in the last section of this chapter, I discuss the readings of Sean McGrath and Tyler Tritten, who are amongst the most prominent examples of this interpretative trend. In his The Dark Ground of Spirit, McGrath argues that Schelling, in the late phase of his work, abandons his early immanentism and develops a fullyfledged philosophy of transcendence. Indeed, McGrath has no doubt that Schelling went from being a “neo-​Spinozistic philosopher of immanence” to “a philosopher of transcendence in both the realistic and the theistic senses of the term.”87 The reason for this turn to transcendentism can be found, according to McGrath, both in Schelling’s personal life88 and in his discontent with traditional idealism. With regard to the latter, McGrath argues that the late Schelling, based on his “hard-​won insight into the essential poverty of human reason,” became convinced that “Idealism remains as out of touch with the really existing God as it is out of touch with the real for it presumes to know a priori that which can never be conceptually known: contingent reality, existence, event.”89 The reason for Schelling’s discontent is quite obvious, according to McGrath: the poverty of human reason, and its subsequent inability to grasp the really existing God and the ultimate reality, is due to the fact that human reason is irremediably bound to historical immanence, and hence, unable to access the domain of transcendence. Accordingly, In order to philosophically thematize the brute contingency of the world the late Schelling deems it necessary to renounce the historical immanentism which was once central to his metaphysics and return to a more traditional notion of God, the Aristotelian-​Scholastic concept of God, the actus purus. God is complete prior to creation, eternally free, always already a person; therefore the creation of the world is pure contingency, not something God needs in order to become conscious but an unfathomable event, and the history of the world is real history or a history of the real, not to be explicated from a logical idea.90 The very nature of the Godhead, then, is fundamentally transcendent and manifests itself through the transcendent and unfathomable act of creation. Hence, this act fundamentally exceeds sheer reason and consists in

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  169 “a transcendent act of knowledge which is wholly the product of a free cause (revelation) [and] can neither be deduced nor intuited.”91 Revelation is then “unprethinkable” and exceeds the conceptual and a priori notion of God as ens necessarium; instead, God reveals Godself through a sheer act of God’s freedom, which in turn escapes our rational understanding. For this very reason, McGrath argues, not only the late Schelling is no longer doing philosophy of nature, but God and nature are two irremediably different things: nature is in God, but God is not in nature. That is, God’s being is higher and superior to that of nature, meaning that “the being of God transcends the being of nature just as existence transcends ground: something more is manifest in God, something that cannot be reduced to nature, just as existence cannot be reduced to its ground.”92 Indeed, creation is only possible if God and nature are conceived of as two distinct and different entities –​for if God is not independent of and different from nature, creation would be nothing but a mechanistic repetition, and revelation would be nothing but sheer knowledge of natural laws. In this respect, Schelling postulates the difference between God and nature in the Freiheitsschrift; such a difference, McGrath claims, refers to the ontological independence of a higher mode of being from a lower, even if the lower is the necessary condition for the existence of the higher. Ontological independence is not ontic independence (separateness). Knowledge of the ontologically lower, then, does not entail knowledge of the higher, but knowledge of the ontologically higher includes knowledge of the lower. Two that are different in kind are ontically independent and for that reason cannot be opposed. Two that are different in degree are not ontologically distinct and therefore cannot be conceived independently of one another.93 This being the case, nature can be known empirically, but only as a lower mode of being than that of God, whereas the knowledge of God Godself requires a transcendent revelation of the Godhead. God is antecedent to nature, and nature is consequent to God –​meaning that nature is created by God, and God transcends nature through God’s being higher and prior to nature itself. In McGrath’s view, Schelling’s late turn to philosophy of transcendence implies that transcendence itself is the primal and originary moment of Being and life. That is, that abovementioned unfathomable act of God’s freedom which is creation not only escapes the immanence of the created, but ontologically precedes it. Hence, a merely rational and immanentist philosophy –​namely philosophy of nature –​can only account for a limited sphere of being –​namely that of finitude. In this sense, arguing that God

170  Immanence and Nature and nature coincide would imply to deny the existence of both an infinite God and of the Absolute. As McGrath puts it, Only where nature and God are really different (that is, only where creation has in fact occurred) is Spinozistic immanence overcome, and only where immanence is overcome can philosophy recognize a free act of knowledge outside of consciousness. A purely immanentist philosophy can no more recognize revelation than it can freedom.94 Therefore, far from being “nature-​ philosophy by other means,”95 Schelling’s philosophy of revelation has transcendence as its kernel, which in turn means that sheer immanence is insufficient to grasp reality as a whole. However, this does not mean that Schelling simply discards immanence in the name of God’s radical transcendence. According to McGrath, Schelling’s intent is to complement his philosophical system with a focus on revelation, which does not dismiss the legitimacy of his Naturphilosophie (although within the limits of immanentism) but rather leads Schelling to embrace transcendence –​and hence rethinking God in transcendentist terms. In fact, this shift does not lead to a sheer form of religious irrationalism, but rather entails that “reason can no longer behave as though revelation were alien to it, as if transcendence meant that God is not also immanent in nature and human culture.”96 Hence, Schelling’s turn to transcendence is aimed at questioning “whether God has been properly conceived as substance, as the unconditioned, or in the early Schelling’s terms, as the absolute.”97 In other words, McGrath maintains that God can only be the unconditioned source and creator of the world only if God is conceived of as transcendent –​namely if the world is created by God Godself through an unfathomable act of God’s freedom –​and not as the immanent first principle of the world. Therefore, McGrath claims that in Schelling’s late philosophy reason negates itself by acknowledging its impossibility to grasp reality as a whole exclusively on the plain of immanence and accepting the superior and transcendent truth of revelation. Hence, “reason’s assent to the irreducible truth of the Christian revelation is no leap of faith but the discursive culmination of a sober and fearless assessment of logic, metaphysics and history.”98 In this sense, transcendence is the first and original moment of Being and the very nature of God Godself; subsequently, McGrath continues, “the transcendent becomes immanent […] and reveals the dialectical, reciprocal dependency of the infinite on the finite.”99 Immanence, then, is posited only at a later stage and only in order to be surpassed by transcendence itself. By becoming immanence, transcendence makes revelation historically possible, but that very immanence serves only to restate

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  171 the ontological primacy of the transcendence of the Godhead. Once again, this does not dismiss Schelling’s early Naturphilosophie, since Schelling “does not see revelation as fundamentally altering reason so much as giving it something new, a knowledge that is essentially above nature.”100 And yet, McGrath maintains that for Schelling nature is in God, but God exceeds and transcends nature –​which in turn indicates a definitive overcoming of Schelling’s early philosophy of immanence in favour of a fully fledged philosophy (and ontology) of transcendence. Similarly, Tyler Tritten also argues that Schelling’s late philosophy should be interpreted as a thought of transcendence, and accordingly as a rejection of immanence as the foundation and origin of Being. In his Beyond Presence, Tritten moves from the fact that Schelling, following Kant, argues that it is not possible to move from the concept of a thing (say, God) in order to demonstrate its existence –​that is to say, dogmatically jumping from speculative reason to actual existence. In fact, the latter is always anterior the former, which means that actual existence transcends conceptual and rational speculation. In this respect, Tritten claims that “Kant condemns the movement from immanence to transcendence but never the opposite,” and that Schelling further radicalises Kant’s standpoint by “stringently forbidding the path from immanence –​dialectical or conceptual reason –​to transcendent existence.”101 According to Tritten, Schelling firmly denies that transcendence can be reached if one moves from immanence: in fact, moving from immanence to reach transcendence means nothing but moving from the conceptual existence of a thing in order to demonstrate its actual existence. But such a method, Tritten maintains, is nothing but an abstract form of speculation, which is typical of that dogmatic tradition of Western metaphysics which Schelling intends to oppose. Accordingly, Schelling’s positive philosophy “recognizes that the transcendent, so-​called, is the true prius, the absolute rather than relative prius.”102 That is to say, according to Tritten the primal and originary moment of Being is a purely and absolutely transcendent one, and in turn it is unprethinkable and fundamentally escapes and exceeds the immanence of the human condition. Once again, what is unprethinkable is precisely the free act of creation, which is “something that could have not been, something willed and not the product of nature.”103 Consequently, God must be conceived of as separate from creation itself: indeed, “God does not become alongside the creation, but He remains as He is. God is effusive, He is more than His nature.”104 In other words, God is at an ontological level that is superior to –​that is, that wholly transcends –​nature. Hence, God is absolutely above being and supernatural, meaning that God “is not an organism presencing until its fulfillment but a supernatural will anterior to His own figure that constitutes Him as God proper.”105 Only in this way, Tritten argues, can

172  Immanence and Nature God be the free, divine and eternal creator of the world: indeed, God’s will and freedom must be above the constraints of natural laws, of becoming, and of time. As Tritten himself puts it, “God is not what He is but only He who He will be. He is free against his own Nature, against His own unprethinkable Being.”106 In fact, it is God’s unfathomable freedom that gives meaning and purpose to things, which in turn recalls a transcendent dimension of Being that emphasises the inescapable finitude of the human condition. That is to say, The human being is not the measure of all things. Meaning is not reducible to her positing of value. She only is who she is and only experiences meaning as originating from transcendence and not as the capriciousness of value-​positing, because Being manifests meaning in the creation and then historically.107 Transcendence, then, assumes both an ontological and an ethical meaning, since it constitutes the source of both Being and its sense and value. Subsequently, transcendence assumes a clear ontological and ethical primacy over immanence, which is nothing but an ephemeral moment of abstract speculation that is always surpassed by the transcendence of the prius. McGrath’s and Tritten’s respective interpretations are more nuanced and complex than this, and I do not intend to oversimplify their readings, or use them as straw men for my purposes. Indeed, McGrath makes a very good and valid point in arguing that the late Schelling is not merely doing nature-​philosophy by other means, and that his thought normally evolved and changed with time. In doing so, McGrath is not denying that there is continuity within Schelling’s entire philosophical reflection; however, he rightfully argues that “to be continuous does not mean to be the same. It would indeed be bizarre if Schelling, at the end of his long career and in his sixties, believed precisely the same things he believed in his early twenties.”108 Yet, it seems evident that both McGrath and Tritten affirm the ontological primacy of transcendence over immanence in their reading of Schelling. That is to say, I have already shown how they both maintain that Schelling, in his late philosophical endeavours, embraces a philosophy of transcendence, namely posits transcendence as the primal and original element of his ontological inquiry –​in turn relegating immanence to a secondary and transitory moment. In this respect, what seems to be lacking in McGrath’s and Tritten’s readings of Schelling’s positive philosophy is a focus on Schelling’s definition of God not as transcendent, but as the immanent made transcendent. As I demonstrate in Chapter 6, this is a key moment not only in Schelling’s

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  173 late philosophy, but retrospectively in his entire philosophical activity. Indeed, I have already shown how in Schelling’s early and middle works immanence is undoubtedly the primal and fundamental element of his ontology. Along these lines, in Chapter 6, I demonstrate how immanence plays the exact same role in Schelling’s late philosophy –​which does not mean that his late philosophy is a merely disguised philosophy of nature, but a philosophy of immanence nonetheless, and definitely not a philosophy of religious transcendence. Additionally, I have already discussed in Chapter 2 how Schelling, in his Freiheitsschrift, is not trying to dispose of his early Spinozism or of Spinoza’s philosophy in general. Rather, I have argued that Schelling’s intention is to integrate his early Spinozism with the notion of a personal God –​and in Chapter 4, I have also shown how Schelling’s philosophical debt to Spinoza is similar to Deleuze’s, and that their Spinozism constitute a thread that connects their thoughts. On these grounds, I have shown that Schelling maintains a similar attitude towards Spinoza even after his Naturphilosophie. To sum up, in this chapter I discussed Merleau-​ Ponty’s reading of Schelling, showing how he breaks from the transcendentist interpretation developed by Heidegger and Jaspers and acknowledges the immanentist core of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Subsequently, I have shown how such a reading is echoed in contemporary readings, focusing specifically on the works of Grant, Alderwick, Whistler, and Wirth. In particular, I highlighted Grant’s argument that Schelling’s philosophy is an immanentist and coherent Naturphilosophie, as well as Alderwick’s “ontology of powers,” which shows how Schelling’s ontological immanentism extends beyond mere nature and characterises his discourse on Being, God, and the human. Subsequently, I have shown how both Whistler and Wirth lucidly demonstrate that the goal of Schelling’s philosophy is to reject the so-​called “two-​world metaphysics” and to develop a fully fledged philosophy of immanence in which God is not conceived as the transcendent and supernatural creator of things, but rather as immanent in nature –​ although not being identical to nature. Finally, I discussed McGrath’s and Tritten’s interpretations, showing how they attribute a key and central role to transcendence in Schelling’s late philosophy. Against this background, in the next and final part of this book, I show how Schelling’s philosophy as a whole should be read as a consistent and coherent ontology of immanence and not as a discontinuous speculation moving from an early philosophy of nature to a late philosophy of religious transcendence. In fact, I demonstrate that immanence plays a prominent and fundamental role in Schelling’s late philosophy as well, and that his definition of God as the immanent made transcendent should be read as a key moment not only of his late works but of his entire philosophical system. Subsequently, I advance an original reading of freedom as a matter

174  Immanence and Nature of resistance and conclude by showing how my immanentist reading of Schelling resonates with current debates in Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics. Notes 1 For instance, see Alexander Bilda, “Schelling’s Shadow. Merleau-​Ponty’s Late Concept of Nature,” Angelaki. Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 21, no. 4 (2016): 111–​20. 2 On this point, see William S. Hamrick and Jan Van der Veken, Nature and Logos: A Whiteheadian Key to Merleau-​ Ponty’s Fundamental Thought (Albany: SUNY Press, 2011), 123. 3 See Maurice Merleau-​Ponty, “The Concept of Nature, I,” in In Praise of Philosophy and Other Essays, translated by John Wild and James Edie John (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1963), 131ff. 4 PI, 26; SW, I, 7, 356. See also above, §1.1. 5 STI, 41; SW, I, 3, 387. See also above, §1.1. 6 Wirth, “The Reawakening of the Barbarian Principle,” 10. 7 Maurice Merleau-​Ponty, Nature. Course Notes from the College de France, Compiled and with notes by Dominique Séglard, translated by Robert Vallier (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2003), 3. 8 Ibid., 4. 9 Ibid., 38. 10 Ibid. 11 See above, §3.1 and §3.2. 12 Merleau-​Ponty, Nature, 38. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., 39–​40. 15 Ibid., 53. 16 Ibid., 41 17 See above, §1.4. 18 Merleau-​Ponty, Nature, 47. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid. 21 Patrick Burke, “Prefatory Meditations,” in The Barbarian Principle, 29. 22 Ibid., 33. 23 Josep Maria Bech, “Être brut or Nature,” in The Barbarian Principle, 174. 24 Ibid., 176. 25 Hamrick and Van der Veken Nature and Logos, 66. 26 Maurice Merleau-​Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, translated by Donald A. Landes (London and New York: Routledge, 2012), 346–​7. 27 Ibid., 347. 28 Ibid. 29 Merleau-​Ponty, Nature, 83. 30 Maurice Merleau-​Ponty, Signs, translated by Richard C. McCleary (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1964), 178.

From Merleau-Ponty to Contemporary Readings  175 31 Ted Toadvine, “Truth and Resistance,” Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 30, no. 1 (2009): 118. 32 See Phenomenology of Perception, 340. 33 Toadvine, “Truth and Resistance,” 117. 34 Ibid., 120. 35 Merleau-​Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 341. 36 Nature, 35. 37 Ibid., 50. 38 See also Phenomenology of Perception, 472. 39 Grant, Philosophies of Nature, x. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 32. 42 Ibid., 7. 43 Ibid., 41. 44 Ben Woodard, Schelling’s Naturalism. Motion, Space and the Volition of Thought (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 44. 45 The noun phusis (φῠ́σῐς) is derived from the verb phuein (φύειν), which means “to grow,” “to sprout or generate,” and hence “to come into being.” 46 Alderwick, Schelling’s Ontology of Powers, 85. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid., 72. 50 Ibid., 95. 51 Ibid., 96. 52 Ibid., 97. 53 See IPN, 133–​4 and SW II, 172. Also quoted in Alderwick, Schelling’s Ontology of Powers, 97. 54 Alderwick, Schelling’s Ontology of Powers, 97. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid., 107. 57 Whistler, Schelling’s Theory of Symbolic Language, 72. 58 Ibid., 73 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid., 74. 61 Ibid., 75. 62 On this, see §1.4, as well as my “The Ontological Nature of Intuition in Schelling.” 63 Whistler, Schelling’s theory of Symbolic Language, 75. 64 Schelling, “Further Presentation,” 382; SW, I, 4, 368. 65 See Spinoza, Ethics, II, 43. 66 See Bubbio and Fulvi, “Immanence in Schelling and Hegel.” 67 Richard Velkley, “The Personal, Evil, and the Possibility of Philosophy,” in Schelling’s Philosophy, 160. 68 PI, 28; SW, I, 7, 358–​9. 69 PI, 28; SW, I, 7, 359. 70 Bruce Matthews, Schelling’s Organic Form of Philosophy: Life as the Schema of Freedom (Albany: SUNY Press, 2011), 29.

176  Immanence and Nature 71 Ibid., 37. 72 See ibid., 124ff. 73 SW, I, 2, 377; quoted in Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 116. 74 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 23. 75 Wirth, Conspiracy of Life, 38. 76 Ibid., 69. 77 Ibid. 78 See above, §1.1. 79 Schelling, Philosophy of Religion, 14; SW, I, 6, 25. I already quoted this in §1.1, n35. 80 Wirth, Conspiracy of Life, 114. 81 See above, n73. 82 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 116. 83 Wirth, Conspiracy of Life, 56. 84 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 116. 85 Ibid., 223 n47. 86 Whistler, Symbolic Language, 76. 87 McGrath, Dark Ground, 155. 88 In particular, McGrath refers to the tragic death of Caroline Schlegel in 1809 and Schelling’s close friendship with Franz von Baader. 89 Ibid., 152. 90 Ibid., 152–​3. 91 Sean McGrath, “Is the Late Schelling Still Doing Nature-​ Philosophy?,” Angelaki. Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 21, no. 4 (2016): 123. 92 Ibid., 128. 93 Ibid., 135. 94 Ibid., 131. 95 Ibid., 121. 96 Sean McGrath, The Philosophical Foundations of the Late Schelling. The Turn to the Positive (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021), 12. 97 Ibid., 36. 98 Ibid., 17. 99 Ibid., 4. 100 Ibid., 35. 101 Tyler Tritten, Beyond Presence. The Late F.W.J. Schelling’s Criticism of Metaphysics (Boston: De Gruyter, 2012), 46. 102 Tyler Tritten, “Against Kant: Toward an Inverted Transcendentalism or a Philosophy of the Doctrinal,” Angelaki. Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 21, no. 4 (2016): 150. 103 Tritten, Beyond Presence, 145. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid., 130. 106 Ibid., 129n63. 107 Ibid., 287. 108 McGrath, “Late Schelling,” 121.

Part 3

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy From Philosophy of Nature to Postcolonial Critical Theory and Environmental Ethics

6 The Immanent Made Transcendent Schelling’s Ontology of Immanence

6.1  God as “the Immanent made Transcendent:” From Negative to Positive Philosophy Schelling famously inaugurated his 1842 Berlin lectures by claiming that all of his past philosophical activities inevitably led him to face “the fundamental question of philosophy.” As I already showed in §3.4, in the first of these lectures, he claims that thus far from man and his endeavors making the world comprehensible, it is man himself that is the most incomprehensible and who inexorably drives me to the belief in the wretchedness of all being […]. It is precisely man that drives me to the final desperate question: Why is there anything at all? Why is there not nothing?1 The answer to such question, according to some,2 lies in a transcendentist account of God, that Schelling develops in his late positive philosophy. Nonetheless, in this section, I show that Schelling’s definition of God as the immanent made transcendent not only is key to understand his discourse around negative and positive philosophy but is also a further and definitive confirmation that his philosophy should be understood as a coherent and consistent immanentist ontology. I have already mentioned that Schelling’s notion of the immanent made transcendent is a fundamental element of his entire philosophical system, especially in my critique to the various transcendentist interpretations in Chapter 3. Therefore, I now discuss such a notion in greater detail, showing how its implication extends beyond the definition of God and the relationship between negative and positive philosophy and effectively grounds Schelling’s ontological discourse as a whole. However, in order to do that, the relationship between negative and positive philosophy needs to be clarified first, since Schelling’s definition of God as the immanent

DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-10

180  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy made transcendent is provided within the context of his late philosophical activity. In the abovementioned 1842 lectures, Schelling defines negative and positive philosophy not as two separate and irreconcilable ways of doing philosophy but as two different moments of one and the same science of knowledge, that is, philosophy itself. Generally speaking, negative philosophy is that speculative moment through which we can grasp the necessary (but not sufficient) conditions of Being, remaining at a logical and conceptual level; conversely, positive philosophy grasps existing being in its actual occurrence, rather than as a mere concept. Put simply, negative philosophy concerns the potency of being, while the positive one embraces its actuality. Hence, it is only by properly understanding the relationship between positive and negative philosophy that we can correctly comprehend what philosophy is and therefore answer the fundamental question concerning the existence of Being over nothingness. In this respect, Schelling argues that when we begin to philosophise “we are aware of an immediate content in reason, which of course is not an object, that is, already a being, but is rather only the infinite potency of being.”3 Since such a content is immediate, it is neither determined nor preceded by any sort of object but rather implies the existence of an “infinite potency of cognition,”4 as Schelling calls it. Indeed, Schelling is not questioning whether such an infinite potency concerns reason’s ability to know, as that would mean questioning the existence of reason itself. Schelling’s discourse is eminently ontological here, and his investigation concerns that fundamental and latent aspect of reality with which reason is immediately faced –​that is, that presents itself to reason as the first and foremost matter of reason. It follows that reason is dominated by a “sheer potency of being,”5 in which the act in its concreteness is lacking; yet, at the same time, sheer and pure potency is “open toward everything,”6 that is, it leaves every possibility open and does not exclude anything. Reason is therefore the infinite potency of cognition, whose object is the infinite potency of Being: this, for Schelling, means that reason only reaches what is possible a priori. As Schelling himself puts it, “this, of course, is also what is real and occurs in experience, but reason arrives at it not as something real, but as what is merely possible a priori.”7 In other words, reason alone is unable to grasp Being in its positive and originary occurrence but can understand it only through a negative conceptualisation: this is precisely the core of negative philosophy, which is only able to grasp the logical and a priori structures of Being without being able to reach the concreteness of Being itself in its actual existence. Consequently, in order to speak of Being itself, we must exclude all the potential features of particular beings and understand it neither as a

The Immanent Made Transcendent  181 concept nor as a rational product, but rather as that which purely and immediately is. As Schelling explains, to this being [Seyenden] belongs first and foremost that it is the subject of being [Seyn]. With this, however, that it is just the subject of being, that is, just that of which being can be predicated, it would not yet be being (in the pregnant sense which we are using here, where it means the cause of all being [Ursache alles Seyns]). Initially, being [Seyende] must be the subject of being [Seyn] –​that which can be –​and to this extent it is the potency of being [Seyn]. But it is not the potency of something that it not yet is because then it would not even be being [nicht das Seyende], but it is rather the potency of that which it already is, of that which it is immediately and without transition.8 Moreover, such being is also an object, since it is pure being, entirely and completely objective being, in which there is just as little of a capacity as there is something of a being [Seyn] in the subject. And since in the subject =​or potency =​being there is immediately also an object, a complete concept of being [Seyende] must also incorporate this (the third element), which is a subject and object thought as one inseparable subject =​object, so that this must still be distinguished as a third determination.9 In other words, Being is the jointure of subject and object, namely their equation and their mutual implication. Accordingly, Schelling claims that there are three different moments of Being, that is, subject, object and “subject =​object;” however, these three moments can neither occur nor be grasped as separate and independent occurrences, but rather only as inseparable features of Being itself. That is, Being is neither subject, nor object, nor the sheer coincidence of subject and object, but only the indissoluble combination of these three moments.10 Hence, not only is Being not presupposed by anything else, but it presupposes its own object. In this sense, Schelling argues that the very notion of subject is to be understood as a synonym for supposition, namely as that which presupposes itself and lies under Being itself –​that is, as the sub-​iectum of Being itself. According to Schelling, it follows that the equation between subject and object presupposes both of its terms, namely “(1) that which lacking all supposition has the capacity to be –​the subject –​and (2) the object. Only with the third, however, can precisely that which was the subject and the object become subject =​object.”11 Nevertheless, in order to effectively reach Being itself, we need to speculatively separate these three originally united moments and understand them

182  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy as if they were not one Being, but three different and separated beings. As Schelling himself puts it, This occurs when we allow what in being [Seyende] is the subject, thus, the potency of being [Seyn], to be a potency for itself, that is, to be the potency of its own being. We then think of it as passing over into being [Seyn], whereby, however, it ceases to be a subject and becomes an object. In contrast, that which was an object in being must then cease to be an object and must itself become a subject in precisely the same manner as that which was subject =​object is similarly excluded and posited as a being in its own right.12 Put simply, even by positing the three moments as separate and independent, their true nature, that is the true nature of Being itself, comes out, due to the interaction of negative and positive philosophy; indeed, “these elements are identical, but they are not what is absolutely identical with itself.”13 Thus, negative philosophy is the branch through which the conceptual and arbitrary separation of the three moments operates; however, precisely due to the conceptuality and arbitrariness of this operation, negative philosophy is able to possess Being only in thought and not in practice. It is in that moment that positive philosophy comes into play, as the counterpart of the negative, allowing us to grasp Being in its purity and beyond the distinction between subject and object. Thus, on the one hand, negative philosophy makes sense only when it allows us to grasp (even if only conceptually) the object of positive philosophy; on the other hand, positive philosophy can arise only by opposing the conceptual and arbitrary speculation of the negative one, by concretely reaching Being in its concrete and fundamental existence. And it is in this case that we can finally grasp both the necessary and the sufficient conditions of Being in its concreteness. Indeed, for Schelling it is fundamental to correctly understand negative philosophy in order to make positive philosophy possible; in other words, only by acknowledging the limits of negative philosophy can positive philosophy become “not only possible, but also necessary.”14 Accordingly, Schelling considers negative philosophy as “the first science” and positive philosophy as “the highest science.” Indeed, just as that from which the negative philosophy proceeds –​from that which is before being –​is alone the primum cogitabile, so will that which is beyond being (and in this sense also before being), and that which is the task of the positive philosophy, be the summum cogitabile. Between these two, the first and the highest sciences, lie all the other

The Immanent Made Transcendent  183 sciences in the middle: as negative, philosophy precedes all sciences, just as when positive, it resolves all sciences, so that in this way the entire sphere of the sciences is set between these philosophies.15 This is why, as already said, philosophy cannot but begin by assuming an a priori position towards all beings (negative philosophy) and end at the ultimate structure of being (positive philosophy), that is, Being in its actual existence. By being both the first and the highest science, true philosophy is put in a privileged position in comparison with other sciences, since it is the only one that is able to grasp the fundamental kernel of Being. In fact, for Schelling the object par excellence of philosophy is not just the concept of Being, but rather “being itself, being in its truth, and, therefore, that which was really wanted from the very beginning.”16 Hence, Schelling is not simply referring to what is knowable through reason, as that would imply a regression to mere negative philosophy. Instead, Schelling is referring to “that which is to be known in the purest knowing, since, according to its nature, it is entirely being, not potency, but rather entirely actus, pure actuality.”17 In this respect, Schelling further clarifies that the object of philosophy is true being (Seyende), that is, that which really and ultimately exists, which in turn must not be confused with Being itself (Seyn). Borrowing Schelling’s words, “the ultimate [das Lezte] that can exist, however, is the potency that is no longer potency but, rather, since it is being itself, is pure actus; for this reason we could call it the existing potency [die seyende Potenz].”18 In this last sentence, the existing potency, or die seyende Potenz, literally refers to the potency of Being, which in turn is that which ultimately and fundamentally exists. This is a very important passage, since it perfectly highlights the moment of the transition from negative to positive philosophy, in which the potency of Being becomes coincident with actual Being. Here, Schelling clarifies that potency does not exist in the mere transition to act. Instead, potency can only exist a priori, which means that it has Being as its prius. That is, potency and act mutually imply each other in that which Schelling calls “the inverted capacity to be, namely, that capacity to be in which the potency is the posterius and the actus is the prius.”19 Consequently, Schelling goes beyond Leibniz’s argument, according to which “God is one, from whose essence existence follows [Deus est Ens, ex cujus essentia sequitur existentia],”20 since such an argument is confined to the negative and rational sphere of philosophy, and therefore grasps God’s existence only conceptually and not actually. If we understand Leibniz’s formula as a definition of that which necessarily exists, Schelling continues, such an existence requires no proof, since it affects only thought and does not correspond to any actual existence. Even in

184  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy Spinoza, according to Schelling, a similar oversight occurs when he affirms that the purely existing being, that is, God, is the one “of which nothing can be thought except that it exists [quod non cogitari potest, nisi existens].”21 Unlike Leibniz, Spinoza does not provide an abstractly metaphysical account of God, but moves from that which exists in order to prove God’s existence. However, Schelling maintains that Spinoza was correct in moving from that which concretely exists, but he then lacked a proper explanation of how that which exists is immediately equivalent to God, that is to say how can the knowledge of the prius (i.e., that which simply exists) lead to prove the existence of God as posterius. In Schelling’s words, Spinoza “had not shown how that being which simply exists (which to this extent is not God, indeed, is not natura sua, since this is impossible), is as actu, as effective, according to its actuality, a posteriori God.”22 To put it differently, Schelling argues that a further step is required from Spinoza, in order to move from the necessary and a priori conditions of God’s existence (which however are not sufficient conditions, as mentioned above) to the actual existence of God Godself, that is to move from the prius (i.e., pure existing being) to the posterius (God’s effective existence). In taking a further step in this direction, Schelling argues that the concept of God as it occurs at the end of the negative philosophy also provides me with the prius of divinity [Gottheit]. This prius, however, is in itself that which is irrefutably, indubitably certain, from which on its own account I can likewise proceed if I discard the concept of God. […] Now, if the divinity is the what, the essence, the potency, then I proceed not from potency to being, but rather, conversely, from being to essence: being is here prius, essence posterius. But this transition is not possible without a reversal, without changing the entire direction of the science that proceeded from that which has the capacity to be, and to break off from it, and to start from the very beginning a new science, which is precisely the positive philosophy.23 Put simply, Schelling here is arguing again that philosophy does not have to derive, through a mere conceptual speculation, God’s existence from God’s essence, but rather has to assume as its object and starting point that which has already been defined as the purely existing being. Hence, God’s existence is not derived from a rational and speculative necessity but from an actual, effective and immanent occurrence. In this sense, Schelling argues that God is not merely the necessarily existing being, since this would confine God Godself once again in a merely conceptual and abstract speculation. Rather,

The Immanent Made Transcendent  185 the most supreme being (the most supreme being that can be, which is to this extent, of course, the most supreme potency), in a word God, if he exists, can only be that which necessarily exists. This expression shows that God is not merely the necessary being, but is rather necessarily the necessary being.24 That is, God cannot be merely the necessary being, since that is only God’s prius, namely the a priori rational concept to which negative philosophy comes. However, such a concept shows that God can only be necessarily, which in turn means that when it comes to God’s actual existence, God Godself is necessarily that which necessarily is. In addition, this also means that God is pure actus, but not in the sense that in God there is no trace of potency anymore; rather, saying that God is a priori act means that in God there is no potency that precedes act, but rather God’s potency immediately becomes act in God’s effective and concrete existence. Subsequently, Schelling’s understanding of God as a pure act also has relevant implications for the notions of immanence and transcendence: indeed, he does not understand God as the highest and purest manifestation of an originary transcendence, which occurs outside human finitude and radically exceeds any form of immanence. In fact, Schelling himself claims that God is not, as many imagine, the transcendent, he is the immanent (that is, what is to become the content of reason) made transcendent. In that this has been overlooked lies the great misunderstanding of our time. As I have already said, what is a priori incomprehensible, because it is conveyed through no anterior concept, will become a comprehensible being in God, or it arrives at its concept in God. That which infinitely exists, that which reason cannot hide within itself becomes immanent for reason in God.25 The transcendence that Schelling is describing here is not relative, that is, it is neither related to the transcended object nor still determined by a rational concept. Rather, he understands transcendence as absolute, as ab-​soluta, that is, as not related to the transcended object but as the very starting point of philosophical speculation.26 The latter is the way of proceeding of positive philosophy, which implies that transcendence encloses immanence in itself, rather than merely overcome and reject it as a finite and insufficient manifestation of Being. Indeed, on the one hand, if we were to rely on only negative philosophy, this would leave us with the sterile immanence of the rational concept, and, on the other hand, if we were to rely on only positive philosophy, this would provide us with an exclusively transcendent Being, unintelligible to reason and then as such

186  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy unattainable for us. Therefore, true philosophy, understood as the integration of and mutual interpenetration of negative and positive philosophy, must move from immanence in order to arrive at transcendence. This process, however, does not dispel immanence as such, but rather maintains it at an ontological level that is prior to transcendence. Put simply, here we are facing immanence that becomes transcendence, as well as transcendence that returns to immanence as a content (and concept) of reason. This point is a bit counterintuitive and requires a more detailed explanation, since it is a crucial one for the validity of my argument. How can Schelling claim that God’s immanence is ontologically prior to God’s transcendence? In fact, the original German reads “Gott ist nicht, wie viele sich vorstellen, das Transcendente, er ist das immanent (d. h. das zum Inhalt der Vernunft) gemachte Transcendente.”27 So, from a strictly grammatical point of view, the literal translation of this statement is “God is not the transcendent, but the transcendent which has been made immanent.” That is, “das Transcendente” is used as a noun and subject of the verb “gemachte,” whereas “das immanent” is an adjective and a modifier of that noun. At first glance, then, it seems like Schelling is claiming that transcendence is prior to immanence, and not the other way around: in this sense, both Edward Allan Beach and Pareyson have interpreted and translated Schelling’s statement as “God is the transcendent made immanent.”28 Therefore, the translation by Bruce Matthews, which I quoted in the previous excerpt, would appear to be grammatically incorrect. However, I argue that translating Schelling’s claim with “God is the immanent made transcendent” (as Matthews does) better captures Schelling’s original meaning –​which I explain below. The German verb gemachte, which is the past participle of machen, should be translated here as “to be made of” or “to be produced/​prepared from” (recalling a sense of anfertigen and zubereiten, namely “to manufacture” or “to prepare,” “to construct,” “to make of/​out of”) and not as “to become” or “to be turned into” something. That is, Schelling is not talking about an originary transcendence that subsequently becomes immanent, namely is translated and turned into immanence; rather, Schelling is talking about a transcendence that is immanent-​made, namely made of immanence. In other words, God’s transcendence “has been made immanent” in the sense that it originates from immanence: simply put, immanence is the source of transcendence, and not vice versa. Accordingly, the English expression “God is the immanent made transcendent” is a preferable and more compelling translation, given that it perfectly captures the ontological dynamic through which the immanence originally makes transcendence, and then is in turn made transcendent, so that transcendence itself can be grasped and understood in its return to the immanence of the rational concept. Needless to say, the originary immanence is not that

The Immanent Made Transcendent  187 of sheer rational speculation and of negative philosophy, but that which characterises Being itself in its roots and material depths. It is precisely within the immanence of such depths that transcendence “has been made” and originates. This reading is not only more consistent with Schelling’s immanentist Naturphilosophie but is also reflected in Schelling’s late reflections on negative and positive philosophy and on revelation. It is only by making it transcendent that the immanent becomes the concrete content of reason, rather than an abstract postulate of it. Reason, Schelling argues, posits the transcendent in order to transform it into the immanent and to have that which is absolutely immanent simultaneously as something that exists and that is only possible in this way, since reason indeed already has that which is absolutely immanent in the negative philosophy, but not as something that exists.29 That is, reason needs to acknowledge the non-​conceptual nature of the pure existing being, which fundamentally exceeds reason’s speculative range, in order to be able to grasp it; conversely, in order to be grasped, the pure existing being has to return to its original immanence and make itself accessible by reason through experience. Once again, here Schelling clearly emphasises the ontological primacy of immanence over transcendence: in fact, by describing the return to immanence of transcendence, Schelling undeniably assumes the former as the original moment of God’s existence. Therefore, since God is necessarily the necessary being, immanence is also the primal and fundamental element of Schelling’s ontology. Indeed, if the opposite was true –​namely if transcendence had ontological primacy over immanence –​philosophy itself would be unable to grasp its object in its entirety, namely as comprising potency and act, prius and posterius. Accordingly, as I already pointed out in §3.4, even God’s transcendent divinity is subsequent to God’s immanent core –​and hence becomes actual only in God’s immanence. This further exemplifies how negative and positive philosophy interpenetrate each other in order to become true and complete philosophy. In this respect, Schelling clarifies that neither negative nor positive philosophy move from experience, although they both relate to experience. More specifically, whereas negative philosophy abstracts from experience and produces concepts that can be confirmed, but not proven, through experience itself, positive philosophy “enters into experience itself and grows, as it were, together with it.”30 This means that, if on the one hand negative philosophy is able to produce only a merely conceptual and lifeless notion of God, positive philosophy has God as its prius, namely as “that which is above being [das überseyende].”31 Hence, positive philosophy moves a

188  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy priori from God as absolute prius and demonstrates God’s existence as a matter of fact: as Schelling himself puts it, “a priori it is not God, only a posteriori is it God. That it is God is not a res naturae, something that is self-​evident, but is a res facti and can therefore only be proved factually.”32 Accordingly, Schelling maintains that prius is God not by virtue of a conceptual analogy, but rather because of the actual reality of the prius itself. Positive philosophy is therefore above all experience, and moves from a wholly transcendent notion of God. In fact, that prius which is God cannot be necessitated into existence, but rather comes into it through God’s free act, “an act that can only be something purely empirical, that can be fully apprehended only a posteriori.”33 On these grounds, it is reasonable to conclude that the free act through which God comes into existence is a contingent one, since it is not necessitated nor determined by anything other than God’s will. However, it should be noted that the wholly transcendent God of positive philosophy is precisely that: the God of positive philosophy –​hence not God Godself. That is, positive philosophy is able to account only for one part of God’s essence, namely God’s transcendence, and to explain God’s return to immanence as an a posteriori fact. In this respect, I have already shown that for Schelling God’s transcendence is only a subsequent moment of God’s original immanence –​which in turn can be grasped only by true philosophy, namely integrating negative and positive philosophy. Hence, although it is true that, for Schelling, God’s coming into existence is not dictated by rational or natural laws that pre-​ exist God Godself, I maintain that such an act is not dependent on sheer and pure contingency either. That is to say, God’s free act of existence constitutes a higher form of necessity, which escapes sheer contingency and necessity, and renders God necessarily the necessary being. Following this logic, arguing that God could have not come into existence, and that God could have not created the world, equals to remain in the merely speculative realm of what is a priori possible without accounting the a posteriori reality of God and the world. However, these two elements, as repeatedly said, cannot be separated, if not through an arbitrary act of human reason –​ that is to say, as if they were separated, although in fact they are not. Moreover, this process also underlines how we can put contingency and necessity into perspective, that is, how we can move from sheer potency to pure act, which, as already said, does not annul potency but includes it in itself. Indeed, contingency here is represented by mere thought, which is not able to grasp concrete existence but only to prefigure it, while necessity is the coming into existence of being. In light of the above, we can understand this passage as a further confirmation that grasping Being itself, and consequently God, is equivalent to grasping the necessarily necessary being. I return to Schelling’s discourse on contingency and necessity in the final part of this ­chapter –​and in Chapter 8 as well. For now, it is worth

The Immanent Made Transcendent  189 repeating that here Schelling is not theorising a form of transcendence that only poses immanence as an inferior manifestation of Being but rather a transcendence that returns to immanence in order to be grasped and understood as a concept/​content of reason. In this sense, Schelling rejects that which he calls “relative transcendence,” that is, a form of transcendence that is related to and dependent from the transcended object, since such an understanding of transcendence pertains to the “old metaphysics” and fails to grasp the real meaning of both transcendence and immanence –​as I have already mentioned in §3.4. Concluding on this point, I believe I have provided enough elements to support my reading that Schelling’s late philosophy is also a fully fledged immanentist ontology, and not a philosophy of religious transcendence. In this respect, I have shown how his definition of God as the immanent made transcendent is key to interpret this theoretical move. In the next section, I show how Schelling’s idea of revelation further supports my reading of his philosophy as an ontology of immanence. That is to say, I maintain that even Schelling’s reflections on revelation, far from justifying a transcendentist reading of his thought, provides additional elements to further strengthen my immanentist account. 6.2  The “Return of the Repressed:” Immanence and Revelation In his late philosophy, as Markus Gabriel has argued, Schelling “offers a counter position to the traditional, static concept of transcendence,”34 which in turn implies that God, qua prius or that which is above being, is such not because of its irremediably transcendent nature but rather “comes to be so through self-​ mediation.”35 Consequently, Schelling’s ontological discourse embraces contingency as the utmost expression of Becoming: namely, everything is contingent because everything is subject to change. And yet, such a contingency does not render everything accidental and precarious but rather implies that God’s will is not predetermined by external factors; hence, this leads to God’s being necessarily the necessary being, as already discussed above. In this respect, I maintain that God’s free and original choice of Being over nothingness –​as well as of good over evil –​does not imply that God could have actually chosen nothingness over Being –​or evil over good. That is, this is both a free choice and the only possible choice: indeed, nothingness never was a viable ontological possibility, but a merely logical negative term of comparison with no real chances of being actualised by God. In other words, Being and nothingness are not equally possible options that God carefully weighed against one another before making a choice: indeed, although it is true that we cannot fathom God’s will, this does not mean that God could have actually chosen one way (Being) or

190  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy the other (nothingness). God is above Being but does not radically transcend Being; rather, God is in the fullest sense of the word, namely as res facti and pure act, hence nothingness could have never been chosen over Being. It is precisely in this sense that all things are immanent in God, and that nothing can occur outside the Godhead. Therefore, even God Godself, far from being a static and transcendent entity, originates in and returns to immanence in order to reveal Godself. Only in this way can God be a fullyfledged living being that is both prius and posterius, encompassing potency and act, and subject and object. Even in his 1842 lectures on philosophy of mythology, Schelling maintains an analogous understanding of God, that is not as a wholly transcendent entity but as the immanent made transcendent. Generally speaking, Schelling’s philosophy of mythology aims at analysing the historical, cultural, and psychological dimensions of religious experience broadly conceived, in order to demonstrate the unfolding of God into human history, cultures, and societies. Mythology itself, Schelling argues, is the product of a religious instinct; hence, it should be regarded a natural process and as an early stage of a fully developed religious consciousness.36 In this sense, mythology is not at odds with revelation, but rather reflects revelation as “a real relation of God to human consciousness.”37 According to Schelling, “with revelation it is not merely God in general who reveals himself; it is the determinate God, the God that is, the true God, who reveals himself, and who also reveals himself as the true God.”38 Moreover, the true God is not merely a “deification of nature,” since in that case God is vainly sought “in the ubiquitous elements [of nature] or in the stars that exert on [mankind] the most powerful or salubrious influence.”39 That being the case, God is conceived of as “as descending to the earth [from above],” visualised “even in inorganic forms” and represented “first in organic beings, for a time even among animal forms, and finally in purely human form.”40 Such a conception, however, fails to account for that which Schelling defined “the prius of divinity” (which I explained in the previous section). That is to say, the deification of nature is unable to move from nature, which is the first and immediate object of human knowledge, to the actual existence of God –​namely from God as res naturae to God as res facti. Conversely, “if one let nature fall out of the picture, made the emergence into being [of God] entirely immanent and independent of the external world, by presupposing that that instinct has a [natural] law inherent to itself,”41 then we would have a merely conceptual notion of God, without being able to account for God’s living reality and actual existence. That is, in this way such a natural law only “reaches the God towering above and transcending every moment [… and standing] above nature.”42 However, as Schelling himself puts it, such an explanation

The Immanent Made Transcendent  191 could not count for the ultimate or highest [reality of God] because it also has a presupposition not yet conceptualized: precisely that instinct, which, if it is powerful enough to hold humanity in this movement to the true God, must itself be something real, an actual potency whose explanation one could not hope to attain with the mere idea of God.43 Therefore, just as it is true that in order to attain God we must go beyond mere rational speculation,44 it is even truer that God reveals Godself as immanent and within immanence. That is to say, the very nature of revelation shows that God does not originally pertain to a transcendent and otherworldly ontological dimension, but rather moves from immanence towards transcendence only in order to return to immanence through revelation. For this reason, Schelling maintains that revelation is neither the source nor the starting point of philosophy, but rather its subject matter, just like nature or history. Indeed, Revelation will be present within positive philosophy in no other sense than nature or the entire history of the human race is also present within it; revelation will exert on it no different authority than what every other object exerts on the science that deals with it.45 Accordingly, revelation is also to be ascribed to Schelling’s immanentist ontology, as I outlined it in the previous section. Moreover, here is once again reflected the relationship between negative and positive philosophy: as Wirth explains, the former “transcends existence to reveal the free ground of existence. It begins with necessity and culminates with freedom. Positive philosophy, however, reverses the direction, beginning with freedom as its starting point.”46 Yet, it is only through the proper integration of these two can we have true philosophy. Moreover, since true being is the greatest object of philosophy, and since such true being is a radically immanent one, the pre-​eminently ontological value of Schelling’s late thought emerges once again. In this respect, it will be useful to refer to Wirth again. Drawing on Lore Hühn’s reading, he argues that Schelling’s late philosophy can be understood as a “return of the repressed.”47 Indeed, retrieving the living ground [of nature] that modern philosophy represses […] is the task of what Schelling called negative philosophy, of moving through x to go beyond x (über x hinaus). This is the movement of Depotenzierung [depotentialisation], of bringing something to its limits, of exhausting it in order to unleash what it otherwise represses. [… Consequently,] there is only the eternally new beginning of thinking

192  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy and the ruse of a final position. Negative philosophy begins with clots, attempting to break through to the life that clots arrest. The error, so to speak, of modernity for Schelling lies in its inhibition of nature.48 In line with Wirth’s position, I argue (again) that Schelling’s late philosophy is essentially an immanentist ontology, whose goal is to demonstrate that both God and nature unfold at the same ontological level of immanence –​ and not to provide a transcendentist account of the Godhead as irremediably detached and removed from nature. In fact, for Schelling, such a transcendentist account does nothing but reiterate the abovementioned error of modern philosophy, that is the inhibition and repression of nature. To repress and to inhibit the living ground of nature means to repudiate its active core and acknowledge it as mere and passive potency. It is in this sense that we have to understand the abovementioned Depotenzierung, namely as that process through which we bring potency to its limits and move through potency itself in order to go beyond it and reach the act within nature. Moreover, as I have already explained, this is nothing but the true Being, whose potency is no longer sheer potency but pure act, in the sense that the act includes potency within itself rather than annul it, so that they mutually imply each other. The Depotenzierung, then, is the only way to grasp that which has already been defined as the existing potency, that is, the potency of the true Being and that which ultimately exists as pure act. Accordingly, God’s omnipotence is not due to the alleged fact that God could have actually chosen nothingness over Being, but rather by the actual fact that God encompasses all potency (namely everything that is a priori possible) in the pure act of God’s existence. In other words, God eternally maintains potency at the level of an a priori possibility, while only the necessarily necessary existence of God pertains to actuality –​also meaning that God could have never chosen nothingness over Being. Simply put, God is omnipotent not because nothingness could have superseded Being if God wanted so, but because God encompasses everything that is a priori possible (omni-​potency) into the actuality of God’s existence (pure act), in accordance with God’s fundamentally immanent nature. This conception, I argue, lies at the very core of Schelling’s discourse on negative and positive philosophy, as well as an important element of his immanentist ontology in general. First, it is precisely on the interplay between potency and act that the relation between negative and positive philosophy (and then also the passage from the former to the latter) is hinged. Indeed, true being, which in turn is the proper object of philosophy, consists precisely in the interplay between potency and act, containing them both in a pure act that embraces and includes potency in itself. Therefore, in order to properly understand the roles of negative and positive philosophy, as well as the passage from one to the other, it

The Immanent Made Transcendent  193 is indispensable to correctly understand how potency and act determine true Being. I have already explained that process in detail in the previous section, so I will not return to it at this point. The fundamental purpose of Schelling’s reflection on this point is clearly highlighted by Sebastian Gardner, who argues that Schelling’s late philosophy is ultimately aimed at demonstrating that “thought is indebted to being for its own possibility,”49 namely at reinstating the primacy of ontology in his philosophical discourse. More specifically, Gardner continues, philosophical reflection lies at the end of a real process which begins with God and in the course of which God’s structure has been inverted: God came to think his own being, while we, as God’s derivatives, exist from the beginning through God’s thinking. The job of philosophical Wissenschaft is to reverse this inversion.50 That is to say, God transcends God’s original immanence to think God’s own Being, rather than originating from a transcendent thought that is superimposed on immanence itself. Hence, Schelling’s goal is precisely to clarify this dynamic of God as the immanent made transcendent, reversing what he defined “the great misunderstanding of [his] time,”51 according to which God is a fully fledged transcendent entity whose essence precedes existence. Accordingly, positive philosophy is a philosophical religion,52 and not a religious philosophy, namely an ontology of immanence and not a philosophy of religious transcendence. Here, it emerges again Schelling’s organic account of Schelling’s philosophy, according to which matter is animated by a dynamic struggle between good and evil, or attractive and repulsive force, which in turn makes life and experience possible –​as I already explained in §1.2. In fact, borrowing Matthews’s words, even in his late reflections, Schelling maintains that philosophy is to be understood as an infinitely creative task whose dignity and worth are demonstrated through its capacity for further development and differentiation. […] Ontologically, he conceives of “being” as an ongoing process of creative development, which, as a continuous creation, entails the continued emergence of new forms of being. […] In this process, the ontogeny of being survives only if it continuously engenders new growth in a process of becoming, whose stasis would mean its cessation, and therewith its death.53 Such an organic process of becoming, I argue, is an inherently and fundamentally immanent one, namely it is the very concrete kernel of our

194  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy individual existence –​since it provides the material ground –​as well as of God’s existence –​since God is the living being par excellence and not a static and immutable principle. In this sense, I agree with McGrath’s statement that the leitmotif of Schelling’s entire philosophical production is “the irreducibility of the real,”54 namely the claim that the real cannot be reduced to the conceptual and that “being is not reducible to thinking, notion or reason, subjectively, transcendentally or idealistically construed.”55 If in his Naturphilosophie, McGrath continues, Schelling attempted to justify the reality of the ideal in and through nature, in his late philosophy, he definitively rejects the Hegelian claim that the real is rational and the rational is real. And yet, I maintain that this does not mean that Schelling rejects his early immanentism to embrace a form of religious transcendentism. Thomas Buchheim states this point in a very clear way, arguing that Schelling attempts to demonstrate in his positive philosophy [that] we belong, in a way that is consistent with the application of rational and coherent concepts, to the same sphere of entities that can stand in a real relation to what the religions of humanity as well as all philosophical thinking have always meant to describe by the notion of “God” or “the absolute.”56 However, it could be added that such a task would be literally impossible if Schelling posited God as a transcendent entity: indeed, God has a “real relation” with the world and with us precisely due to its immanent core –​ that is, precisely because of God’s being the immanent made transcendent, and God’s return to immanence through revelation. Accordingly, the field of investigation is that of factual actuality, of which God is an immanent part; similarly, revelation serves precisely to disclose the immanent nature of God Godself and that factual actuality that is before our eyes. In conclusion, I believe that what I discussed in this section has further strengthened my argument that Schelling’s late philosophy is an ontology of immanence and not a philosophy of religious transcendence. In this respect, I have shown how Schelling’s definition of God as the immanent made transcendent plays a crucial role and unequivocally shows that God Godself is not a transcendent and otherworldly entity, removed from the immanent reality of nature and the world. In the next section, I discuss more in detail how Schelling’s late thought can be understood in continuity with his early Naturphilosophie; however, my scope is not to demonstrate that Schelling’s late philosophy is a sheer continuation of his early philosophy of nature but rather that there are some clear affinities between the two phases of Schelling’s thought, and a common underlying scope: that of developing a sound ontology of immanence.

The Immanent Made Transcendent  195 6.3  A Continuation of Philosophy of Nature? Immanence and Matter Although Schelling’s late philosophy, strictly speaking, is not merely a continuation of his early Naturphilosophie, there are some undeniable analogies and connections in the methodologies and scopes of these two phases of Schelling’s thought. For instance, Iain Hamilton Grant contends that Schelling’s philosophy of nature is the “substrate” of his entire philosophical activity.57 Similarly, Charlotte Alderwick has shown how Schelling was concerned with the “fundamental question of philosophy” since his early works on philosophy of nature and on Identitätphilosophie. In these works, Schelling clarifies that the Absolute cannot but manifest and actualise itself, since otherwise nothing at all would exist; therefore, Alderwick writes, “the reason that there is something rather than nothing is that the nature of reality is power or will, a will which strives to actualise its concept and manifest its essence in individual forms.”58 In this respect, Emilio Carlo Corriero shows how there is an undeniable connection between Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and his positive philosophy, which does not mean that Schelling’s entire philosophical production is a philosophy of nature by other means, but rather, as Corriero puts it, “that his nature-​philosophy has to be read as the ‘grounding of the entire system of philosophy’, as Schelling himself states in his [1830] Introduction to Philosophy.”59 In other words, Corriero argues that Schelling’s positive philosophy “is grounded on the theoretical results of [Naturphilosophie], in such a way that the issue of a free act of creation at the beginning of being arises as a (necessary) consequence of the natural process elaborated in the Naturphilosophie.”60 Hence, Naturphilosophie and positive philosophy are two different (but neither opposite nor mutually exclusive) moments of the same philosophical agenda, in which the former provides the theoretical foundation for the latter. In fact, Corriero highlights that, just as Schelling’s Naturphilosophie moves from the unconditional of being itself, since it describes not the being but rather the becoming-​ being (das Werden zum Sein), namely an ongoing process, so positive philosophy must start from the absolutely positive, from the absolute prius, that is from that which can never be known a priori at all (and so it is unprethinkable, i.e., unvordenklich).61 In other words, philosophy of nature is “the natural boundary”62 of positive philosophy, since the former investigates the unconditioned nature of the Absolute and the dynamic essence of the process of Becoming, while the latter introduces a free and original act of creation, arising from God’s unfathomable will, as the foundation of such process. Both philosophies,

196  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy however, are fundamentally concerned with that which really and ultimately exists, namely true Being. Such a continuity is reaffirmed by Schelling himself, in his 1844 Presentation of the Process of Nature (Darstellung des Naturprozesses).63 Here, Schelling reaffirms that the object par excellence of philosophy is “the existent in general, independently of all particular and contingent determinations,”64 hence “introduce[ing] us to the context of positive philosophy while still pinning down the starting point of his first nature-​ philosophy.”65 Accordingly, the issue at stake here is not the rational knowability of the existent, but rather its actual and original occurrence in reality. In other words, Schelling’s discourse here concerns the very constitution of matter in its concreteness; hence, positive philosophy is also primarily concerned with an ontological investigation about the immanent features of Being itself. This, I argue, further confirms that even Schelling’s late philosophy, in continuity with his early Naturphilosophie, is nothing but an immanentist ontology –​whose core is the notion of God as the immanent made transcendent. Matter is animated by a contradiction –​or better, a contrast –​between potency and act, between the possibility of existence and its actuality. That is to say, matter has a dual nature, since it contains both potency and act, and provides both the conditions of possibility for existence and the concrete ground for its actual occurrence. Accordingly, matter is “the free real ground of being,”66 since it encompasses the very immanent and dynamic core of Being –​which in turn comprises “both active power of being and passive potency of being.”67 As Corriero himself puts it, the Presentation of the Process of Nature completes the positive journey Schelling embarked upon with his first nature-​philosophy, presenting with his first stroke the ideal inference of the existent, which is characteristic of positive philosophy, and, therefore, in keeping with his natural-​philosophical aim of exposing, or “exhibiting,” the dynamic process, namely its transition to the reality of the matter as a possible (free) real ground of being.68 The process described here is a clearly ontological one, which originates in and returns to immanence. Only in this way, following Schelling’s logic, it is possible to grasp the dynamic and immanent structure of Being itself. In fact, Schelling himself argues that “matter must be something actual, thus actus, and of course in turn acts as potency for what it is to become.”69 That is to say, matter is emblematic of Schelling’s ontological discourse: the freedom of its potency provisionally transcends the concreteness of its actuality only to return to it as the originally existent. Simply put, even in his late philosophy, Schelling maintains that the kernel

The Immanent Made Transcendent  197 of matter inexorably lies in the immanence of the actualisation of the sheer potency of Being –​hence encompassing both potency and act and resolving transcendence within its immanent core. In this regard, I also want to argue that the relation between potency and act, and in turn the one between negative and positive philosophy, clearly recalls the distinction between the two forces of the matter (i.e., negative and positive) that Schelling outlined in his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (as I explained in §1.3). Indeed, as we have already seen, Schelling defines sheer potency as a pure and total opening that leaves every possibility open and does not exclude any of them; conversely, sheer act is that which narrows down such potentiality, throwing it into real existence, from which it follows that the nature of true being is the pure act, that is, the pure existing being as potency resolved into (but not annihilated by) the act. Here, it is possible to draw a further analogy between the attractive and repulsive forces of matter. That is, I have already explained that the negative force is an attractive one, which tends to drive matter to a constant and indiscriminate expansion. Such an expansion, I argue, is equivalent to the negativity of potency, since it also can be understood as stimulated by a fundamental opening towards possibility. Conversely, the positive and repulsive force tends to a restriction and a delimitation of the abovementioned expansion, in order to allow matter to exist and narrow it down to concrete and determined existence. Borrowing Dalia Nassar’s words, according to Schelling “matter cannot in fact exist without the forces of attraction and repulsion, such that it is nonsensical to speak of matter as something distinct from these forces.”70 The interplay between the forces of matter, in this sense, clearly reflects the one that occurs between potency and act, that is, between that which exists a priori and a posteriori, or better within the true Being. That is to say, matter is inherently dynamic and occurs and is made possible by the conflict between and mutual implication of its forces; similarly, true Being is not a static and transcendent principle, but rather a dynamic one which coincides with that pure actus that resolves potency into act without annulling it. Once again, Schelling’s concern is to identify the conditions of possibility of matter, in order to identify the immanent and material ground of life itself –​as I already explained in §1.2. As Nassar clarifies, matter is inseparable from its forces in much the same way that a living human body is inseparable from its vital organs. The forces, in turn, are again like the parts of a living body: they cannot exist or function outside of the whole. Matter is therefore a whole which can exist only through its parts, and whose parts, in turn, only exist in and through the whole and their relation to one another.71

198  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy I return to Schelling’s understanding of matter in Chapter 7. For now, suffice to say that matter is a fundamental element not only for Schelling’s early Naturphilosophie but also for his later positive philosophy, as Corriero’s analysis successfully demonstrates. On top of that, there is very little doubt that even in the late Schelling immanence has a clear ontological priority over transcendence, as the analogy between the forces of matter and potency and act suggests. Such an analogy, indeed, tells us several important things. First, it allows us to grasp and to attest to the continuity of Schelling’s philosophical speculation: that is, Schelling does not seem to break with his early philosophy, but rather he preserves the same ontological account while moving from the field of the philosophy of nature to that of the philosophy of revelation. Secondly, I argue that it is possible to assert that Schelling maintains the immanentism and monism that I identified in Chapter 1, rather than reject them to endorse a radically transcendentist philosophy. Moreover, I believe that a proper reading of the late phase of Schelling’s philosophy not only gives us further detail about his immanentist account, but can also strengthen it. Regarding the first point, I have already shown that Schelling does not understand nature as a mere lifeless object that is opposed to and absorbed by a subject (i.e., the I) but rather as absolutely real, emphasising the identity of ideal and real, of nature and spirit, within the notion of organism.72 In this respect, what I want to reiterate is that Schelling relies profoundly on his early reflections in developing his discourse on negative and positive philosophy, rather than put aside or even reject his philosophy of nature and identity philosophy. Moreover, the latter point implies that Schelling’s discourse is primarily ontological and has its roots in the immanent conception of Being and not in a naïve understanding of transcendence. In this sense, I have already explained that one of the keys of Schelling’s late philosophy is the interplay between potency and act, which in turn excludes a static understanding of transcendence (typical of traditional Western metaphysics), but rather posits transcendence only moving from and in order to lead it back to immanence. Accordingly, such an account cannot but be characterised as monist, since it both relies on the identity of subject and object, as well as of nature and spirit and of ideal and real, and clearly recalls his early understanding of the two forces that animate matter. Put simply, dualism can be used only as a negative moment of philosophical reflection, since in the end everything is resolved into a monist and immanent conception of the Absolute (which I have outlined in Chapter 1). Furthermore, in this chapter, I have shed light on Schelling’s definition of God as the immanent made transcendent, which I consider as the very key of his late ontological discourse –​although this definition has not received much scholarly attention.

The Immanent Made Transcendent  199 Through this definition, Schelling presents us with a God that is not assimilable neither to sheer mechanism nor to utter mysticism: indeed, Schelling’s God is a God whose reality unfolds at the same ontological level as nature but is not synonym with nature. That is, God is not a transcendent being coinciding with the moral world-​order, nor a strictly material entity devoid of will and freedom and predetermined by external causes. Instead, God is one with the world (hence God is immanent) although God is not wholly coincident with the world (hence the immanent is made transcendent); and yet, God is a res facti, namely fully fledged part of the world and of the process of life itself (hence God returns to God’s original immanence in order to be real and actual). God grounds and makes existence possible, by encompassing Being itself in its full potency, as well as in its actuality. Furthermore, this is the result of God’s free will, and is not necessitated by anything that precedes or predetermines God Godself. Once again, I maintain not only that this is a fundamental element of Schelling’s late philosophy but also –​and more importantly –​that Schelling’s late philosophy must be read as a strong ontological commitment in continuity with his early and middle immanentism, rather than a transcendentist account of Being that radically breaks from his previous works. Finally, a few words must be added about the concept of necessity. As I have said above, philosophy –​intended as the withdrawal of negative philosophy into the positive and as the grounding of the positive philosophy on the negative –​is first and foremost concerned with the necessarily necessary Being. In turn, this implies that Schelling’s ontological discourse (especially in his late phase) maintains the importance of the notion of necessity, and is not grounded on sheer and unfathomable contingency, namely does not provide that God could have actually chosen differently than Being over nothingness. In this sense, Tritten rightfully clarifies that, for Schelling, contingency is not just “another word for chance or randomness, but it refers to the facticity of that which, according to its essence, is necessary.”73 Thus, God’s existence is neither necessitated nor accidental, but the inexorable expression of God’s will; similarly, God’s creation is not accidental either, since God’s choice of Being over nothingness could have not gone otherwise. Consequently, Schelling postulates both a contingent necessity, since the world came into being due to God’s free act, and a necessary contingence, since (once again) God could not have actually chosen differently. Borrowing Tritten’s words again, contingency “is that which God in God’s propriety assumes post factum as his substantiality, as the bearer of the necessary essence that God properly is, i.e. that God is in God’s propriety, in God’s essence.”74 However, I maintain that such an understanding does not entail that God is transcendent; rather, it provides a further argument in support of my immanentist reading. In other words,

200  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy given that the potential a priori conditions of God’s prius are necessary and not contingent (“that without which [God] could not be God, but not that by which [God] is as God”75), and given that the actualisation of such conditions does not come about by accident but is the narrowing down into existence of them, then such necessary conditions cannot but be necessarily actualised. This process, as already mentioned, is similar to the interplay between the two forces of matter and shows once again that the idea of necessity is of vital importance within Schelling’s speculation, besides reinforcing the immanentist features of his ontology. Furthermore, in the light of all the above, it is also possible to conclude that Schelling’s ontology implicitly provides the answer to the fundamental question of philosophy. However, such an answer does not maintain nothingness as an option that could have actually been chosen or realised. On the contrary, since nothingness is a recalcitrant and frustrated being that aims in vain at moving from potentiality to actuality, it follows that the pure existing Being, that is, that which merely and immediately is in accordance with its necessary structure, is itself the answer. In other words, I argue that the simple and bare fact that Being immediately and concretely is can and should be considered as a sufficient answer to the “fundamental question.” Indeed, Schelling’s understanding of Being itself, as I have explained it, definitively overcomes nothingness through the fact that it necessarily and unavoidably is. In this sense, I believe I have provided enough elements to support this claim: indeed, it should now be clear that Schelling, even in his late philosophical activity, maintains the core of his reflections in the field of ontology, and gives immanence a clear and undeniable priority over transcendence. Simply put, Schelling’s late philosophy is not a philosophy of religious transcendence, but rather an immanentist ontology, whose key lies in the definition of God as the immanent made transcendent. To conclude, in this chapter, I advanced an original interpretation of Schelling’s late philosophy as an ontology of immanence which stands in continuity with his early Naturphilosophie –​not in the sense that it is a disguised philosophy of nature, but that they both are part of his coherent philosophical agenda. To support my reading, I have identified the notion of God as the immanent made transcendent, that Schelling himself presents in his 1842 Berlin lectures, as key to understand the immanentist core of his philosophy. Subsequently, I have shown that the key to understanding Schelling’s discourse lies in the interplay between potency and act, which in turn characterises the purely existing being. Therefore, such a reading provides a much more stable ground to understand Schelling’s philosophy, both because it allows us to argue in favour of a continuity of his thought, and because it relies on a concrete conception of the matter. In Chapter 7, I discuss another key concept in Schelling’s immanentist ontology,

The Immanent Made Transcendent  201 namely that of resistance –​as I anticipated in §4.3 and §5.1. Specifically, I use Schelling’s thought to propose an innovative reading of freedom as a matter of resistance. Notes 1 PP, 94; SW, II, 3, 7. 2 For instance, see my analysis of Pareyson’s reading in §3.3. 3 PP, 141; SW, II, 3, 74. 4 Ibid. 5 PP, 141: SW, II, 3, 75. 6 Ibid. 7 PP, 142; SW, II, 3, 75. 8 PP, 143; SW, II, 3, 77. 9 Ibid. 10 On this point, see also Manfred Frank, Eine Einführung in Schellings Philosophie (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985), 118–​32. 11 PP, 144; SW, II, 3, 78. 12 PP, 144; SW, II, 3, 79. 13 Ibid. 14 PP, 145; SW, II, 3, 80. 15 PP, 195–​6; SW, II, 3, 151. 16 PP, 194; SW, II, 3, 149. 17 Ibid. 18 PP, 198: SW, II, 3, 155. 19 PP, 199; SW, II, 3, 156. 20 See Gottfried W. Leibniz, Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe, VI, 3, 582.21–​ 583.7–​ 12, edited by Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (Leipzig and Berlin: Akademie-​Verlag, 1923). 21 See Spinoza, Ethics, I, 1. 22 PP, 199–​200; SW, II, 3, 157. 23 PP, 201; SW, II, 3, 159. 24 Ibid. 25 PP, 209; SW, II, 3, 170. 26 I already introduced Schelling’s distinction between relative and absolute transcendence in §3.4. 27 SW, II, 3, 170. 28 See Edward Allan Beach, The Potencies of God(s). Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994), 82, and Pareyson, “Lo stupore della ragione,” 519. 29 Ibid. 30 PP, 180; SW, II, 3, 128. 31 PP, 179; SW, II, 3, 128. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid.

202  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy 34 Markus Gabriel, Transcendental Ontology. Essays in German Idealism (London/​New York: Continuum, 2011), 94. 35 Ibid. 36 On this point, see Louis Dupré, “The Role of Mythology in Schelling’s Late Philosophy,” Journal of Religion 87, no. 1 (2007): 3. 37 PM, 60; SW, II, 1, 81. 38 PM, 61; SW, II, 1, 83. 39 PM, 56; SW, II, 1, 76. 40 PM, 57; SW, II, 1, 76. 41 Ibid. 42 PM, 57; SW, II, 1, 77. 43 Ibid. 44 On this point, see also Beach, The Potencies of God(s), 93ff. 45 PP, 183: SW, II, 3, 133. 46 Wirth, “Foreword” to PM, ix. 47 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 43. See also Lore Hühn, Kierkegaard und der Deutsche Idealismus: Konstellationen des Übergangs (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 236–​9. 48 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 71–​2. 49 Sebastian Gardner, “Thought’s Indebtedness to Being. From Kant’s Beweisgrund to Schelling’s Quelle,” in Schelling’s Philosophy, 229. 50 Ibid. 51 See supra, §6.1. 52 See SW, 3, II, 255. 53 Bruce Matthews, “Translator’s Introduction” to PP, 5. 54 Sean McGrath, “The Ecstatic Realism of the Late Schelling,” in Continental Realism and Its Discontents, edited by Marie-​Eve Morin (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), 40. 55 Ibid. 56 Thomas Buchheim, “The Method and Structure of Schelling’s Late Philosophy,” Kabiri 2 (2020): 3. 57 Grant, Philosophies of Nature, 17. 58 Alderwick, Schelling’s Ontology of Powers, 85. 59 Emilio Carlo Corriero, “The Ungrounded Nature of Being: Grounding a Dynamic Ontology from Nature-​Philosophy to Positive Philosophy,” Kabiri 1 (2018): 18. For Schelling’s definition of Natirphilosophie as “grounding of the entire system of philosophy,” see his Einleitung in die Philosophie. Schellingiana, Band 1, edited by W.E. Ehrhardt (Stuttgart: Frommann-​ Holzboog, 1989), 55. 60 Corriero, “The Ungrounded,” 18. 61 Ibid., 21. 62 Ibid., 22. 63 See SW, I, 10, 301–​90. 64 SW, I, 10, 303; quoted in Corriero, “The Ungrounded,” 27. 65 Corriero, “The Ungrounded,” 27. 66 Ibid., 34.

The Immanent Made Transcendent  203 7 Ibid., 35. 6 68 Ibid., 30. 69 SW, I, 10, 310; quoted in Corriero, “The Ungrounded,” 32. 70 Dalia Nassar, “Kant, Schelling, and the Organization of Matter,” in Kantian Legacies in German Idealism, edited by G. Gentry (New York and London: Routledge, 2021), 218. 71 Ibid., 230. 72 On this point, see supra, §1.5. See also Manfred Frank, Schellings spekulative Umdeutung des Kantischen Organismus–​Konzepts, in Nature and Realism in Schelling’s Philosophy, edited by E.C. Corriero and A. Dezi (Turin: Accademia University Press, 2013), 87–​114. 73 Tyler Tritten, “The Contingency of God,” Heythrop Journal 59, no. 3 (2018): 450. 74 Ibid. On this topic, see also Tyler Tritten, The Contingency of Necessity. Reason and God as Matters of Fact (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017), esp. 103–​ 66; Markus Gabriel, “The Mythological Being of Reflection: An Essay on Hegel, Schelling, and the Contingency of Necessity,” in Mythology, Madness, and Laughter, edited by M. Gabriel and S. Žižek (New York: Continuum, 2009), 15–​ 94; and Emilio Carlo Corriero, “The Necessity of Contingency in the Late Philosophies of Schelling and Heidegger,” in Nature and Realism in Schelling’s Philosophy, 55–​86. 75 F.W.J. Schelling, Grundlegung der Positiven Philosophie: Münchner Vorlesung WS 1832/​33 und SS 1833 (Torino: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1972), 330; quoted in Tritten, “The Contingency of God,” 450.

7 Freedom as a Matter of Resistance The Meaning and Foundation of Freedom in Schelling’s Philosophy1

7.1  The Immanence of Concepts: Resistance, Evil, and (Absolute) Experience Historically, the notion of resistance has received very little attention in Schelling studies, and only a few scholars have explicitly focused on it. Among them, Matt Ffytche has argued that “Schelling began to question the whole notion of philosophical ‘system’ and grappled with ways of introducing obscurity and resistance into the structural programme of idealism;”2 Paul Franks pointed out that Schelling reiterates Fichte’s understanding of resistance as that occurrence which opposes the I’s activity of self-​positing into his account of universal organism;3 and Sean McGrath has highlighted that Schelling’s understanding of the real implies a resistance to rationality and idealisation, which is both the cornerstone of Schelling’s ontology and the main point of disagreement between Schelling and Hegel.4 Moreover, I have already outlined in previous chapters that Deleuze and Merleau-​Ponty developed a clearly ontological understanding of resistance, recalling Schelling’s dynamic of the Absolute in the context of his Naturphilosophie. Against this background, and in light of my previous discussion of Schelling’s philosophy, in this chapter I intend to shed light on the crucial meaning of the concept of resistance for Schelling’s account of freedom –​and for his immanentist ontology in general. But what does the term “resistance” refer to? First, a terminological distinction needs to be made: in some cases, English translators use the term “resistance” both for Widerstand and for Widerstreben. However, those two German words have a different meaning: indeed, while they both share the root Wider –​(“against,” “opposed to,” “contrary to”), the respective suffixes –​stand and –​streben give to the two words a different sense and connotation. That is, Streben means “to strive,” “to aspire,” “to tend” towards something, while Stand means “stand,” “status,” “position,” and therefore recalls a stronger sense of “being opposed” to something. Put differently, Widerstand expresses a way of being firmer in its DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-11

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  205 being against something; whereas Streben is a move to being against something, namely a sort of being dragged to do something unwillingly and reluctantly (indeed, Widerstreben is also often translated “reluctance,” which may be its most appropriate translation). Consequently, the main and fundamental difference between Widerstand and Widerstreben lies in the fact that the latter can refer to a deliberate process of opposing something unpleasant and undesired, while the former concerns a stronger and deeper form of opposition. Put differently, Widerstreben comes after a conscious and deliberate decision to oppose a certain thing, while Widerstand is the definition of a way of being, of an ineluctable ontological status. In fact, Widerstand means that I cannot do anything but oppose something and resist its occurrence, not (only) because I decide to do that, but (also) because I could not relate to it any other way. Simply put, Widerstand is an ontological disposition that directly and inevitably arises from the way I am. Thus, in this chapter I use the word “resistance” to refer to the German Widerstand (unless otherwise specified). In this sense, Schelling himself extensively uses the notion of Widerstand in its very ontological meaning as I explained it above, which clearly resonates with his immanentist system of philosophy. That is, resistance, as Schelling understands it, refers to a fundamental ontological disposition that animates to the struggle between the forces of matter and fundamentally determines one’s individual freedom. Similarly, Schelling’s conception of resistance also recalls the ontological struggle between good and evil, which is the fundamental of his Freiheitsschrift. Hence, before going into details of Schelling’s understanding of resistance, and how it relates to freedom, I now briefly return to his immanentist conception of evil.5 In fact, I maintain that the immanence of evil implies an ontological understanding of it (that is, an understanding in light of its struggle against the good) and its being a constitutive part of the process of absolute experience and of freedom intended as a matter of resistance. The starting point of the investigation about evil, for Schelling, is the exigency of giving evil a proper and autonomous reality. In order to do this, evil has to be understood at an ontological level, and not at a moral one. That is to say, evil is to be understood (as Schelling does, drawing from Kant6) as a concrete and immanent force, that is, a moving force that animates and gives life to matter through the struggle against the good, which in turn is the moving force opposing evil and hence its ontological counterpart. Consequently, every form of thought aimed at defining evil as a mere lack of good and at denying its effectiveness and concreteness has to be rejected. As I have mentioned in Chapter 6, one of the main targets of Schelling’s criticism is Leibniz’s rational theodicy, according to which evil is a mere deprivation of Being and therefore cannot be thought of as autonomously existing. Schelling’s main goal here is to liberate the

206  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy discourse around good and evil from the abstractness of sheer rationalism, as well as from the inaccuracies of the so-​called two-​world metaphysics. Therefore, a correct understanding of evil in ontological terms inevitably leads us to an ontology of immanence. The immanence of evil, indeed, derives precisely from its occurring primarily and essentially as a material force and as an ontological principle, which in turn arises within the actual struggle with the good. Furthermore, I have argued in §1.2 that such a struggle should not be understood in dialectical terms, meaning that it is not a struggle between two different forces and principles that choose to oppose to each other, but may choose otherwise. It is true, as Schelling argues, that primal Being (Ursein) is fundamentally characterised as will, but this will is not a fully fledged contingent and transcendent occurrence; rather, such will is free and necessary at the same time, meaning that it freely determines the fundamental material conditions of Being itself, from which derive the immanence of both the struggle and the forces taking part in it. Such an understanding is a monist one, that is, it excludes the dualism of the principles, as well as their transcendence, since the opposing forces are originally united –​ and hence reconciled –​in the Godhead. Moreover, Schelling explains this conception through the immanence of things in God, without resorting to a religious justification according to which the origin of the principles has to be attributed to God’s alleged original transcendence, which in turn pertains to a supernatural and unfathomable ontological level. In addition, I argue that, given that the immanence of evil (i.e., its material understanding in the terms I have outlined it) is the only way to properly grasp its concrete occurrence while avoiding its reduction to a mere lack of good or of Being, a transcendentist approach to this question is misleading insofar as it reintroduces an arbitrary and relative notion of transcendence, thereby effectively resulting in an abstract and unviable form of thought. Moreover, the immanence of evil is further legitimised by the fact that Schelling acknowledges that its realisation can be enacted only by humankind; not without reason, Schelling understands the ontological principle of evil in terms of Möglichkeit, that is, of that perennial possibility that constantly threatens to realise itself but can only recur as such and never be fully actualised. However, it is clear that Möglichkeit cannot exhaust evil, nor can it explain its effective and concrete happening if we understand it beyond the level of immanence. That is to say, the immanence of evil is given neither by its sheer perpetration through human beings’ actions nor by its recurring as an ontological possibility; rather, both these aspects together constitute the immanence of evil, since they both pertain to the struggle with good. Hence, the Möglichkeit of evil is not due to an alleged transcendence, since in that case the threat of the realisation

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  207 of evil itself would be inconsistent. On the contrary, by understanding it as immanent, we can relate it to the material conditions of evil, that is, to its being a moving force of matter. In other words, I want to clarify that an immanentist account of evil does not mean understanding it as exclusively pertaining to the human domain, but rather understanding it in ontological and material terms, meaning that it affects human beings because it originally and primarily affects matter itself. For Schelling, such an understanding is equivalent to arguing that evil fundamentally pertains to matter and its origin has to be explained in terms of a moving force of matter itself that is immediately engaged in a struggle with good. In this way, evil emerges in all its concreteness, allowing us to avoid the abstractness and arbitrariness of the transcendentist position: indeed, as a material force, evil is not mysterious or merely negating good, but rather real, distinct and explicit, with no need of any further metaphysical or religious justification. Furthermore, the immanentist account of evil that Schelling outlines also leads us to that which I have defined as absolute experience. That is to say, evil, being one of the basic and moving forces of matter and in struggle with good, contributes to constituting the sub-​iectum of experience, where sub-​iectum indicates that which “lies under” and grounds experience itself (as I explained in Chapter 1). That is, good and evil are fundamental ontological forces, which animate matter and allow life to be, hence Schelling claims that “where there is no struggle, there is no life.”7 Accordingly, the struggle to which the forces give life is the subjective moment of experience, that is the sub-​iectum of it, or that which lies under and precedes our personal experience. Put differently, the struggle constitutes the moment in which life arises and in which experience –​before it becomes my experience –​originates. Thus, the struggle between good and evil is nothing but that moment in which experience emerges in its being ab-​soluta, that is, in its being not yet personal and free from any constraint from singular beings. More specifically, the absoluteness of experience, namely its being ab-​ soluta and not yet personal, does not have to be intended as a return to a supernatural and otherworldly dimension, but rather as the concrete and immanent ground from which experience arises and becomes possible. Accordingly, such a material ground cannot but be related to the struggle between good and evil, which Schelling identifies with the basic forces of matter. In turn, I argue that it is also possible to define the struggle between good and evil as the subject of absolute experience, that is, as its sub-​iectum, in the sense I have defined it above; similarly, our personal and conscious experience is the object of absolute experience, that is, its ob-​iectum, or that which is thrown and lies against it. Put differently, the earlier stage of experience can be identified as its being ab-​soluta, that is,

208  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy free from any constraint from singular beings, and therefore the struggle that makes life and experience possible cannot but lie and be thrown under it, that is, be its sub-​iectum. Conversely, the moment in which experience becomes my experience, that is, that moment in which I in fact experience the world and become conscious of it, only occurs at a later stage and then is the objective moment of experience, that is, it is thrown and lies against the arising of absolute experience. Therefore, it follows that this conception of absolute experience leads to an understanding of the terms “subject” and “object” that differs from the traditional post-​Cartesian interpretation and recalls their very etymological meaning. Put simply, in this case “subject” does not refer to that sentient being that is essentially characterised by self-​consciousness and thought activity; similarly, “object” does not indicate that which is thought and produced by the conscious activity of the subject. On the contrary, by the former I want to refer to the root of the word, that is, sub–​(“under”) and –​ iectum (“thrown, lying”), in order to grasp that process that subtends and is the substratum of experience as such; likewise, by the latter I mean that which is thrown and lies against and in front of (in accordance with the original meaning of the Latin prefix ob-​) absolute experience.8 By so doing, Schelling does not aim at separating experience and experiencer, nor experiencer and experienced, but rather he seeks to highlight two moments of the unitary process of experience intended as a whole, that is, both as ab-​soluta and as empirical. That is, the subjective moment of experience is the one that grounds and makes possible experience itself, and as such precedes its empirical and conscious dimension, while the objective moment is the one in which experience presents itself to our consciousness and becomes our personal experience. Put simply, the subject of experience is its concrete grounding moment, while its object is our consciousness of it, which happens at a later stage, that is, it does not found experience but rather is founded by experience. In its originating moment, experience cannot but be intended as ab-​ soluta, as free from any constraint and not yet personal; then, it is clear that its subject, that is, its grounding moment, cannot be our conscious thought, but has to be something that precedes it and from which it can derive. In §1.2, I have argued that, according to Schelling, the act through which the conditions of the possibility of life and experience are provided is an unconscious one, meaning that it precedes our consciousness and is the driving principle of all our conscious actions. Hence, the subjective moment in which experience arises as ab-​soluta is an unconscious one, in the sense that it precedes our consciousness, and is related to the struggle between good and evil, since it provides the ontological conditions for life to occur. Therefore, the sub-​iectum of experience is posed directly by the

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  209 struggle itself, and not by a conscious and deliberate act on the individual’s part, which occurs only at a later stage. Once again, I am neither pointing out a separation between absolute (and subjective) experience and empirical (and objective) experience nor I am asserting that absolute experience transcends (namely belongs to a separate ontological level compared to) empirical experience. Rather, my point is that experience, considered in its emerging moment and in its being ab-​soluta, has to be understood in relation to empirical experience in the same way in which I explained the relation between kairological and chronological temporality in §1.3. That is, just as kairos has been defined as that right and opportune moment in which a critical change occurs and temporality emerges, then absolute experience can be understood in an analogous way, that is, as that right and opportune moment in which experience emerges in its purest occurrence, namely as not yet personal and in its fundamental conditions of possibility. Hence, the “absoluteness” of experience lies in its very emergence, which in turn grounds the possibility for it to be my experience. Moreover, that moment, which I have already identified as the subject of experience, is constituted in a kairological way, being nothing but that right and opportune moment in which experience itself arises and in which the struggle between good and evil is triggered. Furthermore, the grounding moment of experience is to be considered as fundamentally immanent and as part of the process of experience as a whole; that is, it is not conceivable without and independently of the empirical occurrence of experience. In other words, absolute experience is not a supernatural and transcendent occurrence that is ontologically detached from personal experience but rather it is that inevitable moment from which experience originates and becomes possible. Put simply, in order to be my experience, experience has to firstly emerge as impersonal and ab-​soluta; however, in such emerging, experience immediately includes the possibility of becoming personal experience. Accordingly, not only does experience as a whole have to be understood in immanent terms, but absolute experience has to be characterised as the grounding moment of the process of experience itself, rather than as a transcendent and supernatural source of it. Indeed, the struggle between good and evil being the sub-​iectum of experience, and such struggle being understandable only in material and immanent terms, it follows that the subjective moment of experience, even if it eludes and precedes our rational faculty, can occur only materially and immanently, that is, as that which lies under experience. Similarly, the objective moment of experience, that is, my being conscious and aware of it, also happens at the level of immanence. However, as I have said, these two moments belong to the same immanent process and cannot be understood independently and

210  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy separately from each other; that is, absolute experience makes sense only in view of personal experience, and personal experience can occur only if grounded on absolute experience. Put differently, by understanding evil as an ontological and immanent force, we are led to understand experience as ab-​soluta, that is, as free from any constraint from singular beings, which in turn leads us to a different understanding of subject and object in relation to experience itself. In this sense, I am not the subject of experience, but rather the object of it: that is, the sub-​iectum of experience, that is, that which lies under it, is not the I, intended as that consciousness in relation to itself, but rather the struggle between good and evil, which in turn lays the ground for the possibility of experience; conversely, the I emerges at a later stage, that is, it lies against experience intended as ab-​soluta, and therefore it is the ob-​iectum of experience itself. Arguing that the I has to be considered as the object of experience, rather than as its subject, might seem a controversial point, but I think that such an understanding is fully legitimated by the above discussion about absolute experience. In this order of ideas, I argue that for Schelling experience is not posited and made possible by the I, but rather that the I is posited and made possible by experience. Hence, the I has to be understood both as consciousness of itself (i.e., as self-​consciousness) and in relation to the external world. In other words, Schelling’s point here is that the I occurs as a result of the emerging of the possibility of experience, that is to say that our self-​conscious activity cannot take place without a preconscious and unconscious –​and therefore radically immanent –​ground. Indeed, the sub-​iectum of experience, being the struggle between good and evil, is neither determined nor controlled by our consciousness but rather it precedes and grounds our consciousness, in the terms I have explained above (as well as in §1.2). Instead, the I pertains to and constitutes the ob-​iectum of experience, namely the conscious and empirical moment of it. Accordingly, the sub-​iectum of experience is the unconscious and originary moment in which experience emerges in its being ab-​soluta and not yet personal, while the ob-​iectum of experience is the conscious and subsequent moment of it. As I have said, Schelling does not aim at implying an abstract and arbitrary separation between experience as such and experiencer, but rather at grasping the fundamental conditions of the possibility of experience. Moreover, I maintain that this process has to be understood in a radically immanent way, meaning that the subjective moment of experience is not a transcendent and supernatural one, but rather a purely immanent one that materially grounds the concrete possibility of personal and empirical experience. Returning to evil, I want to further stress that if understanding evil from an ontological point of view, on the one hand, means denying that it is primarily a transcendent moral principle, then, on the other hand,

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  211 it does not imply the trivialising of the concrete reality of evil itself. Indeed, the immanentist account of evil advanced by Schelling does maintain the alterity and ulteriority of it, that is, its being not exclusively dependent on the human will, but at the same time it acknowledges that such alterity and ulteriority do not occur on the level of transcendence but rather pertain to the very immanent and material conditions of possibility of life itself. That is, I argue that the only way to maintain both the concreteness of evil and its alterity to humankind is to understand it within the frame of an ontology of immanence, that is, as an immanent moving force of matter, rather than a moral or supernatural and transcendent principle. By so doing, it is also possible to maintain that the responsibility for the perpetration and the actualisation of evil is to be ascribed to human beings, while its origin pertains to God. In turn, God is not to be understood as the transcendent Being, as a supernatural demiurge or as a moral ruler, but rather as a living being involved in the process of Becoming, that is, as not ontologically detached from nature and particular beings, as I have explained in Chapter 1. Accordingly, God is the coincidence between Ursein and will, or “a living unity of forces,” borrowing Schelling’s definition;9 or, following Schelling’s late reflections, God is the immanent made transcendent. In this sense, I would dare to add, God can be understood as a living and immanent unity of material forces. Therefore, evil is one of the two forces that constitute God’s being and that are posited by God’s will as the inescapable starting point of life and experience. But again, this is just the possibility of evil, while its factual realisation cannot take place independently of the actions of human beings; however, both its possibility and its realisation are radically immanent occurrences. Moreover, the realisation of evil is always a matter of human freedom, that is, we realise it in the vain attempt to oppose and overturn the primal will of Ursein and overwhelm it through our individual will. Hence, such an opposition and attempt at overturning is nothing but the attempt to oppose and overturn the original unity between freedom and necessity, which has been largely explained in Chapter 1 of this book. However, it is impossible by definition to succeed in such an attempt and eventually to disjoin the unity of freedom and necessity, that is, it is impossible to change Ursein and the fundamental structure of Being and make things different from what they are by virtue of their free necessity. As Richard Bernstein puts it while explaining Schelling’s position, evil is the assertion of one particular, idiosyncratic, narcissistic will over universal will –​or, more accurately, it involves deceiving oneself into believing that one’s particular will is identical with the universal will. Evil involves the delusion that one is omnipotent –​a rival to God.10

212  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy Furthermore, I argue that it is precisely from this attitude, that is, from one’s deluded attempts to overturn the current order of things and to overcome the primal will that the error about how we conceive of transcendence arises. That is, it is precisely when we experience our individual freedom driving us to act against the Ursein, namely against the unity of freedom and necessity, that we let ourselves believe that such a tendency reflects the fact that freedom universally intended is intrinsically related to nothingness. However, such a belief, which resonates with a transcendentist account of freedom, can be regarded as unfounded in Schelling’s thought, since it is grounded on abstract understandings of transcendence and freedom, as Schelling consistently argues. In opposition to such a conception, I want to underline once again that the immanentist understanding of evil I am suggesting allows us to avoid the abstractions and inaccuracies of a transcendentist definition. Put simply, one could say that it is only by confusing our particular will with the one of Ursein that we are led to a transcendentist understanding of evil and freedom. In the final analysis, I want to restate that it is necessary to understand evil as an immanent occurrence, both as regards its origin and in terms of its factual realisation, in order to grasp it in all its concreteness and reality and to avoid both its reduction to a mere lack of good and reliance on any residue of abstract metaphysics. I think I have provided quite enough argumentation in support of the latter statement, both in this section and in the previous chapters, so from now on I will consider it as established. As strong as it may be, the lure of a transcendent conception of evil has to be put aside; that is, even if, on the one hand, such a conception may seem easier and more intuitive, on the other hand, it must be acknowledged, in line with Schelling’s argument, that it is not a feasible option and that its viability is irremediably flawed by its sheer arbitrariness. In conclusion, a few words should be added about the role of freedom in this context. First, I want to reiterate the point according to which Schelling understands freedom and necessity as mutually implying –​and not excluding –​each other. Indeed, his argument recalls the Spinozan concept of conatus, that is, the tendency of each being to preserve and persevere in its own being.11 In this sense, freedom can only occur in its interplay with necessity, that is, if on the one hand I can freely choose to perpetrate evil, on the other hand, that free choice cannot but be driven by my conatus. That is, I can exert my freedom only in accordance with my conatus and my own nature. However, this does not mean that my freedom is annulled by some inescapable predetermination or prearranged fate; on the contrary, the conatus has to be understood as a predisposition, which however does not force me to act in a certain way and still allows my freedom to be exerted.

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  213 In other words, the sub-​iectum of experience and the unconscious ground of our actions, which I mentioned above, while eluding our rational and conscious control, are mere inclinations and tendencies that do not irreversibly set us on a predetermined life path on which we have no power. Rather, such ground represents the emerging of the possibility of life and experience and therefore carries in itself the possibility for us to be free. Indeed, our being the ob-​iectum of experience and unable to determine its conditions of possibility does not make us passive beings nor deprive us of our freedom. Instead, the unconscious and necessary ground of life is essential for our freedom to be exerted, and our freedom can be exerted only in the interplay with the opposing ground. Thus, our tendency to preserve our own being is to be understood in terms of potency, which is necessary for the act of our freedom without preventing it from happening. Moreover, I argue that such an understanding is further legitimised if we recall Schelling’s late reflections on immanence and transcendence. In his 1842 Berlin lectures, Schelling refers to the concept of potency as the “subject of Being,”12 as I have explained in Chapter 6, which in turn can be understood as the sub-​iectum, in the terms I have outlined it above. Accordingly, on the one hand, we have the sub-​iectum, that is, the struggle between good and evil, which is sheer potency and “that of which Being can be predicated,”13 and on the other hand, we have the ob-​iectum, which is the conscious and deliberate act that “lies against” the potential ground. Put differently, it could be said that absolute experience is also the sheer potency of Being, since it concerns its sub-​iectum and the conditions of the possibility of experience itself, that is to say the potentiality of experience. Conversely, absolute experience needs to become personal, that is, it needs an ob-​iectum following the sub-​iectum in order to turn potency into act. Needless to say, potency and act, as well as sub-​iectum and ob-​iectum, also have to reconcile themselves through a third moment, which Schelling explains as an absolute unity and coincidence of the two terms. Put simply, as I have said, Being is neither subject nor object, neither sheer potency nor mere act, but rather it is the absolute reconciliation and indissoluble coincidence but not sheer sameness of them. Therefore, we have to understand the interplay between freedom and necessity and between absolute and empirical experience in precisely the same way, since neither of them can occur without their counterpart. Finally, I argue that, just as Schelling understands evil as an immanent force engaged in a fundamental struggle with its good counterpart –​which in turn makes our life and experience possible –​resistance is also an immanent occurrence which grounds the opposition between the basic forces of matter, and without which matter itself would not exist. Accordingly, resistance is also that material occurrence through which freedom can

214  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy concretely take place in its being limited and constrained by necessity. To put it simply, in the next sections of this chapter I demonstrate that resistance is a key concept in Schelling’s discourse on freedom, and that he attributes to resistance the same conceptual immanence that he ascribes to evil and to the subsequent notion of absolute experience. I now move my focus to Schelling’s early works –​and particularly on his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism and New Deduction of Natural Right –​showing how the concept of resistance plays a fundamental role in the interplay between freedom and necessity; that is, Schelling clearly argues that the resistance opposed by nature to our individual will is an essential and fundamental occurrence for us to actualise our freedom and to perform our actions and choices. Moreover, I intend to show how Schelling maintains the centrality of resistance even in his philosophy of nature, by arguing that resistance is that fundamental ontological occurrence which grounds the opposition between the basic forces of matter, and without which matter itself would not exist. Accordingly, resistance is also that material occurrence through which freedom can concretely take place in its being limited and constrained by necessity. Finally, I also show that Schelling reiterates such an understanding in his Freiheitsschrift (as well as in his late works), namely I demonstrate that resistance is a fundamental occurrence even for the struggle between good and evil, which in turn implies that resistance inevitably influences our individual will and actions. On these grounds, I conclude by arguing that freedom can be defined as a matter of resistance, since it arises and is made possible only through resistance itself, in the very ontological meaning of Widerstand. Indeed, such definition embodies both that freedom in its concrete occurrence cannot be separated from resistance, and that resistance operates as the ontological groundwork of both freedom and matter. 7.2  The Concept of Resistance in Schelling’s Early Works As I mentioned in the previous section, Schelling makes an extensive and pervasive use of the concept of resistance in the development of his early philosophy, as well as of his philosophy of nature; moreover, such concept is a fundamental one to understand Schelling’s account of freedom. Hence, in order to show the crucial importance of resistance in Schelling’s philosophy, in this section I carry out a detailed and meticulous analysis of his early works, where he contends that the resistance opposed by nature to our individual will is fundamental for human beings to actualise freedom. This, in turn, will allow me to advance an original interpretation of Schelling’s account of freedom as a matter of resistance, which will be clarified in the next sections of this chapter.

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  215 The first uses of the concept of resistance in Schelling’s works date back to his 1795 Philosophical Letters, and particularly on his discussion of freedom. In the Eight Letter, he writes that where there is absolute freedom, there is absolute beatitude, and vice versa. But with absolute freedom no consciousness of self is compatible. An activity without any object, an activity to which there is no resistance [Widerstand], never returns into itself. Only through a return to one’s self does consciousness arises. Only a restricted reality [Realität] is actuality [Wirklichkheit] for us.14 That is, Schelling points out that without resistance freedom could not be actualised, namely it would remain a mere theoretical abstraction with no practical applications. In other words, freedom can be effective and actual only when it becomes that “restricted reality” which determines the boundaries of human agency through resistance; otherwise, if it did not encounter any resistance, it would be either a merely conceptual freedom or an overwhelming expansive force that would annihilate every existing thing. In this respect, Bowie clarifies that for Schelling Freedom is thus necessarily prior to what opposes it. If there were no such priority, it would become impossible to know how the world becomes intelligible at all, because something that offered no resistance of any kind would be unknowable. What is revealed here at the level of individual consciousness, in the feeling of resistance of the world, is used by Schelling to explain how it is that the not-​I, the world of conditioned natural objects, must also involve what is present in the conscious I.15 That is to say, since freedom encounters resistance, it is obvious that it occurs prior to such encounter; and yet, it is also true that freedom becomes actual only through the resistance of the natural world. Hence, this means that the freedom that precedes resistance is only a conceptual and potential one, with no practical actuality. Accordingly, the freedom that precedes resistance is ab-​soluta, namely with no constraints to any particular being or individual, and becomes my freedom only in the encounter with resistance –​just as self-​consciousness cannot arise without the opposition of the natural world. However, just as expansive force needs to be counteracted by a contractive one, freedom needs to be circumscribed by necessity; it is precisely in this fundamental conflict between two opposite forces that resistance becomes crucial, since it animates the conflict itself. Moreover, this conflict between two opposite forces is a constant in Schelling’s entire philosophical

216  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy production, hence giving to resistance an even more prominent role. As Schelling puts it, “where all resistance ceases, there is infinite expansion. But the intensity of our consciousness is in inverse ratio to the extension of our being;”16 resistance, then, assumes a markedly ontological meaning, not only because it enables contraction to oppose and limit expansion but also because it consists in the process through which we actualise our consciousness and freedom, hence avoiding to fall victim of sheer necessity. Without resistance, indeed, there is transition to not-​being, [namely] the moment of annihilation. Here, in this moment of absolute being, supreme passivity is at one with the most unlimited activity. Unlimited activity is absolute repose [… However, we] awaken through reflection, that is, through a forced return to ourselves. But no return is thinkable without resistance.17 That is, resistance is that fundamental occurrence through which we actively become concrete beings, that is we escape both blind and ceaseless activity and utter passivity. To put it differently, resistance is that fundamental ontological process which prevents activity to overwhelm passivity and vice versa, providing the ground for a synthesis between activity and passivity, that is, between freedom and necessity. Accordingly, such a co-​ occurrence of activity and passivity is an essential feature of human beings, allowing us to exist and to avoid both lifelessness and unrestricted forms of life. Resistance, then, is not to be understood as mere reluctance towards something, but implies a fully fledged ontological stance, that is, a way of being and a fundamental disposition of being in opposition to something. For this reason, resistance implies an obligation to oppose and stand against that which opposes the activity of the I. Accordingly, resistance has to be understood not as a sheer averseness to some contingent occurrences, just as freedom is not identified with utter and unconstrained arbitrariness. In this sense, resistance is precisely that ontological groundwork which channels human freedom to its actualisation, obliging the I to take a stand against the I’s withdrawal, that is, against non-​being and lifeless objects in order to come into being and into life. The concept of resistance plays a crucial role even in Schelling’s 1796 New Deduction of Natural Right, in which natural right is understood as a necessary delimitation of individual freedom. That is, since the individual will cannot be constrained by sheer moral prescriptions (i.e., that which one wills cannot be prescribed), it needs to be constrained by a general will and by a natural lawfulness. For this reason, the latter can only occur as a form of resistance, since it coincides with an inescapable ontological disposition and not as an arbitrary circumstance. Hence, Schelling aims

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  217 at grasping “the ground of everything that exists, the absolute being that manifests itself in every being as identical with myself, with the ultimate, immutable in me.”18 Accordingly, the highest task of philosophy is not to find a transcendent moral world-​order, but rather to investigate the immanent ontological features of freedom; as Schelling himself puts it, “Be! in the highest sense of the word; […] This is the highest call of all practical philosophy.”19 According to Schelling, to be in the highest sense of the word means to be absolutely free, namely to strive to enhance one’s autonomy by subordinating the heteronomous laws of nature to it. However, this does not imply that individual freedom is unlimited and illimitable; that is, Schelling does not postulate the self-​positing of freedom as an inescapable fact from which I-​hood arises; rather, such self-​positing is a possibility that pertains to individual will and that must deal with the limitations imposed by the general will. Moreover, Schelling understands the general will as that will which is determined by “the form of the individual will as such (freedom), setting aside all content of willing. Therefore the content of the general will is determined by the form of the individual will, not vice versa.”20 Subsequently, if on the one hand freedom as such coincides with sheer autonomy, on the other hand, it is even truer that concrete and effective freedom results from the interplay of autonomy and heteronomy. In this sense, Schelling writes that “by proclaiming myself as a free being, I proclaim myself as a being who determines everything resistant, but is not determined by anything.”21 Nevertheless, such self-​proclamation need to be complemented with the resistance caused by nature, resulting both into an interaction between different wills and forces and into physical causality; otherwise, it would be a merely arbitrary statement resulting in a lifeless state. Thus, life is nothing but the causality arising from resistance to self-​positing freedom. That is to say, freedom can only be realised within the dynamics of life and causality, and can never be a mere theoretical concept relying solely on its self-​positing. Indeed, a sheer self-​positing of freedom would be nothing but an abstraction, while in order to be concrete and effective freedom itself must be opposed by a natural form of resistance. Consequently, Schelling claims that individual will is essentially a free and unrestricted one, and as such it cannot be subject to moral prescriptions (i.e., what is willed cannot be prescribed); however, the concrete actualisation of individual will and freedom necessarily have to go through the resistance of the general will and nature. Hence, it follows that “only the matter of my action (that which is accomplished by it), not its form (the freedom of willing), depends on the general will,”22 which in turn implies that “my will submits to the general will in order that […] no other will [be opposed] to my will as will, that is, in order that my will may become absolute unlimited power.”23

218  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy On these grounds, the key role of the concept of resistance emerges in all its strength and clarity. Indeed, Schelling writes that as far as my physical power reaches, I give my form to everything in existence [… However,] where my physical power does not reach, there is only a physical resistance: in nature there can be no moral resistance to me.24 In other words, the resistance that nature opposes to our will is not to be understood as a moral demand or prescription, but rather as an actual force that operates in contrast to our will due to natural lawfulness. To put it simply, such resistance is not determined by a supernatural moral law, but by the ontological determinations set by the laws of nature. Indeed, “where my physical power finds resistance, there is nature. I acknowledge the superiority of nature over my physical strength; as a being of sense I bow to it; I cannot do more.”25 Moreover, it is equally true that “where my moral power finds resistance, there can no longer be nature. I shudder and stop. I hear the warning: Here is humanity! I may not do more.”26 Therefore, the resistance opposed by nature determines not only nature’s ontological structure but also my way of being and acting. That is, when limiting my freedom in relation to nature and to other individual wills, I am not observing a moral commandment, but I am acting in accordance with a precise ontological disposition. Hence, resistance is not a deliberate moral reluctance towards something, but a material and inescapable ontological drive for one’s actions. In this sense, ethics is to be understood as “that part of morality which demands a general will with regard to its matter,” which in turn demands “that the individual will be identical with the general.”27 However, Schelling also specifies that individual and general will can be identical only if the former acts against itself and in accordance with the latter. Schelling’s point here is not that morality impels us to act in accordance with what ought to be and in opposition to what is; instead, he argues that what is and what ought to be coincide, in accordance with the abovementioned highest call of practical philosophy (i.e., to be in the highest sense of the word). As he himself puts it, “I ought to do what is practically actual, and what I ought to do is obligatory; it is in line with duty. Duty is that which simply is because it ought to be.”28 Hence, duty is not an abstract moral norm that is enacted on top of nature, but rather an actual statement of the concrete reality of things; namely, duty is not a moral possibility that we choose among other equally possible options, but an ontological necessity. Resistance, then, plays a crucial role in Schelling’s understanding of freedom, since without resistance freedom itself would be nothing but an unrealised possibility. That is, “my freedom differs from

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  219 freedom as such only because of limitation. Therefore, where my freedom is unlimited it is identical with freedom as such, that is, it ceases to be individual freedom.”29 Indeed, the autonomy of pure self-​affirmation necessarily needs to be constrained by the heteronomy of the general will: that being the case, resistance is not a moral concept, but an ontological one, just as freedom is not sheer moral self-​determination but an ontologically necessitated occurrence. For this reason, “unlimited autonomy occurs only where there is sheer nature, that is, where no action of free will has yet determined nature. Only in the physical world as such can there be no resistance to me as moral being.”30 It should be clear, then, that Schelling argues that in order to be a practical concept and not a merely theoretical possibility, freedom cannot be grasped as such at a merely individual level and needs to be complemented with a concrete form of resistance, that is a necessary and inescapable ontological opposition to utter individuality. Moreover, a close and detailed analysis of Schelling’s early works unquestionably highlights both the pervasive use and the crucial meaning of the concept of resistance in his argumentative process. Borrowing Lara Ostaric’s words, Schelling outlines “a system of true freedom not limited by theoretical representations of nature, a system of reason that is thoroughly practical.”31 In addition, I have clearly demonstrated that grasping Schelling’s meaning of resistance is essential to understand Schelling’s meaning of freedom. Indeed, I have shown that the practical function of freedom is not carried out by realising a transcendent moral law through freedom and human arbitrariness, but rather that it cannot be carried out without giving resistance a key role within the understanding of freedom. 7.3  Resistance and Matter in Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature Schelling maintains the centrality of the concept of resistance in his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature. In this case, however, Widerstand should not be confused with Bestreben, which is also translated “resistance” by Errol E. Harris and Peter Heath, but whose original meaning is “endeavour,” “strive,” or “aspiration.” It is also interesting to note that Schelling relates the concept of resistance to the “Basic Principles of Dynamics” (which is the title of the fifth chapter in the second book of his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature), namely he uses such concept by referring it to the interplay between the grounding forces of matter, which in turn occurs independently of our freedom and the conditions for the actualisation of our freedom itself. Put simply, resistance is not something that occurs at a later stage after the emergence of matter, but is a basic process that grounds matter and makes it possible. Hence, within Schelling’s thought resistance is not only the groundwork of freedom but also of matter.

220  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy The idea of resistance within a philosophy of nature has its roots in Kantian philosophy, and particularly, in Kant’s 1786 work Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. In this work, Kant specifically addresses the concept of resistance in the context of his dynamic explanation of the concept of matter, which subsequently had a very clear influence on Schelling’s philosophy of nature. Indeed, it is no mystery that Schelling draws a significant part of his reflection (especially concerning his philosophy of nature) from Kant’s philosophy.32 In this respect, Kant claims that “matter is the movable insofar as it fills a space. To fill a space is to resist every movable that strives through its motion to penetrate into a certain space,”33 but at the same time he points out that matter can fill a space only through a moving force. Hence, matter is animated by the interaction between an attractive force and a repulsive one: while the former is a retractive one, “by which [matter] resists the removal of others from it,” the latter is an expansive one, “by which [matter] resists the approach of others to it.”34 As Kant himself puts it, “the latter force will also sometimes be called driving force, the former drawing force,”35 since resistance to motion is the cause of [matter’s] diminution, or even of the change of this motion into rest [… while] the resistance that a matter offers in the space that it fills to every penetration by other matter is a cause of the motion of the latter in the opposite direction.36 Schelling, in his turn, claims that matter occupies a space, not through its mere existence […] but through an inherently moving force, whereby the mechanical motion of matter first becomes possible. […] This inherently moving force is necessarily opposed to another force that is likewise inherently moving, and can be distinguished from the former only by its opposite direction.37 Schelling defines those two forces as a positive and a negative one, and therefore their interplay, opposition and struggle consists in matter’s lifeblood, that is, they give life to that inherently moving force that could not take place without opposition and struggle. Indeed, either of the two forces, taken in isolation, would yield the annihilation of matter itself: on the one hand, the positive force alone would result in an endless expansion, and on the other hand, the negative force itself would result in an endless contraction. In either case, matter would cease to exist, since it would lose its essential and vital core, which is the opposition and struggle between the forces. The analogy between Kant’s and Schelling’s philosophies on this point is undeniable; besides, Schelling himself acknowledges that Kant is the

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  221 main source of some of his own understanding of matter.38 However, the point here is not to analyse to what extent Schelling drew his philosophy of nature from Kant’s thought, but rather to demonstrate how the concept of resistance, as developed by Schelling within the Kantian tradition, can be used to better understand the nature of freedom as a matter of resistance. Furthermore, by arguing that freedom is a matter of resistance, I am not arguing that freedom has to be understood in its relationship with resistance; rather, my point is that freedom is made possible by, and can arise only through, resistance, in the very ontological sense of Widerstand. For Schelling, then, resistance occurs in relation to the opposition between the two forces, in order to prevent both absolute expansion and absolute contraction of matter itself. That is, the positive force exerts against the restriction a resistance that is infinite, and can never be totally abolished or destroyed by any opposing force. So I cannot assure myself of this basic force of matter, except by letting opposing forces act upon it. Now the resistance that it puts up to such forces is disclosed to my feeling –​if I apply this force myself –​as a repulsing, repelling force. In accordance with this feeling, I attribute to matter in general a repulsive force, but the resistance it puts up to any force that acts upon it I think of as impenetrability, and this not as absolute, but as infinite (in degree).39 The positive force, Schelling adds, expands indiscriminately and infinitely in all possible directions; therefore, the opposition of the negative force is necessary in order to narrow down this expansion within finite and determined directions. With no opposition, indeed, there would only be a chaotic and indefinite expansion of matter, resulting in turn in its annihilation; then, the opposition of the attractive and negative force acts as essential restraint that directs the former force into a precise spatial path. Accordingly, resistance becomes the fundamental activity through which such opposition can occur without resulting into the withdrawal of matter. Schelling applies the same reasoning to the positive force’s counterpart, arguing that an inherently negative force has, as such, no direction at all. […] But insofar as it is thought of as in conflict with an opposing positive activity, its direction is determined by the latter. But conversely too the positive activity can react upon the negative only in this one direction. And thus we have a line between a pair of points, which can equally be drawn either forwards or backwards.40 In other words, the negative force being a restrictive one, it needs to be pushed by the positive one in order not to make matter retract unto its

222  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy annihilation. Furthermore, “this line is also actually described by the human mind in the state of intuition. The same line in which its original activity was reflected, it again describes, in that it reacts upon the point of resistance [Widerstand].”41 So, while the resistance, or better the point of resistance, is unfolded by the negative force, we would be mistaken if we ascribed resistance itself exclusively to the negative force. Rather, resistance has to be understood as the act through which the ontological ground for the opposition and the struggle of the forces of matter is provided. That is, I want to argue that resistance does not pertain exclusively to only one of the two forces: indeed, I have shown that Schelling understands it, in the first place, as the object of the expansion activity and of the actualisation of the real, that is, as the “point of resistance” that arises from the negative force and that “lies against” the activity of the positive force, in fact narrowing it. However, resistance is not just a static point, but rather a process, which means that, once again, it cannot be reduced only to the negative and objective moment of the process itself; reducing the whole concept of resistance to the point of resistance itself, I argue, would make us lose sight of its enormous conceptual and concrete significance. In addition, Schelling claims that the basic forces of matter cannot be in any way an object of intuition, but they inescapably are their subject, from which it follows that resistance develops itself as a process within the subjective interplay of the forces. Therefore, my point is that resistance occurs in both the activity of the positive force and in the passivity of the negative one, which is the only way through which we can understand it as the provider of the ontological ground for the opposition and the struggle of the forces. Indeed, resistance is both free and necessary, and then both passive (the point of resistance) and active (resistance as ontological process), namely the merging of Wider and Stand. In order to better understand the latter point, it is useful to go back to the definition of the term Widerstand. That which Schelling called “the point of resistance,” that is, the passive part of resistance and its being object, corresponds to the Stand, which recalls precisely that way of firmly and immovably standing in an ontologically determined position. At the same time, the very process of resistance, that is, its active part and its being subject, corresponds to the Wider, namely to the perpetuating of the opposition not as a static feature, but as an essential one that constantly needs to be reaffirmed within the opposition and the struggle of the forces. Accordingly, Schelling does not understand resistance as mere and static obstruction, but rather as a fundamental process that occurs in the interplay between the forces of matter, without which matter itself would not be possible.

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  223 Moreover, such an understanding is directly related to the concept of freedom; indeed, Schelling writes that “we view the separate forces in freedom, whereas where they work together harmoniously they appear even at the first moment of their operation to be already mutually limited and determined by one another.”42 Borrowing Nassar’s words on this point, Schelling maintains that “with my experience of necessity also comes my experience of freedom.”43 In this context, matter emerges through my simultaneous feeling of constraint and freedom (the feeling of something other than myself and the contrasting feeling of myself). Accordingly, matter cannot be divorced from my experience of myself. In turn, my experience of myself, my self-​consciousness, also cannot be divorced from my experience of matter.44 In other words, here Schelling clearly recalls the notion of freedom that he developed in his New Deduction of Natural Right: the separate forces that we see operating in freedom are nothing but the individual will and the general will, which Schelling translates in the field of philosophy of nature respectively as positive and negative force. That is, just as individual will is a potentially unlimited and absolute autonomy that needs to be opposed and limited by a general will, the positive force is a potentially endless expansive force that needs to be opposed and limited by a negative and contractive force. This mutual opposition between the forces of matter does not mean that Schelling is embracing either sheer causality or rigid determinism. Nevertheless, Ffytche argues that this resistance to determinate structures produces a paradoxical situation in which the ultimate nature of freedom remains suspended. Freedom awaits its complete ideological statement in the philosophy of nature, but the philosophy of nature in turn remains unfinished or equivocal, awaiting the final emergence of the principle of freedom in mankind.45 However, I argue that such a paradoxical situation can be resolved through maintaining that resistance is that fundamental ontological process which allows the actualisation of freedom. In other words, even though resistance is not the actual principle of freedom, it is undoubtedly that material occurrence through which the principle of freedom manifests itself. In this sense, Schelling writes in his 1799 First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature that since each organism is limited to a determinate form, all of its activity must be directed towards the production and

224  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy reproduction of this form. Therefore, the real reason why every organism reproduces only itself to infinity is to be sought in the original limitation of its formative drive, but not in some preformed seeds, for whose existence there is not a shadow of proof.46 The concept of formative drive is extremely useful to clarify the true meaning of Schelling’s account: indeed, the term “formative” suggests that it concerns a kind of individual affirmation and autonomy that in fact forms and shapes the structure of the self, while the term “drive” implies that such formation is not due to sheer arbitrariness but has to follow a heteronomous (but neither fixed nor mechanistic) path. To put it simply, the concept of formative drive is nothing but the organic and concrete expression of the abovementioned coincidence between what is and what ought to be. As Schelling himself puts it, the concept of formative drive implies that freedom coincides with a compound productivity, since in it there is an interplay between autonomy and heteronomy, expansion and contraction, activity and passivity. Accordingly, “freedom cannot be lawlessness. […] To this extent, therefore, the product is again a necessary one. Thus, unification of freedom and necessity.”47 Even in this case, the concept of resistance assumes a fundamental role within this process: given that in each organism (including human beings) there is a co-​occurrence of two opposing activities, such an opposition cannot only be understood as each organism’s grounding ontological process, which in turn can only be grasped as an original and necessary form of resistance. Borrowing Schelling’s words, that activity, as a simultaneously immanent and outer-​directed activity, can be apperceived precisely at the point at which the external resistance is met; and conversely, only at the point from which that external activity is reflected into itself is there resistance –​that which does not fall within this point does not even exist for the organism.48 Consequently, it is once again clear that the concept of resistance cannot be disregarded if one is to understand the true nature of Schelling’s account of freedom. That is, as Nassar brilliantly explains, according to Schelling “I become aware of myself in contrast to some external object, acting against me. For through this encounter, I sense at once being constrained (by the object) and being free (my independence of the object).”49 Furthermore, I argue that Schelling’s philosophy of nature cannot prescind from the centrality of resistance, since resistance itself is a fundamental process which concerns the opposition of the forces of matter, as well as between autonomy and heteronomy. Hence, without resistance not only matter would annihilate itself by falling prey of either ceaseless expansion or

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  225 endless contraction but also freedom would remain an abstract idea with no practical outcome, being overwhelmed either by sheer arbitrariness or by blind and rigid determination. 7.4  Freedom as a Matter of Resistance At this point, it should be clear that Schelling, in the early and middle phases of his philosophy, gives the concept of resistance a clearly ontological meaning by relating it both to the concrete actualisation of freedom, and to the basic forces of matter. Moreover, I have also shown that Schelling takes a cue from Kant’s philosophy, but reinterprets it in a stricter ontological sense by giving resistance a more prominent role and making it the ontological groundwork of freedom. Consequently, I argue not only that resistance is a fundamental concept in order to understand Schelling’s account of freedom but also that, in accordance with Schelling’s thought, freedom can be defined as a matter of resistance. By this definition, I intend to point out that resistance is the ontological groundwork of both matter and freedom, that is to say that, just as resistance is a fundamental occurrence for the interplay of the basic forces of matter, freedom in its concrete and material actualisation cannot prescind from resistance. Put simply, on the one hand resistance is a feature that is fundamental in order to allow matter to fill space properly and to avoid both indiscriminate expansion and endless retraction. Resistance, that is, sets the limits of the expansion of matter and at the same time prevents matter from totally withdrawing itself from space, namely it ensures that matter neither overfills space nor leaves it completely empty. On the other hand, in order to avoid both unrestricted arbitrariness and sheer determinism, resistance operates as that fundamental ontological disposition according to which freedom can become actual and concrete, rather than being annihilated or becoming a mere abstraction. Moreover, such an understanding of resistance also characterises Schelling’s argumentation in his Freiheitsschrift, demonstrating that the concept of resistance is not to be confined only in Schelling’s early works. Indeed, Schelling maintains that “the common concept of freedom, according to which freedom is posited as a wholly undetermined capacity to will one or the other of two contradictory opposites […] leads to the greatest inconsistencies.”50 In other words, Schelling reiterates the point that a freedom that is defined as sheer arbitrariness and unconstrained will is nothing but an intangible and unreliable notion. Accordingly, “true freedom is in harmony with a holy necessity, the likes of which we perceive in essential cognition, when spirit and heart, bound only by their own law, freely affirm what is necessary.”51 As I already discussed in Chapter 1, Schelling clearly states that “the real and vital concept is that freedom is the capacity of good and evil,”52

226  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy that is to say that freedom implies on the one hand an autonomous choice between good and evil, and on the other hand, a heteronomous drive that eludes our control and influences our possibility of choice. That is, evil is “only explicable in terms of an arousal of the irrational or dark principle in creatures –​in terms of activated selfhood,”53 and hence, it occurs in opposition with the heteronomous drive of that which he defined as the general will. As explained by Richard Velkley, for Schelling, “the true resolution of the problem of freedom, therefore, is the understanding that the contradiction of necessity and freedom is essential to living spirit, or personality.”54 In this sense, Schelling “separates [real and concrete freedom] from absolute indeterminacy of will and the necessity of external determination”55 without reducing freedom itself to either of them. Once again, good and evil, for Schelling, are not mere moral principles but fully fledged material forces, the occurrence of which is analogous to attractive and repulsive force. Moreover, evil is conceived of as a positive ontological principle, complementary to and coessential with good, rather than being a mere lack or deprivation of good; hence, it also unfolds itself through opposition to, and consequently struggle against, good. Therefore, a struggle between good and evil takes place, which in turn recalls the abovementioned struggle and opposition between the basic forces of matter. In this respect, Schelling maintains that in our individual actions there is an underlying interplay of two opposite tendencies and forces, in continuity with his early definition of freedom as unity of autonomy and heteronomy. Thus, resistance maintains once again its fundamental meaning of grounding ontological process for the actualisation of freedom. Indeed, he writes that to think an attracting and repelling force for itself is impossible, for against what should that which repels act if that which attracts provides no resistance [wenn ihm nicht das Attrahirende einen Gegenstand macht], or against what should that which attracts act, if it does not have in itself at the same time something that repels.56 Even though Schelling does not directly use the term Widerstand in the latter passage, it is evident that the point he is making clearly recalls the understanding of resistance which he developed in relation to his philosophy of nature. That is, by stating that the attractive force makes an object (einen Gegenstand macht) of the repelling one, Schelling is still referring to that fundamental ontological process which implies an ineluctable opposition to the occurrence of determinate material forces. Indeed, by making an object of the repulsive force, the attractive one is in fact striving to actualise itself and to overwhelm the opposing force; consequently, the repulsive force exerts a resistance, and the occurrence of this

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  227 resistance has to be understood not as a deliberate opposition, but rather as an immediate and necessary one. The opposition of these basic forces is maintained by Schelling even in the 1810 Stuttgart Seminars, where he claims that if we say that the essence of man is an absolute identity of freedom and necessity, and that a free principle and a necessary principle are always already united in man, we thereby attain a concept of man, to be sure, yet we do not yet have the living, authentic human being; for to obtain the latter (i.e., an authentic human being) it is requisite that we consider man insofar as these principles are indeed in opposition and contest within him.57 That is, not only Schelling reiterates once again the fundamental occurrence of the struggle between the forces of matter but also that freedom, in its “absolute identity” with necessity, can only occur in light of such struggle and never as sheer and unopposed self-​determination. To put it differently, freedom can concretely be actualised only through the fundamental resistance encountered in the heteronomy of nature. In fact, as repeatedly said, it is precisely resistance, conceived of as a fundamental ontological occurrence, that allows us not only to exert our freedom in a concrete manner but also to be living and “authentic human beings.” To put it differently, here Schelling restates that resistance, being an essential element of the struggle between the forces of matter, is also an essential condition for the occurrence of life –​and hence of freedom. Even in his exposition of positive philosophy, Schelling maintains the centrality of the notion of resistance, and in his 1832–​1833 Munich lectures he ascribes resistance to the very heart of philosophy itself. As Schelling himself puts it, All original thinking always refers to a real object [Gegenstand]. Object and resistance [Gegenstand und Widerstand] are at bottom one and the same word: the object of philosophy is always of the sort that locks within itself what I must first extract. This wrestling thought I call positive thinking. That original thinking, actively referring to that object, is all about that object. […] The true object is always something positive; only the means to arrive at that object is thinking, that is, the person must himself think out this way. The person engaged in philosophy cannot be helped in any other way.58 Such a statement expresses more than just Schelling’s creative approach to philosophy, as Matthews puts it. That is, since the focus of positive

228  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy philosophy is that which actually exists, even freedom itself has to be understood in its actuality and not merely as a conceptual affirmation of one’s individual will. Therefore, since true being is the main object of philosophy, as I explained in §6.1, such object also presents resistance as one of its fundamental ontological features. And yet, precisely this fundamental and foundational character of resistance entails that it pertains to the sub-​iectum of the object of philosophy: to put it simply, the object of philosophy is Being in its actual existence, and such object is grounded precisely by the struggle between the forces of matter, of which resistance is an essential element. Hence, resistance pertains to the sub-​iectum of Being in its actuality (namely “lies under” that which actually exists); in turn, Being in its actuality is the object of philosophy (namely “lies against” one’s thinking). In practice, this means that one cannot think of Being in its concrete existence without thinking of the resistance that fundamentally characterises it –​which in turn implies that my freedom, in its very concreteness, must practically face such resistance and cannot be actualised without encountering resistance. That being the case, it should be clear that it is not our will to shape and determine resistance, but it is resistance that actualises our individual will and actions and makes them possible. In other words, the centrality of resistance within the dynamics of matter has crucial implications for the actualisation of freedom, which would otherwise remain a merely theoretical abstraction. Therefore, the abovementioned capacity of good and evil does not mean that one can unrestrictedly choose between two equally possible options, but rather that one’s free choice is always constrained by necessity and by the material conditions set up through resistance. So, while it is true that I have to take part in the struggle between good and evil by exercising one of the two principles through my free choice, it can also be said that the freedom I exert within it is nothing but resistance. Indeed, by choosing to exercise one of the principles, for example, good, I cannot definitively annihilate the other principle, so I constantly have to resist its counteraction and its concrete threat to my original choice. Resistance, then, is once again understood as a fundamental occurrence in order to “be in the highest sense of the word,” that is, to be concretely and effectively free by avoiding both utter arbitrariness and blind determinism. Accordingly, while the struggle between the two forces predetermines my way of being and of acting, the effectiveness of my being and actions depends only on my choices. Thus, it is obvious that complying with one particular force or inclination means opposing the other one, that is, resisting its vigour and occurrence. Moreover, such a resistance cannot but arise from my freedom, or better it is precisely my freedom, which in turn can arise only within the material account of an ontology of immanence.

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  229 Consequently, I argue that being free means neither to be able to act in the total absence of external restrictions nor to entirely determine one’s own being; rather, it means to be able to resist some inclinations by virtue of certain stronger ontological features. Therefore, such a resistance is not characterised as an a posteriori opposition to something, that is, it does not occur after a deliberate and conscious decision; instead, it is a priori, that is, it determines my way of being, rather than being determined by it. In other words, resistance is that ontological predetermination that prevails over the other ones, that is, that moment in which sheer potency and indiscriminate and omni-​inclusive possibility are narrowed down and actualised within concrete actions. So, resisting something means both to preserve and persevere in one’s own being and to take part in the struggle between the forces of matter. Put differently, it is only through resistance than I can effectively be free; however, it also has to be acknowledged that I am not able to determine the nature of such resistance, just as I am not able to determine the nature of freedom, but rather I am determined by it. That is, resistance occurs in the interplay between the two opposing forces and prevents both of them from being annihilated by the other one. In realising my freedom, then, I resist both sheer determinism and indiscriminate arbitrariness, since on the one hand, I can only act in accordance with my unconscious predetermination, yet on the other hand, my acting is also necessarily free. Accordingly, freedom can neither occur nor be realised outside the struggle between good and evil, which means that I have to take a stand within that struggle by exercising one of the two forces or principles, which in turn inevitably entails that I have to resist the counteraction of the other one. Moreover, such a resistance is free, that is, it pertains to and coincides with freedom, but it is not purely arbitrary, meaning that I neither have rational control over it, nor do I determine its occurrence in the first place. Once again, my point is that I resist something not because I decide to do so after a rational and conscious assessment, but because I cannot but resist and oppose that particular thing, due to my ontological features and determinations. Concretely, the committing of good or evil is always a free and personal choice, but my choice is not a definitive one, since the unchosen principle keeps recurring and struggling for its actualisation. In other words, if I choose to commit good, I will always face the possibility of evil, which keeps threatening my actions and pushing for its realisation, that is, for its becoming real and not just merely possible. Thus, it follows that choosing to commit good goes hand in hand with resisting the backlash of evil, since my choice does not prevent the other force from operating. Moreover, taking a stand in the struggle, namely choosing one of the two principles, does not terminate the struggle itself, but rather keeps it active, since “where there is no struggle, there is no life,”59 meaning that the

230  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy conflict between good and evil, autonomy and heteronomy, attraction and repulsion is the fundamental condition of actualisation of human life and freedom. For this reason, my freedom cannot but coincide with my resistance to the unchosen principle –​even considering that I have neither control nor power over the struggle and I cannot but take a stand in it. Hence, resistance is necessary not only for freedom to take place but also for life in general: if there is no life without struggle, and there is no struggle without resistance, then there is neither life nor freedom without resistance. In conclusion, through a detailed focus on Schelling’s texts and a meticulous analysis of their key concepts, I have clearly demonstrated that resistance operates as the ontological groundwork of freedom, and that without resistance freedom would either be a mere intellectual abstraction or fall prey of blind necessitation. Accordingly, I have argued that freedom can be understood as a matter of resistance, and in doing so I have also developed a new and original reading of Schelling’s understanding of freedom in relation to his use of the notion of resistance. The main merit of this reading is to finally shed light on the material foundation and the practical realisation of human freedom, avoiding transcendentist and supernatural explanations. In the next and final chapter, I consider the conclusion drawn in this chapter and in Chapter 6 and show how an immanentist reading of Schelling’s philosophy resonates with current debates in Postcolonial Critical Theory and offers a meaningful and original contribution to the issue of illustrates the human–​nature relationship in contemporary Environmental Ethics. Notes 1 This chapter is largely taken from my article “Freedom as a Matter of Resistance in the Philosophy of Schelling,” Critical Horizons 3, no. 1 (2022): 78–​92. Reproduced with kind permission from the Taylor & Francis Group. 2 Matt Ffytche, The Foundation of the Unconscious. Schelling, Freud and the Birth of the Modern Psyche (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 76. 3 Paul Franks, “From World-​Soul to Universal Organism. Maimon’s Hypothesis and Schelling’s Physicalization of a Platonic-​Kabbalistic Concept,” in Schelling’s Philosophy, 87. 4 McGrath, The Dark Ground of Spirit, 3. 5 See also §1.1. 6 Here, I am referring to the influence exerted by Kant’s Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science on Schelling’s Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, which I have addressed in the first chapter. 7 PI, 63; SW, I, 7, 400. See above, §1.2. 8 See above, §1.3. 9 PI, 59; SW, I, 7, 394. See also above, §1.1.

Freedom as a Matter of Resistance  231 10 Richard Bernstein, Radical Evil: A Philosophical Investigation (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), 94. 11 See above, §1.3, but also §4.3. 12 PP, 143; SW, II, 3, 77. See also §6.1. 13 PP, 143; SW, II, 3, 77. See also §6.1. 14 PL, 184; SW, I, 1, 324. 15 Andrew Bowie, “Translator’s Introduction” to F.W.J. Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy, Translation, Introduction, and Notes by Andrew Bowie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 6. 16 PL, 185; SW, I, 1, 324. 17 PL, 185, SW, I, 1, 324–​5. 18 NR, 221; SW, I, 1, 247. 19 Ibid. Here, Schelling recalls the final statement of the Ninth Letter of his Philosophical Letters, i.e., “Be! is the supreme demand of criticism” (PL, 192; SW, I, 1, 335). 20 NR, 226; SW, I, 1, 253. 21 NR, 222; SW, I, 1, 248 (my italics). 22 NR, 228; SW, I, 1, 256. 23 NR, 229; SW, I, 1, 256–​7. 24 NR, 223; SW, I, 1, 249. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid. 27 NR, 229; SW, I, 1, 257. 28 NR, 231; SW, I, 1, 259. 29 NR, 243; SW, I, 1, 274. 30 NR, 242–​3; SW, I, 1, 274. 31 Lara Ostaric, “Nature as the World of Action,” in Schelling’s Philosophy, 24. 32 On this point, see the already mentioned Nassar, “Organization of Matter,” as well as Sebastian Gardner, “The Metaphysics of Human Freedom: From Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25, no. 1 (2017): 133–​56. See also Manfred Baum, “The Beginnings of Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature,” in The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, edited by S. Sedgwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 199–​215, and Dieter Wandschneider and Patrick Leland, “The Philosophy of Nature of Kant, Schelling and Hegel,” in The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy, edited by Dean Moyar (Abingdon: Routledge, 2010), 64–​103. 33 Kant, Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, 33. 34 Ibid., 35. 35 Ibid. 36 Ibid., 34. 37 IPN, 185; SW, I, 2, 231–​2. 38 See IPN, 185; SW, I, 2, 231. 39 IPN, 182; SW, I, 2, 228. 40 IPN, 183–​4; SW, I, 2, 230. 41 IPN, 184; SW, I, 2, 230. 42 IPN, 58; SW, I, 2, 74.

232  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy 3 Nassar, “Organization of Matter,” 226. 4 44 Ibid., 227 45 Ffytche, Unconscious, 87. 46 SPN, 47; SW, I, 3, 60. 47 SPN, 48; SW, I, 3, 61. 48 SPN, 112; SW, I, 3, 153. 49 Nassar, “Organization of Matter,” 226. 50 PI, 48; SW, I, 7, 382. 51 PI, 58; SW, I, 7, 391–​2. 52 PI, 23; SW, I, 7, 352. See also §1.3. 53 PI, 43; SW, I, 7, 376. 54 Velkley, “Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift,” 162. 55 Ibid., 163. 56 PI, 63; SW, I, 7, 400. 57 Schelling, “Stuttgart Seminar (1810),” 200; SW, I, 7, 424. 58 Schelling, Grundlegung der Positiven Philosophie, 94; quoted in Matthews, “Translator’s Introduction” to PP, 76. 59 Ibid. See also above, §1.2.

8 What Next? The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates

8.1  Schelling’s Ethical Legacy: Philosophy as Decentering of the Self The recent revival of Schelling studies, of which I have provided several examples throughout this work, illustrates not only the philosophical autonomy and significance of Schelling’s thought but also that Schelling’s legacy provides a meaningful contribution to key contemporary philosophical issues. In fact, it is now quite evident that Schelling strongly advocates for the fact that reality as a whole originates, unfolds, and occurs at the level of immanence. Indeed, not only nature is seen as an immanent and autoproductive organism, but even God is conceived of as the immanent creator of the world, who transcends the immanence of nature only momentarily and in order to return to such original immanence. This conception, which is also the core of Schelling’s original immanentist ontology, entails an innovative rethinking of the purpose of philosophy, which in turn resonates with contemporary debates on the nature of freedom in Postcolonial Critical Theory, as well as on the human–​nature relationship in Environmental Ethics. Schelling’s markedly ontological stance is evident since the early stages of his thought and remains constant until his late works. In fact, Schelling clearly rejects a dualist approach to metaphysics, according to which thought and being are two separate dimensions and the former is prior to the latter. Schelling also identifies Descartes and Fichte as two of the main exponents of such a position –​and Schelling’s harsh critique of a moral and transcendent conception of God in his 1795 Philosophical Letters is implicitly directed against Fichte (as I mentioned in the Introduction). Bruce Matthews clarifies how Schelling clearly distances himself from the transcendentist subjectivism initiated by Descartes and carried out by Fichte. As he puts it, In Schelling’s reading, the Cartesian cogito or Fichtean ego offer the clearest example of the philosophical pathologies of the modern self. By DOI: 10.4324/9781003325550-12

234  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy elevating the individual ego to the center of its solipsistic universe, the self denies its alienation from its source in nature, leading it to pursue its satisfaction by destroying precisely that from which it is estranged, namely, nature.1 As I have already mentioned in the Introduction to this work, Schelling’s main discontent with Fichte is that Fichte identifies God with the transcendent moral world-​order, whose condition of possibility is the I, and which the I is called to realise.2 This account fails to grasp not only the inherently productive core of nature but also God as the living unity of everything that exists. Accordingly, if God coincides with the transcendent moral order that grounds and regulates the life of the world, then we end up with an abstract and lifeless conception of the Godhead, which is irremediably removed from the immanence of nature and human life. Similarly, Schelling rejects the Cartesian dualist principle that separates mind and body, and that gives priority to the former over the latter. In other words, Schelling is convinced that by positing a mind (subject) that is prior to the body (object) –​that is to say that the Ideal transcends and precedes the Real –​equals to accept an abstract and transcendentist account of the world, Being, and God. Such a God, indeed, would be a merely ethereal and conceptual one, whereas nature would be a merely mechanistic and secondary manifestation of a predetermined reality. That is, as Wirth clarifies, Schelling upholds that “making the subject absolute [as Descartes does] will lead to the annihilation of nature,”3 in fact denying nature’s living ground and autoproductive core. McGrath shows that Schelling maintains such a standpoint even in his late philosophical activity, where he still rejects Descartes’ overlooking of being, [and] the forgetting of the sum in his argument cogito ergo sum. Thinking may be given and self-​productive in the cogito, but the being of the thinking –​this is not produced by thinking, but is rather the presupposition of thought, or, as Schelling puts it, is not because there is thinking that there is being, but on the contrary, only because there is being is there thinking. Thus, positive philosophy does not begin in idea, essence, whatness, and possibility, as does Descartes, but in facticity, existence, thatness, and reality.4 In fact, Schelling never doubted the claim that Being precedes thought and that thought and freedom emerge from nature;5 also, as I have largely demonstrated in the previous chapters, such an account is clearly and undeniably an immanentist one. It is only through an ontology of immanence that the absolute unity of the principles, that is the active and autoproductive ground of nature, can be justified and properly understood.

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  235 And yet, Schelling conceives philosophy as a product of human freedom, through which one arbitrary breaks and abstracts from the original unity of the principles, which in turn cannot but be restored precisely due to its originality. However, this does not mean that Schelling reiterates the Fichtean and Cartesian notion of the human self as the undisputed centre of the universe, but rather implies a marked departure from such a conception. This also leads Schelling to reject an utterly mechanistic or objectivist account of nature, whose inherent autoproductivity is not an object (ob-​iectum) of our cognition, namely it is not something that we become aware of as separate, independent, and subsequent to our consciousness. Rather, such autoproductivity is that which grounds and makes our cognition possible (sub-​iectum). As Andrew Bowie clarifies, “Schelling does not think of productivity as something knowable in the manner of an object. It is rather the necessary ground of the dynamic processes of appearing nature,” for which reason “it is productivity’s opposing itself to itself that makes it manifest in ‘products’, the world of appearing nature.”6 In other words, the ceaseless productivity of nature is animated by the opposition of forces (expansion and contraction, good and evil, and so on), which, as we have already seen, is the conditio sine qua non of life and experience. However, in order for us to become aware of such productivity, and of the fundamentally active core of nature, we need philosophy. In other words, as repeatedly stated throughout this work, we deliberately break the original and immanent unity of the principles in nature –​however, such a separation is a sheer arbitrary act that cannot but result into the restoration of the original unity, since the unity can be broken only theoretically in order for us to understand its practical indissolubility. In this respect, the “fundamental question of philosophy,” namely “why is there Being rather than nothingness?” –​which Schelling himself defines as the “final and desperate” question that philosophy faces7 –​ assumes a very specific significance. As I have explained in §6.3, such a question, for Schelling, does not imply that Being and nothingness are two originally equally viable options, and that God could have actually chosen nothingness instead of Being. Instead, Being necessarily and eternally overcomes nothingness for the simple fact that Being is. Hence, the dilemma that such a radical question poses to philosophy is not so much to unveil the true and supernatural reason for which Being is there instead of nothingness, but rather to ascertain the practical and deep implications of the (necessarily necessary) fact that Being is there –​which in turn refer to the material sense of human life and the practical extent of human freedom. As Ben Woodard puts it, Schelling’s goal is “to adequately describe and situate our place in the natural world,”8 which makes his philosophy a

236  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy “form of proto-​pragmatism” that consists in “a practical way of handling local existence given the complexities of space-​time, the slowness of reflection, or whatever lurks behind the everyday use of concepts and the everyday consequences of actions.”9 Although I do not intend to further expand on Schelling’s relation to pragmatism10 nor to comment on Woodard’s pragmatist appraisal here, I want to similarly stress the fundamentally practical vocation of Schelling’s philosophy and of its “fundamental question,” which in turn allows us to radically rethink not only our place within nature but also the purpose of philosophy as such. In other words, I argue that, through the “fundamental question of philosophy,” Schelling is not seeking to discover the meaning of life –​if one intends by this expression some otherworldly purpose that is not commensurate with the immanence of this life and that only a transcendent God can reveal. Rather, Schelling’s philosophical inquiry seeks the actual extent and place of life, and specifically of human life and freedom within nature and Being. Hence, the answer to such question does not lie in some transcendent structure that can only be revealed to us –​in the sense of the unveiling of something that is immutably and eternally established by a supernatural demiurge of the world. Instead, such an answer lies in the practical and actual extent of life and freedom as emerging from the struggle of the forces of matter –​hence, revelation is nothing but the disclosure of the original immanence of God within nature. To put it simply, the “fundamental question of philosophy” is not aimed at gaining access to a transcendent truth established by a supernatural Being, but rather it aims at exploring the immanent depths of Being in order to identify a concrete sense (namely the practical extent, place, and direction) of human life and freedom. Here, it emerges with absolute clarity that Schelling advances a radical rethinking of the place of the self within nature that attempts to reverse the pathological dualism (to paraphrase Matthews) between self and nature. Borrowing Matthews’s words again, Schelling argues for “the decentering of the self,” according to which “the self begins from a position that acknowledges both our alienation from, and our fundamental dependence on, nature.”11 Given that nature is not a still object of our cognition, as Descartes and Fichte would argue, but rather an organic and inherently active entity, it is fundamental to reconsider the humankind’s place within nature in order to “understand what in theory is somehow a part of us, yet is experientially and practically a world apart and different from us.”12 In doing so, Schelling insists on the decentering of the self, and therewith [on] the removal of the self-​ imposed limitations, created by the cogito, that exclude not only the other of organic nature, but even the more familiar other, as in other

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  237 human beings. In doing this we begin to overcome our alienation from other beings, and in this important sense Schelling claims that the realization of the unity of self and nature generates a knowledge that is in fact redemptive.13 This implies a fully fledged repositioning of the self within nature, hence no longer conceiving of the self as above it or irremediably separate from it. That is, Schelling advances a rethinking of the role and function of human life, and not an inquiry about its transcendent meaning. Such a knowledge, then, literally redeems the self from the abstractions of a transcendentist and dualist approach of Cartesian origin and brings it back to the immanence of nature where it belongs. Subsequently, the consciousness of the self is in opposition to the unconscious autoproductivity of nature, not because the latter is the dialectical antithesis of the former, but because the latter is the material ground from which the former arises and becomes possible. Recalling the terminology that I adopted in my analysis in §1.3, nature grounds and lies under self-​ consciousness and our experience of the world –​namely is the sub-​iectum of life and experience –​whereas self-​consciousness arises from and lies against our actions in the world and our experience of nature –​namely is the ob-​iectum of life and experience. Similarly, as I demonstrated in Chapter 7, for Schelling human freedom becomes concrete and actual only when it encounters the resistance of nature –​otherwise, if freedom consisted only of autonomy without the opposition of the heteronomous resistance of nature, freedom itself would be nothing but a mere theoretical abstraction. Schelling’s legacy, then, is markedly ethical, whereby ethics entails a way of being in the world that is not determined by a transcendent set of moral decrees, but rather by our position as humans within nature, as well as our common organic structure. Borrowing Elaine Miller’s words, Schelling’s legacy, in conformity with his organic and non-​mechanistic view of nature, entails a more fertile way of interacting with the natural environment as an essential part of what it means to be human, not by simply conceiving of the natural world as encompassing, or capable of being in perfect harmony with, human desires, needs, and goals, but by seeing in the organism an analogue to human thought and divine spirit that is both independent of, and a condition for the possibility of, self-​conscious spirit.14 Therefore, being human means to be in an ethical relationship with the natural world, which in turn means that the human alone is not the sole

238  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy provider of ethical meaning and values. If on the one hand this clearly opposes Fichte’s and Descartes’s subjective dualism and anthropocentrism by effectively decentering the human from ethical discourses, on the other hand this does not result into a conception of nature as sacred, inviolable, and transcendent. In fact, philosophy being the highest form of knowledge through which we can access intellectual intuition,15 Schelling maintains that humans have a privileged relationship with the natural world, without it entailing the subjugation of nature to human mastery due to human exceptionalism –​nor the irreducible incommensurability of humans and the natural world. This has significant implications for Postcolonial Philosophy and Postcolonial Critical Theory, as well as for Environmental Ethics, as I discuss in greater detail in the next sections of this chapter. 8.2  Postcolonial Critiques of Schelling: Immanence, Freedom, and Resistance Schelling’s legacy provides a very valuable philosophical input and critical target to contemporary studies in Postcolonial Philosophy and Postcolonial Critical Theory, which I clarify in this section. By “Postcolonial Critical Theory,” I broadly refer to that approach in contemporary Critical Theory –​which includes Social Philosophy, Literary Theory and Postcolonial Studies –​that critically engages with the political, cultural, economic, historical, and social impact that derive from the European colonial domination around the world. Within this scholarship, here I refer to Fred Moten –​and parenthetically to his critical reception of Frantz Fanon –​but also to Pheng Cheah and to Brian Yazzie Burkhart. Specifically, in this section I show how the understandings of resistance and freedom developed by these thinkers resonate with that of Schelling –​ although there is neither a direct influence of nor specific references to Schelling in their works. In his 2013 essay Blackness and Nothingness, black studies theorist and critical theorist Fred Moten develops an ontological –​or better, paraontological –​discourse of resistance that is not dissimilar from Schelling’s. The term “paraontology” is used by Moten to refer to the rethinking of blackness in terms of nothingness, namely “by way of but also against and underneath the ontological terms at our disposal.”16 That is to say, the scope of Moten’s paraontological analysis is to consider what nothing is, not from its own standpoint or from any standpoint but from the absoluteness of its generative dispersion of a general antagonism that blackness holds and protects in as critical celebration and degenerative and regenerative preservation.17

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  239 In Moten’s view, this implies a fundamental and necessary shift from the traditional approach of Western metaphysics, exemplified by Heidegger (but also by Fichte and Descartes), whose focus is exclusively on Being itself and particular beings, whereas nothingness is “forgotten” and treated as a mere theoretical construct representing that which is not (and can never be). Accordingly, when Moten presents blackness as nothingness, he is not resorting to the terminological repertoire of Western metaphysics; rather, he refers to that which precedes and grounds ontology itself. As Moten himself puts it, this entails not only that “blackness is ontologically prior to the logistic and regulative power that is supposed to have brought it into existence but [also] that blackness is prior to ontology.”18 Therefore, “blackness is the anoriginal displacement of ontology, that it is ontology’s anti –​and ante-​foundation, ontology’s underground, the irreparable disturbance of ontology’s time and space.”19 In this respect, King-​Ho Leung20 notes that Moten’s discourse radicalises Schelling’s concept of Ungrund as the “nongrounding ground” of Being, namely as that being which is “before all ground and before all that exists, thus generally before any duality.”21 In fact, Leung clarifies that Moten’s paraontological approach rethinks blackness as absolute nothingness and posits it as the Ungrund and ante-​foundation of Being, which in turn implies that “it is Being qua anti-​blackness that is defined by –​and in relation to –​blackness qua nothingness, and not vice versa.”22 Similar to Schelling, Moten’s investigation is focused on the concrete and material depths of Being; however, different from Schelling, Moten argues that the “dark ground” of Being (as Schelling would call it) is not merely a natural autoproductive force, but a fundamentally alternative way of being that opposes the alleged absoluteness and primordiality of Being itself. Borrowing Leung’s words again, Moten develops “a reversal of the traditional metaphysical or even ontotheological privileging of Being over nothingness, where nothingness becomes the center or even ‘ground’ of everything.”23 Moten also refuses Fichtean and Cartesian subjective dualism, which maintains that the existence of the self precedes and grounds that of the world, which in turn is the kernel of the metaphysical conception of Being that Moten criticises. In fact, Leung clarifies that the core of Moten’s paraontology is that “Being qua anti-​blackness can only be as a negation of blackness itself; without blackness, Being would not be at all because it would no longer exist as ‘anti-​blackness’ –​as the negation and product of blackness.”24 Hence, blackness consists in an absolute nothingness since it constitutes the very concrete and originary moment that allows Being to be. As Leung brilliantly explains, for Moten Being only “is” by virtue of being in an antithetic relation with absolute nothingness; it only exists as “anti-​nothingness” (as anti-​blackness) or

240  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy what Schelling calls “not non-​being” (nicht nicht Seyenden). In other words, Being as anti-​ blackness is always merely relative, whereas blackness qua nothingness is absolute: as if echoing Schelling’s speculative notion of the Absolute, blackness is what Moten calls “the absolute, or absolute nothingness.”25 Moten’s conception of blackness qua absolute nothingness, far from being a nihilist appraisal, refers to a pre-​ontological modality, which in turn implies that blackness qua nothingness can neither be identified nor be subjected to Being. Recalling the Schellingian meaning of sub-​iectum and ob-​iectum, it can be argued that blackness qua nothingness cannot be objectified, namely does not “lie against” Being and cannot be appropriated by Being. Blackness qua nothingness is then the sub-​iectum, that which “lies under” Being, and that which comes into Being without being owned by Being itself, namely without a prior call to identification, recognition, or acknowledgement.26 Although Moten does not use such Schellingian terminology, he firmly criticises both the notion of subject proper of Western metaphysics, and the critical analysis of blackness as a mere object that is possessed by the white subject. In his 2003 work In the Break, Moten writes that “the history of blackness is testament to the fact that objects can and do resist” since such objects have a “dispossessive force”27 through which it affects and modifies the subject. Simply put, Moten clearly subverts the traditional subject–​object paradigm by reiterating the paraontological priority of the object over the subject, namely of nothingness over Being. Hence, I argue that Moten, by subverting the traditional Western ontological discourse, emphasises precisely that which “lies under” subjectivity traditionally understood as self-​conscious being, which fundamentally escapes and precedes such a subjectivity. Moten’s paraontology also aims at “detach[ing] blackness from the question of (the meaning of) being,”28 namely the question “why is there Being rather than nothingness?,” which however assumes a different tone in Moten’s analysis. In fact, by detaching nothingness from such question, Moten is actually questioning the question itself: from his paraontological perspective, the “fundamental question of philosophy” investigates not the fact that there is Being over nothingness, but assumption that there should be Being at the expense of nothingness (typical of traditional Western metaphysics). In other words: why should there be Being and not nothingness? Why should the primacy of nothingness not be acknowledged? In this respect, Moten also aims at decentering the self from philosophical and ontological discourses, whereby the self coincides with the conception of (white) traditional Western metaphysics that culpably “forgets” blackness qua absolute nothingness. Moten rightfully points at the lack of acknowledgement of blackness as the Urgrund of Being, hence his critique indirectly refers to Schelling too. However, it can be argued that the goal

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  241 of both Moten’s paraontology and of Schelling’s immanentist ontology, indeed, is precisely that of understanding the practical extent of human life and freedom, rather than its ultimate metaphysical meaning. Needless to say, this does not mean that Moten actively draws on Schelling, nor that the differences between the two thinkers should be overlooked. Rather, I argue that Moten and Schelling, notwithstanding their differences, share a similar interest in investigating the immanent depths of Being that is in opposition with the transcendentist subjectivism of traditional Western metaphysics. In this context, the notion of resistance plays a crucial role in both thinkers. As mentioned in the paragraph above, Moten argues that objects do resist, namely he provides a paraontological understanding of resistance according to which resistance itself is a fundamental occurrence that pertains to the very originary and primal dimension of ontology. Moreover, Moten also outlines a clear correlation between his paraontological account of resistance and freedom, which emerges in his discussion of Kant’s “politics of curtailment” of imagination. As Moten himself argues in his 2004 essay Knowledge of Freedom, according to Kant an unbridled imagination only produces nonsense, hence a rational regulation of such an activity is required in order to “clip the wings” of imagination and form a sound aesthetic judgement.29 This, according to Moten, also entails “a resistance to that politics that occurs, as it were, before that politics”30 –​that is to say, on a more fundamental paraontological level. More specifically, Such resistance, which might be called a radical politics of the imagination, moves in preparation for the question concerning the law of lawless freedom; but it must be said this question, which is nothing other than the question of the of thought, is here and now inseparable from the racialization and sexualization –​at once phantasmatic and experiential –​of the imagination.31 In this respect, Moten refers to a radically different way of living and of being that “constitutes a resistance that anticipates and makes possible Kantian regulation by way of the instrumentalization to which such resistance is submitted, and which it refuses.”32 Resistance, for Moten, is not that which one encounters in the heteronomy of nature, which in turn opposes “lawless freedom” and actualises it by restricting it. Instead, resistance for Moten is the ontological “nonground” of freedom, a reaffirmation of an original freedom that cannot be restrained by the rational decrees of colonial laws. Precisely because resistance constitutes a way of being that pre-​exists such colonial laws and such “politics of curtailment,” it literally gives them a reason to exist. Hence, Moten reverses Schelling’s discourse around freedom and

242  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy resistance, while maintaining it on a strictly paraontological level: resistance is not in the heteronomy of nature, but rather in the original and fundamental opposition to the heteronomy of the superimposed colonial restrictions –​whose aim is to limit the allegedly lawless freedom of the colonised. Here resistance is still understood as a fundamental ontological occurrence that cannot be separated from freedom, if one is to understand freedom in its concreteness and actuality. However, the difference is that for Moten resistance pertains to the fundamental and original autonomy of a different and alternative way of living and of being, which opposes the superimposed heteronomy of the colonial practice, which in turn entails a form of captivity and domination of the colonised. Moten’s theory also comprises a critical response to Frantz Fanon’s thought. According to Fanon, traditional Western ontology does not account for blackness, if not from the point of view of white people. As Fanon himself puts it in his famous essay “The Fact of Blackness,” Ontology –​once it is finally admitted as leaving existence by the wayside –​does not permit us to understand the being of the black man. For not only must the black man be black; he must be black in relation to the white man. [… Therefore,] The black man has no ontological resistance in the eyes of the white man.33 This is because it is assumed that “[i]‌n the Weltanschauung of a colonized people there is an impurity, a flaw that outlaws any ontological explanation.”34 Accordingly, the black subject has to be understood in its existential reality of subjection to the white coloniser, which in turn is a form of objectification of the black subject that does not allow for any sort of resistance, and categorising blackness as non-​ human or less-​ than-​ human. Hence, the primary aim of liberation of black subjects must be that of ending their objectification and dehumanisation through a new humanism.35 Moten’s criticism of Fanon is that he seems to confuse the objectification of blackness (or the “becoming-​object” of blackness) with what blackness actually is.36 As Moten himself puts it, Fanon’s analysis rests on an “impure, degraded, manufactured (in)human who moves only in response to inclination, whose reflexes lose the name of action.”37 Instead, Moten argues that blackness eludes traditional Western ontology and its quest for the meaning of Being precisely because blackness entails a “constant demand for an ontology of disorder, an ontology of dehiscence”38 –​ that is to say, a paraontology of blackness qua nothingness and as the “nonground” of Being. In this context, not only resistance is an essential and fundamental occurrence, but it also pre-​exists the heteronomy

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  243 of the cogito that restrains the original lawlessness of freedom. Such a lawlessness, however, is only relative to the colonial rule and in fact constitutes nothing but a different way of being, of which resistance is a key component. Concluding on this point, what I am suggesting here is not a comparative reading of Schelling’s and Moten’s conceptions of resistance in its relation to freedom. Rather, I intend to highlight that both Moten and Schelling develop their reflections on resistance as part of an immanentist ontology, with the addition that Moten, in his rightful criticism of traditional Western metaphysics, radicalises and strengthens such an immanentist approach through his paraontological appraisal. Thus, although Moten’s critique of Kant and Heidegger can be applied to Schelling too, it must be acknowledged that Moten and Schelling, in their respective critique of Western subjectivist metaphysics, employ the notion of resistance in a clearly and fundamentally ontological sense in order to develop an understanding of freedom that is not a sheer self-​affirmation of the cogito. Yet, Moten ascribes resistance not to the heteronomy of nature, but to that pre-​ontological condition of the heteronomy of the colonial rule exemplified by the cogito. Another significant contribution highlighting the relevance of Schelling’s ideas in the Postcolonial Critical Theory is that of Pheng Cheah. In his remarkable work Spectral Nationality, he shows how current Postcolonial Theory presents a critical transposition of specific concepts –​especially freedom, resistance, and the organismic conception of the state –​deriving from the Kantian and post-​Kantian tradition –​which obviously includes Schelling. As I have already explained in Chapter 7, Schelling claims that, in order to be actualised, freedom as such must encounter the heteronomy of the natural world, which is understood in organismic terms. As Cheach shows, this also entails an “organismic ontology,” which is also transposed into the political sphere, as opposed to a mechanistic and deterministic understanding of the world.39 In this context, Cheah argues, the Kantian and post-​Kantian concepts of culture and organism “became invaluable for articulating a response to the problem of freedom’s actualization.”40 Therefore, in the modern Western philosophical tradition “culture qua incarnation of human ideals supplies the ontological paradigm of the political because it is purposive activity through which we transcend our finitude and become free.”41 This, Cheah continues, is clearly reflected in current Postcolonial Critical Theory, and especially in the works of Frantz Fanon and Amílcar Cabral –​where resistance plays a crucial role from both a cultural and an ontological perspective. Although Cheah’s main focus is a historical and conceptual analysis of nationalisms in the postcolonial era in its relationship with the Kantian and post-​ Kantian tradition –​and although Schelling is not a central

244  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy figure in Cheah’s argument –​it is worth noting that Cheah connects postcolonial discourses on culture and resistance to post-​Kantian philosophy of freedom resonates with my discussion of freedom as a matter of resistance in Chapter 7. In fact, according to Cheah “Cabral and Fanon attach paramount importance to cultural resistance because culture is the most cogent example of freedom’s self-​actualization and our capacity to transcend finitude.”42 Cabral himself argues that every form of colonialism and imperialism are first and foremost aimed at dominating and eliminating the cultural identity of the colonised people –​thereby eliminating the possibility of resistance itself.43 In this respect, borrowing Cheah’s words again, Cabral argues that “[c]‌ulture is not only the fundamental precondition of the reappropriative process, it is the original source of resistance to colonial domination and precedes and lays the ground for political, economic, and social liberation.”44 In other words, “[b]ecause it ‘acts as a bulwark’ that preserves a people’s identity, culture safeguards the future possibility of freedom.”45 The very ontological core of culture entails a concrete and material way of living and manifestation of being, that the colonial rule aims at eradicating and replacing with the coloniser’s way of living. It is precisely in this process, according to Cabral and Cheah, that resistance emerges as a fundamental occurrence. As Cabral puts it, The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological or idealist plane of the physical and historical reality of the society that is dominated or to be dominated.46 In this respect, “Cheah sees the postcolonial nation as the site in which the potential of culture as a higher form of nature and freedom is fulfilled.”47 That is to say, Cheah insists on the ontological foundation of culture to show precisely that resistance itself is not just a deliberate and political act of opposition to power, but a fully fledged ontological category that connects nature and Being and entails a deeper and inescapable form of opposition to the way of being of the colonising force. It is in this sense that Cheah refers to culture as an expression of freedom’s self-​actualisation and of transcending one’s finitude. Indeed, cultural resistance stands in opposition to the colonising force that “negates life” –​and more specifically the life of the colonised –​and that prevents “the formation of a collective solidarity (national consciousness) through which individuals can transcend their finitude in collective moral work that will overcome the antihuman totalitarian state.”48 Therefore, cultural resistance is the clearest ontological manifestation of a way of being that is not individual but rather a general and collective opposition to a

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  245 superimposed way of being –​that is, it is Widerstand in its very literal meaning of an ontological disposition that arises from the way I am. To put it simply, Cheah’s account of cultural resistance implies a fundamental opposition to the way of being of the colonising power that reflects the way of being of the colonised –​namely that is due to the fact that the colonised could not relate to the way of being that the coloniser violently imposes in any other way. Accordingly, transcending one’s finitude, as Cheah puts it, does not mean to recall a supernatural dimension of Being, but rather to escape the oppressive restrictions that the colonial power imposes on the colonised. Thus, the self-​actualisation of freedom is precisely the immanent process through which cultural resistance reinstates the very concrete way of being of the colonised –​which in turn is naturally opposed to that of the coloniser. Far from arguing that Cheah endorses a Schellingian account of freedom as a matter of resistance, here I simply intend to highlight how Cheah’s analysis acknowledges the very ontological significance of resistance in its relation to freedom, and that such a relation unfolds itself on the level of immanence. However, Cheah does not argue, as Schelling does, that resistance is a necessary delimitation of freedom in order for freedom itself to be actualised. Rather, he maintains that resistance is the ontological manifestation of a way of being that fosters the immanent self-​ actualisation of freedom by escaping the violent constraints of the colonial power by reaffirming a radically different and original way of being. Hence, although Cheah’s discourse is more akin to Moten’s critique of Western metaphysics than to Schelling’s account of freedom as a matter of resistance, there is very little doubt that Schelling’s immanentist ontology provides a very fertile (critical) ground for contemporary Postcolonial Critical Theory. Concluding this section, I now move to briefly discuss the work of Brian Yazzie Burkhart –​which, for the scope of this work, sits at the intersection between Postcolonial Philosophy and Environmental Ethics (which I discuss in the next section of this chapter). In this respect, I am not arguing that Burkhart is influenced by Schelling, nor that he resorts to Schelling’s thought to support or justify his position. Rather, I intend to show how Burkhart’s philosophy, in its critical distance from and opposition to traditional Western metaphysics (thus including Schelling), raises problems that resonate with and radicalise Schelling’s own distancing from transcendentism and subjective dualism. As Kristian Shea Simcox puts it, an encounter between Schelling’s and Burkhart’s respective works “might productively illuminate Schelling’s philosophy […] shining a light on aspects of these works that might guide us in the present toward springs of renewal of human self-​understanding and of our ways of being with the natural world.”49

246  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy In Burkhart’s thought –​and in American Indian philosophy in general, as he clarifies –​ethics and epistemology are strictly and indissolubly intertwined. American Indian Thought, Burkhart argues, relies on specific ideas or principles; however, these ideas or principles do not have a “special philosophical status,” since ideas “are simply ways of being” and “principles are merely abstractions from these ways of being.”50 These principles are: the principle of relatedness, the principle of the limits of questioning, the meaning-​shaping principle of action, and the moral universe principle.51 Precisely because these principles abstractly represent a concrete way of being, their meaning is inherently practical. In fact, the first principle refers to the idea that humans are not isolated and independent agents, but rather we are directly and immediately connected to all the “little things” that surround us –​which in turn also implies that our actions and knowledge are to be always understood as part of the natural world, and not as independent from it. Subsequently, Burkhart explains the second principle by claiming that, just as “how we act impacts the way the world is,” it is the way we ask questions about the world that guides us “to the right answers,” rather than being the truth to guide and orient our epistemological enquiries.52 This implies that “[w]‌e participate in the meaning-​making of the world. There is no world, no truth, without meaning and value, and meaning and value arise in the intersection between us and all that is around us.”53 In other words, “what we do, how we act, is as important as any truth and any fact,” and this constitutes the third principle. This also leads to the fourth principle, according to which “the universe is moral. Facts, truth, meaning, even our existence are normative. In this way, there is no difference between what is true and what is right.”54 Here, Burkhart is not arguing that there is a transcendent God that constitutes a supernatural moral world-​order, but rather that the morality of the universe coincides precisely with an immanent and concrete way of being in the world as part of the immanent living unity of things. As I have shown in §7.2, Schelling claims that which is and that which ought to be coincide, which in turn entails that our way of being in the world primarily implies a fundamental ethical (cor)relation with the heteronomy of nature. Moreover, Schelling also firmly rejects the idea of God as the guarantor of a transcendent moral world-​order (as I discussed in the Introduction and in §1.1): God is the immanent living unity of everything that exists, hence there can be no moral principle that precedes or overrides such a unity. In his theoretical originality and independence from Schelling’s thought, it seems clear that Burkhart approaches the problems of knowledge and ethics from an immanentist perspective, hence rejecting any transcendentist account that would give the abovementioned principles of philosophy a supernatural reality independent of the way of being that such principles

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  247 signify. Moreover, borrowing Simcox’s words again, on the one hand for Burkhart freedom and knowledge are always communal, interdependent on the others and on the natural world, “rather than a pursuit undertaken by an autonomous subject;”55 on the other hand, he emphasises that for Schelling The individual relies on something aside from itself for its coming into being (as that which it is), but this does not preclude the possibility of its self-​determination. Moreover, the individual is thinkable only in relation to the whole, but at the same time is thinkable as individuated only in distinction from the whole.56 Yet, it is important to point out that Burkhart, while criticising Western subjective dualism, does not replace the I as principle of knowledge with the Absolute as the point of indifference of objectivity (nature) and subjectivity (the I) –​as that would also be a form of metaphysical abstraction. Instead, Burkhart replaces the Cartesian cogito with “ ‘We are, therefore I am’.” Indeed, he clarifies that A Native [American] philosophical understanding must include all experience, not simply my own. If I am to gain a right understanding I must account for all that I see, but also all that you see and all that has been seen by others –​all that has been passed down in stories.57 Therefore, “we” –​in the very concrete sense of the vast network of which one is part and which includes the others and the natural world –​ comes before and grounds the individual experiences and knowledge of the I. In his 2019 book Indigenizing Philosophy Through the Land, Burkhart introduces another key concept that further clarifies the immanentist appraisal of his philosophy. This concept is that of “locality,” which he defines as “being-​from-​the-​land and knowing-​from-​the-​land,” namely as the fact that “being, meaning, and knowing are rooted in the land.”58 That being the case, Burkhart claims that the fundamental task of philosophy is not that of finding the meaning of life, namely a transcendent and eternally fixed sense of purpose towards which we should aim and strive. Rather, the fundamental question of all philosophical enterprises –​ that he borrows from Vine Deloria –​is “what is the right road for humans to walk?”59 Such a question, Burkhart maintains, effectively shifts from the anthropocentric perspective typical of Western philosophy and gives a central value to the non-​ human and more-​ than-​ human world. As Burkhart himself puts it, it is “from my perspective as a human being in locality that I must decide what to do, to figure out what is right and what

248  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy is wrong.”60 In other words, the only way for us as humans to “figure out what is right and what is wrong” is to acknowledge the fundamental interconnectedness of every existing thing –​namely to redefine our place within nature. Indeed, “[i]‌f it is not from my place in the universe that I determine what to do, one is hard-​pressed to imagine what place it would be.”61 Here, Burkhart also resorts to the notion of resistance, which he uses with a strongly ontological connotation, in continuity with his ethics and epistemology of locality. In fact, Burkhart argues that Western philosophy is a thought of “delocality,” whose “false universality” consists in a fully fledged form of abstractions that does not account for the rootedness of human knowers and agents to the land.62 To put it simply, delocality implies a form of transcendence based on allegedly ideal and universal concepts that do not account for the concreteness of any way of being. Delocality is also the core of the colonial narrative and domination, which tries to universalise and impose a necessarily localised worldview (i.e., that of the West –​and of Europe in particular) to Indigenous peoples and lands to whom it appears as arbitrary, abstract, and contradictory. In this context, resistance is presented as an expression of epistemic locality, which “seeks to disrupt the narrative of colonial difference through locality [… by] resituating thinking in locality.”63 Resistance is then presented by Burkhart in a clearly ontological and immanentist sense, as it serves precisely to “relocate” being, thought and freedom where they belong. Freedom, then, is not to be understood, as per the traditional Western and colonial understanding, as something that seeks its (self)actualisation and liberation from the constraints of ignorance and of the natural world. As Burkhart puts it, Modern Western philosophy seeks freedom from bondage, or what Kant calls “Ausgang” (a way out) from “unmundig” (a state of being unfree). It seeks, for humanity, a way out of doubt, a way out of immaturity. It seeks to actualize something, some sense of itself, of subjectivity, of humanity, and of European-​ness.64 This critique can also be applied to Schelling, whose understanding of freedom also relies on the necessity of a constraint in order for freedom itself to become actual and concrete. Burkhart, instead, sees such an understanding of freedom as inherently contradictory and as “ultimately […] actualizing dependence,”65 since it poses freedom as conceivable only if there is an original unfreedom. Simply put, Western and colonial freedom can be conceived (and actualised) only “through human subjectivity in the form of human reason.”66 However, this practically entails that “freedom

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  249 for the civilized is then the freedom to dominate through the coloniality of power, and freedom for the savage is the freedom to be dominated by the coloniality of power.”67 Conversely, through epistemic locality, freedom is no longer understood as the highest form of self-​actualisation of human subjectivity and reason; rather, freedom is such only if collectively held as part of the interconnectedness of all living things. Resistance, then, becomes an ontological condition not for the actualisation of freedom in individual terms, but to oppose the colonial subjectivist and individualist conception of freedom –​namely to oppose the unrestricted self-​affirmation of the European subject at the expense of the colonised Indigenous subject. The ontological value and meaning of resistance is then precisely that of challenging Western anthropocentrism and to relocate the subject as part of the natural world and as connected with others –​ hence harmonising freedom itself with that which surrounds us, instead of conceiving freedom as a means to dominate that which is around us. This critique of Western subjectivism and anthropocentrism has obvious consequences for environmental ethics too: indeed, Burkhart outlines an environmental ethics “without values” and “values without Anthropocentrism,” by which he aims at removing the typically Western distinction between intrinsic value and instrumental value, and acknowledging that human beings should not be identified as the focal point of ethical values and theories. In this respect, all living things have value as such, to the point that the very notion of value (be it intrinsic or instrumental) loses its meaning once we no longer see it under the light of Western anthropocentrism.68 I return to Environmental Ethics in the next section of this chapter. However, what I discussed so far is enough to show that, although Burkhart –​just as Moten, Cheah, and Cabral –​is rightfully critical of the Western philosophical tradition (and indirectly of Schelling), some of the problematics that Schelling addressed in his philosophical activity resonate with their work. In this respect, I concur with Simcox’s statement that Schelling “has challenged [traditional Western philosophy] from within, and thus offered possibilities for thinking in the wake of its dominance.”69 In other words, it is clear that Schelling’s ontological understanding of resistance in its relation to freedom, as well as his conception of the task of philosophy as that of repositioning the self within nature, clearly offers (although often indirectly) a significant input and critical target to Postcolonial Critical Theory and Postcolonial Philosophy. In the next section, I show how Schelling’s philosophy also provides a major (and this time direct) contribution to contemporary debates in Environmental Ethics.

250  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy 8.3  Rethinking the Human–​Nature Relationship: Schelling’s Proto-​Pragmatist Environmental Ethics In recent times, Schelling’s thought, and his Naturphilosophie in particular, has gained increasing traction in the field of Environmental Ethics.70 For instance, Dalia Nassar presents Schelling’s philosophy as an “ethics for the transition,”71 arguing that “Schelling offers insight into how philosophy ought to transform itself if it is to respond to a moment of crisis –​a moment which is tied to our (apparent) inability to act in the present for an unknown future.”72 Hence, Nassar suggests, Schelling’s philosophy entails a deep sense of responsibility towards both the present and the future –​since the way we act in the present will inevitably influence and shape the future. Against the background of the current environmental crisis, which “implies a future that is beyond any current conceptions of what has been, and […] demands that we resist assigning the modal category of necessity to the future,” Schelling provides us with “a way of thinking that can grapple with what is not necessary, with what cannot be fully determined.”73 For Schelling, Nassar writes, philosophy must “measure up to life,”74 which means facing up the openness and uncertainty of the future by acting ethically in the present moment. However, this also means, according to Nassar, that we refrain from imagining inevitable apocalyptic futures and begin to pay more attention to the present moment, namely to what is before us, as a way to shape a future that is yet-​to-​be-​determined. In this respect, “Schelling’s claim is that philosophy cannot be concerned with reality if it is solely concerned with achieving knowledge through a priori derivation.”75 That is, if philosophy focuses only on what is logically or rationally necessary (as negative philosophy does) –​namely on “that which cannot be otherwise” –​then philosophy itself loses sight of actuality –​namely of that which “can be otherwise.”76 As Nassar herself puts it, Philosophy’s focus on necessity and possibility –​rather than actuality –​ is significant not only in terms of what kind of knowledge it can deliver, but also what kind of action it can inspire. When projected onto the present or the future, the necessary becomes what will have to be –​the paradoxical “necessary future” of the future perfect.77 Such an approach is paradoxical because it over-​determines both the present and the future –​namely things are the way they are and will have to be in a certain way, leaving no room for alternative paths and reimagined futures in which not all things must tend towards human ends. Hence, “an ethics for transition must offer an alternative that is sensitive to these temporal dimensions of thought and their implications for action.”78

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  251 In this context, Nassar continues, Schelling’s positive philosophy effectively provides such an alternative by focusing on the contingency of things, and not simply on the “a priori conditions of possibility” and on “mere necessity.”79 It is precisely this philosophical approach that allows us to better focus on the actuality of the present and less on allegedly predetermined future apocalyptic scenarios –​as the future remains fundamentally contingent, open, unknown and unknowable. Nassar then concludes that Although the content of the future can only remain open, our own sense of responsibility is heightened –​such that we are no longer merely contemplating what has already been and cannot be otherwise, but rather, we are co-​determining the present and the future. An ethics for the transition must, therefore, emphasize both the openness of the future and our deep responsibility to engage with what can be otherwise.80 In other words, since “any attempt to grasp (determine) [the future] will fail,”81 we must direct our efforts and attention to the present moment and make sure that we act in ways that allow nature to run its course free of human interference –​so to speak. This very practical mission of philosophy resonates with Nassar’s analysis of romantic empiricism and its significance in light of the current climate crisis. Borrowing from Val Plumwood, Nassar claims that the current climate crisis is “a crisis of reason […] that is inextricably connected to the concepts and frameworks we use in order to understand the natural world and our place within it.”82 Hence, the romantic empiricist tradition (to which Schelling arguably contributed) challenges traditional Western anthropocentrism and replaces its core notions with an organicist and biocentric perspective. Indeed, while the anthropocentric tradition and its subsequent conception of the human being as the undisputed master of nature is “the source of our problematic behaviors toward the more-​than-​human world,” it follows that “their replacement with better concepts should have transformative effects on our behaviors”83 –​highlighting the very practical function of this conceptual replacement. In this respect, I agree with Nassar’s reading that Schelling’s philosophy entails a call for action and a practical form of environmental ethics –​with the caveat that such a reading should be a proto-​pragmatist one, and not proto-​existentialist. Here it is useful to recall that contingency, for the late Schelling, does not mean that everything is accidental and precarious, but that everything is subject to Becoming and to change. Even the free act through which God comes into existence in and with the world is a free and contingent one, meaning that it is not predetermined nor necessitated by external factors. However, this does not mean that God could have

252  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy actually chosen otherwise –​namely, Schelling postulates both a contingent necessity, since the world came into being due to God’s free act, and a necessary contingency, which is not mere chance but the actual facticity of God’s existence. God is then necessarily the necessary Being, and nothingness could never have been chosen over Being. Thus, the openness of the future does not imply that the future itself will be shaped by merely accidental factors that transcend humanity as such, but that we, as human beings and as parts of the productive system of nature, play an active role in shaping what will be of nature in the future. Jason Wirth’s definition of “practice of the wild” is quite useful here. Wirth claims that for Schelling nature should not be conceived of as “a dead object under the control and interests of the human subject,”84 but rather as a living entity that “holds together organically the living and dying of living things and the coming and going of nonliving things.”85 In this sense, the wild is not to be understood as a synonym for a chaotic, disordered and lawless state of Being, as opposed to the tame, ordered, and lawful modern life.86 Instead, “[t]‌he wild is at the dark ground of the tame [… and] is the free or sovereign progress of the necessary, the creative life of the world. It is the self-​organizing, self-​unfolding, self-​originating, middle voice of nature.”87 Hence, Schelling’s practice of the wild consists neither in “going back to the wilderness” and rejecting the modern condition of “ordered life,” nor in conceiving the wild as a hostile and lawless system that is opposed to the inherent lawfulness of human nature. Rather, such a practice consists in acknowledging “that the universal life of things is at the same time the particular life of the individual”88 without however embracing vitalism nor postulating the existence of some transcendent life force. In turn, this means that one can only be and act as part of the universal life of nature and its “sovereign process of the necessary,” and not independently from it –​which resonates with my discussion of freedom as a matter of resistance in Chapter 7. The notion of wild has been fruitfully employed in contemporary debates in Environmental Ethics. For instance, Ned Hettinger and Bill Throop, in their 1999 essay “Refocusing Ecocentrism,” argue that “wildness provides the most promising general strategy for defending ecocentric ethics.”89 That is, a viable ecocentric environmental ethics –​namely that regards natural ecosystems as intrinsically valuable –​“should shift the emphasis away from integrity and stability toward other intrinsically valuable features of natural systems, such as diversity, complexity, creativity, beauty, fecundity, and wildness.”90 In this context, “wild” does not mean “chaotic,” “fierce,” or “uncontrollable,” but rather –​as Schelling would put it –​refers precisely to nature’s autoproductive kernel. In fact, if we adopt the standpoint of ecological stability, when the original stability and balance of a natural system is disturbed or modified, the natural system

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  253 tends to return to the stability it had prior to that disturbance. Hence, “because nature tends towards these states absent human intervention, the ethic based on this normative ecological paradigm warrants preserving ecosystems intact, limiting human impacts, and restoring nature after human degradation.”91 However, this would imply a static and predetermined –​if not transcendent –​conception of nature that allows for nothing more than a contemplative relationship with humans. Instead, “[v]‌aluing the wild acknowledges that limits to human mastery and domination of the world are imperative,”92 but does not imply, it could be added from a Schellingian standpoint, that humans are merely contemplative agents whose scope is to maintain an original and inviolable natural status. In more recent times, Antoine C. Dussault has provided a similar objection of the notion of wilderness –​not to be confused with wildness –​as a “concept of nature and the associated approach to environmentalism which focuses on the preservation of areas of land free of human intervention.”93 Although Dussault is approaching this issue from an Aristotelian and not a Schellingian standpoint, he maintains that a notion of nature that is based on the dualist distinction between what is natural and what is cultural and/​or artificial is deficient because it “places humans outside the natural realm.”94 Hence, the focus of a proper ecological discourse in environmental ethics should be that of redefining our place within the natural realm. As Dussault himself puts it, “[a]‌lienation from the ecological world is not inherent to the notion of culture. Being alienated from nature is a question of the content of a culture, not about its being a culture per se.”95 Indeed, we should acknowledge that “in the last few centuries, the world’s dominant culture [namely the Western one] has propagated an ecologically unsound way of life,”96 and that what is needed at this stage is to reject the typically Western dualism between nature and culture and nature and human, and restore the humankind’s place as an active and self-​aware part of the natural world. This clearly resonates with that which Schelling considers the main task of philosophy, namely that of seeking the actual extent and place of life, and specifically of human life and freedom within nature and Being –​as I already explained in §8.1. Moreover, Schelling’s approach to the human–​nature relationship, far from being a merely contemplative one, is a very active and practical one. That is, I argue that Schelling theorises an environmental ethics that entails neither a non-​ human biocentrism nor a non-​ naturalist anthropocentrism97 –​rather, since the human being is a product of nature, this allows us to develop an ecologically informed account of human agency that can merge the productivity of nature and the human capacity of freedom. As Michael O’Neill Burns puts it, “Schelling offers a call to rigorously think the generative capacity of nature, and the natural grounds of human

254  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy subjectivity and freedom.”98 Hence, Schelling’s position emphasises the interconnectedness, interdependence, and interrelationship of humans and nature, which in turn implies that human beings are not the centre of such relationship, but rather part of a natural ecosystem in which all parts are interrelated beyond merely human scopes. However, this does not entail a passive account of the human–​nature relationship, in which we are just supposed to sit back and let nature run its course while limiting our interference with it as much as possible. Rather, Schelling maintains that, precisely because we exist within nature and are a part of a whole natural ecosystem, we relate to nature in a practical way by proactively participating, interacting, modifying, and interfering with nature itself –​and in return nature interacts, modifies, and interferes with us. Already in his Philosophical Letters, Schelling wrote that “[a]‌s long as man remains in the realm of nature he is master [Herr] of nature, in the most proper sense of the word, just as he can be master of himself.”99 However, the notion of “master” here is not used to endorse an anthropocentric view which aims at subjugating nature itself to human goals and values. Instead, Schelling is referring here to how “human nature” is expressed in Greek tragedy: in fact, our “mastery” over nature (and of ourselves) is there as long as we represent the natural world as an object in our minds, namely as long as we arbitrarily impose specific limits and boundaries to it. However, “as soon as [the human being] himself has strayed beyond the limit of representation, he finds himself lost. The terrors of the objective world befall him.”100 The alleged absolute and unrestricted mastery over nature, then, is challenged by the very existence of nature as an autoproductive entity. On the one hand, this highlights once again that a subjectivist, dualist, and anthropocentric view is fallacious and unviable, but on the other hand it also maintains that human freedom and agency are possible only within nature and in relation with all of the other parts of the natural ecosystem. As Schelling himself puts it in his Freiheitsschrift, the human being is “the redeemer [Erlöser] of nature,” whereby he means that the human being is the saviour of nature (the German Erlöser means precisely “saviour” and “redeemer” in a markedly Biblical sense) precisely because her way of being is that of being part of nature and not above nor separate from it. In turn, this entails a proto-​pragmatist environmental ethics aimed at “establishing and stewarding a healthy human–​environment relationship.”101 This approach is both ontological and ethical, not because it prescribes a set of moral duties towards nature and the environment, but because it denotes a fully fledged way of being and redefines the scope and extent human freedom and agency within nature. In other words, nature has (also) an ethical meaning not because it entails a transcendent and immutable moral law, but rather because it constitutes a system of life

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  255 of which we are part and which we should preserve.102 As Alex Savory-​ Levine puts it, In a system, the interrelation of parts produces an organization that facilitates the continued interrelation of these parts. Implied in the very concept of the system is its complement, with the boundary of the system serving to demarcate the two. The system’s parts, namely the concepts of God, man, and world structure the whole but also relate to one another while relating to the system’s complement, nature. It is the human mind that is the boundary between Schelling’s system and nature. Not only does the organization of the system facilitate the interrelation of its parts, it facilitates the continued interrelation of the parts of nature by means of the workings of the mind. It is for this reason that the system is ecological in the strongest sense.103 In a system, not only parts constantly interact with and modify each other, but it is only through this interaction within the system that human freedom can occur. It is precisely in this sense that the transition between philosophy of nature and environmental ethics occurs. In his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, Schelling argued that philosophy is nothing but a work of freedom through which we deliberately break the original unity of the principles only in order for it to be restored,104 whereas freedom is defined both as a matter of resistance105 and (in the Freiheitsschrift) as the capacity of good and evil,106 implies opposing to that craving for selfhood and selfishness that is evil. In other words, just as evil implies acting selfishly against the unity of the principles, it could be argued that one actualises and realises evil when one’s actions are not in conformity with the vital unity of the whole (namely of the natural ecosystem). Hence, far from resulting into a contemplative account of the human–​nature relationship, human agency is primarily and implicitly ecologically oriented, due to our very place within nature. Borrowing Woodard’s words again, Schelling acknowledges that “life-​ forms change their environments; they redraw, albeit superficially (in the context of the depths of nature), that which conditions their embodied freedom.”107 Yet, Schelling does not endorse that form of Cartesian thought which, as Val Plumwood describes it, “declares non-​ human nature terra nullius, uninhabited by mind, totally available for annexation, a sphere easily moulded to the ends of a reason conceived as without limits.”108 Indeed, although Plumwood is not a Schellingian, there is very little doubt that for Schelling nature is not a mere object which we can subjugate through our subjective reason and unrestricted freedom. Schelling himself critically claims that “[t]‌he entire new European philosophy since its beginning (with Descartes) has the common defect that

256  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy nature is not available for it and that it lacks a living ground,”109 hence opposing the very anthropocentric notion of unbridled human mastery over nature that Plumwood criticises. Hence, human beings are the “redeemers” of nature not because they dominate and control it, but because they preserve the unity of the whole by acting in accordance with their place as parts of the natural ecosystem –​namely in accordance with the rethinking of the place and function of human life within nature, which I have identified as the main task of philosophy for Schelling. A Schellingian environmental ethics is then one that is based on a radical repositioning of the self and entails a way of being, instead of establishing moral rules for action or merely promoting individual virtues.110 This is undoubtedly an original and fruitful approach, since once we redefine the purpose of philosophy not as that of seeking for the meaning of human life, but rather its practical function within nature, then this leaves enough room for us to intervene in the ecological crisis without the pretending to be above or in control of nature –​but also without renouncing action in the name of an alleged original purity and inherent stability of the natural ecosystems. Far from having the final say on the ongoing debates on the human–​nature relationship, Schelling’s philosophy provides us with a very valuable environmentally ethical approach that enables us to face the unprecedented threats of the current climate crisis through a renewed and practical understanding of the necessary and mutual participation, interdependence, and interaction between human beings and nature. Schelling teaches us that we can only be –​and be free –​as parts of nature, and that nature can only survive the current ecological crisis if we “redeem” it by driving it out of the crisis. Notes 1 Matthews, Life as Schema of Freedom, 9. 2 On this point, see again Bubbio and Fulvi, “Immanence in Schelling and Hegel,” 356–​62. 3 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, 215n1. 4 Sean J. McGrath, “On the Difference Between Schelling and Hegel,” in Rethinking German Idealism, edited by Sean J. McGrath and Joseph Carew (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 267. 5 On this point, see Maurizio Ferraris, Sum ergo Cogito. Schelling and the Positive Realism, in Nature and Realism in Schelling’s Philosophy, 187–​201. 6 Andrew Bowie, “Translator’s Introduction” to Schelling, History of Modern Philosophy, 8. 7 See above, §6.1. 8 Woodard, Schelling’s Naturalism, 191. 9 Ibid., 195.

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  257 10 On this, see Paul Franks, “Peirce’s ‘Schelling-​ Fashioned Idealism’ and ‘the Monstrous Mysticism of the East’,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23 (4-​2015): 732–​55. 11 Matthews, Life as Schema of Freedom, 9. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., 10. 14 Elaine P. Miller, “ʻThe World Must be Romanticised …ʼ: The (Environmental) Ethical Implications of Schelling’s Organic Worldview,” Environmental Values 14 (2005): 298. 15 See above, §1.4. 16 Fred Moten, “Blackness and Nothingness (Mysticism in the Flesh),” The South Atlantic Quarterly 112 (4/​2013): 742. 17 Ibid., 741–​2. 18 Ibid., 739. 19 Ibid. 20 See King-​ Ho Leung, “Nothingness without Reserve: Fred Moten contra Heidegger, Sartre, and Schelling,” Comparative and Continental Philosophy (2022): 7–​9. https://​doi.org/​10.1080/​17570​638.2022.2091​971 21 PI, 69: SW, I, 7, 406. See also my discussion in §4.2. 22 Leung, “Nothingness without Reserve,” 9. 23 Ibid. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. For Moten’s definition of blackness as “the absolute, or absolute nothingness,” see “Blackness and Nothingness,” 751. 26 On this point, see also Stephen Best, None Like Us: Blackness, Belonging, Aesthetic Life (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018), 11ff. 27 Fred Moten, In the Break The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2003), 1. 28 Moten, “Blackness and Nothingness,” 750. 29 See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgement, translated by James Creed Meredith; revised, edited, and introduced by Nicholas Walker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 148ff. 30 Fred Moten, “Knowledge of Freedom,” CR: The New Centennial Review 14 (2/​2004): 269. 31 Ibid., 270–​1. 32 Ibid., 270. 33 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, translated by Charles Lam Markmann, Forewords by Ziauddin Sardar and Homi K. Bhabha (London: Pluto Press, 1986), 82. 34 Ibid. 35 On this point, see Tendayi Sithole, “The Concept of the Black Subject in Fanon,” Journal of Black Studies 47 (1/​2016): 24–​40. 36 See David Marriot, “Judging Fanon,” Rhizomes 29 (2016), https://​doi.org/​ 10.20415/​rhiz/​029.e03 37 Fred Moten, “The Case of Blackness,” Criticism 50 (2/​2008): 186–​7. 38 Ibid., 187.

258  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy 39 See Pheng Cheah, Spectral Nationality: Passages of Freedom from Kant to Postcolonial Literatures of Liberation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 19–​20. 40 Ibid., 37. 41 Ibid., 7. 42 Ibid., 237. 43 See Amílcar Cabral, “National Liberation and Culture,” in Colonial Discourse and Post-​Colonial Theory. A Reader, edited and introduced by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman (London and New York: Routledge, 1994), 53–​65. 44 Cheah, Spectral Nationality, 216. 45 Ibid., 217. 46 Cabral, “National Liberation,” 54. 47 Simon Gikandi, “Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Nationalism,” Clio 36 (1/​2006): 82–​3. 48 Cheah, Spectral Nationality, 312. 49 Kristian Shea Simcox, “Renewal and return to the Center: Schelling, Emerson, and Native American Thought,” Cosmos and History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy 17 (1/​2021): 197. 50 Brian Yazzie Burkhart, “What Coyote and Thales Can Teach Us: An Outline of American Indian Epistemology,” in American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays, edited by Anna Waters (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004), 16. 51 See ibid., 16–​17; see also Simcox, 197–​8. 52 Burkhart, “Coyote and Thales,” 16. 53 Ibid., 16–​17. 54 Ibid., 17. 55 Simcox, “Renewal,” 198. 56 Ibid., 207. 57 Burkhart, “Coyote and Thales,” 25–​6. 58 Brian Yazzie Burkhart, Indigenizing Philosophy Through the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2019), xiv. 59 See ibid., 216. See also Burkhart, “Coyote and Thales,” 17. 60 Burkhart, Indigenizing Philosophy, 216. 61 Ibid. 62 See ibid., 48ff. 63 Ibid., 50. 64 Ibid., 10. 65 Ibid., 11. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid., 10. 68 Needless to say, Burkhart’s analysis is way more nuanced and complex than the way I presented it here –​where I am only considering those elements that are more relevant to the purpose of this work. See ibid., 177–​221. 69 Simcox, “Renewal,” 197.

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  259 70 A good example of this is the special issue of Environment, Space, Place published in 2022 and entirely devoted to Schelling’s environmental thought. See Environment, Space, Place 14 (1/​2022). 71 Dalia Nassar, “An ‘Ethics for the Transition’: Schelling’s Critique of Negative Philosophy and Its Significance for Environmental Thought,” in Schelling’s Philosophy, 232. Nassar admittedly borrows this definition from Stephen M. Gardiner, who defines “ethics for the transition” as an ethics able to “successfully muddle through in the absence of a compelling grand vision.” (quoted in ibid., 232; see also Stephen M. Gardiner, “Environmental midwifery and the need for an ethics of the transition: a quick riff on the future of environmental ethics,” Ethics & the Environment 12 (2/​2007): 122–​3). 72 Nassar, “Ethics for the Transition,” 234. 73 Ibid., 246. 74 SW II, 3, 11; quoted in Nassar, “Ethics for the Transition,” 235. 75 Nassar, “Ethics for the Transition,” 236. 76 Ibid., 237. 77 Ibid., 237–​8. 78 Ibid., 233. 79 Ibid., 238. 80 Ibid., 247. 81 Ibid. 82 Dalia Nassar, Romantic Empiricism: Nature, Art, and Ecology from Herder to Humboldt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 245. Italics mine. 83 Ibid., 246. 84 Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, xii. 85 Ibid., xiii. 86 Philip Cafaro discusses wildness in these terms, namely as “biological nature’s freedom from domination by human beings,” in turn operating a dualist distinction between the wild and the tame –​hence implying that “men and women can be free; birds and beasts, swamps and forests, can be wild.” Although this definition is diametrically opposed to that of Wirth (and of Schelling), I think it is important to mention it in order to highlight the relevance of the notion of wildness in contemporary debates in Environmental Ethics. See Philip Cafaro, “Valuing Wild Nature,” in The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics, edited by Stephen M. Gardiner and Allen Thompson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 125–​34 (the quotes in this note are from p. 125). 87 Ibid., xiii–​xiv. 88 SW, I, 2, 371; quoted in Wirth, Schelling’s Practice of the Wild, xiii. 89 Ned Hettinger and Bill Throop, “Refocusing Ecocentrism,” Environmental Ethics 21 (1999): 12. 90 Ibid. 91 Ibid., 6. 92 Ibid., 13. 93 Antoine C. Dussault, “Ecological Nature: A Non-​ Dualistic Concept for Rethinking Humankind’s Place in the World,” Ethics & the Environment 21 (1/​2016): 1.

260  The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid., 24. 96 Ibid., 25. 97 While a detailed discussion of these positions would exceed the scope of this work, it is worth pointing out that one of the central debates in Environmental Ethics is between those who defend an anthropocentric position and those who advocate for non-​anthropocentric approaches (e.g., biocentric or ecocentric approaches). In defense of anthropocentrism, William Grey has argued that, while it can be useful for the purposes of environmental ethics to step outside the human perspective and experiences, denying and getting rid of human values and interests is unhelpful for ethical action, if not a chimeric and impossible standpoint to assume –​see William Grey, “Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (1999): 463–​75). A clear explanation and defence of biocentrism (which is often used as a synonym with ecocentrism), understood as an ethics that inherently values and respects life in all its forms and beyond the mere human scope, is provided by Holmes Rolston III in his A New Environmental Ethics: the Next Millennium for Life on Earth (New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2012), 110ff. On this point, see also Allen Thompson, “Anthropocentrism: Humanity as Peril and Promise,” in The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics, 77–​90. Finally, scholars such as William P. Sterba and Brian K. Steverson proposed a “middle ground” for anthropocentric and non-​anthropocentric environmental ethics, since all these positions imply the same practical requirements, namely a similar set of principles aimed at preserving human life as well as that of natural ecosystems –​see James P. Sterba, “Reconciling Anthropocentric and Nonanthropocentric Environmental Ethics,” in Environmental Ethics, edited by Michael Boylan (Malden, MA: Wiley-​Blackwell, 2014), 163–​75, and also Brian K. Steverson, “On the Reconciliation of Anthropocentric and Nonanthropocentric Environmental Ethics,” 176–​86 of the same volume. 98 Michael O’Neill Burns, “Vitality or Weakness? On the Place of Nature in Recent Materialist Philosophy,” Angelaki 21 (4/​2016): 20. 99 PL, 193; SW, I, 1, 337. 100 Ibid. 101 Ben A. Minteer, “Environmental Ethics, Sustainability Science, and the Recovery of Pragmatism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics, 535. 102 On the role of nature as source of ethics and values, which is referred to in the scholarship as “biomimicry” and “biomimetic ethics,” see Henry Dicks, “Environmental Ethics and Biomimetic Ethics: Nature as Object of Ethics and Nature as Source of Ethics,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 30 (2017): 255–​74. 103 Alex Savory-​Levine, “Man Is the Redeemer of Nature: An Interpretation of Schelling’s On Human Freedom,” Idealistic Studies 42 (1-​2012): 16–​17. 104 See above, §1.4. 105 See above, §7.4 106 See above, §1.3.

The Legacy of Schelling’s Philosophy in Contemporary Debates  261 07 Woodard, Schelling’s Naturalism, 104. 1 108 Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 192. 109 PI, 26; SW, I, 7, 356. 110 In fact, virtue ethics essentially maintains the form of anthropocentrism that Schelling vehemently opposes. However, in recent times, some scholars have argued that virtue ethics, despite its anthropocentric core, can be a valuable resource to foster both human and non-​human flourishing. See Dominika Dzwonkowska, “Is Environmental Virtue Ethics Anthropocentric?,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (2018): 723–​38.

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(a) Schelling’s Works in German Einleitung in die Philosophie. Schellingiana, Band 1, edited by W.E. Ehrhardt. Stuttgart: Frommann-​Holzboog, 1989. Grundlegung der Positiven Philosophie: Münchner Vorlesung WS 1832/​33 und SS 1833. Torino: Bottega d’Erasmo, 1972. Sämmtliche Werke. 14 volumes, edited by K.F.A. Schelling. Stuttgart: Cotta, 1860.

(b) English Editions of Schelling’s Works The Ages of the World. Translated and with an introduction by J.M. Wirth. Albany: SUNY Press, 2000. Correspondence (1800–​1802). In The Philosophical Rupture between Fichte and Schelling: Selected Texts and Correspondence (1800–​1802), edited by M. Vater and D. Wood, 21–​75. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012. Further Presentations from the System of Philosophy (1802). Translated by M. Vater. Philosophical Forum 23, no. 4 (2001): 339–​71. The Grounding of Positive Philosophy: The Berlin Lectures. Translated and with an introduction by B. Matthews. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. Historical-​Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology. Translated by M. Richey and M. Zisselsberger. Foreword by J.M. Wirth. Albany: SUNY Press, 2007. Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature as Introduction to the Study of This Science, edited by E. Harris, P. Heat, and R. Stern. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. On the History of Modern Philosophy. Edited and translated by Andrew Bowie. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. “On the Relationship of the Philosophy of Nature to Philosophy in General.” In Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-​Kantian Idealism, edited by George di Giovanni and H.S. Harris, 363–​82. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2000. “On the True Concept of Philosophy of Nature and the Correct Way of Solving Its Problems.” In The Schelling-​Eschenmayer Controversy, edited by Benjamin

Bibliography  263 Berger and Daniel Whistler, translations by Judith Kahl and Daniel Whistler, 46–​63. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. On University Studies. Translated by E.S. Morgan, edited by N. Guterman. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1966. Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom. Translated and with an introduction by J. Love and J. Schmidt. Albany: SUNY Press, 2010. Philosophy and Religion. Translated, annotated, and with an introduction by Klaus Ottmann. Putnam, CT: Spring, 2010. Presentation of My System of Philosophy (1801). In J.G. Fichte and F.W.J. Schelling, The Philosophical Rupture between Fichte and Schelling: Selected Texts and Correspondence (1800–​1802), edited by M. Vater and D. Wood, 339–​ 71. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012. “Schelling’s Answer to Eschenmayer (1812) [The Letter to Eschenmayer].” Translated and with commentary by C. Lauer and J.M. Wirth. In Schelling’s Practice of the Wild: Time, Art, Imagination, 173–​96. Albany: SUNY Press, 2015. “Stuttgart Seminars (1810).” In Idealism and the Endgame of Theory. Three Essays by F.W.J. Schelling. Translated and Edited with a Critical Introduction by Thomas Pfau, 195–​243. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. System of Transcendental Idealism. Translated by P. Heath. Edited by M. Vater. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993. The Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays, 1794–​6, edited by F. Marti. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 1980.

(c) Other Works Referenced Alderwick, Charlotte. “Atemporal Essence and Existential Freedom in Schelling,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23, no. 1 (2015): 115–​37. —​—​—​. Schelling’s Ontology of Powers. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021. Baard, Rachel Sophia. “Tillich and Feminism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich, edited by Russel Re Manning, 273–​87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Baum, Manfred. “The Beginnings of Schelling’s Philosophy of Nature.” In The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, edited by Sally Sedgwick, 199–​215. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Beach, Edward Allan. The Potencies of God(s). Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology. Albany: SUNY Press, 1994. Bech, Josep Maria. “Être brut or Nature.” In The Barbarian Principle. Merleau-​ Ponty, Schelling, and the Question of Nature, edited by Jason M. Wirth with Patrick Burke, 149–​86. Albany: SUNY Press, 2013. Beiser, Frederick C. German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781–​ 1801. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. —​—​—​. The Romantic Imperative: The Concept of Early German Romanticism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004. —​—​—​. The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 2009.

264  Bibliography Benso, Silvia and Brian Schroeder (eds.). Thinking the Inexhaustible: Art, Interpretation, Freedom in the Philosophy of Luigi Pareyson, foreword by Dennis Schmidt. Albany: SUNY Press, 2018. Berger, Benjamin and Daniel Whistler. The Schelling-​Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801: Nature and Identity. Translations by Judith Kahl and Daniel Whistler. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2020. Berkeley, Richard. Coleridge and the Crisis of Reason. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. Bernstein, Richard. Radical Evil: A Philosophical Investigation. Cambridge: Polity, 2002. Best, Stephen. None Like Us: Blackness, Belonging, Aesthetic Life. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2018. Bilda, Alexander. “Schelling’s Shadow. Merleau-​ Ponty’s Late Concept of Nature,” Angelaki. Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 21, no. 4 (2016): 111–​20. Bowie, Andrew. “Translator’s Introduction” to F.W.J. Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy, edited and translated by Andrew Bowie, 1–​38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Bowman, Curtis. “Fichte, Jacobi and the Atheism Controversy.” In New Essays on Fichte’s Later Jena Wissenschaftslehre, edited by Daniel Breazeale and Tom Rockmore, 279–​98. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2002. Boylan, Michael. (ed.) Environmental Ethics. Malden, MA: Wiley-​ Blackwell, 2014. Brezeale, Daniel. Thinking through the Wissenschaftslehre: Themes from Fichte’s Early Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Brown, Robert. The Later Philosophy of Schelling: The Influence of Boehme on the Works of 1809–​1815. London: Associated University Press, 1977. Bruff, Kyla. “Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling.” In Deleuze’s Philosophical Lineage II, edited by Graham Jones and Jon Roffe, 29–​49. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019. Bruno, G. Anthony. (ed.). Schelling’s Philosophy: Freedom, Nature, and Systematicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Bubbio, Paolo Diego. “Luigi Pareyson: The Third Way to Hermeneutics.” “Introduction” to Luigi Pareyson, Existence, Interpretation, Freedom: Selected Writings. Translated by Anna Mattei. Edited with an introduction and notes by P.D. Bubbio, 1–​25. Aurora, CO: Davies Group, 2009. Bubbio, Paolo Diego and Daniele Fulvi. “Immanence in Schelling and Hegel in the Jena Period,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 60, no. 3 (2022): 353–​87. Buchheim, Thomas. “The Method and Structure of Schelling’s Late Philosophy,” Kabiri 2 (2020): 1–​14. Burke, Patrick. “Prefatory Meditations.” In The Barbarian Principle. Merleau-​ Ponty, Schelling, and the Question of Nature, edited by Jason M. Wirth with Patrick Burke, 23–​37. Albany: SUNY Press, 2013. Burkhart, Brian Yazzie. “What Coyote and Thales Can Teach Us: An Outline of American Indian Epistemology.” In American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays, edited by Anna Waters, 15–​26. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004.

Bibliography  265 —​—​—​. Indigenizing Philosophy Through the Land: A Trickster Methodology for Decolonizing Environmental Ethics and Indigenous Futures. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2019. Burns, Michael O’Neill. “Vitality or Weakness? On the Place of Nature in Recent Materialist Philosophy,” Angelaki 21, no. 4 (2016): 11–​22. Cabral, Amílcar. “National Liberation and Culture.” In Colonial Discourse and Post-​Colonial Theory. A Reader. Edited and introduced by Patrick Williams and Laura Chrisman, 53–​65. London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Cafaro, Philip. “Valuing Wild Nature.” In The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics, edited by Stephen M. Gardiner and Allen Thompson, 125–​34. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Carrasco Conde, Ana. “Pantheism and Panentheism: Schelling, Schlegel and the Controversy over Pantheism,” Daimon 54 (2011): 93–​109. Casarino, Cesare. “Grammars of Conatus: Or, on the Primacy of Resistance in Spinoza, Foucault and Deleuze.” In Spinoza’s Authority. Volume I, edited by A. Kiarina Kardela and Dimitris Vardoulakis, 57–​ 85. London/​ New York: Bloomsbury, 2018. Cheah, Pheng. Spectral Nationality: Passages of Freedom from Kant to Postcolonial Literatures of Liberation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003. Ciancio, Claudio. “Pareyson e l’ultimo Schelling,” Annuario filosofico 24 (2008): 231–​42. Ciglia, Francesco Paolo. Ermeneutica e libertà: L’itinerario filosofico di Luigi Pareyson. Rome: Bulzoni, 1995. Corriero, Emilio Carlo. “The Necessity of Contingency in the Late Philosophies of Schelling and Heidegger.” In Nature and Realism in Schelling’s Philosophy, edited by Emilio Carlo Corriero and Andrea Dezi, 55–​85. Turin: Accademia University Press, 2013. —​—​—​. “The Ungrounded Nature of Being: Grounding a Dynamic Ontology from Nature-​Philosophy to Positive Philosophy,” Kabiri 1 (2018): 17–​35. Danz, Christian. “Tillich’s Philosophy.” In The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich, edited by Russel Re Manning, 173–​88. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. Translated and edited by Seán Hand, foreword by Paul Bové. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1988. —​—​—​. Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. Translated by Martin Joughin. New York: Zone Books, 1992. —​—​—​. Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton. London/​ New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. —​—​—​. Logic of Sense. Translated by Paul Patton. London/​ New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. di Giovanni, George. “From Jacobi’s Philosophical Novel to Fichte’s Idealism: Some Comments on the 1798–​ 99 ‘Atheism Dispute’,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 27, no. 1 (1989): 75–​100. Dicks, Henry. “Environmental Ethics and Biomimetic Ethics: Nature as Object of Ethics and Nature as Source of Ethics,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 30 (2017): 255–​74.

266  Bibliography Dupré, Louis. “The Role of Mythology in Schelling’s Late Philosophy,” Journal of Religion 87, no. 1 (2007): 1–​20. Dussault, Antoine C. “Ecological Nature: A Non-​Dualistic Concept for Rethinking Humankind’s Place in the World,” Ethics & the Environment 21 (1/​2016): 1–​37. Dzwonkowska, Dominika. “Is Environmental Virtue Ethics Anthropocentric?,” Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 31 (2018): 723–​38. Erickson, Stephen A. “The Space of Transcendence in Jaspers and Heidegger.” In Heidegger and Jaspers, edited by A.M. Olson, 126–​38. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994. Estes, Yolanda. “J. G. Fichte, Atheismusstreit, Wissenschaftslehre, and Religionslehre.” “Commentator’s Introduction” to J.G. Fichte and the Atheism Dispute (1798–​1800), edited by Curtis Bowman and Yolanda Estes, 1–​ 16. London: Routledge, 2016. Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann, forewords by Ziauddin Sardar and Homi K. Bhabha. London: Pluto Press, 1986. Ferraris, Maurizio. “Sum ergo Cogito. Schelling and the Positive Realism.” In Nature and Realism in Schelling’s Philosophy, edited by Emilio Carlo Corriero and Andrea Dezi, 187–​201. Turin: Accademia University Press, 2013. Ffytche, Matt. The Foundation of the Unconscious. Schelling, Freud and the Birth of the Modern Psyche. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Fichte, Johann G. The Science of Knowledge. Translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. —​—​—​. The Science of Knowledge. Translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. —​—​—​. Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation. Edited by A. Wood. Translated by G. Green. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. —​—​—​. Commentaries on Schelling’s “Transcendental Idealism” and “Presentation of My System of Philosophy” (1800–​ 1801). In The Philosophical Rupture between Fichte and Schelling: Selected Texts and Correspondence (1800–​ 1802), edited by Michael G. Vater and David Wood, 119–​33. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012. —​—​—​. “On the Ground of Our Belief in a Divine World-​Governance.” In J.G. Fichte and the Atheism Dispute (1798–​1800), edited by Curtis Bowman and Yolanda Estes, 17–​30. London: Routledge, 2016. Fichte, Johann G. and F.W.J. Schelling. The Philosophical Rupture between Fichte and Schelling: Selected Texts and Correspondence (1800–​ 1802), edited by Michael G. Vater and David Wood. Albany: SUNY Press, 2012. Figal, Günter. “Schelling zwischen Hölderlin und Nietzsche–​ Heidegger liest Schellings Freiheitsschrift.” In Heideggers Schelling–​ Seminar (1927/​ 28): Die Protokolle von Martin Heideggers Seminar zu Schellings “Freiheitsschrift” (1927/​28) und die Akten des Internationalen Schelling–​Tags 2006, edited by Lore Hühn and Jörg Jantzen, 45–​58. Stuttgart: Bad Cannstatt, 2010. Frank, Manfred. Eine Einführung in Schellings Philosophie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1985. —​—​—​. Schellings spekulative Umdeutung des Kantischen Organismus–​Konzepts. In Nature and Realism in Schelling’s Philosophy, edited by Emilio Carlo Corriero and Andrea Dezi, 87–​114. Turin: Accademia University Press, 2013.

Bibliography  267 Franks, Paul. “Peirce’s ‘Schelling-​ Fashioned Idealism’ and ‘the Monstrous Mysticism of the East’,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 23, no. 4 (2015): 732–​55. —​—​—​. “From World-​Soul to Universal Organism. Maimon’s Hypothesis and Schelling’s Physicalization of a Platonic-​ Kabbalistic Concept.” In Schelling’s Philosophy: Freedom, Nature, and Systematicity, edited by G. Anthony Bruno, 71–​92. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 2020. Freydberg, Bernard. Schelling’s Dialogical Freedom Essay. Albany: SUNY Press, 2008. Fulvi, Daniele. “The Ontological Nature of Intuition in Schelling,” Idealistic Studies 50, no. 1 (2020): 1–​17. —​—​—​. “Schelling as a ‘Post-​Heideggerian thinker’: Luigi Pareyson’s interpretation of Schelling,” Epoché: A Journal for the History of Philosophy 26, no. 1 (2021): 131–​51. —​—​—​. “Schelling as a Thinker of Immanence: contra Heidegger and Jaspers,” Sophia 60, no. 4 (2021): 869–​87. —​—​—​. “Freedom as a Matter of Resistance in the Philosophy of Schelling,” Critical Horizons 3, no. 1 (2022): 78–​92. Gabriel, Markus. “The Mythological Being of Reflection: An Essay on Hegel, Schelling, and the Contingency of Necessity.” In Mythology, Madness, and Laughter, edited by Markus Gabriel and S. Žižek, 15–​94. New York: Continuum, 2009. —​—​—​. Transcendental Ontology. Essays in German Idealism. London/​ New York: Continuum, 2011. Gadamer, Hans-​Georg. Hermeneutik I: Wahrheit und Methode; Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik. Tübingen: Mohr, 1990. —​—​—​. Hermeneutik II: Wahrheit und Methode; Ergänzungen, Register. Tübingen: Mohr, 1993. Gardiner, Stephan M. “Environmental Midwifery and the Need for an Ethics of the Transition: A Quick Riff on the Future of Environmental Ethics,” Ethics & the Environment 12, no. 2 (2007): 122–​3. Gardiner, Stephen M. and Allen Thompson. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Gardner, Sebastian. “Fichte and Schelling: The Limitations of the Wissenscahtfslehre?” In The Cambridge Companion to Fichte, edited by D. James and G. Zöller, 326–​ 49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. —​ —​ —​ . “The Metaphysics of Human Freedom: From Kant’s Transcendental Idealism to Schelling’s Freiheitsschrift,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy 25, no. 1 (2017): 133–​56. —​—​—​. “Thought’s Indebtedness to Being. From Kant’s Beweisgrund to Schelling’s Quelle.” In Schelling’s Philosophy: Freedom, Nature, and Systematicity, edited by G. Anthony Bruno, 209–​30. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Gikandi, Simon. “Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Nationalism,” Clio 36, no. 1 (2006): 69–​85. Gorniak-​ Kocikowska, Krystyna. “The Concept of Freedom in Jaspers and Heidegger.” In Heidegger and Jaspers, edited by A.M. Olson, 139–​ 52. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1994.

268  Bibliography Grabau, Richard F. “Preface” to Karl Jaspers, Philosophy of Existence, translated and with an intro. by Richard F. Grabau, x–​xxvii. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. Grant, Ian Hamilton. Philosophies of Nature After Schelling. London: Continuum, 2006. Grey, William. “Anthropocentrism and Deep Ecology,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (1999): 463–​75. Groves, Christopher. “Ecstasy of Reason, Crisis of Reason: Schelling and Absolute Difference,” Pli 8 (1999): 25–​45. Hamrick, William S. and Jan Van der Veken. Nature and Logos: A Whiteheadian Key to Merleau-​Ponty’s Fundamental Thought. Albany: SUNY Press, 2011. Harris, Errol. “Schelling and Spinoza: Spinozism and Dialectic.” In Spinoza: Issues and Directions: Proceedings of the Chicago Conference (1986), edited by E. Harris and P.F. Moreau, 359–​72. Leiden and New York: E. J. Brill, 1990. Harry, Chelasea C. (ed.). Environment, Space, Place, vol. 14, no. 1, 2022. https://​ muse.jhu.edu/​issue/​47698 Hegel, G.F.W. The Letters. Translated by Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler, with commentary by Clark Butler. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984. Hegel, G.F.W. and F.W.J. Schelling, “The Critical Journal, Introduction: On the Essence of Philosophical Criticism Generally, and its Relationship to the Present State of Philosophy.” Translated by H.S. Harris, In Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-​Kantian Idealism, edited by George di Giovanni and H.S. Harris, 272–​91. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2000. Heidegger, Martin. Schelling’s Treatise on the Essence of Human Freedom. Translated by J. Stambaugh. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2005. —​—​—​. The Beginning of Western Philosophy: Interpretation of Anaximander and Parmenides, edited by R. Rojcewicz. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. —​—​—​. Contributions to Philosophy (of the Event), edited by R. Rojcewicz and D. Vallega-​Neu. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012. Heidegger, Martin and Karl Jaspers. The Heidegger–​ Jaspers Correspondence (1920–​1963), edited by W. Biemel and H. Saner. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2003. Hettinger, Ned and Bill Throop. “Refocusing Ecocentrism,” Environmental Ethics 21 (1999): 3–​21. Hühn, Lore. Kierkegaard und der Deutsche Idealismus: Konstellationen des Übergang. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. —​—​—​. “A Philosophical Dialogue between Heidegger and Schelling,” Comparative and Continental Philosophy 6, no. 1 (2014): 16–​34. Jaspers, Karl. Schelling: Größe und Verhängnis. Munich: Piper, 1955. —​—​—​. Truth and Symbol. Translated and with an introduction by J.T. Wilde, W. Kluback, and W. Kimmel. Albany: NCUP, 1959. —​—​—​. Philosophy, Vol. 3. Translated by E.B. Ashton. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971. —​—​—​. Philosophy of Existence. Translated and with an introduction by R.F. Grabau. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971. —​—​—​. The Great Philosophers, Vol. III, Xenophanes, Democritus, Empedocles, Bruno, Epicurus, Boehme, Schelling, Leibniz, Aristotle, Hegel, edited by M. Ermarth and L. Ehrlich. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1993.

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Index

Note: Endnotes are indicated by the page number followed by ‘n’ and the endnote number e.g., 260n97 refers to endnote 97 on page 260. absolute, the 47; and Becoming 19, 157; differentiation of 159; and immanence 159; and intellectual intuition 48, 52–​3; and reality 161–​2; and transcendence 171; see also God absolute experience 30, 41, 43, 114–​15, 134, 207–​10 absolute freedom 80, 215 absolute identity 9, 63, 130 absolute indifference 134 absolute nothingness 240 absolute unity 47 act and potency 64, 80, 180, 183–​4, 188, 196–​7, 213 action and reflection 50 activity and passivity 216 aesthetics 115 agency 63–​4, 157, 160–​1 Alderwick, Charlotte 1, 5, 8, 39, 159–​61, 195 ambiguity 112 American Indian principles 246–​8 Anschauung 47; see also intuition anthropocentrism 251, 260n97 appearance 61, 62 atheism 5 attraction and repulsion 32–​3, 197, 220, 226–​7 autonomy 217, 219 Baard, Rachel Sophia 99 Beach, Edward Allan 186

Bech, Josep Maria 152 Becoming 25, 136, 137; and Being 31–​2, 72, 195–​6; and God 19, 157 becoming 80, 164, 193–​4 Being: and act and potency 183, 197; and Becoming 31–​2, 72, 195–​6; and being 88, 112–​13, 138, 180–​1, 183, 188; and blackness 239–​40, 242; and consciousness 112–​13; Event of 133; forgetting of 85–​7; and hierarchical order 77; inexhaustibility of 107; and jointure 73–​5; and matter 2; and nature 98; and nothingness 104–​6, 108, 112, 152–​3, 189–​90, 200, 235, 239–​40; and philosophy 228; pre-​objective 150; and reason 180; and subject 181–​2; Supra-​ 79, 88–​9, 100; transcendence of 114; unitotality of 105, 106; and will 206 being 76; and becoming 80; and Being 88, 112–​13, 138, 180–​1, 183, 188; decision for 38; and freedom 217; and God 96, 171–​2; growth in 193–​4; human 151–​2, 172, 206–​7, 227, 236–​8, 246–​9, 251–​6; and knowing 14n28; and philosophy 183; and potency 165; pure existing 106–​7, 109–​10, 119; and resistance 216; and thought 114, 193, 234 Beiser, Frederick D. 4, 130 Berger, Benjamin 4 Bernstein, Richard 211

276 Index biocentrism 252–​3, 260n97 black studies 238 blackness 238–​40, 242 Böhme, Jakob 157 Bowie, Andrew 215, 235 Bruff, Kyla 129, 131, 132, 135 Bubbio, Paolo Diego 13n3, 67n58, 69n140, 124n40, 125n94, 146n11, 175n66, 256n2 Buchheim, Thomas 194 Burke, Patrick 152 Burkhart, Brian Yazzie 238, 245–​9 Burns, Michael O’Neill 253 Cabral, Amílcar 243, 244 Cafaro, Philip 259n86 Casarino, Cesare 143 causality: as critical, organic 58–​9; and effect 60–​3; external 63; and freedom 57–​8; and reciprocation 58; and unity of principles 59–​60, 61 Cheah, Pheng 238, 243–​5 Christianity 95 Ciancio, Claudio 105, 107 colonialism 241–​5, 248–​9 compliance 73 conatus 37–​8, 143, 212 consciousness 8–​9, 42–​4, 51, 112–​13, 153–​4, 161 contingency 37, 55–​6, 168, 188–​9, 199–​200, 251–​2 contraction 18–​19, 45, 141–​2, 165 Corriero, Emilio Carlo 195, 196 creation 59–​60, 168–​9, 171 crisis 31 culture 243–​5, 253 Danz, Christian 94 darkness and light 22, 28–​9 Da-​sein 72 decentering of the self 236–​8, 240 Deleuze, Gilles 1, 2, 129–​44, 204 “delocality” 248 Deloria, Vine 247 depotentialisation 191–​2 depth 132–​3, 134 Descartes, René 233, 236, 239 despair 111, 112 difference 138, 142 disjunction 76–​7, 88 dogmatism 6

drive, formative 224 dualism 8, 25, 88, 164, 198, 233, 234 Dussault, Antoine C. 253 duty 218 Dzwonkowska, Dominika 261n110 ecocentrism 252–​3, 260n97 ecology 253 ecstasy 97–​8, 106, 109–​10, 119 ego 233–​4 emanationism 165 encompassing 76–​7, 88 environment, natural see nature environmental ethics 245–​9, 251–​6, 260n97 Erikson, Stephen 77 Eschenmayer, Adam Karl August von 8 essence 39, 144, 184, 227 Estes, Yolanda 6 ethics 218, 237; environmental 245–​9, 251–​6, 260n97; and epistemology 246–​8; and the future 250–​1; and immanence 246–​8; virtue 261n110 evil 255; activity of 22–​3; actualisation of 24, 25–​6, 206–​7, 211; alterity of 211; as disease 26; and experience 27, 210; as force or principle 205–​7, 226; and freedom 23, 35, 38, 225–​6, 229–​30; and God 24, 108, 211; and good 18, 23–​4, 27–​33, 35, 38, 72, 77, 80, 207, 209, 225–​6, 228–​30; and human beings 206–​7; as immanent 205–​7, 211, 212; moral responsibility for 26–​7; and negativity 107–​8; and non-​ Being 18; as ontological principle 20–​3, 73–​5, 205–​6; origin of 24; as potential 21, 211; and the Real 21–​2; and resistance 205; and unity of principles 31; and Ürsein 20; and will 211 existence 23, 73–​4, 86–​7, 104, 118, 183–​5 existent, the 196 existentialism 104 expansion 18–​19, 45, 141–​2, 165, 197 experience 139; absolute 30, 41, 43, 114–​15, 134, 207–​10; and consciousness 42–​4; empirical (personal) 41, 43, 207–​9; and evil 27, 210; and the I 210; as immanent

Index  277 209–​10; and philosophy 187–​8; process of 208, 210; pure 27; of self or matter 223; and struggle 29–​33, 45, 207, 209 fall, the 95 Fanon, Frantz 238, 242–​4 Ffytche, Matt 204, 223 Fichte, J.G. 4–​6, 8, 14n28, 162, 204, 233–​4, 236, 239 finalism 151 finite and the infinite 106, 151, 170 forces 23, 141, 205–​7, 220–​2, 226 Franks, Paul 204 freedom 70–​1, 87, 107–​8, 161; absolute 80, 215; and ambiguity 112; and being 217; and causality 57–​8; of choice 29; and colonialism 241–​3, 248–​9; and culture 244–​5; existential 79, 88; and God 19; and good and evil 23, 35, 38, 225–​6, 229–​30; and intellectual intuition 48–​50, 53; kinds of 79; and life 164; limits on 80–​1; and matter 225; and metaphysics 111; misuse of 26; and moral order 111; and necessity 35–​8, 42, 44–​5, 89–​90, 191, 211–​13, 215–​16; and nothingness 111; and philosophy 49, 89, 235; possibility of 213; priority of 215; and reality 108; and reflection 80; and resistance 142–​3, 215, 217–​19, 221, 223–​30, 237, 241–​3, 245; and rights 216; satisfaction of 81; and self-​actualisation 249; self-​posited 217; and temporality 35–​6, 38–​40, 42–​4; and transcendence 78–​9, 81, 89; and will 225–​6 future, the 250–​1 Gabriel, Markus 189 Gardner, Sebastian 193 God: and the Absolute 6, 170; act and potency in 184; and Becoming 19, 157; and begetting 57–​8; and being 96, 171–​2; and evil 24, 108, 211; and existence 18–​19, 110–​11, 183–​5; and freedom 19; and good 22, 24; and humankind 23; and ideas 165; and immanence 1, 85, 130, 159, 191, 233; as “immanent

made transcendent” 120–​1, 136, 166–​7, 185–​7, 199–​200; and intuition 48, 52–​3; and life 31; and moral order 5–​6, 9–​10, 19–​20, 98, 199; and nature 131–​2, 165–​6, 169–​71, 192, 199; nature of 33; and necessity 185; and ontology 20, 22; and philosophy 13n17, 187–​8; as positivity 105, 107; powers of 98–​9, 130, 132, 192; revelation of 21, 59–​60; and struggle 32; and transcendence 96–​8, 115–​16, 168–​70; and unity 24–​5, 53, 64, 162–​3; and Ürsein 24–​5, 211; will of 10–​11, 163, 172, 211; see also Absolute, the God’s-​eye point of view 53–​4 good: and evil 18, 23–​4, 27–​33, 35, 38, 72, 77, 80, 207, 209, 225–​6, 228–​30; and freedom 23, 35, 38, 225–​6, 229–​30; and God 22, 24; as ontological force 23 Gorniak-​Kocikowska, Krystyna 78, 79, 80 Grabau, Richard F. 75–​6 Grant, Iain Hamilton 1, 131, 156–​8, 195 Grey, William 260n97 ground 131, 132; and existence 23, 73, 74, 86, 87 Groves, Christopher 134, 135, 139 Habermas, Jürgen 87 Harris, Errol E. 219 Heath, Peter 219 Hegel, G.F.W. 4–​6, 8, 9, 70, 112, 129, 137–​8, 204 Heidegger, Martin 1, 2, 70–​5, 83–​7, 111, 112, 239, 243 heteronomy 217, 219 Hettinger, Ned 252 Hühn, Lore 71, 73, 84, 85, 191 human being/​s 172; essence of 227; and evil 206–​7; and God 23; and nature 151–​2, 236–​8, 246–​9, 251–​6; will of 25–​6 I, the 6, 7, 234; and experience 210; and the not-​I 5, 215; see also self Ideal, the 141, 142, 165

278 Index idealism 10, 17–​18, 82, 94, 158, 168; neo-​ 104; post-​ 103; subjective 8–​9 ideal-​realism 18, 148 ideas 163, 165 identity: absolute 9, 63, 130; philosophy of 198; principle of 95, 96, 138, 139; and reason 142; of subject and object 4–​5, 7 imagination 241 immanence 34; and becoming 164; and ethics 246–​8; and God 1, 85, 120–​1, 130, 159, 166–​7, 185–​7, 191, 199–​200, 233; and nature 233–​4; and ontology 169, 196; and philosophy 158; plane of 135–​9; “radical” 132; and reality 170; and revelation 190–​4; and transcendence 6, 76–​7, 95, 99, 101–​2, 114, 116–​20, 137, 152–​4, 165–​6, 213; of Ürsein 117; see also God, as “immanent made transcendent” “immanent made transcendent” 120–​1, 136, 166–​7, 185–​7, 199–​200 immanent ontology 3–​4; see also ontology, and immanence immanentism 1–​3, 60, 162–​4, 234 Indian (American) principles 246–​8 indifference 133, 138; absolute 134; principle of 132, 137–​8; of principles 131 insight 47 intuition 144; aesthetic 114–​15; empirical (or sensible) 47, 61; and God 52–​3; and philosophy 55, 56; and resistance 143; see also intuition, intellectual intuition, intellectual 46–​8; and the Absolute 48, 52–​3; and contingency 55; and freedom 48–​50, 53; and God 48, 52–​3; and philosophy 55, 56; and reflection 52; and temporality 51–​2; and unity of principles 56 Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich 4, 5 Jaspers, Karl 1, 2, 75–​83, 87–​90 jointure 71–​2; and Being 73–​5; of ground and existence 86, 87; of subject and object 181–​2 kairos 39–​41 Kant, Immanuel 6, 37, 47, 54–​5, 61, 77, 94, 205, 220, 241, 243

knowledge 169 Krisis 31 Leibniz, Gottfried W. 183, 205 Leung, King-​Ho 239–​40 life 31, 164, 207 light and darkness 22, 28–​9 Linck, Matthew 138 locality 247–​9 logos 95 Love, Jeff 59 Luther, Martin 115 Marcel, Gabriel 1, 2, 99–​103, 116–​18 materialism 156 matter 32–​3, 196–​8; and Being 2; conditions of possibility of 197; and experience 223; and freedom 225; and resistance 219–​22, 225 Matthews, Bruce 164, 186, 193, 227, 233–​4, 236 McGrath, Sean J. 1, 39, 41, 42, 45, 52, 168–​72, 194, 204, 234 meaning 149, 204–​5, 219, 246 Melamed, Yitzhak, Y. 130 Merleau-​Ponty, Maurice 1, 148–​56, 204 metaphysics 2, 80, 85–​7, 111, 132, 157–​8 Miller, Elaine 237 modality, categories of 111 modernity 192 Möglichkeit 206–​7 monism 25, 54, 198, 206 moral order 8, 22, 246; and evil 26–​7; and freedom 111; and God 5–​6, 9–​10, 19–​20, 98, 199; and ontology 95; and power or resistance 218 Moten, Fred 238–​43 mysticism 82, 94, 96, 98 mythology 190 Nassar, Dalia 1, 56, 197, 223, 224, 250–​1 naturalism 96–​7 nature 17, 32–​3; autoproductivity of 149, 153, 155–​6, 158–​60, 165, 235; and Being 98; deification of 190; development of 160; foundation of 158; and God 131–​2, 165–​6, 169–​71, 192, 199; as ground of existence 149–​50; hierarchy within

Index  279 160; and human beings 151–​2, 236–​8, 246–​9, 251–​6; and immanence 233–​4; as living organism 165; and meaning 149; and ontology 148–​50, 152; organic or inorganic 151, 160; and power 218; purpose of 62; redemption of 256; resistance in 154–​6; and self 234–​8; and spatiotemporality 167; and spirit 96; and subject 234; and subjectivity 150; and unity of principles 150–​1; see also philosophy of nature necessity 111, 250; and contingency 188, 199–​200; and freedom 35–​8, 42, 44–​5, 89–​90, 191, 211–​13, 215–​16; and God 185 neo-​idealism 104 nihilism 85–​7 noncompliance 73 non-​ground 131 Norman, Judith 19, 44, 45, 141 nothingness 105, 106, 118, 195; absolute 240; and Being 104–​6, 108, 112, 152–​3, 189–​90, 200, 235, 239–​40; and blackness 238–​40, 242; and freedom 111; primacy of 240 noumena 61 ob-​iectum 42, 207, 208, 213, 237 object 4–​5, 7, 181–​2, 208, 210 objectification 81, 242 objectivity and subjectivity 118–​19 Olson, Alan M. 76, 77 ontology 243; and blackness 239; and God 20, 22; and immanence 3–​4, 169, 196; and moral order 95; and nature 148–​50, 152; one-​world 157–​8; organismic 243; para​ 238–​41; of powers 160; primacy in 169, 187; and theology 84; of transcendence 169; of world 21 ontotheology 84–​5, 149 order 21, 77; see also moral order organism 165, 243 Ostaric, Lara 219 outside, the 140–​3

Pareyson, Luigi 1, 104–​13, 118–​21, 186 perception 150, 153–​4, 155 phenomena 61 phenomenology 154 philosophy: activity of 50; aim of 75, 104, 118, 119, 228, 236, 247, 253, 256; and Being 228; and being 183; and experience 187–​8; and freedom 49, 89, 235; and God 13n17, 187–​8; as ideal-​realism 148; of identity 198; and immanence 158; and intuition 55, 56; limits of 81; negative or positive 108–​11, 179–​89, 191–​3; as one 7–​9; as ontotheology 84; positive 1–​2, 195, 227–​8, 234, 251; postcolonial 245–​9; and religion 193; and self 236–​8; spiritualist 135, 138; systems of 81–​2; un-​ 8, 13n23; see also philosophy of nature philosophy of nature 49, 151, 156–​7, 169–​71, 173, 187, 195–​200; as immanentist 152; and ontology 148–​9; and philosophy of revelation 198; and positive philosophy 195–​6; resistance in 220–​5 physics 157–​8 Plato 157 Plumwood, Val 251, 255–​6 positive philosophy 1–​2, 195, 227–​8, 234, 251 possibility 111, 197, 213 postcolonial critical theory 238–​49 postcolonial philosophy 245–​9 post-​idealism 103 potency 64, 80, 141, 180, 183–​4, 188, 196–​7, 213 power 63, 130, 143, 160, 218 pragmatism 236 principles: American Indian 246–​8; indifference of 131; separation of 136; struggle of 141–​2; see also unity of principles productivity 149, 153, 155, 156, 158–​60, 165, 235 Proust, Françoise 140 pure existing being 106–​7, 109–​10, 119

panentheism 165 pantheism 5, 57, 165 paraontology 238–​41

Ramey, Joshua 132, 141 randomness 21 Real, the 21–​2, 25, 31, 140–​2, 165

280 Index real, the 194 realism 17–​18 reality 107–​8, 111–​13 reason 130, 161; awe of 108–​11; and Being 180; and being 109–​10; content/​matter of 180; idea of 9; and identity 142; range of 187; and revelation 170–​1; and transcendence 151, 168–​9 religion 165, 167, 193 resistance 140–​4, 213–​19, 248; and annihilation 216; and being 216; and black studies 238; and colonialism 249; and culture 244–​5; and evil 205; and freedom 142–​3, 215, 217–​19, 221, 223–​30, 237, 241–​3, 245; and intuition 143; and matter 219–​22, 225; meaning of 204–​5, 219; and moral order 218; in nature 154–​6, 220–​5; and paraontology 241; process of 222; and struggle 144; and unity of principles 144; and will 228 revelation 169, 236; of God 21, 59–​60; and immanence 190–​4; philosophy of 198; and reason 170–​1 Rolston III, Holmes 260n97 Savory-​Levine, Alex 255 Schmidt, Johannes 59 science 8–​9 self 17, 140; decentering of 236–​8, 240; experience of 223; freedom and 217, 249; and nature 234–​8; and philosophy 236–​8; transcendence of 97–​8; see also I, the self-​consciousness 8–​9 selfhood 29 self-​transcendence 97–​8 self-​will 28 Shew, Melissa 39–​40 Simcox, Kristian Shea 245, 247, 249 Snow, Dale 26 somatism 157 space and time 153–​4, 167 Spinoza, Baruch 5, 34, 37, 63, 84–​5, 129, 130, 143, 162, 184 spirit 96, 135, 138 stasis 34 Sterba, James 260n97 Steverson, Brian 260n97

struggle 133; and experience 29–​33, 45, 207, 209; and forces 220, 222; and God 32; between good and evil 72, 80, 207, 209, 228–​30; and life 207; principles of 141–​2; and the Real 31, 140; and resistance 144 sub-​iectum 42, 86, 207–​9, 210, 213, 237 subject 4–​5, 7, 42, 86, 181–​2, 208, 210, 234 subjective idealism 8–​9 subjectivism 2, 86 subjectivity 240 subject-​object identity 4–​5, 7 substance 160 supernaturalism 96–​7 Supra-​Being 79, 88–​9, 100 temporality 110, 153–​4; as chronos or kairos 39–​41; and freedom 35–​6, 38–​40, 42–​4; and intuition 51–​2; and nature 167; and timelessness 39, 40 theodicy 205 theology 84–​5, 149 theorising 51 third potency 141 third power 143 thought 101, 114, 193, 234 Throop, Bill 252 Tillich, Paul 1, 2, 77–​8, 94–​9, 114–​16 Tilliette, Xavier 2, 87, 99–​100 time see temporality Toadvine, Ted 155 Toscano, Alberto 132 totalitarianism 244 totality 105 transcendence 75–​8; and the Absolute 171; absolute or relative 115–​17, 120, 185, 189; and alterity 155; as dynamic 198; and error 211; experience of 102; fixation of 79; and freedom 78–​9, 81, 89; and God 96–​8, 115–​16, 168–​70; illusion of 136–​7; and immanence 6, 76–​7, 95, 99, 101–​2, 114, 116–​20, 137, 152–​4, 165–​6, 213; as non-​originary 154; ontology of 169; as originary 169, 171, 172; priority of 100–​3; and reason 151, 168–​9; religious

Index  281 100; self-​ 97–​8; symbols of 78; and thought 101 “transcendent becomes immanent” 170–​1 transcendentism 1, 88, 99, 134, 234 transdendent realism 18 Tritten, Tyler 171–​2, 199 truth 88 Übersein 100, 116, 149–​50 unconscious, the 44 Ungrund, the 131, 135, 137, 138, 239 unity of principles 24–​5, 33, 41, 47–​8, 53–​4, 99, 117–​18, 136, 141, 157, 165; and causality 59–​61; and evil 31; and God 162–​3; and intellectual intuition 56; and nature 150–​1; and resistance 144 universality 248 unphilosophy 8, 13n23 Ürsein 18, 89; and evil 20; and God 24–​5, 211; immanence of 117; and will 212

Vater, Michael G. 48–​9, 130 Velkley, Richard 163–​4, 226 virtue ethics 261n110 vitalism 151 Whistler, Daniel 1, 4, 34, 60, 100–​1, 132, 141, 161–​4, 168 White, Alan 48, 51, 52 wilderness 253 wildness 252, 259n86 will 18, 28, 95; and Being 206; divine 10–​11, 163, 172, 211; and evil 211; and freedom 225–​6; human or universal 25–​6; individual or general 217, 218, 223; and resistance 228; self-​ 28; and Ürsein 212 Wirth, Jason 1, 44, 53, 136, 138, 141, 142, 149, 164–​7, 191–​2, 234, 259n86 Woodard, Ben 158, 235, 255 Zachhuber, Johannes 6 Zimmerman, Michael E. 85