Epistemologies of Rupture - The Problem of Nature in Schelling's Philosophy

8/10/2019 Epistemologies of Rupture - The Problem of Nature in Schelling's Philosophy

1/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

Epistemologies of Rupture:

The Problem of Nature

in

Schelling's Philosophy

T

N

HIS

1801

ESSAY

THE

DIFFEENCE

ETWEN

FICHTE S

AND

SCHELLING S

1Systenm of Phtilosophy,

Hegel

set

out that difference in

terms of

a

contrast

between

reflective and speculative philosophy. Dichotomy, rupture

[En

tz-

weitutg],

he argued, gives

rise

to the need

for

philosophy, a

rupturing

which

reflective philosophy both seeks to resolve and exasperates. The under-

standing strives

to

enlarge itself

to

the

absolute,

but, in its finitude, it

only

reproduces

itself endlessly, positing

oppositions

within

itself

and its

prod-

ucts, and so mocks itself.I The being of nature, in particular, is

either dis-

solved

into

abstractions or remains but a deadly

darkness

within intellect.

Although Fichte was Hegel's

prime target

here, much of

contemporary

philosophy

was included in

his

critique.

Hegel

argued that the

identity

phi-

losophy

of

Schelling, however, in which reason raises itself to speculation

and provides a positive account of being, overcomes such finitudes and

ruptures. Thie Critical Jortnal of Philosophy

that

Schelling and

Hegel

launched from

Jena in

1802, critical of the limitations of proliferating con-

temporary philosophical systems, sought to establish

an

objective philo-

sophical criticism based upon such

a

speculative use of reason.

2

In Germany at the tum of the nineteenth

century,

all philosophy, and

especially

all

philosophical

criticism,

began with reference to Kant's critical

philosophy. In the Preface to his D ference essay, Hegel praised the spirit

of Kantian philosophy, the speculative principle articulated in the

transcen-

dental deduction of

the categories, but

deprecated

the remainder -the

i G. W.

F.

Hegel,

Differenz des

Ficdtne scle,z

itad Sciellitng stilenf Systemis der

Phtilosophie,

in

Gcsammilelte

Werke, ed. Otto

P6ggeler, 2i volumes (Hamburg: Felix Meiner

Verlag,

1968-89)

: 12-13.

2 G. W. F. Hegel,

Einleitung. Ueber das Wesen der Philosophischen

Kritik iiberhaupt,

und ihr

Verhalltniss

zum gegenwirtigen Zustand der Philosophie

insbesondere,

in

Hegel,

GCesaimmelte

Werke

4: 117-28. Although Hegel

is

the author

of the introduction, it

was writ-


2/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

hypostatization

of the

thing-in-itself,

the

transformation

of

the

categories

into dead compartments of the understanding and their opposition to the

empirical realm of sensation, the restriction of

practical

reason to what can

be conceived by the understanding-all of

which

became fodder for

reflective

philosophy

(Hegel,

Dffferenz

5-6 .

Kant never

had

the

opportu-

nity to comment on the project of Tlhe

CriticaljJournalof

Plilosoplhy,

but

his

own

critical project

started from exposing the

errors

and contradictions of

reason in its purely speculative use and arguing for its restriction to finite,

empirical knowledge.

Nevertheless,

Kant's

critical works were primarily

preoccupied

with the

cognitive

processes involved in the production

of

such knowledge, with

the laws

of reason that

are

the

necessary

conditions

of

possible

experience, with interrogating how cognition in

general

is

pos-

sible. Yet Kant left a problematic rupture in his critical examination of the

conditions and sources of cognition, a

rupture that he

explicitly

acknowledged and graphically represented in the

Introduction

to

his

I790

CritiqueofJusdginient

as

an immense gulf

[Kl:Sft] between

the two do-

mains of our cognitive powers, that in which

understanding legislates

through

the concept of nature and that

in

which reason legislates through

the concept of

reason,

the

subjects

of his first two critiques.

3

For Kant, this

chasm leaves indeterminate not

only

how freedom was to

be

reconciled

with the necessity of

nature,

but also

how

nature was to

be comprehended

as

an

organized

system.

We

are

left merely

with

reflective

judgments

of

these

relations, problematic acts of synthesis, rather than determinative

judgments based upon the necessary laws of cognition. Kant also acknowl-

edged

a mpture in his attempt to

deterrnine

the conditions

and

sources

of

cognition in his I782

Critique

of Puire

Reason,

when he referred the

relation

of

sensory

intuition and understanding to a common, unknown

root

[Wutzefl.

4

As Heidegger

has argued, it is the transcendental

imagination

that acts

as this unknown root,

unconsciously

relating the

concepts of

understanding

to the

manifold

of intuition in judgment. Indeed, it is

the

unconscious

transcendental

imagination that

enacts

the

synthesis

of

the

manifold

of intuition, prior to apperception, to

produce

a unified

represen-

tation

of appearances

for

reflective consciousness in

Kant's

celebrated,

if

problematic, Transcendental Deduction of the

Pure

Concepts of the Un-

derstanding.

5

If Kant

designated specific judgments as indeterrninate

3. Immanuel

Kant,

Critiqtue ofJuidg:ent, trans. W.

S.

I'luhar

(Indianapolis: Hackett Pub-

lishing,

1987) 175-76. Page numbers refer to the

Akademie

edition of

Katts

gesaninfelte

Scirifiten,

vol.

S, which are also

given

in the Pluhar

translation.

4.

Immanuel

Kant, Critique

of

PIre

Reason,

trans.

N.

Kemp Smith (London:

MacMillan,

1933)

Ax5/B29 and A8

35

1386

3

.

546


3/41

NATURE

IN

SCHELLING'S PHILOSOPHY

and hence a problem for critical reflection in

his

Critiquie ofJudginienit, the

unconscious role of the

transcendental

imagination in the

Critique

of Puire

Reasont means

that

even

purportedly

determinate judgments have

an inde-

terminate basis.

6

Hegel

and Schelling regarded reflection as an

instrument

for

producing

philosophical

awareness

of

the

unconscious synthetic

activity

of thought, but

argued

that

only an

intellectual intuition is able to over-

come the

dichotomizing

inherent in

reflection.7

Indeed, intellectual intu-

ition is purported to

enact

consciously what the

transcendental imagination

enacts unconsciously.

The

speculative philosophy Schelling and Hegel ad-

vocated

around

I800 appears a less

radical

departure from Kant's

critical

philosophy when the central role of the transcendental imagination in the

first critique is acknowledged.

Jena was the

perfect

site

for

Schelling

and

FIegel

to

launch

Thie Critical

Jornial

of

Plhilosophty. The

university

was

the center

for post-Kantian

philos-

ophy

at

the end of the eighteenth century, with Reinhold, one of Kant's

chief expositors, the Professor of Philosophy from 1787, only to be re-

placed on retiring

by Fichte

in

1794; and

it was the

home

of the Allgemneine

Literatur-Zeituttg,

the leading joumal for the

dissemination of

Kantian

phi-

losophy from

I785

to I803. If Kant drew attention to the extent to which

our knowledge is dependent upon cognitive

processes,

he did not provide

an

account

of

our knowledge

of

those

cognitive

processes.

Post-Kantian

philosophy thus introduced a second

order

critique-it

not

only asked

how

knowledge is possible, but also asked how a critique of knowledge is possi-

ble.

Fichte introduced

his Wissensclhaftslehre, the science of knowledge or

theory

of philosophy, as such

a meta-critique that

took the

critical

philoso-

phy

itself as an object, and posed the question of

how

we know

the

neces-

sary conditions of cognition.A Fichte

argued

that we have an indubitable

awareness of our own rational activity, of the activity of the I

[Icti]

in

think-

6. These

arguments are developed in Joan Steigerwald,

Instruments of

Judgment:

Inscribing

Organic

Processes

in

late

Eighteenth-Century

Germany,

Stuidies

in

History and

Phtilosophy of Biological

and

Bio-,nedical Sciences 33

2002): 79-131.

7.

Hegel,

Differenz i6-ig

and

27-28; and

F.

W.

J.

Schelling, System

des

transcendental

Idealisnmus in Sciellings Sdnmtiliche

Werke,

ed. K.

F.

A.

Schelling

(Stuttgart:

J. G. Gotta'scher

Verlag, 1856-61)

3:

397-629; hereafter

cited

as SW

8.

Harris, Introduction to the Djfferentce Essay, in G.

W. F.

Hegel, Thje Dtfferente Bettveen

Fichite's and

Schellinig's Systemil of Plilosophy, trans. by

H. S.

Harris and

Walter

Cerf (Albany:

SUNY Press,

I977)

13-14; and

Frederick

C. Beiser, The Fate of Reasoni: Genman Philosophy

from

Kant to Ficite

(Cambridge, MA:

Harvard UP, 1987) 7.

Fichte

sought to raise philosophy

to a science [Wissenschaft]. SeeJ. G. Fichte,

Gnmndlage

dergesaminiteni Wissenschaftslehre (1794),

in

esanuntausgabe der

Bayeristhen

Akadendie der Wissetnscliaft eds.

Reinhard Lauth,

Hans Jacob,

and Hans

Gliwitzky,

35

volumes

to

date

(Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:

Friedrich

Frommann,

1964-)

i: 251. The pagination

of

the 1845-46

editionjohatnts

Gottlieb

Fichtes

sditmniliceli Werke,

547


4/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

ing. His

claim

was that the self-positing activity of the I is the

first, abso-

lutely

unconditioned principle of all human knowledge

Grndlage

255;

FsW i 91 .

Fichte

further

argued that

this

pure

activity

of the

I can

only

become

determinate and present for

the

self through

the

counterpositing of

a

not-I

[Nicht-Ich]

in

opposition

to the

I.

But

as

Hegel

relentlessly

made

clear in his Difference

essay,

the

not-I,

if postulated to

be

a product

of

the

activity of the I, remains an unconscious product.

In

attempting to provide

a foundation

for

critical

philosophy,

Fichte's

science

of knowledge thus

only

transposed

the

rupture at

the

core

of Kant's

system

ofphilosophy

into

a

rupture

within the

self

In

introducing the

self-positing

activity

of the

I as

the foundation of

all

knowledge, Fichte only provided

a

subjective account

of

the relationship between the subjective and objective sides of knowl-

edge,

what Hegel described as a subjective subject-object, in which the

not-I remains

unconscious,

the problem

of nature

a darkness within

con-

sciousness.

In his Difference

essay

Hegel

praised

Schelling's philosophy, in contrast,

for giving

equal weight to our knowledge of the universe as an organiza-

tion intuited

as objective and appearing as

independent

and

the universe

constructed by and for intelligence,

to

NathrplTilosophieand transcendental

idealism.

9

Such a complete philosophical system, Hegel maintained, is only

possible

when speculative philosophy makes the synthetic acts effecting

the

construction

of

nature

as

transparent to the

intellect

as

those

of

ts

own

activity,

the project of

Schelling

t

s

Naturphilosophie. Yet Schelling had

difficulties

living up

to the

promise Hegel saw in his philosophy.

The per-

sistent

problem in all Schelling's various philosophical systems,

a problem

he never

resolved

to his

lasting satisfaction,

was how

to give

nature life by

demonstrating its construction without destroying its positive presence. In

the Natuirphilosophiethat Schelling developed from

1797,

if

he

started from

a construction

of

nature

after

Kant

that sought to

demonstrate the

theoreti-

cal principles necessary for the possibility of nature, he applied the methods

of

critical

philosophy

more

relentlessly

than

Kant,

extending

them

even

to

the empirical concept of matter. The result was that all natural phenomena

became problems for

reflective

judgment, and were

conceived

as complex

organizations of

formal

and material principles, of

activity

and constraint,

whose

synthetic principle remained indeterminate. Moreover, his

relentless

critical

construction of nature resulted in the positive presence of nature

being

dissolved into

an abstract

relation. Having thus

abstracted

the phe-

nomena of nature into theoretical principles in his speculative physics,

in

9. Hegel,

iffercniz 6-7

and 27-28.

Although

Hegel's criticisms of Fichte in this

essay

are

548


5/41

NATURE

IN SCHELLING'S

PHILOSOPHY

his i oo

System of

Transcendental

Idealism Schelling

turned

his

attention to

tracing

the

genesis

of all concepts

of nature

from

the activity of

thought

ac-

cording

to the principles

of Fichte's Wissenscltaftslelhre.

He

concluded

that

the

problems plaguing

transcendental idealism,

the

dichotomizing effect of

the

self's reflection

on

its

own

activity

and the

counterpositing

of

the

I

to

the not-I

that

left

the not-I

as

an

unconscious

element

within

conscious-

ness, could

only

be resolved through

art. Kant's

critical philosophy

re-

mained

important

here,

but now on the

Critique

ofJuidg nent

and

its

concern

with the

reflective judgment

of organized nature

and

art.

Schelling's

inter-

est in

art

was

also influenced

by

the Jena

Romantics-their

critical

reflections

upon

the

fragmentation

and incompletion

of

all art, their atten-

tion

to process of artistic production,

and their

conception of the

relation-

ship

between

the

fragmentary

individual

and the

system

in terms

of

potentiation.

Schelling

conceived organized

nature

in

analogous

termns.

But

in

attempting

to articulate

an absolute

principle

as

the foundation of

the

whole

system of nature

and art, of every

potency of

the real

and

the

ideal,

Schelling

again

found

himself

reduced

to

abstract

formulations,

attempting

to

conceive it

through a paradoxical

logic of

indifference as

the identity of

identity

and difference.

Hegel appears

to

have been

disturbed by this aspect

of

Schelling's identity philosophy-even

in

the

Dfference

essay

there is

an

implicit criticism

of it

as empty

formalism.

It

is

thus not surprising

that soon

after

attempting

a

collaboration on Thiejournal

of Speculative

Phlilosophy

the

philosophies of

Hegel

and Schelling

developed in

quite distinctive

ways.

In

his

807 The

Phenomenology of Spirit

Hegel

would

seal his separation

from

Shelling's

mode of philosophizing

by

condemning

it as

falling

back into

inert

simplicity

and

even expounding

reality

itself in

an

unreal man-

ner. 1

0

But

what

Hegel

saw

as the failure of

Schelling's philosophy

is perhaps

its

most interesting

aspect.

Schelling

is often

represented

as

the

grandest

of

metaphysical system

builders.

Yet

developing his

philosophy in

the context

of

rigorous philosophical reflection and

critique,

reflection

not

only

upon

the conditions of knowledge

but

also

upon

the conditions of philosophy

and critique,

he encountered

at

every

point the problem

of rupture.

Pur-

suing the

ideal

into

its furthest reaches,

he could only

conceive

it in

terms

of

an

abstract

Band

pursuing the real,

he

either

similarly

theorized

it

into

an abstract Band or

was left with

an incomprehensible

dark

presence.

In his

I809 essay

Plhilosophical

Enquiries

into thi Natture

of Human

Freedom these

problems

are

presented in

stark and irresolvable

terms.

Dichotomy

now

ex-

tends

even to God, who

is

conceived

in

terms of

ground

and

existence.

The

ground

of

God,

his

impenetrable and

unruly

nature,

persists

in

created

549


6/41

JOAN STEIGERWALD

nature

as that

which

cannot

be

brought

to order.

And the

absolute princi-

ple

of indifference

is

now

articulated only

negatively,

as nonground

[Ungrun]l.Thus

a fundamental incompletion

remained

the core of each

of

Schelling's attempts at

a philosophical system,

an incompletion

in which

the

problem

of

nature

has

a

particular

prominence.

His unwillingness to

publish after

the

Freedom essay

perhaps

was

an acknowledgement

of his

in-

ability to

produce

a complete philosophical

system.

As

he would

argue

late

in life,

in his Munich

lectures

of

1832-33:

Nothing is easier than

to

displace

oneself

into

the

realm of

pure

think-

ing; but

it

is

not so easy then to escape

that

realm.

The world does

not

consist

of mere

categories

or

pure

concepts, . but

of concrete and

contingent things,

and

what

must

be considered is

the illogical,

the

other,

which

is

not

concept,

but

its

opposite,

which

only unwilling

accepts the concept.

It is

here

that

philosophy

must

take

its test.'

2

The

Construction

of

Nature:

Schelling's Natlrplilosophie

When

Schelling arrived

inJena in I798

to take

up the position of

Professor

ofPhilosophy, he

was

only twenty-three, yet

he already had

a considerable

number

of publications to

his credit. He

had completed two substantive

works on

Naturphilosophie,

Ideasfor a Phiilosophy

of Nature

in I797

and On

thle

World

Souil

in

1798. He

had

also

published

several

essays

critically

respond-

ing to Fichte's

writings

between 1794

and I797.

The engagement with

Fichte's science

of

knowledge began when Schelling was

a

student at

a

serninary

in

Tiibingen together with

Hegel and

Holderlin.

But

he had de-

veloped an

interest in Natuirphilosophie

by the close

of his

studies

in 1796, an

interest he

was able to pursue

that

autumn when,

taking a position

as a

tutor

to

an

aristocratic

family, he traveled

to Leipzig, an important center

for the study of the

natural sciences

at

that time.'

3

At Leipzig Schelling

en-

i l.

On this failure, see Martin

Heidegger,

Sdtellitig

omti

er esen

er

meetschl ichien Freihteit,

in

Gesamtauisgabe,

ed.

Ingrid

SchuiBfler (Frankfurt

am Main:

Vittorio

Klostermann, 1976-)

:

4-6; and David Clark,

'The

Necessary Heritage

of Darkness':

Tropics

of Negativity

in

Schelling,

Derrida,

and de Man,

in

Iitersections:

Nineteenith-Cenituiry

Plhilosophy and Contemtpo-

r ry Theory,

ed.

Tilottama Rajan

and

David

L.

Clark

(Albany: SUNY Press,

1995

81-82.

12. Schelling, Zntr Grutndlegizing der

Positiveen Phtilosophic,

cited in Clark, 'The Necessary

Heritage

of

Darkness ' 79.

13. Schelling's early

interest in Natuirphilosophie is revealed

in a fragment

from

a 1796 essay,

Oldest System Programme

of

German

Idealism, in Andrew Bowie, Aesthetics

and

Subjectiv-

ity rom

Kant

to Nietzschie

(New York: Manchester

UP,

9ggo

65-67.

Although the author-

ship

of

the

essay isuncertain,

with Hegel and Holderlin also

appearing

to have

had

a hand in

it,

the

emphasis

on nature

is

likely

Schelling's.

See

Manfred Frank, Eine

Einleitilg

n

Schiellings

PhIilosophic (Frankfurt:

Suhrkamp, 1985) 13;

and W. Schmied-Kowarzik,

Thesen zur

55 0


7/41

NATURE

IN SCHELLING'S

PHILOSOPHY

grossed

himself

in

the

study

of

contemporary

physics,

chemistry,

physiol-

ogy

and medicine.

His

first

works

on NattTrphilosopihie

also

display

a close

reading

of

Kant's

critiques

and

his

I786

Metaphzysical

Fouindation

of Natutral

Science.

The

Ideas

introduced

the

project

of Naturphilosophzie

through

a

pre-

cocious dialogue

with

this

complex

of

forrnidable

sources,

and

particularly

Kant's

philosophy

of

nature.

Schelling

made

clear

that

the

concern

of

his Natutrphilosophie

was

not

to

present

a

system

of

nature

once

it exists,

but

the

possibility

of a nature ;

that

is,

not

how

the

connections

of

phenomena

we

call

nature

have

be-

come

actual

otutside

us but

how

they

became

actualfor

tus,

how

those

con-

nections

of

phenomena

attained

the

necessity

in

our

representation

in

which

we

are

compelled

to

think

of them.'

4

The

terms

are Kantian.

Kant's

critical

philosophy

was

concerned

to

determnine

the

forms

of

cognition

that

enable

knowledge

of

objects.

He

argued that the

possibility

of

nature,

indeed

the

possibility

of an

object

of

experience,

depends

upon

our

con-

cepts and

representations,

for

only

through

such

concepts

is

it possible

to

know

anything

as

an

object,

or to

know

the

necessary

connections

be-

tween

phenomena-a

priori

concepts

give

our

sensory

intuitions

determine

meaning.

But

Schelling

was

critical

of the

appeal

to

the

idea

of a

noumenal

thing-in-itself

in

Kant,

an idea

he

noted

that

Kant

inherited

through

tradi-

tion,

for to

Schelling

it

was

inconceivable

what

things

external

to us

an d

independent

of

our

representations

might

be. Such

ideas

make

the

separa-

tion

between

human

beings

and

nature

permanent, into

bottomless

abysses

[bodenlose)t

Abgrfinde].

But

Schelling

did not

seek

unity

in

a

meta-

physical

monism,

whether

of

an

infinite

material

substance,

after

Spinoza,

or

infinite

divine

spirit.

His

sought

unity

in

a

philosophy

of nature

in

which

nature

would

not only

express,

but

even realize,

necessarily

and

originally,

the

laws

of

our

mind,

and that

it is

called

nature

only

insofar

as

it

does

so

(Ideeni

93). Schelling

was thus

truer to

Kant's

critical

philosophy

than

its

author,

at

least

in

his

view,

restricting

the

conditions

of

our

cogni-

tion

of

nature

to the

cognitive

phenomena

of

the

finite

human

mind.

These

ideas

for a

philosophy

of nature

were

made

more

precise

in

Shelling's

1799

Introduictioni

to

tihe Otutline

of a

System

of Natuirphilosophie.

Natuirphilosophie

is

now

defined

as

a

speculative

physics,

in

which

our

knowing

is

changed

into a

construction

of

nature

itself,

that

is,

into a

sci-

14.

F.W.J.

Schelling,

Ideetl

zu

einer

Philosophie

derNatfr

n

Historiscil-KritischeA

sgabe,

ed.

Hans

Michael

Baumgartner,

Wilhelm

'G.

Jacobs,

and Hermann

Krings

(Stuttgart:

Frommann-Holzboog

1992-

S:

69 and

84-85.

is.

Schelling,

Ideet

71-72

and

87. The

apology

for

Kant

appears only

in

the

second

1803

edition

of

Ideas. See

Schelling,

Ideen

zu

eitnerPlhilosophie

derNatuire,

1803

edition,

in

SWZ:

33.

The

first

edition

attributed

this dichotomizing

to

speculative

philosophy;

the

second

edition

551


8/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

ence

of

nature

a

priori.

Schelling

argued

that

we

know

objects

only

when

we

know

the

principles

of their

possibility,

which

means

a

puire

knowing

a

priori.

It

is

only

through

a

deduction

from

a

priori

principles

that

phe-

nomena

of

nature

are

conceived

with

the

necessity

requisite

of

a science.'

6

The

basic

conception

remains Kantian. In the

Metaphtysical

Foundatiotns,

Kant

presented

a

construction

of

Newtonian

laws

of

physics

by

reasoning

a

priori

from

categories.

But

Kant

distinguished

his

metaphysical

construc-

tions

from

a purely

speculative

philosophy

of nature

by

making

such

con-

structions

dependent

upon

the

injection

of

empirical

concepts

from

con-

temporary

science.'

7

Schelling,

in

contrast,

whilst

insisting

that

we

know

nothing

at all except

through

experience,

also

insisted

that

empirical

phys-

ics

is directed

only

at

the

surface

[ObeflUdze]

of nature.

Even

experiment,

he

argued,

is

only

a

first

step

toward

science.

In

putting

a question

to

na-

ture

that

it

is

compelled to

answer,

experiment

contains

an implicit

a

priori

judgment

of

nature,

making

it

what

Schelling

called

a

production

of na-

ture,

but

experiment

can

never

go

beyond

the

forces

of

nature

it

uses

as

its

tools

of

inquiry.

A

speculative

physics

was

to

have

no

such

limitations.

It

was

to

be

directed

at

the

inner

spring-work

[Triebwerk]

of

nature.

Ac-

cordingly,

it was

necessarily

a

subjective

or

purely

theoretical

science.

If

empirical

physics

is

directed

to

what

is

objective

in

nature,

it

only

regards

its

object

in being,

as a

finished

product;

a speculative

physics,

in

contrast,

is directed

to

what

is

non-objective

in nature ;

it

regards

its

ob-

ject

in

becoming,

in its

productivity

(Einleitullg

274-75,

282-83).

For

Schelling,

Kant's

concept

of

matter

is

the

physical

correlate

of

his

idea

of

the

thing-in-itself.

Representing

the

limits

of

human

rationality,

the

impenetrable

content

of

objects

given

to

cognition,

it

acted

in

a

similar

way

to

the

purported

presence

of some

thing

in experience

that

was

the

absolute

other

to all the

mind's

activity.

But Schelling

contended

that

no

physical

concept,

no

phenomena,

no

thing

is in

principle

refractory

to

fur-

ther rational

analysis.

In

the

Ideas

he

argued

that

any body,

no

matter

how

inert or minute,

can

be regarded

as

a system

of

yet

smaller

bodies.

His

argu-

ment

was

based

upon

a consideration

of

the

simplest

distribution

of

matter

in

space

required

to

ensure

an

orderly

and

self-perpetuating

motion

in

its

parts.

His

solution

was

that

of

an indefinite

number

of

unequal

bodies,

each

disposed

in

relation

to

the

others

so

that

they

all

would

gravitate

16.

Schelling,

Einleitung

zn

dem

ntiurf

itn s Systems

der Naturphilosophie.

Oder

iiber

den

Begriff

der

speadlativen

Plhysik

ind

die

innere

Organisation

eines

Systems

dieser

Wissenschlaft,

in

SW

3:

275-80.

17.

Immanuel

Kant,

Metaphysische

Anfatngsgrainde

der Natnavissenschiaft,

in

Kants

gesammelte

Selriften

(Berlin:

K6niglichen

Preuschen

Akadeniie

der

Wissenschaften,

1908-13)

4:

469-70;

and

552


9/41

NATURE

IN

SCHELLING'S

PHILOSOPHY

around

an

ideal

center.

In such

an

arrangement,

any determinate

set

of

bodies

that

achieved

equilibrium

around

a center

of

gravity

would

also

be

gravitating

as a unit

around

some

other

center as

part

of a larger

system

of

bodies.

On

the

other

hand,

the bodies

within

the

first

system

could

be

con-

ceived

to

consist

of

smaller

bodies

all

forming

a

system

around

their

own

center.

Schelling

argued

that

to

stop

the

analysis

at any

particular

system

of

bodies

would

be

arbitrary.

Accordingly,

he

rejected

the

conception

of

mat-

ter

as

an impenetrable

substratum

endowed

with

attractive

and

repulsive

forces.

Neither

Kant

nor

Newton

before

him,

he

argued,

had

been

able

to

explicate

how

forces

are

supposed

to

inhere

in

this

inert substratum,

or

what

matter

without

forces

or

forces

without

matter

might

be

conceived

to

be.

Schelling

rather

argued

that the

material

content

of

any phenomena

must

also

be

conceived

as a

system

of

attractive

and

repulsive

forces.

8

In

resolving

the

problem

of

how matter

in

general

is originally

possible,

he

concluded,

the

problem

of

a possible

universe

has

also

been

solved

(Ideen

I87).

To

state

his point

more

modestly,

the

problem

of understanding

the

nature

of

matter

is no

different

from

that

of

understanding

the

nature

of the

universe

as

a

whole,

or any

organized

body.

Schelling

thus broke

down

the

difference

in

kind Kant

had

introduced

in

the Critique

ofjJudgtnent

between

determinate

judgments

of

inorganic

bodies,

in

which

phenomena

are

sub-

sumed

directly

under

the

concept

of

mechanical

causality,

and

reflective

judgments

of organic

bodies

or

nature

as an

organized

whole,

in

which

the

complex interrelationship

of

phenomena

posed

a

problem

for

conception.

For

Schelling,

all

of

nature

and

each

part

of

nature

was

to

be understood

like

an

organism,

and

thus

posed

a problem

for

judgment.

Schelling

also

blurred

the

boundary

between

inorganic

and

organic

phe-

nomena

through

his

treatment

of chemistry.

In his

Metaplhysical

Foulndations

Kant

had

excluded

chemistry

from

science

proper,

which

treat[s]

its

ob-

ject

according

to

a priori

principles,

because

its

principles

are

ultimately

merely

empirical

(Metaplhysisclhe

Anfangsgriinde

468).

But

some

ten

years

on,

the new

French

chemistry

was

widely

accepted

in

Germany,

providing

investigators

with

the

theoretical

foundation for

a

science

of

chemistry,

and

new

instruments

and

methods

for

the study

of inorganic

and

organic

phe-

nomena,

the

results

of which

were

widely

disseminated

in new

joumals

and

monographs,

and by

increased

funding

for

chairs

in chemistry

and

chemical

laboratories

at

universities.'

9

Schelling,

fresh from

his

scientific

studies

at the

University

of

Leipzig,

gave chemistry

a

central

place

in the

i8.

Schelling,

Idee

n 78-83

and

183-97.

See

George

di Giovanni,

Kant's

Metaphysics

of

Nature

and

Schelling's

Ideasfor

a Philosophy

of

Natuire,

Journal

of tile

History

of Plhilosophy

xvii

1979):

207-9.

ig. On

these changes

to

the

German

chemical

community,

see Karl

Hufbauer,

Thse

For-

55 3


10/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

Ideas.

If

mechanics

examines

the

motion

of bodies

under

the

impact

of external

forces,

insofar

as

the

parts

of

the

bodies

appear

at

rest,

Schelling

argued

that

chemistry

examines

how

bodies

supposedly

inert

become

active under

an external

stimulus.

He

attributed

the

apparently

spontaneous

chemical reaction to the forces

within

bodies,

which

only

need the stimu-

lus

of

something

extraneous

to be

excited

into

free

play.

If

that

stimulus

should

be continued,

he

contended,

these

new

activities

could

become

permanent.

Thus

already

in

the

chemical

properties

of matter

actually

lie

the

first

seeds,

albeit still

quite

undeveloped,

of a

future

system

of

nature,

which

can

unfold

into

the

most

diversified

forms [Fonnen]

and

formations

[Bildungen],

up

to

the

point

at

which

creative

nature

seems

to

return

into

herself

Ideen

190 .

Schelling

argued

that

any

chemical

event

is

open

to

the

conceptualization

of

mechanics,

whilst

mechanical

events

are

liable

to

the

conceptualization

of chemistry-it is

just

a question

of

the

perspective

of

one's

analysis.

Furthermore,

chemistry

lies

at

the

juncture

of

mechanical

and

organic

bodies,

with

the

difference

between

mechanical,

chemical,

and

organic

phenomena

conceived

as

a

difference

in

degrees

of activity

and

or-

ganization

rather

than

a

difference

in

kind.

The

Naturphilosophie

that

Schelling

put forward

in

the

Ideas

was

that

all natural

phenomena

must

be

conceived

as

an interplay

of

attractive

and

repulsive

forces

in varying

degrees

of

complexity

and

activity.

These

opposed

forces

were

not

intro-

duced

as

empirical

concepts,

or

as

the

physical

grounds

of explanation

like

some

form

of occult

qualities,

but

as

the

necessary

conditions

for

the

possi-

bility

of a

world

system

Ideen

79-80).

If

the

Ideas

extended

the

conception

of

natural

phenomena

as

organized

systems

of

opposed

forces

into

matter

infinitely

and

indefinitely,

On

the

World

Soiul

extended

that

basic

conception

in

the

opposite

direction,

through

the

organic

world

towards

the

appearance

of mind

in

nature

with

the

human

form.

In

the

1798

work,

rather

than

forces,

Schelling

referred

to

the

more

abstract

notion

of

principles,

representing

the

basis

of

life

as

con-

tained in opposed negative and positive principles.

The

negative principle

of

life

is the

specific

material

condition

lying

within

each

individual

being,

which

determines

the

differing

degrees

of

receptivity

to

stimulus

of the

di-

verse

forms

of ife

Vont

der

Weltseele,

SW2:

503-5 .

Much

of the

World

Soul

is concerned

with

detailing

these

negative

material

conditions

of life,

by

drawing

upon

contemporary

research

in chemistry

and

physiology,

from

the

role

of

light and

the

elements

of carbon,

hydrogen

and

oxygen

in

plant

nutrition,

to

animal

respiration

and

the

influence

of

nutrition

on

irritability

of muscles,

with

Schelling

displaying

an

impressive

command

of the

mate-

rial.

But

he

argued

that these negative

conditions

alone

are

insufficient to

account

for the

phenomena

of

life-the

capacity

of

organs

to develop

and

554


11/41

NATURE

IN

SCHELLING'S

PHILOSOPHY

mal

fluids

that

animate

the body,

the

contraction

of

muscles-all

these pro-

cesses

are

inconceivable

without

the

assumption

of

a

positive

principle

which

disturbs

the

tendency

of

the

negative

conditions

of

life

toward

stasis.

This

positive

principle

lies

outside

the

living

individual;

a single

principle

spread

throughout

the

whole

of

creation,

it

penetrates

each

individual

as

the

common

breath

of

ife.

But

Schelling,

in

keeping

with

the

project

of

Naturphilosophie,

did

not

introduce

this

positive

principle

as

a determinate

entity

and

was

critical

of

his contemporaries

who

appealed

to

a

special

force

or

Lebenskraft

as a purported

cause

of

the

phenomena

of

life. Indeed,

he

even

contended

that

language

has no

term

for

it,

and

hence

made

use

of

the

poetic

expression

of the

ancient

philosophers,

the

world

soul,

to in-

dicate

metaphorically

what

eluded

conception

Vont

der

Weltseele

502-4,

247,

529,

565-69).

Life

thus

appears

as

the

interaction

of

an indeterminate

positive principle and material conditions

that

are

also

indeterminate,

re-

ceding,

as the

Ideas

showed,

infinitely

into

ever

smaller

systems

of

interact-

ing

forces.

When

changing

material

phenomena

become

bound

together

in

a

product,

something

enduring

is formed.

But

this

product,

as

the

com-

bination

of

phenomena,

is

not

anything

real in

itself

but

only

the

concept

of a definite

organization,

and

as

dependent

upon

actual

phenomena

that

are continually

altering,

is not

anything

enduring-it

is

only

the

union

of

both,

of

concept

and

phenomena,

that

gives

rise to

a living

being.

Schelling

translated

this representation

of

life

directly

into

the

terms

given

by

Kant

in

the

Critique

ofJuidgmiientt.

Life,

organization

is

nothing other

than

an ar-

rested

stream

of

causes

and

effects

.

.

a succession

[of

processes]

that,

en-

closed

within

certain

borders,

flows

back

into

itself.

Such

an

organized

being

we

must

consider

as

if

it

is both

cause

and

effect

of

itself

2 0

To

ex-

press

this

concept

of life

Kant

appealed

to

the

notion

of

the

Bildntogstrieb

or

formative

impulse,

first

introduced

by

Blumenbach

to

represent

the forma-

tive

activity

of

organic

matter.

For

Schelling,

the

Bilduingstrieb

expresses

the

synthesis

ofpositive

and

negative

principles,

activity

and

constraint,

of

free-

dom

and

lawfulness

in

all

natural

formations,

but

is

not

the

explanatory

ground

of

this

union

itself

2

'

Thus in

the

World

Sotul

Schelling

represented

life

in

terms

of

a

concept

of

a relation

between

positive

and

negative

prin-

ciples,

principles

that

are

ultimately

indeterminate

and

recede

into

infinity,

but

a concept

without

constitutive

significance

in

itself

These

provocative

aspects

of

the

Ideas and

On

thie

World

Soutl

are

much

more

explicitly

articulated

in

Schelling's

1799

First

utline

of

a Systent

of

Natirplhilosoplhie

and

the

subsequently

produced

Introdtuctioni

to

that work,

20.

Von

der

Weltseele,

349,

519-20.

See

also

the

Introduction

to

Ideen

40-44.

21

Von

der

Weltseele,

527-30.

See Kant,

Critiqu e ofjudgntzetnt

424;

and

Johann

Friedrich

Blumenbach,

Ober

den

Bildnngstrieb

untid

das

Zcgnnitngsgesdztafte

(Gbttingen:

Johann

Christian

555


12/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

both

completed

after

his

arrival

in

Jena.

In

these

works

Schelling

stressed

the

infinite

and

indeterminate

nature

of

the

negative

and

positive

principles

and

the

abstract

and

indeterminate

nature

of

their

relation

in

any

given

nat-

ural

product.

These

later

works

also

place

a

greater

emphasis

on

the

activity

of

nature,

with

the positive principle characterized

as

pure productivity

and

the

negative

principle

as

its

constraint.

Schelling

also

emphasized

that

if

the

negative

principle

is

to

constrain

the

positive

principle,

pure

productivity,

it

must

be

something

positive

itself-a

counteracting

tendency.

It

is

in

the

space

between

these

two

principles,

each

receding

beyond

the

horizon

of

our

representations,

that

the

phenomena

of

nature

occur.

Schelling

de-

picted

the

products

resulting

from

the

concurrence

of

the

pure

productiv-

ity,

the

positive

principle,

and

constraint,

the

negative

principle,

with

the

image

of

a whirlpool.

Where

[a stream]

meets

resistance,

there

is

formed

a

whirlpool;

this

whirlpool

is

nothing

fixed,

but something

that

in

every

mo-

ment

is

vanishing,

and

in

every

moment

springing

up

anew

Einzleitung

289).

Such

a

product

appears

finite,

but

as

the

infinite

productivity

of

nature

concentrates

itself

within

it,

it

must

have

the

impulse

to

infinite

de-

velopment

.

. .

the

empirical

representation

of

an ideal

infinity.

In

each

such

product,

therefore,

lies

the

germ

[Kei1n]

of

a

universe

Einleituing

290o-i .

The

image

of

a

whirlpool

highlights

the

activity

inherent

in

all

natural

phenomena.

It

also

suggests

the

potential

or

potency

of

each

natural

product

for

further

change

and

development,

already

suggested

by

his

treatment

of

chemistry

in

the

Ideas,

what

Schelling

now

termed

its

entelechy

or

potency

[Potenz].

Again

he

emphasized

that

the

difference

be-

tween

inorganic

and

organic

products

is

only

the

degree

of

productivity

enclosed

within

it. Of

particular

import

is

the synthetic

aspect

of

these

nat-

ural

products.

Schelling's

discussion

of the

Bildtungstrieb

buried

in

the

mid-

dle

of

World

Soul

thus

now

becomes

highlighted,

and

the

discussion

in

Ideas

of

the

interplay

of

attractive

and

negative

forces

is supplemented

with

a

dis-

cussion

of

their

synthetic

relation

through

gravity.

The

concept

of

gravity

had

acquired symbolic significance

during

the

course

of

the eighteenth

century

as

the

representation

of

an

actual

relation

whose

nature

remained

unknown.

It was

appealed

to

throughout

the

sciences

to

justify

the

intro-

duction

of

a

conception

of

synthesis

that

could

not

be made

specific,

with

Blumenbach

introducing

his

notion

of

a Bildttngsttieb

by invoking

the

au-

thority

of

the

concept

of

gravity.'

Schelling

made

the

indeterminate

nature

of

such

syntheses

explicit

by

referring

to

them

abstractly

as

a

third

some-

thing,

ci t

Dritte,

as

something

[etulas]

which

is mediated

by

the

antithesis,

and

by

which

the

antithesis

is

in

turn

mediated

Einileitunlg

308).

Nature

is

22

Johann

Friedrich

Blumenbach,

Uber

den

Bildrrngstrieb,

2nd ed.

(Gottingen:

oh nn

556


13/41

NATURE

IN

SCHELLING'S

PHILOSOPHY

that

third

arising

out

of

the

dynamic

opposition

between

negative

and

positive

principles,

each

of

which

recede,

indeterminately,

into

infinity;

nature

is

that

middle,

das

Mittel,

between

pure

productivity

and

its

con-

straint,

between

the

free

and

the

fixed,

that

middle

which

is

ever

in

a

state

of

formation, and

whose

formative

or

synthetic

principle

also

remains

inde-

terminate

Einleittng

299-300).

For

Schelling,

this

indeterminate

relation

between

activity

and

constraint,

form

and matter,

was

not

only

a problem

of

organic

bodies

and

the

system

of

nature

as a

whole,

as in

Kant's

Critiquie

ofJuidgiient,

but

of

each

natural

product.

In

his

I799

works

Schelling

introduced

a

series

of analogies,

analogies

between

sensibility

and magnetism,

between

irritability

and

electricity,

be-

tween

the

Bilduingstrieb

and

chemistry,

each

in

turn

represented

in

terms

of

opposed

principles

in

different

relations

and

potencies.

Scientific

details

seem obfuscated

by

this overlaying

of

apparently

fanciful

speculations.

But

Schelling

was

very

clear

that

he

was

not

offering

a

system

of nature

but

a

system

of

speculative

physics;

his concern

was

not

with

natural

products

but

with

the

principles

for

the

construction

of

nature,

the

principles

neces-

sary

for

our

knowledge

of nature.

Whereas

Kant's

construction

of nature

was

dependent

upon

empirical

concepts,

upon

some

content

given

in

ex-

perience

that

was not

open

to

further

analysis,

Schelling

critically

ques-

tioned

such

restrictions,

arguing

that

speculative

physics

cannot

set

out

from

some

product,

some

thing,

but

must

extend

to

the

unconditioned

Einleitting

283).

The

result

was

a

construction

of

nature

premised

upon

an

opposition

ofpositive

and

negative

principles,

both

of

which

extended

into

infinity

and

so

defied

determinate

representation.

Between

these

opposites

all

of nature

lies

as

some

Dritte

struggling

to

indifference,

as

an

infinitely

progressive

formation,

in

which

are

found

only

relative

mediating

links of

synthesis,

never

a lasting

or an

absolute

synthesis.

In any

particular

product

there

is

both

productivity

and

constraint,

freedom

and

necessity,

so that

in

even

the

simplest

formation

there

is

some

element

of freedom

and

the

po-

tential

for

further

formation,

and

in even

the

highest

formation

some

ele-

ment

of

necessity.

It

would

be

a strange

metaphysical

system

in

which

outside

this

opposition

nothing

is.

Schelling

relentlessly

questioned

all

foundations

for

a

system

of speculative

physics

so

that

in the

end he

was

left

only

with

this

indeterminate

opposition.

But

as

he

argued,

who

cannot

think

activity

or opposition

without

a substrate

cannot

philosophize

at all

Einleitulng

308).

Schelling

introduced

his Natuirplhilosophie

in

1797 by

arguing:

Nature

should

be

the

visible

mind

[Geist],

the

mind

the

invisible

nature.

Here

then,

in the

absolute

identity

of

the mind

within

us

and

nature

outside

us,

the

problem

of

how

a

nature

external

to

us is

possible

must

be

solved

557


14/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

the

Concept

of

Matter,

from

the

Nature

of

Perception

and

the

Human

Mind,

in

which

he

provided

a

trantscenidental

discussion

of the

concept

of

matter,

tracing

the

origin

of

the

concept

in

our minds

after

the

method

of

Fichte's

Wissenschaftslehre

(Ideert

2I3-23 .

Thus

from

the

beginning

of

his

engagement

with

Naturphilosophie,

he

was

concerned

with

its

relationship

to

idealism.

Indeed,

the

positive

and

negative

principles

of

his Natur

philosophie,

pure

activity

and

its

constraint,

were

conceived

as

analogies

of

the

activities

of freedom

and

constraint

in

Fichte's

analysis

of

the

activity

of

thinking.

On

the

completion

of his

three

important

works

on

Natur

philosophie,

Schelling

turned

to

the

problem

of

the

relationship

of

his

Naturphilosophie

to transcendental

idealism.

The Natural

History

of the

Mind:

Transcendental

Idealism

In

his

i oo

System

of

Transcendental

Idealism

Schelling

offered

a

new

con-

ception

of the

natural

history

of

the

mind,

depicting

the

emergence

of

na-

ture

from

the

mind

by

tracing

the

genesis

of all

intuitions

and

concepts

of

nature

from the

mind's

activity

according

to

the

principles

and

method

of

Fichte's

Wissensclaftslehre.

Fichte's

dominant

presence

in

Jena

no

doubt

stimulated

Schelling

shortly

after

his

arrival

there

to

reexamine

Fichte's

work

with

which

he

had

engaged

so

productively

as

a student

at

Tiibingen.

Moreover,

given

the

project

of

his

speculative

science

to

bring

theory

into

the

phenomena

of

nature,

to examine the

a

prioriconditions

or

the possibil-

ity

of

a nature,

it

became

important

to

clarify

its

relationship

to idealism.

Schelling

insisted

that

the

two

were

quite

separate

sciences,

starting

from

different

bases

and

proceeding

in

different

directions.

Naturphilosophie

as-

cends

from

experience

and

empirical

laws

to the

pure

principles

prior

to

all

experience;

it sets

out to

idealize

the

real,

to

spiritualize

all

natural

laws

into

the

laws

of

thought.

Transcendental

idealism,

in

contrast,

descends

from

pure

subjectivity

to

empirical

phenomena;

it

sets

out

to

produce

a

realism

out

of

idealism,

to

display

phenomena

as

products

of

the

mind.

Thus

although

both

offer constructions

of

nature,

they do

so

in

distinct

ways.

As

opposed

to

Fichte,

Schelling

contended

that

a

complete

system

of

philoso-

phy

would

need

both.23

His

System

ofTranscendental

Idealisrm

was

introduced

as

a complement

to

his

earlier

Naturphilosophie,

and

as

a part

of

a

complete

philosophical

system.

Schelling

also

offered

a different

emphasis

than

Fichte

in his

treatment

of

transcendental

idealism-whereas

Fichte

was

principally

concerned

with

finding

a

consistent

definition

of

the

principle

of

pure

sub-

jectivity

and

proving

his

system

through

immediate

inference

from

that

principle,

Schelling

claimed

to

offer

a

factual

proof

of

transcendental

ideal-

23.

Schelling,

558


15/41

NATURE

IN SCHELLING'S

PHILOSOPHY

ism

by

demonstrating

that

it could

actually

derive

the

entire

system

of

knowledge

(System

377).

Fichte's

science

of

knowledge

is

best

understood

as

a

reworking

of

Kant's

critical

philosophy,

and

its claim

to examine

the sources

and

condi-

tions

of

cognition.

As

Schelling's

Naturphilosopiuie

subjected the

empirical

concepts

that Kant

took

as

a starting

point

for

his construction

of

nature

to

further

critical

construction,

so

Fichte

subjected

the

facts

of consciousness

that

Kant

took

as

the starting

point

for

his

critical

philosophy

to

further

critical

analysis.

Fichte

objected,

for

example,

to

Kant

resting

the

argument

for

practical

reason

upon

an

appeal

to a

fact of

consciousness.

He

also main-

tained

that

Kant by

no

means

proved

that

the

categories

he

set

up

to

be the

conditions

of

self-consciousness,

but merely

said

that

they

were

this.

2 4

In-

deed,

Kant

left

the synthesis

of the

manifold

of

intuition

that

constitutes

the

categories

to

the

unconscious

activity

of

the

transcendental

imagination

(Critiquie

ofPure

Reason A

7

78/BIo3).

Fichte

sought

to examine

the

grounds

for

these

facts

[Thatsache]

of

consciousness

by

examining

the

activity of

thinking

giving

rise

to

them,

what

he

called

the

Act

or

active

deed

[Tlhat

handlung].25

Rather

than

simply accepting

that

an I

think

accompa-

nies

all states

of

consciousness,

Fichte

demanded

of his students

and

readers

that they

attend

to the

activity

of

thinking

involved

in

thinking

the

I. He

would

thus

claim to

provide

a better

defense

of Kant's

philosophy

than

Kant

himself

gave, and

in ways

more

consistent

with

the

principles

of criti-

cal philosophy.

In

attending

to

the

activity

of

one's I

in

thinking,

Fichte

cautioned

against

tuming

such

activity

of thinking

into

phenomena

of

consciousness

requiring

a

distinct

subject

possessing

awareness

of that

phenomena,

result-

ing

in

an

infinite

regression

of the

subject's

thinking

of thinking.

Such

an

error

had

been

made

by Reinhold,

Fichte's

predecessor

at Jena.26

In

his

Fouindationts

of

thie Entire

Science

of

Knrowledge,

published

in

I

794 for

his

first

lectures

on

the

Wissensclhaftslelhre

in Jena,

Fichte

introduced

the

notion

of

self-positing

[sicil

setzen]

to avoid

the

self-alienating

effect of the

infinite

re-

gress

of

reflection

upon the

self's

activity

of

thinking.

The

positing

of

the

I through

itself

is

thus

its

own

pure

activity.-The

I posits

itself,

and

by

virtue

of

this

mere

self-assertion

it

is; and

con-

24.

Fichte, Zweite

Einleitung

in die

Wissenschaftslehre,

in Gesamtaztsgabe

I.4:

230,

an d

FsW

l:

479.

25 The

term

Tliatizanidlhig

is

derived

from

the term

Thlatsacie

[fact],

but replaces

achle

[thing]

with

Handlmng [action].

26. Fichte,

Aeneisdemus,

oder

iuber

der von

dem

Hrn. Prof.

Reinhold

inJena

gelieferten

Elementar-Philosophie,

in

Gesamlauisgabe

1 2:

41-67;

FsW

1:

3-25.

See Beiser,

Fate ofRea

son,

ch.

8;

and Frederick

Neuhouser,

Ficthte's

Tlheory

of

Suibjectivity (Cambridge:

Cambridge

55 9


16/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

versely,

the

I

is

[ist]

and

posits

its being

[Seyn] by

virtue

of its

mere

be-

ing.

It is

at

once

the

agent

[Handelnde]

and

the

product

of

action

[Handlung];

the

active [Thidtige],

and

what the

activity

[Tltatigkeit]

brings

about;

action

[Handltng]

and

deed

[That]

are

one

and

the

same,

and

hence

the

anl

[ chi

bin]

expresses

an Act

[Thathandlhing].

Gnmndlage

259;

FsW

I:

96)

Fichte

played

with the

double

meaning

of

the

word

Seyn,

as

both

the

noun

being

and

the

verb

to

be

or

logical

copula

is,

to

express

the

identity

of

the

self's

being

and

the

activity

of thought

in

self-positing.

In

the

posit-

ing

of

itself, he

argued,

the

I

is

both subject

and

predicate,

subject

and

ob-

ject

of

itself For

Fichte,

philosophical

reflection

is

concerned

with

the

transformative activity

of

reflecting

on

the form

of

knowing,

through

which

the

form

becomes

the

form

of

the form

as its

content

and

returns

into

itself

Fs

W

i

67).

But

the

Wissenschaftslehre

is not

solely

a formal

sci-

ence

of

potentially

unending

reflection,

of

the

self

reflecting

upon

the

form

of

its

thought.

The

positing

of the I

determines

the

I, making

its

being

present,

and

halting

the

infinity

of

reflection.

The term

Thathandllung

ex-

presses

the

identity

of

reflection

and

positing,

of the

form

and

content

of

the

self's

activity.

27

The

judgment

that

something

is

something,

that

phenomenological

awareness

of

something

is

connected

to

a concept,

that

act

of

thought,

constitutes the

being

of

the

self

as

an

active

power or pure

activity.

The content

of the

self's

activity

is thus

identical

to

its form.

Fichte

introduced

this

absolute

[schlechthin],

unconditioned

self-positing

of

the

I

as

the

first

principle

of

all

philosophy.

Fichte

thus

foregrounds

the

identity

of

the

self,

the I

think

that

Kant

held accompanies

all cognitive

activities,

making

it the

basis

of

all

human

knowledge.

But,

as Heidegger

has

noted, Kant

held

that

the

identity

of

the

self

that

accompanies

all

cognition

only

becomes

aware

of

itself

through

opposition

[entgegensteht]

to some

object

[Gegenstanda

of

thought

or

repre-

sentation.28

Fichte followed Kant here,

oppositing

or

counterpositing

[Etntgegensetzeti]

to

the

positing

[setzen]

of

the

I [ chi]

that

of a

not-I

[Nicht-

Ich]

as

the

second

principle

of all

human

knowledge.

The

not-I

acts

as

a

check

[Anstofi]

or

limit

upon

the

I's

infinite

and

unconditioned

activity,

reflecting

it back

upon

itself

and

thus

making

it

conscious

of itself.

Fichte

used

this

strange

expression

not-I

to

indicate

that

all

cognitive

activity

in-

volves

the

I, that

any

phenomenon

must

be

a

phenomenon

of conscious-

ness

for

us

to be

aware of

it

as a

phenomenon-a

not-I.

Like

Schelling,

27.

See

Walter Benjamin,

Der

Begriff der Kunstkritik in der deutschen

Romantik,

in

Walter

Bciamint

Cesan,nnelte

Scitifteni,

ed.

Rolf Tiedemann

and

Hermann

Schweppenh-iuser,

560


17/41

NATURE

IN

SCHELLING'S

PHILOSOPHY

Fichte

found

Kant's

notion

of a

noumenal

thing-in-itself

completely

sepa-

rate

from

the

activity

of

the

I

meaningless

and

uncritical.

Yet

this

phenom-

enon

of

consciousness

appears

as

something

alien

and

unconscious

to

the

pure,

unconditioned

activity

of

the

I a

niot-I.

The

opposition

of the

I and

not-I

led Fichte

to

introduce

a

third

principle,

that

of

a

synthetic

relation

between

these

opposites.

This

third principle

addresses

the Kantian

prob-

lem

of

how

synthetic

a

priori

judgments

are

possible.

Fichte

argued

that

by

regarding

the

pure

activity

of the

I as

quantitatively

divided

into

an objec-

tive

portion

of

the

I,

or not-I,

opposed

to

a

subjective

portion

of

the

I,

their

synthesis

could

be

comprehended

as

grounded

in the

self-positing

I as

the

basis

of

both.

From

these

three

principles-the

pure,

unconditioned

activity

of

the

I,

the

opposition

within

the I's

activity

of

a

not-I to

the

I,

and

the

synthesis

of the

I and

the

not-I-Fichte

claimed

to be

able to

de-

rive

the entire

form and

content

of

cognitive

activity.

Fichte's

presentation

of

the

Wissensclhaftslelzre

is

mind-numbingly

convo-

luted, and

it is hard

to

imagine

his

students

thinking

with

him

as he

traced

the

supposed

activity

of the

I

through

all

aspects

of

its self-construction.

Its

complex

formulation

is

in

part due

to

its

hasty

composition

and

episodic

publication

as

lecture

notes,

and

in

part due

to

Fichte's

unusual

modes

of

expression.

Indeed,

some

have

read

him

as postulating

the

production

of

the entire

world

from

the

absolute,

unconditioned

activity

of

the

self,

al-

though

it is

unclear

what

that

might

mean.

29

But

we should

take

seriously

Fichte's

claim

that

he

was

a

Kantian,

that

he

offered

a

critical

examination

of the

cognitive

activities

of the

finite

human

mind,

and only

went

beyond

Kant

in

offering

a

critical

examination

of

elements

of cognition

left opaque

by

Kant.

The

close

relationship

between

Fichte's

Wissensclzaftslehre

and

Kant's

critical

philosophy

is

particularly

manifest

in

the

Deduction

of

Representation,

the

summary

statement

that

concluded

the

first,

theoreti-

cal

part

of

the Founidationis,

and

that

was

based

on

the

argument

and termi-

nology

of

Kant's

Transcendental

Deduction

of the

Pure

Concepts

of

Un-

derstanding

in

the

Critiquie

of

Puire

Reasonj

Fichte,

Grundlage

369-84;

FsW

I:

228-46).

In Kant's

treatment,

the

synthesis

of intuitions

into

a unified

representation,

ready

for

recognition

in a concept,

is

enacted

by

the

tran-

scendental

imagination

working

unconsciously.

As

the

unknown,

but

common

root

of

sensation

and

thought,

the

transcendental

imagination

has

an

essential

but problematic

place

in

Kant's

architecture

of

pure

rea-

son.

30

Fichte,

in

contrast,

argued

that

through

philosophical

reflection,

all

29

Neuhouser

attributes

such popular

readings

of

Fichte

as

due

to a

misreading

of

his

use of

the

term

absolute

[scisIecdithizi]

Fichte

used

the term

to

refer

to the

unconditioned

activity

of

the

1

rather than to

claim

that

the

I

was

an

absolute

being productive

of

all

other

being.

See

Neuhouser,

Ficite s

Thjeosy

of ibjectivity

46.

561


18/41

JOAN

STEIGERWALD

activity

of

the

I could

be

attended

to

and

traced

genetically,

including

that

of

the

imagination.

Indeed,

a

science

of

knowledge

must

not

only

posit

knowledge

as

the

identity

of

intuition

and

thought,

but show

that

identity

by

its

Act

(Hegel,

Djferenz

36).

Fichte

depicted

the

imagination

as

wavering

between

the opposite directions

of

the

l's

activity,

its

spontane-

ous,

outward

activity

and

the

reversion

of

that

activity

back

into

itself

through

some

extraneous

check.

The

imagination

thus

posits

an

intuited

[Anschauteni],

Epistemologies of Rupture - The Problem of Nature in Schelling's Philosophy

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