Interpreting Schelling
Critical Essays

This book is the first collection of essays on Schelling in English that systematically explores the historical development of his philosophy. It addresses all four periods of Schelling's thought: his Transcendental Philosophy and Philosophy of Nature, his System of Identity [Identitätsphilosophie], his System of Freedom, and his Positive Philosophy. The essays examine the constellation of philosophical ideas that motivated the formation of Schelling's thought, as well as those later ones for which his philosophy laid the foundation. They therefore relate Schelling's philosophy to a broad range of systematic issues that are of importance to us today: metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, our modern conceptions of individual autonomy, philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, political philosophy, and theology. The result is a new interpretation of Schelling's place in the history of German Idealism as an inventive and productive thinker.

Notes on contributors; Acknowledgments; Method of citation; Introduction Lara Ostaric; 1. The early Schelling on the unconditioned Eric Watkins; 2. Schelling and scepticism Michael N. Forster; 3. The concept of life in early Schelling Lara Ostaric; 4. Knowledge and pleasure in the aesthetics of Schelling Paul Guyer; 5. 'Exhibiting the particular in the universal': philosophical construction and intuition in Schelling's Philosophy of Identity (1801–4) Daniel Breazeale; 6. 'Identity of identity and non-identity': Schelling's path to the 'absolute system of identity' Manfred Frank; 7. Idealism and freedom in Schelling's Freiheitsschrift Michelle Kosch; 8. Beauty reconsidered: freedom and virtue in Schelling's aesthetics Jennifer Dobe; 9. Nature and freedom in Schelling and Adorno Andrew Bowie; 10. Church and state: Schelling's political philosophy of religion Günter Zöller; 11. Schelling's critique of Hegel Fred Rush; Bibliography; Index.

Lara Ostaric is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, Philadelphia. She has published on Schelling and Kant in Philosophisches Jahrbuch, Kantian Review, Kant-Studien, and Inquiry.