Schelling’s Late Philosophy
摘要
In its precise, systematic form and in the main philosophical theses it presents, F. W. J. Schelling’s late philosophy remains a widely unexplored and largely opaque terrain for hermeneutical research and research in the history of philosophy today. On the one hand, the dominant reading of the late philosophy maintains that it is a single systematic—and to a certain degree stable—line of thought that has, as its main goal, to give a “positive” account of the world’s development out of its metaphysical principle (the Absolute, primal being, or God). This “positive” account is one that includes the recognition of “historical” facts, although it has indeed undergone Kantian critique. Despite some granted fluctuations and boosts in development, the late philosophy is thereby considered to be worked out in a manner that is relatively stable until the end of the Berlin period, and which follows largely unaltered lines of thought about what are the philosophic premises, methods, and aims to be pursued under the persisting titles of a Philosophy of Mythology and Philosophy of Revelation. On the other hand, however, it cannot be overlooked that Schelling repeatedly introduced important, self-critical revisions and additions to his late philosophy in the period after the 1827–1828 System of the Ages of the WorldSchelling, F.W.S., and even up until the beginning of the 1850s in Berlin. More so, in fact, since the significance of these revisions and supplements in reference to the systematic form and the philosophical-metaphysical scope of the theses of Schelling’s late philosophy is not immediately apparent, and their exact meaning for the intended final form of Schelling’s philosophy is by no means obvious.