The All-Unity Reason, or The Birth of Schelling’s Speculative Idealism

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the explication of main concepts and ideas of Schelling’s first speculative theology i.e. philosophy of identity (1801‒1806). As a main source the author analyzes Schelling’s Presentation Of My System Of Philosophy and I. Troxler’s summary of Schelling’s lectures delivered in Summer semester 1801. The latter text is important because it contains (1) an outline of general principles of Schelling’s world-outlook, (2) a comprehensive explication for the paragraphs of Presentation. The author presents reconstruction of the whole Schelling’s all-unity doctrine with accent to the concept of “intellectual contemplation” without which the doctrine loses its inner logic. The paper also deals with the criticism of Schelling’s absolute identity doctrine by his contemporaries. C.A. Eschenmayer poses sharp and uncomfortable questions which make Schelling modify his theory with an idea of the so-called Abfall. Serious objections to the Schelling’s doctrine come also from J.G. Fichte and J. Fries. This intra-traditional criticism gives us possibility to mark out specific traits of the early form of Schelling’s philosophy of identity. The mains of them are (a) the interpretation of intellectual contemplation as the exit from the subjectivity and (b) the conception of the indissoluble dialectical connection between the finite world and the Absolute however without detailed basis.