The life and ideas of F.W.J. Schelling are often overlooked in favor of the more familiar Kant, Fichte, or Hegel. What these three lack, however, is Schelling's evolving view of philosophy. Where others saw the possibility for a single, unflinching system of thought, Schelling was unafraid to question the foundations of his own ideas. In this book, Bruce Matthews argues that the organic view of philosophy is the fundamental idea behind Schelling's thought. Focusing in particular on Schelling's early writings, especially on Plato and Kant, Matthews explores Schelling's idea that any philosophical system must be perspectival and formed by each individual student of philosophy, providing a unique new understanding to an important and often overlooked figure in the history of philosophy.

Preface Acknowledgments Notes on Sources and Abbreviations 1. Life as the Schema of Freedom: Schelling's Organic Form of Philosophy Subjectivism and the Annihilation of Nature Immanent Reconstruction Kant and the Categorical Imperative of Unity in Reason Plato's o(do/j and the Eternal Form of Philosophy Organic Unity and Nature's Redemption Ideas in situ: Embedded Thought 2. Beginnings: Theosophy and Nature Divine The Acculturation of a Prophet of Nature The Discipline of Language and Actuality of the Past The Tradition of Pietism: Freedom as the Unmediated Experience of the Divine Halfway between Tradition and the Enlightenment: Theosophy and the Divinity of Nature Oetinger's Genetic Epistemology and the Unmediated Knowing of the Zentralerkenntnis Divinity as Freedom in Nature: The Priority of Freedom over Wisdom Schelling's Eulogy and the System of Philipp Matthäus Hahn(1739-1790) A Theology of Life Procreative Logic: Hahn's "ordo generativus" Systema Infl uxus: The Immanent Harmony of the Trichotomy of Body, Soul, and Mind Life in the Anticipation of the Eschaton: The Prophet of Freedom and Nature Divine Schelling's Eulogy of Hahn(1790)and the Passing of the Flame of Prophecy Prophet of the New Religion of Nature: Matter Spiritualized 3. The Question of Systematic Unity Systematic Unity and the Urform of Reason Life Is the Schema of Freedom: The Will of Desire and the Causality of Freedom The Antinomy of Aesthetic Judgment The Unity of the Ideas of Reason and the Transcendental Ideal as the Form of Forms Transcendental Modality: Unity as Grundsatz of Reason Weltbegriffe and Naturbegriffe: The Limits of a Mathematical World in the Face of the "Absolute Selbsttätigkeit" of Nature The Urform of Reason: ai( suna/pasai e)pisth=mai The Logical Visage: The Prinzipien of Unity, Manifoldness, and Continuity The Idea of the Maximum as the Analogon of the Schemafor the "Prinzipien der Vernunft" The Transcendental Ideas: The Figurative Guarantors of Reason's Extension Aesthetic Ideas, the Sublime, and the Internal Intuition of the Supersensible Ground Genius: Autoepistemic Organ of Nature? 4. The Timaeus Commentary To Seek the Divine in Nature Schelling's Commentary on the Timaeus The Divine Ideas of Reason to kalo/n as the Ideal of Unity and Completeness The World Soul as "The Ideal of the World": Organic Life as a Principle of Systematic Unity Immanent Preestablished Harmony: The Condition of Possibility of Einheit The Ideas: Existence Is Not a Predicate The Threefold Form of All Knowing Plato's Urform 5. On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy: The Form Essay Schelling's Original Insight The Urform of All Forms Kant's Progressive Method: The Removal of the Time Condition as the Condition of Comprehending an Absolute Magnitude Reciprocal Establishment of the Urform The Progressive Method of Disjunctive Identity The Urform of Relation Philological Justification Epistemic Positionality and the Removal of the Time-Condition Form of Being Unconditionally Posited: 'I = I' Form of the Conditioned: NichtIch = Nicht Ich (Nichtich ¿ Ich) Form of Conditionality Determined by Unconditionality = Consciousness Disjunctive Identity 6. Freedom and the Construction of Philosophy The Dynamic Process: Producing the System of Identity The Self Versetzt: Freedom as the Postulate of Philosophy The Method of Construction: Einbildung as the In-Eins-Bildung of Duality Problematic: All Philosophy Is Construction An Aesthetic Philosophy The Construction of the Self: Theoretical Philosophy and Unconscious Nature First Epoch: Productive Intuition of Sensation through the Restriction of the Past Second Epoch: Transition from Blind Intuition to Reflection through the Restriction of the Present Third Epoch: From Reflection to the Absolute Act of the Will The Derivation of the Categories from Time Transition to Practical Philosophy: The Absolute Act of the Will Time and Historicity The Tense of the Absolute: Futurity The Endless Process Appendix "Eulogy Sung at Hahn's Grave" Notes Index