Academic literature on the topic 'Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von (1775-1854) – Appréciation'

The phrase Idealism is not new for the students and readers of Philosophy, however, when the prefix German is added before it, it acquires a different meaning, mood, taste and inclination. German Idealism is distinguished from all other forms of European Idealisms. It concentrated on mind as an active and self-conscious entity. German Idealists suppressed the traditional ontologies based on substances and their accidents. The most prominent German Idealists include I - Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), II- Johann Gottelib Fichte (1762-1814), III-Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Von Schelling (1775-1854) and IV- George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). Kant, though an empirical rationalist, could not deny the supremacy of mind over matter and of human beings over the external world. For him space, time and causality were the categories of mind, which it imposed on the outer world. However, he did believe in the dichotomy of mind and matter though he combined rationalism and empiricism in his Transcendental Idealism, which is an unconscious move towards unity despite the belief in noumena and phenomena. Later thinkers, however, gradually moved closer and closer to the Idealism and especially Monism. Some salient features of German Idealism which give it a distinct identity separate from the rest of Western Philosophy include: i- Idea of the Absolute, ii- Beginning of the world in the Absolute, iii- Stages and phases of Self- consciousness, iv- Unity of the Subject and Object, v-First traces of Philosophical Anthropology (What man is in itself beyond all physical things and the universe?), vi- Intellectual intuition as a source of knowledge and a tendency towards esotericism, vii – Enthusiastic interest in Dialectics, viii- Freedom and Determinism, ix- Self as an entity free of external and causal determinants , x- Ideas of Ego and Spirit, xi- World Spirit and xii- Existence as a whole or a Unity. These eternal, perennial, deep, highbrow, captivating, serious, scholarly, cherished, enthralling and fascinating ideas were presented and discussed at length by Muhammad Iqbal too in his Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Only one glance at the salient features of German Idealism brings into mind the familiar philosophical topics on which Muhammad Iqbal has written extensively. Besides his Urdu and Persian poetry, his political ideas bear profound stamps of these ideas. Therefore, this comparative study is academically justified, intellectually stimulating and scholastically enriching.

Cette thèse propose de présenter les réceptions de F.W.J. Schelling en France au XIXe siècle en interrogeant comment cette réception a contribué à l’élaboration d’une philosophie nationale. Il s’agit de lier l’approche consistant à étudier la réception philosophique de Schelling et celle consistant à interroger la constitution de la philosophie française. Ce travail présente ainsi une histoire schellingienne de la philosophie française, qui correspond à l’histoire des constructions et des usages de la figure de Schelling. Il débute en 1801 avec la parution de l’ouvrage de Charles de Villers, La Philosophie de Kant qui constitue le point de départ de l’introduction de la philosophie schellingienne en France en même temps que celui de l’apparition de la problématique consistant à chercher à (re)élaborer une philosophie nationale. Il s’achève en 1901, avec la parution du dernier texte de Félix Ravaisson, le Testament Philosophique, qui constitue le dernier témoignage de l’usage de Schelling dans la philosophie française du XIXe siècle. Cette thèse comporte deux parties qui se chevauchent chronologiquement. La première se concentre sur la diffusion de la philosophie de Schelling, c’est-à-dire sur les différentes modalités de construction de sa figure au sein du paysage philosophique français. La seconde partie s’intéresse à la naturalisation de Schelling, c’est-à-dire aux usages de sa figure dans le cadre précis de l’élaboration et de la revendication d’une philosophie française, principalement par Cousin, Lamennais, Leroux et Ravaisson. De cette étude, ressortent trois résultats principaux : premièrement, elle permet d’envisager des devenirs possibles de la philosophie de Schelling. Deuxièmement, elle propose des histoires alternatives de la philosophie française du XIXe siècle, qui ne se résume ni au positivisme comtien ni au spiritualisme cousinien issu de Biran. Troisièmement, elle permet, plus largement, d’interroger les sens, la pertinence et les enjeux de la notion de « nationalité » en philosophie
This dissertation aims to present the reception of F.W.J. Schelling in France during the 19th century, examining how this reception contributed to the development of a national philosophy. The stake is to connect the study of Schelling's philosophical reception with that of the formation of French philosophy. This work thus presents a Schellingian history of French philosophy, corresponding to the history of the constructions and uses of Schelling’s figure. It begins in 1801, with the publication of Charles de Villers' La Philosophie de Kant, which was the starting point of the introduction of Schellingian philosophy in France, as well as the emergence of the concern to (re)define a national philosophy. It ends in 1901, with the publication of the last text of Félix Ravaisson's, Le Testament Philosophique, which represents the last indication of the use of Schelling in 19th century French philosophy. This dissertation is divided into two parts that overlap chronologically. The first part focuses on the dissemination of Schelling's philosophy, i.e. the various ways in which his figure was constructed within the French philosophical landscape. The second part focuses on Schelling's naturalization, i.e., the ways in which his figure was used in the context of the development and assertion of a French philosophy, mainly by Cousin, Lamennais, Leroux and Ravaisson. Three main results emerge from this study: first, it allows us to envisage possible futures for Schelling's philosophy. Secondly, it offers alternative histories of 19th century French philosophy, which cannot be reduced to Comtien positivism or to the biranian spiritualism of Cousin. Thirdly, it allows us to question the meaning, relevance and stakes of the notion of “nationality” in philosophy

Ce travail consiste tout d'abord en une traduction française annotée de l'intégralité du texte allemand "Die Philisophie der Kunst" de Schelling. D'autre part,cette traduction est suivie d'une étude intitulée "Schelling l'art et l'absolu" et de documents annexes (schémas synoptiques,index,bibliographie). La problématique du texte est comment présenter en idéal le réel contenu dans l'art ? La première partie,générale,distingue trois étapes dans le cheminement de la pensée à savoir la position particulière de l'art comme réel mais issu de l'Absolu et la construction de la matière puis de la forme de l'art. La seconde partie,spéciale,traite de l'art effectif rendu ainsi possible et de ses formes(art plastique et art de la parole). Après une étude du "Système de l'idéalisme transcendantal" de 1800,où l'art occupait déjà une fonction clé et surtout de la dernière partie,proprement esthétique,et une introduction à la philosophie de l'identité telle qu'elle est traitée dans la "Philosophie de l'art",la postface du traducteur sur la logique même du texte de Schelling et s'attache à la construction de l'art,puis à sa matière,la mythologie,pour conclure sur la théorie de l'oeuvre d'art et sur la partie proprement spéciale de "La Philosophie et l'art".

En medio de la vasta producción científica, filosófica y literaria que caracterizó al romanticismo alemán, la corriente de pensamiento conocida con el nombre de Naturphilosophie nos brinda una oportunidad excepcional para estudiar las relaciones entre medicina y literatura. Ejemplo de ello es la relación entre el médico Andreas Röschlaub (1768-1835) y el escritor y filósofo Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854). El trabajo de Röschlaub hizo posible que Schelling, quien en sus publicaciones de 1797 y 1798 se había mostrado contrario a las ideas de John Brown (1735-1788), se convirtiese en 1799 en un defensor de las mismas. En 1800, ellos se encontraron en Bamberg, en cuya universidad Schelling asistiría durante varios meses a las lecciones de Andreas Röschlaub y Adalbert Marcus (1753-1816) e impartiría las suyas sobre Naturphilosophie. Más tarde, en 1805, Röschlaub y Schelling se distanciarían y este último comenzaría a editar en compañía de Marcus su propia revista. Éste y otros gestos terminarían dividiendo a los seguidores alemanes de la teoría de Brown en dos grupos: los fisiólogos que apoyaban a Schelling y los patólogos que tomaron partido por Röschlaub. A partir de entonces, se inicia entre ambos una lucha sorda que tiene como tribuna las revistas que dirigen. Uno de los episodios fundamentales de esta controversia es la publicación en 1806 de unos "Fragmentos Antropológicos" en los que Roeschlaub se propone construir a través de la "palabra divina" su propia Naturphilosophie. Estos fragmentos demuestran por sí mismos cuán intricadas son las relaciones entre ambos mundos en este período ya que a pesar de que fueron escritos con una intención religiosa en ellos se percibe un espíritu claramente literario. Finalmente, Andreas Roeschlaub, el médico abnegado que propugnaba una enseñanza de la medicina junto al lecho del enfermo, había decidido expresarse con las "palabras divinas" de una literatura cada vez más próxima a la ciencia médica.
There are few historical moments so adapted to study relations between medicine and literature as the German romanticism and in the great philosophical, scientific and literary production that characterized this period the meeting of the physic Andreas Röschlaub (1768-1835) and the philosopher and writer Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854). Through the works of Röschlaub, Schelling who before had been an opponent of the Brown's doctrine became a defender of this. In 1800, they met in Bamberg, where Röschlaub directed his own magazine and worked at the Bamberg's Hospital. There, Schelling listened the lessons of Andreas Röschlaub and Adalbert Marcus (1753-1816) about the Erregbarketstheorie (excitability theory) and he gave his lessons about Naturphilosophie. Later, in 1805, Röschlaub and Schelling separated and the second began to publish his own medical magazine. This and other things divided their followers into two groups, the physiologists who followed Schelling and the pathologists who followed Röschlaub, and among them began a polemical relation that had their magazines as tribune. One of the main moments of this debate was the publication in 1805-1807 of a series of anthropological and physiological fragments by Andreas Röschlaub where he tried to make from "the divine words" his own Naturphilosophie. Besides the religious intention it is possible to see a literary spirit in these words: the man of science had renounced to speak with the words he always used and decided to speak with "the divine words" of a literature each time more near to the medical science.

De Reinhold à Hegel en passant par Fichte et Schelling, les philosophes de l'idéalisme allemand ont été confrontés à l'obligation de donner une réponse à la question suivante : quel doit-être le commencement de la philosophie, étant entendu que la figure vraie de celle-ci est le système du savoir ou de la science ? Cette question est une question de droit et non pas de fait : notre enquête ne porte donc pas sur le commencement historique de la philosophie, sur sa naissance en Grèce ou ailleurs. Il est question ici de la manière dont la philosophie, en tant que système certain s'assignant la prise en vue de la totalité de l'étant, doit commencer de telle sorte que ce commencement soit praticable par et pour un sujet philosophant au départ extérieur au système (c'est la question du commencement subjectif de la philosophie). La question se pose à la marge du système lui-même, au niveau de l'articulation entre d'une part un discours qui se présente comme le savoir même, c'est-à-dire comme l'autoprésentation de l'absolu en personne, et d'autre part un sujet destinataire de ce discours, se pensant extérieur au savoir et se déterminant comme sujet simplement philosophant, c'est-à-dire aspirant seulement au savoir. Nous partons de la solution originale donnée par Hegel à ce problème sous la forme d'une phénoménologie de l'esprit, d'une science de l'élévation de la conscience naturelle à la science. Cette solution hégélienne s'étant délivrée en même temps sous la forme d'une critique de la philosophie schellingienne de l'identité et de son commencement immédiat par pure et simple élimination du sujet philosophant dans l'intuition intellectuelle de l'absolu, nous reprenons le débat Hegel-Schelling là ou eux-mêmes l'on laisse et nous interprétons la suite de l'itinéraire schellingien comme la recherche d'une solution au problème du commencement philosophique : en ce sens, la philosophie négative apparait comme une propédeutique scientifique à la science proprement dite, c'est-à-dire a la philosophie positive
The subject of this research is the subjective beginning of philosophie, and not the objective beginning of philosophie, well known under the name of first principle or fondation of the system. The problem is this of the relationship between the philosopher on one side and the system of science on the other side. This question was the reason for the philosophical divorce between Hegel and schelling in 1807. Schelling had pretented in his first philosophie that the beginning of philosophie supposed the elimination of the subjective and limited philo-sopher in the intellectual intuition of the absolute. Hegel insisted on the contrary on the possibility of a gradual elevation from the limited knowledge of the philosopher to the science or "absolute knowledge" : this plan has been carry out in the phenomenologie of mind as scientifical introduction into the science. The other questions we treat of are the next : did Hegel maintain this solution to the problem of philosophical beginning or did he finally prefer (in his encyclopedie of philosophical sciences) this other solution which consists in a decision or resolution for the pure thinking ? And did not schelling finally, in his last philosophie, arrive to a similar solution in that meaning that his negative philosophie can be interpreted as a scientifical introduction into the science (which is the positive or historical philosophie) ? We end in the conclusion that Hegel and Schelling are more close than usually said, and that they did together achieve the german idealism

Tesis para optar al grado de Magister en Filosofía mención en Axiología y Filosofía Política.
El problema que intentaré esbozar en las páginas que siguen intenta una reflexión sobre la noción de comunidad, como mundo ético, es decir mundo en el que se dan las relaciones intersubjetivas. Problema presente en las diferentes reflexiones actuales y que conlleva a pensar por el sentido bajo el cual estamos pensando eso común sea como reunión, como esencia común (bien) o como un no lugar entre los hombres que entrega la posibilidad de considerar aquello que ponemos en común (don) comunidad de lo no común (ficción). Con ello me interesa ir por otra vía que aquella que distingue la esfera intersubjetiva como el problema político planteado por las posturas comunitaristas y liberales. El problema que abordo en esta tesis se da desde una perspectiva que podríamos llamar “trascendental”, es decir pensar la comunidad en base a un cierto principio articulador.

Menacée de déclin, la métaphysique dort se confronter à un questionnement sur sa propre crise. Aux yeux de Schelling, la crise de la métaphysique est déjà survenue ; la question devient donc de déterminer le sens de cette crise. En renvoyant au sens originel de la crise, Schelling emploie ce terme pour designer l'acte de séparation radicale d'où dérivent les sens comme le jugement et le moment crucial, etc. ; ce qui conduit à une considération sur la signification de la crise dans la systématisation schellingienne. Ce travail analyse d'abord dans la première partie, selon la problématique de la synthèse, le contexte de la confrontation rigoureuse chez Schelling avec les moments de séparation au sein du système jusqu'à sa philosophie de l'identité. Après cette partie préparatoire, il examine les différentes significations de la crise dans les textes principaux de la période de la philosophie de la liberté et de l'histoire et esquisse une métaphysique de la crise autour des termes de décision, mort, temporalité, extase, etc… Ces aspects de la crise, vus comme restructuration des éléments systématiques axés sur le décalage entre la liberté et l'existence, envisage la réflexion sur la constitution ontothéologique de la métaphysique. Comme la dernière phase de la philosophie de Schelling se concentre sur la différenciation de la positivité et de la négativité, opération qui exige aussi une réflexion sur la scission intérieure à la philosophie, la troisième partie analyse cette dernière confrontation de la crise et, en saisissant la condition humaine dans l'entreprise métaphysique, considère l'inversion en philosophie comme la réponse à la double fonction de la crise : la séparation et l'identité restauratrice. Le sens de la crise de la métaphysique est dans le dégagement de la propre vitalité de la philosophie au sein et à partir de sa constitution intrinsèque.

L'extase, puissance de sortie de soi et confrontation au tout-autre, est un terme récurrent de la dernière philosophie de Schelling. Elle apparaît en deux emplois principaux: extase de la raison, elle donne à cette dernière, par le renoncement initial qu'elle suppose, la possibilité de comprendre le Dieu créateur qui ne peut jamais être déduit a priori. Extase en Dieu, elle est la manifestation de la toute-puissance et de la liberté divines: Dieu est assez sûr de soi pour poser ce qui le nie. Ces deux emplois sont étroitement liés, l'extase en Dieu est la condition de l'extase de la raison. L'extase est par ailleurs le résultat de la transformation de l'intuition intellectuelle, mode de saisie de l'absolu qui régnait dans la philosophie de l'identité, et le passage de l'un à l'autre concept résume la transformation de l'absolu lui-même dans la philosophie de Schelling. La thèse soutenue est celle de la continuité de l'ensemble de la dernière philosophie. La transformation de la philosophie négative en science rationnelle, première partie du diptyque dont la philosophie positive constitue le second volet, est compatible avec la prééminence toujours conservée à la philosophie positive. L'hypothèse continuiste doit toutefois avouer ses limites face à la dernière oeuvre de Schelling, l'exposé de la philosophie purement rationnelle, malheureusement inachevée. Le sens général de la dernière philosophie semble cependant être celui d'un maintien de la philosophie positive, alors même que l'idéalisme retrouve ses droits
Ecstasy - The power to transcend oneself and confront absolute difference, is a recurrent phrase in Schelling's latter philosophy. It is used mainly in two different ways: as the ecstasy of reason, it endows the latter, through the initial renunciation it implies, with the possibility of comprehending God the Maker, who can never be deduced a priori. As the ecstasy in God, it demonstrates God's almighty power and his liberty: God is self-assured enough to suppose what denies him. Those two different uses are closely linked, the ecstasy in God being the condition for the ecstasy of reason. Besides, ecstasy is the resulty of the transformation of intellectual intuition, a way of comprehending the absolute that used to prevail in the philosophy of the self, and the transition from one to the other therefore summarizes the evolution of the absolute itself in Schelling's philosophy. The argument here is states the continuity of the latter philosophy as a whole. The transformation of negative philosophy into rational science, the first part of the twofold work of which positive philosophy constitutes the second section. Is compatible with the persisting pre-eminence given to positive philosophy. The hypothesis of continuity must however akcnowledge its difficulties to account for Schelling's last work, which was unfortunately never completed

C'est moins le destin, c'est-à-dire l'apparent « échec » de cette œuvre inachevée que les raisons internes au nombreux remaniements et réécritures que j'essaie de saisir dans cette thèse en restant fidèle à ce qui me paraît la structure intime de toute cette période de la pensée schellingienne (1809-1827), à savoir le temps organique tel qu'il est développé en 1811. Immédiatement confrontée à une difficulté majeure que Schelling lui-même souligne déjà, à savoir la résistance de cette temporalité concentrique à la discursivité linéaire du langage, j'ai tâché d'élaborer une méthode intégrant ce temps « organique », méthode qui s'agence autour du devenir (Werden). En ce terme convergent en effet la théogonie des Ages du Monde, et le rapport entre cette temporalité et la matière que le concept d'effectivité (Wirklichkeit) tel que Schelling le pense ici réclame nécessairement. A mon sens, il s'agit, avec les Ages du Monde¸ de l'élaboration des conditions de possibilité d'une liberté humaine que Schelling pense dans son effectivité. Cette liberté individuelle est nécessairement temporelle et incarnée. L'ontochronie qui fonde cette liberté me paraît transcender le siècle qui est celui de Schelling : elle permet à l'homme de fonder sa propre histoire
It is less the fate, that is the apparent « failure » of this unfinished work than the inherent reasons of the manifold reorganizations and rewritings that I try to seize in this thesis by remaining faithful to what appears to me the innermost structure this entire period of Schelling's philosophy (1809-1827), that is the organic time such as it is developed in 1811. At once confronted with a major difficulty which Schelling himself already underlined, namely the resistance of this concentric temporality to its translation into a linear speech, I tried to elaborate a method integrating this « organic » time ; method that organizes itself around the notion of becoming (Werden). In this notion converge indeed the genesis of God and the relationship between time and the material, as the notion of reality (Wirklichkeit) as Schelling understands it requires necessarily. In my opinion, the Ages of the World elaborate the conditions of possibility of human freedom in its reality. This personal freedom is necessarily temporal and incarnated. The ontochrony which founds this freedom appears to me to transcend the Schelling's own century : it makes it possible for every individual to found one's own history

xii, 259 p. Print copy also available for check out and consultation in the University of Oregon's library under the call number: B105.L45 A76 2008
The question of freedom has been a present and constant concern since the inception of the occidental philosophical tradition. Yet after a certain point the manner in which this question is to be asked has been canonized and sedimented: do humans (subject) have the capacity (predicate) for free and spontaneous action? The third antinomy of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, I argue, demonstrates the necessary failure, the perpetual aporia, of continuing to discuss whether humans conceived of as subjects possess the predicate freedom. I argue that if we do not want to fall either into the Third Antinomy, we must steer away from thinking of freedom as a predicate of a subject and reconfigure it as an experience or a comportment. Following suggestions from Jean-Luc Nancy's The Inoperative Community, Being Singular Plural, and The Experience of Freedom, my dissertation argues that re-thinking of freedom as an experience simultaneously requires a re-thinking of identity, in terms of ecstasy, ek-stases, or ex-position, and accordingly a re-thinking of the activity of thinking itself. Nancy cites Schelling and Heidegger as the thinkers who have made an attempt to think about ecstasy seriously as a fundamental ontological fact about the constitution of things. This reconfiguration of the constitution of things as either parts of organic structures (Schelling) or beings in a world (Heidegger), demands that we recognize how our identities are perpetually being constituted in all of our acts of relating with the world. We are constituted and constituting by our engagement with the things that environ us, and this environing is active and alive. If this is accepted as an ontological fact, this requires that we reconsider what it would mean to think, as all of our engagements with the world would be creative-both of ourselves and of what it is that we encounter. This would also mean that the meaningfulness of all things is wildly contingent, in fact necessarily, so. Accordingly, I defend that freedom, as the experience of possibility through our awareness of this contingency due to the lack of an origin, emerges for us in the experience of thinking.
Adviser: Peter Warnek

Like the other German Idealists, Schelling began his philosophical career by acknowledging the importance of Kant’s grounding of knowledge in the synthesising activity of the subject, while questioning his establishment of a dualism between appearances and things in themselves. The other main influences on Schelling’s early work are Leibniz, Spinoza, J.G. Fichte, and F.H. Jacobi. Schelling adopts both Spinoza’s conception of an absolute ground, of which the finite world is the consequent, and Fichte’s emphasis on the role of the I in the constitution of the world. At the same time he seeks both to overcome the perceived fatalism entailed by Spinoza’s monism, and to avoid the sense in Fichte that nature only exists as the object of the I. After adopting a position close to that of Fichte between 1794 and 1796, Schelling tried in his various versions of Naturphilosophie from 1797 onwards to find new ways of explicating the identity between thinking and nature, claiming that in this philosophy ‘Nature is to be visible mind, mind invisible nature’. In his System des transcendentalen Idealismus [System of Transcendental Idealism] (1800) he advanced the idea that art, as the ‘organ of philosophy’, shows the identity of what he terms ‘conscious’ productivity (mind) and ‘unconscious’ productivity (nature) because it reveals more than can be understood via the conscious intentions that lead to its production. Schelling’s ‘identity philosophy’, which is another version of his Naturphilosophie, begins in 1801, and is summarised in the assertion that ‘Existence is the link of a being as One, with itself as a multiplicity’. Material nature and the mind that knows it are different aspects of the same ‘Absolute’ or ‘absolute identity’, in which they are both grounded. In 1804 Schelling becomes concerned with the transition from the Absolute to the manifest world in which necessity and freedom are in conflict. If freedom is not to become inexplicable, he maintains, Spinoza’s assumption of a logically necessary transition from God to the world cannot be accepted. Philosophische Untersuchungen über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit [Of Human Freedom] (1809) tries to explain how God could create a world involving evil, suggesting that nature relates to God somewhat as the later Freud’s ‘id’ relates to the developed autonomous ‘ego’ which transcends the drives that motivate it. The philosophy of Die Weltalter [The Ages of the World], on which Schelling worked during the 1810s and 1820s, interprets the intelligible world, including ourselves, as the result of an ongoing conflict between expansive and contractive forces. He becomes convinced that philosophy cannot finally give a reason for the existence of the manifest world that is the product of this conflict. This leads to his opposition, beginning in the 1820s, to Hegel’s philosophical system, and to an increasing concern with theology that tries to answer Leibniz’s question of why there is something rather than nothing. Hegel’s system claims to be without presuppositions, and thus to be self-grounding, following the rationalist notion of substance as necessary being. While Schelling shares with Hegel the idea that the relations of dependence between differing aspects of knowledge can be articulated in a dynamic system, he thinks that this only provides a ‘negative’ philosophy, in which the fact of being is enclosed within thought. What he terms ‘positive’ philosophy tries to come to terms with the facticity of ‘being which is absolutely independent of all thinking’ (2 (3): 164). Schelling endeavours in his Philosophie der Mythologie [Philosophy of Mythology] and Philosophie der Offenbarung [Philosophy of Revelation] of the 1830s and 1840s to establish a complete philosophical system by beginning with ‘that which just exists … in order to see if I can get from it to the divinity’ (2 (3): 158), which leads to a historical account of mythology and Judeo-Christian revelation. This system does not, though, overcome the problem of the ‘alterity’ of being, its irreducibility to a philosophical system, which his critique of Hegel reveals. The direct and indirect influence of this critique on Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Rosenzweig, Levinas, Derrida, and others is evident, and Schelling must be considered as the key transitional figure between Hegel and approaches to ‘post-metaphysical’ thinking. His ideas are also increasingly being associated with the idea that the ecological crisis is revealing how humankind’s relationship to non-human nature needs to be radically rethought.

Abstract This chapter considers Friedrich Schleiermacher in proximity to two important contemporaries: the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854) and the natural philosopher, mineralogist, and theologian Henrik (Henrich) Steffens (1773–1845). Schleiermacher was distant and distrusting with Schelling, but they shared commonalities that informed Schleiermacher’s labors. Steffens, Schelling’s disciple, initially enjoyed a close relationship with Schleiermacher as young professors at the University of Halle. He contributed to Schleiermacher’s scholarly development, before becoming estranged. This chapter argues that the intellectual lines of influence among these three cannot be divorced from their personal connections.