Schelling’s Concept of Self-Organization

Abstract

In the early 19th century the classical “Naturphilosophie” of F.W.J. Schelling (1775–1854) had many repercussions in the sphere of science. The term “self-organization” was originally introduced by I. Kant to characterize processes of organic nature. Schelling was the first to extend the concept to inorganic nature, for he applied it to the complete evolution of the universe, from the primordial beginnings of matter up to the origin of life and human mind. Schelling attempted to go beyond the contemporary mechanistic theory of nature by designing a program for science that would focus on the self-creation of “organizations”. Of course he could not fall back upon elaborate scientific theories of self-organization, and at his time even empirical phenomena of self-organization were scarcely known. So Schelling created a “speculative physics” which was based on philosophical principles and intended to yield a systematic explanation of the history of nature. This paper will deal especially with the origin of Schelling’s concept of self-organization, the specific meaning of this concept in the context of his work, and his method of construction. Apart from that it will be shown how the reception of Schelling’s ideas in 19th century science led to first attempts at mathematical theories for a non-mechanistic concept of nature, especially concentrating on the works of Bernhard Riemann.