Abstract
In this chapter, I attempt to elaborate the difference between Schelling and Hegel as the key to understanding Schelling’s ontology of kenosis. An ontology of kenosis refuses the closure of system, not out of obscurantist motives or in the interest of a cynical denial of intelligibility (which, in another way, forecloses the range of thinking), but for the sake of clearing space for what is not yet but might be. The kenotic gesture in philosophy images the self-abnegation of the Christian God, who cancels his own divinity so that something else, something other than himself, might be. Schelling’s fusion of the horizons of logic and historical theology allows him to reverse modernity’s founding moment and presents a scientific humility that is still worthy of our consideration.
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- 1.
The classic statement of obscurantism is found in the early Schleiermacher. See especially his Speeches on Religion, ed. and trans. Richard Crouter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). But the position is now as common as esoteric bookstores.
- 2.
I have Slavoj Žižek in mind. See, for instance, The Parallax View (London: Verso, 2006). But cynicism is so widespread among philosophers and theorists today that it might be described as the reigning ideology of the intelligentsia. The essential difference between ancient and modern cynicism is that the modern cynic, unlike the ancient cynic, sees no possibility for truthful speaking or virtuous action. Hence, modern cynicism is self-referential and endlessly, unproductively, critical. On the difference between ancient and modern cynicism, see Peter Soterdijk, Critique of Cynical Reason, trans. Michael Eldred (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988).
- 3.
Quoted in Joseph L Esposito, Schelling’s Idealism and Philosophy of Nature (Lewisburg Bucknell University Press, 1977), 203.
- 4.
Markus Gabriel, Transcendental Ontology: Essays in German Idealism [hereinafter cited parenthetically as TO]
- 5.
F.W.J. Schelling, The System of Transcendental Idealism, trans. Peter Heath (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978), 209; SW, I/3: 600. Citations of Schelling provide the pagination of the English translation followed by that of the Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schellings sämmtliche Werke, 14 vols, ed. Karl Friedrich August Schelling (Stuttgart and Augsburg: J. G. Cotta, 1856–61). References to the K.F.A. Schelling edition are given by the abbreviation SW, division, volume and page number.
- 6.
G.W.F. Hegel, Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind: Being Part Three of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, trans. A.V. Miller and William Wallace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 2, §377.
- 7.
F.W.J. Schelling, On the History of Modern Philosophy, trans. Andrew Bowie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 147; SW, I/10: 143–144.
- 8.
F.W.J. Schelling, Stuttgart Seminars, in Idealism and the Endgame of Theory: Three Essays by F.W.J. Schelling, trans. Thomas Pfau (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1944), 200; SW, 1/7: 424; translation mine.
- 9.
Schelling, Stuttgart Seminars, 203; SW, I/7: 428; translation mine.
- 10.
F.W.J. Schelling, Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom, trans. Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006), 70; SW, I/7: 408.
- 11.
Schelling, Stuttgart Seminars, 204; SW, I/7: 429; translation mine.
- 12.
In this regard Schelling agrees with Jacobi’s earlier critique of Kantian idealism and rationalism. The proximity of the late Schelling to Jacobi must neither be underestimated nor exaggerated. Schelling agrees with Jacobi’s critique of rationalism as narcissistic but disagrees that the only alternative is a religion based on faith alone.
- 13.
F.W.J. Schelling, The Grounding of the Positive Philosophy [hereinafter cited parenthetically as GPP], trans. Bruce Matthews (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008), 139; SW, II/3: 73.
- 14.
Walter Shulz, Die Vollendung des Deutschen Idealismus in der Spätphilosophie Schellings, second expanded edition (Stuttgart: Pfullingen, 1975).
- 15.
Horst Fuhrmans, Schellings letzte Philosophie: Die negative und positive Philosophie im Einsatz des Spätidealismus (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt, 1940).
- 16.
Manfred Frank, Der unendliche Mangel an Sein: Schellings Hegelkritik und die Anfänge der Marxschen Dialektik, second expanded and revised edition (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1992).
- 17.
Andrew Bowie, Schelling and Modern European Philosophy: An Introduction (New York: Routledge, 1993).
- 18.
Tyler Tritten, Beyond Presence: The Late F.W.J. Schelling’s Criticism of Metaphysics (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2012).
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McGrath, S.J. (2016). On the Difference Between Schelling and Hegel. In: McGrath, S., Carew, J. (eds) Rethinking German Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53514-6_11
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