PHILOSOPHERS - FRIEDRICH VON SCHELLING

<BODY> <CENTER><FONT SIZE=5><B><FONT SIZE=6>FRIEDRICH VON SCHELLING</FONT><BR> (1775-1854)</B></FONT></CENTER><P> "In the final and highest instance there is no other being than Will. Will is primordial Being, and all predicates apply to it alone."<P> ("Of Human Freedom" 1809)<P> Son of a chaplain professor, Schelling became a student at the same theological seminary as Hegel and the poet Hölderlin, with whom he shared a youthful revolutionary fervour. He was also student and later an extraordinary professor of philosophy at Jena, at that time a major centre for poets and philosophers of the Romantic school. A friend of Goethe and admirer of Fichte, Schelling formulated a philosophy of nature in which Nature is seen as a universal Spirit which expresses itself as Will. History reveals the triumph of man's rational universal will over his irrational particular will. The journey to self knowledge is also a journey to moral and political order. Schelling's philosophy was described as "positive" because it confirmed that the content of reality is rational, embodying God's ideas. Schelling sought knowledge of God from the history of all religions and traces his self-revelation from primordial will to reason to love.<P> After a move to Munich forced by his marriage to a divorcée, a wife of a one-time friend, Schelling attracted many state appointments which allowed him to live well. The final and definitive form of his thought is found in a series of lectures delivered in Berlin at the specific request of Frederick William IV. These made little impact in his own time, and reached a limited audience until their publication after his death. Many of his ideas re-emerge in <A HREF="t06f25.html" TARGET="_top">Schopenhauer</A>, and <A HREF="../t03/g018.html" TARGET="_top">existentialism</A>. <BR clear=left><BR> <HR width=100%> <A HREF="http://www.creatorix.com.au"><IMG SRC="../creatorix.gif" WIDTH="85" HEIGHT="40" BORDER="0" ALT="Creatorix" align=right></A> </BODY>