The Berlin lectures in The Grounding of Positive Philosophy, appearing here for the first time in English, advance Schelling’s final ‘existential system’ as an alternative to modernity’s reduction of philosophy to a purely formal science of reason. The onetime protégé of Fichte and benefactor of Hegel, Schelling accuses German Idealism of dealing ‘with the world of lived experience just as a surgeon who promises to cure your ailing leg by amputating it.’ Schelling’s appeal in Berlin for a positive, existential philosophy found an interested audience in Kierkegaard, Engels, Feuerbach, Marx, and Bakunin. His account of the ecstatic nature of existence and reason proved to be decisive for the work of Paul Tillich and Martin Heidegger. Also, Schelling’s critique of reason’s quixotic attempt at self-grounding anticipates similar criticisms leveled by poststructuralism, but without sacrificing philosophy’s power to provide a positive account of truth and meaning. The Berlin lectures provide fascinating insight into the thought processes of one of the most provocative yet least understood thinkers of nineteenth-century German philosophy.
Table of Content
Acknowledgments
Editorial Apparatus and Standard Abbreviations
Translator’s Introduction
The Singularity of F. W. J. Schelling
Expectations in Berlin
An Existential System of Philosophy
The Grounding of Positive Philosophy
Schelling’s Negative Philosophy
Existence as the Inverted Idea
Hegel Critiqued
Abduction as the Method of Positive Philosophy
Towards a Philosophical Religion
Translator’s Note
THE GROUNDING OF POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY: THE BERLIN LECTURES
On Philosophy
On the Academic Study of Philosophy
Metaphysics before Kant
Kant, Fichte, and a Science of Reason
The Difference between Negative and Positive Philosophy
History of Negative and Positive Philosophy
Metaphysical Empiricism
The Grounding of Positive Philosophy
Notes
IndexAbout the author
Bruce Matthews is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bard High School Early College.
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