Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

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Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling bigraphy, stories - German philosopher

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling : biography

1775-1-27 – 1854-8-20

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him between Fichte, his mentor in his early years, and Hegel, his former university roommate, early friend, and later rival. Interpreting Schelling’s philosophy is regarded as difficult because of its apparently ever-changing nature.

Schelling’s thought in the large has been neglected, especially in the English-speaking world, as has been his later work on mythology and revelation, much of which remains untranslated. An important factor was the ascendancy of Hegel, whose mature works portray Schelling as a mere footnote in the development of idealism. Schelling’s Naturphilosophie also has been attacked by scientists for its analogizing tendency and lack of empirical orientation: "its empirical claims are indefensible".

Life

Early life

Schelling was born in the town of Leonberg in Württemberg (now Baden-Württemberg), the son of Joseph Friedrich Schelling and his wife Gottliebin Marie. He attended the monastery school at Bebenhausen, near Tübingen, where his father was chaplain and an Orientalist professor.s:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von From 1783 to 1784 Schelling attended a Latin school in Nürtingen and knew Friedrich Hölderlin, who was five years his senior. At the age of 16, he then was granted permission to enroll at the Tübinger Stift (seminary of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Württemberg), despite not having yet reached the normal enrollment age of 20. At the Stift, he shared a room with Hegel as well as Hölderlin, and the three became good friends.

Schelling studied the Church fathers and ancient Greek philosophers. His interest gradually shifted from Lutheran theology to philosophy. In 1792 he graduated from the philosophical faculty, and in 1795 he finished his thesis for his theological degree. Meanwhile, he had begun to study Kant and Fichte, who greatly influenced him.

While tutoring two youths of an aristocratic family, he visited Leipzig as their escort and had a chance to attend lectures at Leipzig University, where he was fascinated by contemporary physical studies including chemistry and biology. At this time he also visited Dresden, where he saw collections of the Elector of Saxony, to which he referred later in his thinking on art. On a personal level, this Dresden visit of six weeks from August 1797 saw Schelling meet the brothers August Wilhelm Schlegel and Karl Friedrich Schlegel and his future wife Caroline (then married to August Wilhelm), and Novalis.Robert J. Richards, The Romantic Conception of Life: science and philosophy in the age of Goethe (2002), p. 149.

Jena period

After two years tutoring, in 1798, at the age of only 23, Schelling was called to Jena as an extraordinary (i.e., unpaid) professor of philosophy. His time at Jena (1798–1803) put Schelling at the center of the intellectual ferment of Romanticism. He was on close terms with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who appreciated the poetic quality of the Naturphilosophie, reading Von der Weltseele. As the prime minister of the duchy of Saxe-Weimar, Goethe invited Schelling to Jena. On the other hand Schelling was unsympathetic to the ethical idealism that animated the work of Friedrich Schiller, the other pillar of Weimar Classicism. Later, in Schelling’s Vorlesung über die Philosophie der Kunst (Lecture on the philosophy of art, 1802/03), Schiller’s theory on the sublime was closely reviewed.

In Jena, Schelling was on good terms with Fichte at first, but their different conceptions, about nature in particular, led to increasing divergence in their thought. Fichte advised him to focus on philosophy in its original meaning, that is, transcendental philosophy: specifically, Fichte’s own Wissenschaftlehre. But Schelling, who was becoming the acknowledged leader of the Romantic school, had begun to reject Fichte’s thought as cold and abstract.