ON THE SOUL OF THE WORLD

SCHELLING, F. W. J.

Von der Weltseele eine Hypothese der höheren Physik zur Erklärung des allgemeinen Organismus.

Hamburg, Friedrich Perthes, 1798. 8vo. Cont. marbled cardboardbdg. w. title-label to spine, gilding almost worn off. Some traces of wear to extremities. Internally nice and clean w. only minor and faint waterstaining to margin of some leaves. XIV, 327, (1, -errata) pp.

First edition of Schelling's influential "On the Soul of the World", which was the work that made Schelling famous in the university city of Jena. The work was widely noticed and highly regarded.

In his early works (1795-1800), Schelling sets out to give a new account of nature. At the basis of his philosophy of nature is the status that Kant had given nature, but Schelling tries to avoid some of the consequences that come with it. He is also largely inspired by Fichte's transcendental philosophy, and in the last five years of the 19th century, Schelling is thus occupied with the relationship of the subject to the object world, -a theme that comes to found the basis for his so famous philosophy of nature. At first Fichte and Schelling stood on good terms, but as their different conceptions of nature became evident, the divergences between them became too great. As Fichte regarded nature as Not-Self, this could not be a valid subject of philosophy, and he refused to understand Schelling's philosophy of nature as complementary to his own transcendental philosophy.

Schelling's philosophy of nature presents us with a modern hermeneutic view of nature, allowing nature to be of significance beyond what can be scientifically established about it.

Schelling was a tutor of two boys from an aristocratic family. With them he went to Leipzic and had a chance to attend lectures at the university there. He here occupied himself with physical studies, also chemistry and biology. After having taught these two aristocrats for a couple of years, he was called to Jena as an extraordinary professor of philosophy at the mere age of 23. He stayed in Jena for five years (1798-1803), where he found himself at the centre of the German Romanticism. Goethe, for instance, highly regarded his philosophy of nature, which he got acquainted with through his "Von der Weltseele", which presents us with the fruits of his studies of physical sciences.

Along with J.G. Fichte and Hegel, Schelling ranks as the most influential thinker of German Idealism. He stands in the centre of this most important and influential of philosophical traditions, and with his philosophy of nature, his anti-Cartesian view of subjectivity and his later critique of Hegelian Idealism, Schelling continues to be of the utmost importance to the development of continental philosophy to this day.

Order-nr.: 36119