Accueil
"Schelling loved Spinoza, and this much is clear from his early writings on the possibility of a form of all philosophy to his last lectures on positive philosophy, mythology, and revelation." (p.XI)
"The central hypothesis of this book is that Schelling’s philosophical project can be fruitfully interpreted as what he referred to as “ideal‑realism [Ideal‑Realismus]” in the 1800 System of Transcendental Idealism". To make this case, I take Schelling’s engagement with Spinoza as my guiding thread. In the formulation “ideal‑realism” we find two familiar terms, but we find them in a unique conjunction. The familiar yet still enigmatic terms idealism and realism are immediately invoked by this conjunction, yet there is a silent third that makes the formulation possible. Schelling’s deliberate use of the hyphen shows that he is referencing not mere idealism, nor mere realism. Instead, he points our attention toward the possibility of some unity of the two that is dependent upon both a binding and a separating. For the early Schelling, realism and idealism are the only two consistent philosophical perspectives. However, this does not imply that each alone is a complete philosophical perspective. Consequently, realism and idealism need each other because neither alone can constitute a systematic philosophy.
If it is the case, as Hegel suggested, that “with Spinozism everything goes into the abyss but nothing emerges from it,” then after Spinoza one must carve out a space through which philosophy itself can emerge from this abyss." (p.1)
-Benjamin Norris, Schelling and Spinoza. Realism, Idealism, and the Absolute, State University of New York Press, 2022, 295 pages.
