Unconditional in Human Knowledge: Four Early Essays (1794-1796)

The Unconditional in Human Knowledge Four Early Essays (1794-1796) by F. W. J. Schelling Translation and Commentary by Fritz Marti

The Young Schelling A drawing of 1808 or 1809 by Josef Klotz. Courtesy of the Miinchner Stadtmuseum

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Associated University Presses, Inc. Cranbury, New Jersey 08512

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data khelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 1775-1854. The unconditional in human knowledge. Includes bibliographies and indexes. CONTENTS: 1. On the possibility of a form of all philosophy. —2. Of the I as principle of philosophy, or On the unconditional in human knowledge. —3. Philosophical letters on dogmatism and criticism. —4. New deduction of natural right. 1. Kant, Immanuel, 1724-1804—Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Philosophy — Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Title. 77-74407 /11798.S17 1979 193 ISBN 0.8387-2020-X

Other books by Fritz Marti: A Philosophical Glossary Religion, Reason and Man Religion and Philosophy On Being Human by Fritz Medicus (translator)

PRINTED IN •I'IlE

ED STA l'ES OF AMERICA

To my students and colleagues of 1923 to 1973 and to my gracious hosts at the University of Notre Dame du Lac

Contents 9 11 13 15 17 29

Abbreviations Schelling Bibliography Preface Acknowledgments Introduction Biographical Note on Schelling FOUR EARLY ESSAYS OF SCHELLING Translator's Introduction 1 On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy

Translator's Notes Translator's Introduction 2 Of the I as Principle of Philosophy, or On the Unconditional in Human Knowledge

Translator's Notes Translator's Introduction 3 Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism

Translator's Notes

35 38 56 59 63 129 151 156 197 219 221 247

Translator's Introduction 4 New Deduction of Natural Right

Translator's Notes Appendix A: Kant's Publications after 1780 Appendix B: Publications by Kant and Others Pertinent to Schelling's Beginnings Appendix C: References to Kant Appendix D: Friedrich HOlderlin (1770-1843); Judgment and Being Indexes Subject Index Index of Names 7

253 255 • 257 261 263 264 270

Abbreviations

PuR Prol PrR CrJ Beck

Bernard Cass.

Diels

Heath

Plitt Smith Wild WL

Kant

Critique of Pure Reason Prolegomena Critique of Practical Reason Critique of Judgment Prol, trans. Lewis White Beck (Indianapolis: Bobb-Merrill, 1950) Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. L.W. Beck (Indiana-

polis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1959) PrR, trans. L.W. Beck (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill, 1956) CrJ, trans. J.H. Bernard (New York: Hafner Press, 1961) Ernst Cassirer, ed., Kants Werke, 11 vols. (Berlin: Bruno Cassirer, 1912-22) Hermann Diels, Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker. Griechisch and Deutsch. (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1912) Johann G. Fichte, Science of Knowledge, trans. Peter Heath and John Lachs (New York: Appleton. Century-Crofts; Meredith Corporation, 1970) G.L. Plitt, ed., Aus Schelling Leben. In Briefen, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1869-70) Kant PuR, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965) John Wild, ed., Spinoza. Selections (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1930) Fichte's own occasional abbreviation of Wissenschaftslehre

Poss.

Of 1 Dogm. N. R.

Schelling On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy Of the I as Principle of Philosophy Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism New Deduction of Natural Right

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Original Editions Used Fichte, Werke, 11 vols. (Leipzig: Mayer and Muller, n.d.) I Irv!, Werke, 19 vols. (Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot, 1831-87) Schelling, Werke, 14 vols. (Stuttgart and Augsburg: J.G. Cotta, 1856-61)

Schelling Bibliography Brown, Robert F. Schelling's Treatise on "The Deities of Samothrace." A Translation and an Interpretation. American Academy of Religion, Studies in Religion. Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1977. Pp. 64-65. Jost, Johannes. F. W von Schelling, Bibliographie der Schriften von ihm und fiber ihn. Bonn, 1927. Marquet, Jean-Francois. Liberte et existence. Etude ' sur la formation de la philosophic. de Schelling. Paris: Gallimard, 1973. Pp. 587-90. Sandkahler, Hans Jorg. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. Stuttgart: Metzler, 1970, pp. 24-41. Schneeberger, Guido. Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Eine Bibliographie. Bern, 1954. Tilliette, Xavier. Schelling. Une philosophie en devenir. Paris: Vrin, 1970. 2:507-14. Zeltner, Hermann. Schelling-Forschung seit 1954. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975. Pp. 3-4, 109-15. To facilitate reference to specific pages of Schelling's German text, the page number of each is inserted at the appropriate place in brackets throughout the translations of the four essays. This same original pagination is also used in the translator's notes when Schelling's essays are referred to. The same bold ciphers appear at the inner top corner of each page.

Preface I translated Schelling's Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism in 1930, encouraged by Professor Arthur 0. Lovejoy of The Johns Hopkins University, who even penciled some emendations on my first draft. In the thirties my friend James Gutmann used typescript copies in his seminar at Columbia University. His translation of Of Human Freedom was printed at his expense. Then his pupil Frederick Bolman translated and commented The Ages of the World as his doctoral dissertation at Columbia University, whose Press published it. But the mood of the age was not favorable to Schelling. A few years ago I put my old copies of the Letters in the hands of my students at Southern Illinios University at Edwardsville, and they confirmed my long-held opinion that the essay is a good introduction to post-Kantian speculation. They also pointed out many of the main difficulties that might confront a reader who is neither at home in Kant nor familiar with Fichte. It is that reader whom I kept in mind while rewriting the translation of the Letters and while translating the other three essays contained in this volume. My commentary notes are placed at the ends of the essays, so that the reader who does not need them can read Schelling without tutorial interruptions. The commentary is frankly tutorial because I still harbor the hope that professional philosophers in America will study more seriously the consequences of Kant's revolution, especially as they are seen in Schelling, and that the dogmatic division between so-called idealism and realism will no longer confuse students. My wife, Gertrude Austin Marti, deserves the main credit if my translations are readable. My editor, Mrs. Mathilde E. Finch, contributed innumerable small but pertinent emendations. My own stubbornness is to be blamed if, in my endeavor to follow Schelling's German closely, the translation will in spots takes liberties with English. South Bend, Indiana Fritz Marti All Saints' Day, 1977

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Acknowledgments I would like to thank the following publishers for permission to reprint material under copyright: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., for quotations from Immanuel Kant, Prolegomena, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, and Critique of Practical Reason, translated by Lewis Beck. Copyright © 1950, 1959, 1956 respectively by the Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc. Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., for quotations from Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, translated and with Introduction by J. H. Bernard. Copyright © 1961 by Hafner Press. Metaphilosophy, for permission to reprint my translation of Schelling's "On the Possibility of a Form for All Philosophy," Metaphilosophy 6, no. 1 (January 1975):1-24. Prentice-Hall, Inc., for quotations from Johann G. Fichte, Science of Knowledge, edited and translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs. Copyright © 1970 by Appleton-Century-Crofts. Reprinted by Permission of Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. St. Martin's Press, Inc., and Macmillan & Co., Ltd., for quotations from Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, translated by Norman Kemp Smith. Copyright © 1965 by St. Martin's Press, Inc. Charles Scribner's Sons, for quotations from Spinoza Selections, edited by John Wild. Copyright 1930 by Charles Scribner's Sons.

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Introduction

On Translation

Poems are untranslatable. Depart from the original words and you lose their music. That music is like the color of a painting. Omit the color and you have a black-and-white textbook illustration. It may be didactically useful, yet it lacks the life of the painting. Poems must be heard, not read—heard inwardly, for the poet himself may be a poor speaker who kills the music when he reads his own poem aloud. A poem is alive because each word stands in the right place. Change the order, and the poem is gone. It is a pedagogic crime to ask pupils to say in prose what the poet meant. The poem's words alone can say it. Poems are untranslatable because their wording is final. Theirs is the finality of heaven, for there is no further place to go. Each poem offers its own celestial peace. This is why religious language is poetical. However, religious enunciations also have another kind of finality; they claim to be true. Truth ought to be the concern of everyone and therefore must speak to everyone in his own language. Beauty is for men of taste. Only those attuned to the specific language used by the poet can appreciate it. Of course, the very perfection of each work of beauty invites all to partake of it, and all should learn each respective language. But the poet is not a missionary. He may be sorry if you cannot like his poem, but he will not call you sinful. In my opinion, original sin is lack of concern for the truth. The missionary will try to help you overcome what he calls your hardness of heart. Therefore he may find it necessary to bring his message closer to you by translating it into terms with which you are familiar. Still, homiletic work is casework, and the home base of religion is its poetic language and its liturgy. Compared with the universality of philosophy, the religions appear provincial. Philosophy is not a matter of denominational schools, nor does it have one sacred language. Whatever is philosophically true ought to appeal to man as man. Therefore every philosophical formulation demands transla17

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE



tion and retranslation. This is why philosophy has a genuine history. Religious words seem timeless. Philosophy demands perpetual aggiornamint°. It must be up-to-date. Its truths are reborn by translation. Language can be a barrier which then calls for the spadework of translators. Half a century of such labor has taught me that there is only one excuse for translations: they can save time. And they have only one value: they force us to read the original more searchingly. When the student has reached that point and masters the language in question, then he is ready for the genuine work of translating philosophy— the labor of philosophical historiography, the translation from thinker to thinker, the history of Ideas. That is the real translation, the discovery of the life of truth. That real translation exposes the basic honesty of philosophy, its openness. In 1804, in his second lecture on The Basic Traits of the Present Aga, Fichte spoke thus of the art of philosophizing: "Every other art, like poetry, music, painting, proceeds without, at the same time, making explicit the rules of its procedure. It is the self-transparent art of philosophising which alone may not take a single step without stating simultaneously the reason why it takes it" (7:16). In the third lecture he says: "the very rules of this art demand that the philosopher be absolutely honest and proceed openly. In return he has the power of telling his hearers in advance what he will produce in them and, if they will but understand him, the power of producing it with certainty" (7:38).

Historical Background Kant is not the first one who distinguished between what he called Verstand (ratiocination and, in a narrower sense, objective thinking) and Vorttunft (reason and, less technically, sound sense). It is Vernunft, he said, that always seeks the unconditional, while Verstand is concerned with the conditional. Kant has the merit of introducing two clearly defined terms, and of resting their definition on functional use rather than on customary psychological terminology. His is no mere new semantic

fashion. Academic fashions can be disposed of easily. One way is to expose their questionable efficacy; the other is simply to wait until they get out of fashion. I prefer the latter; it saves energy and credits the fashion makers with intelligence that will discover their own shortcomings. In 1802, in a review of the French publication entitled Philosophie de Kant by Charles Villers (Metz: Colignon, 1801), Schelling confessed his suspicions "that Kant's philosophy might be a provincialism or at least a Germanism" (5: 185). Insofar as it might be that, we should not need to use his two words, Verstand and Verrtunfi , nor to spend our labor on

INTRODUCTION

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finding English equivalents. But the distinction that these words express is as old as occidental philosophy itself. Parmenides, Plato and Plotinus share the distinction between snlyst v and eryal ,appearing and being, manifestation and essence. The rabbis have distinguished between the timebound shekina and the supertemporal elohut. Christian theology has long distinguished between God's presence in creation and His transcendence, which is beyond the reach of ratiocination. In the darkening age of Reformation and Counterreformation, the distinction has been twisted into an ostensible and allegedly irrenconcilable difference between reason and faith. It looks as if both that Augustinian monk Luther as well as his opponents had forgotten Augustine, for whom God was at the very least truth (de libero arbitrio 2, 15, 3) and who saw how easy it is to "slip back into familiar, earthly things" (de trinitate 8, 2, 3; see Erich Przywara: Augustinus. Die Gestalt als Gefiige, 247; Martindale's transl. p. 133, Harper Torchbook 35). At the very end of antiquity, between A.D. 389 and 391, Augustine warned the God-seeker, that is, anyone who seeks the unconditional: "Do not go outside yourself but return into yourself; for truth inhabits man's innermost. And if you find your nature mutable, rise above yourself. But when you do transcend yourself, remember that you are transcending the ratiocinating soul. Therefore strive to reach [the point] whence the very light of reasoning is lit. For whither does every good reasoner arrive, if it be not the truth? And truth in no way reaches itself by ratiocination, for it is that which those seek who ratiocinate. Behold there a togetherness (convenientiam) than which nothing can be superior; and do come together with it" (de vera religione 39, 72). Augustine thus even furnishes Kant's term ratiocination and Fichte and Schelling's concept of self, though none of the three philosophers seems to have known the Augustinian passage. Spinoza distinguished emphatically between the rationalistic view and the "third" view sub specie aeternitatis (Ethics, part 5, propositions 25-30). But during the "darkness of Enlightenment" — if I may borrow the phrase of James Tunstead Burtchaell— that third view became invisible. Rationalism took for granted that the only viable way of thinking is ratiocination. Empiricism rightly protested, but it could do no more than challenge the mind to acknowledge observable facts of a scientific kind. By necessity the result was skepticism. It was Hume's skepsis that awakened Kant from his metaphysical slumber. When Kant realized that he had to "deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith" (PuR, Smith 29 and 597) by knowledge he meant the scientific knowledge of objects, and by faith the "practical" insight that there is no moral obligation except by the act of taking our responsibility.

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Kant's word "practical" derives from the Greek verb narrEtv, to act, and from Aristotle's emphatic distinction between nclarrttv and noriktv, to act and to be acted upon. natktv is the verbal root of the Kantian meaning of

"pathological," which does not mean sickly, but simply passive. (The Latin root of "passion" is akin to naNiv.) h may not be useless to look at the literal roots of the two words

Varstand and Vernunft. In a marketplace, a tradesman sets up his Stand, a table with two end posts supporting a canvas top like a pup tent. It announces: Here I am, taking my stand for doing business. A horse's stall In a stable is also called Stand. The root verb is stehen, to stand, instead of sitting or lying down. Feststehen means to stand fast; es steht fest, it is quite certain, Bestehen means to subsist, to last; bestehen aus, to consist of. Verstehen is to understand. Verstand can simply mean intelligence.

Understand may mean lack of understanding, even folly. In all cases, the syllable stand signifies something firm, or fixed or, legally speaking, "in the public domain" —not merely private. Intelligible matters are not intrinsicially changed by the psychological fact that people have Intelligence in different degrees of individual development. The training of human intelligence ought to be independent of individual differences, though they may make the training either easy or difficult. When we translate Verstand by ratiocination, we mean "drawing correct conclusions." Such inferences will be found valid by everyone who really thinks and does not merely guess nor indulge in wishful thinking nor take the stand of a doctrinaire. In short, if such and such is so and so, then it must be so quite impersonally and objectively. Verstand or intelligence is our ability to understand objective relationships. Their form is always if then. They are always conditional. That is the epistemological lesson of the Critique of Pure Reason. However, as Kant already pointed out in that first Critique, its main point is that everything conditional, everything rationally valid, in some way points at the unconditional. And to be aware of that implication means to have Vernunft. The root is vernehmen, and the root verb nehmen, to take, to get hold of. Wir nehmen es means we take it. Wir

nehmen an, "we take it that" or we accept, or else we assume (from Latin

ad surnitre). An assumption is not yet an acceptance, but it is at least the willingness to accept, the acknowledgment of acceptability. I may be unwilling to write a receipt, yet I cannot deny in my own mind the arrival of the thing received. Inasmuch as I could deny it, I should lack sense and be unsound, maybe insane. Vernunft can be translated as good sense, as sensible acknowledgment. In English, we have only our chameleon word

reason, which is often used as synonymous with ratiocination or intelligence. (My friend Gustav E. Mailer consistently translates Verstand as "reason," and many whose mother tongue is English may agree with him.)

INTRODUCTION

21

No matter what words we use, we owe to Kant the undeniable knowledge that ratiocination is concerned with the conditional, and reason with the unconditional. Kant made clear the distinction between the two. He never conceived of them as separate. Neither did he make fully explicit the principle of their unity. Fichte and Schelling saw the interdependence of all the clues that Kant gave them by implication and which will be enumerated on the following pages.

On Kant On the first page of the first of the four essays here presented, Schelling says that in his study of the Critique of Pure Reason "nothing seemed more obscure and harder to understand than the attempt to lay the foundation for a form of all philosophy without having established a [first] principle anywhere." Such a principle "would furnish not only an original form as the root of all particular forms, but would also give the reason for its necessary connection with the particular forms which depended on it." In short, it would furnish systematic unity. In 1787, in the preface to the second edition of his first Critique, Kant had stressed that "it is a treatise on the method, not a system of the science itself' (xxii; Smith 25). Kant did not deny the desirability, or rather the necessity, of systematic unity. In the summary of his third Critique, he says emphatically, "there must be a ground of the unity of that supersensible which lies at the basis of nature, with that which the concept of freedom practically contains" (CrJ, Cass 5:244; Bernard 12). After this statement of 1790, Kant continued to labor under the challenge of this must. On September 21, 1798, he complains in a letter to a friend about being unable to finish his task. He says he is "as if paralyzed for intellectual work, notwithstanding fair physical health. The total termination of my account in matters which concern the whole of philosophy lies before me, regarding both the goal of that whole and the means of attaining it, yet I still cannot see it completed, though I am well aware of the feasibility of that task. It is the pain of a Tantalus, though not the hopelessness." He adds that the specific "task with which I am now occupied is the transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics. It demands a solution because otherwise there would be a gap in the system of critical philosophy" (letter to Christian Garve, Cass. 10:351). Young Schelling did not know that Kant was about to labor with that specific problem. He was concerned with the general ground of systematic unity. And that task was feasible because Kant himself had given the decisive clues. The three Critiques present the a priori forms which govern the three respective domains.

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

The first Critique agrees with the empiricists when they say that objective knowledge cannot be obtained at the rationalist's writing desk but only by scientific observation. "Thoughts without content are empty, but sense images without concepts are blind. It is therefore just as necessary to make our concepts sensible, that is, to add the object to them In an attainable sense image, as to make our sense images intelligible, that is, to bring them under concepts" (75; cf. Smith 93). These concepts, which alone can "constitute" an object in contradistinction to a fantasy, Kant calls categories. They are concepts such as substance, cause, measurability, and possibility/actuality/necessity. The empiricists admit that we do in fact conceive of objects in terms of these categories. But they stop at this psychological fact and consequently must declare that the categories are mental mannerisms. Just as to our senses things seem to be red, blue, or yellow, sweet, sour, or bitter, so to the intellect they seem to be substantial, changed by causes, measurable, at least possible and, if actual, also necessary. Since our knowledge of this is filtered, as it were, through both senses and intellect, we cannot know the "things in themselves." The result, of course, is skepticism. Hence Kant's critical question: How is objective knowledge possible? He admits that the categories cannot furnish knowledge of "things in themselves," but he denies that they are mere mental mannerisms, innate ideas existing in the mind prior to any actual experience. They pertain only to actual experience, allowing us to distinguish between fact and fantasy. The categories are not temporally but logically antecedent to our objects. They are the a priori forms of objectivity itself. We are mentally objective whenever we discover the categorical constitution of real things. Dream things have no such constitution; they are hauntingly "impossible," as we say. True enough, even our dream imagery shows categorical traits, but that it does so is accidental. It can happen, but it •does not happen necessarily. In contrast, with regard to real experience, the categories are cogent. In order to be real, a thing must be substantial, its changes must have specific causes (even when not yet discovered). Objective knowledge is possible because the categories are the forms of objects — of objects, not of

"things in themselves." In pre•Kantian, uncritical language, Kant sometimes calls "things in themselves" noumena. But as a critical thinker he uses the word in the singular, saying that the noumenon is a limitative concept (Grenzbegriff) "of only negative use" (310 f; Smith 272). It limits our objective knowledge to the domain of phenomena or Erscheinungen. The German verb schooner& can mean "to shine," like the sun; it can also mean "to seem." Similarly, "to appear" can mean to seem. However, if you have been waiting in vain for somebody and if finally he "puts in an appearance," he does not appear as a ghost but as a real, manifest person. It is in the latter

INTRODUCTION

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sense of manifestation that Kant uses the word phenomenon, and the translation "appearance" must be taken in that realistic sense. Kant is not a subjective idealist and the Critique of Pure Reason has several pages of refutation of that idealism (274-79; Smith 244-47). Categorical thinking is the thinking of ratiocination (Verstand). It is cogent with regard to objects. If applied beyond the objective domain, beyond the "physical," in "metaphysics," it leads into antinomies, into a field in which ratiocination can prove as equally valid both a thesis and its antithesis. Ratiocination is restricted to the field of objects, the field of conditional entities. Yet the cogency of ratiocination itself is unconditional. This is what induced Kant to seek a "derivation" of the cogency of the categories from the cogency of formal logic. But that logic itself is conditional in form: "if— then." And Schelling will point out that in this way Kant tried to derive the unconditional from the conditional (1:107; cf. 1:232 n.). Kant himself gives the clue to how to get out of this impasse. He says "the principle peculiar to reason [Vernunft] as such, is to find for the conditioned knowledge obtained through ratiocination [Verstand] the unconditioned whereby ratiocination's unity is brought to completion" (363; cf. Smith 306). Kant is fond of using the phrase theoretical knowledge in the restricted sense of knowledge of objects—of phenomena, of conditional entities. Precritical metaphysics endeavored to gain objective knowledge of the unconditional, of noumena or things in themselves. There are no such objects, and every objectivistic metaphysics is a dogmatism "full of wormholes" (wurmstichiger Dogmatismus, A iv; Smith 8: "time-worn dogmatism"). The question is whether there can be "any future metaphysics that will be able to come forth as a science," as the full title of the Prolegomena says in 1783. It cannot be theoretical in Kant's limited sense of the word. Kant distinguishes between theoretical and practical philosophy. The root meanings of Kant's terms in Aristotle's Greek have been pointed out above. For Kant, practical reason is not at all "knowing how." That would be theoretical. Kant declares, "by theoretical knowledge I recognize what is, but by practical I see what ought to be" (PuR 66A; cf. Smith 526). By practical reason a man "judges that he can do something because he ought, and he recognizes that he is free— a fact that, without the moral law, would have remained unknown to him" (PrR, Cass. 5:35; Beck 30). "Thus freedom and unconditional practical law reciprocally imply each other" (PrR, Cass. 5: 33; Beck 29). We know the unconditional in the form of ought, and the critical question is: How is genuine obligation possible? Certainly not by coercion. Force calls for resistance, and then might is right. No "other one" (htftero.․ ) can determine for me what is right, what is

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"moral law" (nOmos). The moral challenge to me says that by my own responsible act I ought to determine what is right in the case at hand, though I well know that I am not infallible. Responsibility cannot be given; it must be taken by my own free act. (In Greek: I myself: ego autos.) Autonomy alone can lead to a law (nOmos) that is both binding and liberating, that is, a law established by free, responsible act. Thus, "the moral law does provide a fact absolutely inexplicable by any data of the world of sense or by the whole compass of the theoretical use of reason [that is, of ratiocination], and this fact points to a pure, intelligible world [Kant says reine Verstandeswelt, meaning world of reason, not of ratiocination]; indeed, it determines it positively and enables us to know something of it, namely, a law" (PrR, Cass. 5:49; Beck 44). By this law there is added "to the sensuous world the form of an intelligible world, that is, the form of a supersensuous nature, without Interfering with the mechanism of the former" (ibid.). The supersensuous world is a world not of objects but of responsible beings. How these free beings fit into the apparently deterministic world of sense is the main problem of the third Critique. It, too, furnishes a priori forms, in the idea of the beautiful and sublime, and of the purposiveness of the organism. In these ways the three Critiques give clues for Schelling's search for the principle of all philosophy, for the form of forms (Urform), the unconditional. In fact, Kant's own words already state the case of Fichte and Schelling, who find the original form of all philosophy in the form of the /. This literary fact induced Fichte to write to Niethammer from Ulrich, October 6, 1793: "Kant has only hinted at the truth, but neither presented nor proved it. This wondrous and unique man either has the power of divining the truth without being himself aware of its grounds, or else he did not think highly enough of the age and did not deign to communicate with it" (Briefwechsel 2:431). And in the Second Introduction to Wissenschaftslehre, in 1797, Fichte wrote: "I know very well that Kant has not established a [finished] system, but I believe I know with equal certainty that he has thought out such a system and merely did not want to promulgate it, as some of his hints seem to indicate" (1:478; cf. Heath 51). On February 4, 1795, Schelling wrote to Hegel, "with Kant rose the pink of dawn" (Plitt 1:75). Here then, verbatim, are some of the clues furnished by Kant: "The 'I think' expresses the act [emphasis added] of determining [bestimmen] my existence" (PuR 157; Smith 169'9. This anticipates Fichte's sentence, "In its very origin, the I absolutely posits its own existence" (1:98; cf. Heath 99), "When I see myself as subject of my thoughts, or as ground of thinking, these insights do not signify any object of] the categories of substance or of cause" (PuR 429; cf. Smith 381 f.). Fichte elucidates: "One may hear the question: What was 1, presumably, before I reached any

INTRODUCTION

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consciousness of my self? The natural reply is: I was not at all, for I was not I. The I is only insofar as it is conscious of itself. The possibility of raising this question rests on a confusion between the I as subject, and the I as object of the absolute subject, an utterly improper confusion. The self presents itself to itself and to that extent imposes on itself the form of a presentation, and only thus is it a something, an object; in this form consciousness acquires a substrate that exists even without an actual consciousness, and moreover is conceived in bodily form" (1:97; cf. Heath 98). One might say that Kant continues the exposition of Fichte when he says that, through this kind of "I or he or it (the thing) which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental [Kant says transcendental but obviously means transcendent] subject of [objectivistic] thoughts, a something that is = x, known only through the thoughts which are its predicates. [Apparently Kant means the categories insofar as they are a priori forms of the mind.] And apart from them we cannot have any concept whatever of it" (PuR 404; cf. Smith 331). This objectification, Kant says, is a paralogism of a transcendent psychology "which is wrongly regarded as a science of pure reason regarding the nature of our thinking being. We can assign no other basis for this teaching than the simple presence [Vorstellung] of 'I,' which is entirely empty of content and of which one cannot even say that it is a concept, but only that it is a bare consciousness that accompanies all concepts" (PuR 403 f.; cf. Smith 331). In our actual consciousness there is always a content for, as Fichte explains, as soon as I realize that I am I for myself alone (Fichte 1: 97 f.; Heath 98 f.), I am distinguishing this "alone" from some not-I. Kant said: "This consciousness of my existence in time is bound up [indissolubly], in the way of identity, with the consciousness of a relation to something outside me, and it is therefore experience [Erfahrung] not invention [Erdichtung], sense not imagination, that inseparably connects this outside something with my inner sense" (PuR xl; Smith 35). Kant thus disposes of subjective idealism and, in line with him, Fichte and Schelling hold that critical philosophy deals with reality. In his first lectures at Jena, in 1794, Fichte pointed out that as an I, I am for myself alone, and that therefore I immediately distinguish my I from anything that is not-I and confronts me like something outside. (See 1:96-104; Heath 97-104.) The contrast between the two at first glance looks like an irreconcilable opposition. However, "opposition is possible only if there is identity of the consciousness which posits itself, and that which posits the opposing entity" (1:103; cf. Heath 104). In 1797 Fichte wrote: "In our experience we find an inseparable unity of the thing which is supposed to be determined independently of our freedom, and to which our knowledge is supposed to adjust, with the intelligence which must know. The philosopher can abstract from the one or the other, and in

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doing so he abstracts from experience and raises himself above it. The first method of procedure is called idealism, the second dogmatism" (1:425 f.; cf. Heath 8 f., the translation by John Lachs). Perhaps the reader needs a reminder that Fichte's and Schelling's word dogmatism designates both the so-called realism still taught by some schools—that is, materialistic dogmatism—and its upshot, subjective idealism— that is, spiritual dogmatism— along with the eventual result of skepticism. These three schools know nothing of Kant's critical or transcendental idealism. They are therefore bound to consider Kant as a quaint and puzzling footnote to Hume. The first reality from which critical idealism starts is what Kant calls the "primacy of practical reasons" (PrR, Cass. 5:132; Beck 126). "Only the concept of freedom enables us to find the unconditioned above the conditioned and the intelligible within and beyond the conditioned and sensuous, without going outside ourselves" (PrR, Cass. 5:115; cf. Back 109). This, of course, is a very old story. The decisive passage from Augustine's book On True Religion has been quoted above. It is true that Augustine made no explicitly systematic distinction between the ratiocinating soul (ratocinantem animam) and that insight of reason into selfhood which comes in a flash (eo ictu; On the Trinity 10, 9, 12).

Recent work on Schelling's beginnings In Europe a Schelling renaissance began before the First World War. Men like my teacher Fritz Medicus and his pupil Paul Tillich at the University of Halle started it. In the foreword to the first volume of his Gesammehe Werke (Stuttgart, 1959) Tillich said: "The influence of my Schelling studies on the whole of my future development is very strong" (we p. 9 of Mysticism and Guilt-Consciousness in Schelling's Philosophical Development, Trans. Victor Nuovo [Bucknell University Press, 1974]). As the Schelling bibliographies show, after the Second World War work on Schelling became voluminous. His beginnings which are here presented in their connection with Spinoza, Kant, and Fichte have also other roots which this presentation omits. That issue was raised already in 1801 in liegel's first philosophical publication, on The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy (trans. H. S. Harris and Walter Cerf 'Albany: State University of New York Press, 19771). In 1975 Manfred Frank and Gerhard Kurz published a rich anthology of materials regarding Schelling's philosophical beginnings (Materialien zu Schelling's phohnophiwken AnIlingen Frankfurt am Main; Suhrkamp Verlag]). In their introduction, Frank and Harris rightly stress the importance of the

INTRODUCTION

27

third in the Tubingen triad of friends, the poet HOlderlin, whose pertinent very short paper on Urteil and Sein is here translated in Appendix D. Maybe it formulates the original agreement among the three. All three, Hegel, HOlderlin, and the five-years-younger Schelling must have had common views before Schelling moved closer to Fichte. Here is a translation of what Frank and Kurz have to say (loc.cit. p.10). "At the time when HOlderlin critically turned away from Fichte, Schelling did the opposite. On February 24, 1796, HOlderlin reported to Niethammer a discussion he had had with Schelling: 'As we talked we were not always in accord. . . .As you know, Schelling had followed a better path before he now reached his goal by a worse.' In an earlier letter to Niethammer, dated December 22, 1795, HOlderlin wrote: 'As you may know, Schelling has deserted a bit his first convictions.' — One can try to reconstruct the discord between them. Since the 1794 essay On the Possibility, Schelling made a distinction between the unconditional and the reflection on it—that is, the entire subject-object relation (cf.100; 305 [both implicitly] and passim). Like HOlderlin, Schelling designated this nonreflexive unity as a being (Sein), and he did so more than once. For instance: 'I amt My I contains a being which is antecedent (vorhergeht) to all thinking and imagining' (167). On the same page, the first edition Of the I went as far as locating the 'unconditional authoritativeness' (Selbstmacht) in this being, not in the practical act. Equally explicit is Schelling's rejection of any identification of the 'non-finite I' with the moral law, since the latter 'can have meaning and significance only in its relation to a higher law of being' (201; cf. also 324). These thoughts mark the difference between Schelling and Fichte. In opposition to Fichte, Schelling writes that self-consciousness, far from furnishing the ground for the absolute, is in danger of losing the 'I' (180). From the very beginning, Schelling's 'non-finite I' has the character of transreflexive identity—that is, the character of a unity in contrast to selfrelation (cf. 324 f.). And this is the very point at which HOlderlin could start his critique. If the 'I' is an identity antecedent to all self-relation, then one may no longer call it 'I' as Fichte does, for to speak of an 'I' is meaningful only in a subject-object relation. HOlderlin's critique of Fichte lies precisely in the argument that such talk of the absolute I is contradictory, as HOlderlin's letter of January 26, 1795 to Hegel shows. For the absolute I there is no object, therefore no consciousness. Consequently the 'absolute I is nothing (for me.)' " [Frank and Kurz reprint HOlderlin's letter to Hegel on their pages 123-25.] In short, Schelling himself writes: "With absolute freedom no consciousness of self is compatible" (324). However all this leads beyond the purpose of this book which is meant to furnish the four basic essays as an introduction to further study of Schelling.



28

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Has this book an inherent unity? Schelling published each of the four essays as an independent unit. It

may seem that they are united only by the triennial date of their production, 1794-96. In what way do they constitute one book? It is a historical fact that young Schelling's thought developed from his perspicacious juxtaposition of Kant's criticism and Spinoza's dogmatism. Thus it is no mere arbitrariness to look to Kant for a logical pattern that would furnish a systematic unity of these essays. Kant divided each of his first two Critiques into a "doctrine of the elements" (Elementarlehre) and a "doctrine of the method" (Methodenlehre). His bipartition furnishes me with a schematic grouping of the four essays. Poss 1) The overall problem of a basic form Doctrine of Of I 2) Systematic exposition of the elements elements: 3) Theoretical (philosophical): The hard Methodical way, for students. It is hard to admit application: that there are two ways of philosophizDogm ing, dogmatic as well as critical. 4) Practical (moral): the easy way, for everybody. Even the dogmatists (the majority) must live under justice, which alone affords social soundness. To be sure, the "derivation" of natural right N.R. must be made critically, by students.

The reader will do well to keep at hand Spinoza's Ethics and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Schelling kept the two in mind persistently. After his N.R. he turned to the new problem of Naturphilosophie.

Biographical Note on Schelling

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was born January 27, 1775, in Leonberg, not far from Stuttgart in Wurttemberg. At fifteen he had covered the preparatory school curriculum, with Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and he entered the theological seminary at Tubingen. At seventeen he obtained the master's degree in philosophy. He presented his theological dissertation at twenty. He then studied natural science at Leipzig. On July 5, 1798, Goethe, the prime minister of the Duchy of SachsenWeimar, sent Schelling. of whom he thought highly, a copy of the decree by which Schelling became a professor at the University of Jena where, however, he taught only until 1803. After that he was mainly in the service of the kingdom of Bavaria, where the crown prince Ludwig soon became his admirer and pupil. Schelling died August 20, 1854, in Ragaz, Switzerland, where he is buried.

Having begun the study of Kant at sixteen, when he was nineteen Schelling wrote his essay On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy. Kant's whole work had pointed to such a form but had never made it explicit. Schelling confesses that it was Fichte's early formulation that encouraged him to publish his own independent but almost identical finding (1:87-89; see Poss). Schelling's Naturphilosophie soon endeavored to fill the gap left by Fichte, for whom nature was only the stage on which man is to exercise his autonomous responsibility. In his Grundlage (Foundation of the Entire Science of Knowledge, i.e., Wissenschaftslehre) Fichte said: "Only to the extent that anything is related to the practical faculty of the I, does it have independent reality" (1:282; cf. Heath 248). The Grundlage was written in the summer of 1794, during Fichte's first semester as a professor at Jena. Its subtitle is "A Handbook for His

30

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE



31

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON SCHELLING

Schelling was not aware of Augustine's formulations, which often sound like Fichte's and more especially like Schelling's own. (See "Theological Epistemology," The Modern Schoolman [November 1977].)

Hearers." It was printed in fascicles, which Fichte's students picked up as they came from the press. In book form it came out for Easter 1795. Schelling knew the first fascicles when he wrote On the Possibility, a copy of which he sent to Fichte on September 26, 1794 (see Plit 1:56). His book Of the I appeared at the same Easter book fair of 1795 as Fichte's

Dates

Grundlage. While Fichte's philosophy never lost its theocentric orientation, Schelling's philosophical theology probed deeper than Fichte's or Hegel's. As early as March 1796 Schelling pointed out the fundamental mistake of a theology or philosophy that "takes refuge in a God outside everything that exists, a God the idea of whom is nothing but a composite of general

Immanuel Kant Johan Gottfried Herder Salomon Maimon Karl Leonhard Reinhold Gottlob Ernst Schulze Johann Gottlieb Fichte Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling

abstractions" (letter of March 12 to Obereit; Plitt 1:88). This mistaken idea is still current in 1979. By simple abstraction, every human perfection is being attributed to God, in the maximal degree; thus God becomes an unbelievable superman. As long as we ignore Schelling, we can have no tenable philosophical theology. Perhaps the main merit of having drawn the attention of American scholars to Schelling belongs to Paul Tillich. In his foreword to volume 1 of his Gesammelte Werke (Stuttgart, 1959) Tillich said: "The influence of my Schelling studies on the whole of my further development is very strong" (Mysticism and GuiltConsciousness in Schelling's Philosophical Development, Victor Nuovo, Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1974], p. 9. cf. The Construction of the History of Religion in Schelling's Positive Philosophy,

trans. Victor Nuovo [Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1974], p. 11 )• At least we have come to hesitate before we demand proofs for "the existence of God." In his Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism Schelling, at twenty, reminded us that "as soon as we enter the domain of proofs we are in the domain of the conditional," which is the realm of objects. And in 1805, in his Aphorisms as an Introduction to Naturphilosophie (7:150, no. 52), he stresses that "as a known object God ceases to be God." In his last book (11: 274) he says "there is no proof of the existence of God in general, for there is no existence of God in general. God's existence is always immediately specific." Schelling's letter to Obereit quoted above continues to remark of the abstract idea of God: "This idea (to which Christianity lent its countenance owing to and in contrast with the Christian habit of seeing things very concretely) got such a hold of men's minds that they could no longer understand the ancient philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, nor the later ones, Descartes (who already had a few predecessors among the Scholastics), his pupil Spinoza, Malebranche, and still later the best interpreter of Spinoza, Jacobi, and finally Kant." The fact that this list does not contain the name of Augustine seems to prove that in 1796

ti

1724-1804 1744-1803 1753-1800 1758-1823 1761-1823 1762-1814 1770-1831 1775-1854

The Unconditional in Human Knowledge

Translator's Introduction to On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy

I suggest that the reader consult Kant's three pages entitled "The Pure Employment of Reason" (PuR 362-66; Smith 305-7). He will find that Schelling seems to have had those very pages before him and, like Kant, to have asked "can we isolate reason [Vernunft]?" Of course there is no isolation in the sense of separation from Verstand. To isolate must here mean to distinguish philosophically. For there is a distinction between the a priori forms of Verstand that govern the conditional and the form of unconditionality demanded by Vernunft. Vernunft cannot proceed without Verstand. Therefore Schelling starts his essay in terms of the categories of modality. Kant lists them as the three polarized pairs of concepts: Possibility - Impossibility Existence - Nonexistence Necessity - Contingency. (PuR, 106; Smith 113) What is impossible cannot exist, not even contingently. This is what Verstand cogently demands. However, "the principle peculiar to Vernunft is to find for the conditioned knowledge obtained through Verstand, the unconditioned whereby the unity of Verstand is brought to completion" (PuR 364; Smith 306). The categories of Verstand are a priori forms. The unconditioned must be the form of forms. If, in line with the subtitle of Kant's Prolegomena, metaphysics is to come forth as a science, the first thing to be ascertained is the possibility of that basic form of all philosophy. As does Fichte in his small programmatic book On the Concept of Wissenschaftslehre, written in the spring of 1794, Schelling starts abstractly and hypothetically: If there were any original form, what traits 35

36

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE



would it have to have? "Of what kind should the ultimate axiom be?" [93]. In order that the axiom be nothing conditioned by something else, its content must determine its form, and vice versa [97]. The axiom must be "posited not because it is posited but because it is itself that which posits" 1961. Thus, in the abstract, the hypothetical question returns: Is there anything of the sort? Schelling immediately answers: "This is nothing other than the originally self-posited I that is marked by all the criteria enumerated" in the abstract though cogent induction with which he started the essay (1:89.95). Of course Schelling knew this answer before he formulated his hypothetical question. By formulating it he paid his tribute to the current rationalism of his age. (It is still current in many academic circles.) The tribute buys nothing. No conditional approach can lead to the unconditional. "An unconditional content can have only an unconditional form and vice versa, since if one were conditional, the other, even if it were unconditional, would have to be conditioned, owing to its fusion with something conditional" [92]. It would have been didactically better if Schelling, on the basis of all the clues given by Kant and the explicit formulations of Fichte, had started concretely with the self-positing I and had arrived at the criteria by an analysis of the I. A baffled reader can simply make a new start with the question "How shall we now seek that axiom?" (1:96). If the reader lacks an introduction to philosophy and therefore is at a loss with regard to the I's positing itself, let him follow the old advice of Augustine, "let him not try to discover himself as if he were absent, but let him take care to discern that he is present" (De Trinitate, 10. 9.12). When he reads the word I, let him take it to mean what he means when he says: "It is I who am reading this"— I, not some hypothetical entity like "my mind." Let him ask himself whether or not Fichte's formulations of 1795 are still true, not indeed of the deceased Fichte's I, but of the reader's own self. "1 am I for myself alone," and as I, "I am not any not-I" (1:98, 106 the latter not verbatim]; Heath 99, 106). If this insight does not strike him In a flash, let him read the following translator's notes to the essay Of the I: 6, 7, 10, 11, 16, 20, 22, 31, 90, 92. If that does not work, let him suspect that he is not as yet ready for philosophy, although he is adult and honest. Ile can then file away everything he reads here as a quaint piece of literary Information. He is right in feeling that such information does not do him any earthly good. Nobody can be argued into knowing that he is an I. The insight into the unconditionality of the I can be attained only by the student's own act of asking himself, What do 1 mean by the word / when I say 1 am I? Only on the basis of this concrete act can he discover that, as an I, he is no

ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY

37

hypothetical object at all. Ostensible proofs and arguments in the abstract cannot make him see it. For, Schelling says in his Sixth Letter, "as soon as we step into the domain of proofs, we step into the domain of the conditioned" (1:308). It is not only poor pedagogy, it is bad logic to take one's start from the conditional, from objects, be they mental or material, in order to find the unconditional. It cannot be found hypothetically, but only "thetically," that is, by the act (Tathandlung) (Fichte, ilenesidemus 1:8) by which each one of us, every moment of our life, posits himself or herself as an I, unconditionally. (If the reader is puzzled by Fichte's word thetical, let him think of a thesis that a candidate for a master's or doctor's degree is willing to formulate and defend. In doing so, the candidate "comes forward" and "puts himself on the map," as we say in America. Even if his major professor has simply assigned the topic of the thesis, the candidate must still perform the personal act of standing by the thesis. And if in doing so he goes against his own intellectual conscience, he is still personally performing the act of ignoring his conscience. He is putting himself in the devil's corner.) Even if we renege on our duty, we posit ourselves as responsible or, in such a case, irresponsible beings. To think is a moral act, and to think carelessly is immoral. This is why Kant speaks of the primacy of practical reason. In the Prolegomena Kant says that Vernunft is our awareness of an ought (Cass. 98; Beck 92). And in the second Critique he says: "the moral law is a fact of pure reason, of which we are aware a priori, and which is apodictically certain" (PrR, Cass. 5:53; cf. Beck 48). "The awareness of this law may be called a fact of reason, since one cannot ferret it out [herausverniinfteln] from antecedent data of reason, such as the consciousness of freedom, for this is not antecedently given" (PrR, Cass. 5:36; cf. Beck 31). All this pertains to Schelling's second essay, of the I, as well.

[87] [88,89] ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY

1 On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy (1794) In the original German the first pages sound less boastful because Schelling refers to himself in the third person, as "the author." Because Schelling also refers to several other authors on the same pages, a literal translation became stuffy and confusing. Hence the use of the first person, "my mind" for "the author's mind," and the like.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:

[87]The thoughts expressed in this essay have been renewed in my mind by the newest publications in the k_hilosophical world. I had already pondered such thoughts for some time. I was led to them through the study of the Critique of Pure Reason, in which nothing seemed more obscure and harder to understand—from the very start—than the attempt to lay the foundation for a form for all philosophy without having anywhere established a principle that would not only furnish an original form as the root of all particular forms but also give the reason for its necessary connection with the particular forms that depended on it. The lack of such an original form became even more evident through the steady attacks by the enemies of Kant's philosophy, attacks often aimed at this very shortcoming. Foremost was the attack by Aenesidemus,' who probably felt more deeply than most others this lack of both a basic principle and a cogent coherence of Kant's deductions, insofar as they depend on the form of philosophy as such. I was soon inclined to believe that the very objections of that skeptic which, directly or indirectly, are aimed at that particular shortcoming, are the most important objections and the ones

39

that up to now have been the most difficult to answer. I became convinced that even Reinhold's theory of the power of imagination, 2 as he has furnished it so far, is not as yet secure from such criticism [88] but must lead in the end to a philosophy based on deeper, elemental principles, which can no longer be reached by the attacks of the new skeptic. Reinhold's Elemental Philosophy endeavored to answer only one of the two questions that must precede all philosophical discipline, the separation of which has hitherto hurt philosophy extraordinarily —namely, the question of how the content of a philosophy is possible. The question about the possibility of the very form of philosophy was answered by Reinhold in much the same way as it had already been answered in the Critique of Pure Reason, that is, without extending the investigation_ to an ultimate principle of all form. But of course, unless both sides of the problem of the possibility of a strict philosophical discipline were solved, then even that partial solution which had been the concern of the Theory of the Power of Imagination could not be furnished in such a way as to satisfy all questions concerning it. My opinion regarding that part of the problem which the Theory of Imagination has left for some future elaboration of Elemental Philosophy has been strongly confirmed by the newest work of Professor Fichte.' This work surprised me all the more pleasantly in that it became easier for me to penetrate into the depth of that investigation by means of my own preconceived ideas. Though I may not fully have succeeded in this endeavor, perhaps I did advance farther than would have been the case without those preconceptions. I was thus able to pursue the purpose of this investigation, namely, to arrive eventually at a solution of the entire problem of the possibility of philosophy as such, a topic with which I had already been somewhat familiar. It was Fichte's publication that directed my thoughts toward a more complete development of the problem, and I found my labors amply rewarded in that this writing became clearer [89] in the same measure as I had developed my own ideas previously. I derived this advantage from the excellent review of Aenesidemus that appeared in the General Literary Magazine. Its author cannot possibly be unrecognized.' Subsequently I learned from the latest writing by Salomon Maimons— a work worthy of closer examination than I have so far been able to accord it—that the need for a complete solution of the entire problem, which had so far been a barrier to all attempts at shaping a universally valid philosophy, is beginning to be felt more generally than has been the case until now. Thus I came to believe that I had found the only possible way to the solution of that problem simply by developing the concept of that task. The feeling that here and there a general sketch of that concept might be found useful in preparing the completion of the whole idea made me decide to present a sketch of it to the public.

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [90]

[91,92] ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY 41

May those who seem to have been challenged by philosophy make it their business soon to furnish its completion so that there may be no more need for mere preparations.

[91] The axiom of each science can not be conditioned by the science itself, but must be unconditional in regard to that science. For this very reason its axiom can be only one. For if the science were to be conditioned by several axioms, either there would be no ulterior axiom that would connect them, or there would be one. In the first case the multiple axioms would be different, thus they would be the conditions of different sciences; in the other case, they would be adjuncts of each other and therefore would alternately depend on an ulterior axiom, so that they would disqualify each other to the effect that none could be a genuine axiom, but each would presuppose an ulterior axiom which conditioned all of them. if an axiom of a science is to be a condition of the entire science, then it must be a condition of its content as well as of its form. If philosophy, i therefore, is to be a science whose specific content is necessarily, not ' arbitrarily connected with a specific form, then its highest axiom must establish not only the entire content and the entire form of the science, butt it must have a content of its own which is connected with its own specific form inherently and not merely in an arbitrary way. Moreover, philosophy itself, even if not a precondition for all sciences — a situation which we can not as yet take for granted—should not be conditioned by any other science. Thus the content of its axiom must not be taken from any other science, and since this content must be the condition on which the content of the science itself depends, it must be a content which simply is, which unconditionally is. This amounts to the claim, however, that the content of philosophy furnishes the condition of every content of all sciences. For if the content of philosophy is absolutely unconditional, that is, if it springs from an absolutely unconditional axiom, then every other content can be conditioned only by that axiom. If the content of some other science should rank above the content of philosophy, then philosophy would be conditioned by another science, which contradicts our assumption. If it had equal rank, then both [92] would presuppose a still higher one owing to which they would be coordinated. * It follows that there must either be one particular exalted science that ranks above philosophy and all other sciences, or else philosophy itself must contain the ultimate conditions of all other sciences. That particular science then could be the science only of the ultimate conditions of philosophy itself and for that reason the question whether philosophy is possible at all places us within the domain of that first science, which could be called propaedeutic of philosophy (Philosophic

40

Philosophy is a science, that is, it presents a specific ontent-in a specific Wm...Did all philosophers arbitrarily unite from the beginning to give this specific (and systematic) form to just this specific content? Or does the reason for this connection go deeper, and could there not be some common ground which would simultaneously furnish the form as well as the content? Could not the very form of this science bring along its content, or the content its form? In that case either the content is necessarily determined by the form or the form is determined by the content. Even then, much would be left to the discretion of the philosophers, [90] because it would be up to them to find either the form or the content in order to establish one through the other. However, this interdependence of content and form has such an ascendency over the mind that it must give rise to the thought that there may be a reason for it in man's mind, but that philosophy has not yet found it. It looks as if that thought had guided philosophy to search for an absolute connection between a specific content and a specific form. This is an idea which philosophy could approach only step by step and which it could express only to a more or less limited degree as long as it could not find that reason, which is lodged in the human mind itself.(This much is clear that, if the content of philosophy necessarily creates its form or the form its content, then there can be only 9,13.e. philosophy in line with the very idea of philosophy) Any other philosophy would be different from this single philosophy. It would be a pseudoscience created by mere arbitrariness (guided, to be sure, by the hidden reason in the human mind, but not, datumfled by it). Science as such, no matter what its content, is an entirety governed by the form of unity. This is possible only when all its parts are subjected to one premise, and when each part determines the other only insofar as the part itself is determined by that one premise. The parts of science are 1e1L.plenai,Se,. axiom (Grundsatz). Science, called_ theorems (Satze); t1 therefore, is possible only if based on an axiO m. (This type of unity, that is, the unity of a continuous connection of conditional theorems, of which the I first, the.,_axinm, is not conditional, is the general form of all sciences, and differs from the specific form of the individual sciences only inasmuch as each one of them depends on its specific content. The general form could be called the formal; the specific, the material form. When either the content of the science creates its form or the form its content, then the formal form is necessarily determined by the material, or the latter by the former.) —

.

J

—

'Some will ask: flow do you prove that? By the archetype (Urform) of human knowledgel True, I reach it only by presuppoling such an absolute unity of knowledge (that means the archetype itself). This is indeed a circle. I lowever, this circle could be avoided only if there were nothing absolute at all in human knowledge. The

absolute can be determined

only by the absolute. There is an absolute only because there is an absolute (A A). This will become cleatri in the sequel

42

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

[93]

prima) or, better still, theory (science) of all science, archscience, or science xar'E/oxriv, since it is supposed to condition all the other sciences. In short, no matter how we look at it, philosophy—if it is to be a science at all—must be governed by a plainly absolute axiom that has to contain the condition of all content as well as of all form if it is really to condition it at all. Thus (by merely developing its meaning) the answer is given to the question previously asked, namely, of how philosophy can be possible as a science, with regard to both its content and its form; whether its content gets its form by somebody's arbitrary decision or whether each induces the other mutually. It becomes obvious now that an unconditional content can have only an unconditional form and vice versa since, if one were conditional, the other, even if it were unconditional, would have to be conditioned, owing to is fusion with something conditional. Therefore the fusion of form an tent of the ultimate axiom can be determined neither arbitrarily nor through a third (an even higher axiom). 931 Both can be determined only mutually, by one another They induce one another. They are possible only because eith requires the other. (Therefore the inner form of the content and the form of the axiom are each the form of being conditioned by itself, and only through this inner form does the external form, the form of being posited unconditionally, become possible.) Thus we have a solution to the problem which until now has been the obstacle to all attempts at establishing a scientific philosophy and has apparently never been developed clearly enough. The question was: Of what kind should the ultimate axiom be? Since each axiom seems to presuppose a higher one, should the ultimate axiom be material or formal? If it is to be material, that is, an axiom which establishes only a specific content of philosophy (such as Reinhold's axiom of consciousness), then its form is not only that of an axiom as such (according to its possibility), but also the form of a specific axiom, specified in its actuality. In other words, the form of a material axiom is determined both as that of an axiom purely and simply and as that of a specific axiom (expressing a specific content). [Reinhold's! axiom of consciousness, for instance, designed as a material axiom, remains conditional.' Aenesidemus could rightly say that the axiom, being a proposition, must have a subject and a predicate. How can their connection be possible unless I presuppose a form which expresses the relationship of subject and predicate? And as long as I do not have that form, what keeps me from nullifying that connection? How could I posit anything in a theorem without having a form in which to posit it? If, by means of a proposition or theorem, I want to express a definite content or meaning, then that meaning should be different from any other meaning,

[94,

95] ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY

43

How is this possible? How can I posit a meaning as different from any other without presupposing the very form of positing, through which every definite meaning is determined as different from everything else that can be posited? If the ultimate axiom is to be purely formal, that is, if it expresses only a specific form like the ultimate axiom [9.4.1Leibniz's philosophy, then this form must be unconditional, or else the axiom that expresses it could not be the ultimate axiom, because its very meaning would again be determined by a higher axiom. But there is no general form that does not presuppose, by necessity, some definite content (something that is being posited), nor is there an absolute, unconditional, universal form that does not necessarily presuppose a specific content which is its own and its only possible content.* I e41. Here we find ourselves in a magic circle. Obviously, we cannot get out of it except by the supposition to which our development of the concept of an ultimate axiom has already led us, the supposition that there is an ultimate absolute principle through which, along with the content of the ultimate axiom (the content that is the condition for every other content), the form of that axiom is also of necessity given as the form that is the condition of every form. Thukthe two will mutually establish each other) In that way the ultimate axiom not only expresses the entire content and form of philosophy but also gives itself in this very fashion its own content and its own specific form simultaneously. (Inasmuch as it contains the content [or meaning] ofallsontents [or meanings], it gives itself at the same time its own _ content; and insofar as it is a definite and as such the form [or meaningfulness] of all forms, it_ gives itself simultaneously its own form, inasmuch as it is an axiom as such. The material form induces the formal one.) By means of such an ultimate axiom we have arrived not only at the content and meaning of any science as such but also at the specific form of the connection of the two. Thus that axiom furnishes the general form of this , connection, the form of the reciprocal determination of the content by the form, and of the form [95] by the content. In all other axioms of science (different from the ultimate axiom) the connection of a definite content with a definite form can be possible only inasmuch as those axioms are determined by the ultimate axiom in both their content and their form. For either the form of those axioms or their content is dependent on the ultimate axiom, and if in that highest axiom only one form of connection [between form and content] is possible, then the connection of form and

a

-

•I for one have sought in vain for a formula for the axiom of contradiction, which would not presuppose some content (thus being a material axiom). Those who do not a priori comprehend this as necessary might try to see whether a posteriori they will be more fortunate than I.

44 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN

KNOWLEDGE

[96]

content of the singular separate axioms is likewise determined, so that the connection can take place only if form and content are mutually conditioned. The mistake made in all previous attempts at a solution of the problem of the axiom of all axioms obviously consisted in always trying to solve only a part of the problem (either the part concerned with the content or else the part concerned with the form of all axioms).* No wonder, then, that even the separately stated formal or material axioms lacked reality in the case of the formal, * * and certainly in the case of the material, as long as their mutual conditioning was not recognized. [96] How_shall we now seek_that axiom of_axiams, which contains the condition of all content and all form of any science, inasmuch as they are mutually conditioned? A general sketch of our procedure to find this axiom may be sufficient at this, point, since it will be our main task to derive the first form of all science from that axiom. Should we retrace our steps from axiom to axiom, from condition to condition, until we arrive at the ultimate, absolute, categorical axiom? In that kind of procedure we would necessarily have to begin with disjunctive propositions,' that is, no axiom — inasmuch as it is determined neither by ultimate) nor by one that is higher (for then Itself (for then it would we would already have the higher for which we are lookin— could serve as starting point for a rc:cessiv.t search. instead, the first criterion found in the concept of an absolutely unconditional proposition shows of itself the quite different way in which it must be sought. For such a proposition can be given only by its own criteria. But it has no other criterion than the criterion of absolute unconditionality. All other criteria which one might attribute to it would either contradict this criterion or be already contain-

Ye die —

in it,' A strictly unconditional axiom has to have a content which is in turn un-

ed

conditional, that is, this axiom cannot be conditioned by the content of •Those who do not understand what has been discussed so far may ask: Why cannot two axioms, one of which is material, the other one formal, be placed as the ultimate condition of all science? The answer is: because science must have unity, i.e., it must be based on a principle that contains an absolute unity. If we were to accept the proposal that there be two axioms, then each of them by itself would lack certainty and would presuppose the other. Also, if there were no principle containing both of them, they would have to be placed not side by side hut alterna tingly, one in front of the other. Furthermore, if separated from each other, they could not yield one science of specific form and specific content but, on the one hand, a science of sheer content and, on the other, a science of sheer form, either of which is impossible, "Form can be realized only by content but, by the same token, content without form is a null concept.

[97,98] ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL

PHILOSOPHY 45

some other axiom (be the content a fact or an abstraction and reflection). This is possible only insofar as that content is something which in its very origin is posited unconditionally as a content not determined by anything but by itself and which, therefore posits itself (by absolute causality). But nothing can be posited absolutely except that which contains an absolutely independent original self and is posited not because it is posiled but because it is itself that which posits. This is nothing other than the originally self posited I, which is [97] marked by all criteria enumerated. For the I is absoltteosited. Its being posited is not determined by anything outside itself. It posits itself (by absolute causality). It is posited not because it is posited [from without] but because it is itself the positing agent. And there is no danger of our finding anything else that might be marked by these very same criteria. For since the content of the ultimate axiom determines its form, and the form in turn determines its content, the form can not be given by anything else I by the I, and I itself can be given onlyby the form. Now the I is _21it given merely as the I, therefore the axiom can only be I is I. (I is the content of the axiomC/ is I is the material and the formal form ' which induce each other mutually.) If there were anything different from the I that nevertheless would satisfy our criteria, then the content of that axiom would not be given by its form nor the form by the content; that is, it would read: I = not-I. This circle in which we unavoidably find ourselves is precisely the condition of the absolute evidence of the ultimate axiom. That the circle is unavoidable is made clear by the already proved supposition that the ultimate axiom must necessarily receive its content through its form and its form through its content. Of necessity, either there can be no ultimate axiom, or it can exist only by reciprocal determination of content by form and form by content. For through this ultimate axiom, a form of absolute positing is given that now itself becomes the content of the axiom, but naturally it can receive no other than its own form, so that its general expression is: A = A. 8 If the general form of the unconditional positing (A = A) were not the condition of every possible content of any axiom, then the ultimate axiom could be expressed also in the following manner: I = not-I.

If, on the contrary, the content and the form of the ultimate [98] axiom were not given solely through the I, that is to say, if I were not I, then that form of being posited absolutely would not be possible either, that is, it would be A = not-A. For then A could be posited in the I, and similarly not-A posited in the I, which then would not be equal to the I, therefore there would be two different I's, in which something completely different would be posited, and it would be possible that A>A, 9 or A = not-A.

'Jr

46

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

[99]

Therefore if I is not = I, then A = not-A,* and if A = not-A, then I = not-I. With this, though, we have implicitly given the content (and through it th of a second axiom, which is expressed as follows: not-I is not I This hew axiom has for its content a not-I as such serving as a possible content of some axiom as such. And inasmuch as this new axiom receives its content through a superior axiom, its form, too, is indirectly iitiois ie 1; but inasmuch as this content itiard etermines the form conc directly, thelonn is directly unconditional, that is, it is determined by the * axiom itself alone. Inasmuch as the not-I is opposed to the I, whose form is unconditional, the form of the not-I must be conditional and can become the content of an axiom only as it is conditioned by the I. Just as the form of uiaitionality is furnished through the superior ultimate axiom, so the • second axiom furnishes the form of conditionality. (If the I should posit only itself, then all possible forms would be exhausted by the form of the unconditional, an unconditionality that would condition nothing.) The connection of a definite form with a definite content is possible in the second axiom only insofar as its content is determined by the ultimate axiom and insofar as this content at the same time determines a form and, through it, determines also the connection between form and content. [99] The I is posited by itself. Through that same I, though, a not-I is also posited, therefore the I would negate itself if it did not posit itself precisely through the fact that it posits a not-I. But since the I in its very origin is posited unconditionally and therefore (as such) is not originally posited merely because of its positing something else, the latter, that is, the not-I, is posited only outside the I [as it were] in a third. This third has its own origin in the fact that the I, while positing the not-I, also posits itself, in other words, the fact that I and not-I exist only insofar as they are mutually exclusive. Now, such a third, to which two mutually exclusive things relate jointly, stands to the conditions of this relation as the whole of conditionality stands to individual conditions. Therefore there must be a third that is conditioned jointly by the I and not-I, that is, it is a joint product of the two, in which the I is posited insofar as the not-I is posited, and -

the not-I only insofar as an I is posited simultaneously.**

•This is not because the rule A = A would not apply merely in this particular case, for then it could at least apply in some other case, but because the original form, if not founded on the axiom I = 1, has no foundation at all, does not have any reality, does not even exist. There can be no unconditional form, except insofar as it is based on our axiom, which is determined by Itself. **The I can never lose its original form (the unconditionality). Therefore it is not conditional even in this third but is posited as unconditional precisely because that which the I conditions Is conditional (not-1). Tko, therefore, is posited by something condit ional only inasmuch as the I itself is unconditional.'"

[100,101]

ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY

47

Through this albiLd_azitum. is now established, whose content is given unconditionally, because the I posits itself only by itself and, in so doing, it posits a not-I (by freedom). The forth of this axiori) however, is conditional, that is, it is possible only through the form of the first and second axiom, as a form of conditionality determined by unconditionality. In this third axiom, the connection of form and content is possible only inasmuch as the form is determined by_ the two higher axioms. And since in those two their specific form becomes possible only through their specific content, the content of the third axiom is indirectly determined by those two axioms. This third axiom is now the one that directly furnishes the foundation for [Reinhold's] theory of consciousness and imagination. Such [100] a theory of consciousness and imagination is possible only through those three axioms of all axioms.* The first of the three axioms is absolutely unconditional both in its form and in its content, the second only in its form, the third only in its content. These three axioms exhaust all content and all form of [our] science. Originally, nothing but the I is given, and that as the supreme condition. And through it nothing is given, except insofar as it is condition, that is, insofar as something is conditioned by the I and, being conditioned by the I, must be a not-I on that account alone.** And now there remains nothing [101] but a third that in itself combines both I and not-I. In short, anything whatsoever that can become the content of a science is covered, insofar as it is given as unconditional, as conditional, or as both *[Reinhold might object:] "But the I, the not-I, and the imagination are possible only in consciousness, therefore the latter must be the principle of all philosophy." The I, the not-I, and the flinagination are given (subjectively) only through the imagination (Vorstellung) and the latter is given only in consciousness. But what has been said so far shows that they can be given through the imagination and thus through consciousness only insofar as they themselves are antecedently posited (objectively, i.e., as independent from consciousness), either unconditionally (like the I) or conditionally (but conditioned by the unconditional, not by consciousness). To be sure, the act that appears to the philosopher first (as far as time is concerned) is the act of consciousness, but the condition of the possibility of this act must be a superior act of the human mind itself (ein häherer Akt des menschlichen Geistes selbst). The concept of imagination (Vorstellung), by the way, as defined in these three axioms, is the basis of all philosophy. Imagination in a practical sense is nothing else but immediate determination (by the absolute I) of the I contained in the imagination. At the same time it is also negation of the not-I insofar as it appears in the imagination in the form of something that determines. The supreme act of the absolute I in theoretical philosophy is free with regard to its form (causality), though it relates to the not-I, insofar as the latter determines the I contained in the imagination. Therefore in theoretical philosophy that act, in its matter, is limited by the not-I, whereas in practical philosophy the supreme action of the absolute I is free according to both its content and its form, i.e., the action relates to the I contained in the imagination only insofar as the determination of that I by any not-I is negated. Here, however, all this can be only stated, not proved. Let me say anticipatorily that practical philosophy, too, is possible only on the basis of the ultimate axiom, I = I.

••Even the I that is conditioned in the imagination by the absolute I becomes a not-I, for that reason and for that reason alone.

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[102]

simultaneously. A fourth possibility does not exist. Since in these axioms the content is given only through the form and the form only through the content, these axioms, inasmuch as they cover all possible content of the science, also exhaust all possible form, and these axioms contain the original form of all science, the form of unconditionality, the form of conditionality, and the form of conditionality determined by unconditionality.

Thus the problem which was the real topic of this essay is solved. How far such a solution can lead us, and what evidence will be carried over from the three supreme axioms to others, the reader may anticipate himself, or he may await the complete exposition of the idea itself. Since everything that is established in a new form* becomes much clearer for many and may be even [102] more acceptable if it is presented in comparison with the hitherto accustomed form, we may here draw a parallel between this new solution of the problem of the original form of all science and the solution thus far accepted. But the fate of the form becomes important only at that point in philosophy at which the philosophers realized explicitly that, before one could speak of philosophy as a science, one had to establish not mere single forms but the principle of all form. This is what Descartes declared in his statement cogito ergo sum. What a pity that he did not proceed further. He was on the way to setting the first form of all philosophy on the foundation of a real principle, but he left the path 10 that he had begun to walk. His disciple, Spinoza, also felt the necessity to * Whoever declares that what has thus far been said is truth long ago accepted states what is perhaps more true than he realizes. It would be sad if he were not right. All philosophers (worthy of that name) speak of a supreme axiom of their science that 'should be evident, and they have never implied anything other than an axiom whose content and form had to be mutually conditioned. What Leibniz, speaking of the axiom of contradiction as the principle of philosophy, meant to say was that the supreme axiom (which contained the absolute unity) should be I I. What Descartes wanted to say by his cogito ergo sum was that the original form of all philosophy should be that of unconditional positing. These philosophers

saw more

clearly than many a thinker of today the shape that philosophy must take in this manner. 1,eilmir wanted to shape philosophy into a science demonstrated purely by ideas (aus Begriffro). Descartes wanted to achieve the same by his axiom that only that which is given by the I Is true. Likewise. through the Critique of Pure Reason, the Theory of the Power of Imagination, and the coming Theory of Science (Wissenschaftslehre) a science yet to be created must result, a science which operates solely by logic and which deals with nothing but what is

posited by the I (by its freedom and autonomy). Then the idle talk about objective proofs for the existence of God will cease, and likewise for the objective existence of immortality, about which some people fondly prate. Then there will also be an end to the persistent question as to whether an object exists as such (in other words, whether something that does not appear can be all appearance). One will then know nothing except what is given by the I, and by the axiom I — I. One will know it in the same way as that in which one knows the axiom I and yet this knowledge will not lead to egoism , which many another philosophy is likely to do.

[103,104] ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY



49

give a foundation to the form of human knowledge as such. He transposed the first form of knowledge from his I to a very different concept, one quite independent of the I, the conception of a connotation of all possibility. It was Leibniz who, with explicit certainty, established the form of unconditional positing as the original form of all knowledge. This philosopher has been misunderstood in the most flagrant manner, since it was believed that he wanted to elevate the axiom of contradiction to the principle of all philosophy—with respect to both form and content. Instead, he explicitly connected this axiom with the axiom of sufficient reason, and this is why he asserted —as strongly and firmly as Crusius " or as any other philosopher after him— that, in order to find a philosophy, one had to go beyond that axiom. Leibniz sketched, as it were, in a [103] general manner, the method of finding this philosophy through that second axiom as a method which could not be reached at all by the axiom of contradiction alone." However, the deficiency that remained in the philosophy of this great man was that he stated these two axioms as if they were not conditioned by any other, and thus stated the form expressed by them as a form not conditioned by any content;' 3 in short, he solved only one part of the problem of the possibility of all philosophy and, because of that, did not solve satisfactorily that part which he tried to solve. [The interpreters of Leibniz have] misunderstood his axioms where they were right, without seeing or correcting what was lacking in them. It was left to the founder of critical philosophy to confront the constructions furnished by pupils of Leibniz with the most beautiful apologia for this great mind, and Kant himself not only marked the path of philosophy much more precisely than his predecessor (who was satisfied with a cursory sketch) had done, but followed the path thus described with a consistency which alone could lead to the goal. The definite distinction between analytic and synthetic form" had given support and stability to the fleeting 4' sketch of the form of all philosophy which Leibniz had drafted. However, Kant still stopped at the mere statement that the original form (Urform) of all philosophy is available;" he did not connect it with any supreme principle. Even the connection of this form (which he had stated to be the form of all possible thinking) with the particular forms of thinking (which he had at first set up in exhaustive fullness) was nowhere stated by him so definitely as it would seem necessary. Whence that distinction, analytic and synthetic judgments? Where is the principle on which the first form is based? Where is the principle from which the particular forms of thinking derive, those which Kant enumerates without relating them to a higher principle? These questions still remain unanswered. In all this there remains a shortcoming (which could have been anticipated [104] and which the further development substantiated), namely, the lack of a determination of the forms of thought by a principle, a determination which would

50

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[015]

no longer permit a misinterpretation of those forms' 6 but would completely separate them and thus prevent their possible fusion—in short, a determination which could be brought about only through a superior principle. As the original form of all thinking, Kant had set up the analytic and the synthetic. Where do they come from and where is the principle on which they rest? This question is now answered by the above deduction. This form is given by the [three] supreme axioms of all knowledge, simultaneous with and inseparable from the content of all knowledge. Those axioms give us: 1. A form which is absolutely unconditional, the form of the positing of an axiom which is conditioned by nothing but that axiom, and which therefore does not presuppose any other content of a superior axiom, in short, the form of unconditionality (axiom of contradiction, analytic form).* 2. A form which is conditioned, which can become possible only through the content of a superior axiom—form of conditionality (axiom of sufficient reason, synthetic form). 5. A form which combines the two forms—the form of conditionality determined by unconditionality (axiom of disjunction, connection of the analytic and synthetic forms). Once the analytic and synthetic forms were established, then, true enough, the third, which combines both, could not furnish a new form as such, but it could amount to a form no less important. It is therefore surprising indeed that the great philosopher who had pointed out those two [105] forms did not add the third, especially since he always mentioned a third one when he counted the particular forms of thought dependent on the original form. And that third is possible only through the original connection between the analytic form and the synthetic, that is, through a third mode of the original form. The more important that Kant's establishment of this original form of all knowledge (the analytic and synthetic) is for all philosophy, the more one marvels that he does not specifically** indicate the connection of the particular forms of knowledge (which he presents in a table) with that original form. It is surprising that he should depict the deduced forms as if

•Take note that here, with no concern as to the content of the axiom, only the manner as such of being posited is being considered. The question is only whether an axiom is posited as axiom (not as an axiom with a specific content). This will become clearer in the following pages. "One passage in the Critique of Pure Reason (§11) (109 ff.; Smith 115 f.) actually contains a reference to this connection and to its importance in regard to the form of all science." Such passages in which such references occur like single rays of light which this admirable genius sheds on the whole I corpus) of the sciences vouch for the correctness of those traits by which Fichte (in the preface of his above-mentioned essay) tries to characterire Kant.

[106,107] ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY

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they were not dependent on any principle, just as he had set forth the original form—abruptly, as it were—without tying it to a principle. All the more surprising is it to read his assurance that all these forms, which he classifies in four groups, have something in common; for instance, the number of forms in each group is always the same, three, and in all groups the third form originates from the combination fo the first and second [category], and so on. This in itself implicitly points to an original form, under which all of them stand together, and which imparts to them all they have in common with regard to their form. It is easier to understand why in fact Kant did not try to trace back all particular forms to the original form, when a more thorough examination shows that he himself was not quite clear about this original one, and that his way of seeing it made it look too specific [106] and thus unfit to become the principle of the other forms. For he understood analytic theorems to be only those previously called identical theorems, and synthetic theorems to be simply nonidentical. Now, I have shown that the principle of the original form is the axiom I is I. To be sure, this axiom merely expresses identity. But this identity pertains to its content, and not to its form as such. Therefore only the mere form as such, expressed in the analytical theorems, the form of unconditional positing regardless of any predicate, can be the form furnished by the axiom "I is I" as original form. For its principle establishes the axiom of being posited unconditionally, by which any subject can be connected with any compatible predicate (axiom of contradiction). This axiom obviously covers not only those theorems in which the subject is its own predicate, but all theorems in which a subject can be posited absolutely by means of a predicate (no matter which). For example, the theorem A = B, according to Kant, is a synthetic one, but actually, in its core, it is an analytic theorem because something is simply and unconditionally posited. However, it is not an identical theorem. Identical theorems stand to analytical ones as species to genus. In the identical the subject itself becomes the predicate, and in that regard something is absolutely posited in an identical theorem. But according to Kant's own explanation, general logic should entirely abstract from the specific predicate attributed to the subject in a theorem, and should only show how it was attributed. For instance, in an analytical theorem the question should not be by what predicate the subject is posited but only whether it is posited at all, no matter by what predicate. Therefore, in the case of theorems which Kant called analytic, the philosophical language must retract the misnomer identical but should preserve the terms analytic and synthetic for theorems which as such express only an unconditional or conditional being-posited. Now, it will be easy to trace the particular forms of thought back to the original form in such a manner that they become 11071 qiiite definite and connot be confus-

52

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[108]



ed, so that each form will have its definite place with no room for doubt. If one looks closely at Kant's table of these forms,' 8 then indeed one finds that, instead of placing the original form as the principle of the other forms, Kant placed it among the others, as one on a par with them. On more careful investigation one finds not only that the forms of relation are the foundation of all others but also that they are really identical with the original form (the analytic, the synthetic, and the two combined). For the categorical form is none other than the one of being posited unconditionally, which is given by the supreme axiom and concerns only the manner in which a predicate—no matter which one— is being posited. This form therefore is subject only to the law of being unconditionally posited (axiom of contradiction). Analytic form. The hypothetical form is none other than the form of being conditionally posited, which is given by the second supreme axiom and is governed by this latter alone. Synthetic form. The disjunctive form is not different from the form of being posited under the condition of an interdependence [ein Ganzes] of conditions. It is a composite of the two preceding forms and is given only by the third supreme axiom. Composite form. As for the three other groups of particular forms, they are placed as follows: 1.According to quantity, the form which stands under the original form of being unconditionally posited can only be the form of unity, because only that form is unconditional, whereas the form of multiplicity is conditioned by the form of unity, so that the form of quantity which stands under the original form of being conditionally posited can be only multiplicity. (For instance, "some A are B" is valid only under the condition of the , A 3 etc. , A 4 , are B.") The form of quantity l , A 2„A categorical theorems, which stands under the original form of conditionality determined by unconditionality must therefore be multiplicity determined by unity, [108] that is, universality (Allheit). A universal theorem (allgemeiner Satz) therefore is neither a categorical nor a hypothetical one, but both simltaneously. It is categorical because the conditions by which it is governed are

complete. For instance, the theorem "All A's are B's" is a categorical theorem because its conditions, the theorems "A l , A2 , (etc. to the last possible A) B" are complete. It is hypothetical because it stands under a condition as such. 2. According to quality, the form which stands under the original form of being unconditionally posited can be only negative. A conditional theorem negates the being-posited-unconditionally and grants only beingposited-conditionally. A negative theorem therefore always presupposes an affirmative categorical one, like the theorem "not-I>I," which presupposes the theorem "I = I." The third form, conditioned by the two supreme ax-

[109]

ON THE POSSIBILITY OF A FORM OF ALL PHILOSOPHY

53

ioms, can therefore only combine the form of assertion and negation but can never be either one of the two.* 3. According to modality, the form which stands under the original form of being unconditionally posited can only be the form of possibility, because only the form of possibility is unconditional, though in itself [it is] an absolute condition of all reality. Even the theorem I = I, inasmuch as it is posited unconditionally, has only possibility.". The form of modality, which stands under the original form of being conditionally posited, is the form of reality, because a conditional theorem is given by a conditioning one, and the logicians of older and more recent times never created a more erroneous theorem than the one which claims that hypothetical theorems relate [109] only to possibility. A combination of both forms yields a reality determiend by possibility, that is necessity. In this manner all identical theorems are necessary. Inasmuch as they are unconditional, they stand under the form of possibility; inasmuch as they are conditioned by themselves,** they are under the form of reality. The theorem I = I as a categorical theorem is merely possible, yet inasmuch as it is not conditioned by a superior theorem but rather through itself, it becomes a necessary theorem. It is therefore obvious that identical theorems express merely a particular form which stands under the general form of analytic theorems. Thus it becomes clear that every identical theorem must be a categorical one, but not vice versa, and for that reason the original form of all philosophy is not a form of identity subordinated to a higher form, but instead the form of being unconditionally posited, as such. For that very reason the theorem I = I is not the basis for identity but for the form of being unconditionally posited as original form. For it is only owing to the latter that the form of identity exists in the theorem itself. Therefore, in the theorem one can recognize as original form only that form which is no longer conditioned by the theorem itself. Thus we have an explanation for our paradox that the theorem [I = I] can, as categorical theorem, stand *The form of assertion is not identical with the form of being unconditionally posited, though it is determined by it. For one can also imagine a negation being unconditionally posited (in the third modus). Yet exactly this possibility of a negation's being unconditionally posited presupposes the form of negation as such, and that in turn presupposes a form of affirmation as such. These two forms can be combined into a third one, so that through the unconditional positing of a negation arise those theorems which logicians call infinite. **To be unconditionally posited and to be conditioned by itself are two different things. A theorem can be unconditionally posited without having to be conditioned by itself, but not the reverse. But the supreme axiom of all science -being the axiom of unconditioned form and unconditioned content as such, and thus being the axiom through which it is at all possible to posit anything unconditionally must not only be unconditional as such, but also be conditioned by its*. The fact that the supreme axiom is conditioned by itself belongs to its content that it is unconditionally posited belongs to its exterior form, which is necessarily induced by its content.

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IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

[110,111]

under the form of mere possibility, and only inasmuch as it does stand under it, can it become the principle of all content and all form of a science. There still remains the question as to the origin of the three orders of quantity, quality, and modality, according to which the respective derivative forms have been classified. [110] The answer is easy. They are given directly with the supreme axiom, and simply could have been developed from it as datum (als etwas Gegebenes). For if one knows at all what should be understood by a deduction of these orders, one realizes that it is impossible to deduce them from an already-existing concept. By absolute necessity they must be deduced as a fact from a principle which expresses a fact as such.* Being determined in this manner, the originally given content of all knowledge (the I, the not-I, and the product of both) is at the same time the form of all science, just as the content is possible only under the condition of the form. Parallel with this deduction of the form of knowledge as such, one would find the deduction of the form which, in the particular parts of the original content, is determined by the original form. This is quite natural, since the same principle simultaneously determines both content and form, and for that very reason determines both the material and the formal form (the one that originally pertains to the content, and the one under which it is posited). Aenesidemus seems to have presented cogent evidence when he questioned Reinhold's deduction of the original form of subject and object. Besides, one could ask—as Aenesidemus did not —why Reinhold had deduced only one kind of the forms of subject and object which are subordinate to the original form, and why he did not deduce the form of imagination (Vorstellung) at all. * * It is precisely such a complete deduction of the entire form of subject, object, and image [111] that would have nullified almost all of Aenesidemus's objections. Once it is proved that the form of the subject as such is the form of unconditionality and the form of the object is conditionality (being conditioned by the subject), then it follows automatically that the subject in the third (in the imagination) always stands [in relation] to the object as determinant to the determinable (as unity to multiplicity, reality to negation, possibility to reality). In short, all other theorems of Elementary Philosophy follow conclusively and more naturally than in the Theory of Imagination, from the one theorem for which there is no basis in Reinhold's deduction. But I am beginning to go beyond the limits of my topic. 'This is valid also for Reinhold's deduction of these forms which, incidentally, in a formal respect, is a masterpiece of philosophical art. Reinhold also had to presuppose the forms of unity and multiplicity, in order to deduce them along with the others. •*Let it be said in passing that every image (Vorstellung) as such is necessary according to modality. whatever its content. This is its form determined by the supreme axioms.

[112]

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55

Postcript The whole investigation, of which the above is a sample, is necessarily dry and not very promising in the beginning, but is that not also the case with the beginning of any science, and is it not the superior sign of the science of all sciences to start out from a small nucleus whose rays are infinite in regard to number and scope? The topic at hand—the achievement of the ultimate goal of all philosophical inquiry— is not too dearly purchased by the initial forfeit of all the charms of imaginatioji (Einbildungskraft), considering the seriousness of this enterprise. Whether the present investigation has suffered from the form the author has given it, he himself is the last to judge. So be it. May those who deem this enterprise worthy of some attention, direct theirs only to the topic, and may they forget the author who is glad to put these pages before the public unassumingly, and may they forget his manner of presenting his case. May they not find fault with the terms he has used from time to time in speaking without hateful circumlocutions of that which the greatest philosophers of their era [112] have left for posterity. Words are mere sounds — alas, all too often a sounding brass and tinkling cymba11 2 ° What the author wishes is that no reader may be a stranger to the great feeling of necessity evoked by the hope of an ultimate unity of knowledge, of faith, and of will, which is the ultimate heritage of mankind and which mankind will soon claim more loudly than ever. Philosophers have often complained that their science has [had] so little ;influence on the will of man and on the fate of all mankind, but have they pondered what they are complaining about? They lament the lack of influence on the part of a science which, as such, has existed nowhere, and they complain that one makes no use of axioms held to be true by only one part of mankind, and even that part acknowledges them only under very different aspects. Who will follow a leader whom he does not yet dare to regard as the only true leader? Who will cure the ills of mankind with a remedy which, as such, is still suspect for many, and which is found among different people in so many different qualities? First seek in man himself the criteria by which everybody must recognize the eternal truth before you call them in their divine form from heaven to earth! Then all the rest will be added unto you! 2 '

✓

Tubingen, September 9, 1794.

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[p 1-8]

Translator's Notes 1 Gottlob Ernst Schulze (1761-1833), professor at Helmstedt and Gottingen. In 1792 he published anonymously Aenesidemus oder caber die Fundamente der von dem Herrn Professor Reinhold in Pena gelieferten Elementarphilosophie, nebst einer Verteidigung des Skeptizismus gegen die Anmassungen der Vernunftkritik. Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1758-1823), from 1787-1794 professor at Jena, from 2. 1794-1823 professor at Kiel. In 1789 he published Neue Theorie des VorstellungsvermOgens. He called his doctrine Elementarphilosophie. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). In 1791, at the advice of Kant, Fichte published his 3. Kritik aller Offenbarung (Critique of all Revelation), which the publisher printed without the author's name. The critics attributed it to Kant, who thereupon named the real author, and Fichte's resulting fame brought him to the chair at Jena vacated by Reinhold. In the spring of 1794, while still in Zurich, and in order to attract students at Jena, Fichte published the book Schelling mentions, Ober den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, oder der sogenannten Philosophie (On the Concept of the Science of Knowledge or of the So-called Philosophy). 4. The author of the philosophically most important Recension des Aenesidemus was Fichte. His review appeared in 1794 in nos. 47-49 of the jenaer A Ilgemeine Literaturzeitung. 5, Salomon Maimon (1754-1800), Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens (Berlin, 1794). Reinhold's axiom remains conditional because he stops with a fact of consciousness, 6. without inquiring into the unconditional form of a cogent connection between the subject and predicate of any proposition. All mere facts are conditional, as Kant has shown. (See also Is. 100, n. 1. Poss.) Schelling's question is: Can there be an unconditional material axiom? Schelling's argument against a procedure that tries to reach the unconditional by a start 7. from the conditional seems to run as follows. If we start from dependent axioms, then no matter which one we pick for our start, each must have the form of a disjunctive proposition: A is either B or C. A is either B determined by itself, or else C by a higher axiom. But since we are kiln looking for the latter, we cannot yet say positively C. That leaves us with the disjunctive alternative B. But if B, then the axiom of our start would itself be the ultimate axiom we seek. Thus no axiom picked at random is fit to furnish the start for such a regressive procedure. Therefore we must, as it were, beg the question and start with the unconditional itself, as Schelling's sequel suggests. And the form of the unconditional is no "either-or." It is the form of self, which is not "either I am or I am not, " but strictly "I am." Kant had already pointed at it when he said: "The 'I think' must potentially accompany all Images in my mind" (PuR 131; Smith 152). Potentially, because I may not actually make clear to myself that I could not imagine anything at all without the "act of spontaneity" which the "I" is. Therefore Kants speaks of "original apperception." And since thought is the awareness of a cogent connection in some manifold, the title of his §16 is "Of the originally synthetic unity of apperception." (PuR 131 f.) A few pages later, Kant says: "I am aware of the identity of my self, in respect to the manifold of images given to mr in an intuitive experience, fur I call them all my images which, thus, am( lllll t to one image" (PuR 135). This leads Fichte to point out : "1) The 1 posits t he non I as limited by t he 1" (t he limitation being



[p 8-11]

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57

the cogency of the connection in the manifold of an object), and "2) The I posits itself as limited by the non-I" (1:1C25 f.: cf. Heath 122). The latter limitation was formulated by Kant: "for through the I as simple awareness nothing is yet given." (PuR 135). 8. Schelling does not seem to be aware of the implication of his shift from I = I to A = A, that is, from a specific to a general expression. The specific or absolute I is both formal and material form. The latter is lacking in A = A. TheAskabstractlitvIcsan be anything. The I is ah.vanuat_e_rLally'_:_I. Schelling seems to be carried away by a metalogical desire to find the ground for the cogency of logical proofs. A year later, in 1795, in Dogm. (1:308) he himself points out that "as soon as we step into the domain of proofs, we step into the domain of the conditional." That is, we step forth from the unconditionality of the "absolute" I. The absolute I-form is ontological. On the same page Schelling also says that "only an ontological proof can be given of the existence of God. ... His existence and his essence must be identical." Seven years later, in 1802, in the dialogue Bruno (4:261), Schelling wrote: "what truly exists by itself is never the finite but only the unity of the finite with the nonfinite." And, presumably before 1828 (see 10:iii), in the historicocritical introduction to the Philosophy of Mytholgy (11:186), he dealt with the frequent question "how does consciousness come to God?" and he replies: "But consciousness does not come to [emphasis added (God; its very first move...goes away from the true God. ... Consciousness has God in itself (an sich), in the sense in which we say of a man that he has a virtue in himself, or more often a vice, meaning that he does not have it objectively as something he wants, nor even as something he knows." In a similar sense, Augustine said that "whatever can love, loves God, knowingly or unwittingly" (Soliloquies 1.1.). Among the very last things Schelling wrote (see 11:iii) we find the statement: "There is nod proof of the existence of God in general (iiberhaupt), for there is no existence of God in general. The existence of God is always immediately specific." (11:274). Of course Schelling is right in deriving "A is A" from "I am I," and he also knows that "I am I" cannot be derived from "A is A" as dogmatists will try. 9. Nowadays mathematicians use the sign > to mean larger, e.g., A>B, meaning A is larger than B, which is one case of their being unequal. The reader may prefer the more general, now current sign * for unequal. 10. In 1794 Fichte had said: "The I posits negation in itself, insofar as it posits reality in the not-I; and it posits reality in itself insofar as it posits negation in the not-I. Thus it posits itself as determining itself, insofar as it occurs at all as something determined; and it posits itself as being determined, inasmuch as it determines itself. Thus our problem is solved" (1:130. cf. Heath 126). Seven years later, in 1801, Fichte said about this problem of the relation of subject and object: "Do not desire to jump beyond yourself and to grasp something different from what you are capable of grasping, different from awareness and thing, from thing and awareness thereof or, more properly speaking, different from either of the two, but different from that absolutely subjectively objective and objectively subjective entity which only an afterthought distinguishes as two. Common human understanding does not find anything different: it always has awareness and thing together, and it always talks about their union. The philosophical system of dualism alone finds it differently, by dividing the absolutely indivisible, and by believing that it is thinking very sharply and thoroughly just when it has run out of all thought" (Sonnenklarer Bericht, Werke 2:400. cf. n. 21 to Dogm). In the review of Aenesidemus, Fichte had written: "The absolute subject, the I, is not given in empirical intuition, but is posited by intellectual intuition; and the absolute object, the not-I, is posited in opposition to it. In the empirical consciousness the two do not occur except by a representative image IVorstelluag I which refers to them. In empirical consciousness they occur only mediately, as what is re resenting and what is represented. One is never aware of the absolute subject (i.e., what is representing without being represented) nor of the absolute object (called a thing-in-itself, independent of any representation) as anything given empirically" (1:10.

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[p 11-21]

The true essence of the "newest" Kant-Fichtean philosophy is the identity of subject and object (as Hegel and Schelling came to call it) and the consequent objection to dualism. 11. Christian August Crusius (1715-1775), professor of philosophy and theology in Leipzig. Critic of Wolff. Fundamental axiom: What cannot be thought is false; what cannot be thought as false is true. Three principles: (1) principium contradictionis: nothing can at once be and not be; (2) principium inseparabilium: whatever entities cannot be thought without each other cannot exist without each other; (3) principium inconiungibilium: what cannot be thought as joint or as juxtaposed cannot exist jointly or in juxtaposition. (Willy Moog; Die Philosophie der Neuzeit bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. [Berlin, Mittler: 1924], p. 460). 12. After "the axiom of contradiction" Schelling put "(das Unbedingte)." This remark in parentheses seems to belong elsewhere (perhaps half dozen lines earlier, after "the original form of all knowledge"), since it is the philosophical method that must reach the unconditional, while the axiom of contradiction alone falls short of it. 13. It is significant that Schelling sees in Kant the thinker who turned away from the remnant of formalism in Leibniz toward a philosophy founded on the reciprocal determination of form and content, which is the mark of the I. 14. The merely analytical form cannot constitute objective reality, which requires a "transcendental synthesis." Transcendental idealism is realism, in contrast to any philosophy restricted to formal analysis. 15. Schelling may have in mind the crucial passage at the end of section 2 of the introduction to CrJ: "There must be a ground of unity of that supersensuous which is at the base of nature with the supersensuous which the concept of freedom contains practically. Though the concept of that unity neither theoretically nor practically attains definite knowledge, and therefore has no domain of its own, still it makes possible the transition of the manner of thinking according to the principles of the one [freedom] to that according to the principles of the other [nature]" (Cass. 5:244; cf. Bernard 12). 16. Schelling means the deduction of the categories from the table of judgments. He himself holds that the three forms of relation furnish a proper deduction of the other nine categories (Poss. 107). In the System of Transcendental Idealism [1800] 3: 517) he says that "the entire mechanism of the categories must be deduceable from the relation of time to the pure concepts on the one hand and, on the other, to pure intuition (Anschauung) or to space." 17. This §11 was not in the first edition (1781), but was added in the second (1787, pp. 109 13). On pages 110-11 Kant says the table of categories "contains the form of a system of all elemental concepts and therefore gives a hint of all joint traits (alle Momente) of an available speculative science" (cf. Smith 110). He emphasizes that in each group "the third category is not a mere derivative but a genuine concept of pure understanding." 18. PuR 95; Smith 105. 19. F'uR 131,8 16; Smith 152. See n. 7 above. 20. 1 Cor. 13:1. 21. Matt. 6:33.

Translator's Introduction to Of the I as Principle of Philosophy, or On the Unconditional in Human Knowledge Schelling's son, K. F. A. Schelling, who edited the Works, (1856-61), appended to the essay Of the I a critique that Schelling had written in 1796 of a review of the essay. My translation of it also follows the essay itself, but it could equally well serve as Schelling's own introduction to the essay. Another introductory statement by Schelling may be found in his letter to Hegel dated February 4, 1795, written while he was at work on the essay. He implies that Hegel can soon learn from the essay why Schelling called himself a Spinozist. Parts of this letter are translated in notes 25 and 55. The reader may also consult note 101. As I have mentioned earlier he would do well to keep at hand both Spinoza's Ethics, which Schelling surely had before him, and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. The title of this essay no longer speaks hypothetically about the mere possibility of a form of all philosophy but comes right out with the thesis that the I is the principle of philosophy. To be sure, this is not the empirical I which each one of us finds in his consciousness. If it were, that would mean the subjective idealism of Berkeley, where to be is to be perceived, and where mental contents would be inexplicable illusions unless certainty came with our ideas because they themselves came to us from the mind of God, who is not a deceiver. But in that case the existence of that God would be a postulate, which begs the question. We cannot look for any unconditionality of truth in a sheerly transcendent and therefore entirely hidden God. And if that hidden God should deign to reveal himself to man, it would still be a conditional truth depending on the two conditions that the Devil had no hand in the revelation and that God felt like bestowing it. Now, even the empirical I has the unconditional form of being identical with itself, nor is this particular identity merely formal. For, if you express your awareness of your self in the sentence / am 1 and then rashly transpose

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that sentence into the formula I = I, you have a mere formal identity as in A = A. Everybody grants that, given an A, A cannot be anything but A. Yet nothing is really given in the formula I = I. It had better be written x = x. What are we talking about when we talk in terms of such letters as A or x or even I? In mathematical tradition, x means any unspecified amount. And the letter I may mean anything at all, not excluding any it. The mistake of those who cannot understand Kant and Fichte and Schelling is precisely their notion that the I probably means some mysterious it called a mind or a soul or a spirit. Now, when these three writers use the

word I, they take it strictly as a pronoun which, even in ordinary speech, cannot mean anything but the speaker or writer or reader himself who refers to himself when he says I. The pronoun I means the act by which two events are established simultaneously, the awareness of myself, and the distinction between my I and any not-I. The self-awareness can be described in words as the identity of thinking-form and thought-content. Kant's phrasing is clearer; he says "the subject is at the same time its own object" (PuR 429). Adopting Fichte's words, Schelling says of the I, "it is because it thinks itself, and it [can] think itself because it is. It produces itself by its own thinking—by absolute causality" (Of I, 167), Of course none of these words and sentences can force you to grasp that you are an I. The I is a free act. "I am because I anal— that [insight] grabs each one suddenly" (Of I, 168). Augustine says it happens by that mental "slap" by which the mind understands the word yourself. (De trinitate 10, ix, 12: eo ictu quo in-

telligit quod dictum est to ipsam.) As an empirical I, I find myself not only as absolutely self-positing but also as the specific physical and historical person I am. For when I realize that I am I for myself alone, as Fichte puts it (1:98), I simultaneously distinguish my I from whatever is not I, for instance, from my own mental constitution with its historical setting and from my body with its physical environment. The empirical I is never without some object, as Kant pointed out (PuR 276). Now, there is a distinction (not a separation) between the unconditional certainty that I am I, and the unconditional as such. The former, being subjective, is never without an object. Therefore the empirical person is conditioned by objects. And there is a conditioning bond between objects. No such conditioning can pertain to the unconditional. Therefore the unconditional can be neither subject nor object. It is "no thing at all" (Of I, 177) and therefore fittingly named "absolute I," whose essence is freedom. (To absolve means to detach. Absolute means without ties.) Schelling distinguishes it from the empirical I. The latter is subject: though it is unconditionally I, it is also conditioned as a specific person.

Yet, if its form were not the form of unconditionality, there could be no I at all. The "absolute I" is the ground of possibility of every empirical I.

OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

61

Schelling says that the absolute I cannot occur in consciousness (180) because of the condlnality inherent in all consciousness: no subject without an object. Yet the absolute I, oi,e could say, furnishes the form of unconditionality without which no consciousness would be possible. You may feel that this kind of argumentation endeavors to hold fast what is utterly elusive. And this is what Schelling seems to do when, in that February 4 letter to Hegel, he writes, "God is nothing but the absolute I" (Plitt 1:77). He does not mean that God is a person, for in the same letter he had already said that we can (and ought to) "reach farther [meaning /deeper] than the personal being" (ibid. 76). Why then use the word I to God and the unconditional? Because the I has the form of selfpositing, that is, of absolute independence, absolute freedom. (See also n./ 25, the entirety of which could serve as a short introduction to the essay Of

I.)

In 1811 Schelling wrote: "God in his highest Self is not revealed [once ' 7 and for all], he is [continuously] revealing himself; he is not real, he becomes real, precisely in order to be manifest as the very freest being" (The Ages of the World; 8:308; cf. Bolman 196-97). Around 1836 Schelling said of God, "he is entirely outside of himself, free of himself, and is thus the being that sets everything else free" (see the entire passage quoted

in n. 70). Freedom cannot be imparted by coercion, only by invitation. No "power" of God can make man free, only "love." Terms like power and love may help some readers who do not entirely lack a religious background. To be sure, they can help only a reader who, like Schelling, is beyond what Schelling calls "orthodox concepts of God." On February 4, 1795, he wrote to Hegel: "Here is my answer to your question whether I believe that, with the moral proof, we cannot reach a person Being. ... My answer is: We reach farther than a personal being. For by now I have ./ become a Spinozist" (Plitt 1:76). Kant warned against objectifying and more especially personifying God (PuR 611 n.), a warning that, unfortunately, is not heeded to this day. The main reason may be the dependence of "modern" thinking and schooling on the objective sciences. Thus, when Nietzsche exorcised "the old God," and when William James damned "the Absolute," they were both thinking of objective entities, and they let their objectivistic thinking overrule that keen sense for the symbolic which they both possessed. The other reason for objectivism is the kind of ecclesiastic teaching which, for the sake of being "modern," ignores Kant and his warning and therefore neglects to tell

the yourw the deepest truths religion has voiced. God is not one of the gods. He is "not in a genus" (Aquinas, Summa Theologica 1.Q 3. Art 5), the genus gods. The gods come and go; their existence is not identical with their essence. But in God essence and existence

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are identical (ibid., Art 4). God has no essence apart from his existence or presence. "I shall be who shall be" (Exodus 3:14). A reader who has been taught and has really grasped these truths will find no insurmountable difficulty in Schelling's notion of the "absolute I." On page 200 Of I Schelling says the finite I strives to become identical with the absolute I. Religion teaches that man should strive to live in God.

And the mystic strives to lose himself in God.

2 Of the I as the Principle of Philosophy or On the Unconditional in Human Knowledge (1795; second printing, 1809)

Say first, of God above, or Man below, What can we reason, but from what we know? Of Man, what see we but his station here, From which to reason, or to which refer? Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known, Tis ours, to trace him only in our own. Pope: Essay on Man

(Epigraph of the first edition)

[151]

Preface to the First Edition

Instead of all the pleas with which a writer can meet his readers and critics, there in only one plea here to the readers and critics of this essay; either not to read it at all or to read it in its entire contexi, and either to refrain from judgment altogether or to judge the author by the whole work and not by separate passages taken out of context. There are readers who look at a hook flret ingly, in order to grasp quickly something that they can throw at the author as a criticism, or to find a passage that has been rendered incomprehensible by being taken out of context. By such means they can 63



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prove to anyone who has not read the work that the author has written nonsense. Thus, for instance, readers of that kind could say that in this essay Spinoza is spoken of very often, not (to use Lessing's expression) "as a dead dog,” and then— the logic of such people is all too well known — they could (jump to the conclusion that the author is trying to repeat Spinoza's errors, even though they have been refuted long ago. For such readers (if that term may be applied to them) I want to say, on the one hand, that this essay is meant to annul explicitly the very foundations of Spinoza's system, which has not yet been refuted by any means, or more aptly, to topple it by means of its own principles; on the other hand I want to say that (in spite of all its errors) Spinoza's system seems to me more worthy of high esteem, because of its bold consequences, than the popular,coalition-systems of our intellectual world, which [152] through a patchwork of all possible systems Spell death to all true philosophy. At the same time I am ready to admit to such readers that these systems, which constantly hover between heaven and earth and are not litalreetiough to penetrate to the core of all knowledge, are much more secure against the most dangerous errors than is the system of a great thinker whose speculations take great flights, and who risks_ everything, either to achieve complete truth in all its greatness, or no truth at all. And please let me remind you that whosoever is not 1 v , , brave enough to follow the truth to its fullest height will never possess it 1 even though he touch the hem of its garment, and that, in spite of I tolerable errors, posterity will judge more justly the man who dares to meet I the truth freely, than it will those who are afraid of shipwreck on the rocks ( or sandbars and prefer to drop anchor permanently in some safe cove. , I would like to remind the other kind of readers, those who prove by 1 means of passages taken out of context that the author had written nonsense, that I do not care for the praise bestowed on writers whose every word, in and out of context, conveys the same meaning. In all modesty, I am conscious of the fact that all ideas in this writing are my own, and therefore I deem it a not immodest .,-- demand that I be judged only by - readers who think for themselves.Elesides, the whole investigation deals with principles and hence can be tested only by principles. I have tried to . depict the results of critical philosophy in its regression to the last principles of all knowledge. The only question, then, which the reader of this essay has to answer is the following: Whether these principles are true or false, and (be they true or false) whether the results of critical philosophy are really based on them. What I hope for my essay is precisely such a test of the principles here elaborated. I cannot expect this testing from any readers who are indifferent to all truth, nor from those who presume that no new investigation of principles can be possible after Kant 1153J and

'J

„t

think that the highest principles of his philosophy have already been established by him4very other reader - regardless of his system must be in-

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terested in the question of the highest principle of all knowledge because his own system, even if it is the system of skepticism, can be true only through ' its principles. One cannot do anything with people who have lost all interest _ rin truth, for one could persuade them only with the truth4Th the other hand, I believe that I may say to those followers of Kant who presume that he himself has established the principles of all knowledge, that they have comprehended the letter but not the spirit of their teacher if they did not discover that the way of the Critique of Pure Reason cannot possibly be the way of phitosophy l as a science.' )As m, philosophy takes its start from the exiiigee. of original conceptions (urspriingliche Vorstellungen) -

not made possible by experience but explainable only through stlperior principles_ . For instance, the necessity and universal validity, which Kant stated as their outstanding character, cannot be based on mere feeling for it (which necessarily would have to be the case if it were not determined by superior principles, principles that must be presupposed even by skepticism, for skepticism cannot be overturned by a mere feeling of necessity). Furthermore, space and time, which are supposed to be only forms of intuition, cannot possibly precede all synthesis and therefore must themselves depend on a higher form of synthesis.* Similarly, the derivative subordinate synthesis by means of categories (Verstandesbegriffe) cannot possibly be thought of without an original form and an original content, which must be the basis of every synthesis if it is to be a synthesis at all. This is all the more obvious, since Kant's deductions tell us at first glance [154] that they presuppose superior principles. Thus Kant names the only possible forms of sense perception, space and time, without having examined them according to a principle (as for instance the categories according to the principle of logical functions of judgment). The categories are set up according to the table of functions of judgment, but the latter are not set up according to any principle [see n.49]. If we look at this matter more , , closely, we find that the synthesis contained in the judgment as well as the synthesis expressed in the categories is only a derivative synthesis; both can be understood only through a more basic synthesis shared by both—the synthesis of multiplicity in the unity of consciousness as such—and this synthesis itself can be understood only through a superior absolute unity. Therefore the unity of consciousness is determinable not through the forms of judgments, but on the contrary, the judgments together with the categories are determinable only through the principle of that unity [see n. 49]. By the same token, the many apparent contradictions in Kant's writings pointed out by his opponents should have been admitted long ago for they cannot be corrected at all except under those higher principles .1 find that Beck' expresses a similar thought in the preface to the second part of his commentary on Kant. But I cannot judge how close or how far the thoughts of this commentator, who has so visibly entered into Kant's spirit, are related to mine.

,

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only presupposed. Finali which, in the Critique of Pure Reason, its author

*

ly, even if it could be said that Kant's theoretical philosophy maintained the most conclusive concatenation among all its parts, still his theoretical —) philosophy is not connected with the practical by a common prinicple". 3 His practical philosophy does not seem to be one-and-the-same structure with the theoretical; instead it seems to be a mere annex to his philosophy as a whole and, what is more, an annex wide open to attacks from the main building. Yet, inasmuch as the first principle of philosophy is also the last, since all philosophy, the theoretical in particular, starts from the final result of the practical in which all knowledge ends, the whole science must be possible, in its highest perfection and unity. I think the mere mention of all this will suffice to justify the need of an exposition of Kant's philosophy based on superior principles. Indeed I believe that, [155] in the case of such an author, one must explain him according to thetp inciples which he must have presupposed, and only accor../ ding to them.' ven in the face of the original sense of his words, one must assert the still-more original sense of his thoughts. Thik essay proposes to establish the principles [on which Kant's thoughts rest]) I could promise myself nothing more fortunate in this venture than to find examiners of the principles here established. I would be grateful for the most severe examination, provided only that it merit the name of examination. My gratitude would be proportionate to the importance of the subject discussed. The estimable critic of my treatise On the Possibility of a Form of All (1795, Philosophy has made a remark in the Tiibinger Gelehrten Anzeigen 12th issue) concerning the principle I stated. He has questioned the main point of this whole investigation. I believe that my present essay will alleviate his doubts. To be sure, if what I stated were an objective principle then one would not be able to understand why it should not depend on a superior one. The distinguishing feature of my new principle lies in the fact that it ought not to be an objective principle. There my critic and I agree; an objective principle could not be an ultimate one because it would have to be determined by an ulterior one. The only unresolved question between us is whether there is any principle which is not objective at all and which nevertheless furnishes the basis for all philosophy. To be sure, if we had to look at the ultimate in our knowledge as if it were a mute painthat we ting outside of us (as Spinoza put it) 5 then we would never know know. However, if that ultimate itself is a condition of all knowledge, indeed a condition of its own being known, if it is the only immediacy in our knowledge, then we know precisely through it that we know; we have found the principle of which Spinoza could say that it is the light which illuminat •. itself and the darkness.' 1156, It does not behoove philosophy to ingratiate itself by an anticipatory enumeration of its results and thus to suborn the unbiased judg-

[157]



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ment regarding its principles, nor can it allow an evaluation of its principles by the material interests ofleyeacky life, yet, if a well-meaning man should ask where these ostensibly new principles should lead, whether they should remain merely a tenet of some specific school or go on to benefit lift, one may well answer him, provided one does not thereby sway his judgment of the principles themselves. In this regard only, and only to accommodate the reader who asks that question, may I be permitted the following remark regarding the principles on which this treatise rests. _A.7 philosophy which is based on the nature of man himself could not aim At dead formulae, which would function as just so many prisons of man's mind, nor could it aim at being a philosophical artifice which, by deducing current concepts from apparently superior ones, would bury the living work of the human mind in • - d u - • . • ties. If I may say it in the words of Jacobi, philosophy seeks to unveil and revealtthat which is [Da-" sein], 6 so that the nature or spirit of phirosP-PEy— Cinnot lie in any formula iar letter; its highest topic must be what is immediate in man and presnet only to itself,' and cannot be what is mediated by concepts and laboriously recapitulated in concept aim of philosophy is no mere reform of its discipline but a complete l ictiAal'OE its principles, that is a revolution which one can view as the second possible revolution in its field. The first took place when the recognition of objects was set up as the principle of all knowledge. Up to the second revolution every advance made was not a change of principles but a progression from one object to another. And though it is not an indifferent matter for the schoolman as to what particular object is being served, [157] but is all the same for mankind, the progression of philosophy from one object to another cannot be the progression of the human mind as such. d_Usefaire, if one may expect any influence on human life itself from any kind of philosophy, one must expect it only fromtlie new philosophy made possible by a complete reversal of the principles) It is a daring step of reason to liberate mankind to remove it from the terrors of the objective world, but this darin• venture cannot fail, because man grows in the measure in which he learns to know himself and his power. Give man the awareness of what he is and he will soon learn to be ✓ what he ought to be. Give him the theoretical self-respect and the practical will soon follow. One would hope in vain for any great progress of mankind as a result of the mere goodwill of man, because in order to become better he would have had to be good already. For that very reasor(lie revolution in man must come from the awareness of his essence; he must be good theoretic" in order to become so practically. The surest preparatory exercise for harmonious action within oneself is the knowledge that the very essence of man consists of unity and is due to it alone. Once a man has realized that, he will also understand that the unity of volition and action

✓

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68

must become as natural and necessary for him as the preservation of his ex1( istence. It is the very goal of man that the unity of volition and action should become as natal v to him as the mechanism of his body and the uniI 1 ' ty of his consciousness.) In a. languid age one cannot expect much progress from a philosophy ✓ ici e that the essence of man consists of h_gitsl_pslipi which asserts as itsi l only of freedom_ that man is not a thine, not a chattel, and in freedom and his very nature no object at algEtur—spiritless age trembles before every authentic force which stirs in man. Therefore the representatives of the age promptly tried to tone down the first great product of this philosophy. They could do so without too much difficulty, because its language still seems to indulge the mood of the time. Consequently they saw [in the Critique of Pure Reason] nothing but the old established obsequiousness [158] under the yoke of objective truth, and/they tried at least to reduce its doctrine to the humiliating tenet that _the limitk,of objective truth are not set by absolute freedom but are the mere consequence of the well-known weakness of man's mind and are due to the limitation of his power of erception. But it would be faintheartedness unworthy of philosophy not to follow the great new lead which philosophy is beginning to take; not to map a new course for the human mind, not to give strength to the tired, courage and energy to the crushed and beaten minds, not to shake up dui slaves of objective truth by giving them an inkling of freedom, and not to i save each man, who is consistent only in his inconsistency, that._LaiA3 by strict observance of grinimself only by the unity of his action and , , 1 iples. It is difficult not to be, enthusiastic about the great thought that, while all sciences, the empirical ones not excluded, rush more and more toward the point of perfect unity, mankind itself will finally realize, as then situtive law, the principle of unity which from the beginning was the ( regulating,basis of the history of mankind. As the rays of man's knowledge and the experiences of many centuries will finally converge in one focus of truth and will transform into reality the idea which has been in many great men's minds,the idea that the different sciences must become one in the end just so the different ways and by-ways which humans have followed till now will converge in one point wherein mankind will find itself again and, as one complete person, will abey_thelawu_f freedom. No matter how far in the future this point may be, no matter how long it may be possible for some to indulge in a genteel laughter at the daring hopes for the progress of mankind, those for whom the hopes are not folly still have the great task of working jointly toward the completion of the sciences and thereby at least preparing the way for that great period of mankind. 11591 For all ideas must first be realized in the domain of knowledge before they find their realization in history, and mankind will never become one before its knowledge has matured to unity.

_

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Nature has wisely provided for human eyes the device of dawn as a transition to broad daylight. Small wonder then that wisps of fog remain in the lower regions while the mountain peaks already shimmer in the radiance of the sun. But once the first blush of morning appears, the sun cannot fail. To bring about the beautiful day of knowledge is reserved to few—perhaps to one alone—but may it be granted to anyone who senses the coming of that day to take pleasure in it in advance. What I have said in this essay and am saying in this preface is, for many, too much, as I know only too well; for myself it is too little. But all the greater is the subject, which concerns us all. Whether is was too daring to join in the discussion of such a topic, of that only the essay itself can render an account. No matter what the verdict may be, any anticipatory answer would be futile. It is natural that any reader who likes to twist things and is victimized by misunderstandings can find fault enough, )But I on my part will not call every adverse criticism unjust, every correction irrelevant; I hope that I have made that clear through my modest plea for strict examinjation. What I wanted was truth, and I know it just as well as I know that more can be done in this matter, which does not require mere fragmentary work. I hope that some happy time may be granted to me in which it will be possible to bring to realization the idea of writing a ) counterpart to Spinoza's Ethics.* ' ) y

•

Tubingen, March 29th, 1795. * NOTE OF THE EDITOR OF THE COMPLETE WORKS, (1856), K. F. A. SCHELLING In Schelling's preface to the first volume of his philosophical writings, 1809, he characterizes the essay "Of the I" with the following words. "It shows idealism in its freshest form, in a sense which it may have lost later. At least the I is still taken everywhere as an absolute, or strictly as identity of the subjective and the objective as such [see n.8], and not as a subjective I."

[160]



✓

Synopsis

1. Deduction of a last ground of reality of our knowledge as such, § 1. 2. Determination of it through the concept of the unconditioned. The unconditioned as such can be found a* neither in an absolute object, b. nor in an object conditioned by the subject, nor in a subject conditioned by the object, c. nor in the sphere of objects at all, § 2, d. therefore only in the absolute I. Reality of the absolute I as such, § 3.

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 70 162] [ [161]

3. Deduction of all possible a priori views of the unconditioned. a. Principle of perfect dogmatism, § 4. b. Principle of imperfect dogmatism and criticism, § 5. c. Principle of perfect criticism, § 6. 4. Deduction of the original form [Urform] of the I, which is identity, and of the supreme principle [Grundsatz], § 7. 5. Deduction of the form of its being posited by absolute freedom, in intellectual intuition, § 8. 6. Deduction of the subordinate forms of the 1. — Unity, specifically absolute unity, in a. According to quantity, contrast aa. to multiplicity, bb. to empirical unity, § 9. b. According to quality aa. absolute reality as such in contrast a. to the ostensible reality of things in themselves, or 13. to an objective conception of all reality, § 10. bb. as absolute reality also absolute nonfiniteness [Unendlichkeit] cc. as absolute reality also absolute indivisibility dd. as absolute reality also absolute immutability, § 11. c. According to relation aa. absolute substantiality, in contrast to derivative, empirical substantiality, § 12. bb. absolute causality, specifically immanent causality, § 13, in contrast [161] a. to the causality of the moral being [Wesen] and of the rational and sensuous being insofar as it strives for happiness. Deduction of the concepts of morality and happiness, § 14. d. According to modality—pure absolute being [Sein] in contrast to empirical being as such, and specifically in contrast aa. to empirical eternity, bb. to merely logical reality, cc. to dialectical reality, dd. to all empirical determination of being, possibility, actuality, necessity (existence as such), ee. to the ostensible absolute being of things in themselves—(in passing: determination of the concepts of idealism and realism), ff. to the existence of the empirical world as such, § 15. 7. Deduction of the forms of all modes of being posited [Setzbarkeit]

from their ground in the

a. b.

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Form of thetical propositions as such. Determination of them through the subordinate forms. aa. According to quantity— unity. bb. According to quality— affirmation. cc. According to modality—pure being [Sein]. Specifically this determination separates the original concepts [Urbegriffe] of being [Sein], not-being [Nicht-Sein], and existence [Dasein] from the derivative concepts of possibility, actuality, and necessity, and it considers the latter as such in relation to the finite I, as follows: a. in regard to the moral I and, in that respect, aa. discussing the concept of practical possibility, actuality, and necessity, and 1313 . deducting from these concepts the concept of transcendental freedom, and discussing the problems based on it, in regard to the theoretical subject [and its interest in] purposiveness [Zweckverknupfung] in the world.'

[162]

§1

He who wants to know something, wants to know at the same time that% what he knows is real. Knowledge without reality is not knowledge. What follows from that? Either our kno w wled e has no reality at all and must be an eternal round of propositions, each dissolving in its opposite, a chaos in which no element can crystallize—or else there_niust.be an ultimate point of reality on which everything depends, from which all firmness and all form of our knowledge springs, a point which sunders the elements, and which circumscribes for each of them the circle of its continuous effect in the universe of knowledge. There must be something in which and through which everything that is reaches existence, everything that is being thought reaches reality, and thought itself reaches the form of unity and immutability. This something (as we can problematically call it for the time being) should be what completes all insights within the whole system of human knowledge, and it should reign—in the entire cosmos of our knowledge—as original ground (Urgritnd) of all reality.'° If there is any genuine knowledge at all, there must be knowledge which I do not reach by way of some other knowledge, but through which alone all other knowledge is knowledge. In order to reach this last statement I do not have to presuppose some special kind of knowledge. If we know anything at all, we must be sure of at least one item of knowledge which we

[165] 72

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[163,164]

cannot reach through some other [163] knowledge and which contains the real ground of all our knowledge. This ultimate in human knowledge must therefore not search for its own real ground in something other. Not only is it itself independent of anything superior but, since our knowledge rises from any consequence to the reason thereof and in reverse descends from that reason to the consequence, that which is the ultimate and for us the principle of all knowledge cannot be known in turn through another principle. That is, the principle of its being and the principle of its being known* must coincide, must be one, since it can be thought only because it itself is, not because there is something else. Therefore it must be thought simply because it is, and it must be because it itself is being thought, not because something else is thought." Its assertion must be contained in its thought; it must create itself through its being thought." If we had to think something else in order to reach its thought, then that other entity would be superior to the ultimate, which is a contradiction. In order to reach the ultimate I need nothing but the ultimate itself. The absolute can be given only by the absolute. Now the investigation is becoming more definite. Originally I posited 0 n othing but annia.te ground of any real knowledge. Now this criterion orl f , that it must be the last absolute ground of knowledge permits us at the same time to establish its existence (Sein). The last ground for all reality is OP OP something that is thinkable only through itself, that is, it is thinkable only through its being (Sein); it is thought only inasmuch as it is. In short,_ the priuciPie of being and thinking is one and the ..same [see n.11]. The question can now be expressed quite clearly and the investigation has a clue which can never fail. `

§2 II 1

Knowledge which I can reach only through other knowledge is conditional. The chain of our knowledge [164] goes from one conditional [piece of] knowledge to another. Either the whole has no stability, or one must be able to believe that this can go on ad infinitum, or else that there must be a

some ultimate point on which the whole depends. The latter, however, in regard to the principle of its being, must be the direct opposite of all that falls in the sphere of the con 1tLWy1 hat is, it must be not only unconditional but altogethe unconditionable.

All possible theories of the Unconditional must be determinable a priori, once the only correct one has been found. As long as it has not been established, one must follow the empirical progress of philosophy. •11.1)01M/1E or"rnF. FIRS l' FM I ION' I May t his expression be taken here in its broadest sense, as long as the something we are looking for is deter ::: i :: rcl only problematically.

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Whether that progress contains all possible theories will be seen only at the end. As soon as philosophy begins to be a science, it must at least assume an

ultimate principle and, with it, something unconditional.

To look for the unconditional in an object, in a thing, cannot mean to look for it in the generic character of things, since it is evident that a genus cannot be something that is unconditional. Therefore it must mean to look for the unconditional in an absolute object which is neither genus nor species nor individual. ' 3 (Principle of consummate dogmatism.) Yet, whatever is a thing is at the same time an object of knowing, Ni therefore a link in the chain of our knowledge. It falls into the sphere of the , knowable. Consequently it cannot contain the basis for the reality (Realgrund) of all knowledge and knowing." In order to reach an object as object I must already have another object with which it can be contrasted, and if the principle of all knowledge were lying in an object I would in turn have to have a new principle in order to find that ostensibly ultimate principle. Moreover, the unconditional (by § 1) should realize itself, create itself through its own thought; the principle of its being and its thinking should coincide. But no object ever realizes itself. In order to reach the existence of an object I must go beyond the [165] mere concept of the object. Its existence is not a part of its reality. I can think its reality without positing it as existing. Suppose, for instance, that God, insofar as some define Him as an object, were the ground of the reality of our knowledge; then, insofar as He is an object, He would fall into the sphere of our knowledge; therefore He could not be for us the ultimate point on which the whole sphere depends." Also the question is not what God is for Himself, but what He is for us in regard to our knowledge. Even if we let God be the ground of the reality of His own knowledge, He is still not the ground of ours, because for us He is an object, which presupposes some reason in the chain of our knowledge that could determine His necessity for our knowledge. The object as such never determines its own necessity, simply because and insofar as it is an object. For it is object only inasmuch as it is determined by something else. Indeed, inasmuch as it is an object it presupposes something in regard to which it is an object, that is, a subject. For the time being, I call subject that which is determinable only by contrast with but also in relation to a previously posited object. Object is that which is determinable only in contrast with but also in relation to a subject. Ihus, in the first place, the object as such cannot be the unconditional at all, because it necessarily presupposes a subject which determines the object's existence by going beyond the sphere of merely thinking the object. The next thought is to look for the unconditional in the object insofar as it is determined by the subject and is conceivable only in regard to

74

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [166,167]

the latter. Or, in the third place, since object necessarily presupposes subject, and subject object, the unconditional could be lookedior in the subject, which is conditioned by the object and can be conceived only in relatioect." Still, this kind of endeavor to realize the unconditional carries a contradiction within itself, which is obvious at first glance. Since the subject is thinkable only in regard to an object, and the object only in regard to a subject, neither of them can contain the unconditional because both are conditioned reciprocally, both are equally unserviceable. [166] Furthermore, in order to determine the relationship of the two, an ulterior reason for the determination must be presupposed, owing to which both are determined. For one cannot say that the subject alone determines the object because the subject is conceiveable only in relationship to the object, and vice versa, and it would amount to the same if I were to treat as unconor an object determined by a ditional a subject determined an bobject subject. What is more, this kind of a subject as such is also determinable as anoBject," and for this reason the endeavor to turn the subject into an unconditional fails, as does the endeavor with an absolute object. _ The question as to where the unconditional must be looked for becomes slowly clearer, owing to its inherent logic. At the outset I asked only in which specific object we could look for the unconditional, within the whole sphere of objects. Now it becomes clear that we must not look for it in the sphere of objects at all, nor even within the sphere of that subject which is also determinable as an object." §

3

The philosophically revealing formation of the languages, especially manifest in languages still well aware of their roots," is a veritable miracle worked by the mechanism of the human mind. Thus the word I have used casually thus far, the word bedingen, is an eminently striking term of which one can say that it contains almost the entire treasure of philosophical truth. Bedingen means. the action by which anything becomes a thing (Ding). Bedingt_(determined) is what has been turned into a tiling. Thus it is clear at once that nothing can posit itself as a thing, and that an unconditional thing is a contradiction in terms. Unbedin t_funconditional) is what has not been turned into a thing, and what cannot at all becoine_a_thing. The problem, therefore, which we must solve now changes into something more precise: to find something that cannot be thought of as a

thing at all. Consequently, the unconditional can lie neither in a thing as such, nor in anything that can become a thing, that is, not in the subject. It can lie only in that 11671 which cannot become a thing at all; that is, if there is an

[168]



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absolute I, it can lie only in the absolute I. Thus, for the time being, the absolute I is ascertained as that which can never become an object at all. For the moment no further determination is being made. That there is an absolute I can never be proved objectively, that is, it cannot be proved with regard to that I which can exist as an object, because we are supposed to prove precisely that the absolute I can never become an object. The I, if it is to be unconditional, must be outside the sphere of objective proof. To prove objectively that the I is unconditional would mean to prove that it was conditional. In the case of the unconditional the principle of its being and the principle of its being thought must coincide. It is_onlyliesause it is it is thounly because it is thought. The absolute can be given only by the absolute!•‘ indeed, if it is to be absolute, it must precede all thinking and imagining. Therefore it must be realized through itself ( § 1), not through objective proofs, which go beyond the mere concept of the entity to be proved. 20 If the I were not realized through itself, then the sentence which expresses its existence would be, "if I am, then I am." But in the case of the I, the condition "if I am" already contains the conditioned "then I." The condition is not thinkable without the conditioned. I cannot think of myself as a merely conditional existence without knowing myself as already existing. Therefore, in that conditional sentence, the condition does not condition the conditioned but, vice versa, the conditioned conditons the condition, that is, as a conditional sentence it cancels itself and becomes unconditional: "I am because I am." e

4

I amt My I contains a being which precedes all thinking and imagining. It is by being thought, and it is being thought because it is; and all for only one reason—that is is only and is being thought only inasmuch as its thinking is its own. Thus it is because it alone is what does the thinking, and it thinks only itself because it is. It produces itself by its own thinking—out of absolute causality.'

[168] "I am, because I amt" That takes possession of everyone instantaneously. Say to him: "the I is because it is;" he will not grasp it quite so quickly because the I is only by itself and unconditioned inasmuch as it is at the same time unconditionable, that is, it can never become a thing, an object." An object receives its existence from something outside the sphere of its mere conceivability. In contrast, the I is not even conceivable unless it first exists as an I. If it does not so exist it is nothing at all. And it is not at all thinkable except insofar as it thinks itself, that is, insofar as it is. Therefore we must not even say: Everything that thinks is, because that kind of statement talks .about the thinking as if it were an object. We can only say: I think, I amL2Y,Therefore it is clear that, as soon as we turn that )

r

,

It

?4;,C,

e AIM!' I ION Al. SENTENCE. IN I IIE FIRST EDF! ION: "1 am!" is

nounces itself with unconditional authority (Selbstmacht).

0

'C.."

the unique form by which it an- 44 Jo.

.fr

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

[169]



which can never become an object into a logical object to be investigated, such investigations would labor under a peculiar incomprehensibility. We cannot at all confine it as an object, and we could not even talk about it nor understand each other with regard to it, if it were not for the assistance of the [intellectual]intuition [we have of our selves]. However, insofar as our knowledge is tied to an object, that intuition is as alien to us as the I which never can become an object.) Thus the I is determined as unconditional only through itself. * [169] Yet, if it is determined at the same time as that which furnishes validity in the entire system of my knowledge, then a regress must be possible; that is, I must be able to ascend from the lowest conditioned proposition to the unconditional, just as I can descend from the unconditional principle to thelowest proposition in the conditional sequence. You may therefore pick from any series of conditional propositions whichever one you want and, in the regress, it must lead back to the ab,,k solute I. Hence, to come back to a previous example, the concept of subject must lead to the absolute I. For if there were no absolute I, then the concept of that is, the concept of the I which is conditioned by an Oka, would be the ultimate. But since the concept of an object contains an antithesis, the basic determination of this concept cannot stop at a mere contrast with a subject which in turn is conceivable only in relation to an object. The determination is possible only in contrast to something which flatly excludes the concept of an object as such. Therefore both the concept of an object and the concept of a subject which is conceivable only in contrast to some object must lead to an absolute which excludes every obthat . I jest arksl thus isin absolute contrast to_any object. For if you suppose original position is that of an object which would not require the the antecedent position of an absolute I as basis for all• positing, then that original object cannot be determined as object, that is, as opposed to the I •Perhaps I can make this matter clearer if I return to the above-mentioned example. For me, God cannot be the ground of the reality of knowledge if He is determined as an object because, if so determined, He would fall into the sphere of conditional knowledge. However, If I should determine God not as an object at all but as = I, then indeed He would be the real ground of my knowledge. Still, that determination is impossible in the theoretical [i.e., objectivistic' philosophy. Nevertheless, even in theoretical philosophy, which determines God as an object, a determination of God's essence as = I is necessary and then I must indeed assume that for Himself God is the absolute and real ground of His own knowledge, but not for me. For me, in theoretical philosophy, He is determined not only as I but also as object. Yet if He is an I, then, for Himself, he is not object at all but only I. Incidentally, it follows that one falsely depicts the ontological proof of God's existence as deceptive artifice; the deception is quite natural. For, whatever can say / to itself, also says / aml The pity is that, in theoretical philosophy. God is not determined as identical with my I but, in relation to my I, Is determined an an object, and an ontological proof for the existence of an object is a cunt rad fenny

[170, 171]



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since, as long as the latter is not posited, nothing can be in opposition to it. Therefore any object posited as antecedent to any I would be no object at all; the very supposition cancels itself. Or again, suppose that there is an I, but only an I conceptually contrasted (aufgehoben) by the object, that is, an origianl subject; then this supposition likewise cancels itself for, where no absolute I is posited, none can be set aside (aufgehoben) by contrast. If there is no I antecedent to any object, neither [170] can there be an object whose concept would set aside the I by contrast. ( I have in mind a chain of knowledge that is conditioned throughout and attains stability only in one supreme, unconditional point. Now, whatever is conditional in that chain can be conceived only by presupposing the absolute condition, that is, the unconditional. Thus the conditional cannot be posited as conditional antecedent to the unconditional and unconditionable, but oxilLowing_to the latter by contrast to it. Therefore, whatever is posited as only a conditional thing is conceivable only through that [logically antecedent entity] which is no thing at all but is unconditional." The object itself then is originally determinable only in contrast to the absolute I, that is, only as the antithesis to the I or as non-I. Thus the very concepts of subject and object are guarantors of the absolute, unconditionable 1. 25

-

§4 Once the I is determined as the unconditional in human knowledge, then the whole content of all knowledge must be determinable through thci I itself and through its antithesis, and thus one must also be able to sketch a priori every possible theory regarding the unconditional. Inasmuch as the I is the absolute I, that which is not = I can be deter-I mined only in contrast to the I and by presupposing the I. Any not-I posited absolutely, as if it were in no contrast to anything, is a contradiction in terms. If, on the other hand, the I is not presupposed as the absolute I, then the not-I can be posited either as antecedent to any I or as on a par with the I. A third alternative is not possible. The two extremes are dogmatism and criticism. The principle of dogmatism is a not-I posited as antecedent to any I; the principle of criticism, an I posited as antecedent to all [that is] not-I and as exclusive of any not-I. Halfway between the two lies the principle of an I conditioned

by a not-I or, what amounts to the same, of a not-I conditioned by an I. (1) The principle of dogmatism contradicts itself ( §2), [171] because it presupposes an unconditional thing (ein unbedingtes Ding)" that is, a thing that is not a thing. In dogmatism therefore, consistency (which is the first requirement for any true philosophy) attains nothing other than that which is not-I should become I, and that that which is I should become not-I, as is the case with Spinoza." But as yet no dogmatist has proved that

-7

78

1

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[172]

a not-I could give itself reality and that it could have any meaning except that of standing in contrast to an absolute I. Even Spinoza has not proved anywhere that the unconditional could and should lie in the not-I. Rather, led only by his concept of the absolute, he straightway posits it in an absolute object, and he does so as if he presupposed that everybody who conceded him his concept of the unconditional would follow him automatically in believing that, of necessity, it had to be posited in a not-I. Once having assumed though not proved it, he fulfills the duty of consistency more strictly than any single one of his enemies. For it suddenly becomes clear that—as if against his own will— through the sheer force of his consistency, which did not shun any conclusion based on his supposition, he elevated the not-I to the I, and demeaned the Ito a not-I. For him, the world is no longer world, the absolute object no longer object. No sense perception, no ----.. concept reaches his One Substance whose nonfinitude is present only to the intellectual intuition. As everywhere, so also in this present investigation, his system can take the place of perfect dogmatism. No philosopher was so worthy as he to recognize his own great misunderstanding; to do so and to arrive at his goal would have been one and the same for him. No recrimination is more unbearable than the one made against him so often, that he arbitrarily presupposed the idea of absolute substance, or even that the idea sprang from an arbitrary explanation of words. To be sure, it seems easier to overthrow a whole system by means of a small grammatical remark, rather than to insist on the discovery of its final fundamentals which, no matter how erroneous, must be detectable somewhere in the human mind. The first one [172] to see that Spinoza's error was not in the idea [of the unconditional] but in the fact that Spinoza posited it outside the I, had understood him and thus had found the way to [philosophy as a 'science."

_

§5

(2) Any system that takes its start from the subject, that is, from the I which is thinkable only in respect to an object, and that is supposed to be neither dogmatism nor criticism," is like dogmatism in that it contradicts itself in its own principle, insofar as the latter is supposed to be the supreme principle. However, it is worth while to trace the origin of this principle. It was customary to presuppose— to be sure, rashly— that the supreme principle of all philosophy must express a fact. If, in line with linguistic usage, one understood fact to mean something that was outside the sphere of the pure, absolute I (and therefore inside the sphere of the conditional) then, of necessity, the question had to arise: What could be the condition-

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OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 79

ing]principle of this fact? A phenomenon, or else a thing in itself? That was the next question, once one found oneself in the world of objects. A phenomenon? And what could the principle of this phenomenon be? (Especially if, for instance, imagination [Vorstellung], which is itself a phenomenon, was postulated as principle of all philosophy." Is it in turn a phenomenon, and so on, ad infinitum? Or was it the intention that that phenomenon which was to furnish the principle of fact should not presuppose any other phenomenon? Or was the principle to be a thing in itself? Let us examine this matter more closely.

The thinginitiathe_not-I 4:?osited as_antecedent to any I. (Speculation demands the unconditional. Once the question as to where the unconditional lies is settled, by some in favor of the I, by others of the not-I, then both systems must proceed in the same manner. What the one asserts about the I, the other must assert about the not-I, and vice versa. In short, we must be able to use their theorems interchangeably, simply by substituting in one system a not-I for the I, in the other an I for the not-I. If one could not do that without damage to the system, one of the two would have to be inconsistent.) The phenomenon is the not-I conditioned by the I." [173] If the principle of all philosophy is to be a fact, and if the principle of the fact is to be a thing in itself, then every I is done away with, there is no longer any pure I, any freedom, and there is no reality in any I but instead only negation. For the I is cancelled in its very origin when a not-I is posited absolutely. In reverse, when the I is posited absolutely, all not-I is* canceled as original and posited as a mere negation. (A system which takes its start from the subject, that is, from the conditioned I, must necessarily presuppose a thing in itself which, however, can occur in the imagination (Vorstellung), that is, as an object, only in relation to the subject, that is, only as phenomenon (Erscheinung). In short, this system turns out to be the kind of realism that is most incomprehensible and most inconsistent.) If the last principle of that ultimate fact is to be a phenomenon, it cancels itself immediately as the supreme principle, because an unconditional phenomenon is a contradiction. This is why all philosophers who took a not-I for the principle of their philosophy, at the same time elevated it to an absolute not-I, posited as independent of every I, that is, to a thing in itself. The consequence is that it would be odd indeed to hear from the mouths of philosophers who affirm the freedom of the I any simultaneous assertion that the principle of all philosophy must be a fact, provided that one could really assume that they were aware of the consequence of that latter assertion, which is that the principle of all philosophy must be a not-I. (This consequellte follows necessarily for, in that case, the I is posited only as subject, that is, as conditional, and therefore cannot be the

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ultimate principle. Thus, either all philosophy is nullified as an unconditional science, since its merely conditional principle cannot be the highest possible one, or else the object must be taken as original and therefore as independent of every I, and the I itself must be determined as something that can be posited only in contrast to an absolute something, that is, determined as an absolute nothing.) Nevertheless those philosophers really wanted the I, and not the not-I, as principle of philosophy, but they did not want to abandon the concept of fact .1174' In order to extricate themselves from the dilemma which confronted them, they had to choose the I, though not the absolute I, but the empirically conditioned I as the principle of all philosophy. And what could have been closer at hand than that? Now they had an I as principle of philosophy. [It looked as if] their philosophy could not be dubbed dogmatism. At the same time they had a fact, since nobody could deny

that the empirical I is the principle of a fact. True, this was satisfactory only for a time. For, when the matter was inspected more closely, it turned out that either nothing at all was gained, or only this much, that again one had a not-I as principle of philosophy. It is evident that it makes no difference whether I start from the I conditioned by the not-I, or from the not-I conditioned by the I. Also, the I conditioned by the not-I is precisely the point at which dogmatism must arrive, though belatedly; in fact, all philosophy must arrive at it. 3 ' Furthermore, all philosophers would necessarily have to explain in the same manner what the I conditioned by the not-I is, if they did not tacitly assume something superior to this fact (this conditionality of the I) about which they are secretly in disagreement—that is, assume some superior entity as ground of explanation of the conditioned I and not-I. That ground can be nothing other than either an absolute not-I, not conditioned by the I, or

else an absolute I, not conditioned by a not-I. But the latter was already nullified by the establishment of the subject as principle of philosophy. From there on consistency would demand either that one refrain from any further determination of that principle, that is, from all philosophy, or else that one assume an absolute not-I, that is, the principle of dogmatism which, in turn, is a principle that contradicts itself (§4). In short, the subject as ultimate principle would lead into contradictions no matter which way it might turn, and these contradictions could be hidden, after a fashion, only behind inconsistencies and precarious proofs. True enough, if the philosophers had agreed that the subject was the ultimate principle, peace could have been established [175] in the philosophical world, because they could readily have agreed on the mere analysis of that principle, and as soon as anyone had gone beyond the mere analysis of it and (seeing that analysis could lead no farther) had tried by synthesis to explain the analytical fact of the detemination of the I by the not-I and of the not-I by the I. he would have broken the agreement and presupposed a superior pt

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ANNOTATION. As is well-known, it was Reinhold who tried to elevate the empirically conditioned I (which exists in consciousness) to the principle of philosophy. One would show very little insight into the necessity found in the progress of science if one were to mention Reinhold's attempt without due deference. He deserves the highest esteem, though meanwhile philosophy progressed farther. It *s not his destiny to solve the intrinsic problem of philosophy, but to bring it into the clearest focus. Who is not aware of the great impact such a decisive presentation of the problem will have, precisely in philosophy where, as a rule, an intrinsic presentation is possible only owing to a fortuitous glimpse of the truth which is yet to be discovered? Even the author of the Critique of Pure Reason, in his attempt not only to arbitrate the dispute among philosophers but to resolve the antinomy in philosophy itself, did not know what else to do than to state the point at issue in an all-encompassing question, which he expressed as follows: How are synthetic judgements a priori possible? As will be shown in the course of this investigation, this question in its highest abstraction is none other than: How is it possible for the absolute I to step out of itself and oppose to itself a not-I? It was quite natural that this question (as long as it was not introduced in its highest abstraction) be misunderstood, along with its answer. The next merit, then, that a thinking man could earn was obviously to present the question in a higher abstraction and thus [176] securely prepare the way for an answer. This merit was earned by the author of the Theory of the Faculty of Imagination", by stating his principle of consciousness. In it he reached the last point of abstraction, where one had to stand before one could reach that which is higher than all abstraction. §6 The perfect system of [philosophical] science proceeds from the absolute I, excluding everything that stands in contrast to it. This, as the One Unconditionable, conditions the whole chain of knowledge, circumscribes the sphere of all that is thinkable and, as the absolute all-comprehending reality, rules the whole system of our knowledge. Only through an absolute I, only through the fact that it is posited absolutely (schlechthin gesetzt) does it become possible that a not-I appears in contrast to it, indeed that philosophy itself becomes possible. For the whole task of theoretical and

practical philosophy is nothing else than the solution of the contradiction between the pure and the empirically conditioned I. *The word empirical is usually taken in a much too narrow sense. Empirical is everything that is in contrast to the pure I, everything essentially related to a not-I, even the original positing of any contrast (Entgegensetzen) as posited in some not-I, a positing which is an act that has its source in the I itself, the very act by which any contrasting becomes possible. Pure is what exists without relation to objects. Experienced is what is possible only through objects. A priori is what is possible only in relation to objects but not through them. Empirical is that which makes objects possible.

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Theoretical philosophy, in order to solve the contradiction, proceeds from synthesis to synthesis, to the highest possible one in which I and not-I are ideutgled_(glei.cli—gesent..), where, because theoretical reasoning ends in contradictions, practical reason enters in order to cut the knot by means of absolute demands. If, therefore, the principle of all philosophy were to lie in the empirically conditioned I (about which dogmatism and the unfinished ciriticism basically agree), then all szontaaeity of the I, theoretical as well as practical, would be quite unexplainable.) For thelosoreticali [177] strives to posit the I and the not-I as identical and, therefore, to elevate the not-I itself to the form of the I; thegracticalstrives for pure unity by exclusion of all that is not-I. Both of them can do what they do only inasmuch as the absolute I has absolute causality and pure identity, Thus the ultimate principle of philosophy cannot be anything that lies outside the absolute I; it can be neither a phenomenon nor a thing in itself. The absolute I is not a phenomenon. Even the very concept of absoluteness forbids it. It is neither a phenomenon nor a thing in itself, because it is no thing at all, but simply and purely I, which excludes all that is not-I. The last point on which all our knowledge and the entire series of the conditional depend, cannot be conditioned by anything ulterior at all. The entirety of our knowledge has no stability if it has nothing to stabilize it, if ..., 1 it does not rest on that which is carried by its own strength. And that is nothing else than that which is real through freedom. The beginning and the end of all philosophy is freedom! 32

[178] Only that which is through itself gives itself the form of identity, because only that which is because it is, is determined in its own being by nothing but identitykhat is, is determined by itself. The existence of everything else that exists is determined not only by its own identity but also by something outside of it. 34 But if there were not something that is through itself, whose identity is the sole condition of its being, then there woud be nothing at all identical with itself, because only that which is through its own identity can bestow identity on everything else that is. Only in - an absolute, posited by its own being as identical, can everything that is achieve the unity of its own essence (Wesen). How could anything be posited at all if everything that can be posited were mutable, and if nothing unconditional, nothing immutable, could be acknowledged, in which and through which everything that can be posited would receive stability and immutability? What would it mean to posit something if all positing, all existence[Dasein], all reality were dispersed constantly, lost ceaselessly, and if there were no common point of unity and stability that receives absolute identity, not through something else, but through itself, by its own being, in order to gather all rays of existence in the center of its identity, and to keep together in the sphere of its power all that is posited? 35 Thus it is the I alone that bestows unity and stability on everything that is. All identity pertains only to that which is posited in the I, and pertains to it only insofar as it is posited in the I. Therefore it is the absolute I that furnishes the basis for all form of identity (A = A). If this form (A = A) preceded the I, then A could not express what is posited in the I but only that which is outside the I; therefore that form would become the form of objects as such, and even the I would be subordinated to it, as just another object determined by it. The I would not be absolute but conditional and, as a specific subform, would be subordinated to the generic concept of objects, that is, it would be one of the modifications of the absolute not-I, which alone would be selfidentical. Since the I, in its very nature (Wesen) is posited by its sheer being [179] as absolute identity, there is no difference between the two expressions of it, either / am I, or I am!

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§7 So far we have determined the I as only that which can in no way be an object for itself, and which, for anything outside of it, can be neither object nor not-object, that is, cannot be anything at all. Therefore it does not receive its own reality, as objects do, through something lying outside its sphere, but exclusively through itself alone. This concept of the I is the only one by which the I is designated as absolute and my whole furhter investigation is now nothing but a plain development of this. If the I werensiddentical with itself, if its original form were not the form (Apure identity then all we seem to have won so far would be lost again. For the I is only because it is." If it were not pure identity, that is,only that which it is then it could not be posited by itself, that is, it could also be like that which it is not. But the I is either not at all, or else only through itself. Therefore the original form '(Urform), of the I must be pure identity.

§8 The I can be determined in no way except by being unconditional, for it

is I owing to its sheer unconditionality, since it cannot become a thing at

all. Thus it is exhaustively expressed when its unconditionality is expressed. Since it is only through its unconditionality, it would be nullified if any conceivable predicate of could he conceived in any way other than

t"

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through its unconditionality; a different way would either contradict its unconditionality or else presuppose something even higher in which could be found a unity of both the unconditional and the presumed predicate. i The essence (Wesen) of the I is freedom, that is, it is not thinkable except inasmuch as it posits itself by its own absolute power (Selbstmacht), not, indeed, as any kind of something, but as sheer I. This freedom can be determined positively, because we want to attribute freedom not to a thing in itself but to the pure I as posited by itself, present to itself alone, and excluding all that is not-I. No objective freedom belongs to the I because it is not an object at all. As soon as we try to determine the I as an object, it tvididraws into the most confined sphere, under the conditions of the interdependence of objects—its freedom and independence disappear. An object is possible only through some other object, and only inasmuch as it is bound to conditions. Freedom is only through itself and it encompasses the nonfinite. With regard to objective freedom we are not less knowledgeable than with regard to any other concept which contradicts itself. And our inability to think a contradiction is not ignorance. The freedom of the I, however, Can_be determined positively. For the I, its freedom is neither more nor less than unconditional positing of reality in itself through its own absolute . power (Selbstmacht). It can be determined negatively as complete independence, even as complete incompatibility with all that is not-I. [180]You insist that you should be conscious of this freedom? But are you bearing in mind that all your consciousness is possible only through this freedom, and that the condition cannot be contained in the conditioned?' 6 Are you considering in any way that the I is no longer the pure, absolute I once it occurs in consciousness; that there can be no object at all for the absolute I; and, moreover, that the absolute I never can become an - 11 [See quotation t e anger of the object e awareness implies ._, , - e_ 12:120 in n. 25Tit is not a free act of the immutable but an unfreeL.ng togrive to maintain that induces the mutable I, conditioned by the not-I,

1

tY)

its identity and to reassert itself in the undertow of endless change.* (Or do you really [181] feel free in your self-awareness?) But thatstriving of the empirical I, and the consciousness stemming from it, would itself not be possible without the freedom of the absolute I, and absolute freedom is equally necessary as a condition for both imagination and action. For your empirical I would never strive to save its identity if the absolute I were not originally posited by itself, as pure identity, and out of its absolute power." •Ilt is the character of finiteness to be unable to posit anything without at the same time positing something in contrast. The form of this contrast is originally determined by the contrast of the not-I. For, while absolutely positing itself as identical with itself, the finite I must neceuarilyposit itself in contrast to every not-I. And that is not possible without positing the not-I itself. fl'he nonfinite I would exlude all contrasting entities but without letting the exclu-

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If you want to attain this freedom as something objective, whether you ✓ want to comprehend it or deny it, you will always fail, because freedom consists in the very fact that it excludes all that is not-I absolutely. The I cannot be given by a mere corms.esit_ Concepts are possible only in the sphere of the conditional; concepts of objects only are possible. If the I ,) were a concept then there would have to be something higher in which it could find its unity, and something lower which would furnish its 6, h multiplicit} In short_thc I would_then be conditioned throughout. (Therefore the I can be determined onlyin_anintuition (Anschauun4. But since the I is I only because it can never become an object, it cannot occur in an intuition of sense, but only in an intuition which. grasps. no object at all and is in no way a sensation, in short, in fan intellectual intuition Where there is an object there is sensuous intuition, and vice versa. Where there is no object, that is, in the absolute I, there is no sense intuition, therefore either no intuition at all or else intellectual intuition:-Therefore

the I is determined for itself as mere I in intellectual intuition. 40 I know very well that Kant denied all intellectual intuition, but I also know the context in which he denied it.'"It was in an investigation which only presupposes the absolute I at every step and which, on the basis of presupposed higher principles, determines only the empirically conditioned I and the not-I in its synthesis with that I. I also know that the intellectual intuition must be completely incomprehensible as soon as one tries to liken it to sensuous intuition. Furthermore, it can occur in consciousness just as little as can absolute freedom, since consciousness presupposes an object, and since intellectual intuition 1 182 1 is possible only inasmuch as it has no object. The attempt to refute it from the standpoint of consciousness must fail just as surely as the attempt to give it objective reality through consciousness, which would mean to do away with it altogether. The I is determined only by its freedom, hence everything we say of the pure I must be determined by its freedom. sion set them up in contrast to itself. It would simply equate everything with itself and, therefore, wherever it posits anything it would posit it as its own reality. It could not strive to save its own identity . and, therefore, could not contain any snthesis of a Manifold, any unity o-rcOTisciousness _etc. The empirical I, however, is determined by the original contrast is nothing at all without it. Therefore it owes its reality, as empirical I, not to itself but only to the restriction by the not-I. It manifests itself not by a mere I am, but by I think, which means that it is, not by its own sheer being, but by thinking something, thinking objects. In order to save the original identity of the I, the image (Vorstellung) of the identical I must accompany all other images so that their manifoldness can be thought at all, in its inherent relation to unity." Therefore the empirical I exists only through and in relation to the unity of images and, outside of that unity, has no reality in itself at all but disappears as soon as one eliminates objects altogether along with the unity of its synthesis. Thus its reality as empircal I is determined for it by something posited outside of it, by objects. Its being is not determined absolutely, but by objective forms, and it is determined as an existence (Dasein). Yet it is only in the nonfinite I, and through it for mere objects could never bring about the image if I as a principle of their unity. '"

•



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[183]

§9 The I is simply unity. For if it were multiplicity it would not be through its own being but through the reality of its parts. It would not be conditioned by itself alone, by its sheer being (that is, it would not be at all) but would be conditioned by all single parts of the multiplicity for, if any one part were canceled, the completeness of the I itself would be canceled. But that would contradict the concept of its freedom, therefore (§8) the I cannot contain any multiplicity; it must be simply unity—nothing but simply J.-+, A .r I Wherever there is unconditionality determined_ by freedom, there is I. Therefore the I is absolutely one. If there were to be several I's, if there were to be an I beside the I, these different I's would have to be differentiated by something. But since the I is conditioned only by itself and is determinable only in intellectual intuition, it must be identical with itself (not at all determinable by number). Accordingly, the I and the I-outsidethelyzoski_catacide and would be indistinguishable. Thus the I can be naught but one. 42 (If the I were not one, the reason why there should be several I's would not lie in the I itself, in the nature (Wesen) of it, for the I is not determinable as an object (§7); it would lie outside the I and thus have no meaning other than the canceling of the I.) The pure I is the same everywhere, I is everywhere = I. Wherever there is an attribute of I, there is I. The attributes of the I cannot differ from each other, since they are all determined by the same unconditionality (all are nonfinite).They would be determined as different from each other either by their mere concept, I1831which is impossible since the I is an absolute oneness, or by something outside of them, whereby they would lose their unconditionality, which again makes no sense. The I is I everywhere; it fills, as it were, the entire infinity, if it would make sense to use such an expression:13 Those who know no other I than the empirical one (which, however, is quite incomprehensible without the presupposition of the pure I), those who have never elevated themselves to the intellectual intuition of their own selves, can find only nonsense in the theorem that the I is only one. For only the completed science itself can prove that the empirical I is multiplicity. (Imagine an infinite sphere—of which by necessity there is only one — and inside this sphere imagine as many finite spheres as you wish. These, however, are possible only inside the one which is infinite. Thus, even if you do away with the finite ones, you still have [their locus or conditionj the infinite sphere.) Those who have the habit of thinking only of the empirical I find it necessary to assume a plurality of I's, each of which is I for itself and not-I for the others, and they do not consider that a pure I is thinkable only through the unity of its being. These adherents of the empirical I will be equally unable to think the .

-

41

(\

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concept of pure, absolute unity (unitas) because, whenever the absolute unity is mentioned, they can think only of an empircial, derivative unity (which is a concept symbolized by the number scheme). The [pure] I has as little unity in the empirical sense (unicitas) as it has multiplicity. It is completely outside the sphere of determination by this concept; it is neither one nor many in the empirical sense, for both alternatives contradict its concept. The concept of a pure I not only lies outside the domain of whatever can be determined by the two concepts of empirical unity and multiplicy, but lies in an entirely opposite sphere. Whenever the talk is about a numerical unity, something is presupposed in regard to which one can speak of numerical oneness as such. What is presupposed is a generic concept under which the numerical one is comprehended as the unique member of its kind. However the (real and logical) [184] possibility still remains that it might not be the only one; that is, it is one only in regard to its existence, not in regard to its essence. In contrast, the I is one precisely in regard to its simple, pure being, and not in regard to its existence (Dasein), which is no essential attribute of it at all. Also, it cannot be thought of at all in regard to something higher; it cannot fall under a generic concept. Concept as such is something that comprehends multiplicity in oneness. Thei_therefore cannot be a concept, \ neither a pure nor an abstracted one, because it is neither a comprehenIt is neither genus nor ding nor a comprehended, but an3scity. al species nor individual, because genus, species, and individual are thinkable only in regard to multiplicity. Whoever can take the I for a concept or can predicate numerical unity or multiplicity of it, knows nothing of the I. Whoever wants to turn it into a demonstrable concept, can no longer take it as unconditioned. For the absolute cannot be mediated at all, hence it can never fall into the domain of demonstrable concepts. Everything demonstrable presupposes either something already demonstrated, or else the ultimate, which cannot be further demonstrated. The very desire to demonstrate the absolute does away with it, and also with all freedom, all absolute identity, etcetera. Annotation. Someone might reverse this matter: "Just because the I is not something general, it cannot become the principle of philosophy." If, as we shall now presuppose, philosophy must start from the unconditional, then it cannot start from something general. For the general is conditioned by the singular. and is possible only in regard to conditional (empirical) knowledge. Therefore the most consistent system of dogmatism, the Spinozistic, declares itself most emphatically against the opinion that conceives of the one absolute substance as of an ens rationis, an abstract concept. Spinoza sees the unconditional in the absolute not-I, but not in an abstract concept nor in the idea of the world, nor of course in any single

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existing thing. On the contrary he inveighs vehemently[185] —if one may use this word in speaking of a Spinoza— against it* and declares that he who calls God one, in an empirical sense, or thinks of Him as a mere abstraction, has not even an inkling of the nature (Wesen) of God. To be sure, one cannot understand how the not-I is supposed to lie outside of all numerical determination, but one must realize that Spinoza did not truly posit the unconditional in the not-I; rather he turned the not-I into the I by elevating it to the absolute [see no. 25]. Leibniz supposedly started from the generic concept of things as such. That would be a matter to investigate more closely, but this is not the place for it. It is certain, however, that his disciples started from that concept and thus founded one of the systems of incomplete dogmatism. [186] (Question: How, in that system, can one explain the monads and the preestablished harmony? As, in criticism, theoretical reason ends with the result that the I becomes not-I, so, in dogmatism, it must end with the opposite, that the not-I becomes I. In criticism, practical reason must *See several passages in Jacobi's book about the doctrine of Spinoza, pp. 179 ff. [Ober die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn. (Breslau, 1785); now Werke, vol. 4, pt 1 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968)]. See other passages also, especially Eth. 2. prop. XL, schol. 1. Furthermore, in one of his letters he says Cum multa &int, quae nequaquam in imaginatione, sed solo intellectu assequi possumus, qualia sunt Substantia, Aeternitas el al. si quis talia eiusmodi notionibus, quae duntaxat auxilia imaginationis sunt, explicare conatur, nihilo plus agit, quam si det operam, ut sua imaginatione insaniat. [Since there are many things that we can grasp by no kind of imagination but only by the intellect, such as substance, eternity, and others, if anyone tries to explain them by means of the kind of notions which are mere auxiliaries to the imagination, then, although it seems expedient to such a one, he attains nothing but unsoundness of mind, owing to his imagination Letter of April 20, 1663, to Ludovicus Meyer. Cf. the translation by A. Wolf in his The Correspondence of Spinoza (New York: Russell and Russell, 1966), letter 12, p. 1663] In order to understand this passage, one must know that Spinoza thought that abstract concepts were pure products of the power of imagination. He says that the transcendental expressions (which is what he calls expressions like ens, res, etc. [schol. 1]) arise from the fact that the body is capable of absorbing only a limited quantity of impressions, and when it is oversaturated the soul cannot imagine them except in a confused manner, without any differentiation, all under one attribute. He explains the general concepts in the same manner, e.g., man, animal, etc. Compare the passage in the Ethics referred to above, and especially his treatise De Intellect us Emendatione For Spinoza the lowest level of knowledge is the imagining of single things; the highest is pure intellectual intuition of the infinite attributes of the absolute substance, and the resulting adequte knowledge of the essence of things. This is the highest point of his system. For him, mere confused imagination is the source of all error, but the intellectual intuition of God is the source of all truth and perfection in the broadest sense of the word. In the second part of his Ethics, in the scholion to proposition XLIII, he says with regard to the idea of mind of which the scholion to proposition XXI said: the idea of the mind and the mind itself are one-and-the-same thing, which is considered under one-andthe-same-attribute, that of thought. For indeed the idea of the mind, that is to say, the idea of the idea, is nothing but the form of the idea insofar as this is considered as mode of thought without relation to any object!: "What can be more clear and certain than this idea, as a norm of truth? Indeed, as light makes manifest both itself and darkness, so is truth the norm of itself and of falsehood." What can surpass the quiet bliss of these words, the One and All ('C/

xai nay) of our better life?"

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reestablish the absolute I; in dogmatism it must end with the reestablishment of the absolute not-I. It would be interesting to devise a consistent system of dogmatism. Maybe that will yet be done). "The greatest merit of the philosophical scholar is not to establish abstract concepts nor to spin systems of them. His ultimate aim is pure absolute being; his greatest merit is to unveil and reveal that which can never be conceptualized, explained, deduced, in short, to reveal the undissectable, the immediate, the simple.""

§1 0 The I contains" all being, all reality. If there were a reality outside of the I, either it would coincide with the reality posited in the I or it would not. Now, all reality of the I is determined by its unconditionality; it has no reality except by being posited unconditionally. If there were a reality outside of the I that would correspond to the reality of the I, then that outside reality would have to be unconditional also. Yet, it is only through unconditionality that the I receives all its reality, therefore any one reality of the I, if posited outside of it, would also have to contain all its reality, that is, there would be an I outside of the I, whichAtles_nat—makesense (§9). On the other hand, if that reality outside the I differed from the reality of the I [instead of corresponding to it], then, owing to the absolute unity of the I, the positing of the outside reality would at the same time cancel the I itself, which makes no sense. (We are talking about the absolute I, whose function is to be the generic concept of all reality. All reality must [187] coincide with it, that is, must be its reality. The absolute I must contain the data, the absolute content (Materie) that determines all being, all possible reality.) If we want to anticipate objections, then we ' st must also anticipate answers. Of course my theorem [that the I contains all being, all reality] could be readily refuted if either a not-I postulated as antecedent to all that is I were conceivable, or else if that not-I which is originally and absolutely opposed to the I were conceivable as an absolute not-I in short, the reality of the things in themselves could beproved in the philosophy hitherto prevailing, for then all original reality would be found in the absolute not-I. [We face an alternative.] Either the thing in itself is the not-I posited as antecendent to all that is I. But I have already proved that a not-I posited as antecendent to all that is I has no reality at all and is not even thinkable because, unlike the I, it does not realize itself and is therefore conceivable only in contrast to the I, that is, to the absolute I, not the conditioned I (since the latter is only a correlate of the object). Or else the thing in itself would be the not-I merely as absolutely opposed to the I as finite I. Now, it is true enough that the not-I stands in

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original opposition to the I as I.* For that reason, the original not-I cannot be a mere empirical, abstract [188] concept since, in order to find such a concept in experience, experience itself would have to be presupposed, that is, the existence of a not-I. Nor can it be a general concept a priori, because it is not simply posited but absolutely counterposited and, therefore, as antithesisAand, true to its quality as antithesis, it must be posited just as absolutely as the I, and in opposition to it. It is this original counterpositing of the not-I as such that may have led to imagining an absolute not-I antecendent to an I.ti,For, though dogmatism pretends it can conceive of a not-I antecedent to e I, not as merely opposed to the I, but as simply posited, the mere thought of an absolutely posited not-I would have been impossible had the absolute antithesis not hovered in the mind and, what is more, had that antithetical not-I not been endowed with that reality which belongs not just to the antithesis but to the not-I as posited in the I. That absolutely counterposited not-I, in fact, is not absolutely unthinkable, as is the not-I presupposed absolutely (i.e., as antecedent to all that is 1). But by itself it has no reality, not even a thinkable one. Just because it is counterposited to the I, it is posited as sheer negation, as an absolute nothing about which one can say nothing, nothing at all, except that it is mere antithesis to all reality. As soon as we try to give it reality, we transfer it from the sphere of mere antithesis to the sphere of the conditional, the sphere of what is posited in the I. Eiher it stands in Abs. te opposition to the I, as absolute not-I, that is, [absolute not ne , or it becomes something, a thing—that is, it is no 1189] longer posited absolutely but conditionally, posited in the I, that is, it ceases to be a thing in itself. If one wants to call the not-I as originally posited in opposition to the I a thing in itself, it can easily be done, as long as one means by "thin in itself" the absolute negation of all reality. But if one wants to attribute reality to this absolutely oppositional not-I, that can be done only through 'Inasmuch as the not-I is originally opposed to the I, it necessarily presupposes the I. But the opposition itself occurs absolutely, just as does the position of the I [see n.31], and on that very account that which is absolutely posited in contrast to reality is absolute negation. The I

'malts a not-I in opposition to the I, and for this one cannot give any ulterior reason, just as orw can give none for the I positing itself absolutely; in fact, the one immediately implies the other. The positing of the I is the placing in absolute opposition, that is, the negation, of what Is mit I. But originally nothing at all can be put in opposition unless something antecedent is absolutely posited; much less can there be any absolute opposition without an antecedent position. Yet opposition occurs. The second theorem see n. 31] of any science which [by 111111111of that theorem] absolutely opposes the not-I to the I, receives its content (the opposite)

Implicitly. Its form (the opposing as such) is determinable only by the first theorem. The second theorem, however, is not to be derived from the first analytically, because no not-I can come forth from the absolute I. Instead, there is a progression from thesis to antithesis and I rum there to synt ' Of course it would br incomprehensible how the whole science could be based on one I hottellt, if one were to suppose that Mr science is, as it were, clicapallled in that theorem. But as fat as I know no philosopher has supposed that.



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an illusion of the empirical power of imagination that lends it that reality which belongs to the not-I only owing to its quality of being posited in opposition to the I." , Since no reality belongs to the originally counterposited not-I but only negation, and neither pure nor empirical being but no being at all (absolute nonbeing), therefore, if it is to attain Isalit,y, it must not be posited in absolute opposition to the I but/mile I 4 itself, Inasmuch as the I originally counterposits to itself a not-I (and does not simply exclude it as does the absolute I), it posits itself as canceled. But since, at the same time, it ought to posit itself absolutely, it will in tur osit the not-I as absolutely canceled, = 0. If, therefore, it posits the not-I absolutely, it cancels itself; and if it posits itself absolutely, it cancels th not I. Yet both of them ought to be posited. This contradiction cannot be .no the not-I as equal to the I. However, the form of resolved Uniess-IF51pOiiis the not-I forbids that. Therefore the I can only in-t_part reality to the not-I; it can posit the not-I as reality only if combined with negation. The not-I therefore has no reality as long as it is only counterposited to the I, that is, as long as it is pure, absolute not-I. As soon as reality is imparted to the not-I, it must be posited as contained in the very concept of all reality, that is, in the I; it must cease to be pure not-I, In order to posit the not-I in the I (which is necessary because the not-I ought to be posited although it is counter to the I), the I is absolutely compelled to impart to the not-I its own form of I, the form of being and reality, of unconditionality and oneness. This form, however, is incompatible with the form of [190] the originally counterposited not-I. (Therefore the transfer of the form of I to fy.,... the not-I is possible only by a synthesis of the two Out of this transferred form of I, the original form of not-I, and the synthesis of the two originate, the categoriee 9 through which alone the original not-I receives reality (beComes imaginable) but for this very reason ceases to be absolute not-I. Therefore the idea of a thing in itself cannot be realized at all, either through a not-I posited as antecedent to any I, or through the not-I originally counterposited to the I. However, the theorem that the I contains all reality could easily be invalidated if the theoretical idea of a sum total of objective reality outside of the I could be realized. I admit that the ultiMate synthesis through which theoretical reason tries to solve the confict between I and not-I is some x which, as a connotation of all reality, should unite the two realities, the I and the not-I posited in the I. So it seems that this x is determined as something outside the I, and thus = notI, but, by the same token, as something outside the not-I, thus = I. 5° Therefore theoretical reason appears to take refuge in an absolute connotation of all reality = I = not-I, and thus to annul the absolute I as connotation of all reality. Neverthelet, the ultimate synthesis of theoretical reason, which is nothing else than the last attempt to compose the contrast between I and

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not-I, becomes for us the most perfect guarantor , of the absolute reality of j the absolute I, even though it seems to dissolve it.)The I could never be in need of composing that contrast through the idea of an objective concept of all reality had this contrast not first become possible owing to a positing of the I as the all-embracing concept of reality, an original positing antecedent to all not-I." If this were not the case, the not-I could have a reality independent of the I, a reality which could be posited simultaneously with the reality of the I. In that case there would be no [191] opposition between the two of them, but also no synthesis of them would be needed and no objective concept of conflicting reality.* Likewise, without the premise that the absolute I is the concept of all reality, 51 , no practical philosophy can be thought of whose aim must be the end of all not-I and the recovery of the absolute I in its ultimate identity, that is, as the connotative concept of all reality. * *

[192]

§1 1

If the I contains all reality, it is nonfinite. For by what should it be limited if not either by a reality outside of it, which is impossible (§10), or by a negation outside of it? The latter is also impossible since negation as such is determinable only in contrast to an absolute, and therefore the I •ADDITION TO THE FIRST EDITION: no boxerov [no receptacle]. ** FOOTNOTE OF THE FIRST EDITION: (In terms of sense one can think of it in the following manner, The absolute I describes an infinite sphere which includes all reality. Counter to that another infinite sphere is set up (not only excluded) which includes all negation (absolute not1). This sphere is therefore absolutely = 0; yet it is possible only when the absolute sphere of reality has already been described, and only by contrast to it. For absolute negation does not create itself but is determinable only in contrast to absolute reality. An infinite sphere outside another and previously posited infinite sphere is already a contradiction, and its being posited .Dutside that first sphere already indicates that it must be absoluteegation. For if it were not so it would not be outside the other but would coincide with it. ffhe absolute sphere of the not•I, if it were simply posited absolutely, would have to cancel the I altogether, because one infinite sphere does not tolerate another. On the other hand, the sphere of the I would cancel the sphere of the not-I, insofar as the latter is posited as infinite. And yet both are supposed to be posited. There is no remedy but the striving of the Ito draw into its own sphere the sphere of the not-I, for the latter is to be posited, and positing is possible only in the I." But this possibility is denied by the negation which is the nature of the sphere of the not-I. Consequently, this latter negation can be posited only in contrast to the sphere of the I. If it is to be posited inside the sphere of reality, the infinite sphere of negation turns into a finite sphere of reality, i.e., it can be posited only as reality necessarily connected with negation. And by that the I becomes restricted. Though the sphere of the I is not entirely canceled, it becomes necessary to posit in it a negation, i.e., a limitation [Schranke]. Now, the finite sphere can strive to absorb the infinite, and to make itself the center of the entire sphere, a center from which issue both the rays of infinity and the limitations of finitude, which is a contradiction. If the struggle between the I and the not-I is expressed in the highest possible synthesis (I not I) then, in order to resolve it, nothing remains but complete destruction of the finite sphere, i.e., an expansion of it until it coincides with the infinite sphere (practical reason)."

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would have to be posited antecedently as absolutely without limitation. The third alternative would be a limitation of the I by itself, and then it could not be posited absolutely but only under the condition of a given limitation, which in turn is impossible. The I must be absolutely nonfinite." If one of its attributes were finite, then, owing to that attribute, the I itself would be finite; thus it would be nonfinite and finite at the same time. Accordingly, all attributes of the I must also be nonfinite. S 5 For the I is nonfinite only owing to what it is, that is, owing to its attributes. If one could dissect the reality of the I into several parts, these parts either would retain the nonfiniteness of that reality or would not. In the first case there would be an I outside the I (because wherever there is nonfiniteness there is I), a nonfiniteness outside the nonfiniteness, which makes no sense. In the other case, the I could cease to be, owing to division, that is it would not be nonfinite, it would not be absolute reality. (Therefor; the I is indivisible." If it is indivisible it is also immutable. For since it cannot be changed by anything outside itself (§ 8) the I would have to be changed by itself, and one of its parts would determine the other, that is, it would be divisible. But the I ought always to be equal to itself, an absolute unity posited outside of all change. § 12 If substpte is the same as the unconditional, then the I is the only substance. 57 If there were several substances there would be an I outside the I, which makes no sense. Therefore everything that is is in the I, and outside the I is nothing." For the I contains all reality (§ 8), and everything that is, is through reality. Therefore everything is in the I. Without reality there is nothing. Now, there is no reality except in the [193] I, therefore there is nothing outside the I. If the I is the only substance, then everything that is, is merely ai. Lialitylilscidensfe th We are standing at the boundary of all knowledge, beyond which all* reality, all thinking and imagining, vanish. EverythinLis only in the Land for the I. [See n. 52.] The I itself is only for itself. In order to find something else, we have to find something before; we arrive at objective truth only through another truth. But we come to the I only_through the I, because it is at all only inasmuch as it is only for itself, and for anything outside the I, the I is nothing, that is, it is no object at all. For it is only inasmuch as it thinks itself, not insofar as it is being thought [by another]. In order to find truth, you must have a principle of all truth. Place it as high as you wish, it still must lie in the land of truth, in the land that you are as yet seeking. But if you produce all truth by yourself, if the last point on which reality hinges is the I, and if this is only through itself and for itself, then all truth and all reality are immediately present to you. By

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positing yourself as the I, you simultaneously circumscribe the whole sphere of truth, of the truth which is truth only through you and for you. Everything is only in the I and for the I. In the I philosophy has found its one-and-all (:Ev xai navy, for which it has contended as the highest price of victory until now.* Annotation. You want to measure the highest substantiality of the absolute I with your derivative concept of the substantiality of the not-I. Do you really believe that you have found the archconcept [Urbegriff] of substantiality in the not-I? To be sure, philosophy set up a concept of the substantiality of the not-I a long time ago. In order to save the immutable identity of your I, you must necessarily also elevate the not-I to the level of identity. Its [194] original form [Urform] is multiplicity, and in some way you must assimilate it to the I. Yet, in order that this not-I, that is, this multiplicity will not coincide with the I, your power of imagination sets it in space. But your synthesis of I and not-I would make the I absorb the multiplicity of the not-I and thus would totally scatter the I. In order to prevent that, you present multiplicity itself as a matter of change or succession, and for each point of this change you posit one and the same subject, as determined by its quest for identity. Thus, by means of your synthesis and of the forms of space and time produced by your synthesis, you obtain an object that perseveres in space and time during all changes. That is, you obtain a transferred (as it were, a borrowed) substantiality which, however, on that very account, is not comprehensible without the presupposition of an original and not-transferred substantiality in the absolute I. Incidentally, it is the concept of the latter substantiality that made it possible for the Critical Philosophy to clear up the origin of the category of substance." It was Spinoza who had already conceived of that archconcept of substantiality in its utmost purity. He recognized that originally something had to be the basis for all existence, a pure, immutable archbeing [Ursein] , a basis for everything that comes about and passes away, something that had to exist by itself, in which and through which everything in existence had to attain the unity of existence. Nobody proved to him that this unconditional, immutable archform [Urform] could be found only in the I. As long as the archconcept was not discovered, the derivative and transferred concept of a substantiality of appearances was merely an abstract concept, though antecedent to all possible experience, yet possible only in relation to experience. And it was this abstract concept, that everybody used as an objection to Spinoza, as if he had not been quite familiar with that concept

•

ADDIFION TO THE MST FroTioN• All existence IDaseini rests on my I see n. 521; my I is everything: in it and tending toward it lzu ihmln" is everything that is. Take away my I, and everything that is is nothing.



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rrI

and had not explained innumerable times that he was not concerned with the persistent element [das Beharrende] in time and change, but with what stands outside of time, under the archform of immutability, and as if he had not explained that the derivative concept has no meaning and no reality without the archconcept. His opponents tried to refute nonconditionality with conditionality. The outcome is familiar.

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§ 13

If there is nothing outside the I, then the I must posit everything in itself, that is, posit it as equal to the I. Everything it posits must be nothing else than its own reality in its entire infinity. The absolute I cannot determine itself to be anything but that which posits infinite reality, that is, posits itself. If, for lack of another word, we call the positing the original cause, and if we call a cause which posits nothing outside of itself but everything in itself an immanent cause, then the I is the immanent cause of everything ?,that is." Whatever is, is only because it has reality. Its essence [Wesen] [gssentia] is reality, for it owes its beinglSein, Esse] only to the nonfinite reality;. it is only inasmuch as the original source [Urquelle] of all reality imparted reality to it. Thus the I is not only the cause of being but also the cause of the essence of everything that is. For everything that is, is only through what it is, that is, through its essence, its reality; and reality is only in the I. (Whoever wants to refute these theorems with other theorems which we shall encounter later may do so. But he will find that he could have saved himself that trouble, and that the opposition that meets these theorems stated here is precisely the problem of philosophy as a whole. Yet, he will have to grant that thesis precedes antithesis, and that both precede synthesis.)

§ 14 The highest idea which expresses the causality of absolute substance (of the I) is the idea of absolute power [Macht] [see n. 39]. Can one measure the pure with empirical measure? If you cannot free yourself from all the empirical determinations which your imagination feeds you in regard to that idea, do not put the blame for your misunderstanding on the idea but on yourself. This idea is so far from everything empirical that it not only stands above it but even annihilates it. For Spinoza, too, it was the only designation for the causality of the 11961 absolute substance. The absolute power of the one substance was the ultimate for him in fact, the only reality. In it, according to Spinoza, there is no wisdom, for its action itself is law; no will, for it acts by the in-

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trinsic power of its essence (Wesen), by the necessity of its being (Sein). It does not act owing to any determination by any reality outside of itself (any value, any truth)." It acts owing to its essence, owing to the nonfinite perfection of its being and from unconditional power. Its very nature I Wesen] is only this power.* This most sublime idea in Spinoza's system was deemed not only theoretically wrong but also refutable by practical arguments. Spinoza's opponents said that this idea eliminates all notions of a free though lawdetermined wisdom. For they had not elevated themselves to the pure view of an absolute power which acts not according to any laws outside of it but only according to the laws of its own being, through its own being as such. On the other hand they did not consider the fact that their concept of wisdom is thinkable only under the assumption of some limitation and therefore is an absurdity unless they themselves presuppose as their ultimate aim an absolute power that simply acts out of an inner necessity of its own nature (Wesen) which is no longer will, nor virtue, nor wisdom, nor bliss, but power as such. Annotation. True enough, Kant spoke of morality and proportionate bliss as the highest good and ultimate goal." Yet he himself knew very well that morality without an ultimate goal has no reality and that it presupposes limitation and finiteness and is not thinkable as an ultimate goal in itself but only as [197] an approximation thereof." Kant also avoided a

\

definite declaration concerning the relationship of bliss to morality, although he well knew that bliss, as a mere ideal of the imagination, is nothing but a schema" fit only to convey the practical presentation (praktische Vorstellbarkeit)" of the not-I,** and therefore could not pertain to the ultimate purpose (Endzweck)." The latter aims at the identification of the not-I with the I, that is, at a complete annihilation of it as not-I. For that reason the search for empirical happiness (as an agreement of the objects with the I, brought into unison by nature) would be unreasonable without the presupposition that [198] the ultimate goal of all.striving is not *Ether+ bk.10, prop. XXXI. Prop. XXXII: Deus non ago ex ratione boni, sed ex naturae Juar perfect:one. Qui ilud statuunt, videntur aliquid extra Deum ponere, quod a Deo non

dependet, ad quo Deus tanquam ad exemplar in operando attendat, vel ad quod tanquam ad cerium scopum collimat, quod profecto nihil aliud est, quam Deum fato subjicere. Prop. X XXIII; Dei potentia est ipsius essentia. ISchelling quotes from a Spinoza edition whose proposition numbers differ from the critical edition by Bruder (1843; Tauchnitz) and there is a slight change in the first two sentences of his quotation. John Wild translates the end of schol. 2 of prop. kxxiii (Schelling's XXXII): "I confess that this opinion, which subjects all things to a certain indifferent God's will, and affirms that all things depend upon God's good pleasure, is at a less distance from the truth than the opinion of those who affirm that God dors everything for the sake of the Good. For these seem to place something outside of God which is independent of Him, to which he looks while He is at work as to a model, or at which lie aims as if at a certain mark. This is indeed nothing else than to subject God to fate. . . . Prop. X X XIV: The power of God is I Iis essence itself." (Wild 133).1



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happiness but utter elevation over its very sphere.* Therefore we must &LILT endlessly not to become happy, but no longer to need happiness, indeed to become incapable of needing it, and to elevate our very being to a form that is repugnant to the form of happiness (Gluckseligkeit) as well as to [the form of] its opposite.

For, the absolute I demands that the finite I should become equal to it, that is, that it should destroy in itself all multiplicity and all mutability. What is moral law for the finite I, limited by a not-I, is natural law for the nonfinite I — that is, is given simultaneously with and in its mere being (Sein). The none, finite I is only insmuch as it is equal to itself, determined by its sheer identity; it has no task at all whereby it still ought to determine its being by sheer identity. For the nonfinite I there is moral law, and in respect to its causality it is determined only as absolute power, equal to itself." Moral law, however, although it exists only in relation to finiteness, has in itself no sense or meaning if it does not set up, as the ultimate goal of all striving, the nonfiniteness of the I and its own transformation into a **Since the not-I should become the object of alsitying determined by freedom, it must be raised from the form of conditionality to the form of unconditionality. Yet, since the not-I as not-I is to become the object of this striving, only a sensuous, i.e., an imaginable unconditionality can be attained, i.e., the raising of the not-I itself can produce only a form which cannot be reached by any form of the intellect (Verstand) or sensibility ISinnlichkeit!. Such a mediation between conditionality and unconditionality is possible only for the power of imagination !Einbildungskraft The idea of bliss therefore arises originally only through a theoretical operation. Represented practically, it is nothing other than a necessary harmony of the not-I with the I, and since the attainment of this harmony is an infinite task for the I, it remains even in its practical meaning a mere idea which can be realized only in an infinite progress. However, in its practical significance it is also completely identical with the ultimate goal of the I. In that respect, since morality is the gradual approach to that ultimate goal, it can indeed be imagined as something that can be realized only by morality and is always in proportion to it. And only in this sense could Kant have conceived of bliss as in steady proportion to morality. One can take empirical happiness Gliickseligkeit! as a contingent harmony of objects with our I. So taken, empirical happiness cannot possibly be thought of as being connected with morality. For the latter does not aim at any contingent but at a necessary agreement of the not-I with the I. Pure bliss or beatitude! therefore consists exactly in rising above empirical happiness; the pure necessarily excludes the empirical. Still, it is quite understandable why, whenever Kant mentions bliss, some of his readers would think of mere empirical happiness. The German word Gliickseligkeit can mean both. I But it is astonishing that nobody has yet denounced the moral perniciousness of a system which imagines empirical happiness as connected with morality, not through any inner connection, but only by external causality. *If the ultimate goal of all striving of the I were not identification with the not-I, the contingent harmony of objects with our I, brought about by nature, would have no charm for us. Only when we think about such a harmony in its relation to our entire activity (which, from its lowest to its highest degree, aims at nothing else but the harmony of the not-I with the I) can we regard a contingent harmony as ajayor (not a reward), as a voluntary accomodation on the par t of !ramie, as an 0ex/weird assistance which nature bestows on the whole of our activity (not merely our 11101.11ac ts).

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mere natural law* of the I. The moral law in the finite being is first of all a schema of natural law whereby [199] the being of the nonfinite is determined. What the natural law presents as being, the moral law must present as an ought. Since the supreme law by which the being of the nonfinite I is determined is the law of its identity (§ 7), the moral law in the finite being must present the identity not as existing but as demanded. Therefore the supreme law for the finite being is: Be absolutely identical with

yourself.**

Yet, inasmuch as this law must apply to a moral subject, that is, to an I conditioned by mutability and multiplicity, this conditioned I stands in opposition to the form of identity as such, and the moral law can apply to it only by means of a new—scilematism.' For the basic moral law (Urgesetz) of the finite I, "be identical," is confronted by the natural law of the same finite I, according to which it is multiplicity and therefore not identical, and its multiplicity is no mere ought. This contradiction between the moral and the natural law of finiteness can be mediated only through a new schema, that of production in time, so that the law which aims at a demand of being becomes a law of becoming. The basic moral law, expressed in its fullest sensuous form, says: become identical, elevate (in time) the subjective forms of your being to the form of the absolute. The basic moral law in its purity already excludes all subjective forms (all forms which belong only to the object-conditioned I) and demands directly: be identical! However, those very forms are in opposition to that law, therefore a synthesis is needed by which they themselves are absorbed, yet no longer as [200] forms of the subject (of the finite) but as forms of the absolute. * * *

•Therefore one could also say that the ultimate goal of the I is to turn the laws of freedom into

laws of nature, and the laws of nature into laws of freedom, to bring about nature in the I, and / in nature. •*This law can be traced through all forms subordinate to the archform [Urform] of identity. Expressed in line with the category of quantity it says: be absolutely one. In line with quality: posit all reality in yourself, i.e., equate all reality to yourself. In line with relation: be free of all relation, i.e., of all conditionality. In line with modality: posit yourself outside the entire sphere of existence I Dasein I , posit yourself in the sphere of pure, absolute being (independent of all forms of time, etc.). •••If we again trace this schematized law through its subordinate forms, we receive the follow-

ing laws. According to quantity: become absolutely one. (Whatever becomes unity presupposes multiplicity, by whose elevation alone it can become unity. Thus the expression of the

law is identical with the challenge: elevate the multiplicity in yourself to unity, i.e., become a in yourself). According to quality: simply become reality. (Whatever

totality contained

brcomesreality does so in struggle with negation. Therefore the law can also be expressed as saying: elevate the negation in yourself to reality, i.e., give yourself a reality which ad in-

finit um (in time) can never be cancelled.) According to relation: become absolutely unconditional, strive for absolute causality again an expression of an original struggle, equivalent to:make the passive causality in yourself identical with the active (create a reciprocal effect, make t hat which is passive causality in you active, and what is active passive). According to modality: strive to posit yourself in the sphere of absolute being, independent of the change of time, Stliving is possible only in time, therefore striving for liberation from all change of time means striving in all time. Thus the law can also br expressed as: lircome a tiecet +a ry bring, a bring which endures

in all time.

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Through this schematism of the moral law, the idea of moral progress, of progress in infinity, becomes possible. The absolute I is the only Eternal; therefore the finite I, as it strives to become identical with it, must strive for pure eternity. Since it expresses in itself as merely becoming that which, in the nonfinite I is posited as being, it must also posit in itself a becoming, that is, an empirical eternity, an infinite duration." The ultimate goal of the finite I is therefore an expansion toward identity with the nonfinite. In the finite I there is unity of consciousness, that is, personality. The nonfinite I, however, knows no object at all and therefore no consciousness and no unity of consciousness, no pers9„nality." Consequently, the ultimate goal of all striving can also be represented as an expansion of personality to infinity, that is, as its own destruction. The last goal of the finite I as well as that of the not-I, that is, the last goal of the world [201] is its destruction as a world, that is, as an embodiment of finiteness (of the finite I and the not-I). In order to approach this ultimate goal, an infinite approximation takes place, therefore an infinite continuance of the I, immortality." In the theoretical sense God is I = Not-I; in the practical sense He is absolute I, which annihilates all not-I. Insofar as the nonfinite I is represented schematically as the ultimate goal of the finite and thus outside of the latter, in practical philosophy God can indeed be represented as outside the finite I (schematically) however only as identical with the nonfinite.

From these deductions it becomes clear that the causality of the nonfinite I cannot be represented at all as morality, wisdom, and the like, but only as absolute power which fills the entire infinity and, in its sphere, tolerates nothing that is in opposition, not even the not-I imagined as infinite. Therefore the moral law, even in its entire bearing on the world of sense [Versinnlichung], can have meaning and significance only in its relation to a higher law of being which, in contrast to the law of freedom, can be called law of nature. True enough, those who are trying to place the goal of our moral striving as near and as low as possible will not be satisfied with these deductions, nor will those who hastily appended a multitude of postulates of happiness to the letter of Kant and to the one and only point of their empirical system which Kant seemed to leave them. For if happiness (Gluckseligkeit) is not conceived as identical with the ultimate goal, that is, as total elevation above the whole sphere of empirical happiness, then it cannot even belong to the demands of moral reason, which alone is entitled to make demands. Also dissatisfied with our deductions are those who can believe that Kant could deem any knowledge which he thought impossible in theoretical philosophy possible in practical and thus, in practical philosophy, could again place the supersensuous world (God, etc.) as

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something outside the I, as [202] an object; as if an object, no matter by what means it became an object, would not have to become an object for theoretical philosophy, that is, become objectively discernible. (Whatever is object must also be discernible [erkennbar] in the Kantian sense of the word, that is, perceptible to the senses and thinkable through categories. See below.) To be sure, according to Kant, the supersensuous leads to contradictions because theoretical philosophy [objectifies and thus] annihilates every absolute (all I). On the other hand, again according to Kant, practical philosophy leads into the supersensuous domain because, in its turn, it annihilates everything that is theoretical [i.e., object] and reestablishes what is intuited intellectually (the pure I). But since we enter the supersensuous world only through the reestablishment of the absolute I, what can we expect to find there other than the I? therefore, no God as an object, no not-I at all, no empirical happiness, etcetera, but only pure, absolute I!

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However, this empirical eternity (which can be represented graphically by an endlessly extended line) is not thinkable without the original concept (Url2wiff) of pure eternity, and therefore it is impossible to transfer it to the absolute I, which the original form of all being. The finite endures: the substance simply is, owing to its own nonfinite power to be.

Annotation 1. Spinoza, too, had to fight this concept of duration as a [an alleged] form of the absolute being. For him eternity is a form of pure intellectual intuition. However, he does not mean relative or empirical but absolute, pure eternity. For him duration, even duration during all time, is nothing but a form of the (empirically conditioned) subject, and that form itself becomes possible only through the higher form of eternal being. If eternity is taken to mean empirical eternity, then, for him, absolute substance was not eternal, that is, not at all determinable through this [empirical]form, since substance exists neither in determined nor in all time, but in no time at all.*

§15

,.*.

The I is because it is, without any condition and without any restriction. Its original form (Urform) is that of the pure eternal being (Sein). We cannot say of it, it was, it will be, but simply, it is. He who wants to determine it in any way other than its being must pull it down into the empirical world. It is posited absolutely, therefore outside of time; the form of its intellectual intuition is eternity." It is nonfinite by itself; it is not a vague infinity such as the power of imagination fancies, which is itself tied to time. Instead, it is the most certain nonfiniteness, contained in its own nature Wesen ; its own eternity is the condition of its being [Sein]. Inasmuch as the I is eternal, it has no duration at all. Duration is thinkable only with regard to objects. We may speak of eternity of duration (aeviternitas), that „is, of an existence in all time, but eternity_in the pute_sense of the word (aeternitas) is being in no time. The pure, original form [Urform] of eternity lies in the I. This form is at variance with [the form of] the existence of the not-I, which is in some specific time. The transcendental [203] imagination I Einbildungskraft] reunites the variance by a notion of existence in all time, that is, by the image [Vorstellung] of empirical eternity.* *All synthesis proceeds by taking that which is absolutely posited and by positing it anew but conditionally (with qualifications). Thus, in its original opposition to the I) the not-I is posited absolutely but, on that very account, also posited as simply zero, because an unconditional not-I is a contradiction in terms, i.e., simply nothing. To be sure, in the synthesis the not I receives reality but thereby also loses its 'apparent' unconditionality, i.e., it becomes reality connected with negation, conditional (limited) reality. Thus the not-1 is originally posited outside of all time, just as the I is, but it therefore also equals zero; as it receives reality It loses its bring posited outside of all time and is posited in a .specific time. Finally a new synthesis posits it in all time, i.e., the absolute eternity of the I becomes empirical eternity in the not I inasmuch as the latter receives its reality through the I.

[204] Annotation 2. Now it is time to determine the I completely and to forestall all possible confusion with other concepts. Thus far we have determined the I only as that which can never become an object. Therefore, if we wanted to say something about the I as an object we would indeed be caught in a dialectical illusion." For since it would be the object of a mere idea, it would indeed have no reality, " and if it were an object at all, then, in order to substantiate its reality, we would have to look for an objective *Ethics 5. prop. XXIII, schol.: aeternitas nec tempore definiri, nec ullam ad tempus rekztionem habere potest. At nihilominus sentimus experimurque, nos aeternos esse. Nam mens non minus res illas sentit, quas intelligendo concipit, quam quas in memoria habet. Mentis enim oculi, quibus res videt observatque, sun[ ipsae demonstrationes. Quamvis igitur non

recordemur, nos ante corpus extitisse, sentimus tamen, mentem nostram, quatenus corporis essentiam sub aeternitatis specie involvit, aeternam esse, et hanc eius existentiam tempore

definiri sive per durationem explicari non posse. Mens igitur nostra eatenus tantum dici potest durare, eiusque existentia certo tempore definiri, quatenus actualem corporis existen-

tiam involvit, et eatenus tantum potentiam habet, rerum existentiam tempore determinandi easque sub duratione concipiendi. ISchelling's emphasis. John Wild translates: "eternity cannot be defined by time, or have any relationship to it. Nevertheless we feel and know by experience that we are eternal. For the mind is no less sensible of those things which it conceives through intelligence than of those which it remembers, for demonstrations are the eyes of the mind by which it sees and observes things. Although, therefore, we do not recollect that we existed before the body, we feel that our mind, in so far as it involves the essence of the body under the form of eternity, is eternal, and that this existence of the mind cannot be limited by time nor manifested through duration. Only in so far, therefore, as it involves the actual existence of the body can the mind be said to possess duration, and its existence be limited by a fixed time, and so far only has it the power of determining the existence of things in time, and of conceiving them under the form of duration." (Spinoza Selections New York: Scribner's, 19301, p. 385).1 With equal emphasis Spinoza, in his let ters, takes a stand against all confusion of the pure, original concepts (Urbegriffe) of being with the del ivative hums of empirical existence, See especially his ()pp pudh p. 167 ,

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intuition (Anschauung)," which would necessarily lead to contradictions. As yet we have determined the I only be stressing the impossibility of its ever becoming an object. We have also shown that it cannot be a mere idea and that therefore what we have here is the only intellectual intuition that is possible. I should like to see the impossible, a deduction of the absolute I from concepts! For that very reason Kant asserted that no philosophy is possible on the basis of concepts, because he knew that the only possible philosophy, the critical, rests on an ultimate ground which cannot be reached through any objective concept. Kant had already intimated that a deduction of the I from mere concepts isittipossible when he said that the original proposition I am is antecedent to all concepts and merely accompanies them, as it were, as a vegae. For that proposition is not a consequence of the proposition I think but is contained in it.* [205]' Now, if anyone wishes that there were no absolute I at all, then according to all the above, he would have to deny not only all freedom but also all philosophy itself. For even the least degree of spontaneity in theoretical philosophy reveals the original freedom of the absolute I as much as does the greatest possible spontaneity in practical philosophy. Furthermore, dogmatism is formally established by the denial of the absolute I. For if the existence of an empirically conditioned I cannot be explained from the position of an absolute I, then there remains no other explanation than the one from the absolute not-I, that is, from the principle of all dogmatism, which contradicts itself. Therefore the annulment of an absolute I nullifies not only a specific philosophy but all philosophy. The assertion of an absolute I is (1) least of all a transcendent assertion. It is as little transcendent as is the practical transition into the supersensuous domain." Eve assertion which tries to bypass (uberfliegen) the I is transcendent. Consequently, the assertion of an absoluin'ras to be the most immanent of all assertions: indeed, it must be the condition of all immanent philosophy. To be sure, the assertion of an absolute I would be transcendent if it were to go farther than the I, that is, if it tried at the same time to determine its existence as an object. Yet the sense of this assertion is precisely this that the I is not an object at all, and therefore, being independent of all that is not-I, indeed, in its origin excluding all that is not-I, that it has its being in itself, that it creates itself. In the Transcendental Dialectic," the paralogism exposed by Kant does not stop with the pure I; rather it tries, on the one hand, to conceive th e I as conditioned by the not-I, therefore as having become an objxct, and yet, on the other hand, as I, that is, as.absolute substance. The absolute I, however, [206] realizes itself. I must not overstep its sphere if I ...

A

••I'lle absolute I is, without relating itself to any objects. Therefore it is, not because it thinks at all, but becatue it thinks only itself. For that reason Descartes could not get very far with his togffirrgo ono, because he postulated thinking at all as a condition of the I, i.e., he had not risen to the absolute I. ''

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want to reach its being, and the proposition I am differs from all other existential propositions in that it is the very one which cannot even be compared with them. The entire paralogism of transcendental psychology springs from the very attempt to conceive as an object that which really pertains only to the absolute I. (The whole [Kantian] Dialectic aims at the destruction of the absolute I and the realization of the absolute not-I as an [ostensible] I, that is, as a thing in itself.) "I think; I am!" — these are purely analytical propositions. But the Transcendental Dialectic turns the I into an object and argues that whatever thinks is; and that whatever is thought as [if it were] an I is an I. This is a synthetic proposition, by which something which thinks is posited as a not-I. Yet a not-I does not create itself through its thinking, as an I does! (2) The absolute I is not synonymous with the logical I. In merely empirical thinking I encounter the I only as a logical subject, and my existence as determinable in time. In contrast, in intellectual intuition the I produces itself as absolute reality outside of all time." Therefore, when we speak of the absolute I we least of all mean to designate the logical subject contained in consciousness. After all, this logical subject itself is possible only owing to the unity of the absolute I." (My empirical I is subject to change, but in order to retain its identity in that change it strives to elevate the objects which change it, to a unity [by categories] and thus, through the identity of its striving, it establishes the identity of its existence as a lasting principle of image production [Princip der Vorstellungen] in the change of time.) Therefore the unity of consciousness determines only objects but cannot in turn determine the I as object. For, as pure I, it does not occur at all in consciousness [ see n.31] and even if it did occur there, it could never, as a pure I, become a not-I. As an empirical I it has no reality at all except [207] in the unity of apperception, and only in relation to objects. I thinkLis merely an expression of the unity of apperception which accompanies all concepts [see n.37]. Thus it is not determinable in intellectual intuition, as is the proposition I am! but can be determined only in relation to objects, that is, only empirically. It does not express an absolute unity but only a form of unity conceivable in regard to multiplicity. The latter unity determines the I neither as phenomenon nor as a thing in itself (therefore not as a thing at all) yet just as little as an absolute I, but only as a principle of something determined in the mere unity of thinking, something that loses all reality if imagined as outside the thinking. However, this merely thinkable I contained in the unity of consciousness is comprehensible only through an original and absolutely present unity of an absolute I. For if there were no absolute I, one could not comprehend how a not-I could produce a logical I, a unity of thinking, nor could one comprehend at all how any not-I would be possible."' It naturally follows

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that anyone who is trying to do away with the absolute I in his thoughts feels compelled to elevate the not-I itself to the I. (This was the case with Spinoza.) There is nothing at all thinkable for me without the I, at least without the logaical I, and the logical I cannot possibly be produced by a not-I, but only by an absolute I. Thus if we speak of an absolute I we speak, in the first place, A (1) not of the logical I, because that can be thought of only in regard to an object, and the phrase logical I is merely an expression of the striving of the I to maintain its identity within the change of objects. For that reason, since it can be conceived only in terms of that striving, it is itself guarantor of the absolute I and its absolute identity. (2) In the second place, when speaking of the absolute I, we do not speak of the absolute subject in the Transcendental Dialectic [see n. 81]. The latter takes the logical subject, which is originally nothing but the formal principle of the unity of thinking and a mere correlate of apperception, and presents it as if it were an object, which is a direct contradiction. The dialectical subject [208] is created by mere abstraction and by the paralogistic assumption that the I of consciousness could be thought of as an object determinable as independent of consciousness. That marks the difference between the dialectical I and the logical I, on the one hand; as well as the pure I, on the other. Neither of these two was created by abstraction. The logical I is nothing other than the formal principle of the unity of thinking (and therefore of abstraction itself); the pure I is higher than all abstraction and can be posited only by itself. Thus the absolute I is neither a merely formal principle, nor an idea, ,

nor an object, but pure I determined by intellectual intuition as absolute reality. He who demands proof "that something else besides our idea should match it," does not know what he is demanding, because (1) it is not given by any idea, (2) it realizes itself, it creates itself, and therefore does not need to be realized beforehand. Even if it were realizable in advance, the very action by which it became realizable would already presuppose it. In other words, to make it real as something posited outside of itself would mean to annul it. It is either nothing, or else realized by itself and in itself not as an object but as I. Philosophy, by the fact that the absolute I is posited as its principle, is secure from all illusory semblance (Schein). For, as has been shown, the I as an object is possible only through dialectical semblance, and the I in the logical sense has no meaning except inasmuch as it is the principle of the unity of thinking, and thus it disappears with thinking itself and has no other than thinkable reality.* - However, if the principle of all philosophy *Accordingly I Reinhold's' theorem of consciousness automatically vanishes as principle of philosophy. For it is clear that through it neither subject nor object is determined, except logically, so that the theorem has no real meaning, at least as long as it is supposed to be the ultimate pc int iplr No philosopher has pointed out more emphatic ally this lac k of irality in the theca cm of I MINI liolioffirw. than SAIIIIIII/II M.11111011 "

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were a not-I, then one would have to renounce philosophy altogether. [209] For the not-I itself is originally determinable only in contrast to the I [see n.34] and has no reality if the absolute I has no reality. Annotation 3. It is remarkable that most languages have the advantage of being able to differentiate between absolute being and every kind of conditioned existence. Such a differentiation, which runs through all original languages," points to an originally existing reason which, without anyone's being aware of it, determined the differentiation at the time when language was first created. It is equally remarkable that the majority of philosophers did not make use of the advantage offered by their language. Almost all of them use the words being (Sein), presence (Dasein), existence, and reality (Wirklichkeit) as if they were synonyms. Obviously the word being expresses pure, absolute being-posited (Gesetztsein), whereas presence even etymologically signifies a conditioned and limited beingposited. Nevertheless one speaks commonly of the existence (Dasein) of God, * as if God could really exist, that is, could be posited conditionally and empirically. (That, of course, is what is desired by most people and, as it seems, even by many philosophers of all times and factions.) Anyone who can say that the absolute I exists (ist wirklich) knows nothing about it.** The word being [Sein] expresses an absolute [210] being-posited, whereas existence (Dasein) always signifies a conditioned, and reality (Wirklichkeit) a specifically conditioned being-posited, determined by specific conditions. The individual phenomenon in the total context of the world has reality; the world of phenomena as such has existence; but the absolutely posited, the I, simply is. I am! is all that the I can say about itself. The usual assumption was that pure being pertained to things in themselves. However, I believe that what Kant says about things in themselves cannot be explained at all except as a result of his persistently maintained system of condescension (Herablassun_gssystem)." According to Kant's own deductions the idea of a thing in itself must be contradictory. Thing in itself means neither more nor less than a thing which is no *Theoretical philosophy seeks to establish God as a not-I, and in that context the expression existence has its proper place. However, it cannot be used in practical philosophy except in a

polemical way, against those who want to turn God into an object."

**Even the striving of the moral I cannot be represented as a striving for reality, because the moral I strives to posit all reality in itself. More precisely, it strives to elevate all reality to the level of pure being and, since its being conditioned by the not-I has dragged it down into the sphere of existence, it strives to raise itself again from that sphere. But pure being, as the goal of striving on the part of a moral subject, i.e., of a conditioned I, can be represented only schematically, i.e., as existence in all time. Precisely in this lies the infinite task of practical reason, to make absolute being and empirical existence identical in us. Since even in an endless time empirical existence cannot be elevated to absolute being, and since absolute being can never be presented in the domain of reality as being real in us, reason demands infinite existence for the empirical I. For the absolute I contains eternity in itself and can never be teachrd by the concept of duration, tern of infinite dictation."

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[211]

thing. Wherever there is sense perception there is not-I, and where there is not-I there is sense perception (sinnliche Anschauung). What is seen (angeschaut) intellectually is no not-I at all but sheer I. Therefore, for instance, one cannot say that God sees the things in themselves. To be sure, God sees no phenomena, but just as little does he behold things in themselves. He beholds no thing at all but only himself and all reality as posited equal to himself. (From that it is clear that God is what we can only strive to realize in infinity.) If (according to Spinoza) God is determinable as an object, though under the form of nonfiniteness, then all objects must be contained in him, and Spinozism can be refuted only by representing God as identical with the absolute I (which excludes all objects). To be sure, owing to his system of accomodation [see n.89], Kant has spoken of the forms of sense perception (Anschauung) as mere forms of human perception. However, the forms of sense perception and of the synthesis of its manifoldness are forms of finiteness as such, that is, they must be deduced from the mere concept of the I as conditioned by the not-I. Therefore, where there is an object there must also be sense perception. Consequently any not-I outside of all sense perception (a thing in itself) 12111 annuls itself, that is, is no thing at all but is mere not-I and thus absolutely nothing. It has been said that our inability to know things in themselves is due to the weakness of human reason (a phrase which has been overtaxed endlessly). More properly, one might say that the weakness lies in the fact that we perceive objects at all. The concepts of idealism and realism can be given their proper meaning only now, when the concept of the not-I has been determined in contrast to the absolute I. Their empirical meaning and their pure meaning are often confused. Pure idealism and realism have nothing to do with the determination of the relationship between the imagined object and the empirical subject. Both are concerned only with the answer to the one question of how it is possible that something could at all stand in opposition to the I, that is, how the I could be at all empirical. The idealist could answer only that the I is not empirical at all, in which case one could deny that it has any need to set anything in opposition to itself, and thus deny the claim of every theoretical philosophy.* This idealism is thinkable only as an idea (of the ultimate goal) in a practical sense (as a practical regulative) because as theoretical idealism it annuls itself. Therefore there is no pure theoretical idealism, and since the

empirical-one is no idealism,' there can be no idealism at all in theoretical philosophy. *Ttanscendent and immanent idealism coincide, because immanent idealism could only drily the existence of the objects represented in imagination, which transcendent idealism must also deny. just because the latter is idealism and does not admit an objective world, it would have to look in the I alone for the reasons for its assertions, and basically it would he immanent idealism.

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Pure realism posits the existence of the not-I as such. Either the not-I is posited as identical with the absolute I (as one could perhaps interpret Berkeley's idealism) and thus is self-annulling realism. [212] Or else the not-I is posited as quite independent of the I (as is the case with Leibniz and also with Berkeley, who is mistakenly counted among the idealists), and that is transcendent realism. Or again, the not-I is dependent on the I, owing to the assertion that nothing exists but what the I posits, and that the not-I is thinkable only under the presupposition of an absolute I not yet conditioned by any not-I, so that the latter can be posited only by the I. (In the first place, in order to posit the not-I at all, the absolute I must be previously posited, because the not-I can be determined only in contrast to the I. For that reason the not-I is originally posited only in opposition [to the I], with absolute negation. In the second place, in order to posit it at all and to give it reality, it must be posited in the absolute I, through which alone everything that is can be posited, that is, can be raised to reality. Yet it can receive reality only through an absolutely comprehensive concept of all reality. And this is immanent Kantian realism.)* Or last, the not-I, even though originally independent of the I, yet is posited as existing in the imagination only through and for the I (transcendent-immanent and incomprehensible realism of many Kantians and [213] particularly of Reinhold** who, by the way, resented the sectarian name of a Kantian.) Empirical idealism either is a meaningless expression or makes sense only in contrast to pure transcendent realism. Thus Leibniz (like Descartes) was an empirical idealist, owing to his denial of the existence of exterior objects as bodies, yet a pure objective realist when assuming the existence of a not-I completely independent of the I. *This realism designates at the same time the proper domain of natural science [Naturforschune which cannot at all seek "to penetrate into the inside of objects," i.e., to assume phenomena determinable as independent of the I. Instead, natural science must regard the entire reality which pertains to phenomena merely in the sense of a reality whose foundation does not lie in the objects themselves, but is a reality thinkable only in terms of relation (to the I). Therefore science must not attribute to objects any reality independent of their borrowed reality, and must not assume that they exist outside the latter reality. For, if one abstracts from their transferred reality, they are simply nothing (=--- 0). Therefore their laws can be determined only with regard to their phenomenal reality, and one cannot presuppose that the reality of the phenomenon is further determinable by the causality of any other reality not contained in the phenomenon, i.e., by some real substrate to the object (real outside the phenomenon). If one were to search, as it were behind the phenomenal (transferred) reality, for some other reality originally pertaining to the object, one would meet with nothing but negation:" **In no other way can I explain the statement that the things in themselves furnish the material for the imagination. (The things in themselves furnish nothing but the limitations of absolute reality in the imagination.) Instead of anything else, see §29 of the Theory of the Power of Imagtnatton, even though this f3, according to a later explanation of the author, was supposed to be a torte philosophical exi onion.



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Transcendent realism is necessarily empirical idealism, and vice versa. Since transcendent realism views objects altogether as things in themselves, it can view what is changeable and conditional in them only as a product of the empirical I, and can see them as things in themselves only insofar as they have the form of identity and immutability. Thus, in order to save the identity and immutability of things, Leibniz had to resort to preestablished harmony. In short, dogmatism (which holds that the not-I is the absolute) must imagine things in themselves under forms which, according to criticism, are inherent in the I (as the only absolute) and which (by the synthesis) are transferred from the I to the not-I (identical substantiality, pure being, unity, etc.). On the other hand, dogmatism must view those other forms which the object receives in the synthesis from the original not-I (mutability, multiplicity, conditionality, negation, etc.) as pertaining only to the appearance of the thing in itself.* Therefore the monads of Leibniz have the original form of the [214] I (unity and reality, identical substantiality and pure being, as beings with awareness), whereas all those forms which are transferred from the not-I to the object (negation, multiplicity, accidentality, causality in the passive sense, i.e., conditionality) must be explained in an empirically idealistic way, as existing only in the sense image of the object. Thus, in a consistent dogmatism, empirical idealism makes sense and has tenable meaning, because it is the necessary conse• The not-I is determinable only in absolute contrast to the I. For that very reason it is absolute negation with regard to [the categorical form of] relation, and in that original contrast it is determined as absolute conditionality. It is in contrast with the absolute, therefore conditioned by it, yet, since this contrast is absolute, the not-I is in that respect also unconditional. Whatever is in absolute contrast to the absolute is on that account conditioned and unconditioned at the same time, that is, it is simply zero ( 0). According to quantity it is determined as absolute multiplicity, but absolute multiplicity is a contradiction, because multiplicity is conditioned by unity. According to modality the not-I is a being whose absolute contrast to absolute being makes it an absolute not-being. And according to quality it is a quality in absolute contrast to absolute reality, therefore it is an absolute negation. If, therefore, the absolute not-I is to have any reality at all, that is possible only if it is posited in no absolute contrast to the absolute, that is, posited within the comprehensive concept of all reality. Now, the process of all synthesis is such that whatever is absolutely posited in both thesis and antithesis is posited in the synthesis with qualifications, that is, merely conditionally. Therefore, in the synthesis, the absolute unity of the I becomes empirical unity, thinkable only as unity in relation to multiplicity (category of unity); the absolute multiplicity of the not-I becomes empirical multiplicity thinkable only in relation to unity (category of multiplicity); the absolute reality of the I becomes conditional reality thinkable only in relation to qualifying negation; the absolute negation of the not-I becomes a negation thinkable only in relation to reality (category of negation); the absolute unconditionality of the I becomes empirical uncondiactuality thinkable only in relation to conditionality (category of substance); the absolute being of the I becomes a being determinable only in relation to not-being (category of possibility), and the absolute not-being of the not-I becomes a not-being determinable only in relation to being (category of existence)." Note ol the editor, Schelling'A .ton: This footnote was omitted in the second edition, perhaps only by mistake since, in the first edition, it was not in the text but only in a list of emenda• buns and additions,

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quence of transcendent realism. Yet, if it is taken for an explanation of the not-I as such, it annuls itself. For it is a ridiculous endeavor to make the existence of the not-I comprehensible as a mere product of an empirical potency (Vermogen), for instance the power of imagination. [215] The question was how the not-I is possible at all, and consequently how any empirical potency is possible at all. Leibniz or, more precisely, consistent dogmatism views phenomena as just so many limitations of the infinite reality of the not-I. According to the critical system, they are that many limitations of the nonfinite reality of the I. (For Leibniz, phenomena differ from the I not in kind or reality but only in quantity. Leibniz was right enough when he said that the preservation of the world of phenomena is the same act of the absolute object as the creation. For, according to dogmatism, the world of phenomena is created and perseveres only through the limitation of the absolute not-I. According to the critical system, which allows only immanent assertions, creation is nothing but exhibition of the nonfinite reality of the I within the limits of the finite. Any determination of creation by a causality assumed to be real outside of the absolute I—by some infinite outside of the nonfinite, [durch ein Unendliches ausser dem Unendlichen] — would mean going beyond [Uberfliegen] the I.) For Leibniz everything that exists is not-I, even God, in whom all reality is united, though outside the domain of negation. For the critical system (which starts with a critique of the subjective powers, i.e., proceeds from the I), I is everything; it contains one infinite sphere in which (limited by the not-I) finite spheres form, as is still possible only within and through the infinite sphere," and also they receive all reality only from and through that sphere.* (Theoretical philosophy.) Within that infinite sphere everything is intellectual, all is absolute being, absolute unity, absolute reality; in the finite spheres everything is conditionality, actuality (Wirklichkeit), limitation. If we break through these spheres (practical [216] philosophy), then we are in the sphere of the absolute being, in the supersensuous world where all I outside the I is nothing, and this I is only One. I wish I had Plato's gift of language or that of his kindred spirit, Jacobi, 95 in order to be able to differentiate between the absolute, immutable being and every kind of conditional, changeable existence. Yet I see that even these men had to struggle with their own language when they attempted to speak of the immutable and supersensuous—and I believe that this absolute in us cannot be captured by a mere word of human • The expression of many fantasizing visionaries (vieler Schwirmer) that the sensuous is contained in the supersensuous, the natural in the supernatural, the terrestrial in the celestial, permits, therefore, a quite meaningful interpretation. At all events, their expressions very often contain a treasure of truth, though only felt and guessed at. In Leibniz's simile, such expressions are like the golden vessels of the Egyptians, which the philosopher must purloin for a more sat-red use. I Exod. 3:22; 11:2; 12:35.1

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language, and that only the self-attained insight into the intellectual in us can come to the rescue of the patchwork of our language. Self-attained insight. For the unconditional within us is clouded by the conditional, the immutalbe by the changing. And how can you hope that the conditional will ever make clear for you what is unconditional, and that the form of mutability and of change can represent the original form of your being, the form of eternity and immutability? Since your perception ties you to objects, and since your intellectual intuition is dimmed and your existence is determined for you by time, even that to which you owe your existence, that in which you live and act, think, and know, becomes in the end (and for your will) only an object of faith — a something which seems different from yourself and which you are forever trying to realize in yourself as a finite creature and still never find as real in yourself. The beginning and the end of your knowledge is the same — there intuition, here faith]

§16 The I posits itself absolutely, and posits all reality within itself. It posits etsulhin,g_as pure identity, that is, equal to itself. Thereby the material original form (Urform) of the I is the unity of its [217] positing, inasmuch as it posits everything as equal to itself. The absolute I never steps outside of itself." Through this original material form, however, a formal form, the form of positing in the I, is necessarily determined in the I as such. For the I is determined as the substrate of positability of all reality as such [see n.46]. Inasmuch as the I in its material form is the sum-total of all reality (§8), it is also at the same time a formal condition of all positing, and thus I obtain a sheer form of the possibility of positing entities in the I at all. This latter form, however, is necessarily determined by the original material form of the identity of the I (by virtue of which it identifies all reality with itself, i.e., posits all reality in itself). If the I did not originally identify everything with its own reality, that is, posit it as identical with itself, and did not posit itself as the purest identity, then nothing in the I could be posited as identical, and it would be possible to posit A = not-A. Let the I be whatever it may be (but it is nothing if it is not absolutely equal to itself, because it is posited only by itself), then, if it is posited at all as identical with itself, the general expression of positing in the I is A = A. If the I is posited as identical with itself then, no matter what the I is, everything that is posited in the 1 is posited [as identical with itself and] not as different from itself, and therefore is posited in the [self-identical] 1. Any positing in the I is possible

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at all only through the pure identity of the I itself or, in other words, )4through the being of the I alone, since the I is only owing to its identity. If i the I were not identical with itself, then everything that is posited in the I would be simultaneously posited and not posited, that is, nothing at all could be posited and there would be no form of positing at all. Yet, since the I posits everything which it posits as identical with its respective reality, then, inasmuch as the form of positing anything in the I is determined only by the I itself, that which is posited is being considered only in the quality of its being posited in the I, and is not considered as something in contrast to the I. Through its original form (Urform) of identity, the I determines nothing as reality as such, and it determines no object at all as such [218] insofar as an object is in contrast with the Lcca Thus the proposition I = I is the basis of all positing. For the I can be said to be posited only inasmuch as iit is posited for alone and by itself. Everything else, however, that is posited is so posited only inasmuch as the I is posited in the first place. Furthermore, what is posited is posited absolutely only insofar as it is posited as identical with the absolutely posited I. And since the I can be posited only as identical with itself, everything else is posited only insofar as it is identical with itself." in that respect, A = A is the general formula of absolute positing, because by it nothing else is predicated except that whatever is posited is posited. Now, by arbitrary freedom I can posit in the I whatever I wish; the only thing I cannot posit is what I do not posit. Thus I posit A, and since I posit it in the I, I posit it as equal to some reality = B, and necessarily as something equal to itself. That is, I posit it either as B or as not-B = C. If it were posited both as B and as not-B = C then the I itself would be cancelled. Therefore the proposition A = A, as a general formula (for positing as equal or self-identical) precedes all other formal axioms. Insofar as it occurs as a special theorem (of special content) it belongs to the general species of theorems conditioned by the axiomatic form, theorems absolutely posited by it inasmuch as it is a mere formula, A = A. All unconditionally posited theorems, that is, all those whose positing is conditioned only by the identity of the I, can be called analytical, because their being posited can be deduced from themselves. Therefore, better yet, they can be called thetical." Thetical theorems are all those which are conditioned only by being posited in the I, that is, since everything is posited in the I, all those which are unconditionally posited. (I say, are posited, because only the being-posited belongs to the formal form.) Among thetical theorems, one kind is that of identical theorems. For instance, A = A can be taken as a special theorem (among those in which subject and predicate are the same, i.e., whose subject has only itself as predicate. Thus I is only I, God only God, but everything that lies within the sphere of existence has predicates which lie outside its essence). The '

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fact that they are thetical theorems belongs to the formal form, that they are identical to the material form. Identical [219] theorems are thetical by necessity, because in them A is posited simply as such and because it is A. But thetical theorems are not necessarily identical ones, since thetical theorems are all those whose being posited is not conditioned by anything else's being posited. Thus A = B can be a thetical yet not an identical theorem if the mere positing of A also posits Bbut not vice versa, so that positing B does not also posit A. 17,-, #;(1 The form of thetical theorems is conetioned only by the pure identity of the I. Consequently, what they e2sprq§ is in every case only the material form of unconditionalitLwhich is determined by the I, and they express it formally. There-Tore the formal form of unconditionality must be strictly parallel to the material form of the I.'°° The I is only because it is, that is, because it is equal to itself, therefore it is only through the mere unity of its self-intuition (Einheit seiner Anschauung). 101 Now, thetical theorems are conditioned only as being posited in the I. The I, however, is only owing to the unity of its selfintuition. Therefore what is posited in a thetical theorem must be conditioned only by the unity of its intuition determined in the I. If I am judging A = B, then I am not making a judgment regarding A insofar as it is determined by something outside itself but only insofar as it is determined by itself, by the unity of being posited in the I, not as a determined object but as reality as such, as at all positable in the I. Thus I do not judge this or that A in this or that particular point of space or time, but A as such inasmuch as it is A through that very determination by which it is A, that is, that which makes it equal to itself and = B. Owing to this, all numerical determination is excluded, be it numerical determination of unity or of multiplicity. Numerical determination can occur in a thetical theorem, but not as belonging to its form. Thus, for instance, one can judge: body A is extended. If this theorem is to be a thetical one, the body A must be thought of only in the unity of its being posited in the I, and nost as a particular object in a particular space; or rather, inasmuch as the theorem is a thetical one, [220] A is really thought of only in the unit of its being posited. What makes it a thetical theorem is not the particualr body A, but the thingking of it in its unity. The A in the thetical theorem as such, according to its mere being posited, is determined neither as genus nor as species nor as individual. Multiplicity is posited because one item is posited several times and not because it is simply posited. Therefore a theorem which expresses multiplicity in an antithetical theorem, not only according to its content but also according to the mere form of its being posited. Only through the fact that something is originally posited in contrast with the I, and that the I itself is posited as multiplicity (posited in time), is it possible that the I can go beyond the mere unity of something's being posited in it,

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and that, for instance, it can posit the posited entity several times, or that it can simultaneously posit two concepts which have nothing in common and which are not thinkable under any unity, for example, body and weight. 102 Generality is empirical unity, that is, unity produced by multiplicity. Therefore it is the form of a synthesis. Thus general theorems are neither thetical nor antithetical but synthetical theorems. There is an I only by its act of positing all reality If thetical propositions (i.e., propositions determined by their sheer positing in the I) are possible at all, they must absolutely posit (affirm) something. Negative propositions are not determined by the sheer I, which contains no negation, but by something outside the I (in contrast to the I). The affirmative proposition as such simply posits something into some sphere of reality; the theticalaffirmative proposition posits something only into the sphere of reality as such. The negative proposition merely posits,'" and does not posit into any specific sphere; but since it does not posit that which it takes away from one sphere into any other, it exludes it from the sphere of reality as such. The thetical-negative (so-called infinite) judgment not only removes A from a specific sphere but at the same time posits it into another, opposite to the first. For instance, the proposition "God is not real" takes God out of the sphere of reality without placing him into another; [221] but the proposition "God is unreal (nicht-worklich)" puts him at 'the same time into another sphere in contrast to the sphere of reality. However, in order to produce a thetical-negative judgment, a merely arbitrary connection between the negation and the predicate does not suffice; the sheer positing of the subject in the I must already posit it in a sphere opposite to the predicate. For instance, I cannot turn the negative proposition "a circle is not square" into a thetical-negative judgment, because the sheer positing of the subject, "circle," does not yet posit it in a sphere which as such is in contrast with four-sidedness. The circle could just as well be five-sided or many-sided. However, the proposition "a circle is not sweet" is necessarily an infinite judgment, because the subject, "circle," through its mere being posited, is already outside of the sphere of the sweet, therefore already posited in a sphere exactly contrary to the sphere of "sweet." For that reason, the negation in the thetical-negative judgment does not lie in the copula but in the predicate, that is, the subject is not merely being removed from the sphere of the predicate but is placed in a sphere that contrasts with the sphere of the predicate. As far as I know, Maimon was up to now the one who put the greatest emphasis on this differentiation between the infinite judgment and the affirmative and negative. [see n. The I is only through itself. Its original form (Urform) is that of pure being. If anything is to be posited in the I, merely because it is posited, it must be conditioned by nothing other than the 1; for it is conditioned only

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by its being posited in the I, and the I contains nothing that lies outside the sphere of its own essence. Thetical theorems therefore posit only a being which is conditioned by itself alone (they do not posit possibility, reality, or necessity, but sheer being). 104 Up to the present, the determination of the forms of modality has not yet been made quite clear. True, the original forms of being and not-being are basic to all other forms They contain thesis and antithesis (the contrast between I and not-I), but in an entirely general formal way. [222] If this contrast is to be mediated by a synthesis, then these general forms must express that synthesis in a likewise entirely general and formal manner. For that very reason, material (objective) possibility, reality, and necessity do not belong among the original forms which precede all synthesis. For they express materially what the original forms express only formally, that is, they express it in relation to an already accomplished synthesis. Therefore these three forms are no categories at all, since categories really are the forms through which the synthesis of the I and the not-I is determined. But the three together are the syllepsis of all categories. Since they themselves express only positing, and since the [nine real] categories (of relation, of quantity, and of quality) furnish the positability of the not-I in the I, the [other] three [of possibility, or reality, and of necessity] themselves can no



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form of thesis and antithesis originally and universally, they also must contain the form of a possible synthesis, originally and before all synthesis.

This form is the determination of not-being by being, and it is the original basis of determination of all possible synthesis.

The characteristic formula for thetical theorems is "A is," which means that it has an identical sphere of being of its own, into which everything can be posited that is conditioned only by the being of A, and by its being posited in the I. However, since A expresses being as such, there must be a general formula for the antithesis as well, which must be A > -A [A is not not-A]. By virtue of that, since A is posited in the I, -A is necessarily posited outside the I, independent of the I, in the form of not-being. In the manner in which the first formula makes possible an original thesis, the second furnishes the possiblitity of an original antithesis. Yet just this original thesis and antithesis is the problem of all synthesis in philosophy* and just as the [223] pure forms of modality express the

Pure being is thinkable only in the I. The I is posited purely and simply [schlechthin]. The not-I, however, is in contrast with the I, and therefore, according to its original form, it is pure impossibility, that is, it cannot be posited in the I at all. Still, it ought to be posited in the I, and the synthesis brings about this positing of the not-I in the I by means of identifying the form of the not-I itself with the form of the I, that is, it strives to determine the not-being of the not-I through the being of the I.'" Since pure being is the original form of all positability in the I, and since the positability of the not-I in the I can be accomplished only by synthesis, the form of pure being, if transferable to the not-I, can be thought only in terms of strict conformity with the synthesis as such. (In Kant's language: objective possibility, i.e., possibility pertaining to an object as such, is contained only in conformity with a synthesis. And that means positability in the I.) For originally the not-I is a logical impossibility for the I. For the I there are only thetical theorems, but the not-I can never become the content of a thetical theorem and it directly contradicts the form of the I. Only inasmuch as the not-being of the not-I is determined by the being of the I, that is, inasmuch as there occurs a synthesis of being and not-being, the not-I becomes positable in the I. [See n. 106.] Therefore the possibility of so positing it can be thought only as conformity with [224] synthesis as such. Consequently, the logical possibility of the not-I is conditioned by the objective, the formal by the material possibility. It follows that problematical propositions are those whose logical possibility is conditioned by their objective possibility. In logic itself they stand under the pure form of being, which precedes all synthesis, and they cannot possibly count as a genus by itself. Since they are only an expression of a logical possibility dependent on objective possibility, and since logical possibility is the same everywhere, they belong to logic only with regard to that quality which makes them problematic propositions. I call the objective possibility, inasmuch as it furnishes the logical possibility (or is a schema of the logical) the objective-logical possibility. Prepositions that express only pure being and pure possibility* I call problematic propositions. These, therefore, occur in logic only insofar as they are at the same time essential propositions.

•Amont the categories of each individual form, the first one is always the expression of the original form of the I, the second is the originasl form of the not-I, and the third and last one

•The expression logical, pure possibility should be abolished, since it necessarily causes misunderstanding. Properly speaking, there is only a real objective possibility. The so-called logical possibility is nothing else but pure being as expressed in the form of a thetical

longer be conditions of this positability, they can only be the result of synthesis, or sylleptical concepts of all synthesis. 1 ° 5 Originally, pure being is only in the I, and nothing can be posited in this

form [of pure being] that is not posited as equal to the I. For that reason, pure being is expressed only in thetical propositions, because in them the posited is not expressed as something opposed to the I, as object, but is determined only as the reality of the I as such.

is the synthesis in which the two first ones are united and only now obtain sense and meaning in referring to the object. Note that the form of quality relates to the form of modality, the form of quantity to the form of relation, therefore the mathematical categories are determined by the dynamic categories and not vice versa.

proposition. For instance, when we say that the theorem I -- I has the form of pure possibility. this can be easily misunderstood, but not if we say that its form is the form of pure being (in contrast to existence (Dwain), or to logical possibility, which is conditioned only by

objective possibility). I See Poss. 108- I 0. I

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Existential propositions are determined by the original opposition of the not-I, and th eceive their possibility only through synthesis. They are -

ieajeCliieTogTalpOssitiiiity, although they do therefore conditioned bytl express mere possibility. The objective-logical possibility posits the notnot I merely into synthesis as such but an existential_proposition posits it_into some particular synthesis. Yet the not-I, in order to be elevated to the form of the I, needs to be posited only by means of the schema of pure being, by Conditioning just as the I is posited its mere possibility, that is, by [225] synthesis as such,through by the thesis as such. (Where there is thesis there is I, and where there is I there is thesis.) But the original form of the object is conditionality. By virtue of that form, inasmuch as it can be represented by the schema of time, the objects attain existence only by reciprocally determining their position in time, that is, by their existence in some particular synthesis. Here, therefore, a new synthesis must occur, just as, originally, being and not-being could be brought together only owing to the determination of not-being by being. So the result of that synthesis, which is objective possibility, can be brought together with reality in the new synthesis, owing to the determination of the latter by the former. Now, objective-logical possibility means being posited in synthesis as such, and reality means being posited in a particular synthesis. Therefore the not-I can be posited in a particular synthesis only because it is simultaneously posited in synthesis as such. That means it is posited in all synthesis, because all synthesis is synthesis itself as well as particular synthesis.

I believe that the whole progression of this synthesis will become clearer to the reader by being presented in the following table. [226]

Table of All Forms of Modality

1. Thesis Absolute being absolute positability originally determined only in and by the I.

2. Antithesis absolute Absolute not-being, independence from the I, and absolute nonpositablity determinable only in contrast to the I.

3. Synthesis Conditional positability, by means of absorption (Aufnahme) into the I, i.e., possibility of the not-I.* (This possibility is called objective-logical possibility • Owing to its original contraposition (antithesis), the not-I is an absoluteimpossibility. In the synthesis it receives possibility, but only unconditional possibility. Thus it exchanges conditional possibility for unconditional possibility. "Either no possibility, but unconditionality instead, or else no unconditionality but possibility instead! If the not-I were the unconditional in human knowledge, it could br that only in an original contrast, i.e., Inasmuch as it is simply nothing." (Addition to the first edition.)

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because the not-I becomes object only by absorption into the I, and because this absorption into the I becomes possible only by a preceding synthesis itself [through categories]; conformity with synthesis as such [with the categories]; temporal existence itself.)

[227]



1. Thesis synthesis as such, i.e., through objective absorption in the I. Objective-logical possibility; existence in time as such.

II 2. Antithesis Objective conditioning, not determined by the I alone; existence in a particular synthesis (in time), i.e., reality.

3. Synthesis Conditioning of being-posited (determined by the object) in a specific synthesis, by being posited (determined by the I) in the synthesis as such; existence (Dasein)* in all synthesis. Determination of reality by the objectivelogical possibility— necessity. (Therefore the whole progression of synthesis goes 1. from being and not-being to possibility, 2. from possibility and reality to necessity.)

[228] Since time is the condition of all synthesis and, on that account, ✓ is produced by the transcendental power of imagination through and in the synthesis, one can present the whole issue in the following manner. The schema'°' of the pure bei_ngAthe latterbeing posited outside of all time) is temporal existence it (owing to the action of synthesis itself). Therefore o jective possibility _paeans simply being positecl in time. Since existence in time is subject to change, the object, though posited in time as such, is positable and yet also not positable. In order to posit an object I must posit it in a specific time, which is possible only because some other object determines its position in time and, in turn, allows its own position to be determined by it.'" Yet the not-I is to be posited only by its own possibility, only by the schema of pure being. But the schema of its own particular form resists such positing through mere possibility because this schema makes it conceivable only as posited in a specific time. Now, just as time as such is the schema of complete timelessness, all time (i.e., the actual, infinitely progressing synthesis) is in turn a presentation (image)" of time as such (i.e., of the action of synthesis as 'Existence is the joint form under which possibility, reality, and necessity stand. The difference between them lies only in the determination of time itself, not in the positing or not-positing in time as such. Existence (Dasein) as such is therefore the result of the first synthesis. In the second it is determined as possibility in the thesis, as reality in the antithesis, and as necessity in the synthesis. • 'That which meditates the schema with the object is always an image (Bild). Schema is that which hovers in time as such, image is that which is posited in a specific time and yet positable lot time, whetratt the object is posited lot me only in a specific time.

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[229]

such) owing to which existence in time as such becomes existence in a specific time. All time therefore is nothing else than an image of time as such, yet it is also a specific time because all time is as specific as any single part of time. Thus, insofar as the not-I is posited in a specific time, it receives its original form (of change, multiplicity, negability) and insofar as it is posited in time as such it expresses the schematic original form of the I, substantiality, unity, reality. However, it is posited in a specific time only inasmuch as it is simultaneously set in time as such, and vice versa. Its substantiality can be conceived only in regard to change, its unity only [229] in regard to multiplicity, its reality only in regard to negation (i.e., with negation—but in infinite progression).* ANNOTATIONS. 1. The I originally posits, and posits everything as equal to itself, and since it is the purest unity it posits nothing in mere contrast to itself. The thetical theorem then has really no other content than the I, because that which is posited in the I is posited only inasmuch as it is reality at all and thus equal to the I, in the form of its identity with the I. In theoretical as well as in practical respect, reason aims at nothing but absolutely thetical theorems, equal to the theorem I = I. In theoretical regard it strives to elevate the not-I to the highest unity and thus to determine its existence in a thetical theorem equal to the theorem I = I. In this theorem the question is not: is the I posited at all? But rather, it is posited because it is posited [see n. 7]. Likewise the_I strives to posit the not-I because it is posited, that is, it strives to elevate it to unconditionality.

The result of these deductions is that only the forms of being, of not-being, and of notbeing determined by being can belong to logic, since they precede all synthesis and are the basis of all synthesis, and since they contain the original form according to which alone any synthesis can be performed. It also follows that the schematized forms of possibility, reality, and necessity, made possible only by an antecedent synthesis, -belong to logic only because they themselves are determined by those original forms. Thus, for instance, problematical theorems do not belong to logic insofar as they express objective possibility but only inasmuch as they express objective-logical possibility; not insofar as they express a being-posited in the synthesis as such, but only inasmuch as their logical thinkability has been transmitted at all through this synthesis. In short, the three forms of the problematical, assertorical, and apodictical theorems belong to logic only inasmuch as they are simultaneously the sheerly formal forms of the original synthesis (which is the determination of the not-being by being; existence as such), and not insofar as they express the material form— the existence in the synthesis as such, in the specific synthesis, and in all synthesis.** *•Atiortiont to Tut: FIRST EorrioN. For that reason I reminded you above that existence is the result of the first synthesis as such, and forms only the formal basis of the second. Only in that second synthesis is existence materially determined, relative to the synthesis furnished by the categories. Therefore, the forms of the second synthesis do not occur in logic insofar as they are materially determined, but only formally, that is, inasmuch as they express the original form of the first synthesis, existence as such, be it in time as such or in a specific time or in all time. n. 109.1 -

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[230] This material form of the striving of reason determines the formal one in the syllogistical regresses; both are striving jiig z2. for thetical theorems. Theoretical reason in its material use necessarily strives for a materially thetical theorem such as is possible only in the theorem I = I and never in another, which would already declare something about the not-I. And for that reason even that striving must lead to contradictions. In its formal use, though, reason strives for formally thetical theorems, whose consequence is a whole series of episyllogisms. What was impossible for theoretical reason, being restricted by a not-I, can now be done by practical reason; it obtains the only absolutely (i.e., formally and materially) thetical theorem: I = I. 2. The form of identity does not at all determine any object as such.* However, the fact that Leibniz and all the men who thought like him saw the principle of identity as the very principle of objective reality is far more easily comprehensible than many would-be experts in philosophy seemed to find it. One is used to their finding nothing more comprehensible than the sheer words of their respective masters and nothing more incomprehensible than the words to which they have not sworn allegiance. For critical philosophy, that is, for the philosophy which posits all reality in the I, the form of iclentityis the principle of all reality of the I, but on that very account it is not a principle of objective reality, that is, of reality not contained in the I.** However, for [231] dogmatism, that very form, in reverse must be the principle of objective but not of subjective reality. By means of the form of identity, Leibniz determines the thing in itself without regard to an opposite (the I), whereas Kant determines the reality of the I without regard to an opposite, that is, a not-I."' Leibniz declared strongly and strikingly that the form of identity determines the thing in itself as such, its objective reality, but not the subjective reality, that is, the perception (Erkenntnis) of the thing in itself (its issuing forth from the sphere of the thing in itself as such). Kant declared the opposite, that even *The principle of identity is A = A. Now, it is possible that A is not real. Consequently the form of identity presents A not with regard to its being posited outside the I, but only inasmuch as it is posited by the I, i.e., not posited as an object at all. [Compare Schelling's anticritique, of f 242-44.1

**It can also become the principle of objective reality, but only inasmuch as the positing thereof in the I is not immediate but already mediated, though even then it determines it not as objective reality but only as to the quality of its being determined in the I. The theorem of sufficient reason, says Kant, cannot be used at all in the supersensuous world, in which it can determine no object at all, because in that world everything is absolute, and that theorem expresses only the form of conditionality.'" If the supersensuous world really contained any objects and more than only an absolute I, then this theorem would be applicable in that world as well as in the world of phenomena. Therefore Kant used this theorem in the supersensuous domain only in a polcmic"" mariner or else only whenever, in line with his system of accommodation, he does in fact speak of objects of the supersensuous world. See n. 89.1

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though the subjective reality is determined by the form of identity, that is, the reality posited solely in the I, the objective reality is determinable only by moving out of the sphere of the I. 112 For dogmatism, thetical theorems become possible only through the not-I but antithetical and synthetical ones only through the I; for criticism, in reverse, thetical theorems only through the I, antithetical and synthetical ones only through the not-I. Leibniz determines the absolute sphere by the absolute not-I, yet he does \ not cancel every form of synthetical theorem but uses them in order to get out of his absolute sphere, just as Kant does. Both of them need the same bridge in order to move from the domain of the unconditional into that of the conditional. In order to leave the sphere of the thing in itself, of the being-posited absolutely, and to enter the sphere of the determined (imaginable) thing, Leibniz used the theorem of sufficient reason, exactly the same (i.e., an original form of conditionality as such) as Kant did in order to leave the sphere of the I and enter the sphere of the not-I. Thus Leibniz understood the theorem of identity as well as Kant, and he knew how to use it for his own system as well as Kant did for his. Where they differ is not [232] about its employment, but about its higher determination by the absolute in the system of our knowledge.* 3. For the absolute I there is no possibility, actuality, 113 or necessity, since whatever the absolute I posits is determined by the mere form of pure being. For the finite I, however, in theoretical and practical use, there are possibility, actuality, and necessity. And since the highest synthesis of theoretical and practical philosophy is the combination of posibility with actuality, that is, necessity, this combination can be termed the genuine task of all St ivj , though not its ultimate goal. If there were any possi ay and actuality at all for the nonfinite I, all possibility would be actuality, and all actuality possibility. For the finite I, however, there is possibility and actuality. Therefore, in regard to the two, its striving must be determined in the way in which the being of the nonfinite I would be determined if it had anything to do with possibility and actuality. Thus the finite I ought to strive to make actual everything that is possible in it, and to make possible whatever is actual. There is an imperative (Sollen) only I'm the finite I, meaning that there are practical possibility, actuality, and

•AimiTioN To THE FIRST FIDITION: Kant was the first to establish the absolute I as the ultimate substratum of all being and of all identity (though he established it nowhere directly but at least everywhere indirectly), and the first to fix the real problem of the possibility of a certain something determinable even beyond mere identity - in a manner that (how shall one describe it? Whoever has read his deduction of the categories and his critique of the teleological power of judgment in the spirit in which everything he ever wrote must be read, sees the dept h of his meaning and insight, which seems almost unfathomable) in a manner I WI appears possible only in a genius who, rushing ahead of himself, as it were, can descend the steps from the highest point, whereas others can ascend only step by step.

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necessity because the action of the finite I is not conditioned only by mere thesis (law of absolute being), but also by antithesis (natural law of finiteness) and by synthesis (moral ought). Thus practical possibility is conformity of action with practical synthesis as such; [233] practical actuality is conformity of action with a specific moral synthesis; and finally, practical necessity (the highest level a finite being can attain) is conformity with all synthesis (in a system of action in which everything that is practically possible is actual, and everything that is actual must at the same time also be possible).* On the other hand, no imperative (Sollen) at all occurs in the absolute I, [234] because whatever is practical command for the finite I must be constitutive law in the nonfinite, a law which expresses neither possibility, nor actuality, nor necessity, but only absolute being, and the expression is not imperative but categorical. The concept of ought (des Sollens), however, and of practical possibility, ✓ presupposes another concept, one that has furnished the matter for the most difficult problems of all philosophy. Here these problems must be touched upon at least briefly. If there is a practical possibility for the finite I, that is, an ought, then it , is not thinkable at all without the concept of freedom of the empirical I. 116 Previously (§ 8) I predicated absolute freedom of the absolute I, that is, a 'The concept of right [and rights] as such is based upon the concept of practical possibility (conformity with synthesis as such) and so is the whole system of natural right. But the concept of duty and the whole system of ethics is based upon the concept of practical actuality. Since for the finite being everything actual is also possible, the right to act must exist wherever duty occurs, i.e., whatever conforms to a specific (moral) synthesis must also conform to'synthesis as such, but not vice versa/In the absolute I, however, there is no synthesis at all, therefore the concepts of duty and right are unthinkable. Nevertheless, the finite I must act as i f" right and duty existed for the absolute I; therefore it must determine its own action in the manner in which the being of the nonfinite would be determined if duty and right did exist for it)And in the absolute I, duty and right would be identical, because in it all that is possible would be actual, and all that is actual would be possible. Therefore the goal (Gegenstand) of all moral strife can also be represented as identification of duty and right. For, if every action to which a free being had a right were at the same time his duty, then his free actions would not presuppose any other norm than that of the moral law. For that reason in particular, the highest goal toward which the constitutions of states (which are based on the concept of duty and right) must work can be only that identification of the rights and duties of each single individual. If every individual were governed only by laws of reason, then in the state there would be no rights at all that would not at the same time be duties, for nobody would claim the right to any action not possible except by a universally valid maxim, and no individual would have in mind any but his own duty if all individuals were to follow only universally valid maxims. If all individuals fulfilled their duties, no one individual could demand more than what would already be realized by the general fulfillment of duty, not would he have any right to more. Right ceases as soon as its corresponding duty is fulfilled, for possibility is valid only as long as it is not set aside by actuality, and he who is in possession of actuality (the fulfilled duty) worries no more about possibility (his right). This idea was also

the basis of Plato's republic since in it also everything that was practically possible was to become actual, and everything that was practically actual was to be possible. For that reason all coercion was to cease, because coercion of a being is needed only if that being has deprived himself of practical possibility. Suppression of the practical possibility in a subject is force, since practical possibility is conceivable only through ItertIoni.'"

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freedom which is based only on its own being and which it has only inasmuch as it is simply I, excluding in its very origin all not-I. This absolute freedom of the I is comprehensible \ only through itself. An absolute I that excludes all not-I has absolute freedom in that very respect, and that freedom ceases to be incomprehensible as soon as the I is removed from the sphere of all objects, and thus also from the sphere of all objective causality. But to transfer the I into the sphere of objectivity, and yet to attribute to it causality through freedom seems a risky enterprise. The question here is not about the absolute freedom of the absolute I (§ 8), for that freedom is realized simply by itself, since it is the very causality of the I by which it simply posits itself as I. For the I is I only inasmuch as it is posited by itself, that is, by absolute causality. Thus the I, by positing itself, simultaneously posits its absolute, unconditional causality. In contrast, the freedom of the empirical I cannot possibly realize itself, because the empirical I as such does not exist through itself, [235] through its own free causality.(Neither could this freedom of the empirical I be absolute, as is the freedom of the absolute I, because the latter simply posits the mere reality of the I, whereas the causality of the freedom of the empirical I ought first to produce the absolute reality of the I\;, The freedom of the absolute I is by itself and is absolutely nonfinite, but the freedom of the empirical I is empirically infinite, because to produce an absolute reality is an empirically infinite task. The freedom of the absolute I is absolutely immanent, for it is only inasmuch as the I is pure I and is under no necessity to step out of itself. The freedom of the empirical I is determinable only as transcendental freedom, that is, as a freedom which is actual only in relation to objects, although not through them. The problem of transcendental freedom has continually had the sad fate of being always misunderstood and always brought up again. Indeed, even after the Critique of Pure Reason has shed so much light on it, the real point in dispute does not yet seem to be fixed sharply enough. The real issue was never the possibility of absolute freedom, for the very concept of an absolute excludes any determination by an extraneous causality. Absolute freedom is nothing other than the absolute determination of the unconditional by the sheer (natural) laws of its own being; it is the unconditional's independence of all laws that do not spring from its own essence, of all (moral) laws that would posit something in it which had not already been posited by virtue of its own being, through its being posited as such. Philosophy had either to deny the absolute altogether or, having conceded it, had also to grant it absolute freedom. The real issue never was the absolute but only transcendental freedom, that is, the freedom of an empirical I conditioned by objects. It is not incomprehensible that an absolute I should have freedom. The problem is how an empirical I could ,



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have. freedom. It was not how an intellectual I* could be intellectual, that is, could be absolutely free, but rather how it is [236] possible that an empirical I could at the same time be intellectual, that is, could have causality through freedom. The empirical I exists only with and through objects. But objects alone could never produce an I. The empirical I owes the fact that it is empirical to objects, but it owes the fact that it is an I at all to a higher causality. In a system which asserts the reality of things in themselves, even the empirical I is incomprehensible; for the positing of an absolute not-I as antecedent to any I does away with every meaning of absolute I. Consequently, one can no longer understand how even an empirical I can be produced by those objects. Nor can such a system even speak of the transcendental freedom of an empirical I. But if the I is posited as absolute, excluding all [absolute] not-I, then not only does an absolute causality belong to it, but also it becomes comprehensible how an empirical I can be real, and how there can be a real transcendental freedom in it. The empirical I is I owing to the same causality through which the absolute I is I. It owes nothing to the objects except its limitations and the finiteness of its own causality. Thus the causality of the empirical I differs from the causality of the absolute I not at all in principle (in quality) but only in quantity. That its causality is causality by freedom it owes to its causality's identity with the absolute causality; that [237] it is transcendental (empirical**) freedom its owes only to its causality's finiteness. Thus, in the principle from which it proceeds, it is absolute freedom, and only when it meets its own limitations does it become transcendental, that is, freedom of an empirical I. Consequently, this freedom of the empirical I is comprehensible only owing to its identity with absolute freedom. Therefore no objective proofs' can reach it, for this freedom does indeed pertain to the I in regard to objects, but only inasmuch as it is contained in the absolute causality of the 'Kant remarks very correctly that the expression intellectual pertains only to insights (Erkenntnisse) and that the mere content (Gegenstand) of such insights should be called intelligible."' This remark is directed against dogmatism and its opinion that it can know intelligible objects (Objekte) which, therefore, it should not call intellectual. Criticism (at least consistent criticism) does not need that differentiation because it does not admit intelligible objects at all, and because it attributes intellectuality only to that which cannot become object at all, to the absolute I. In the absolute I, which can never become an object, the princtpium essendi and cognoscendi [the principle of being and of being known] coincide. For that reason one must apply the expression intellectual to the I as well as to the intuition thereof. In contrast, the empirical I can be called intelligible, inasmuch as its causality is contained in the causality of the absolute. It is intelligible because it must be regarded, on the one hand, as an object, on the other as determinable by absolute causality. **As has been pointed out before, in the footnote to §6, the word empirical is ordinarily used in a much narrower sense.

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[239,240]

• 'Anybody who so far as been following the trend of this investigation can readily see its difference from Reinhold's theory of freedom. The latter has great merits, but in his system (which starts frirthe merely empirical 1) that theory remains incomprehensible. And it would lir hard, even for as keen an author as lie is, to give unity to his system, and adequately to connect it with his theory of freedom, by Means of the highest principle (which should not

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quantity.

possible only in the finite I (because the finite I alone can be aware that it ought to seek identity with the nonfinite), does not aim at absolute negation of all objects, constitutively. But imperatively it aims at a conditional negation of objects, which is to be brought about empirically, progressively)Tflus it aims at the absolute causality of the I, though not as something categorically posited, yet still as something that ought to be attained. But such demands can be made only of a causality which differs from absolute causality merely by its limitations. By negation of these (5 limitations, this limited causalityught to attain in itself what absolute causality as such posits absolutely.*)

OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

[239] Even though a transcendental causality of the empirical I is quite comprehensible if it is the nonfinite itself conceived under the conditions of finiteness, yet, since the empirical I has only phenomenal reality and stands under the same law of conditionality as do all phenomena, a new question arises: how can the transcendental causality of the empirical I (as determined by absolute causality) agree with the natural causality of the (me I? In a system which asserts the reality of things in themselves, this question cannot be answered at all; it cannot even be asked. or the system that posits an absolute not-I antecedent to all I therewith negates the absolute I* and cannot know anything about an absolute freedom of the I, let alone a transcendental freedom. When a system is inconsistent enough to declare, on the one hand, that- ere are things in themselves and, on the other, thattere is a transcendental freedom of the I, then it can never make comprehensible the agreement of the causality of nature with the causality through freedom, not even by means of a preestablished harmony„_;Such a harmony cannot unite two absolutely contrary absolutes, [240] which would be necessary since two items are asserted—an absolute not-I on the one hand and, on the other, an empirical I which is incomprehensible without an absolute. However, if the objects themselves receive reality only through the absolute I (as the essence of all reality) and therefore exist only in and with ' the empirical I (whose causality as such is possible only through the causality of the nonfinite and differs from it not in quality but only in quantity) then every causality of the empirical I is at the same time a

absolute I. Nevertheless, it does not create its own reality since, as transcendental freedom, it is actual only in the empirical I, and nothing empirical realizes itself.ESince it is possible only through absolute causality, it is realizable in the empirical I only throughsorule fact, any fact by which it is posited as identical with the absolute freedom.; However, the empirical I is actual only through the limitation of the absolute, that is, through the _ y suspension (Aufhebung) of it as an absolute. Therefore, insofar as the empirical I is considered only in relation to objects as limits of the absolute (theoretical philosophy), its causality cannot at all be conceived as identical with the absolute( If the latter is to happen, then the causality of the empirical I must be conceived not in relation to objects but in relation ,je to the_ragaiion of all objects. For the negation of objects is precisely the point of agreement between absolute and transcendental freedom). For, although empirical freedom can aim only at empirical negation (an empirically produced negation) of objects, and not at the absolute negation of objects which the causality of the absolute I demands, still both coincide in the negation. Yet if this kind of causation on the part of the empirical I can be shown, then also shown is the fact that it does not differ from the absolute causality in its form or its principle but only in quantity (through its limitations). Absolute causality cannot be posited .categorically in the empirical I, else it would cease [238] to be empirical, therefore it can be posited in it only impratively, by a law which demands the negation of all objects, that is, demands absolute freedom. And K i Absolute causality can be demanded only by a causality which itself is not absolute freedom yet does not differ from the absolute in quality, only in rhus transcendental freedom is realized not only through the form of t moral law,'" but also through its matter or the moral law, which is



3'

only form its basis but also rule in every one of its parts). A completed science shuns all philosophical artifices by which the I itself, so to speak, is taken apart and split into faculties which are not thinkable under any common principle of unity. The completed science does not aim at dead faculties that have no reality and exist only in artificial abstractions. It aims/.; rather at the living unity of the I, which is the same in all manifestations of its action. In that science all the different faculties and actions that philosophy has ever named become one faculty only, one action of the one and the same identifical I. Even theoretical philosophy is possible only in regard to the same causality of the I that is realized in practical philosophy, because its serves only to prepare the practical philosophy, and [adequately] to secure the objects proper to that causality of the I which practical philosophy determines. Finite creatures must exist in order that the nonfinite may manifest its reality in the actual world [Wirklichkeit]. All finite action aims at this manifestation of the nonfinite reality in actuality. And the only purpose of theoretical philosophy is to designate this domain of actuality for the practical causality and, in a way, to survey its boundaries. Theoretical philosophy is concerned with actuality 1Wirklichkeiti only in order that practical causality may have a domain in which that manifestation of nonfinite reality and a solution of its infinite task are possible.'" 'It is impossible that two absolutes should stand side by side. If the not-I is posited as absolutely antecedent to t he I, the I can be contrasted with it only as absolute negation. Two absolutes cannot possibly be contained (ii such in any synthesis, whether it precedes or supplements them, Fot t hat reason also, if t he I is posited as antecedent to all not I, the latter cannot be posited in any synthesis as absolute (as thing in itself).""

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causality of objects which likewise owe their reality only to the essence of all reality, to the I. Thus we [too] arrive at a principle of preestablished harmony which, however, is only immanent, and is.sletermined only in the absolute I. Because a causality of the empirical I is possible only within the causality of the absolute I, and because the objects likewise receive their reality only through the absolute reality of the I, the absolute I is the common center in which lies the principle of their harmony. The causality of objects harmonizes with the causality of the empirical I for the single reason that they exist only in and with the empirical I. But that they exist only in and with the empirical I stems from the one fact that both the objects and the empirical I owe their reality solely to the nonfinite reality of the absolute I. Through just that preestablished harmony we are now able to understand the necessary harmony between morality and bliss (Gluckseligkeit). Since pure bliss, which is the only thing in question here, aims at the identification of the not-I and the I, and since objects as such are actual only as modifications of the absolute reality of the I, every increase in the reality of the I (every moral progress) is a reduction of the empirical limitations and an approach to identity with absolute reality, that is, to the total dissolution of the limitations. Since there is no imperative for the absolute I, no practical possibility, then, if the finite could ever fulfill its entire task, the law of freedom (of the imperative) would attain the form of a law of nature (of being). And vice versa, since then the law [241] of the finite's being would have become constitutive only through freedom, and this law itself would inherently be a law of freedom. * Therefore, the ultimate to which philosophy leads is not an objective but an immanent principle of preestablished harmony, in which freedom and nature are identical,"° and this principle is nothing but the absolute I, from which all philosophy has emanated. Just as there are no possibility, no necessity, and no contingency for the nonfinite I, so likewise it does not know of any purposes to be attained (Zweckverknupfung) in the world. If, for the nonfinite I, there were any mechanism or any technique of nature, then, for that I, technique would be* mechanism and mechanism would be technique, that is, both would coincide in its absolute being. Accordingly, even the theoretical inquiry •Through this we can answer the question as to which is the I that ought to progress in infinity. The answer is: the empirical I, which, however, does not progress in the intelligible world since, if it were in the intelligible world, it would cease to be the empirical I. In that world everything is absolute unity, and no progress, no finiteness is conceivable in it. Though the finite I is t only through intelligible causality,'" yet, as a finite being and as long as it is finite, it is determinable as to its existence only in the empirical world. To be sure, the finite being, whose causality is in line with the nonfinite. can always expand the limits of its finitude more and more but since this progression faces infinity, an unending expansion is possible, for if it were to stop anywhere, infinity itself would have to have limits.

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must regard the teleological as mechanical, and the mechanical as teleological, and both as comprehended in one principle of unity, although nowhere realizable (as an object). 122 Y et the inquiry must presuppose that unity, in order to comprehend the unity of the two contrasting principles (the mechanical and the teleological) — which is impossible in the objects themselves—in one principle that is sublimely above all objects. Just as practical reason is compelled to unify the contrast between laws of freedom and laws of nature in a higher principle in which freedom itself is nature and nature freedom,* so must theoretical [242] reason in its teleological use come upon a higher principle in which finality and mechanism coincide,** but which, on that very account, cannot be determinable as an object at all. What is absolute harmony for the absolute I is for the finite I elicited harmony, and the principle of unity is for the former the constitutive principle of immanent unity but for the latter only a regulative principle of objective unity which ought to become immanent. Therefore the finite I ought to strive to elicit in the world that which is actuality in the nonfinite, and which is man's highest vocation — to turn the unity of aims in the world into mechanism, and to turn mechanism into a unity of aims.

[In an anticritique in the Intelligenzblatt zur Allgemeinen LiteraturZeitung of the year 1796, Schelling speaks of the aim of the treatise Vom Ich as follows:] The purpose of the author was none other than the following: to liberate philosophy from that stagnation into which it had unavoidably to lapse owing to ill-fated inquiries into a first principle of philosophy. He wanted to prove that true philosophy can start only from free actions, and that abstract principles as the mainstay of this science could lead only to the death of all philosophy. The question as to which (abstract) principle could furnish the starting point for philosophy seemed to him unworthy of

*Thus it becomes clear how and why teleology can be the connecting link between theoretical and practical reason.'" **Spinoza, too, wanted mechanism and finality of causes to be thought of, in the absolute principle, as contained in the same unity. But since he determined the absolute as an absolute object, he could never make comprehensible why it is that teleological unity in the finite intelligence can be determined only by the ontological unity in the nonfinite thinking of the absolute substance. And Kant is quite right when he says that Spinozism does not accomplish what Spinoza wants. Perhaps there have never been so many deep thoughts compressed into so few pages as in the critique of teleological judgment, 76. I Read the entire 76 (Cass. 5:479401; Bernard 219 53).1

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a free man who knows his own self. Since the author considers philosophy as a pure product of a free man, or as an act of freedom [243] he believes that he has higher conceptions of it than many a tearful philosopher who thought he had found the lack of unanimity among professors to be the cause of the atrocities of the French Revolution and of all unhappiness of mankind, and who wanted to remedy this unhappiness with an empty and futile principle in which he imagined philosophy to be contained as though in a box. The author believes that man was born to act, not to speculate, and that therefore his first step into philosophy must manifest the arrival of a free human being. Therefore he thought very little of written philosophy and even less of a speculative principle as a mainstay of the science. Still less does he think of a universally valid philosophy, a philosophy of which only a wiseacre should boast who, like Lessing's windmill, lives in friendship with all 32 winds. However, since the philosophical public seemed to have ears only for first principles, his own first principle in regard to his readers had to be a mere postulate. It demands the same free action as that with which, as he is convinced, all philosophizing must begin. The first postulate of all Izhilosoplly, to act free' seemed to him as necessary as the first postulate of geometry, to raw a straight line. just as little_ as the master of geometry_ proves the straight line should the_philosophex try to prove freedom. Philosophy itself is only an idea whose realization the philosopher can expect alone from practical reason. Therefore, philosophy must remain incomprehensible and even ridiculous as long as the student remains incapable of rising to ideas and also fails to learn from Kant that ideas are goals (Gegenstande) not of idle speculation but of free action, that the entire realm of ideas has reality only for the moral activity of man, and that man may not find any further objects where he himself begins to create and to make real. No wonder, then, that in the hands of a man who wants to determine ideas theoretically [i.e., as objects] anything that goes beyond the table of categories, and especially the idea of the absolute, is the same to him as some story of ]244] No-one-at-all. And at the spot where others first feel really free, he is confronted with a big void which he does not know how to fill, and which leaves him with no consciousness other than of his own vacancy of mind— proof only that his mind has never learned to act freely nor to reflect on itself, and that he can maintain his own place among minds only by means of a mechanical kind of thinking.

Translator's Notes 1. Schelling is referring to the full title of Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics Which Will Be Able to Come Forth as Science. See Beck, p. vii.

2. Jakob Sigismund Beck (1761-1840) studied under Kant. The first part of his

Explanatory Summary of Kant's Critical Writings (Erlduternder Auszug aus Kants kritischen Schrzften) was printed 1793 in Riga, by Kant's own publisher, Hartknoch, to whom Kant

himself had recommended Beck as a commentator. See Kant's letter of September 27, 1791, to Beck (Cass. 10:97). 3. Kant himself was well aware of the "obligation to proceed systematically," as he says on the last page of the PuR (884; Smith 668 f.), and he cited "the celebrated Wolff as a representative" of the dogmatic procedure, and Hume of the skeptical. He said "the critical path alone is still open. If the reader has had the courtesy to accompany me along this path, he may now judge for himself. . .whether it may not be possible to achieve before the end of the present century what many centuries have not been able to accomplish." In 1790 he restated the task in that crucial sentence at the end of section 2 of the Introduction to Cr]: "There must be a ground of the unity of the supersensible which lies at the basis of nature, with that which the concept of freedom practically contains" (Cass. 5:244; Bernard 12). In 1787 he said of it in the preface to the first Critique: "It is a treatise on the method, not a system of the science itself' (xxii; Smith 25). And in its Introduction he called the book "the propaedeutic to the system of pure reason" (25; Smith 59). In a letter of September 21, 1798, to his friend Christian Garve he lamented that, "though being physically fairly well," he was as if "paralyzed for intellectual work. It is a Tantalic torture, though not without hope, to know the feasibility of the task, and to see before me the plenary conclusion of my account in matters which concern the whole of philosophy (in regard to both purpose and means) and yet never to see it completed" (Cass. 10:351). 4. On October 6, 1793, while still in Zurich, Fichte wrote to his friend Niethammer: 'It is my most fervent conviction that Kant merely intimated the truth but neither presented nor proved it. This marvelous, unique man either has the gift of divination by which he knows the truth without knowing its grounds, or else he did not think well enough of this age and therefore did not want to communicate what he knew, or perhaps he did not want to attract, while still alive, the superhuman veneration which sooner or later must be bestowed on him. . . .There is only one original fact in the human mind; it will furnish the ground for a comprehensive philosophy and for its two branches, theoretical and practical. Kant surely knows it but he has nowhere expressed it. He who finds it will present philosophy as a science" (Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Lehen and literarischer Briclivechsel, edited by his son Immanuel Hermann Fichte jLeipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1862j, 2:431 1.). Of course Schelling did not know this letter. On September 26, 1794, he sent Fichte his essay On the Pas.sibtlity of a Form of All Philosophy (ibid. 296 f.). And on January 6 (Epiphany), 1795, he wrtar I fee that Fichte had seat him the fascicles of Fichte's Grundlage zur Gesammten Wissenst haltslehre, whic h was it) c ome out in book Ito in by Easter 1795 (Plitt

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1:73 f.). In the Grundage (1:119) Fichte wrote: "The essence of critical philosophy consists in this, that an absolute I is set forth as wholly unconditioned and not determinable by any higher entity; and when this philosophy unfolds this principle consistently it becomes Wissenschaftslehre. In contrast, a philosophy is dogmatic when it equates or opposes aything to the I as such; and this occurs owing to the ostensibly higher concept of a thing (Ens) which is set up, quite arbitrarily, as the highest conception. Insofar as dogmatism can be consistent, Spinozism is its most consistent product" (cf. Heath 117). Meanwhile Schelling had discovered that independently. In 1797 Fichte wrote: "I know very well that Kant did not set up such a [criticall system. . .But I believe I know with equal certainty that Kant conceived such a system. . .There are hints that he did not want to present it" (1:478; cf. Heath 51). 5. Ethics 2, proposition XLIII, scholion. (See n. 44 below; cf. Wild 189.) Cf. Augustine (de vera rel. 39.72): Illuc ergo tende unde ipsum lumen rationis accenditur. 6. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Uber die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn (Werke 4:72): "In my opinion it is the greatest merit of the scholar to unveil and reveal what is" (Dasein zu enthiillen and offenbaren). "For him an explanation is a means, a way to the goal, but never the ultimate goal. His final goal is what cannot be explained, the indissoluble, the immediate, the simple." 7. As the title of Schelling's essay indicates, this is the I of which Fichte said: As I, "I am only for myself. Said about the I and by the I, to posit oneself and to be are identically the same." As I, "I am absolutely because I am, and I am absolutely what I am, both for myself' (1:98; cf. Heath 99). Schelling's expression "das unmittelbare nur sich selbst Gegenwartige im Menschen" may remind the reader of Augustine's summons to the mind or the self not to seek itself as if absent but to discern itself as present. De trinitate 10.ix.12: Non itaque velut absentem se quaerat cernere, sed praesentem se curet discernere. . . .Sed cum dicitur menti: Cognosce te ipsam, eo ictu quo intellegit quod dictum est te zpsam cognoscit se ipsam, nec ob aliud quam eo quod sibi praesens est. (Cf. n. 21.) 8. PuR said: "The proposition 'I think,' insofar as it amounts to the assertion, 'I exist as thinking,' is no mere logical function, but determines the subject (which is then at the same time object) in respect to its existence" (429; Smith 382. Also see n. 76 below). 9. Obviously referring to the problem of teleology in Crf (Cass. 5:435 ff.; Bernard 205 ff.). 10.

This paragraph sounds as if Schelling had transcribed what he says from the first pages of Augustine's Soliloquies (1.i.2 and 3), whose sentences I here arrange in the order of Schelling's clauses: Deus per quem omnia quae per se non essent tendunt esse. Te invoco, Deus Veritas, in quo et a quo et per quem vera sunt quae vera sunt omnia. Deus Sapientia, in quo et a quo et per quem sapiunt quae sapiunt omnia. Deus intelligibilis Lux, in quo et a quo et per quem intelligibiliter lucent quae intelligibiliter lucent omnia. Deus cuius regnum est lotus mundus. . .Deus de cuius regno lex etiam in ista regna describitur. . . .Deus, I have no evidence that Schelling knew the Soliloquies. universitatis conditor. I I. This sounds exactly like Parmenides: -td yap aim!) vosiv to-utv Ti xai avat (Diels, vosi'v TE fragment 5; Plotinus 5.i.8) Or, in Parmenides' didactic poem yvatryOv cAsxsv vifelaa (Diels, fr. 8, 34; Hegel 13:296). Hegel's German formulation, translated into English, reads: "Thinking, and that for the sake of which thought is, are the same. For you will not find thinking without the being in which it expresses itself (manifests itself, is Ws stoyecia•lvov 'Ea-y(0." Hegel comments: "Genuine philosophizing started with Parmenides" (13:296 f.). 12. I legel continues: "Thinking produces itself; what is produced is a thought. Therefore thinking is identical with its being, for there is nothing outside of being, this great affirmation. Plotinus, in expounding this, says 'that Parmenides took this view insofar as he did not posit being in the sensuous things' " (Ennead 5.i.8; Brehier ed. 5.26.14 f.): lac •cturyb

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auvfly -ev 5v Rai voCiv, xa

8v °six iv Toffy a cerrrok t-cfeeTo Brehier says for ouvrIrxv "il reduisait a ]'unite." I should prefer to say: "he posited in one and the same act being and thought." Schelling's reminder that "this ultimate must not search for its own real ground in something other" calls to mind Augustine's de vera religione 39.72: cum ad seipsam veritas non utique ratiocinando perveniat, sed quod ratiocinantes appetunt, iposa sit. "Truth does not come to itself by ratiocination but is what argufiers seek." Cf. also Dante: Paradiso, xi: 1-3. 13. Cf. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica Pt 1. Q.3. art. 5. 14. For this reason every empiricist epistemology must dispute the reality of knowledge and eventually lead to skepticism. 15. This is the valid reason for the objectivistic declaration that God is unknowable, a declaration that leads either to skepticism or to the postulate of revelation. 16. The second is the idealism, the third the realism of the textbooks. 17. Textbook idealism hypothetically assumes an entity called mind and, as does any other hypothesis, this one too induces the student's question What kind of thing is this mind? —sed qualis res? (Descartes Meditatio II). Res means a real entity. But the Duc de Luynes translated res as une chose, and English translators followed suit, writing thing. Then Descartes' distinction between modes of reality falls flat. Mind is not a thing but an act. 18. In the self insofar as it is at all accessible as an object of psychology. 19. Schelling's sentence speaks of "original languages," urspriingliche Spraechen, a term current in German Romanticism. I refer to Fichte's entire fourth Address to the German Nation (1808). He says, "the words of such a language, in all its parts, are life and create life" (7:319). Originally, "language is no mediate product of arbitrary will but, as an immediate natural power, it breaks forth from intelligent life" (7:318). In 1813 he spoke of a "language ready made from being and intelligible from being" (4;485), not artificially affixed to extraneous entities by arbitrary will and intelligible only by schoolish explanations to be memorized by rote. This may not be readily understood by an English-speaking reader who does not share the belief of those German Romantics, who held that to know the German language means also to have an alive awareness of the meaning of its roots. Of course this is not so. The average German, like any human being, uses his language without giving a thought to the original and indeed revealing meanings of the roots of words. Only the educated person reminds himself of those meanings. The average writer of English spells by rote and does not say it is obvious that I must spell r-i-g-h-t because it is the same root as German Recht, and r-i-t-e because it was the Latin ritus. Nevertheless, those Romantics rightly sensed a difference between specific languages for, as my two examples show, even the educated English speaker and writer is less close to the root meanings of his words than a linguistically sensitive German who, without schooling, has a kind of innate feeling for Germanic roots. Fichte explains this by historic continuity without such breaks as that caused by the Norman conquest. But to go back to Schelling's paragraph, which furnishes an illustration of this matter of roots. In my translation I have used the verb to determine for bedingen, and the adjective conditional for bedingt. Now, when we speak of the reciprocal determination of subject and object, how readily do we think of the root word terminus? It means the end, e.g., of the road, like the main railroad terminal of Rome, Roma Termini, end of all lines. Yet we do use the word term in exactly that sense, end of the investigation, stop at some technical term. Once you have determined what a thing is, you have a term for it, e.g., atom, that which cannot be cut, or anatomy, the cutting into (a corpse). Now for Schelling's example. Ding is a thing, as even a non-German ear can tell us. And to determine, in scholarly language, means to set the limits of the thing which is under consideration, to delimit it, even to define it. Limes means boundary. Finis means end, as in land's end, lints terme, e.g., at Cap Finisterre. No thing determines or conditions itself; it requires surrounding things for that. Cutoff/1w tomes from du up, W1111'11 111e41111 11111111111011,

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sovereignty, authority, control, rule. And it is the surrounding things which control the sway of any given thing. Each has its own jurisdiction, one might say. The unconditional is what does not depend on anything outside of it and is absolutely authoritative. Cf. n. 86. 20. In this respect Schelling, as does every true philosopher, agrees with the empiricist's objection to the kind of rationalist who will take essence for existence. Only in the case of God are essence and existence identical. See Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentiles 1.22 and Summa Theologica 1. q3. a4. Kant could agree; see Fritz Marti, "Aquinas and Kant on the Identity of Essence and Existence," in Proceedings of the Lewis and Clark Philosophy Conference on Aquinas and Kant, May 1974. 21. The word causality, of course, does not mean Kant's category of cause, which "constitutes" objects. Rather it recalls Spinoza's causa sut on the first line of his Ethics, with which Schelling was very familiar. The entire paragraph is a rewording of sentences in Fichte's Grundlage of the summer of 1794, whose first fascicles gave Schelling courage to join the discussion. (See n. 7 above). What is objectionable is the fact that both of them use the pronoun it when they refer to the self or I. Perhaps one should not even try to present the case in writing, but should merely challenge the reader with the question: "Just exactly what do you mean when you say I?" A clearly thinking reader could reply: "I mean myself as this thinking I which in no way can be turned into an it." And, instead of saying with Augustine that he is sibi praesens (present to himself), he should say sum mihi praesens (I am nothing but present to myself). He certainly must not look for an objective mind in himself. In 1798 Schelling wrote that "for most people the greatest obstacle to a vivid understanding of philosophy is their insuperable opinion that one must look for the object of philosophy at some infinite distance; thus it happens that when they are supposed to look at what is present they spend every effort of their mind on creating some object with which the philosophical investigation is not at all concerned" (2:377). Augustine said: Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi; in interiore homine habitat veritas (Do not go outside, go back into yourself; in the inner man dwells truth). (De vera religione 39.72.) 22. In German, condition is Bedingung. Given the proper conditions, the respective thing (Ding) will exist. Taking liberties with English, let us say that a thing is a thing because it is "thingified" (bedingt) by the conditions or "thingifiers." In contrast, the I is "unconditionable" (unbedingbar), since it does not depend on outward conditions but posits itself. The word itself, of course, is quite improper, because I am no it at all, though objectifying talk will turn the first-person pronoun I into a noun, the I. 23. Schelling may have in mind the emphatic formulation of Descartes on the second page of the Second Meditation: statuendum sit hoc pronuntiatum: ego sum, ego existo, quoties a me profertur vel mente concipitur, necessario esse verum. I am trying to retain the emphasis by translating that we must "establish this axiom that the proposition /am, I exist is necessarily true each time I mean my own self when I pronounce it, or know that I mean my own self when I have the proposition in mind." The Duc de Luynes translated "il faut conclure," and Ralph M. Eaton (Descartes. Selections [New York: Scribner's, 1927), p. 97) wrote "we must come to the definite conclusion." These translations are not wrong, but their word conciusUm, which refers to what preceded, could induce the careless reader to think of the misleading ergo so often quoted. It is true that later, in the Response to the Second Objections, Descartes did write cogito ergo sum, but he did so while warning the reader that /IT "whosoever says I think, therefore I am or exist, does not deduce existence from cogitation by a syllogism, but rather acknowledges the existence as a reality known by itself, by a simple mental intuition." Descartes' own words are: neque cum quis dicit, ego cogito, ergo sum, sive exists, existentiam ex cogitatione per syllogismum deducit, sed tanquam rem per se notam simplici mentis intuitu agnoscit. Later, in the Second Meditation, Descartes wrote: "That it is 1 who doubt, understand, will, is so manifest that nothing could occur by which it could be unfolded more evidently." (See his Latin in n.76 below.) Long before this Augustine had

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pointed out the reason: "When the mind is told 'know yourself,' it knows itself by the very stroke by which it understands, what is meant by "yourself," and for no other reason than that the mind is present to itself' (De trinitate 10.ix,12: Cum dicitur menti "Cognosce te ipsam," eo ictu quo intellegit quod dictum est "te ipsam" cognoscit se ipsam, nec ob aliud quam eo quod sibi praesens est). As I, I am present to myself, and nothing is more evident than the awareness of this fact, which strikes me the moment the meaning of you yourself strikes me. In Fichte's pithy formulation of 1794, "the I is for the I" (Grundlage der Wissenschaftslehre, 1:97 f. Heath used a noun, p. 99: "The self exists for the self. . . .I exist only for myself." Meaning, of course, I as I, not the empirirical individual.) 24. Adopting the artifice of n. 22 and saying "to thingify" for bedingen, I could translate: "Therefore whatever is posited only as thingified is conceivable only through that which is no thing at all but is unthingifiable." 25. The date of the preface indicated that the treatise Of the I was finished March 29, 1795. In the letter of February 4 that Schelling wrote to Hegel he said: "It seems to me that the essential difference between critical and dogmatic philosophy lies in this, that the critical starts from the absolute I (not yet conditioned by any object) and the dogmatic from the absolute object or not-I. (In its highest consistency, the latter leads to the system of Spinoza, the former to that of Kant) Philosophy must take its start from the unconditional. The question is simply where this unconditional lies, in the I or in the not-I. If this question is answered, everything is decided. For me the highest principle of all philosophy is the pure, absolute I, that is, the I insofar as it is nothing but I, not yet conditioned by any objects, but posited by freedom. The A and 0 of all philosophy is freedom." And, using the phrase theoretical reason in the Kantian sense of reason concerned with objects, Schelling adds: "What was impossible for theoretical reason (as it is weakened by the object) is accomplished by practical reason. However in the latter we can find nothing but our absolute I, for this ." alone circumscribes the nonfinite sphere. For us there is no supersensuous world except that of the absolute I. God is nothing but the absolute I, the I insofar as it annihilates everything theoretical." (Schelling writes "das Ich insofern es Alles theoretisch zernichtet hat." This looks like a slip of his pen, or a simple mistake of the printer. It is my conjecture that Schelling meant "alles Theoretische," that is, every mere object.) Schelling continues: "Therefore in theoretical philosophy the absolute I is nothing." Every consistent "theoretical," i.e., objectivistic, philosophy must discover that there is no such object as an absolute I, or God. In Dogm Schelling will declare that the discovery (made by Kant) is shared by dogmatist and criticist alike. In his letter to Hegel he continues: "Personality springs from the unity of consciousness. But consciousness is not possible without an object. However, for God, that is, for the absolute I there exists no object at all, for with an object it would cease to be absolute. Consequently there is no personal God" (Plitt 1:76f). In January 1795 Hegel had referred to Schelling's letter, written at Epiphany, in which Schelling had sarcastically said of the Kantians in Tilbingen: "It is a joy to see how they pull at the moral proof as at a string; in the twinkling of an eye the deus ex machina jumps forth, that personal, individual being which sits up there, in heaven!" Hegel wrote that he did not quite understand that passage and asked: "Do you believe we cannot reach that far?" (Werke [Leipzig, 18871 19:13). And Schelling replied: "My answer is that we reach farther than the personal being" (Plitt 1:76). j Since to be conscious means to distinguish the I from some not-I, the clause "not yet conditioned by any object" means "before consciousness." Between 1828 and 1842 Schelling wrote: "One cannot ask how consciousness comes to God. Its very first movement is not a movement which seeks the God, but a movement which withdraws from Him. Therefore the God inheres in it a priori, that is, before its actual motion, or it inheres in its essence" (12:120). Cf. n.74 to Dogm. Schelling seldom uses the phrase "the God." Here it may he an abbreviation for "the true God" whom the aged Schelling distinguishes from "the real God," (For instance, 11:176 and

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212.) The latter has historical reality, occurring in the minds of believers and therefore taking as many shapes as there are believers. In the mind of the believer his own "real God" stands for "the true God" as, obviously, it does for Paul in 1 Cor. 8:5. 26. Once God is defined as substance (Eth. 1. def. vi ) and shown as not acting freely (1. prop. XXXII, cor. ii), that is, as absolute object, then to say that God loves Himself with an infinite intellectual love (5. XXXV) must mean that the love with which God loves Himself is the intellectual love for God harbored by the mind (5. XXXVI), which is res cogitans (2. def. iii), that is, self-aware I. Vice versa, this I is maximally occupied by its love for the not-I (5. XVI) and knows itself to be in that objectified God and to be known by God (5. XXX). To be sure, at that moment, God proves to be the absolute I, that is, the substance which is defined as "what is in itself and is perceived by itself' (1. def. iii). Hegel would call this a dialectical transition into the opposite. 27. Schelling's words den Weg zur Wissenschaft presumably refer to two literary facts, first to the full title of Kant's Prolegomena "to every future metaphysics which can stand up as a science" and, second, to Fichte's term Wissenschaftslehre, coined 1794 as a substitute for the too-vague word philosophy (1:44 f.). Fichte's term meant the systematic and critical study of what a science is, as science. Philosophy could mean the same, but it could also include an uncritical dogmatism. Our twentieth-century dogmatists still seek the unconditional in some objective entity and thus "elevate the not-I" to the dignity of the absolute I, and demean the latter to a psychological entity, that is, to a not-I. 28. This is the system of those Kantians who believe that Kant was no more than a mere continuator of empiricism. 29. Schelling is referring to Karl Leonhard Reinhold's Versuch einer neuen Theorie des menschlichen Vorstellungsvermdgens Uena, 1789). 30. This, in Fichtean language, is Kant's doctrine taken in its narrowest sense; the categories of reason constitute the objectivity of things. 31. For instance, Fichte's second theorem, that there is no awareness of I without the simultaneous distinction from some not-I (Grundlage, 1:104, item 10; Heath 104,10). 32. In his letter of February 4, 1795, to Hegel, Schelling wrote: "The A and 0 of all philosophy is freedom." (See n. 25.)33. As earlyas 1792, in the Recension des A enesidemus, Fichte wrote!' "The I is what it is, and because it is, for the I" (1:16). In the essay of 1794, Ober den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, he said: "I am, because I am" (1:69). In the same year, in the Grundlage, he wrote: "The I posits itself, and it is owing to this sheer positing by ifself. . . .As soon as it posits itself, it is; and because it is, it posits itself' (1:96 f.). Fichte enjoyed a lifelong reputation as an effective orator, and he well knew the principle of effective teaching. In his ldeen fur die innere Organisation der Universitdt Erlangen, 1805/6, he wrote: "The entire presentation in the classroom must be changed from the form of an unbroken argument which it has in a book and be transformed into back and forth discussion" (11:278). But since he seldom had fewer than 200 students in his class, it required Fichte's imperious presence to bring about in the student mind that silent discussion with the lecturer which alone can produce understanding, particularly the understanding of the nature of I. Heinrich Steffens attended a class of Fichte's in 1798, and he relates that Fichte started by saying: "Gentlemen, get hold of yourselves; observe yourself, for we speak of nothing outward but only of your selves." Steffens reports that the students would either sit up alertly, or bend in contempation. Then Fichte said: "Gentlemen, think the wall- Have you thought the wall? - Now think the one who has thought the wall!" (Fritz Medicus, Fichtes Leben 'Leipzig, 1922], p. 78). Even in print the summons may help the reader realize what the concern is. For many, the physical presence of the teacher and the challenge of his voice seem indispensable and may count more than the mere choice of words. As for Fichte's words quoted above, the semantic purist ought to object, on more than mere grammatical grounds. "The 1 is" is not only had grammar but

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can be pedagogically misleading. Fichte himself knew it. Maybe he should have blamed himself rather than lampooning readers who did not understand him and of whom he said, in 1801: "They may have believed that such a pure I, identical with itself and collapsing into itself, somewhat like a switchblade, must be looked for and found in the mind, somehow like the waffle iron of the categories of the Kantians. They busily looked for this switchblade, found none, and concluded that those who claim to have found it must have been mistaken" (2:365). (Cf. nn. 7 and 21.) 34. This is also the case of the empirical I. As the person I am, I am determined by my physical and historical circumstances. Hence the question: What is the ground of possibility of my autonomous self-determination? It is that question which leads to the "absolute I" - or God, as Schelling said in his letter to Hegel of February 4, 1795. (See n. 25.) It must be remembered, however, that Schelling, as a disciple of Kant, heeded Kant's warning against reifying the ens realissimum (PuR 633-36) which must not be "realisiert d.i. zum Object gemacht"(PuR 611 n.; not be made "real," i.e., not turned into an object) or personified. In 1802 Schelling wrote: "Owing to the relation of the absolute form to the essence, it is easy to see what alone can be the only true method of philosophy, that is, the method according to which everything is absolute, yet there is no Absolute" (4:406). We need not forbid ourselves the use of the word God, but we must know that "God is not Somebody" (Gott ist nicht Jemand) as my teacher Fritz Medicus used to say. See also page 118 of his book On Being Human (New York: Ungar, 1973). Later Gabriel Marcel wrote "Dieu nest pas quelqu'un qui. . ." tire et Avoir, p. 118 (Paris: Aubier, 1935). 35. The reader will rightly ask whether this long paragraph could not also have been written by a dogmatist who seeks the unconditional in an absolute object; like Spinoza's substance, or the average churchgoer's God. As the paragraph is worded, its author could be a dogmatist. But as the two subsequent paragaphs show, Schelling does not write as a theist, but as a philosopher who makes clear that the form of unconditionality is I. There is no unconditional it. Such an it would be nothing but an irresistable power. This is why Aristotle's God moves nothing by force but is efficacious only as lovable (Metaphysics 1072b4: coc cocoaEvov). In the opening prayer of the Soliloquies, Augustine addresses his God as the one "whom every being loves that can love, whether knowingly or unwittingly" (quem amat omne quod potest amare, sive sciens sive nesciens; Solil. 1.i.2). And Nietzsche's last Pope says to Zarathustra, "you are more pious than you believe. Some God converted you to your godlessness. Is it not your piety which no longer lets you believe in God?;; (Zarathustra, pt. 4, "Out of Service"). Referring to Nietzsche, Paul Tillich speaks of "an atheism which is justified as the reaction against theological theism and its disturbing implications" (The Courage To Be [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952]), p. 185. Tillich says of theism: " 'Personal God' does not mean that God is a person. It means that God is the ground of everything personal. 'Personal God' is a confusing symbol" (Systematic Theology [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951] 1:245). 36. This is quite true in the abstract, in objectivistic thinking. But has not Schelling stressed all along that, as far as the I is concerned, it is both conditioner and conditioned? Here, theologically speaking, he is right in stressing the hiddenness of God which, however, does not annihilate His omnipresence, manifest in the human mind. The mind experiences the challenge to seek its own ground. Augustine speaks of God "whom no one seeks unless reminded, whom no one finds unless purified" (Sold. 1.i.3)- obviously, purified of the natural trend to seek outside: "Do not want to go outside, go back into yourself; in the inner man dwells truth" (De vera religione xxxix.72). "As I hope, God will surely grant that I may be able to answer you or, rather, that He Himself will answer you through that inwardly teaching truth which is the highest teacher of all" (De !Mem arhitrio 2.ii.4); "Oh eternal truth. . . you are my Godl" (Con/eimott., 7. x.16); "God toward whom to reach means to love, whom to see means to have" (Soh/ I.i .3); "Father of the security whereby we are reminded to go back to Thee" (ibid. I.i.2).

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37. This is what Kant called "the original synthetic unity of apperception" (PuR 131, 16). He said: "The I think must potentially accompany all my images [Vorstellungen], otherwise something would be imagined, in me, that could not be thought at all, which means that the image would either be impossible, or else be nothing at all for me." 38. Religion says we live in God. For Augustine, God is the "true life," and in Him "live all who truly live" (Sold. 1.i . 3). We may not know this because, as Schelling says, the very first movement of our consciousness is a movement away from God (12:120). Yet life is life, and it desires to find its ground and home. On the first page of the Confessions Augustine says in prayerful meditation: "It is You who stir us (excitas, rouse us from our numbness) so that we delight in praising You, because you made us for You (ad te, directed toward you) and our heart is restless until it rests in You." Since we love life, we love God, "whom every being loves that can love, knowingly or unwittingly" (Solil.1.i.2). When it dawns on us that we do love God unwittingly, we want to "know Him." Yet to know means to posit an object. And God is no object at all. Therefore we speak of the hidden God. And then we declare that He reveals Himself, which is what, by definition, the thing in itself cannot do. So we define God as Love. The mystic desires to lose himself in God, by a kind of blessed death. But the ordinary man does not want to die. Therefore he worships. Prayer comes close yet keeps a distance. It identifies the empirical I with the absolute and, at the same time, retains the distinction. "It is the character of finiteness to be unable to posit anything without at the same time positing something in contrast." 39. My word power may mislead the reader. It derives from the Latin posse, to be able. All ability has a measure and is conditional. Unconditional power is a contradiction in terms. Scholastics will tell us that there is no potency in God. Schelling says Macht which, like English might, has a root in Gothic magan and German mogen or yermiigen which, in turn, mean to be able. "Gott vermag alles": God can do anything-not by exorbitant power, but unconditionally. All power is limited. (See my 1946 paper, "The Power of the Gods and the Freedom of God," in Faith and Freedom [Liverpool, 1953]. The German original, "GOttermacht and Gottesfreiheit," appeared in Natur and Geist [Zurich: Rentsch, 19461.) The so-called power of God is his freedom. In 1811 Schelling wrote: "With respect to his highest self, God is not revealed [since the revelatory visions present a God already past, not his face but his "back parts" (Exodus 33:23)1, he is revealing himself; he is not real, he becomes real, for the very purpose of being manifest as the most free" (Die Weltalter, 8: 308). (Cf. Frederick Bolman's translation, The Ages of the World [New York: Columbia University Press, 19421, p. 196). 40. The English term intuition is here less misleading than the German word Anschauung Schauen does not mean to show, as the same root has come to mean in English, but to look, and anschauen means to look at. Since there is here no object, there is nothing to look at. Instead we are required to look into ourselves. This is why Augustine says "go back into yourself' (n. 21). 41. PuR 152-59. Cf. pp. 68, 135, and 308. In contrast, and close to Schelling's assertion,

ire pp. 429 and 157n.

42. Spinoza argued that there can be only one substance, God. (Ethics, pt. 1, prop. XIV: Praeter Drum nulla dari neque concipi potest substantia.) 43. It makes no sense. In fact, spatial infinity can accommodate an infinite number of points. A point is the better symbol for the I. But Parmenides had already fallen into the temptation of visualizing when he blew up his Being into a sphere which looks the same from all sides and thus seemed to symbolize identity. In 1827, in the Logic of the second edition of the Encyclopedia (I3 94) Hegel wrote: "This infinity is the bad or negative infinity, being only the negation of the finite which, however, reoccurs as soon as it is canceled. In short, this infinite says only that the finite ought to he set aside. The infinite progression stops at



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expressing the contradiction which everything finite contains" (6:184). Language has the means to distinguish the negative infinite from the positive nonfinite. Fichte, Hegel, and Schelling, by failing to distinguish between u...t4LAc r_ llih and nichttndlich, all gave license to the Romantic confusion which the word infinite still causes in many minds. The present translation calls the I nonfinite rather than infinite. Cf. the whole page of Zusatz 2 to § 104 of the Encylopedia (6:209), where Hegel says that, in order to reach the truly nonfinite, "we must renounce the progressus in infinitum" (6:210). 44. In the copy of the essay Poss. which Schelling sent to his friend Pfister, he wrote as a dedication the same words of Spinoza that he quotes here, and he added the same exclamation in German that he adds here (Plitt 1: 55n): Quid idea vera clarius et certius dari potest, quod norma sit veritatis! Sane sicut lux se ipsam et tenebras manifestat, sic veritas norma sui et falsi est. Was geht Ober die stille Wonne dieser Worte, das EY sat nay of a better life. Tubingen, at the end of the year 94. 45. 46.

This is Schelling's satirical paraphrase of Jacobi's passage quoted in n.6 above. Schelling does say entlitilt, i.e., contains by its strict form of mat, and not as a container like that "infinite sphere" of page 183 of Of I, which accommodates any number of finite spheres (but also gives each of them its spherical form, owing to which all are "contained" in sphericity). Parmenides discovered the formal identity of thinking and being (Diels, fr.5; Plotinus Enn. 5.i.8). (See n. 47.) Spinoza says whatever is, is in God. (Ethics, pt. 1, prop. XV: Quicquid est in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo concipi potest.) 47. Compare Schelling's footnote to his page 214 of Of I: "Now, the process of all synthesis is such that whatever is absolutely posited in both thesis and antithesis is posited in the synthesis with qualifications, that is, merely conditionally." When Schelling wrote Of the I he had at hand the second fascicle of Fichte's Grundlage (see bottom line of Plitt 1:73) to which he may be referring here. Fichte wrote (1:115; cf. Heath 113): "7. Just as antithesis is not possible without synthesis, nor synthesis without antithesis, so are both impossible without thesis, that is, without an absolute positing by which an A (the I) is simply posited without positing it as identical with another nor as opposed to another." It was Kant who had referred to this logic of triplicity, in the second of his "pretty observations" (artige Betrachtungen; Smith [115] quite aptly says "nice points") regarding the interrelation between any three categories among the four groups of them. Kant wrote: "It is my second remark that there is the same number of categories in each gr .oup, namely three. This is a challenge to reflect on, because otherwise all a priori subdivision of concepts must proceed by dichotomy. Add to this that in each group the third category springs from the connection of the second with the first" (Pur 110). Dichotomy is indeed the procedure of abstract logic and of popular thinking: either A or not-A; either for us or against us; either God or the Devil. As a child of the Enlightenment, Kant was inured to this mode of thinking. But as a genuine, responsible thinker he senses the challenge of this "nice point," although he does not yet fully accept it, not quite aware of the danger that the triplicity could be abused and turned into a dead rote such as the textbooks falsely attribute to Hegel: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Gustav E. Muller reminded us that Hegel "refers to 'thesis, antithesis, and synthesis' in the

Preface of the Phaenomenology of Mind, where he considers the possibility of this 'triplicity' as a method or logic of philosophy. According to the Hegel-legend one would expect Hegel to recommend this 'triplicity'. But, after saying that it was derived from Kant, he calls it a 'lifeless schema', 'mere shadow' and concludes: 'The trick of wisdom of that sort is as quickly acquired as it is easy to practice. Its repetition, when once it is familiar, becomes as boring as the repetition of any hit of sleight of hand once we see through it. The instrument for pr od ucing t his monotonous formalism is no more difficult to handle that the palette of a

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

[i 47-55]

painter, on which lie only two colors...' " (2:39 f.; Lasson ed. 2:41-43). (See "The Hegel Legend of 'Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis,' "Journal

of the History of Ideas

[January 1958].

Muller calls the legend a Marxistic smear and shows how Marx got his twisted idea (ibid. 414). In the

Lectures on the History of Philosophy,

Hegel spoke of the "mindless schema of

[i 55-64]

OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

139

1, prop. X). He defined substance as "that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that, the conception of which does not need the conception of any other things

[res, i.e.,

reality] from which it must be formed." This, of course, correspondes precisely to

Schelling's definition of the I. In his February 4, 1795, letter to Hegel he said: "Meanwhile I

triplicity." "Thus Kant prescribed a rhythm of knowledge, of scientific movement, as a

have become a Spinozist! Don't be amazed. You will soon hear in what way. For Spinoza the

universal schema, and set up everywhere thesis, antithesis and synthesis" (15:551). "In a

world (the object in simple contrast to the subject) was everything, for me it is the I" (Plitt 1:76; what then follows in the letter is quoted in n.25). Schelling's is a Spinozism in reverse, replacing it by I. The word God stands for either of the two. If it stands for it (in

historical manner, Kant listed the moments of the whole and determined and distinguished them correctly; it is a good introduction to philosophy. But the defect of the Kantian philosophy lies in the disintegration (Auseinanderfallen) of the moments of absolute form" (15:552). See the entire passage, 15:550-53.

"dogmatism") then, Paul Tillich would say, "atheism is justified as the reaction against" a theism in which "God appears as the invincible tyrant."

48. Parmenides speaks of the "deceitful world of words" (Diets fr. 8:52) which would lead

Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952], p. 185. Cf.

(The Courage to Be [New Haven, Systematic Theology [Chicago: University of

to the "unthinkable" declaration "that Not-Being necessarily is" (Diets fr. 4:6 and 5), as the

Chicago Press, 1951], 1:237 and 245.)

"opinions of mortals" (fr. 8:51) would hold. I know that Kirk and Raven endeavor to tone down the Hegelian reading of Parmenides (The Pr-esocratic Philosophers,[ Cambridge:

follow that substance can be divided" (ibid. prop. XII). The reader may wish to compare

Cambridge University Press, 1962]. I side with Hegel

(Lectures on the History of Philosophy,

13:296 et passim). / 49. This is the principle of the deduction of the categories to which Schelling referred in the preface (154 of

56.

Spinoza says: "No attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it would

Spinoza's demonstration with Schelling's argument. 57.

Spinoza says: "Besides God, no substance can be nor can be conceived." (ibid., prop.

XIV.) In a long letter dated 'Tschugg near Erlach, via Bern, August 30, 1795" the lonely Hegel thanked Schelling profusely for the gift of

Of I).

Of I. However,

he says: "You cannot expect

dogmatism is as

critical remarks on your essay. Here I am only an apprentice. I am trying to study Fichte's

possible as criticism, theoretically speaking. The reader may by now be well beyond the need of being reminded of the 51.

remarks. In § 12 you give the I the attribute of being the only substance. It seems to me that,

50.

This leads to the thesis of

Dogm.

that, on the basis of Kant's

Critique,

Parmenidean discovery that the form of isness is I, i.e., vostv 52. Of course, not in the empirical I, where idealists like Berkeley try to posit it. 53.0n the first page of his Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, written in 1791 and

Grundlage.

But permit me one remark to show my good will to satisfy your desire for such

insofar as substance and accident are interdependent concepts, the concept of substance could not pertain to the absolute I but only to the empirical I as it occurs in self-consciousness. Yet the preceding § [11] makes me believe that you are not speaking of the latter I (which

published in 1792, Fichte wrote that the concept of revelation ought to be investigated and,

unites the highest thesis and antithesis), for in that § you attribute indivisibility to the I, a

since it is a religious concept, "the investigation must be made from a priori principles of

predicate which would pertain only to the absolute I, not to the I that occurs in self-conscious-

practical reason" (5:15), because we must "attribute to practical reason a dominant power

ness. In the latter the predicate could posit only a part of the reality [of the empirical I]"

over theoretical reason, though only in line with the laws of the former" (5:49). On January 6,

(Briefe von and an Hegel,

1795, Schelling wrote to Hegel that Fichte himself had sent him the first part of the

of January 1796 ignored Hegel's query but mentioned the second installment of

Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre

(Plitt 1:73). There (1:126) Fichte wrote "that it is

not in fact the theoretical faculty which makes possible the practical, but on the contrary, the practical which first makes possible the theoretical (that reason in itself is purely practical, and only becomes theoretical on application of its laws to a not-self that restricts it)" (Heath 123). Spinoza defines God as "Being absolutely infinite" (ibid., def. vi.) Per Deum intelligo 54. ens absolute infinitum. This definition does away with any objective God, if we will but

infinite by nonfinite. I am not saying that John Wild, in his 1930 translation Selections 'New York: Scribner's], p. 94) should have replaced it and thereby

replace the word

(Spinoza. should have obscured the fact that, in form, Spinoza was what Schelling calls a dogmatist. I

ed. Karl Hegel [Leipzig, 1887], 1921). Schelling's delayed answer

to appear in issue 5 of Niethammer's

Philosophical journal.

Dogm.

soon

(Plitt 1:93 and Hegel 19:22 n. 3.)

58. Spinoza says: "Whatever is is in God and nothing can either be or be conceived without God" (Ethics 1. prop. XV). 59.

Spinoza defines modes as "the affections of substance" (def. v) and he says they "can

be only in the divine nature, and through it alone can they be conceived" (prop. XV, demonstr.). 60.

Augustine says of God "fecisti nos

61.

It is obvious that Schelling is addressing the Kantians in their predicament of trying to

ad te" (Confessions

1.1.1).

synthesize the not-I as such with the I as such.

do suggest that the student make the replacement and, in that way, be able to find a tenable

62. Spinoza says: "God is the immanent and not the transitive cause of all things" (Ethics 1 prop. XVIII). John Wild (117) adds a footnote: "Transiens, passing over and into from the

sense of Spinoza's definition vi and its explanation. In the essay of 1794 (Poss. 102) Schelling said that Spinoza "transposed the original form

are mere potentialities. Popular imagination locates God outside in space and thus, perhaps

I Uriorm of knowledge from his own Ito a very different concept, quite independent of the I, the conception of a connotation of all possibility." And in a footnote to the preceding page ( Puri. 101 11.) Schelling said that our awareness of this kind of transposition will stop "the idle talk about objective proofs for the existence of God," and "then there will also be an end to the persistent question as to whether a thing in itself exists (in other words, whether something

outside." Popular theism turns God into an outside cause. But before they act, outside causes unintentionally, conceives of Him as a body (called "a spirit"). Aquinas says "to be pure act properly belongs to God" (S. Th. Ia. IIae. Q. 50, art. 6: esse actum purum est proprium dei). 63. This could explain the standpoint of a purely voluntaristic and antirational theology, perhaps starting with Tertullian. 64.

PuR

842:

Gliickseligkeit,

bliss or (as Norman Kemp Smith translates) "happiness, in

that does not appear can be an appearance)." Spinoza said: "Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself, For an 55.

exact proportion with the morality of rational beings who are thereby rendered worthy of it,

attribute is that which the intellect perceives of substance as if constituting its substance by definition iv), and therefore (by definition iii) it must be conceived through itself' (Ethics, pt.

of a pure but practical reason, we are under obligation to place ourselves." Cf. 883 f., 837, 839.

alone constitutes the supreme good of that world wherein, in accordance with the commands

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

65-72]

65. PuR 837-38, e.g. (Smith 638 f.): "a system of self-rewarding morality is only an idea, the carrying out of which rests on the condition that everyone does what he ought, that is, that all the actions of rational beings take place just as if they had proceeded from a supreme will that comprehends in itself, or under itself, all private wills. . . .The alleged necessary connection of the hope of happiness with the incessant endeavor to render the self worthy of happiness cannot therefore be known through reason. It can be counted upon only if a Supreme Reason [eine h8chste Vernunft] that governs according to moral rules [Gesetzen] be likewise posited as underlying nature as its cause." 66. PuR 597 (Smith 486): "As the idea gives the rule [Regel], so the ideal. . .serves as the archetype [Urbild] for the complete determination of the copy [Nachbild]." 67. PuR 581 (Smith 476:) "In respect of the intelligible character. . .the empirical character is the sensible schema." 68. In the later part of his Grundlage (1:286) Fichte wrote: "If Wissenschaftslehre were confronted with the question How are the things in themselves really structured Ebeschaffenl,

it could not answer except by saying, the way we ought to structure [machen] them" (Cf. Heath 252; see below, N.R. , n. 32). Fichte may have taken his cue from the Critique of judgment (§ 84, Cass. 5: 515; Bernard 285 f.), where Kant says that the existence [Dasein] of man contains in itself "the highest purpose to which, as far as is in his power, he can subject the whole of nature." Schelling may have known the passage in Fichte, though it is not likely since the Grundlage appeared in book form only at Easter 1795 and Schelling's preface is dated March 29. On January 6 he had written to Hegel that he had just received "from Fichte himself the beginning [emphasis added] of Fichte's exposition, the Grundlage. . .which is not yet available as a book but only as manuscript [in printed fascicles] for Fichte's students" (Plitt 1:73 f.). 69. PuR 425 (Smith 379): "man alone can contain in himself the final end of all this order" of nature. PuR 868 (Smith 658): "the ultimate end. . .is no other than the whole

vocation of man." The latter phrase may have furnished the title of Fichte's book of 1800, Die Bestimmung des Menschen. (Cf. PuR 492. However also cf. Fichte 6:289.) 70. The.old Schelling (but before 1836) says Lord (Herr) instead of power (Macht). "One could say: God is really nothing in itself; he is nothing but relation, and pure relation, for he is only the Lord. Everything else that we might add would turn him into a sheer substance. He is, as it were, really good for nothing but for being Lord of all being. For he is the only nature not concerned with itself, rid of itself, and therefore absolutely free. Everything substantial is concerned with itself, confined within itself, afflicted by itself. God alone has nothing to do with himself, he is sui securus (sure of himself and therefore rid of himself) and therefore is concerned only with other entities— he is, one might say, entirely outside of himself, free of himself, and is thus the being that sets everything else free" (Darstellung des phdosophischen Empirtlintu.s, Munich lectures, first given 1836, 10:260). Still later (see 11:v-vi) Schelling wrote that God "manifests his reality, which is independent of the idea and subsists even along with an annulment of the idea; he reveals himself as the real Lord of being" (11:571). 71. Schelling sees a parallel to Kant's schematism which treats "of the sensible condition under which alone pure concepts of understanding can be employed" with regard to appearances. "Pure concepts of understanding, being quite heterogeneous from empirical Intuitions I Anschauungen, imagery] and indeed from all sensible intuitions, can never be met with in any intuition I image'. For no one will say that a category, such as that of causality,

can be intuited through sense and is itself contained in appearance. . . .Obviously there must

be some third form, which is homogeneous on the one hand with the category, and on the other hand with the appearance, and which thus makes the application of the former to the latter possible." This is "the transcendental schema" (PuR 175.77; Smith 179-81). The reader may wish to consult the entire chapter on schematism, pp. 176-87 (Smith 180-87). 72.

Kant declared: "We arc necessarily constrained by 'practical] reason to conceive of

[i 72-74]

OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

141

ourselves as belonging to a moral world. Yet the senses present us nothing but a world of appearances [Erscheinungen]. Therefore we must assume that moral world to be a consequence of our conduct in the world of sense and (since the latter exhibits no such connection) to be for us a future world" (PuR 839; cf. Smith 639). In 1792, in the Critique of All Revelation (5:118) Fichte wrote: "That we are immortal follows immediately from the challenge to turn the highest good into a reality. Yet our natures, insofar as they are finite, cannot fully meet that challenge. However, they ought to become more and more capable to fulfill it. Therefore they must be able to do so." Kant had said: "To put everything else after the holiness of duty and to know that we can do it because our own reason acknowledges it as its law and says that we ought to do it—that is, as it were, to lift ourselves altogether out of the world of sense" (PuR, Cass. 5:171; Beck 163). What follows is that "pure eternity" is here already, but young Schelling still wants to save the "empirical eternity" which Kant and Fichte assume. 73. From this can be drawn Spinoza's inference that "the intellectual love of the mind towards God is the very love with which He loves Himself." However, Spinoza adds: "not in so far as He is nonfinite but in so far as He can be manifested through the essence of the human mind considered under the form of eternity" (Ethics 5.xxxvi; John Wild's translation except for the word nonfinite in lieu of infinite.) 74. One of the inconsistencies of PuR is that Kant replaces his "System of Transcendental Ideas" (390), whose "advance from the knowledge of oneself (the soul) to the knowledge of the world, and by means of this to the original being, is so natural that it seems to resemble the logical advance of reason from premisses to conclusion" (394), with a new trinity of metaphysical ideas, added in the second edition: "God, freedom, and immortality" (395 n.). Even so, he says about immortality that its "merely speculative proof has never been able to exercise any influence upon the common reason of men. It so stands upon the point of a hair, that even the schools preserve it from falling only so long as they keep it unceasingly spinning round like a top; even in their own eyes it yields no abiding foundation upon which anything could be built" (424). "Yet nothing is thereby lost as regards the right, nay, the necessity, of postulating a future life in accordance with the principles of the practical employment of reason" (ibid.). Man "feels an inner call to fit himself, by his conduct in this world. . .for citizenship in a better world upon which he lays hold in idea" (426; Smith 322, 325, 379, 380). The argument based on morality leads only to a postulate. PrRsays that "complete fitness of the will to the moral law is holiness, which is a perfection of which no rational being in the world of sense is at any time capable. But since it is required as practically necessary, it can be found only in an endless progress to that complete fitness" (Cass. 5.132; Beck 126). In his supplementary volume on Kants Le ben and Lehre (11:282), Ernst Cassirer wrote: "More than in any other passage, Kant here stands in the continuity of the philosophical world view of the eighteenth century" (see n. 119 below). "This infinite progress is possible, however, only under the presupposition of an infinitely enduring existence and personality of the same rational being; this is called the immortality of the soul. . .and the latter, as inseparably bound to the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical reason" (PrR 127; Cass. 5:132 f.). Kant is wholly consistent when he speaks of the "impossibility of dogmatically determining, in regard to an object of,experience, anything that lies beyond the limits of experience" (PuR 424; Smith 378). Reading "objectivisitic" for "dogmatic," one can say that it is Kant's unresolved objectivism which makes him write that "our concept of an incorporeal nature is

merely negative" (827; Smith 631). This assertion, however, is not consistent with his truer insight that "in the consciousness of myself in sheer thought I am the being itself' (das Wesen selbst) (429; Smith 382). It is the latter insight which led to Fichte's unconditional certainty of self and to Schelling's I as principle of philosophy. True enough, Kant adds to the sentence just quoted the proviso "although nothing in myself is thereby given for thought." Of course, he means objectivistic thought. Fichte and Schelling could ask what more could be given when the I, the being itself, is given.

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[i 74-77]

In this context, Schelling's next sentence is significant. I paraphrase: "In the theoretical sense," that is, objectivistically, God appears in two ways. First, as the omnipresent Being of beings, the Self of all selves, the supreme I which, however, transcends every understanding and, as the hidden God, is absolutely not-I, thus "I = not-I." Second, for the strict objectivist, who thinks only in conditional terms ., this unconditional God is not only incomprehensible but nonexistent. "In the practical sense," however, that is, for the moral being who is aware of standing under an irrefutable authority, God is "absolute I," holy, not fallible and failing as we are. For each one of us is an empirical I who still clings to many a not-I in spite of the divine summons to annihilate in ourselves worldly desires. Even -so, without the form of absoluteness none of us could be his own I. In "schematic" form, sermonizing presents "the nonfinite I as the ultimate goal of the finite." 75. Perhaps some Augustinian insights lingered in the theological instruction at Tubingen. Around 390 Augustine wrote: Aeterna enim vita vitam temporalem vivacitate ipsa superat, nec quid sit aeternitas nisi intelligendo conspicio. . . .Nihil autem praeterit in aeterno et nihil futurum est. . . .Aeternitas autem tantummodo est. "By its own vivacity the eternal life surpasses the temporal life, nor can I see what eternity is except by understanding In intellectual intuition]. . . .For in the eternal nothing is past and nothing future. . . .But eternity merely is" (De vera religione 49,97. Cf. Confession 9.x.24; De trinitate 4, proem 1; De civitate Dei 11.vi). 76. Kant uses this term in the first edition (A) of PuR (396), where he says that all illusion (Schein) springs from mistaking "the subjective condition of thinking for a knowledge of an object ." He also points out that "der dialektische Schein" cannot be a mere empirical illusion. In the second edition (B) he says that "every human reason, as it progresses, must necessarily

come upon" some "dialectical doctrine" (449f.). Like the Duc de Luynes, who unhesitatingly translated Descartes's reality of awareness (res cogitans) as "une chose qui pense," many a beginner in philosophy is tempted to ask what kind of thing the I is. Decartes himself asked in the Second Meditation: Sed quid igitur sum Iemphasis added!? Res cogitansl Quid est hoc? He does not ask: quid est haec [res]. The neuter hoc cannot mean the feminine res. It points at "reality of awareness," and Descartes immediately replaces the phrase res cogitans by present participles, that is by the acts of "doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, not willing, even imagining and feeling." And to make his case still stronger he adds: Nam quod ego sim qui dubitem, qui Intelligam, qui velim, tam manifestum est, ut nihil occurrat per quod evidentius explicetur.

(See n. 23.) Augustine had already made the same point in De trinitate 10.ix.12: "When the mind is told, 'Know thyself,' at the very flash of understanding what is meant by 'thyself,' it knows itself, and for no other reason than that it is present to itself." (See the Latin in n. 23.) Augustine's sentence should be quoted in every introduction to philosophy, especially since he indulges In the academic mannerism of talking of the mind in the third person instead of the first. Mint stands strictly on the Augustinian—Cartesian line when he dissolves the dialectical Illusion in those two core sentences of PuR, which I here quote (without Kant's own uncritical anti decidely pre-Kantian provisos): "In the awareness of myself in sheer thought I am the essence itself Idas Wesen selbstk . . .The proposition I exist as thinking is no mere logical function but determines the subject (which then is at the same time object) with regard to its

existence" (B 429). Kant himself furnishes the favorite phrase of his successors, subject-object. (See n. 8.) 77. NH (672) says that "transcendental ideas never allow of any constitutive employment. When regarded in that mistaken manner, and therefore as supplying concepts of certain objects, they are but pseudorational, merely dialectical concepts" (Smith 533). And Inasmuch as they "contain the unconditioned, they are concerned with something to which all experience is subordinate, but which is never itself an object of experience, . . .which is never Itself a member of the empirical synthesis" (367 f.; Smith 308 f.).



[i 78-80]



OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY



143

78. Anschauung is defined as "that representation [Vorstellung; or image] which can be given prior to all thought [Denken]" (PuR 132; Smith 153). It is implied that thought finds its object, because objects are constituted by the forms of objectivity which Kant calls categories. As potentially antecedent to and independent of thought, intuition need not have an object. This is the case of dream images— the most obvious illustration. In Kant's mind, an objective intuition is a contradiction in terms, and for the moment Schelling adopts this Kantian doctrine. But his next paragraph shows that he, like Fichte, affirms the intellectual intuition which Kant denies. Kant wrote (PuR 68): "The consciousness of self is the simple representation [Vorstellung; better: presentation] of the 'I', and if all that is manifold in the subject were given by the activity of the self, the inner intuition would be intellectual" (Smith 88). Fichte and Schelling hold that the sheer activity of the self by which the I posits itself is

intellectual intuition, although the empirical I cannot be aware of itself except by distinguishing itself from some not-I. For Fichte the not-I is posited by the I. If that makes Fichte an "idealist," then Schelling takes his stand with the "realist" Kant, who gives the name of sensibility (Sinnlichkeit) to the mode in which any manifold [of not-I] is "given in the mind without spontaneity" (ohne Spontaneitat im Gemiite gegeben). But whereas Kant speaks of the mind as being affected, presumably by things-in-themselves, in a very pre-Kantian manner, Schelling sees in all knowledge an identity of subject and object. The form of that identity is "I am I." In truly critical manner, Kant himself emphasized it in his § 16: "All the manifold of intuition I Anschauungl has a necessary relation to the 'I think' in the same subject in which this manifold is found. But this representation [Vorstellung] is an act of spontaneity, that is, it cannot be regarded as belonging to sensibility" (132; Smith 153). As early as the first edition of 1781 he had written: "I must have ground for assuming another kind of intuition, different from the sensible" (A 252; Smith 270). And in both editions we read that distinctly post-Kantian statement quoted in n. 8 aboye. This statement could be called the very definition of intellectual intuition. It also furnishes the formula subject-object. (See n. 76.) 79. "Thinking at all" includes thinking of objects, that is, conditional thinking. Unconditionality is found only in the identity of "I am I." Hence Schelling's definition of the "absolute I" as not relating itself to objects. Perhaps Descartes's cogito should not be translated as "I think" but "I am aware," as is clear from Descartes's own illustrations of res cogitans. (See n. 76.) The absolute I thinking only itself, when coupled with Schelling's declaration in his letter to Hegel of February 4, 1795, that "God is nothing but the absolute I," sounds like Aristotle's statement that God thinks only himself. See the long quotation from 10:260 in n. 70. "The being that sets everything else free" is not a personage and empirically exists only in its revelation. And that would be fully in line with Spinoza's proposition XXXVI in the fifth part of the Ethics: "The mind's intellectual love for God is God's own love wherewith God loves himself." 80. PuR said: "We shall entitle the principles whose application is confined entirely within the limits of possible experience, immanent; and those, on the other hand, which profess to pass beyond these limits, transcendent" (352; Smith 298 f.). Using the word objective in the sense of valid, PrR says: "The objective reality of the moral law can be proved through no deduction." The law proves its reality "in beings who acknowledge it as binding upon them. The moral law is, in fact, a law of causality [not in the sense of the category of coercive cause! through freedom and, thus, a law of the possibility of a supersensuous nature. . . . Thus reason, which with its ideas always became transcendent (Oberschwenglich I when proceeding in a speculative 'i.e., objectivistic[ manner, can be given for the first time an objective I i.e., undeniably valid!, all hough still only practical, reality; its transcendent use is changed into an iinnuinrnt use" (Cass 5. 53 f ; Beck 48 f.). Kant's word practical strictly retains the meaning of its Greek runt, prattrin, to act, and in no way pa them, to be anent upon Responsibility c arom Inc given or enforced; it roust be f !rely

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[i 80-87]

taken. And as long as we are not saints we can always renege. But even then we are still in the supersensuous domain. 81. PuR 399-428 (Smith 328-80). 82. When you really ask yourself, "just exactly what do I mean when I say I?" you are setting aside whatever pertains to you as a temporal being, your being male or female, old or young, and when you answer, "I am I for myself alone," you realize that this is true in exactly the same sense in which it was true when, as a young child, you first discovered your own identity. Of course, you are now more articulate. 83. If you prefer the jargon of Kant to that of Schelling, you can fall back on n. 37 above. 84. The dogmatist seems incapable of realizing that it is he who quite dogmatically posits the very not-I which is supposed to furnish the objectivistic basis of his specific system of dogmatism, be it materialistic or spiritualistic, be he a Hobbes or a Berkeley. In the third fascicle of the Grundlage of 1794 (surely known to Schelling; see n. 68) Fichte wrote that "critical philosophy is immanent, since it posits everything in the self; dogmatism is transcendent, since it goes on beyond the self," though perforce starting from the self as all thinking must. Fichte adds: "So far as dogmatism can be consistent, Spinozism is its most logical outcome." And since every system has the right to be evaluated by its own principles, we ought to inquire of dogmatism "why it now assumes its thing-in-itself, without any higher ground, when it demanded such a ground in the case of the self, . . .and we are thus quite justified in demanding, on its own principle of assuming nothing without a ground, that it whould again furnish a higher genus for the concept of thing-in-itself, and another higher one for that, and so on without end" (1:120; Heath 117). This open-endedness leads to skepticism. Dogmatism (objectivism) is the natural because unreflective way of human thinking. We cannot do without it, just as we cannot do without our childhood. Dogm stresses that there are two ways of philosophizing-dogmatism and criticism. To be sure, consistently persued dogmatism results in skepticism. Short of that, natural thinking must assert the absolute transcendence of the supersensuous and must reject the findings of criticism as heresies. Quite naturally, for dogmatistic theology any philosophy is suspect which yields an insight into the predicament of dogmatism. Accordingly, as Schelling says on his next page, "if the principle of all philosophy were a not-I, one would have to renounce philosophy altogether." 85. Salomon Maimon, Versuch fiber die Transzendentalphilosophie (Berlin, 1790); Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens (Berlin, 1794). (See the page 611 by Willy Moog in Die Philosophie der Neuzeit bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts [Berlin: Milder, 1924] and the book by F. Kuntze, Die Philosophie Salomon Maimons [Heidelberg, 1912].) 86. In the Addresses to the German Nation of 1807-08 Fichte has half a dozen pages (7: 317.23) which explain that the words of an original language offer sense images functioning as Immediately explanatory symbols (Sinnbilder) of supersensuous concepts. Borrowed by another, and in that respect no longer original, language, such words lose the vividness of the Image. For instance, when we borrow the word idea from the Greek, we no longer are aware of the connection between the root verb idein, to see, and its derivative, sight or view, which is the precise translation of idea and thus furnishes a vivid symbol for any supersensuous insight. Fichte gives examples from the Latin. In the mind of a Roman, the word, popular would Immediately evoke the "clear and vivid sense image" of the "fawning complaisance displayed dally by ambitious candidates" for office, or the word liberality would evoke the image of its opposite, servility, shown by cringing or by peevish slaves (serve). When we borrow the words popularity and liberality, they do not immediately supply us with those vivid images; they arise in our mind only through schoolish instruction. Cf. n. 19. 87. In the narrow and really pre-Kantian sense, theoretical philosophy is concerned only with objects, i.e., phenomena, whereas practical philosophy discovers the noumenon in the truly critical sense, as self.positing, in contrast to the precritical sense of the word as a synonym of thing in itself.



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88. Here Schelling still speaks as the disciple of Kant. In 1802 he wrote, "time does not exclude eternity; and science, though it manifests itself at the phenomenal level as a product of time, introduces an element of eternity. The true, like the good and the beautiful, is by nature eternal, and in the midst of time is independent of time" (5:224; On University Studies, trans. Norbert Guterman [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1966], p. 18). And in aphorism CCXVIII of 1805 he said: "True eternity is not eternity in contrast to time, but eternity which comprehends time itself and posits it as eternity in itself -not being in contrast to becoming, but being in eternal unity with eternal becoming" (7:238 f.). 89. The precritical remnants in Kant can hardly be explained by a cavalier condescension which ill agrees with the honesty of Kant, who surely would not want to accommodate the uncritical believers in things in themselves. On page 231 n. of Of I, Schelling speaks of a "system of accommodation." 90. Because "the I is not empirical at all," as Schelling said in this very paragraph. According to Kant, theoretical philosophy deals only with objects. 91. About "the inner" Kant says: "As objects of pure understanding every substance must have inner determinations and powers which [affect] its inner reality. But what inner accidents can I [think] save only those which my inner sense presents to me? They must be something which is either itself a thinking or analogous to thinking. For this reason Leibniz, regarding substances as noumena, took away from them. . .whatever might signify outer relation. . .and so made them all, even the constituents of matter, simple subjects with powers of representation [Vorstellungskrdften], in a word, MONADS." (PuR 321 f.; Smith 279 f.). 92. This footnote clearly presents Kant's phenomenalism, which is opposed to Berkeleyan idealism (see its refutation 274 f. Smith 244) and is, as Schelling rightly says, "immanent Kantian realism." 93. The reader may want to consult the exposition of the categories in PuR (106 ff.; Smith 113 ff.). 94. Every imaginable sphere, no matter how large, is finite, but by mathematical extrapolation one can speak of an infinite sphere. However, that expression obscures rather than explains why the finite receives its reality from the nonfinite. On the other hand, to translate unendliche Sphdre as nonfinite sphere is nonsense, unless the word sphere means no sphere at all but indicates the domain of the nonfinite. Cf. n. 43. 95. See Hegel's presentation of lacobian Philosophy" in G. W. F. Hegel. Faith and Knowledge, trans. Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977), pp. 97-152. 96. Outside is absolute nothingness. (See n. 58.) Augustine says: Deus per quem omnia quae per se non essent tendunt esse. "God, through whom all things, which on their own would not be, tend to be" (Solit 1.i.2. See the entire § 2, and especially § 3, which is a counterpart to Schelling's stress on the life of reality in us.) 97. In 1796 Schelling wrote: "Kant started from this that the first in our knowledge is the 4 intuition [Anschauung]. Very soon this gave rise to the proposition that intuition is the lowest grade of knowledge. Yet it is the highest in the human mind [Geist], it is that from which all other knowledge borrows its worth and its reality" (1:355). The differentiation between object and subject is secondary, not primary. In 1800, on one of the last pages of his System of Transcendental Idealism, Schelling wrote: "If the aesthetic intuition is only the intellectual intuition turned objective, it is obvious that art is the only true and eternal organon of philosophy and at the same time the document of philosophy, furnishing again and again new documentary proof of what philosophy cannot represent outwardly, to wit, the unconscious in action and production, and its original identity with the conscious" (3: 627 f.). 98. The form of being is t he same as the form of thinking. See nn. 46 and 47. 99. Fichte coined the term thetical, In the Grundlage or 1794 he wrote: "A thetical judgment would be one whit n p o sits motorthiog unit bet as equal to mallet !ling rime e.g., a Hid

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is an animal] nor as unequal [a plant is not an animal] but simply as equal to itself. . . .The original and highest judgment of this kind is 'I am' in which. . .the place of the predicate is left empty. If the reader of the proposition "I am" takes it to refer to somebody else he will ask, "how do I know that he or she is a self?" And indeed only his or her action will furnish a ground for the affirmation of selfhood in him or her. But if the reader says of himself "I am" (as the two words challenge him to do) then he discovers that, in this challenge, he has (as Fichte says) "a task for a ground" (Cf. the entire passage in Heath 114-15. Instead of task, Heath translates Aufgabe as requirement, which is misleading.) Fichte derives his term from the word thesis. The "absolute thesis is that there ought to be a system at all" (the passages here quoted are in 1:115-16; cf. n. 23 and n. 63 to the Letters). 100. The formal form of the self is I = I which, taken thus abstractly, reduces to the purely logical principle that any A = A. Consequently, as Kant says, the mere "logical unity of the subject (simplicity)" can not yet let me "know the real [wirkliche] simplicity" of myself. (A 356; also see n. 101.) My real self is the act by which I grasp that "I am I." And it is this act which amounts to the material form Qf nnconclitionathy, To put it in different words, the purely logical form of unconditionality can be expressed by "this x cannot not be so," or in two words "x is." Parmenides pointed out that this form of isness is also the form of strict thinking or real knowing, in distinction from mere guessing and surmising. Now, while Parmenides, bent upon what strictly is, does not reflect explicitly on the thinking I as I, we can, with Plotinus and Augustine, and with Fichte and Schelling, so reflect and, admitting with Kant (see n. 101) that the I is not a substance, we can stress that what is "real," and therefore is "material," is our autonomous act. 101. The core term of PuR is "transcendental unity of apperception" (139, § 18; Smith 157). On page 232 n. of Of I. Schelling says, "Kant was the first one who established the absolute 1 as the ultimate substrate of all being and all identity, though nowhere immediately," but everywhere by implication. (I would agree with Hegel, 13:296, and Plotinus, 5.v.4, that the very first one was Parmenides, although, like Kant, also by implication. See n. 100.) In the first edition of Pur Kant says: "The proposition 1 am simple' must be regarded as an immediate expression of apperception, just as what is referred to as the Cartesian inference, cogito, ergo sum, is really a tautology, since the cogito [sum cogitans] asserts my existence immediately" (A 354 f.; Smith 337). "This much, then, is certain, that through the 'I,' I always conceive an absolute, but logical unity of the subject [simplicity" (A 356; Smith 337 f.). Kant then goes on to say it does not follow that I am a simple substance. In so saying he substitutes the concept of a substance for what, more critically, he had just called "the actual I wirklichel simplicity" (ibid.) of my self. The category of substance pertains to objects which are manifest in observable facts. But I, as I, am an act, not an objective fact. Fichte, in his early critical publication, the Review of Aenesidemus (1794), stressed the pi Imcay of practical reason even in the theoretical field. In 1792 Gottlob Ernst Schulze, professor at Ghttingen, had published his attack against Kant and Reinhold anonymously, and Fichte refers to him only by the book's title, Aenesidemus, the name of the Alexandrian skeptic of the later part of the first century a c Fichte says the basic mistake of Aenesidemus is his assumption that philosophy must start from a fact. "To be sure, we must have a fundamental principle which is real, not merely formal. But such a first axiom need not be a /act ITatmachel, it can be the expression of an act I Tathandlune (1:8). And, in line with statement that "in the consciousness of myself, in sheer thought, I am the essence Itself' (Pun 429; cf. Smith 382), Fichte recognizes the noumenal dignity of the self. By intellectual intuition 1 know that "I am simply because I am. All objections of Aenesidemus are based on his desire to prove an absolute existence and autonomy of the 1 nobody knows how and fur whom while this existence and autonomy are valid only for the I. The 1 is what it is and because it is, for the I" (1:16). In short, it is not an object. And it is the I as outerror us act which alone can furnish what Kant calls the transcendental unity of



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apperception. "The synthetic unity of apperception is therefore the highest point to which we must ascribe all employment of the understanding, even the whole of logic" and of metalogic or "transcendental philosophy. Indeed, this faculty is the understanding itself" (PuR 134 n.; Smith 154 n.). 102. This, of course, is pre-Newtonian speech. A Platonic body is not necessarily subject to gravity. Nor, perhaps, is every Cartesian res extensa heavy. 103. Schelling's German sentence makes no sense without a comma. It is my conjecture to place it here and add the words and does. 104. PuR (106; Smith 113) counts possibility, reality, and necessity as the three categories of modality. Schelling's next paragraph says they are no categories at all. 105. Thus Schelling disposes of the artifice by which Kant derived the table of categories from the table of judgments. (PuR 95 and 106; Smith 107 and 113.) 106. Plato, in the Sophist, discusses at length the thinkability of not-being. Jowett translates: "He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being of not-being" (237a). And, against Parmenides' denial of any being of not-being, Plato's Stranger says, "we have not only proved that things which are not are, but we have shown what form of being not-being is" (258d). And in the Republic Glaucon asks: "how can that which is not ever be known?" (477a). 107. Kant says, "an application of the category [i.e., of categories] to appearances becomes possible by means of the transcendental determination of time (Zeitbestimmung), which, as the schema of the concepts of understanding, mediates the subsumption of the appearances under the category" (PuR 178; Smith 181. See that entire chapter "The Schematism of the Pure Concepts of Understanding," PuR 176-87; Smith 180-87). 108. In the first edition of the PuR Kant declared: "Both space and time can be found only in us" (A 373; cf. Smith 348). He taught that the categories are what constitutes the objectivity of objects. Schelling here makes time a constitutive element of objects, because objects determine each other's position in time. This seems to sound like Einstein, but I must leave that to the physicists, having missed their boat in 1917. 109. Kant says "the principle of sufficient reason is [only] the ground of possible experience, that is, of objective knowledge or appearances in respect to their relation in the order of time" (PuR 246; Smith 226). and of the alleged supersensuous "objects" he says: "If we are pleased to name this object noumenon for the reason that its representation is not sensible, we are free to do so. But since we can apply to it none of the concepts of our understanding, the representation remains empty for us" (PuR 345; Smith 293 f.). This emptiness is particularly obvious in the category of possibility. The I = I is always actual and necessary. However cf. Of I 232 nn. 3. and 234. Kant considers the categories of modality on a level with quantity, quality, and relation. Schelling derives the three others from relation. See nn. 16 and 17 to Poss. Also page 222 of OF I and n. 105. Compare Schelling's long footnote to page 229 of Of I. 110. "The discipline of pure reason in respect of its polemical employment" (PuR 766; Smith 593). 111. This does not tally with the emphatic statement of Kant that "only insofar as I can unite a manifold of given representations [Vorstellungen[ in one consciousness, is it possible for me to represent to myself the identity of the consciousness in these representations" (PuR 133; Smith 153). Of the Leibnizian monads Kant says that they "have no other active power save only that which consists in representations, the efficacy of which is confined, strictly speaking, to the selves. For this very reason his principle of the possible reciprocal community of substances had to be a preestablished harmony and could not be a physical influence. For since everything is merely inward, i.e., concerned with its own representations, the state of the representations of (inc substance could not stand in any effective connection whatever with that of another" (PIM 330 I.; Smit h 285). The monads have no windows and therefore have no regard fo r art opposite, another I

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112-120]

112. This tallies with Kant's statement that "the consciousness is at the same time an immediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me" (PuR 276 f.; Smith 245.) It may also clear tip the discrepancy pointed out in n. 111. 113. I translate Realitöt as reality, Wirklichkeit as actuality. Schelling uses the two words indiscriminately. See pp. 209 f. of Of I. 114. PuR says, "when reason itself is regarded as the determining cause, as in the sphere of freedom, that is to say, in the case of practical principles, we have to proceed as if [Kant's own emphasis, omitted by Smith] we had before us an object, not of the senses, but of the pure understanding" (713; Smith 559). 115. This footnote amounts to a preview of N.R. 116. In 1809, at a decisive turn of his road, Schelling wrote his Philosophical Inquiries

into the Essence of Human Freedom and into Matters Connected Therewith. He said: "The thought of making freedom the sum and substance of philosophy has emancipated the human spirit in all its relationships, and not only with respect to itself, and it has given to science in all its parts a more powerful reorientation than any earlier revolution. . .Whoever does not approach philosophy in this way merely follows others and copies what they do without feeling why they do it" (7:351; see James Gutmann's translation, Of Human Freedom (New York: Open Court, 1936), pp. xvii, 24-25, and 105). 117. A footnote added in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason says: "We must not, in place of the expression mundus intelligibilis, use the expression 'an intellectual world,' as is commonly done in German exposition. For only modes of knowledge [ Erkenntnisse] are either intellectual or sensuous. What can only be an object [Gegenstand] of the one or the other kind of intuition [Anschauungsart] must be termed (however harsh sounding) either intelligible or sensible" (312 n.; Smith 273 n.). 118. As Kant would have it. For instance, in PrR (Cass. 5:90-91; Beck 84-85) he stresses that, in order to be moral, an action must be done "from duty and from respect for the law, and not from love for or leaning toward that which the action is to produce." And he adds: "No other subjective principle must be assumed as incentive, for though it might happen that the action occurs as the law prescribes, and thus is in accord with duty but not from duty, the intention to do the action would not be moral. . . .Respect for the moral law is therefore the sole and undoubted moral incentive" (Cass. 5:86; Beck 80). 119. The preface to the second edition of PuR speaks of "that notable characteristic of our nature, never to be capable of being satisfied by what is temporal (as insufficient for the capacities of its whole destination)" (xxxii; Smith 31). And PrR says that "complete fitness of the will to the moral law is holiness, which is a perfection of which no rational being in the world of sense is at any time capable. But since it is required as practically necessary, it can be found only in an endless progress to that complete fitness." (Cass. 5:132 f.; Beck 126 f.; also we n. 74 above.) Fichte's stress on this infinite task is well known. As late as 1812 he speaks of the "task for the whole" of humanity. Though this task is never finished, yet we believe that, "at some time or other, the goal must be reached" (11:73). 120. Schelling's footnote refers to the core problem of Kant's third Critique. Cr] must be kept In mind in order to understand the paragraph on pages 241 and 242. For here is the point where Schelling goes beyond Kant's mere as i f In the third Critique, Kant pointed out a parallelism between the moral "ought" and the purposiveness we find in nature. "Just as reason in the theoretical consideration of nature must assume the idea of an unconditioned necessity of its original ground, so also it presupposes in the practical sphere its own (in respect of nature) unconditioned causality, or freedom, in that it is conscious of its own moral I" (Cass. 5:482; Bernard 251). The command is "a universal regulative principle. This principle does not objectively determine the constitution of freedom, as a form of causality, but it makes the rule of actions according to that idea a command for everyone, with no less validity than if it did so determine it" (5:483; 252). A parallel case is found in our

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teleological judgments regarding what faces the mechanist as contingent in nature. "The particular, as such, contains something contingent in respect of the universal, while yet reason requires unity and conformity to law in the combination of particular laws of nature. This conformity of the contingent to law is called purposiveness; and the derivation of particular laws from the universal, as regards their contingent element, is impossible a priori through a determination of the concept of the object. Hence, the concept of the purposiveness of nature. . .is a subjective principle of reason for the judgment, which as regulative (not constitutive) is just as necessarily valid for our human judgment as if it were an objective principle" (5:483; 252-53). 121. Here of course the word causality does not stand for the category which is one of the a priori forms that constitute objectivity in the world of sense. It is moral autonomy that is manifest in "intelligible causality." The "intelligible world" is the moral world, the world as it ought to be. In the "absolute 1" —popularly speaking, in heaven or for God—there is no ought. But in the world of sense we ought to progress in justice and truth. Now, there can be no I at all without the autonomous act by which an I posits itself. And that act alone can produce the "I think" without which mental images "would be impossible, or at least be nothing to me" (PuR 132; Smith 153). The world of sense, that is, the world of objects, exists for us owing to the a priori forms of "the original synthetic unity of apperception" (ibid.) and the "I think" contains "the form of every rational judgment" and "accompanies all categories as their vehicle"). Only responsible thinking can lead to an objective world. Therefore Kant stresses "the primacy of pure practical reason" in the twofold aspect of reason—practical and "speculative," i.d., theoretical (PrR, Cass. 5:130; Beck 124). 122. This was the very problem of Cr]. It was one of the incentives that led Schelling to his

Naturphilosophie. 123. PuR says: "Thus, in the end, it is always pure reason alone, though only in its practical use, that has the merit of tying to our highest interest a knowledge which for mere speculation is nothing but an empty guess lacking validity, and of having thereby shown this knowledge to be not, indeed, a demonstrated dogma, but an absolutely necessary presupposition when dealing with reason's most essential ends" (846; cf. Smith 643, who obscures the issue by translating blosse Spekulation kann nur wiihnen as "reason can think only" instead of "speculation can only make an empty guess").

Translator's Introduction to Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism

The Latin verb docere means to teach. Its English derivative, a doctrine, means simply a teaching, the same as dogma, which derives from a similar Greek root. Of course, there is teaching and teaching. For example, I may inform you that one way of erecting a perpendicular to a straight line at a given point is to draw a circle around that point with a radius of three units of length measure. Mark a second point on the line at a distance of four units from the first. Around this second point as a center draw a circle with a radius of five units. The straight line through the intersections of the two circles goes through the original point and is the perpendicular. If, drawing on paper, you follow my instruction, the result looks indeed like a right angle, but you have no proof. I have merely taught you how to go about it. In Greek hodos means a way, and methhodos a round-about way. You can use the same method to stake out the foundation of your new house. Mark the two front corners of the house with pickets. Set a picket four units from a corner and attach to it the end of a rope five units long. At the corner attach another rope three units long. Hold the loose ends of the two ropes together and stretch the ropes. Then rope three forms a right angle with the front line. This is the method used by the ancient Egyptian rope stretchers in surveying their fields. These ancients measured (or metered") parts of the surface h (g_e) and thus started what eventually became the science o geo-metry. I have just now taught you a little bit of history, for (if you did not understand it before) you now understand the origin of the words geometry, method, dogma, and doctrine. I have not taught you any geometry but only a rope or line trick. True, that trick of the trade works. The question "

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as to why it works goes beyond dogmatic teaching, beyond mere

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indoctrination. I am still teaching you dogmatically when I now say that the logic of this particular method rests on the so-called theorem of Pythagoras (which Pythagoras himself did not yet know). It says that in every right triangle the sum of the area of the squares of the two shorter sides is equal to the area of the square of the longest side, the hypotenuse. Algebraically a 2 + b' = c" or, in our case, 3 2 + 4 2 = 5 2 , or 9 + 16 = 25. Here I am again merely reminding you "dogmatically" of the theorem. I am not proving it /Or you. If you want proof you must give it to yourself, perhaps by looking it up in your old geometry book. Looking it up is not enough, for it yields only what Plato called "right opinion." If instead you want "insight," you must make the steps of the argument your own and see where you come out when you take these steps. Then, from the domain of mere correct information (right opinion, i.e., dogma) you have entered the domain of geometry.Geometry cannot be taught dogmatically) Now, you would be misleading yourself if you were to attribute this ordinary meaning of the word dogmatic to the same word as used by Kant and his followers. What they mean is not totally different from the ordinary meaning, but it is not the same. Their meaning is concerned with the logical root of ordinary dogmatism. After all, the dogmatist does not desire to mislead you; he wants to give you correct information about something that is really so. How does he know it is so? If he really believes it is enough to quote authority without critical inquiry into the logical title of that authority, then he is a dogmatist in the Kantian meaning of the word. For then he accepts his authority as a given thing, in the way we usually accept a bank note without making sure it is not a forgery, or a check without ascertaining that it will not bounce. In short, dogmatism in the Kantian sense starts from a given thing, from an it, from something conditional. If the bank note or the check is not forged, then it will be negotiable. In contrast, criticism endeavors to start from an unconditional certainty, ultimately from the certainty I am I. What my geometric example puts before you is a trick of the trade, a mental gadget that works much as the modern pocket computers work (when they work properly instead of malfunctioning). Gadgets are things, and such methods are just like things. You handle them, and if you handle them correctly (even though without understanding), you get the desired results. This is the way in which too many people still look at religion—as if it were a bag of spiritual tricks for gaining profits hereafter, without understanding why and how. Truth is taken to be a thing, and it operates

part of it — Levy-Bruhl calls it participation (La Mentalite primitive [Paris: Alcan, 1925])—yet he does not understand its working and therefore attributes almost all changes to magical powers, be they of the gods or, by delegation, of magicians or initiated members of the tribe. For primitive understanding, truth is a thing which is basically unintelligible and can be handled only on the ground of ostensibly authentic information. Our civilization has by no means rid itself of the quite natural, primitive mentality. The universe is full of riddles and not many people share the faith of the scientist, for whom the world is really intelligible though as yet understood only in small parts. Even science is confronted with many strange things. It is one of the tasks of philosophy to investigate our basic points of view, and perhaps our faith. Is reality fundamentally intelligible, or rather an indissoluble riddle? It is not enough to distinguish, with the skeptic, tenable concepts (if any) from illusion. For it is indeed "the command of reason that all connection in the world be viewed in accordance with the principle of systematic unity—as if all such connection had its source in one single, all-embracing being, as the supreme and all-sufficient cause" (PuR 714; Smith 559 f.). However, we are "not justified in assuming that, above nature, there is an objective being with these qualities, but only in adopting the idea of such a being in order to view the appearances as systematically connected with one another." Kant says we do this "on analogy with a causal determination" (PuR 728; cf. Smith 568). It is a poor analogy. The cause of an effect is as conditional as the effect itself, for the cause is the effect of an antecedent cause. To speak of a First Cause means to turn the principle of causation into an objective entity. Any bright schoolboy might ask: If God causes the world, what causes God? And a precocious child might have doubts about metaphysical scissors that could cut off the endless chain of causes at any point, and about a Bandaid that could cover the cut simply because it had the magic name First. On the other hand, it is precisely the childlike mind that desires a First Beginning, or an End of the World, at that. It is a mind impressed by things and living beings, and inclined to objectify and personify everything, so that the world is like a stage play whose author could explain the plot. In 1806 Fichte spoke of "the natural tendency of man to return to an objectifying kind of thinking, which is the easiest and is within reach of everyone without effort and circumspection" (8:373).

by magic. Magic is the natural way in which primitive man looks at things. Although he may fre/ at one with the world which surrounds him, feeling a

In 1787 Kant defined dogmatism as "the presumption that it is possible to make progress from concepts alone without having first investigated in what way and by what right reason has come into possession of these concepts" (PuR xxxv; Smith 32).

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Criticism starts with this investigation and discovers that all cogency has the form of self-certainty. (Historically speaking, this amounts to a rediscovery of the Parmenidean insight that the cogency of thought is the same as cogent isness—see Clem. Strom. 4.23 and Plotinus Enn. 5.i.8; also Hegel, Vorlesungen fiber die Geschichte der Philosophie, 13:296—and of the Augustinian knowledge that even doubt involves the self-certainty of the doubter—see De vera religione 39.73; De trinitate 15 .xii .21. ) In the plainest possible terms, criticism is philosophy that starts from the I, whereas dogmatism starts from some presupposed It, be it mind or matter. In Kant himself there are many remnants of dogmatism, and it is the thesis of Schelling's Letters that the Critique did not abolish the possibility of dogmatism but rather made possible a justifiable choice between the two systems. "Which of the two we choose depends on the freedom of spirit which we have ourselves acquired" (Sixth Letter, 308). For Kant the highest good is morality (Sittlichkeit) (PrR, Cass 5:135; Beck 128). A few pages later he also says that the highest good is "the realm of God" (das Reich Gottes), that is, unconditional dedication to what is right from case to case, the dedication and rededication due to the act of taking responsibility, the act of what Kant calls "pure practical reason." It is this ever-renewed act that gives man integrity and dignity. Still, Kant himself reintroduces heteronomy when he raises the question of a happiness "proportionate to morality" (PrR, Cass 5:135; Beck 129) and postulates the existence of a God who, at least potentially, would reward moral action with happiness. Kant warns, however, that this must not be misunderstood, as if "the assumption of the existence of God were necessary to furnish a ground for all obligation as such, for this ground rests solely on the autonomy of reason itself' (PrR, Cass 5:136; Beck 136). The self-styled Kantians in Tubingen were quite willing to "let in by the back door what had been evicted by the front door," as Schelling wrote in 1798, in On Revelation and Teaching the People (1:476. See n. 27 below). When Schelling republished his Letters in 1809 in the first volume of his Philosophical Writings he said in his new preface: "The Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism contain a vivid polemic against the so-called moral proof for the existence of God which, at that time, was almost universally taken for valid and also often misused, a polemic from the point of view of the contrast between subject and object, which then was a no less universally ruling notion. In line with that way of thinking, the polemic still seems to retain its validity. However, the Ninth Letter contains remarks about the disappearance of all contrasts of conflicting principles in the absolute, remarks which are plainly the germ of later more positive views" (1:283). He means views that furnish deeper insights into the problems left by Kant and problems implied in the stand of

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Fichte. Schelling sees a relative right of dogmatism which Fichte would deny, and he has a more positive view of nature (and therefore, as he would say, of God). But that goes beyond this essay. The exuberance of the young author makes the Letters not always easy reading. The reader will perhaps find a little help in some of the translator's notes.

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Prefatory Remark

A number of events have convinced the author of these letters that, in the minds of quite a few of the true friends of critical philosophy, there is as yet no sharp enough determination of the boundaries which the Critique of Pure Reason drew between dogmatism and criticism. Unless the author is mistaken, a new system of dogmatism is about to be fashioned of the spoils captured by critical philosophy—a new system to which every candid thinker would prefer the old.' Although it is not an agreeable task, yet it is certainly not without merit to obviate in good time such confusions, which are usually more detrimental to true philosophy than even the most pernicious system that is at least consistent. [284] The author chose the form of letters because he believed that he could present his ideas more clearly in this form than in any other. Also, in this genre he had to strive harder for clarity than he would have in any other. If here and there the presentation should sound too emphatic to unaccustomed ears, the author declares that the emphasis is due only to his most ardent conviction of the perniciousness of the system which he is attacking.

First Letter 1 understand you, dear friend! You deem it greater to struggle against an 156

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absolute power and to perish in the struggle than to guarantee one's safety from any future danger by positing a moral god. 2 To be sure, the struggle against the immeasurable is not only the most sublime that man can conceive, but is also, I think, the very ground of all sublimity. However, I ask you how dogmatism can ever explain that power by which man takes stand against the absolute, and how it can explain the feeling which if consistent, is bent notupanJ 1) , accompanies this contest. For contest but upon surrender, not upon enforced but upon, s_oluntary annihilation, upon quiet abandonment of oneselLia the absolute object. Any thought of resistance aria —Or contentious self-assertion [Selbstmacht] that has found its way into dogmatism comes from a system better than dogmatism. However, in consistent dogmatism, that surrender has a purely aesthetic side. Quiet abandonment to the immeasurable, to rest in the arms of the world, this is what art sets up in extreme contrast with struggle. What is midway between the extremes is a stoical peace of mind, a repose which expects the contest, or which has ended it. While the spectacle of the struggle presents man at the climax of his selfassertion, [285] the quiet vision of that rest on the contrary finds him at the climax of simply being alive; he abandons himself to the youthful world in order to quench his thirst for life and existence as such. To be, to be! is the cry that resounds within him; he would rather fall into the arms of the world than into the arms of death. If we consider the idea of a moral God from this aesthetic side, we can pronounce judgment quickly: whenever we accept that idea we lose the proper principle of aesthetics.' For the thought of taking a stand against the world loses all greatness the moment I put a higher being between the world and myself, the moment a guardian is necessary to keep the world within bounds. The farther the world is from me, and the more I put between it and myself, the more my intuition of it becomes restricted and the less possible is that abandonment to the world, that mutual approach, that reciprocal yielding in contest which is the proper principle of beauty. True art, or rather, the divine (estov) in art, is an inward principle that creates its own material from within and all-powerfully opposes any sheer mechanism any aggregation of stuff from the outside lacking inner order. This inward principle we lose simultaneously with the intellectual intuition of the world,' an intuition which arises in us by means of an instantaneous unification of two opposing principles and is lost when neither the contest nor the unification is any longer possible in us. So far we agree, my friend; the idea of a moral God has no aesthetic side at all. But for my part, I go even farther and say that it has not even a philosophical side. The idea not only signifies nothing sublime, but signifies nothing whatsoever; it is as empty as every other anthropomorphic

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representation (for in their principle they are all alike). This idea takes away with one hand what it gave with the other, and it would give on one side what it wants to wrest from us on the other; it would cater at the same time to weakness and to strength, to moral despondency and to moral autonomy [Selbstmacht]. [286] The idea demands a God. With that alone nothing is gained over dogmatism. The idea of a God cannot restrict the world without giving to God what is taken away from the world; instead of fearing the world, I must now fear God. What distinguishes criticism is not the idea of a God, but the idea of a

God conceived as being under moral laws. Naturally, the first question I must ask is, how do I arrive at this idea of a moral God? If closely scanned, the answer of most [Kantians] proves to be nothing else than this: because theoretical reason is too weak' to comprehend a God, and because we can realize the idea of a God only through moral demands, I have to think of God as also under moral laws. Thus, I need the idea of a moral God in order to save my morality and, inasmuch as I assume a God merely in order to save my morality, this God must be a

moral God. Hence, it is not the idea of God, but only the idea of a moral God that I owe to that practical ground of conviction. In this case, pray, where did you get that idea of God which you must have before you can have the idea of a moral God? You say that theoretical reason is not able to comprehend a God.' So be it; but call it what you will—assumption, knowledge,

belief—you cannot get rid of the idea of God. Why is it that you have arrived at this idea only through practical demands? Its ground lies hardly in the magic words practical need, practical faith! For the assumption of a God was impossible in theoretical philosophy not because there was no need for the assumption, but because one could conceive of no place for an absolute causality.'

A

"Still, practical need is more pressing, more urgent than theoretical

need." That is beside the question. No need, however urgent, can make the impossible possible. For the moment, I'll grant you the urgency of the need; all I want [287] to know is how you are going to satisfy it, or what new world you have suddenly discovered in which you find a place for absolute causality. I'll not ask for an answer. Be it as you say! Nevertheless, though theoretical reason could not find that world, it has the right to take possession of it now that it has been discovered. You say that theoretical reason by itself cannot penetrate to the absolute object; but since you have now discovered it, how are you going to prevent theoretical reason from taking part in your discovery? Thus your theoretical reason would become quite a different reason; with the help of practical reason it would be

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broadened so as to admit a new field alongside the old. However, once it is possible to broaden the field of reason, why should I wait so long? You yourselves assert that theoretical reason too is in need of assuming an absolute causality. And, once your needs are capable of creating new worlds, why should not theoretical needs be equally capable? "Because theoretical reason is too narrow, too restricted for that." Very well, this is the reply I expected! Thus sooner or later you must admit theoretical reason into your game. For what you think when you speak of a merely practical assumption, frankly I cannot see. Your phrase cannot mean more than the acceptance of something as true. And that, like any other acceptance of a truth, is theoretical in form; in its foundation or matter, however, it is practical.' Yet, it is precisely your complaint that theoretical reason is too narrow, too restricted, for an absolute causality. If so, from where can it receive the theoretical justification for accepting as true that assumption for which, as you say, your practical reason has given the ground; from where a new form broad enough for an absolute causality? You may give me a thousand revelations of an absolute causality outside of myself, and a thousand demands for it on behalf of an intensified practical reason, yet I shall never be able to believe in it as long as my theoretical reason remains the same! My capacity even to assume an absolute object [288] would presuppose that I had first abolished myself as believing subject!* Still, I shall not inconvenience your Deus ex machined I shall allow you ✓ to presuppose the idea of God. But how do you arrive at the idea of a moral God? The moral law is supposed to guard you against the predominance of ✓ God? Take heed that you do not admit the predominance before you have made sure of the will, which is supposed to be in conformity with that law. With what law do you want to match that will? With the moral law" itself? But this is exactly what I question; how can you be convinced that the will of that being is in conformity with this law? The shortest reply would be to say that that being is itself the creator of the moral law. However, this is against the spirit and the letter of your philosophy.° Or is the moral law simply to exist, as independent of any will? That puts us in the domain of fatalism. For a law that cannot be explained by anything

*If you tell me that these objections leave criticism the critical philosophy of Kantl untouched, you are not telling me anything I have not thought myself. My objections are not aimed at criticism, but at certain expounders of it, who might have learned that criticism advances the idea of God merely as an object of action, and not at all as an object to be considered a., true. I don't say that they should have learned it from the very spirit of critical philosophy. But they might have learned it at the very least from the word Kant used: postufate. The meaning of this term they should know from mathematics, if not otherwise.

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that might exist independently of that law, a law that dominates the greatest power as well as the smallest —such a law has no sanction other than that of necessity. Or is the moral law to be explained by my will? Shall I dictate a law to the Highest? A law, limits to the Absolute, from me, a finite being? "No, you shall not! What you ought to do is merely to start your speculation with the moral law, and to arrange your system so that the moral law appears first and God last. If you proceed thus as far as God, the moral law is held ready to set bounds to his causality, bounds with which your [289] freedom is compatible. And if anyone should declare that he doesn't like this order of proceeding, very well, it is his own fault if he despairs of his condition [Existenz]." J I understand. But let us suppose that there should come upon you someone shrewder, who would tell you that what is valid at all is valid backwards as well as forwards. Believe, if you will, in an absolute causality outside yourself, but allow me also to draw my conclusions backwards; that there is no moral law for an absolute causality, that the deity cannot be affected by the weakness of your reason; though you could arrive at the deity only through the moral law, this is not in turn the only yardstick by which the deity is to be measured; this is not the only way the deity can be conceived. In short, as long as the steps of your philosophy progress, I'll grant you all you say; but don't be astonished, my dear friend, if, on my way back, retracing the steps I took with you, I destroy all that you have just laboriously erected. Your salvation is only in perpetual flight: take care not to stop anywhere, for, as soon as you stop, I seize you and compel you to return with me, and destruction would accompany our every step: before us paradise, behind us desert and solitude. With good reason, my friend, you are tired of the praises which people load upon the new philosophy, and of the constant appeals to it, as soon as there is a desire to defame reason! The philosopher's system has been misunderstood or misused; it has been perverted into conventional phrases and preachers' litanies, and as a consequence the philosopher is pilloried with praise. Can we think of a spectacle more mortifying to him? If Kant meant to say: Dear people, your (theoretical) reason is too feeble to comprehend a God, but even so you ought to be morally good people, and for the sake of morality you ought to assume a Being who rewards the virtuous and punishes the vicious—if Kant meant to say nothing but this, then there was nothing unexpected, uncommon, or unheard of in Kant; nothing that could have brought about the widespread uproar he caused, and nothing that could induce our prayer: Dear Lord, protect us from 12901 our friends; Our enemies we will take care of ourselves.

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Second Letter My friend, the fight against dogmatism is waged with weak weapons if criticism rests its whole system merely upon, the state of our cognitive faculty, and not upon our genuine essence: 0 A shall not appeal to the fascination which dogmatism exercises, at least insofar as it proceeds not from abstraction or dead principles but (if perfect) from an existence [Dasein] that beggars all our words and dead principles. I shall simply ask whether criticism could achieve its own purpose of making humanity free if its whole system rested entirely and exclusively upon a cognitive faculty of ours, different, as it were, from our very essence [von unserm urspriinglichen Wesen]? For if it is not my essence which forbids me to admit of an absolute objectivity, if it is only the weakness of reason which hinders my transition to an absolutely objective world, then you may still set up your resulting system of weak reason; but you must not credit yourself with having set up laws for the objective world itself. A breath of dogmatism would overthrow your house of cards." If what is realized in practical philosophy is not absolute causality itself, but only the idea of it, do you really believe that this causality would postpone its operation on yOu until you had tediously gained the idea of it practically? If you mean to act freely at all, you must act before an objective God is; it is of no avail if you believe in him only after you have acted; even before you ever act or believe, his causality has rendered your own null. Really, one should not deal harshly with a weak reason! However, weak reason is not a reason which cannot know an objective God, but a reason [291] which desires to know one. Just because you believed that you could not act without an objective God and without an absolutely objective world, it was necessary to keep you in suspense and to invoke the weakness of your reason; it was necesary to console you with the promise that you nt would get back that toy" of your reason later on. And this had to be done to you in the hope that meanwhile you would have learned to act by yourselves and that you would become men after all. But when will this hope be fulfilled? The first attack upon dogmatism could be made only from a critique of the cognitive faculty. This let you believe that you could boldly blame reason for the disappointment of your hope. Indeed, the device served you exquisitely! You found in it what you had long been wishing for; now a test on a large scale had revealed the weakness of reason. And what fell down, in your mind, was not dogmatism but, at the most, dogmatic philosophy."

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For there seemed to be no danger that criticism would demonstrate more than the indemonstrability of your system. And this fault of your system you would naturally attribute not to dogmatism itself, which in your conviction was the desirable system, but to your cognitive faculty, to its shortcoming, to its weakness. You believed that dogmatism, founded on something deeper than the mere cognitive faculty, would defy our proofs. The more emphatically we proved that your system cannot be established by the cognitive faculty, the firmer became your faith in it. And what you could not establish in the present you transposed to the future. For at all times you regarded the cognitive faculty as a wrap or garment which a higher hand could take off at its pleasure should it go out of fashion, or as a garment which could be shortened or lengthened at will. Shortcoming, weakness—are these not accidental limitations admitting of infinite expansion? You were convinced of the weakness of reason. (And what a glorious spectacle it is to see philosophers and visionaries, believers 12921 and unbelievers, now at last meet on a common point!) But did you not harbor, along with your conviction, the hope of partaking some day of higher powers? Nay, did not your very belief in that limitation impose upon you the duty of trying every possible means to annul it? Truly, you owe us a great debt of gratitude for the refutations of your system. Now you need no longer engage in crafty proofs difficult to grasp; we have opened a shortcut for you. (what you cannot prove you mark with the stamp of practical reason," giving the positive assurance that your draft will be taken for current coin wherever human reason still reigns. It is well that this proud reason has been humbled. Once she was sufficient unto herself; now she recognizes her weakness, and patiently awaits the guidance of a higher power which will promote you favorites farther than a thousand strenuous vigils could advance the poor philosopher) The time has come, my friend, to destroy the delusion, and to state plainly and resolutely that criticism means to do more than merely deduce t he weakness of reason, and prove only this much, that dogmatism cannot be proved. You know best yourself how far those misinterpretations of criticism have led us already. Give me the old honest Wolffian! Whoever had no faith in his own demonstrations was regarded as lacking all philosophical sense. That was little! Now, whoever has no faith in the demonstrations of our latest philosophers bears the anathema of moral depravity. ' ' The time has come to part company so that we may no longer nourish in our midst a secret enemy who, laying down his arms here, takes up new weapons elsewhere in order to massacre us, not in the open field of reason, but in the recesses of superstition. The time has come to make the freedom of minds I die Freiheit der

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Geister] known to the better kind of men and to stop man from deploring the loss of his fetters.

Third Letter [293]That I did not intend, my friend. I did not intend to lay the blame for those misconstructions on the Critique of Pure Reason. To be sure, that book furnished the motive for the misinterpretation; it had to. But the blame lies upon the still-persisting reign of dogmatism which, even in its ruins, imprisons the hearts of men. The motive for the misconstructions was furnished by the Critique of Pure Reason because it was a critique of the cognitive faculty only, and as such it could not proceed farther than the negative refutation of dogmatism.' 6 The first attack upon dogmatism could be made only from a _ point which dogmatism had in common with the better system. They are opposed to each other in their first principle but they must meet at some common point some time or other. No line of distinction could be drawn between different systems except in a field they had in common. This is a necesary consequence of the very concept of philosophy. Philosophy must not be a feat that merely inspires admiration for the cleverness of its author. Philosophy must present the course of the human mind itself, not only the march of an individual. And this course must pass through fields common to all parties. 1( 1 If we had had to deal with the absolute alone, the Atrise_ of different ./ 'systems would never have arisen. Only as we come forth from the absolute „ / does opposition to it originate, and only through this original opposition in the -hiffrian does any opposition betweenphilosishers pi -iv:nate. And if there should ever be success, not for the philosophers indeed, but for man, in an attempt at leaving this field into which he entered by egressing from the absolute, then all philosophy, and the field itself, would cease to be. For that field comes about only through that opposition and the field has reality only as long as the opposition lasts. [294]1-1e, therefore, who intends to close the controversy between the 1 l irci philosophers must proceed from the very point from which the controversy of philosophy itself proceeded, or, what amounts to the same thing, from the point from which the original opposition in the human mind proceeid. j, This point, however, is nothing but the egress from the absolute.Q7iFor, if we had never left its sphere we should all agree about the absolute, and if we had never stepped out from it, we should have no other field for dispute. ✓

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[295]

And indeed, the Critique of Pure Reason started its contention from that point alone. How did we ever come to judge synthetically? This is what Kant asked at the very beginning of his work, and this question lies at the base of his entire philosophy as a problem concerning the essential and common point of all philosophy. For expressed differently, the question is this: How do I ever come to egress from the absolute, and to progress f \ toward an opposite? e .Synthesis comes about only through the manifold's opposition to the original unity. For without opposition no synthesis is necessary; where there is no manifold there is absolute unity [Einheit schlechthin]. On the other hand, if the manifold were original, then again there would be no synthesis. Now, though we can comprehend synthesis only as an original unity in opposition to plurality, yet it was impossible for the Critique of Pure Reason to ascend to that absolute unity because, in order to close the controversy between the philosophers, it could proceed only from the fact from which the controversy of philosophy itself proceeds. And that is just dv . why it could only presuppose the original synthesis as a fact within the \ cognitive faculty. Therewith it had gained a great advantage which By far outweighed the disadvantage on the other side. The Critique of Pure Reason did not have to contend with dogmatism about the fact in itself, but only about the inference from it. I do not need to substantiate this for you, my friend. [295] You never could understand how one could impute to dogmatism the contention that there are no synthetic judgments at all." You have known for a long time that the two systems disagreed not about the question whether there are any synthetic judgments, but about a decidedly higher question concerning the principle of that unity which is expressed in the synthetic judgment. The disadvantage, on the other side, was the almost inevitable motive for that misunderstanding which blamed nothing but the cognitive faculty for the result that was unfavorable for dogmatism. For that misunderstanding was inevitable as long as the cognitive faculty was considered to be something of the subject's own, but not really necessary." It was an error, however, to think that the cognitive faculty could be independent of the very essence of the subject. And this error could not be entirely corrected by a critique of the cognitive faculty alone, inasmuch as this critique can consider the subject only insofar as it in its turn is an object of the cognitive faculty and hence entirely different from it. The misunderstanding became still more inevitable because the Critique of Pure Reason, like every other purely theoretical system, could not get beyond utter indecision, that is, it could go only as far as to demonstrate the theoretical indemonstrability of dogmatism. Moreover, because a delusion hallowed by long tradition had represented dogmatism as the most desirable system from a practical angle, nothing was more natural

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than that dogmatism should try to save itself by an appeal to the weakness_ of reason. That delusion however, could hardly be fought as long as one was under the dominion of theoretical reason. And if anyone was capable of taking the delusion over into the dominion of practical reason, could he well be fit to hear the voice of freedoT? F

ott

[296] Fourth Letter Yes, indeed, my friend, I am firmly convinced that even the consummate system of criticism cannot confute dogmatism theoretically. True enough, in theoretical philosophy dogmatism is overthrown, but only _to rise again with even greater power. I \True enough, the theory of synthetic judgments must defeat dogmatism. Critcism proceeds from the point it has in common with dogmatism, from the (originalsyrithesis.;This common fact, however, criticism can explain only by the cognitive faculty itself With triumphant evidence criticism proves that, as soon as the subject enters the sphere of the object, that is, as soon as it judges objectively, the subject egresses from itself and is compelled to engage in a synthesis. Once dogmatism has admitted this, it must also admit that no absolutely objective cognition is possible, that is, that the object is knowable only under the condition of the subject, under the condition that the subject come out from its own sphere and engage in a synthesis. It must admit that in no synthesis can the object be met with as absolute, for as absolute it would endure no synthesis whatsoever, that is, it would not tolerate any condition imposed by an opposite. pog na_atistRmst admit that I cannot stand on my own shouldemin nrrier_ta. lookiieyonsi myself." L So far, dogmatism is theoretically confuted. Yet, with that act of synthesis, the cognitive faculty _ is far frum_being exhaustively studied, For , synthesis as such is thinkable only under two conditions: First, that it be preceded by an absolute unity [Einheit],n which becomes an empirical unity only in the synthesis itself, that is, only if an opposite is given, a manifold [Vielheid (Now, because this synthesis is the very, ultimate term from which the critique of the cognitive faculty proceeds, the critique cannot rise to that absolute unity. But all the more assuredly must the completed system proceed from that unity) [297] Second, no synthesis is thinkable except under the presupposition that it terminate in an absolute thesis; the purpose of any synthesis is a thesis. Now, this second condition of every synthesis will be met with on the line of march and must be followed by a critique of the cognitive faculty, for in this case the question is about a thesis that is to be the end, not the -

re

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or in, of the synthesis. From the original absolute unity which precedes every synthesis the completed science must deduce the doctrine that every synthesis tends ultimately to absolute unity. Now, a critique concerned only with the cognitive faculty does not rise to the absolute unity; hence it cannot furnish that deductiop. Instead, it resorts to another expedient. Inasmuch as the critique presupposes that the merely formal acts of the subject are not subject to any doubt," it tries to prove the steps of every synthesis, as far as it is material, by the steps of every synthesis as far as it is merely formal. For the critique presupposes as a fact that the logical synthesis is thinkable only under the condition of an unconditional thesis— [and] that the subject is compelled to rise (through pro-syllogisms) from conditional to unconditional judgments. Instead of deducing the formal and the material steps of all synthesis from a principle at the base of both steps, the critique of the cognitive faculty explains the progress of one synthesis by that of the

other. It must admit that theoretical reason necessarily seeks what is not

1.

conditioned, and that the very striving which produces a synthesis demands an absolute thesis as goal of all philosophy. And, for this very reason, the critique must destroy what it only just erected. For it masters dogmatism only within the domain of the synthesis; as soon as it leaves this domain (and the critique must leave it just as necessarily as it had to enter it) the contest begins anew. / [298] (I must beg that you extend your patiencel)(Namely, if the synthesis is to end in a thesis, it is necessary to do away with the condition under which alone a synthesis has actuality [wirklich ist], And the condition of a synthesis is that there be opposition—more definitely, opposition between subject and object. If the opposition between subject and object is to cease, it ought to become unnecessary for the subject to step out of itself; both must become absolute, that is, the synthesis would terminate in a thesisri ff, on the one hand, the subject wereto disappear in the object, then, and only then, would the object be posited [gesetzt] under no condition of the subject's, that is, it would be posited as thing in itself, as absolute; but the subject would be absolutely done away with as the knower [als das Erkennende] .* On the other hand, if the object became identical with the subject, then this would become subject in itself, absolute subject, while the object

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would be absolutely done away with as what is knowable (als das Erkennbare), that is, as object properly understood [als Gegenstand - berhaupt]. One of the two must come to pass. Either no subject and an absolute object, or not object and an absolute subject. How can we end this 1 controversy? Above all, my friend, let us remember that we are as yet in the domain of theoretical reason, (though in asking that question we have already ✓ leaped across this domain's boundary2 Theoretical philosophy as such is concerned merely with the two [299] conditions of cognition, the subject and the object. Now, however, because we want to do away with one of those conditions, we forsake that domain, in which we cannot close the controversy. If we want to put an end to it, we must seek a new domain where perhaps we shall be luckier. Theoretical reason necessarily seeks what is not conditioned; having formed the idea of the unconditioned, and, as theoretical reason, being unable to realize the unconditioned, it therefore demands the act through which it ought to be realized." Here, then, philosophy proceeds to the realm of r/Pmanas, that is, to the, domain of-practical philosophy, and only there can the decisive victory be gained—by the principle which we put at the beginning of philosophy," and which would be dispensable for theoretical philosophy if the latter could constitute a separate domain. And just this far has the Critique of Pure Reason brought us. It has proved that that controversy cannot be closed in theoretical philosophy; it has not refuted dogmatism, whose very claim it has in fact withdrawn from the jurisdiction of theoretical reason; and this much the Critique of Pure Reason has in common not only with the complete system of criticism, but even with a consistent dogmatism. In order to realize its claim, dogmatism itself must appeal to a jurisdiction other than that of theoretical reason; it must seek another domain wherein to obtain a verdict. You speak of an ingratiating side of dogmatism. I believe I can retort i best by presenting a consistent dogmatistic ethics. This may be all the more I expedient inasmuch as the steps we have already taken together must make us eager to watch the last attempt of dogmatism to settle the contest to its own advantage, in the field of practical reason. ,

{---

•

1 am speaking of a consummate dogmatism. For the intermediary systems posit an absolute object, together and along with a cognitive subject, a position the comprehension of which I must leave to those systems! There may be persons who feel annoyed at the fact that my delineation of the steps of the Critique of Pure Reason is not copied verbatim from that book; it is not for them that these letters have been written. There may be others who find them unintelligible because they have not the patience to read them with attention; for those, the best advice is never to read anything except what they have already learned before.

[300] Fifth Letter

You have anticipated me, dear friend. You say that you have found dogmatism ingratiating only in a popularized system of dogmatism, like

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the one of Leibniz. On the other hand, my statement about dogmatism's having recourse to practical postulates has given you cause for objections which I cannot possibly pass over [although], this answer to your last letter being so belated, I almost fear that it may have lost all interest for you with regard to those objections of yours. Yet I may be able to revive some of your interest by a recapitulation. You say that most of the interpreters of criticism claim that dogmatism is refuted adequately and forever by the Critique of Pure Reason, which calls to account all theoretical proofs for the existence of an objective intelligible world. They hold that dogmatism is characterized by its belief in the ability of theoretical reason to find that which, according to a critical inquiry into the cognitive faculty, is possible only through practical reason. They say that dogmatism could never adapt itself to the use of practical postulates, because in so doing it would cease to be dogmatism and would necessarily become criticism instead. Consequently, they claim that it is precisely the exclusive use of practical postulates that distinguishes the critical philosopher from the dogmatic one; the latter would believe that he was debasing speculative reason if he were to have recourse to moral grounds of belief. And so on. You are quite right, my friend, if you state historically that the majority of critical philosophers find the transition from dogmatism to criticism so easy. In order to make the transition quite easy and comfortable, they regard the method of practical postulates as a method belonging exclusively to criticism, and they believe that they have adequately distinguished this system from any other by the mere term [301] practical postulates. This implies the additional advantage that one does not find it necessary to fathom more deeply the peculiar spirit of practical postulates within the system of criticism which is deemed to be sufficiently distinguished by the method as such. As if the method were not precisely what even conflicting systems can have in common, and what two systems would have to have in common if they absolutely contradicted each other! But allow me to

k

retrace a few steps. Nothing, it seems to me, proves more strikingly how little of the spirit of the Critique of Pure Reason the majority have grasped, than the almost universal belief that the Critique of Pure Reason belongs to one system alone, whereas it must be the very peculiarity of a critique of reason--to favor no system exclusively, but instead to establish truly, or at least to iTeTaTe a canon for ainiNow, a necessary part of a canon for all systems is

r I

(

lethodcAogy. Hardly anything more deplorable could happen its utliVerair with regard to such a work as the Critique than that the mere method, which the work establishes for all systems, should be taken for the system itself./ After all the controversy about the aim of that great work, it seems ar-

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rogant to proffer one's own opinion about it. But perhaps the farther we have receded from the first impression, the more reliable might be our answer to that question which gave so much concern to friends and foes of the Critique. For it is nothing unusual in human life to take the prospect of possession for the possession itself. If without presumption I may impart to you my conviction, it is this. The Critique of Pure Reason is not destined to establish any one system exclusively, much less to establish that cross between dogmatism and criticism which I have tried to describe in my previous letters. [302] On the contrary, as I understand it, the Critique isEdestined deduce )firom the essence of reason (the very possibility,tof two jexactly opposed systems; it is destined to establish a system of criticism (conceived as complete), or, more precisely, a system of idealism as well as and in exact opposition to it, a system of dogmatism or of realism.* Whenever the Critique of Pure Reason spoke against dogmatism, it spoke against dogmaticism, that is, against a system of dogmatism put up blindly and without any preceding investigation of the cognitive faculty. The Critique of Pure Reason has taught dogmaticism how it can become dogmatism, that is, a solidly established system of objective realism. You may be predisposed to judge my contention as being wholly against the very spirit of the Critique, and your judgment would seem all the more natural to the majority inasmuch as my contention appears to be against the letter, at least, of the Critique. Hence, allow me, by anticipation, to re-,/ mind you of one part of the Critique that has until this very moment been least elucidated, in spite of all the controversy about it. I mean the part which deals with things_in themselves. On this very point, as far as I can see, the Critique of Pure Reason cannot be freed at all from the reproach of inconsistency, provided its aim is to establish criticism alone. [303] But s., if we suppose that the Critique of Pure Reason does not belong to any system exclusively, we shall soon discover the reason for which it left the two systems of idealism and realism standing side by side. The Critique applies to both, to the system of criticism as well as to that of dogmatism; and criticism and do atism are n • _than_ idealism anti realism systematically conceived. Anyone who reads attentively what the Critique ,

,

"By the way, I believe that those names should fall into disuse and that they should be replac-4 ed by more definite terms. Why should we not define both names: dogmatism as the system of

objeciatercailim iubiectiveidealisnaL criticism as the system of subjestirie-ceablin) (Pt_abjective idealism)? (Obviously, in speaking of appearances, at the bottom of which are things in themselves, the Critique of Pure Reason allows objective realism to exist along with subjective.) An improvement upon terminology seems to be of small merit in spite of the fact that, for many people, or even for the majority, more depends on words than on concepts. If, after the publication of the Critique, currency had not been obtained for the terms critical

philosophy and criticism. people would sooner have abandoned the opinion that the Critique o/ Pure Bynum establishes only one system (that of the so called criticism).

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says about the practical postulates will certainly admit that it reserves a field in which dogmatism can erect its edifice safely and durably." This has been maintained by many who thought they were antagonists of criticism simply because, like the friends of criticism, they stopped short at its methodological exterior. Accordingly, they asserted that criticism differs from dogmatism solely by its different method. And what was the reply of the so-called partisans of critical philosophy? Most of them were so anxiously modest as to allwc; that the distinction of criticism was merely the method. They said they wanted merely to believe what the dogmatist imagined he knew. 27 And they claimed that the main advantage of the new method (nothing is more their concern than such advantages!) consists merely in the stronger influence which, by this method, the doctrines of dogmatism gain upon morals. It may remain the [questionable] glory of our age to have excellently applied the new method in behalf of dogmatism. A future age may have in store the merit of developing the opposite system in its whole purity. Thus we may continue to work at a system of dogmatism; only let none sell us his dogmatic system for a system of criticism on account of having borrowed its norm from the Critique of Pure Reason. Furnishing the method of practical postulates for two wholly opposed systems, the Critique could not possibly go beyond the mere [304] method. Since the method was to be adequate for all systems, its peculiar spirit in a particular system could not be determined by the Critique. In order to maintain the method as generally applicable, the Critique had to retain it in an indefiniteness that did not exclude either system. Nay, in agreement with the spirit of the age, the method was to be applied by Kant himself to the thus renewed system of dogmatism rather than to the system of criticism first founded by him. ,/ Allow me to go still further with my conclusions. The Critique of Pure Reason applies to all systems. Or, inasmuch as all other systems are only more or less faithful reproductions of the two main systems, it applies to both of them. Therefore it is the only work of its kind. Any essay proceeding beyond mere critique can belong only to one of the two systems. Therefore the Critique of Pure Reason, as such, must be unsubvertible I and irrefutable, while every system that deserves this name must be confut able by a necessarily opposite system. As long as there is any philosophy, t he Critique of Pure Reason will stand alone, while each system will allow another directly opposed to it. The Critique of Pure Reason is not corruptible by partisan individuality and, consequently, is valid for all systems, while every system bears the stamp of individuality on the face of it, because no system can be completed otherwise than practically, that is, subjectively." The more closely a philosophy approaches its system, the

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more essentially freedom and individuality partake of it, and the less it can claim universal validity [Allgemeingtiltigkeit]. By itself the Critique of Pure Reason is, or contains, the genuine science/ of knowledge [die eigentliche Wissenschaftslehre] because it is valid for all knowledge [Wissenschaft]. Nevertheless, knowledge may rise to an absolute principle and it must do so if it is to become a system. But the 7 science of knowledge cannot possibly put up one . _ absolute principle in order to become a system (in the narrower sense of the word). [305] It must contain, not an absolute principle, not a definite and consummate system, but the canon for all principles and systems. It is time, though, to return from my digression. If the Critique of Pure Reason is the canon of all possible systems, then it J, had to deduce the necessity of practical postulates from the idea of a system as such, not from the idea of some particular system. Consequently, if there are two wholly opposed systems, the method of practical postulates cannot possibly belong to one of them exclusively. For, from the idea of al system as such, the Critique of Pure Reason has first proved that no system, whatever its name, is, in its consummation, an object of knowledge, but merely an object of an activity [Handlung], a practically necessary but infinite activitye4hat the Critique of Pure Reason deduces from the essence of reason is what had already been applied spontaneously, in establishing his respective system, by every philosopher who was guided by the regulative idea of a system, perhaps without realizing distinctly the ground of such procedure. Perchance you remember that I once asked, Why did Spinoza present his philosophy in a system of ethics? Certainly he did not do it to no purpose. Of him it can be said properly, "he lived in his system." But surely he also conceived of more than a mere airy fabric of theory in which a spirit like his could hardly have found the rest and the "heaven in understanding" in which he so obviously lived and moved. Either a system of knowledge is an artifice, a mental play (and you know/ that nothing could be more loathsome to the serious spirit of Spinoza), or the system must obtain reality, not by a theoretical but by a practical faculty; not by a cognitive faculty but by productive realization; not by knowledge [Wissen] but by action [Handeln]." f D ((ACC ece,v6 5 '(7 576N ", 4 ...sy Yet, people will say, "This is precisely what distinguishes dogmatism: it iN is occupied with mere mental play." I know quite well that such is the common language of those very people who have hitherto [306] continued to -

,

dogmatize ostensibly on Kant's account. However, a mere mental play never restAtEULL.system. "This is precisely what we meant; there shall be no system of dogmatism; the only possible system is that of ciriticism." As for myself, I believe that there is a system of dogmatism as well as a system

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of criticism; I even believe that, in this very criticism, I have found the solution of the riddle as to why these two_systems-should,41eeessarily-exist Ode by side, why there must be two systems directly opposed to each other as long as there are any finite beings, and why no man can convince imself of any system except pragmatically [praktisch], that is, by realizing ither system in himself. 4 Consequently, I believe that I can also explain why, for a spirit who has / made himself free and who owes_ his phiksophy _only. to himself, nothing warable than the despotism of narrow minds who cannot trb TiTifT cats rnc tolerate another system beside their own. Nothing can rouse the indignation of the philosophical mind more than the declaration that henceforth all philosophy shall be detained in the fetters of a single system. The genuine philosopher has never felt himself to be greater than when he has beheld an infinity of knowledge. T nwhole sublimity of his science has ...0 1 , that it woul ever be complete_ jHewoulcibeCom7 consisted isi_jot 016 / unbearable to himself the moment hecaMe to believe that he had completed his system. That vet moment., he_ would, cease to be creator. and would be . _degraded to an instrument of his own creature.* How much more unbearable he would find the thought if somebody else should want to force such fetters on him! The highest dignity of philosophy is precisely to expect everything of ✓ human freedom. Hence, nothing can [307] be more detrimental to philosophy than the attempt to confine it in the cage of a system universally valid by theory. He who attempts it may have a sagacious head, but the true critical spirit is not upon him. For this spirit means to quell the vain passion of demonstrations in order to save thefre.edoin of knowledge 1Wissenschaft]. b ; -42 Cc/t..4..,--;', A-c.f. -, Accordingly, how much more merit, on behalf-of true philosophy, lies in the skeptic who declares war in advance upon every universally valid system. How much more than in the dogmaticist, who henceforth lets all spirits swear to the symbol of a theoretical knowledge. Who would not respect in the skeptic the true philosophers** as long as he remains within

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his own boundaries? that is, as long as he does not on his part encroach upon the realm of human freedom, as long as he believes in infinite truth yet also in its merely infinite fruition, in a truth which we obtain ourselves, progressively.

f ,

r As long .

as we are engaged in the realization of our system, there can be only practical c e:

minty of it. Our knowledge of our system is realized in our endeavor to complete it. If we had solved our entire task at any single moment of time, the system would become an object of I

krioudedgc, and therewith it would cease to be an object of freedom. **Philosophy, a most befitting word) If I may have a vote, I will cast it for the retention of this old word." For, as far as I can see, our whole knowledge will always remain philosophy, i.e., always merely progressing knowledge, the higher or lower degrees of which we owe only to our

how for wisdom, i.e., to our freedom. Least of all would I wish to have this word removed by a philosophy that has for the first time undertaken to save the freedom in philosophizing from the presumptions of dogmatism, by a philosophy which presupposes the self-achieved reedom of t he spirit, and which, accordingly will he eternally unintellble to every slave of

f

Arden',

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Sixth Letter

4

Either of the two absolutely opposed systems, dogmatism and criticism, is just as possible as the other, and both will coexist as long as finite beings do not all stand on the same level of freedom. That is my thesis, and this, briefly, is my reason: both systems have the same problem, and this problem cannot be solved theoretically, but only practically, [308] that is, through freedom. Now, only two solutions are possible; one of them leads to criticism, the other to dogmatism. Which of the two we choose depends on the freedom of spirit which we have ourselves acquired." We must be what we call ourselves theoretically. And nothing can convince us of being that, except our very endeavor [Streben] to be just that. This endeavor brings to pass our knowledge of ourselves, and thus this knowledge becomes the pure product of our freedom. We ourselves must have worked our way up to the point from which we want to start. Man cannot get there by arguing, nor can others e him up to that_point. I maintain that dogmatism and criticism both have the same problem) What this problem is I have already said in one previbliKTeTeers. , The problem is not concerned with the being of an absolute as such, because no controversy is possible about the asolute as such. For in the realm of the absolute, none but analytical propositions are valid. Here no laws are observed except the law of identity; here we are concerned not with proofs but only with analyses, not with mediate cognition [Erkenntnis], but only with immediate insight [Wissen] — in short, here all is intelligible [begreiflich]. No proposition can be more groundless," by its very nature, than the ‘, , one which asserts an absolute in human knowledge. Just because it affirms that which is absolute, no further ground can be given for the proposition, As soon as we enter the realm of proofs, we enter the realm of that which is conditioned* and, vice versa, entering the realm of [309] that which is conditioned— we enter the realm of philosophical problems. How we should wrong Spinoza if we were to believe 13101 that his concern in philosophy was only with the analytical propositions which he puts down as a basis of his system. You can understand quite clearly how small an accomplish. ment that was to him; he was troubled by another riddle, the riddle of the

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world, the question of how the absolute could come out of itself and oppose to itself a world?**, .tro' t t/

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I solute in order to oppose sornftilingto ourselves that is radically different

from us. The most intelligible is how we determine all, merely by the law of identity; the most enigmatical is how we can determine anything beyond this law!" As far as I can see, this unintelligibility is indissoluble, theoretically, foit,v citicism as well as for dogmatism. True enough, criticism can prove the necessity of synthetic propositions for the realm of experience. But of what avail is that in answering our question? I ask again, 21z_v_a_there_a realm _olsicperience as all? Every reply X I give to this already presupposes the existence of a world of experience. In order to be able to answer this question we should first of all have to have left the realm of experience; but if we had left that realm the very question would cease. Hence this question cannot be solved except in the way in which Alexander solved the [problem of] Gordian knot, that is, by doing away with the question. [311] Hence it is absolutely unanswerable, because an be answered only in such a way that it can never again be asked. But now it is already evident that such a dissolution of the question can no longer be theoretical; it necessarily becomes practical, For in order to be able to answer it, I must leaveifie Myself, that is, I must do away, for myself, with the bound of the world of experience; I must cease to be a finite being [endliches Wesen]." Therefore that theoretical question necessarily becomes a practical postulate, and the problem of all philosophy necessarily leads us to a claim which can be met only outside of all experience [of any objects]. And thus the problem necessarily leads me beyond all bounds of knowledge [Schranken des Wissens; cf. n.1] into a region where I do not find firm -9,11.ncl, but must produce it myself in order to stand firmly uponit. True enough, theoretical reason might try to leave the realm of knowledge and set out haphazardly for the discovery of some other realm; however, nothing would be attained by that, except reason's losing itself in vain fancies through which it could not gain any real possessions. To provide against such ventures, reason itself would have to create a new realm there where its knowledge ceases, that is, from a merely cognitive it would have to turn into a creative reason, from theoretical reason into practical. This necessity, however, to become practical is valid for reason as such,1 4 not only for a specific reason confined in the fetters of a particular system. Dogmatism and criticism, starting from principles however different, must nonetheless meet in one point in one and the sarrie.protam. Only at this meeting does the time come for their proper separation; only here can they realize tliaLtheprinciple which they had so far presupposed, was nothing but a role sit, upon which the verdict is to be given only at this point. Now on y is it manifest that all the propositions which they had put forth thus far were propositions asserted absolutely, that is, without

This very riddle troubles the critical philosopher." His main question is not how analytical propositions are possible, but rather synthetic ones. For him, nothing is more intelligible than a philosophy which explains all from our very essence, nothing more unintelligible than a philosophy which transcends ourselves. For him, the absolute in ourselves is more intelligible than everything else. What is unintelligible is how we egress from the ab-

.

• It seems almost unintelligible that people criticizing the proofs for the existence of God could

* have overlooked for such a long time the simple, intelligible truth that for the existence of God only an ontological proof can be given. If there is a God he can be only because he is. His existence and his essence [Wesen] must be identical. The proof for the being of God can be given only from this being. For that very reason every proof given by dogmatism is no proof in the proper sense, and the proposition there is a God is the most unproved, the most unprovable, the most groundless proposition—just as groundless as the supreme principle of criticism, I am! Even more unbearable for a thinking mind is the talk about the proofs for the existence of God. As if a being that can be intelligible only through itself, through its absolute oneness, could be made probable, like a many-sided historical proposition, which can be approached from different sides! What would a thinking person feel when reading an announcement like the following: Attempt at a new proof for the existence of God. As if one could experiment with regard to God and ever so often discover something new about him! Such essays are unphilosophical in the highest conceivable degree; their ground, like the ground of all unphilosophical procedure, lies in the inability to abstract (from what is merely empirical), and, with regard to the case at hand, in the incapacity for the purest and highest abstraction. Those essayists thought of the being of God not as the absolute being, but as an existence which is not absolute in itself, but is called absolute only insofar as nothing beyond it is known. This is the empirical concept which every man incapable of abstraction forms of God. Having formed this concept, people would stop at it all the more readily because they feared that the pure idea of absolute being would lead them to a Spinozistic God. In order to escape the abominations of Spinozism, many a philosopher would content himself with an empirically existing God; but what was he to think when he saw that a proposition which he himself could establish only at the end of his system, and as the result of the most troublesome proofs, was put forth by Spinoza as the very first prinicple of all philosophy! Yet, while Spinoza did not offer proof of an absolute being, but simply and absolutely asserted it, our modest philosopher wanted to prove the very actuality [Wirklichkeit] of God. (And that indeed can he done only synthetically). It is significant enough that even language has distinguished very precisely between the actual (that which is present in sensation, that which acts upon me, and upon which I react), the existing (that which is there at all, i.e., in space and time), and the being (which is by itself, absolutely independent of all temporal conditions). Having completely confused these concepts, how could anyone have even as little as an inkling of the intention of Descartes and Spinoza? While these two spoke of absolute being, we foisted upon, them our crass concepts of actuality, or at best, the pure concept of existence[Dasein]. And this, though pure, is nevertheless valid only in the world of appearances and is absolutely empty outside of it. Our empirical age seems to have entirely lost that idea, yet it lives on in the systems of Spinoza and Descartes, and, as the holiest idea of antiquity (To ov), in the immortal works of Plato. Nevertheless, should our era ever again rise to that idea, it might believe, in its conceited delusion, that never before had anything like it come into man's head.

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"This question is intentionally expressed this way. The author knows that Spinoza asserts only

an immanent causality of the absolute object. Still, what follows here will show that he

asserted it only because for him it was unintelligible as to how the absolute could go out of itself; i.e., because he could propose that question but was unable to answer it.

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ground. Now, as they enter a new realm, the realm ofcreatiseill2] reason [realisierender Vernunft], it will be revealed whether they are capable of giving reality to those propositions; now only is it to be decided whether they are able to maintain their principles as well, in the scrimmage of the contest, by the autonomy [Selbstmacht]of their freedom, as they did in the realm of general peace (by absolute power which has no merit*). Criticism could not follow the lead of dogmatism nor, vice versa, lead it into the i realm of the absolute, because in that realm nothing was possible for either except absolute assertions—assertions of which the opposite system would take no notice, assertions that would decide nothing for a conflicting system. pnly now when both systems meet, can neither ignore the other any more, and just as before they were concerned with an undisturbed ) 1 resistance, so now they must concern possession conquered_.idt11:u I • wined b vic • ' themselves with a • ' 1 (It would be vain to believe that the victory isdecided by the mere choice i of principles which are to serve as a basis of one's system, and that in order to save one system or the other, it matters only what principle one has set up at the outset. For what matters is not a trick by which one finds at the end what one had prepared initially and cleverly for such eventual discovery,),The theoretical assertions which we put forth absolutely will not coerce our freedom to decide this way or that (that would be blind dogmatism) but, as soon as we are in the contest, those very principles as set up in the beginning are no longer valid in and by themselves; nov,T only st is it to be decided, piacsically_and-by-oksr-iFeadorn, whether they are valid a or not. And it is nothing indeed but an inevitable circle if our thenretiral speculation sets up beforehand what our freedom will maintain afterwards iriihe scrimmage of the contest. If we want to establish a system and, therefore, principles, we cannot do it except by an anticipation of the practical decision. We should not establish those principles unless our freedom had already decided about them; at the beginning of our knowledge they are [313] nothing but prnleptic assertions, or, as Jacobi expresses it somewhere—wryly and awkwardly enough, as he says himself, yet not quite unphilosophically— they are original insuperable prejudices I Vorurteile]. Consequently, no philosopher will imagine that he has done everything, by merely setting up the highest principles. For those principles have only a subjective value as a basis of his system, that is, they are valid for him only inasmuch as he has anticipated his own practical decision. -

.

—

Seventh Letter I begin to approach the goal. The ethics of dogmatism becomes more in•K. F. A. Sclielling's comment: Clause of 1795, dropped 1809.

telligible for us as soon as we know what the problem is which, like any other ethics, it has to solve. The main task of all philosophy consists of solving the problem of the ex istence of the world. All philosophers have worked at this solution, whatever different expression they have given to the problem. He who wants to conjure up the spirit of philosophy must conjure it up here. When Lessing asked Jacobi what he would consider the spirit of Spinozism to be, Jacobi replied:” it could be nothing else than the old a nihilo nihil fit, which Spinoza contemplated according to concepts more abstract and pure [nach abgezogenern Begriffen] than those of the philosophizing cabbalists or of others before him. According to these purer concepts he found that the notion of anything emerging within the nonfinite [Entstehen im Unendlichen] posits something from nothing regardless of any support which images and words seem to furnish. "Consequently, he rejected every transition of the nonfinite into the finite," all transitory causes whatsoever, and for the emanating prinicple he substituted an immanent principle, an indwelling cause of the world, eternally immutable in itself, a cause which would be one and the same as all its effects. I don't believe that the spirit of Spinozism could be better circumscribed. But I believe that the very transition from the nonfinite to the / [314] finite is the problem of all philosophy, not only of one particular system. I even believe that Spinoza's solution is the only possible solution, though the interpretation it must have in his system can belong to that system alone and another system will offer another interpretation for the solution. I hear you say: "This statement needs an interpretation itself." I shall gi've it as well as I can. No system can realize the transition from the nonfinite to the finite.' A mere play of thoughts is always possible, but it is never of much avail. No system can fill the gap between the nonfinite and the finite. This I presup. pose; it is the result, not of critical philosophy, but o Critique the of Pure Reason„" which concerns dogmatism as well as criticism, and which must be equally evident for both. Reason [personified as feminine] sought to realize that transition from' the nonfinite to the finite in order to bring unity into her cognition. She wanted to find the middle term [das Mittelglied] between the nonfinite and the finite in order to connect them both in the same unity of knowledge. While she cannot possibly find that middle term, yet she does not on that account surrender her highest aspiration, unity of cognitionsLit ' is now her will no longer to need that middle term. Her effort to realize that transition consequently becomes the absolute demand—there shall be no transition from the nonfinite to the finite. How different is this demand from the opposite there shall he such transition! The latter is transcen-

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dent; it wants to extend itS sway to a realm in which it has no power (the realm of the nonfinite).* It is the demand of Iblincidism. The former demand, op..the contrary, is immanent; it wills that I shall not posit of any ransition.LThus dogmatism and criticism unite in the same postulate. Philosophy cannot make a transition from the nonfinite to the finite, but it can make one from the finite to the nonfinite. [315] It is precisely the refusal of a transition from the nonfinite to the finite which, as an aspiradon [Streben], comes to be the connecting middle term of the two in human cognition. In order that there may be no transition from the nonfinite to the finite, the finite itself _ must have.a_tendency_towards the nonfinite a per etual strivin oiose itself in. thriapnfirtite. 4° 6 ,i 4, °,,,,,, c", `,`i Now only does light dawn for us with regard to Spinoza's Ethics. It was ( not theoretical necessity alone, it was not merely a consequence of ex nihilo nihil fit, that led him to his solution of the problem, the solution that there is no transition from the nonfinite to the finite, no transitive, but only an indwelling cause of the world. It was to the practical dictum heeded by all ,I'lr philosophy that he owed that solution, except that Spinoza interpreted the - dictum acttrygio Tits system.. lie—riu1 begun with a nonfinite substance, an absolute object. "There shall be no transition from the nonfinite to the finite"—behold, the demand of all philosophy. Spinoza interpreted it according to his principle, which let the finite differ from the nonfinite only because of the limitations of the finite. According to his principle everything in existence was merely a modification of the same infinite. Consequently there was no transition, no conflict, but only the demand that the finite strive to become identical with the infinite and to merge in the infinity of the absolute object.' Do you ask, my friend, how Spinoza could bear the contradiction of such a demand? Truly, he felt that the commandment annihilate thyself? could not be fulfilled as long as he had to value the subject as highly as it is valued in the system of freedom. But this was his very aim; his self was not to hehisproperty; it_wa_stohelong_ ta _i nfi nite _ reality,_ ../ The subject as such cannot annihilate itself for, in order to do so, it would have to survive its own annihilation. But Spinoza did not acknowledge any subject as such. On his part, he had done away with that concept of a subject before he set up his postulate. If the subject has an independent causality of its own insofar as it is object, then there is a contradiction in the demand Lose yourself [3.1.61in the absolute. But Spinoza had done away with just that independent causality of the ego by which it is ego [Ich]. In demanding that the subject lose itself A in the absolute, he had demanded implicitly the identity of subjective with - T" absolute causality. He had decided, practically, that the finite world is ,

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•K. F S, Scheflings comment : In the lino edition.

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nothing but a modification of the infinite, finite causality merely a modification of infinite causality. That demand was to be fulfilled, not by the subject's own causality, but by a foreign causality in the subject. In other words, the demand was this: Annihilate yourself through absolute causality! Be absolutely passive toward absolute causality! Finite causality was to differ from absolute not by prinkiple but only by its limitations. The very causality governing in the infinite was to govern in every finite being. In the absolute this causality purported absolute negation of every merely finite state [Endlichkeit]. Similarly, its significance in the finite was to negate finitude empirically, a negation to be produced progressively, in time. Furthermore, Spinoza could not but infer that a r, complete fulfillment of the task of this finite causality, attained at any time, would mean identity with absolute causality, the finite having overcome the limitations by which alone it differed from the absolute. Let us stop here, my friend, and admire the calmness with which Spinoza approached the completion of his system. He may have found that calm only in the love of the infinite. Who would think any the worse of his serene spirit for harboring such an image, under which he found bearable the thought at which his system stopped?

Yt

Eighth Letter I believe that I am touching on the very core of all possible utopianism greal_Lvlaen I speak of the ethical principle of dogmatism. The bthz: Sci most sacred thoughts of antiquity and the phantoms of human insanity [317] meet on this spot. "The return into the deity, into the fountainhead of all existence, the unification with the absolute, the annihilation of selfhood"— is this not the principle of all utopian [schwarmerischen] philosophy, except for the different interpretations given by different en- --V thusiasts who would expound it and shroud it in different images according to their spirit and their intentions. The principle of the history of all enthusiasm [Schwarmerei] is to be found here. You say: "I can understand how Spinoza could keep out of sight the contradiction involved in his ethical principle. However, granting that, how was it possible for the serene spirit of Spinoza to bear that destructive and annihilating prinicple itself? For his is a serenity which illumines with its mild light his whole life and all his writings." I cannot reply except by saying: "Read his writings in just this respect, and you will find the answer to your question yourself." A natural, an unavoidable deception had made that principle bearable for him and for all those nobler spirits who believed in it. For him, intellec.

...

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tual intuition of the absolute is the highest attainment, the last grade of cognition to which a finite being can rise, the very life of the spirit.* From where else could he have drawn the idea of intellectual intuition but from his own self-intuition [Selbstanschauung]? You need only to read him in order to be fully convinced of this. * * [318] We all have a secret and wondrous capacity of withdrawing from temporal change into our innermost self, which we divest of every exterior accretion. There, in the form of immutability, we intuit the eternal in us. This intuition is the innermost and in the strictest sense our own ex, perience, upon which depends everything we know and believe of a supersensuous world. It is this intuition which first convinces us that anything is, strictly speaking, while everything else merely appears, and is only inasmuch as we transfer the word being to it. This intuition is distinguished from every sensuous intutition by the fact that it is produced by freedom alone, and that it is foreign and unknown to any whose freedom, overcome by the invading power of the objects, is almost insufficient for the production of consciousness. Yet there is an approximation to this freedom of self-intuition even for those who do not possess it; there are mediate experiences in which the freedom can be divined. There is a certain profoundness of mind [Tiefsinn] of which one is not aware, and which one would try in vain to produce at will. Jacobi has described it. And a complete aesthetics (this word taken in its old meaning) will show forth empirical acts which are explicable only as imitations of that intellectual act, and which would not be intelligible at all if we had not at some time—to speak with Plato—seen their prototype in the intellectual world." "From experiences,"" from immediate experiences must all of our knowledge start. This is a truth which has already been proclaimed by many philosophers who have fallen short of full truth only for lack of an explanation concerning the nature of that intuition [Anschauung]. From experience, indeed; however, because every experience of objects depends on the experience of further objects, at core our knowledge must start from •According to Spinoza, all adequate, i.e., immediate cognitions are intuitions [Anschauungenl of divine attributes, and the main theorem on which his ethics rests, so far as it is an ethics, is the proposition mens humana ha bet adaequatam cognitionem aeternae et infinitae essentiae Dei (Ethics, bk. 2 prop. 47). From this intuition of God arises the intellectual love of God, which Spinoza describes as an approach to the state of the highest bliss. He says (bk. 5, prop. 36): Mends erga Deum amor intellectualis pars est infiniti amoris, quo Deus se ipsum smut. And; Summus mentis conatus summaque virtus est, res intelligere tertio genere, quod

pro..edit ab adaequata idea divinorum attributorum (ibid., prop. 25). And also: Ex hoc

cognitionis genere summa, quae dari potest, mends acquiescentia oritur. (ibid., prop. 27). Further: Clare intelligimus, qua in re salus nostra, seu beatitudo seu libertas consistit, nempe in constanti et aeterno erga Deum amore (ibid., prop. 36 schol)." ••E.g., bk. 5, prop. 30: Mena nostra, quatenus se sub Aetentitatis specie cognoscit, eatenus Dei cognitionrin nrcessario Whet, scitque, sr in Deo ewe et per Drum concipi.

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an immesliate_exptrien.ce in the strictest sense, that is, from an . eyx.per ui . 4s iinet re produced b our WY) and_expriience, this principle alone can breathe life into the otherwise dead_ and inanimate system. Even the most abstract concepts [319] with which our cognition plays depend upon an experience of life and existence[Dasein]. This intellectual intuition takes place whenever I cease to be an object for myself, when—withdrawn into itself—the intuiting subject is identical with the intuited." In this moment of intuition, time and duration vanish for us, it is not we who...are in time, but time is in fact it is not time but rather pure absolute eternity that is in ourselves. It is not we who are lost in the intuition of the objective world; it is the world that is lost in our intuition. This intuition Spinoza has objectified. When he intuited the intellectual in himself [das Intellektuale in sich], the absolute was no longer an object for him. This was an experience which admitted of two interpretations; (either he had become identical with the absolute, or else the absolute had become identical with him) In the latter case, intellectual intuition was intuition of self; in the former, intuition of an absolute object. This latter is what Spinoza preferred. He believed himself identical with the absolute ob'ect, and lost in its nonfiniteness. Believing t is, unself. It was not he who had vanished in the intuition of the atiioiiite object. On the contrary, everything objective had vanished for him, in the intuition of himself. Still, that thought of hav- / ing merged into the absolute object was bearable for him precisely because it arose from a delusion, and it must have been all the more bearable ■ because that delusion is indestructible. (For, in order to destroy it, one would have to destroy oneself).*" It is not likely that any enthusiast [Schwarmer] would ever have taken delight in the thought of being engulfed in the abyss of the deity, had he not ;-• 4. always put his own ego in the place of the deity. It is not likely that any mystic could have conceived of himself as annihilated, had he not always, fn his thought, retained his own self as the substratum or the annihilation. This /necessity to think oneself in all instances [iiberall noch sich selbst zu denken]," which helped all enthusiasts, also helped Spinoza. When [320] he intuited himself as merged in the absolute object, he still intuited himself; he could not conceive of himself as annihilated without thinking of himself, at the same time as existing.** frl„ 1-, r— -

—

"K. F. A. Schelling's note: In the first edition. •• We can never get rid of our selves. The ground for this lies in our absolute freedom, owing to which the ego in us cannot he a thing, cannot be an entity capable of objective determination. And that is why our ego can never be comprehended as middle term in a series of representations. Preceding every series, it always takes place as the first term, which holds fast the entire series of reprevntat ions. !fence, also, the acting ego, though determined in every

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[321]

Here, my friend, we have the principle of all eccentric fantasy Whenever such fantastication becomes a system, it arises [Schwarmerei]. ■e from nothing but [321] the objectified intellectual intuition, from the fact that one would take the intuition of oneself for an intuition of an object outside of oneself, the intuition of the inner intellectual world for an intui\tion of a supersensuous world outside of oneself. This delusion revealed itself in all the eccentricities [Schwarrnereien] of ancient philosophy. All philosophers, even those of the earliest antiquity, seem to have felt, at least, that there must be an absolute state in which we, —present to ourselves alone," fully content, and not in need of any objective world and therefore free from its limitations—live a higher life. This state of intellectual being they all located outside of their selves. They felt that their better selves were unceasingly striving for that_state l could never fully attain it. Consequently, they conceived of it as the final goal desired by what was best in them. However, having located that state outside of themselves, they could not account for their striving as really their own; they had to explain it objectively, historically. Hence the fiction of ancient philosophy concerning the soul, which before its present state was supposed to have lived in that blessed state from which it had been cast out and locked up in the prison of the objective world in punishment of crimes it had committed.*

y-

single case, is as yet also not determined, because it escapes every objective determination and can be determined only by itself; thus it is at once the determined and the determining. The necessity to save one's ego from all objective determination and, accordingly, to still think of oneself in every instance, is illustrated by two contradictory yet very common experiences. Now and again our thought of death and not-being is connected with agreeable feelings, and for no other reason than this, that we presuppose a pleasure in not-being, that is ewe esume a continuation of ourselves even during not-being) On the other hand, we also connect disagreeable feelings with the thought of not-being. "To be or not to be" —this question would be wholly indifferent to me if I could but conceive of a complete not-being. For I could not feel any fear of a collision with not-being if I did not apprehend a survival of my self, so that my feelings would survive too. Sterne's striking exclamation would be perfectly correct "I'd be a fool to fear you, death! As long as I am, you are not, and wen you are, 'then l am not!"'"— provided I could hope not to be at all, at some future time. But I am apprehensive of being when I no longer am. Therefore the thought of not-being is a torment f rather than a terror, because I have to think of myself as existing in order to think of my notbeing i.e., I find it necessary to think a contradiction) Consequently, when I am afraid of not being, what I fear is not not-being but rather my subsistence [Dasein] even after my not ' being any longer. I'll gladly not be, only I don't want to feel my not-being. I do not want an existence which is not an existence, or, according to Baggesen,' the clever annotator of Sterne's sentence, I fear only the lack of expression of existence, a lack that is indeed also an existence simultaneous with not-being. •This is another endeavor to make possible the transition from the absolute to the condition. ed, from the boundless to the limited, an attempt probably of early origin, and worthy of respect inasmuch as it presupposes, at least, the need felt for an explanation. However, like all the earliest endeavors in philosophy, this one too is satisfied with a merely historical explanation. Yet just this was the question how did we get from the state of absolute perfection into the state of imperfection or moral crimes? Nevertheless, that endeavor contains truth insofar as it explains this transition morally; the first crime was also the first step from the state of bliss."

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You are likely to understand now, my friend, how Spinoza could speak of that absolute state not only cheerfully, but even with ecstasy. For he could not think of himself as lost in that state; he thought of his personality as [322] expanded into it! Or is there any thought more sublime than the theorem with which he closes the whole of his Ethics, "Beatitude is not the' , reward of virtue, it is virtue itself!" Every conflict was to end in that intellectual state which he represented from his own self-intuition; every strife was to cease—even the most noble one, that of morality; and every contradiction which sensuality and the reason inevitably establish between morality and beatitude [Gliickseligkeit] was to be dissolved. Morality itself cannot be the highest, it can be only an approximation of the absolute state, only a striving for absolute freedom which no longer departs from any law, yet which also does not know any law but the unalterable, eternal law of its own essence. If it is to be thought of as morally possible, happiness can be thought of only as an approximation to a beatitude which no longer differs from morality and which therefore can no longer be a reward of virtue. As long as we still believe in a rewarding happiness we also presuppose that happiness and morality, sensuality and reason are conflicting principles. But w_e_ought not to do thiOlat conflict ought to cease, absolutely. Happiness is a state of passivity; the happier [gluckseliger] we are, the more passive we keep ourselves toward the objective world." The freer we become, and the more closely we approach reasonableness (Vernunftmassighkeit), the less we need happiness, that is, a beatitude which we owe not to ourselves but to luck. The purer our concepts of happiness become, and the more we gradually separate from them whatever is contributed by exterior objects and by sense gratification, the more closely happines approaches morality and ceases to be happiness. What, anyway, is the whole idea of a rewarding happiness but a moral delusion, an assignat," for which you, empirical man, are supposed to sell out your sensual pleasures for the time being, an assignat, however,that is said to be payable only when you yourself are no longer in need of payment. You may imagine as much as you like that that happiness [323] is a sum of pleasures fully analogous to the pleasures you now sacrifice. But just dare to conquer yourself now! Take the risk of the first childish step toward virtue; the second will be easier already. And if you go on, you will be astonished to discover that that happiness which you expected as a reward of your sacrifice is no longer of value to you. Happiness (that toy of your empirically affected reason*) has been postponed deliberately until a time when you must be enough of a man to be ashamed of it. To be ashamed of it, I say; for if you never get as far as feeling beyond that sensuous ideal of happiness, it would be better if reason had never spoken to you. • K F A. SCIIEL•INOS NO '1'F. In the lino edition.



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It is one of the demands of reason that we shall no longer need any

rewarding happiness," just as it is demanded that we become more and more reasonable, self-reliant, free. For unless you want to interpret the concept of reward in a way counter to all ordinary use of language, happiness, as long as it can reward us at all, is a happiness not as yet brought to pass by reason itself (how were reason and happiness ever to meet?)— a happiness, therefore, which no longer has any value in the eyes of a reasonable being. An ancient writer said: Should we deem the immortal gods unhappy because they do not posssess any capitals, estates, slaves? Should we not rather praise them as the only blessed ones, because they alone, by the very sublimity of their nature, are deprived of all those gods? Evidently, the very highest level to which our ideas can rise involves a nature [Wesen] absolutely free, acting only according to its being [Sein], and whose only law is its own essence [Wesen]. Descartes and Spinoza, your names are almost the only ones that could be invoked till now, when speaking of this idea! Only a few have understood you, and even fewer understood you willingly. [324] The supreme being cannot act according to arguments of reason, says Descartes; for if it could, Spinoza adds, its activity would not be absolute but conditioned by its cognition of the laws of reason. Everything not explicable from our pure being, from dur absolute essence, is determined through passivity. As soon as we proceed beyond ourselves Lye_put ourselves in a passive state. And reason is not intelligible through our absolute being, but only through limitation of the absolute in us." Still less *intelligible is a moral law in the absolute. For the moral law as such proclaims itself through an ought [Sollen], that is, it presupposes the possibility of a deviation, it assumes the concept of good together with the concept of evil. And, in the absolute, the latter can be conceived as little as the former. Even Greek sensuality felt that the blessed gods (1 ipixapec esof ) would have to be liberated from every fetter of the law in order to be the blessed ones while the poor mortals (aegri mortales) sighed under the coercion of the laws. But the very complaints uttered by Greek mythology about the limits to human arbitrariness paid infinite honor to humanity. Thus moral freedom was maintained for man, while a mere physical freedom was left for the gods. That very sensuality which, for bliss, demanded absolute' freedom, could not conceive of such freedom except as arbitrariness.

Where there is absolute freedom, there is absolute beatitude, and vice

"k.

versa." But with absolute freedom no consciousness of self is compatible. An activity without any object, an activity to which there is no resistance, never returns into itself. Only through a return to one's self does cork sciousness ari e. Only a restricted reality I RealitatI is an actuality Wirklichkeit I for us.'"

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Where all resistance ceases, there is infinite expansion. But the intensity of our consciousness is in inverse ratio to the extension of our being. The supreme moment of being is, for us, transition to not-being, the moment of annihilation. Here, [325] in this moment of absolute being, supreme passivity is at one with the most unlimited activity. Unlimited activity is absolute repose —perfect Epicureanism. We awaken from intellectual intuition as from a state of death. We ✓ awaken through reflection, that is, through a forced return to ourselves. But no return is thinkable without resistance, no reflection without an object. We designate as alive an activity intent upon objects alone and as dead an activity losing itself in itself. Man ought to be neither lifeless nor' merely alive. His activity is necessarily intent upon objects, but with equal necessity it returns into itself. The latter distinguishes him from the merely living (animal) being, the former from the lifeless. Intuition [Anschauung] as such is usually explained as the most immediate experience; correctly so, as far as it goes. Yet, the more immediate the experience, the closer to disappearance. Even sensuous intuition, as long as it is only what it is, borders on nothingness. Should I maintain it as intuition I would cease to be I; I must grasp myself with might in order to save myself from the abyss of intuition. Still, as long as intuition is intent upon objects, that is, as long as it is sensuous intuition, there is no danger of losing oneself. The I, on finding resistance, is obliged to take a stand ). against it, that is, to return into self." However, where sensuous intuition ceases, where everything objective vanishes, there is nothing but infinite expansion without a return into self. Should I maintain intellectual intuition I would cease to live; I xau111492froutiein m to_et.ernity, "60 A French philosopher says that since the fall of man we have ceased to intuit [anschauen] things in themselves. If the dictum is to have any reasonable meaning, he must have been thinking of the Fall of man in the Platonic sense, as stepping out of the absolute state. But in that case he should have put his dictum inversely; since we have ceased intuiting things in themselves we are fallen beings. For if the term thing in itself is to have any sense [326] it can only signify something that is no longer an object for us, something that offers no resistance to our activity. Now, it is indeed the sight [Anschauung] of the objective world that extricates us from intellectual self-contemplation, from the state of bliss. In that respect, then, Condillac might have said: As soon as the world ceased to be thing in itself for us, as soon as the ideal reality Idle idealische Realitat] became objective, and as soon as the intellectual world [die intellektuale Welt] became an object for us, it became clear that we had fallen from our state of bliss. Strangely, these ideas pervade all the fantastications ISchwarmereien] of the most different peoples and times. In taking intellectual intuition to be objective, perfect dogmatism differs from all the dreams of the cabbalists,

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of the Brahmins, of the Chinese philosophers, and of the new mystics, in nothing but the external form; in principle they all agree. Though in fact a number of the Chinese sages do differ from the rest, to their own advantage, in their candid way of letting the supreme good, the absolute bliss, consist of nothingness.* For if this nothing signifies what is absolutely not an object, then this nothing must certainly occur wherever a nonobject is supposed, nevertheless, to be intuited objectively, that is, wherever all thought and understanding cease. I may have reminded you of Lessing's confession that, for him, the idea of an infinite being was accompanied by a notion of infinite boredom, which would make him uneasy and sic k. And there is aIso his -

-

(blasphemous) exclamation: I should not want to gain eternal bliss for anything in the world. (I cannot see any comfort in philosophy for him who does not feel just this way.**)

Ninth Letter 0„4,'

e-

tai.ilO CV t' "4

`

Your question does not come unexpectedly. It is even implied in my last letter. Criticism can be spared the reproach of [327] fantastication ISchwarmereil just as little as can dogmatism, if, like the latter, it transcends the vocation of man and tries to represent the ultimate goal as attainable." But allow me to review matters a little. If an activity no longer limited by objects, and wholly absolute, is no longer accompanied by consciousness; if unlimited activity is identical with absolute repose; if the supreme moment of being is closest to not-being; then criticism is bound for self-annihilation just as much as dogmatism is. If dogmatism demands that I vanish in the absolute object, then criticism must demand, on the contrary, that everything called object shall vanish in the intellectual intuition of myself. In either case, every object is lost for me, and therewith also the consciousness of myself as subject. My reality vanishes in the infinite reality." These conclusions seem to be inevitable as soon as we presuppose that both systems are intent upon the dissolution of that contrast [Widerspruch] between subject and object, upon absolute identity. I cannot do away with the subject without at the same time doing away with the object as such, and, on the same account, with all consciousness of self; and I cannot do away with the object without also doing away with the subject as such, that is, with all its personality. Yet that presupposition is absolutely inevitable. 'See Kant's treatise End of all Things" (1794).Y**K. F. A. Schelling's note: In the Bost edition.

[328,329] PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS ON DOGMATISM AND CRITICISM 187 It is inevitable because a11_215 tilo ophy demands absolute thesis as the goal of_all synthesis.* Absolute thesis, however, is thinkable only through absolute identity. 1328] Hence both systems necessarily strive for absolute identity. There is the difference, though, that criticism is intent immediately upon absolute identity of the subject, and only mediately upon conformity of the object with the subject, while dogmatism is immediately intent upon the identity of an absolute object, and only mediately upon conformity of the subject with the absolute object. Criticism, faithful to its principle, tries synthetically to connect happiness with morality; dogmatism's effort is to connect morality with happiness. The dogmatist says: insofar as I strive for happiness, for conformity of my subject with the objective world, I am also striving, mediately, for the identity of my essence: I act morally. On the contrary says the critical philosopher, in sofar as I act morally I strive immediately for the absolute identity of my essence, and thereby mediately also for the identity of the objective and subjective in me, for bliss. Still, in both systems morality and happiness are two different principles, which I can unite only synthetically (as ground and consequence)** only as long as I am still approaching the ultimate goal, the absolute thesis. If I should ever reach it, then the two lines on which the infinite progressus runs, morality and happiness, would meet in one point; they would cease to be morality and happiness, that is, two different principles. They would be united in one principle which must, therefore be higher than the principle either of absolute being or of absolute beatitude. [329] If both systems strive for the perfecting of human knowledge by one absolute principle, this must be the point of agreement between both systems. For if all controversy ceases in the absolute, the controversy between different systems must cease in it too, or rather all systems must terminate in it; they must vanish in it as contradictory systems. If dogmatism -

'By the way, a question: to which class of propositions does the moral commandment belong? Is it a problematic or an assertoric, an analytic or a synthetic proposition? According to its mere form it is not a simply problematic proposition, because it commands categorically. But just as little is it an assertoric proposition, for it does not posit anything, it merely demands. According to its form, then, it stands between the two. It is a problematic proposition that is to become assertoric. According to its content it is neither a merely analytic nor a merely synthetic proposition. But it is a synthetic proposition that is to become an analytic one. It is synthetic because it merely demands absolute identity, absoslute thesis; but it is also thetic" (analytic), because it is necessarily intent upon absolute (not merely synthetic) unity. Something else) The moral commandment proposes an absolute which I am to realize. Yet, the absolute as such is not an object of realization. Realization stands under the condition of an opposite. Being without an opposite, the absolute is, simply because it is, and it needs no realization. If it is to be realized at all, this can be done only in the negation of the opposite. In this regard, the moral commandment is at once an affirmative and a negative proposition, because it demands that I realize (affirm) the absolute by annulling (denying) an opposite." "This does not mean as merit and reward. For reward is not the consequence of merit as such, but of a justice which harmo n izes both. In both systems, however, happiness and morality must be thought of as each or bet's immediate wound and c otisequence.

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[330]

is the system that turns the absolute into an object, then it necessarily terminates where the subject ceases to be subject, that is, ceases to be opposed to the object. The original opposition between the two principles of dogmatism and criticism has always been revealed in the particular systems of philosophy. But the point of agreement between the two opposite fundamental systems has not always been grasped. Having grasped it in the result of our abstract investigation, we can now descend to those particular systems; they will confirm our result. He who has reflected upon Stoicism and Epicureanism, the two most opposite moral systems, has readily found that both meet in the same ultimate goal. The Stoic who strove for independence from the power of objects strove just as much for beatitude as the Epicurean who thrust himself into the arms of the world. One made himself independent of sensuous needs by satisfying none, the other by satisfying all of them. The one sought to attain the ultimate end—absolute beatitude — metaphysically, by way of abstraction from all sensuality; the other physically, by complete satisfaction of sensuality. But the Epicurean turned metaphysicist because his task of gaining bliss by successive satisfaction of single needs was infinte. The Stoic turned physicist because his abstraction from all sensuality could come to pass only gradually, in time. The one wanted to reach the ultimate goal by regressus, the other by progressus. Still, both of them were striving for the same end, the end of absolute beatitude and total contentment. [330] He who has reflected upon idealism and realism, the two most opposite theoretical systems, has found by himself that both can come to pass only in the approach to the absolute, yet that both must unite in the absolute, that is, must cease as opposite systems. One used to say that God intuits the things in themselves. If this were to signify anything reasonable, it would mean that in God is the most perfect realism. Yet realism, conceived in its perfection, necessarily and just because it is perfect realism, becomes idealism. For perfect realism comes to pass only where the objects cease to be objects, that is, appearances, opposed to the subject—in short, only where the representation is identical with the represented objects, hence where subject and object are absolutely identical. Therefore that realism in the deity by which it intuits the things in themselves is nothing else than the most perfect idealism, by which the deity intuits nothing but itself and its own reality. Both idealism and realism are subdivided into objective and subjective. Objective realism is subjective idealism, and objective idealism is subjective realism." This distinction must disappear as soon as the contradiction disappears between subject and object, as soon as I do not posit as merely ideal in myself that which I posit as real in the object, and as merely ideal

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in the object that which I posit as real in myself, in short, as soon as object and subject are identical.* He who has reflected upon freedom and necessity" has found for himself that these two principles must be united in the absolute: [331] freedom, because the absolute acts by unconditional autonomy [Selbstmacht], and necessity, because it acts only according to the laws of its own being, the inner necessity of its essence. In the absolute there is no longer any will that could have reality independently of those acts. Absolute freedom and absolute necessity are identical.** Thus it is confirmed throughout that all contesting principles are unified and all contradicting systems become indentical as soon as one rises to the absolute. All the more urgent becomes your question, Wherein does criticism excel dogmatism, if both meet anyway in the same ultimate goal, in the last aim of all philosophizing? Still, my dear friend, is not your question answered already in that very result? Or does that result not yield quite naturally this further conclusion, that in order to differ from dogmatism criticism must not proceed along with dogmatism as far as the attainment of the ultimate goal. Dogmatism and criticism can hold their own as contradicting systems only while approaching the ultimate goal. On this very account, criticism must regard the ultimate goal merely as the object of an endless task. Criticism itself necessarily turns into dogmatism as soon as it sets up the ultimate goal as realized (in an object), or as realizable (at any particular time)." The absolute, if represented as realized (as existing), becomes objective; ✓, it becomes an object of knowledge and [332] therewith ceases to be an object of freedom. And nothing is left for the finite subject but to annihilate itself as subject in order to become identical, through such selfannihilation, with that object. Philosophy is abandoned to all the horrors of ecstasy [Schwarmerei]." r, , , •Objective realism (subjective idealism), conceived practically, is happiness [GIiickseligkeit]; subjective realism (objective idealism), also practically conceived, is morality. As long as the system of objective realism (of things in themselves) is still valid, happiness can be joined with morality only synthetically; but once idealism and realism are no longer contradictory principles, morality and happiness are no longer opposed either. If objects cease to be objects for me, my aspiration can no longer refer to anything but myself (to the absolute identity of my essence). ••There are many who find the doctrine of Spinoza objectionable because in their minds Spinoza is supposed to have thought of God as of being without freedom. It is not superfluous to remind them that it was precisely Spinoza who, for one, thought of absolute necessity and absolute freedom as identical. Ethics, bk. I def. 7: Ea res libera dicitur, quae ex sola suae naturac necessitate existit, et a se sola ad agendum determinatur. Ibid., prop. 17: Deus ex soils suite flat urae legibus . . . agit . . . untie sequitur, solum Drum esse causam liberam. I That entity is called /ice which exists only owing to the necessity of its own nature and which is induced to act only by itself. God acts from nothing but the laws of his own nature. It follows that God alone is a lire cause.'

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And if criticism represents the ultimate goal as realizable, then, though it does not set up the absolute as an object of knowledge, yet it must leave a free hand to the faculty of imagination, which always anticipates actuality [Wirklichkeit], and which, standing halfway between the cognitive and the realizing faculty, takes a hand at the point where cognition ceases and realization has not yet begun. The faculty of imagination,* in order to represent the absolute as realizable, must now represent it as realized, thus lapsing into the same enthusiasm [Schwarmerei] which produces the apparent mysticism. Criticism, therefore, differs from dogmatism, not in the ultimate goal which both of them set up, but in the approach to it, in the realization of it, in the spirit of criticism's own practical postulates. And philosophy inquires into the ultimate aim of our human vocation only in order to be able to answer the much more urgent question as to our vocation [Bestimmung] itself. Only the immanent use which we [333] make of the principle of the absolute in practical philosophy for the knowledge of our vocation gives us the right to proceed unto the absolute. In this matter of the ultimate end, even dogmatism, by its practical intention, is distinguished from blind dogmaticism, which uses the absolute as a constitutive principle for our knowledge, while dogmatism uses it merely as a constitutive principle for our vocation. How do the two systems differ in the spirit of their practical postulates? This, dear friend, is the question from which I started and to which I now return. And this is the result of this whole investigation: quite like criticism, dogmatism cannot attain the absolute as an object through theoretical knowledge, because an absolute object tolerates no subject beside it, and theoretical philosophy is based upon the very conflict between subject and object. Therefore nothing is left for both systems except to make the absolute, which could not be an object of wledge, an ob-

•Imagination I Einbildungskraftl, as the connecting middle between the theoretical and the ractical faculty, is analogous with theoretical reason inasmuch as this is dependent upon cognition of the object, and analogous with practical reason insofar as this produces its object, itself. Imagination actively produces an object by putting itself in complete dependence on that object, into full passivity. What the creature of imagination lacks in objectivity, imagination itself supplies by the passivity which, through an act of spontaneity, it voluntarily assumes toward the idea of that object. Thus imagination could be defined as the faculty of putting oneself into complete passivity by full self-activity. It is to be hoped that time, the mother of all development, will also foster and eventually develop, unto the completion of the whole science, those seeds of great disclosures about this wondrous faculty which Kant has sown in his immortal work.'

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ject of action, or, to demand the action by which the absolute is realized.* In this necesscary action both systems unite:" 1 [334] This action as such, therefore, cannot in turn distinguish dogmatism from criticism. They can differ only in the spirit of the action and only insofar as this spirit demands the realization of the absolute as an object. Now, I cannot realize any objective causality without abrogating, in turn, a subjective causality. I cannot posit any activity in the object without positing passivity in myself. What I convey to the object I take away from myself, and vice versa. All these are propositions which can be proved most rigorously in philosophy, and of which everyone can give illustrations in the most common (moral) experience. Consequently, if I presuppose the absolute as object of my knowledge, it exists independently of my causality, that is, I exist as dependent on its causality. Its causality annihilates mine. Whither shall I flee from its power? Only by assuming absolute passivity in myself is it possible to take for real an absolute activity of an object, but then all the horros of enthusiasm befall me. In dogmatism my vocation [Bestimmung] is to annihilate all free causality in me; to let absolute causality act in me, but not to act myself; to narrow more and more the limits of my freedom in order more and more to widen those of the objective world; in short, my destiny is the utmost unlimited passivity. While dogmatism solves the theoretical conflict between subject and object by [335] demanding that the subject cease to be *If the author has correctly understood the interpreters of [Kant's own] Criticism, most of them do not mean, by the practical postulate of the existence of God, the demand to realize practically [the moral implication of) the idea of God. They mean merely the demand to assume the existence of God theoretically, [ostensibly] for the sake of moral progress and therefore in a mere practical intention. Since to believe, to take to be true, etc., is obviously an act of the theoretical faculty, their assumption is really theoretical [not practical] and they presuppose God objectively. Thus God would not be the immediate but only a mediate object of our act of realizing, and yet he would be an object of theoretical reason (which, however, they do not seem to admit). On the other hand, these same philosophers assert a complete analogy of both practical postulates, the postulate of the existence of God, and the postulate of immortality. Yet, it is evident that immortality must be the immediate object of our realizing. We make immortality real through the nonfiniteness of our moral persistence. Accord. ingly, they ought to admit that the idea of the deity is also the immediate object of our actualization, that we can realize the very idea of the deity only through the infinity of our moral progress (and that it is not merely our theoretical -- belief in a deity which we thus realize). Otherwise we should be sure of our belief in God earlier than of our belief in immortality; it sounds ridiculous, but it is the true, and evident conclusion! For belief in immortality comes about only through our infinite progress (empirically)." The belief itself is as infinite as our progress. But our belief in God would have to come to pass a priori dogmatically, and it would have to be always the same if, indeed, this belief were not itself the object of our progress and were not realized more and more, endlessly, through our progress. To most of my readers I ought to apologize for reverting so repeatedly to the same matter, but there are some readers who nerd to he taken from all sides. II I fail from one side, I may succeed front another.

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subject for the absolute object, that is, that it cease to be something [implicitly or explicitly] opposed to it,' criticism on the other hand must solve the conflict of theoretical philosophy by the practical demand that the absolute cease to be object for me. This demand I can fulfill only through an infinite striving toward the realization of the absolute in myself, only through unlimited activity. Now, every subjective causality does away with an objective one. Whereas I determine myself through autonomy, I determine objects through heteronomy. In positing activity in myself, I posit passivity in the object. The more subjective, the less objective! Hence, if I posit all in the subject, I thus deny all of the object. Absolute causality in me does away with all objective causality as objective for me. In widening the limits of my world, I narrow those of the objective world. If my world as mine no longer had any limits, then all objective causality as such would be annihilated for me (by mine).* I should be absolute. However, criticism would deteriorate into is if it should represent this ultimate goal as attainable at all (even though not as attained). Therefore it makes a mere practical use of the idea for the determination of the moral being. If criticism stops there, it is certain to be eternally distinct from dogmatism. In criticism, my vocation is to strive for immutable selfhood, unconditional freedom, unlimited activity. Be! is the supreme demand of criticism.** 13361 Tenth Letter You are right, one thing remains, to know that there is an objective power which threatens our freedom with annihilation, and, with this firm and certain conviction in our heart, to fight against it exerting our whole freedom, and thus to go down. You are doubly right, my friend, because this possibility must be preserved for art even after having vanished in the light of reason; it must be preserved for the highest in art. Many a time the question has been asked how Greek reason could bear the contradictions of ,Greek tragfdy. A mortal, destined by fate to become malefactor and himself fighting against this fate, is nevertheless appallingly punished for the crime, although it was the deed of destiny! The ground of this contradiction, that which made the contradiction bearable, lay deeper than one would seek it. It lay in the contest between human freedom and the power of the objective world in which the mortal must *K. F. A. Schelling's note: In the first edition.

"Addition to the first edition: In order to make the contrast with the demand of dogmatism more conspicuous, the demand of criticism may be put thus: Strive, not to converge with the deity, but to see the deity converge in infinitum with yourself.

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succumb necessarily if that power is absolutely superior, if it is fate. And yet he must be punished for succumbing because he did not succumb without a struggle. That the malefactor who succumbed under the power of fate was punished, this tragic fact was the recognition of human freedom; it was the honor due to freedom. Greek tragedy honored human i freedom, letting its hero fight against the superior power of fate4P order V not to go beyond the limits of art, the tragedy had to let him succumb. Nevertheless, in order to make restitution for this humiliation of human freedom extorted by art, it had to let him atone even for the crime committed by fate. As long as he is still free, he holds out against the power of destiny) As soon as he succumbs he ceases to be free. Succumbing, he still accuses fate for the loss of his freedom. Even Greek tragedy could not reconcile freedom and failure. [337] Only a being deprived of freedom could succumb under fate. It was a sublime thought, to suffer punishment willingly even for an inevitable crime, and so to prove one's freedom by the very loss of this freedom, and to go down with a declaration of free will. Here too, as in all instances, Greek art is standard [Regel]. No people has been more faithful than the Greeks to the essence of humanity, even in art. As long as man remains in the realm of nature he is master of nature, in' the most proper sense of the word, just as he can be master of himself. He assigns to the objective world its definite limits beyond which it may not go. In representing the object to himself, in giving it form and consistency, he masters it. He has nothing to fear, for he himself has set limits to it. But as soon as he does away with these limits, as soon as the object is no longer representable, that is, as soon as he himself has strayed beyond the limit of representation, he finds himself lost. The terrors of the objective world befall him. He has done away with its bounds; how shall he now subdue it? He can no longer give distinct form to the boundless object. It is indistinctly present to his mind. Where shall he bind it, where seize it, where put limits to its excessive power? What people are more natural than the Greeks, as long as Greek art remains within the limits of nature? Yet, as soon as it leaves those limits, what people are more terriblel* The invisible power is too sublime [338] to be bribed by adulation;; their heroes are too noble to be saved by cowardice. There is nothing left but to fight and fall. *The Greek gods were still within nature. Their power was not intirible, not out of reach of human freedom. Human shrewdness often won a victory over the physical power of the gods. The very bravery of Greek heroes often terrified the Olympians. But for the Greeks the supernatural realm begins with fate, the invisible power out of reach of every natural power, a power upon which even the immortal gods cannot prevail. The (;reeks are all the more natural themselves, the more terrible we find them in the tralm of the supernatural, The 11101 r sweetly a people dreams of the supersensuotis world, the mote despicable, the c natural it is itself.

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But such a fight is thinkable only for the purpose of tragic art. It could not become a system of action even for this reason alone, that such a system would presuppose a race of titans, and that, without th is presupposition, it would turn out to be utterly detrimental to humanity( If it were really the destiny of our race to be tormented by the terrors of an invisible world, would it not be easier to tremble at the faintest notion of freedom, cowed by the superior power of that world, instead of going down fighting?)In fact, the horrors of the present world would torment us more than the ter( Tors of the future. he man who would obtain his existence in the \ supersensuous world by begging, will become the tormentor of humanity in this world, raging against himself and others. Power in this world will compensate him for the humiliation in that. Waking up from the delights I of that world, he returns into this one to make it a hell.It would be for■ tunate were he to be lulled in the arms of that world to the point of becoming a mere moral child in this. It is the highest interest of philosophy to awaken reason from its slumber," by means of that unchangeable alternative which dogmatism offers to its confessors. If reason can no longer be awakened by this means, then at lAt one can be sure of having tried the utmost. The trial is all the easier, since that alternative proves to be the simplest, most intelligible, most genuine antithesis of all philosophizing reason, when we try to render to ourselves an account of the last foundations of our knowledge. "Reason must renounce either an objective intelligible world, or a subjective personality; either an absolute object, or an absolute subject, freedom of will." This antithesis once definitely established, the interest of reason demands also that we watch with the utmost care that it be not [339] obscured again by the sophistries of moral indolence, in a veil which would deceive humanity. It is our duty to uncover the whole deception, and to show that any attempt at making it acceptable to reason can succeed only through new deceptions which keep reason in constant ignorance and hide from it the into which dogmatism must inevitably fall as soon as / it proceeds to the last great question, which is, to_be or not to he. Thus the result of our investigation is that dogmatism is irrefutable theoretically because, on its own account, it leaves the theoretical realm in order to complete its system practically. Hence it is practically confutable if one realizes in oneself an absolutely opposite system. It is still irrefutable for him who is able to realize it practically, for him who can bear the thought of working at this own annihilation, of doing away with all free causality in himself, and of being the modification of an object in whose infinity he will find, sooner or later, his own (moral) extinction. What, therefore, is more important for our age than to bring into the open these results of dogmatism, not to disguise them any longer in weedling words, in the delusions of an indolent reason, but to expose them as

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distinctly, as obviously, as frankly as possible. In this alone lies the last hope for the deliverance of humanity. She has long carried all the fetters of superstition, and she might after all find in herself what she has sought in the objective world. She might thus return, from a boundless straying in an alien world, to her own, from lack of self to selfhood, from the vagrancy [Schwarmerei] of reason to the freedom of will. Specific delusions have vanished by themselves. The age has seemed to i wait only for the disappearance of the generic basis of all those delusions. It had corrected individual errors; now the last center on which everything hinged was to fall. [340] The disclosure seemed to be expected. Then others interfered." At the very moment when human freedom was to complete its last work, they invented new delusions in order to blunt the keen resolve even before the execution. The weapons slipped from the hand, and the valiant reason which, by itself, had annihilated the delusions of the objective world, whined childishly at its own weakness. Why do you who believe in reason indict it for being unable to work at its own destruction, for being unable to realize an idea the reality of which would destroy everything That you yourself have so laboriously erected? What the others do, who have always been at variance with reason and whose interest demands its indictment, does not surprise me. But that you yourself should do it, you who praise reason as a divine faculty in us! How could you conceivably maintain your reason over against that highest reason, which evidently could leave only the most absolute passivity for limited, finite reason. Or again, if you assume the idea of an objective God, how can you speak of laws brought forth by reason from itself, whereas autonomy can pertain only to an absolutely free being? In vain you imagine that you can save yourself by postulating that idea merely

practically." Because you assume it merely practically it threatens your moral existence all the more certainly with extinction. You indict reason for not knowing an thing of things in themselves, of objects of a supersensuous world Has it never occurred to you, ever so dimly, that it is not the weakness of your reason but the absolute freedom in you which makes the intellectual world inaccessible to every objective power; that it is not :he limitation of your knowledge but your unlimited freedom which has relegated the objects of cognition to the confines of mere appearances? Forgive me, my friend, if, in a letter addressed to you, I speak to strangers who are quite foreign to your spirit. Let us rather return to the view which you opened before us at the end of your last letter. 1341) Let us rejoice in the conviction of having advanced to the last great problem to which any philosophy can advance. We feel freer in our spirit if we now return from the state of speculation to the enjoyment and exploration of nature" without fear that an ever recurring anxiety of our unsatisfied spirit might lead us hack into that unnatural state. The ideas to

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which our speculation has risen cease to be objects of an idle occupation that tires our spirit all too soon; they become the law of our life, and, as they themselves change into life and existence and become objects of experience, they free us forever from the painful enterprise of ascertaining their reality by way of speculation a priori." We shall not complain, but be glad finally to have reached the crossroad where the parting of our ways is unavoidable, glad to have penetrated the mystery of our spirit, by virtue of which the just becomes free by himself, while the unjust trembles by himself in fear of a justice which he did not find in himself and had to assign to another world, to the hands of an avenging judge. Henceforth, the wise man will never have recourse to mysteries wherein to hide his principles from profane eye . It is a crime against humanity to hide principles which are universally c municable. But nature herself has set bounds to this communicability. For the worthy she has reserved a philosophy that becomes esoteric by itself because it cannot be learned, recited like a litany," feigned, nor contained in dead words which secret enemies or spies might pick up) This philosophy is a symbol for the union of free spirits," a symbol by which they all recognize each other, and one that they need not hide, since for them alone it is intelligible, whereas for others it will be an eternal riddle.

Translator's Notes 1. In April 1787, in the preface to the second edition (B) of PuR (xxx) Kant wrote, "The dogmatism in metaphysics, that is, the prejudice that one can get along without a critique of pure reason, is the true source of that foe of morality, that kind of unbelief which is always so very dogmatic." When on that same page he said, "I had to do away with knowledge in order to make room for faith," he did not intend to give license to pseudo-Kantian dogmatism. It may sound like Kant to say that our knowledge is restricted to worldly objects and that the otherworldly must be grasped by faith. But what Kant meant by knowledge is scientific knowledge of phenomena, and his faith is faith in the moral authority of practical reason, an authority that is no otherworldly, heteronomous power but is obligatory for autonomous responsibility only. The so-called faith of the pseudo-Kantians demands slavish submission and the sacrifice of the intellect. The old and true faith instead proclaimed— to be sure, in

poetic not in philosophical language—that its truth makes free (John 8:32, and,

mythologically identifying the truth with the Son, 8:36 and 14:6). This is why Schelling says the old system would be preferable, provided, of course, that philosophy had no clearer insight. What he attacks is the pernicious system of the pseudo-Kantians. 2. The Stoics had such a moral god, Zeus, creator and owner of the universe, with his double order of laws: laws of nature permitting all kinds of engineering, physical, medical, and psychological, and so-called moral laws suggesting that man take the safe way and align himself with the heteronomous will of the celestial boss. The Stoics saved the dignity of man by leaving him the choice of taking the consequences of disobedience, or even by letting him resign from the universe, by suicide. Conformists still seem to be in the majority. They want to play it safe and are profoundly shocked by any Promethean protest. Schelling's sarcasm is directed at the Christian conformists in Tubingen. 3. Spinoza's intellectual love of God "is part of the infinite love with which God loves Himself' (Ethics, pt. 5, prop. 36). Man surrenders himself to God in much the same way in which we surrender ourselves to a work of art, whose forms say much better what we are at the moment than anything we could say on our own. The proper principle of aesthetics lies in the seeing of the vision, and the identifying of oneself with it. Moralism would have us reduce the vision to a commodity. The title of § 2 of Kant's Cr] furnishes a brief definition of the proper principle of

aesthetics: "The satisfaction which determines the judgment of taste is disinterested" (Cass. 5:272; Bernard 38). Kant points out that, with regard to the question whether a thing is beautiful, "we do not want to know whether the existence of the thing is of any interest or even could be of any interest for ourselves or for anyone else; instead we want to know how we judge it when we observe it, by eyesight or by reflection" (ibid., translation). "Taste' is the faculty of judging an object or a method of representing it by an entirely disinterested satisfaction or dissatisfaction, 'Ube object of hitch RAI imfact 1011 is t ailed brawl/id" (Cass. 279;

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Bernard 45). Disinterestedness is incompatible with the idea of a moral God. But is that idea compatible with sublimity? Kant's aesthetics goes beyond the beautiful. In a way, the sublime is a higher degree of the aesthetic. "We call that sublime which is great without qualification [schlechthin gross § 25, Cass. 329; cf. Bernard 86]. The idea of a moral God gives Him the qualification of an avenging power. "In religion in general, prostration, adoration with cringingly bent head, with crushed, contrite and fearful demeanor and voice, seems to be the only fitting behavior in the presence of the Godhead, and hence most peoples have adopted and still observe it. But this state of mind is far from being necessarily bound up with the idea of the sublimity of a religion and its object. The man who is actually afraid, because he finds reasons for fear in his culpable disposition. . .is not in the frame of mind to admire the divine greatness. . . Only if he is conscious of an upright disposition pleasing to God. . .can the idea of the sublimity of this Being awaken in him, for then he recognizes in himself a sublimity of disposition conformable to His will" ( §25, Cass. 335; cf. Bernard 102). But then he has outgrown his own interest in "gaining a gracious God," Luther's interest. The idea of a moral God is afflicted with that interest. And so, even with regard to the sublime, "the ideal of a moral God has no aesthetic side at all," as Schelling says, two paragraphs further. 4. Kant said that we do not have any intellectual intuition of things, for it would pertain only to an "intellect through whose self-awareness the manifold of intuition would be simultaneously given, hence an intellect through whose imagination [Vorstellung] the objects of this imagination would immediately exist" (PuR 138 f.). Such an intellect "would be intuitive [wiirde anschauen, i.e., it could see things directly without need of our senses]; our intellect can only think and must seek intuition in the senses" (PuR 135). Our intuition needs what is given to it and is sensuous "because it is derivative (intuitus derivativus) not spontaneous (intuitus originarius). Therefore it is not intellectual intuition, which for the reason just mentioned would seem to pertain only to the Original Being [Urwesen] but never to a being which is dependent with regard to both its existence and its intuition, and which relates its existence to given objects" (PuR 72). Our sense intuition of objects is indeed derivative, but our moral autonomy is original. And our awareness of that fact does not come by argument but by intuition. The word intuition derives from the verb tueri, to behold, and it means literally in-sight. Augustine spoke of that "highest teacher, the truth that teaches inwardly" (De libero arbitrio 2.ii.4). I have no evidence that Kant ever knew the Augustinian formulations. But Kant himself wrote in PrR: "The moral law is given, as an apodictically certain fact, as it were, of pure reason, a fact of which we are a priori conscious, even if it be granted that no example could be found in which It has been followed exactly. Thus the objective reality [objective in this sense of obligatory, not in the sense of objective things] of the moral law can be proved through no deduction, through no exertion of the theoretical, speculative, or empirically supported reason" (Cass. 5:53; Beck 48. Cf. n. 80 of Of I). "The consciousness of this fundamental law may be called a fact of reason, since one cannot ferret it out from antecedent data of reason. . ." (Cass. 36; Beck 31). But then, apparently guided by a desire to be consistent in his terminology— in this case a misplaced consistency—Kant continues his sentence, saying "and since it forces itself (iron us as a synthetic proposition a priori based on no pure or empirical intuition" [emphasis added'. Sticking to his definition of intellectual intuition as an immediate insight into objects, Kant does not realize that here the term, used in a new sense, can precisely express this fundamental fact or, as Fichte would say, this act of reason. It is this second, post-Kantian meaning of intellectual intuition which Fichte and Schelling adopt. Earlier in the same year of 1795 in which he wrote Dogm., Schelling had written, "Wherever there is an object there is sensuous intuition, and vice versa. Therefore where there is no object, t hat is, in the absolute 1, there is no sensuous intuition, therefore either no intuition at all, or else intellectual intuition. Therefore the I is posited bestimmt l for itself as pure I in Intellectual intuition" (01 1 181).

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In 1797 Fichte wrote, "The intellectual intuition of which Wissenschaftslehre speaks does not touch any being [ein Sein] at all, but an action instead, and Kant has no name for it except, if you wish, his phrase pure apperception. However, in the Kantian system the spot can be shown very percisely where it should be mentioned. According to Kant we are surely aware of the categorical imperative. What kind of awareness is that? . . .No doubt it is an immediate awareness though not sensuous; therefore it is precisely what I call intellectual intuition" (Second Introduction to Wissenschaftslehre, 1: 472; cf. Heath 46). In fact, Kant had said as much in PuR (429): "in the consciousness of myself, in sheer thought, I am the essence [Wesen] itself." And in PrR (Cass. 5:49; cf. Beck 44) he said more specifically that it is the moral law that "provides the form of a world of reason, i.e., of a supersensuous nature. The sensuous nature of rational beings as such is their existence under empirically conditioned laws; hence, for reason, it is heteronomy. The supersensuous nature of these very same beings however is their existence according to laws which are independent of every empirical condition, laws therefore which belong to the autonomy of pure reason. Thus, supersensuous nature, as far as we can conceive it at all, is nothing but a nature under the autonomy of pure practical reason. One could call it primal nature (natura archetypa), and since its ideas furnish the motive for the will and its possible effect in sensuous nature, the latter could be called copied nature (natura ectypa)." Since Kantian autonomy means that I myself am the only one who can make me truly responsible, my intellectual intuition of my responsibility could be called subjective. In 1800 Schelling stressed that there is not only this introspecctive or subjective intuition. "If the aesthetic intuition is nothing else but intellectual intuition turned objective, then it is obvious that art is the only true and eternal organon of philosophy and the very documentation of philosophy, documenting again and again what philosohy cannot outwardly represent, namely, the unconscious in all action and production, and its original unity with the conscious. On this very account, for the philosopher art is the highest because, for him, it opens the holy of holies where, like a flame, there shines in eternal and original union whatever is severed from nature and from history, and what forever must part company with life and action as well as with thought. The view of nature that the philosopher gains artifically is for art the original and natural view. What we call nature is a poem locked up in a secret and wondrous script" (last page but one of the System of Transcendental Idealism, 3:627 f.; cf. n. 97 to Of I). This analogy between art and nature has its origin in Kant's introduction to CI. 5. Kant himself does not call reason weak. On the contrary, it furnishes the following certainty: "The law of causality is empirically valid, but if it could lead us to the Original Being, the latter would be one link in the chain of objects of experience and, like all phenomena, it would be conditioned in its turn" (PuR 664 f.). And a god conditioned by something else is not God. In 1806 Schelling wrote his Aphorism 52: "In no kind of knowledge can God occur as known object; as known he ceases to be God" (7: 150). Schelling could be referring to Kant's important footnote (PuR 611 n.) which warns against every objectification of God and especially against personification. Objective entities have their existence under the respective conditions of the universe of discourse, where proof of objective existence is possible. Kant never fully rejected the doctrine that our knowledge is limited to objective proofs. (See n. 6 below.) That doctrine restricts him to the statement that it is as impossible to "demonstrate away the existence of God" (PuR 781) as it is to prove it. In his Sixth Letter, Schelling says that "as soon as we enter the realm of proofs, we enter the realm of what is conditioned" (see Dogm. 308). Kant himself is "fully convinced by the transcendental critique, which took such complete stock of our pure reason that, just as reason is quite unfit for affirmative claims in this field, so it is equally incapable or even less capable of making negative claims in these matters" (PuR 781; cf. Smith 602). hi Cr/ he reiterates, "The reality of a highest morally legislating Creator is plain enough for the sheer practical use of our

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reason, though this determines nothing about His existence, theoretically" (Cass. 5: 537; 4. Bernard 307). In Kant's language, to determine something theoretically means to establish it as an object. Those Kantians who wanted to retain an objective God read the phrase "practical use" as if it meant the trite pragmatic truism that many people refrain from doing wrong merely because they fear the legislative Creator's retribution. For them the moral law is heteronomous, while Kant shows that autonomy alone can bring about any moral obligation. On Epiphany (January 6) 1795 Schelling wrote to Hegel from Tubingen, "All imaginable dogmas have been stamped as postulates of practical reason and wherever theoretical and historical proofs are lacking the practical Tiibingian reason cuts the knot. You can see with glee the triumph of these philosophical heroes. It is a pleasure to watch them pull the string of the moral proof. Before you know it, the deus ex machina pops up, that personal individual being who sits up there in heaven!" (See also p. 290f and n. 13 below.) 6. "All synthetic principles of reason allow only of an immanent employment; and in order to have knowledge of a supreme being we should have to put them to a transcendent use, for which our understanding is in no way fitted" (PuR 664; Smith 528). 7. Kant said: "One sees things change, come about, and vanish. Consequently things, or at least the condition of things, must have a cause. But so must every cause ever given in any manifestation, and the inquiry goes on from cause to next higher cause. Where, then, are we to posit the uppermost causality more appropriately than in the spot of the highest causality, that is, in the being that originally contains the ability to produce every possible effect?" (PuR 617 f.; cf. Smith 499). But the latter notion is one of those which "consider all knowledge of experience as determined by an absolute totality of conditions" and which are "transcendent and go beyond the limits of every experience" (PuR 384; cf. Smith 319). The category of causality is one of the constitutive concepts of objectivity; it is a transcendental concept. It is not itself an object. And to posit an absolute causality means to posit a transcendent object which, for Kant, is a contradiction in terms since, by definition, objects are objects of experience, not entities beyond all possible experience. 8. Kant spoke of "the primacy of pure practical reason" (PrR, Cass. 5:130; Beck 124) although he did not remind us explicitly that, in distinction from daydreaming, thinking is an act of autonomous responsibility. 9. Kant reminded us that "for the divine and for any holy will there are no imperatives, since such a will is autonomatically [von selbsti and necessarily in line with the law; therefore it is out of place to speak of an ought in the case of such a will" (Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Cass. 4: 271, my trans,; cf. Beck 31). No autonomous decision is needed. However, "the autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of the duties conforming to them; heteronomy of choice, on the - other hand, not only does not establish any obligation but is opposed to the principle of duty and to the morality of the will" (PrR 8; Cass. 5:38; Beck 33). In un-Kantian language, God is not a moral agent in need of a free decision for good in preference to evil; God is essentially good or, in Schelling's phrase, he Is essentially "in conformity with the moral law." For us, God's will — if it were philosophically perinissible to speak of God's will as of the will of Somebody—would be a foreign will commanding us to conform with his decrees. His "predominance" would annihilate our autonomy and therefore our morality. This is the hidden logic of Kant's doctrine that God, who is surely not an object of experience, is but a postulate, albeit a necessary postulate. As Schelling says in the next paragraph, to turn the postulate into a transcendent object is "against the spirit I the historical mission I and the letter" (the emphatic distinction between autonomy and heteronomy) of Kant. 10. Schelling says "urspriingliches Wesen," an expression which reminds one of the Critique of Pure Reason (429) where Kant says that "in the awareness of myself, in sheer t hinking, I am the essence itself' (bin ich das Wesen selbst). II. Philosophically untutored common sense will easily be swayed by the "fascination" of

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so-called revelation said to issue from an objectively existing God. The man of common sense will prefer religious imagery to the abstractions of dogmatic theology. Like Pascal, he prefers the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob to the God of dogmatistic philosophers. And on his own ground he is right. For he is a man of good will, which, he rightly feels, is no contingent quirk in the human mind, no illusion. Religious imagination tells him not only that a really good will desires to do what is the Will of God, but also that we can have a good will only "by the grace of God." He has never heard of Kant's primacy of practical reason, but he feels the reality of the freedom by which he adheres to God, a freedom "not of this world." His tutors have not helped him to distinguish between the ostensible philosophy of those minds who try to explain everything by the contingencies of "this world," and real philosophy, whose topic is the cogency of the supersensuous. For him, abstract thinking can set up nothing but a house of cards built by "weak" human reason. To be sure, religious imagination can build a house of cards too, which the skeptical dogmatism of a Hume can blow down. At that moment real philosophy must come to the rescue of common sense. 12. Schelling's word is Spielwerk. Perhaps it should be translated as "mechanical toy." A little over 1400 years earlier Augustine wrote: Cui (aeternitati) si nondum possumus inhaerere, obiurgemus saltem nostra phantasmata, et tam nugatorios et deceptorios ludos de spectaculo mentis eiiciamus. "If we cannot yet inhere in what is truly eternal, let us at least reject our phantasms, and eject from the spectacle of our mind such nugatory and deceptive games" or playthings (De vera religione 50.98, ca. A.D. 389 - 391). For the untutored mind, 1400 years do not count. Dogmatism has not listened to Augustine and it does not listen to Kant and Schelling. It likes its toys too much. Schelling's phrase "a reason which desires to know of an objective God" may refer to § 46 of Kant's Prolegomena: "It will be well to consider that the human understanding is not to be blamed for its inability to know the substance of things. . .but rather for demanding to know [zu erkennen verlangt] substance, which is a mere Idea, as though it were a given object" (Cass. 4:86; Beck 81). Schelling says "erkennen will." For Kant erkennen usually means to know an object. 13. David Hume had the merit of overthrowing dogmatic philosophy. It was he who awakened Kant from dogmatic slumber (Prol., Cass. 4:8; Beck 8.) But he remained a dogmatist. (PuR 795 f.; Beck 611.) So did Kant, insofar as he still needed a thing in itself. 14 In the Epiphany letter quoted above in note 5, Schelling, still at the seminary in Tubingen, wrote to Hegel in Bern: "Here there are Kantians in droves. Out of the mouth of infants and sucklings [Matt. 21:16] philosophy has perfected its own praise. After much travail our philosophers have found the point to which one may safely proceed with philosophy (since one cannot proceed without this baleful science). At this point they have settled and built huts [Matt. 17:4] in which it is good to dwell and for which they praise God, the Lord! . . .They have taken some ingredients from the Kantian system (from its surface, of course) with which, as out of a machine (tanquam ex machina), they concoct strong broths on no matter what theological topic (quemcunque locum theologicum) so that their already sickly theology will soon be much healthier. All kinds of dogmas now bear the stamp of postulates of practical reason, and wherever theoretical-historical proofs are insufficient, the practical (T(ibingian) reason cuts, the knot" (Plitt 1:72). 15. A year later in 1796 Goethe and Schiller wrote their joint collection of distichs, Xenien. Among them are nineteen by Schiller, which he later had printed in his poems under the title The Philosophers, some of whom he named while giving mere numbers to others. To The Eighth (presumably the Kantian professor K.C.E. Schmid in Jena, 1761-1812) he attributes the lines: In theoretical fields nothing further exists. Practical truth though is this: you can really do what you ought.

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And Schiller lets The Apprentice retort: That's what I thought: if they know nothing further in reason, Quick they are ready to blame your or my conscience instead.

ACHTER. Auf theoretischem Feld ist welter nichts mehr zu finden; Aber der praktische Satz gilt doch: Du kannst, denn du sollst! LEHRLING. Dacht'ich's doch! Wissen sie nichts Verniinftiges mehr zu erwidern. Schieben sie's einem geschwind in das Gewissen hinein.

(Schillers sdmtliche Werke, Saular-Ausgabe [Stuttgart and Berlin: J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhandlung, 1904], 1:267) 16. The positive refutation came, at least implicitly, in 1785 with Kant's Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals and in 1788 with PrR and the latter's fundamental 'fact of reason." See n. 4 above and also n. 101 of Of I. 17. Schelling's phrase "das Heraustreten aus dem Absoluten" may puzzle the reader by its abrupt appearance. Let him not look for any objectified entity called the absolute, anything like Berkeley's God or Royce's supreme Self. In the Eighth Letter, Schelling calls such objectifications the very principle of every eccentricity (Schwarmerei). Also see the last paragraph of his reply to a criticism (reprinted at the end of his essay Of the I, 243 f.). Schelling wrote in the Intelligenzblatt zur A llgemeinen Literaturzeitung that one should have "learned from Kant that ideas are not at all topics for a dawdling speculation but objects of free action," and that, in the hands of an objectivistic theorizer, "everything turns illusory if it goes beyond the table of categories; in his head the idea of the absolute looks like the story of Nobody, and wherever another finds his very freedom, he sees before himself only the great Nothing" (Of 1 243 f.). Instead of objectifying absoluteness, said Schelling in 1802, we should follow "the only true method, that is, the method of philosophy according to which everything is absolutely, but ) t here is no Absolute" (4: 406). There is no Absolute as an objective entity that could be designated by a noun like the

Absolute. To be sure, some philosophers have written about that Absolute which they felt they needed as a term for their theorizing. Also, of course, the extrovert, popular mind Imagines God to be an entity "somewhere out (or even up) there." Metaphysically speaking: such an Absolute would absorb everything else, as it does for Parmenides for whom Being is all there is, every kirl ov being only illusion. Theologically speaking, an objectified God would already be "all in all" (1 Cor. 15:28), as in the beginning. We should no longer be in time and therefore could have no responsibility. Morally speaking, Kant's categorical imperative is a perpetual challenge that evokes our free decisions, not a dead rule that annihilates our spiritual life. Grammatically speaking, the categorical imperative has the meaning of an adverb, not a noun or an adjective. It "is absolutely," challenging our autonomy. It is no heteronomous tyrannical imposition. Psychologically speaking, it is no incubus, no dead and therefore death dealing Absolute. The t rue God gives life.



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No heteronomously commanding deity can bring about genuine obligation. Such a deity is even morally impossible, and Kant knew it. He warned in PrR against "the assumption of the existence of God as necessary for furnishing a ground for all obligation as such, since obligation rests sheerly on the autonomy of reason itself, as has been amply demonstrated" (Cass. 5:136; Beck 130). Kant also new the ontological impossibility of a heteronomous deity. Although he forbade the "leap" (Sprung) beyond objective experience toward "that of which nothing is given to us," and although he believed that "the necessary Being would have to be known as given outside ourselves," he said on the same page that "the very concept of freedom makes it possible that we dare not go outside ourselves to find the unconditioned and intelligible" (Cass. 5:115; cf. Beck 109). The significance of this crucial statement can be emphasized by a reference to Augustine, who in De Vera religione (39.72) had warned: "Do not go outside; go back into your self; in the inner man dwells truth" — that truth which is God. Having warned against the objectification of God (PuR 611 n.; Smith 495) Kant says that if 0, we posit "a Something of which we have no concept at all as to what it might be in itself," and if, calling such a something or somebody the Originator of the Universe (Welturheber), we 1 • "dedicate to it sheer objective validity, we should be forgetting that it is only a being in the idea" (PuR 726). And explaining what he means by idea he says: "By its ideas, pure reason does not intend to furnish particular objects allegedly located beyond the field of experience" (Prol. 44; Cass. 14:84; cf. Beck. 80). Kant knew of no objective Absolute, be it called God or given some other name. Neither did Schelling. It was Schopenhauer who made an objectively existing entity and, quite appropriately, a blind, numb Will out of Kant's autonomy, which Fichte had more deeply understood to be the realization of the Will of God. As a keenly perceptive pupil of Kant, Fichte knew that "God is visible only in the form of freedom, since he is visible at all only in the image, in the vision" (Staatslehre, 4: 522). When, through autonomy, we see what is meet, then we can gain "the clear universal insight that man stands under the Will of God and that, without obedience, he is nothing and does not even exist, properly speaking" (ibid. 4:584). Of course, obedience means autonomous responsibility. Though these sentences are quoted from lectures Fichte gave in Berlin in the summer of 1813, the last year of his life, the Schelling of 1802 could well have subscribed to them when he said there is no Absolute but whatever truly is, is absolutely. So-called objective idealists like Royce speak of the absolute as of an objective entity. [In 1805 Schelling wrote: "In no kind of insight or knowledge can God be in the condition of what is known, what is an object; as an objectified entity he ceases to be God. We are never outside of God so that we could set him before us as an object" (7: 150, §52).SAnd the mature Schelling says: "God is, as it were, inflicted on consciousness in its very origin [ihm urspriinglich angetan] or: God is in our consciousness, in the same sense in which we say of a man that a virtue is in him, or more often yet a vice, meaning that it is not objective for him, is not something he wants, nor even something he knows" (11: 186). "Consciousness does not come to God; its very first move is away from the true God. In the first real awareness there is only one trait [Moment] of God. . .no longer He Himself. . . .Consciousness, as soon as it moves at all, moves away from God" (ibid.). Such late passages may shed light on the early phrase of 1795 about the "stepping forth from the absolute." 18. Even the skeptic Hume admits that we do seek the cause for a given effect. 19. Schelling cannot mean to deny that the epistemological problem of PuR was precisely the question of how natural science can go beyond mere guesses regarding the constitution of nature. Kant pointed out that the categories "constitute" the objects of nature as of necessity interdependent. Here Schelling is not concerned with the inherent necessity of nature but with the question regarding our cognitive faculty. And that quest ion retains the psychological form implied, for instance, in the very title of Hunte's Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. ()the, creatures, angels fot example, may have minds very different from the

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human mind. In this respect the cognitive faculty of man appears contingent and, as Schelling says at the end of this same paragraph, "it is in turn an object of the cognitive faculty," to be studied psychologically and epistemologically. That kind of study may fail to show a necessary relation between the cognitive faculty and the essence of the subject as well as the object. 20. In the Review of Aenesidemus Fichte refers to a retort which Reinhold often made to his critics, "that one cannot think about the laws of thought except in line with these laws" (1:5). 21. One of the basic tasks of what Kant called theoretical philosophy was the distinction between (a priori) form and (a posteriori) content. Here we are confronted with the most basic distinction between any given manifold that is to be unified and the form of unity as such. For an illustration take the simplest sentence: This paper is white. Parsed, the sentence implies: Not all paper is white nor, of course, is paper whiteness. And not everything white is paper nor, of course, is whiteness some kind of matter like paper. Yet the sentence "synthesizes" the subject, this paper, and the predicate, white. The synthesis marks their empirical unity: This paper is white. The copula is expresses the (a priori) form of unity. If isness or being were a word without meaning, there could be no meaningful empirical sentences.ff fbe word absolute in the phrase absolute unity invites the reader to abstract from the content of any given illustration, and to reflect on the pure form of unity. However, Jteflection always eStablishes_distinctions_or, to put it the other way around, reflection starts from a synthetic unity in which distinctions can be made. It2cannot rise to the atm-ante unity.? Still), "the complete system" (Dogm. 297) cannot do without the form of "absolute unity." "Theoretical reason necessarily seeks the unconditional" (297, 299), which must be furnished by an act (299). It is the act of thinking, for example, the act of realizing that, in fact, this paper is white. The fact that it is white remains unknown as long as there is no act of some self, yours or mine, which says (even without words) "indeed, it is white." And this realization is an act, not a dead fact like the whiteness of this paper that lacks awareness. If Without words...even a baby can be aware of the color (later called white) of this object (which (Ul f . I we call paper)j „ Schelling rightly asks for the reader's patience (Dogm. 298). We must read this Fourth Letter as a whole, and read it twice, in order to find out what it is aiming at. The logical unity of subject and predicate in a sentence inevitably leads to the ontological unity of knowing subject and known object (Dogm. 298). Our legitimate desire for an Illustration may be satisfied, in a way, if we turn to what Fichte said half a dozen years later, In his 1801 Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre. He said that what we desire is a "strictly immediate knowledge: a being that is strictly knowing, a knowing that is strictly being; one that therefore is isolated in itself [in sich abgerissen] and is discrete; that is determined in ."every way as original fact [urfaktisch]. . .in a word, that which language appropriately designates as feelings [Gefilhle] in the plural like red, green, and so on. Next comes the explanation that feelings are the result of the mutual interchange between individual and universe. But nobody can say how the forces of nature manage to manifest themselves in just this peculiar manner, according to what rule and law" (2: 123). "If the material feeling (red, sour, and the like) is regarded from the one side as an affection of the I, from the other as a quality of the thing, then this twofoldness is already a consequence of reflection, which is divisive, In Actual knowing, which is beyond reach of reflection, it is neither the one nor the other, but both, however both undivided and as yet without this distinction. And on account of this absolute identity even reflection, which does distinguish, must still posit both as Inseparable: no subjective feeling without an objective quality, and vice versa. Transcendental idealism, in its fight against dogmatism, may say that what is inward is projected outwardly onto the object. But strictly speaking this is not what happens. Nor does what is objective enter into the mind 1Gemilt 1, for in fact both are strictly one. The mind, taken objectively and as experience [Militia:1 is nothing else than the world itself, and the

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world, in the sense in which we are here speaking of the world, is nothing else than the mind itself (2: 125 f.). In his popularizing formulation of the same year, 1801, Sunclear Statement for the General Public Concerning the Real Essence of the Newest Philosophy; an Endeavor to Force the Reader to Understand, Fichte says with regard to the oneness of the mind and its content: "The ordinary human sense [der gemeine Menschenverstand] does not find that fact to be otherwise. It always finds the thing and the awareness of it together. And it always talks about the unity [Vereinigung] of both. Only the philosophical system of dualism finds it different. This dualism believes that it is thinking very sharply and thoroughly, when actual thinking has already slipped away from it" (2: 400; cf. n. 8 to Poss.). Fichte's phrase "awareness and thing together" would seem to be the most concise formulation possible of what Kant meant when he spoke of phenomena. Schelling's second condition stresses that the thesis that posits a phenomenon "is the end, not the origin, of the synthesis." Experience cannot furnish its own basis, as the dogmatism of empiricists will not see. A consistent empiricist would have to assume revelatory transcendent experiences, and that is why Kant said "my place is the fertile Bathos of experience" of real things, not of things in themselves. The reader may wish to look up the amusing footnote in the Prolegomena (Cass. 4:129; Beck 122 f.). 22.In PuR (94) Kant said: "The functions of the understanding can all be found if one can completely present the functions of unity in judgments." And (104 f.): "The same function which, in a judgment, gives unity to the respective notions [den verschiedenen Vorstellungen] also gives unity to the sheer synthesis of distinct notions in an intuition (Anschauung) [or image], which in general is called the pure concept of understanding [or category]" (cf. Smith 106 and 112). Although Kant simply accepted the validity of formal logic, we must not forget that it was he who recognized the egocentric and productive nature of that intuition which is required for all knowledge, and which he called pure apperception. Formulations in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason are particularly significant. "All images [or intuitions] [Anschauungen] are nothing for us and no concern of ours at all, if they cannot be received in consciousness. . .through which alone knowledge is possible. We are a priori aware of the persistent identity of ourselves with regard to all notions [Vorstellungen] that can ever belong to our knowledge, and are thus aware of the identity as a necessary condition of the very possibility of all our notions" (A 116; cf. Smith 141 f.). "Therefore the transcendental unity of apperception rests on the pure synthesis of the imagination as an a priori condition of the possibility of every composition of a manifold in knowledge" (A 118; cf. Smith 142). 23. Of course the word thesis is not meant in the sense of a thesis chosen by a debater, of a thesis written by a candidate for the Master's degree. In 1794 Fichte had said: "A thetic judgment [emphasis supplied] would be one in which something is asserted, not to be like anything else or opposed to anything else, but simply to be identical with itself: thus it could presuppose no ground of conjunction or distinction at all. Instead, since the logical form of a judgment presupposes something, in this case [where there is neither a ground of relation, nor a ground of difference] there must be a third kind of presupposition which would be an [essentially moral] task in lieu of a [logical] ground. The original and supreme judgment of this kind is "I am " All judgments which can be subsumed under this, that is, under the absolute positing of the self, are of this type (even if they should not always happen to have the I for their logical subject); for example, man is free" (1: 116; cf. Heath 114). Cf. n. 99 of Of I and n. 63 below. As a logician, Fichte has the merit of having pointed out the difference between merely correct logical form and concrete and therefore interesting sense. A reader not familiar with this distinction will want examples, and they must be concrete. Formal logic distinguishes between affirmative and negative judgments, e.g., "A is A" is affirmative; "A is not B" is negative. Now, if I claim in front of a class that I am going to give an affirmative example, and t hen say "A lion 11' a limit" the class will disgustedly laugh at me. But if I say "A lion is a

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feline," they will nod assent though saying to themselves: everybody knows that. The first example is formally correct, but it is ridiculous because it lacks a ground of distinction (Unterscheidungsgrund). The second example is concrete and meaningful because it is not only formally correct (L = L) but also contains a ground of distinction which can be expressed by the negative judgment: "Not all felines are lions." A formally correct negative example would be, "the equilateral triangle is not married." It has only a ground of distinction: triangles have nothing to do with marriage (except, of course, the merely figurative "triangle" of husband, wife, and interloper), yet it lacks a ground of relation (Beziehungsgrund) between the two terms triangle and marriage. One cannot call a purely formal judgment true. It is only correct, and any fool can think up innumerable examples. A meaningful and therefore genuinely true example would be: "A whale is not a fish." A child might argue: "But it looks like a fish!" And that is the ground of relation. The biologist will elaborate the ground of distinction. I owe these examples to my teacher Fritz Medicus (1876.1956), the editor of Fichte's works (Leipzig: Fritz Eckardt Verlag, 1908-12) and author of the searching and instructive book Fichtes Leben, 2d rev. ed. (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1922). 24. The I is not an object. See n. 101 to Of I. Augustine said it must not seek itself as if it were absent. It is present to itself. See below, n. 51. Even to say it is misleading. The only appropriate word is I. 25, See pages 154-55 of Schelling's preface Of I. It is the I which, for everything derivative, furnishes "the form of being and of reality, of unconditionality and of unity" (Of .1 189). 26. PuR (661 f.) says "since there are practical laws which are absolutely necessary, that is, the moral laws, it must follow that if these necessarily presuppose the existence of any being as the condition of the possibility of their obligatory power, this existence must be postulated; and this for the sufficient reason that the conditioned, from which the inference is drawn to the determining* condition, is itself known a priori to be absolutely necessary." To be sure, Kant's concept of unconditional autonomy as the only possible ground of moral obligation would strictly forbid the assumption of "any being" (irgend ein Dasein) as conditioning the obligation. However, the "if' in the above quotation opens the way to the dogmatism of which Schelling speaks. (*Smith (527) says determinate. Kant does say bestimmte Bedingung but he obviously means bestimmende.) 27. This is the popular interpretation of the oft-quoted statement of Kant who, in the preface to the second edition (B) of PuR (xxx), said: "I had to do away with knowledge in order to make room for belief. . . ." Such interpreters would not even read as far as the end of Kant's sentence, and they forgot that the knowledge of which Kant speaks is knowledge of objects of what he calls Erfahrung and what we ought to translate as "scientific experience." That experience, of course, can "not take away from us our intellectual presuppositions, nor a belief held for the sake of our practical concerns; these however we could not trot out under the title of knowing and with the pomp of knowledge" (498 f.; 4. Smith 427). And Kant says specifically what he himself means by speculative knowledge: "properly speaking [it] meets no other object than that of experience." If we go beyond the boundaries of experience and seek insights independent of it we have "no substratum of intuition upon which alone [synthesis] can be exercised" (499). This, of course, is a flat denial of the intellectual intuition by which alone we can know the autonomy of our moral responsibility. Thus Schelling is quite right in saying that this opens the door to moral dogmatism. In 1798 Schelling wrote about people who are "under the illusion that tenets which are theoretically most unreasonable can yet be very reasonable practically. One wonders what they are thinking. One would ask in vain as to their reasons. Since they do wish to be up to date, their only reason is their belief that the essence of Kant ianism consists in letting in by the back door lof practical postulates] what has been evicted by the Inuit door. Among such underhandedly imported contraband is the peculiar concept of revelation which such would-be philosophers harbor" (11ber Offenbarting

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and Volksunterricht, 1:476) Moral dogmatism wants a God who gives heteronomous orders. As Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel unanimously pointed out, Kant's autonomy looks like atheism only to the dogmatist. In fact, it requires a more realistic theology, and instead of a celestial dictator it seeks the real God, who indeed urges yet only invites us to take our responsibility. Kant never made that explicit, though it is implied even in his "moral postulate." 28. In The Vocation of Man (1800) Fichte wrote: "Our entire thinking is determined by our urges; and as the individual's urges are, so is his knowledge. The urges force upon us a specific kind of thinking, as long as we are not aware of the coercion; but the coercion vanishes as soon as seen. . . .1 ought to open my eyes; I ought to know myself thoroughly; I ought to see that coercion; this is my task. Consequently I ought to shape my own form of thinking" (2: 198). In 1797 Fichte had written: "What kind of a philosophy one choses depends on what kind of a man one is" (First Intro. to WL, 1: 434). And in 1795, in his First! `,/ Letter, Schelling said about dogmatism and criticism, "which of the two we choose depends' on the freedom of spirit we ourselves have earned" (1: 308). 29. In PuR Kant said: "By system I understand the unity of manifold knowledge under an idea which is reason's conception of the form of a whole" (860; cf. Smith 653). "Now the system of all philosophic knowledge is philosophy. One must take it objectively if one understands by philosophy the very model [Urbild] for judging all endeavors to philosophize, for judging every subjective philosophy, whose constructions are often so manifold and so changeable" (866; cf. Smith 657). "Reason reserves the right to investigate the sources of those endeavors and to confirm or reject the endeavors. Unless this is done, the concept of philosophy is schoolish," seeking mere logical consistency. "Yet there is always a universal concept [conceptus cosmicus] underlying the term philosophy, which the imagination might try to personify and present as a model, in the ideal of the philosopher. In this respect, philosophy is the science of the relation of all knowledge to the essential purposes of human reason Iteleologia rationis humanae], and the philosopher is no mere manipulator of reason [Vernunftkiinstler] but the legislator of human reason. In this sense it would be very boastful to call oneself a philosopher and to pretend having reached the model, which is contained only in the idea" (866 f.; cf. Smith 657 f.). "Essential purposes are either the final purpose or else subaltern purposes which serve as means for the final one. The latter is none else than the total task of man [die ganze Bestimmung des Menschen] and the philosophy concerned with it is called morals." Thus "moral philosophy predominates all other endeavors of reason" (868; cf. Smith 658). 30. In our time we might prefer to say "by commitment." See n. 24. 31. The semantic disagreement with Fichte is significant. When in 1794 Fichte introduced his word Wissenschaftslehre, he said this new technical term made it possible to lay aside the old name philosophy, which the discipline bore "owing to a not inappropriate modesty, the name of being-in-the-know [Kennerei], of a hobby [Liebhaberei], a dilettantism" (1: 44). For Schelling, philosophy is no mere academic doctrine nor dilettantish dallying but personal commitment, which is, as he says, precisely what Fichte stressed. 32. In 1794 Fichte wrote (1: 284): "Wissenschaftslehre is a doctrine of the kind that can be communicated only by the spirit and not at all by the letter because, in everyone who studies it, the fundamental ideas must be produced by his creative imagination." On the same page Fichte says "this imagination most certainly has been bestowed on all men for, without it, they could not have a single presentation [ Vorstellung]." And in the footnote (1: 284 n.): "It is the task of Wissenschaftslehre to comprehend the whole human being exhaustively, and therefore a man can comprehend it only with t he totality of his faculties. It cannot become a universally valid philosophy so long as in so many men schooling kills one faculty for the sake another, imagination for t he sake of tatiocination, of vice versa, or even kills both for the sake of memo' iiation. just so long will Wissenst haftslelirr remain restricted within a small circle, and it is as awkward to tell this null' as it is disagreeable to heat it, yet so it is" (cf. I leath 2511 I.). In 1883 Nietisr Ire spoke of the kind of man who is "A s tipple in ter/else lein

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umgekehrter Kriippell, who has too little of everything yet too much of one thing' (Zarathustra, pt. 2, "Of Salvation," Taschenausgabe 7: 205). Fichte in 1797 saw in the identification of selfhood and individuality the fundamental reason for such a distortion in man. A self is free, in distinction from anything that is not self. An individual is one self among others. Every human individual should discover his self and behave as a free self. Fichte says many claim that they "cannot think this concept and, indeed, we must believe what they say. Not that they lack the reality of this concept" —for they have a mind and reason—"otherwise, like any block, they could not make any objection to what we say. But what they lack is the awareness of this concept. They have selfhood but they do not know it. . . .For them, their self is only their individual person which is the ultimate purpose of their actions and therefore restricts their clear thinking. For them their person is the only true substance, and reason is only an accident thereof. Their person does not exist as a specific manifestation of reason. In their opinion reason exists so that they can get along in this world. And if this person could be at ease without reason, we could dispense with reason, and there would be no reason at all. . . . They are quite right as far as their person is concerned. But they should not pass off as objective what is valid only subjectively. Wissenschaftslehre reverses the relationship. For here reason is the only reality, and individuality is accidental. Reason is the purpose, and the person the means. The latter is only a particular way of expressing reason. . . .Only reason is eternal; individuality must ceaselessly die. Whosoever cannot adjust his will to this order of things will never truly understand Wissenschaftslehre" (1: 504 f.). In 1801 Fichte wrote: "Wissenschaftslehre is an object and a goal only for him who does not yet have it. . . .Strictly speaking, one does not have it, one is it, and no one has it before he has come to be it" (2: 10) However, in 1806 Fichte explains that "man does not fashion his own scientific view by freedom and choice, in this manner or that, but instead it is fashioned for him by his life, and it is really the inner root of his own life which, though unknown to himself, in this view comes into sight. What you really are inwardly, that comes forth to be seen, and you can never see anything else" (7: 360). This is still in line with the formulation of 1797: "The choice of one's philosophy depends on the kind of human being one is, since a philosophical system is not dead furniture of which one can dispose or which one can acquire at will, but it is animated by the soul of the man who has it" (1: 434) 33. Schelling says grundlos. For the abstract logician that means ohne Grande, that is, without any premise from which to draw a conclusion. In the second Meditation Descartes wrote: statuendum sit hoc pronunciatum ego sum, ego exist° quoties a me profertur vel mente concipitur, necessario esse verum. The cogito ergo sum occurs only in Descartes' reply to the Second Objections, but in the same sentence Descartes immediately points out that one does not infer one's existence by.any Syitogism — neveper sylrogismum deducit, sed tanquam rem per se notam simplici mentis intuitu agnoscit. In De Trinitate (10. ix. 12; also see n, !STIeAugustine said of the mind: Non itaque velut absentem se quaerat cernere, sed praesentem se curet discernere. Nec se quasi non norit cognoscat, sed ab eo quod alterum novit dinoscat. "Let it not then seek to discern itself as though absent, but take pains to discern itself as present. Nor let it acquire knowledge of itself as if it did not know itself, but let it distinguish itself from that which it knows to be something other" (An Augustly Synthesis, arranged by Erich Przywara, S.J. 'Leipzig: Hegner, 1934], trans. C. C. Martindale, S. J. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1945]. Now available as Harper Torchbook TB 35, pp. 8-9. See those entire pages). In the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason (A 355; Smith 337) Kant wrote: "what is referred to as the Cartesian inference, cogito, ergo sum, is really a tautology, since the cagily (sum cogitans) asserts my existence immediately." Of course one should not translate cogito as "I think" but as "I am aware." The natural mind, t hat is, the mind of the child (and of untutored people, or people who have not tutored themselves) is dogmatistic. It sees all reality as objective and thus, for instance, takes God for "a great Somebody," as Augustine says in the Con/err/ow (1.ix .14): me magnum aliquent. (See also Mediums and Marcel, n. 34 0/ /.) None of us is ever entirely

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free of the natural mind for which grundlos can mean abysmal. Kant says (PuR 641; cf. Smith 513): "Unconditional necessity, which we so indispensably require as the last bearer of all things, is for human reason the veritable abyss" (Abgrund). This leads me to translate grundlos as groundless. 34. In 1805, in his Aphorism 159 (7: 174) Schelling said: "In reply to the question raised by a ratiocination that is perplexed when it stands at the abyss of infinity: Why is there not nothing, why is there anything at all? the valid answer is not Something but only the All or God. The All is that for which it is strictly impossible not to be, just as it is strictly impossible for the Nothing to be. The absolute contrast to the Nothing (which is eternally impossible, eternally Nothing) is the All." Cf. the beginning of the Seventh Letter. 35. See n. 21 above. Aristotle said in the Nicomachean Ethics (1. vii. 20, Rackham trans.): "Nor again must we in all matters alike demand an explanation of the reason why things are what they are; in some cases it is enough if the fact that they are so is satisfactorily established. This is the case with first principles." And he goes on to say pithily (109863): as /kr n' ixkov sal &mil. I translate this clumsily as: "For the fact that there is a first THAT is also a first principle." For Fichte and Schelling the first THAT is the I. Then the enigma arises. See n. 38 below. 36. PuR had shown that the world of experience consists of objects which are categorically conditioned. Unconditioned, not finite, is the Kantian autonomy, which alone can bring about any obligation. In Poss. 97 Schelling stressed the nonfiniteness of the I, writing in Fichtean language: "The I is simply posited; its position is not determined by anything outside itself; it posits itself (through absolute causality). It is posited not because it has been posited but because it is what is doing the positing." (Cf. Dogm. 320.) The last phrase of this letter speaks of "his own practical decision." In ecclesiastic language that could be called an "act of faith." 37. Schelling quotes verbatim what here follows after the colon, but he omits the quotation mark. Apparently for emphasis he puts only the last sentence in quotation marks: "Consequently [Spinoza] rejected every transition of the nonfinite into the finite." However, he replaces the period by a mere comma in order to continue in his own words. He is quoting from Jacobi's book of 1785, Ober die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, which Jacobi republished in 1789 with additions. (Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Werke [Leipzig, 1819; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968], 4:56.) -1r\ 38. See nn. 21 and 35 above, and Dogm. 310: "this unintelligibility is indissoluble theoretically, for criticism as well as for dogmatism." 39. For instance PuR 334, where Kant speaks of "the secret of the origin of our sense awareness" and says that "its relation to an object, and the transcendental grund of this unity undoubtedly lies too deeply hidden" (cf. Smith 287). Again, of the sense forms he says: "The nonsensuous cause of these images [Vorstellungen] is entirely unknown to us" (PuR 522; cf. Smith 441). It is significant that Schelling gave his essay of 1836, published posthumously, the title Darstellung des philosophischen Empirismus, Presentation of Philosophical Empiricism (10: 225-286). 40. PuR made it clear that all objects are conditional and therefore point beyond themselves. And, Kant says, "the absolute totality of the series of these conditions. . .is an idea which, though it can never be completed in empirical use, yet serves as a rule how to proceed with regard to it, meaning that, in the regresses of the explanation of given phenomena, we should proceed as tf the series itself an sich 1 were infinite, i.e., we are to proceed in indeliniturri" (PuR 713; cf. Smith 559). 41. Unfortunately, Schelling sticks to the habit of using the word infinite lunendlichl without distinguishing between its two meanings, as [legel did twenty two years later. Let the reader be guided by I Irgel's distinction between the "bad" infinite Idle schlechte Unendlichkeit1 of endless regress mathetmatit al infinity and the "truly" nonfinite Was Nichteridlit lie' with whirl, philosophy is t mit ertird (L ogic 14 94, in Encyc/nprrins of the

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Philosophical Sciences, Werke, 6: 184 ff.; 1817 ed. §47, p. 41). With that guidance the reader can steer clear of the mystifying implication that "to become identical with the infinite and to merge [unterzugehen] with the infinity of the absolute object" means to lose one's identity and to drown in a kind of endless ocean. I had to retain the word infinite in this sentence because Schelling refers to Spinoza. But Spinoza had already distinguished what is absolute infinitum from what is infinite only in suo genere. In his explanation of def. 6 ("By God I understand Being absolutely infinite") of the first part of the Ethics he said, "of whatever is infinite only in

its own kind [in suo genere], we can deny infinite attributes; but to the essence of that which is

absolutely infinite pertains whatever expresses essence and involves no negation" (John Wild, ed., Spinoza. Selections. [New York: Scribner's, 1930], p. 95). In the same part, prop. 14 says: "Besides God, no substance can be nor can be conceived" (ibid., p. 197). And def. 3 declares: "By substance, I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that, the conception of which does not need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed" (ibid., p. 94). On February 4, 1795, Schelling wrote to Hegel: "Meanwhile I have become a Spinozist! Do not be astonished. Here is how: For Spinoza, the world (the object as such in contrast to the subject) was All; for me, the I is All" (Plitt 1: 76; cf. nn. 25 and 55 to Of I. Fichte had taught him to see that Spinoza's definition of substance as what is in itself and is perceived by itself (id quod in se est et per se percipitur) expresses the very form of I, i.e., the form of unity and of logical cogency which, so Kant had taught him, alone can bestow reality on phenomena. Therefore Schelling can tell Hegel: "For us, there is no supersensuous world other than the world of the absolute I. God is nothing but the absolute I, the I insofar as it has annihilated everything theoretically and therefore, in theoretical philosophy which, according to Kant, deals only with objects!, is itself equal to zero !since the I is no object at all!. Personality comes about through the unity of consciousness. But consciousness is not possible without an object. For God, however, that is, for the absolute I, there is no object at all; otherwise it would cease to be absolute. Therefore there is no personal God. . ." (Plitt 1: 77). And this tallies with Spinoza's identification of God with nature. Of course, that identification is perfect dogmatism insofar as God becomes an absolute It, although Spinoza's definition of substance would require God as absolute I. Since objects are finite, an absolute object must appear to ratiocination in the form of "bad infinity." Every dogmatist, tied as he is to ratiocination, will tell you that God is so infinite that no intelligence !Verstand] can comprehend Him. This is true, and remains true for every rationalistic theology. But genuine theology is philosophical. Kant, critically denying the possibility of an objectivistic theology, had to reduce the godhead to "nothing but the idea of an All of reality iomnitudo realitatis I", to a "transcendental ideal" (PuR 604; Cf. Smith 490). The Critique at once confirms the agnostic assertion of dogmatism and the nonfinite supersensuous of criticism. The God of dogmatism (and of Spinoza) must be called infinite. But the "true God" is nonfinite and therefore distinguishable from the merely "real God," as Schelling pointed out much later. "God in his truth can only be known, but a blind relationship is possible with God in his mere reality" (Werke 11: 190). 42. Schelling slightly shortened his quotations. In John Wild's translation of Spinoza: (2: 47): "The human mind possesses an adequate knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God." 5: 36: "The intellectual love of the mind towards God is part of the infinite love with which God loves himself." 5: 25: "The highest effort of the mind and its highest virtue is to understand things by the third kind of knowledge. . .which proceeds from an adequate idea of certain attributes of God to an adequate knowledge of the essence of things." 5: 27: "From this third kind of knowledge arises the highest possible peace of mind." (Instead of peace, Spinoza said acquiescence. 'That word precisely expresses the mood which Schelling emphasizes. The word peace does not.) 5: 36, schol.: "Hence we clearly understand that our salvation, or blessedness, or liberty consists in a constant and eternal love towards God." 5:30: "Out mind, in so far as it knows itself. . under the form of eternity, necessarily has a knowledge of God, and knows that it is in God and is conceived through Him -

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43. Schelling says "in der intellektualen Welt", not intellektuellen. Perhaps I should more freely tanslate: in the world of ideas. Schelling must be thinking of Plato's Theaetetus 184b-85e, where the problem is how we can be aware at all of anything and specifically of a thing of sense. Auguste Dies ([Paris: Societe d'Edition "Les Belles Lettres," 1924], pp. 220, 184b) egregiously mistranslates aisthesis as sensation. Plato points out that each sensation has its specific organ, eye, ear, etc., and that the problem becomes insoluble if we assume that (as Jowett translates) "in each of us, as in a sort of Trojan horse, there are perched a number of unconnected senses" (184d). Having rendered the word aisthesis (which really names the problem) as "perception," Jowett now calls it "sense." But the senses are many, and awareness (the only possible English term) is one. And the result of Plato's discussion is, as he has Theaetetus put it (185de): "the soul itself and by itself is what oversees" (or really sees) what is common in the different things which the specific senses bring to our attention. In short, without awareness we have no sensation. And this aisthesis is not an organ but the act of the soul. Words like perception, sense, sensation

merely repeat the question; they do not answer it. Plato does. 44. Obvious reference to the first sentence of the introduction to PuR. 45. In 1781, in the first edition of the PuR (A 117), Kant spoke of the very "principle of a I. synthetic unity of the manifold in any possible awareness" (Anschauung). And in a long footnote he said: "All images [Vorstellungen] have a necessary relation to a possible empirical consciousness. For, if they had not, and if it were quite impossible to become aware of them, this would mean as much as: they would not exist at all. Yet all empirical consciousness has a 17 necessary relation to a transcendental consciousness (antecedent to any particular experience) which is the awareness [Bewusstsein] of myself as the original apperception. It is indispensably necessary that, in my knowledge, every awareness belongs to the one awareness of myself' (cf. Smith 142). This tallies with Plato's one awareness in the Theaetetus (see n. 43 above). And when Plato says that the soul "itself and by itself' (185d:coi-o) et 1 airrValone can bring about any awareness, that tallies with Fichte's reminder that the awareness of myself as I is not an inert fact but exists only as spontaneous act. It is synthesis in the strictest sense in which Kant already used the word synthetic in the footnote of 1781 just quoted. "The synthetic proposition that every particular empirical awareness must have its unity in one single selfawareness [Selbstbewusstsein] is the absolutely first and synthetic principle of our thinking as such. One must not ignore that the sheer image I [die blosse Vostellung /ch], in relation to all other images (whose collective unity the I makes possible) is the transcendental consciousness [das transscendentale Bewusstsein]. This image may be [empirically] clear or obsure. That does not matter. In fact its very presence [Wirklichkeit] does not matter. What matters is that the possibility of a logical form of all knowledge rests necessarily on the relation to this apperception in potency" (als einem VermOgen) (Smith objectifies and says: as a faculty). Kant summarizes: "Therefore the transcendental unity of apperception refers to the pure synthesis of imagination [Einbildungskraft] as an a priori condition of the possibility of every composition of any manifold in any knowledge. But what can take place a priori is only the

productive synthesis of imagination, for the reproductive synthesis rests on conditions of experience" (A 118; cf. Smith 142 f.). The latter are what Schelling here calls objective causality. 46. In the review of Aenesidemus (1792) Fichte wrote: "The I is what it is, and because it is, for the I" (1: 16). And in 1798 he wrote: "The I is anything at all only insofar as it posits itself as self (intuits and thinks itself), and it is nothing at all if not self-posited" (4: 29). In this way, the Kantian primacy of practical reason manifests itself as the ground of theoretical reason, whose very problems arise only for a self that is made intellectually responsible by autonomy. A meaningful woblern is a task grasped by a responsible self. In his Lectures on

the Vocation

(4 the Scholar (Him r(I "[white a considet He number" (6: 291) of students in

his first semester at Jena in the

M1111111[1 of 1794, Fichte spoke of out "sublime task "By undertaking that gtrat task, 1 have already grabbed eternity" ((i. 322).

-

and said:*

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47. On February 4,. 1795, Schelling wrote to Hegel: "Our highest endeavor is the annihilation of our personality, the transition into the absolute sphere of being which, however, is not possible in eternity-hence only practical approximation to the absolute, and therefore - immortality-" (Plitt 1:77). 48. PuR says (131, 16): "The 'I think' must potentially accompany all my notions" (cf. Smith 152). 49. Lawrence Sterne (1713-1768). 50. Baggesen belonged to the K8nigsberg group around Kant. "In his old age, Kant found a wide circle of admirers and friends for whom he was the celebrated head of the rapidly increasing critical school. The most extravagant praise came from those for whom the new philosophy was a kind of new religion, among them Baggesen who, for a time, looked at Kant as at a second Messiah" (Willy Moog, Friedrich Ueberwegs Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, pt. 3, in Die Philosophie der Neuzeit bis zum Ende des X VIII. Jahrhunderts, 12th ed. [Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1924], p. 508. 51. The not only descriptive but explanatory formula for the I as "present to itself' was already used by Augustine, who says of anyone desirous of knowing himself: "Let him not seek to ascertain what he is as if he were absent but take care to grasp himself discerningly as present" (De trinitate 10. ix. 12: Non itaque velut absentem se quaerat cernere, sed praesentem se curet discernere). There is overwhelming evidence that Augustine is as clear about the self as Fichte. So is Plotinus. As for the earliest ancient philosophers, Hegel says, "philosophizing properly speaking started with Parmenides" (Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Werke 13: 296 f.). Hegel sees the main point in Parmenides' sentence: "Thinking and that wherefore thought is, are the same" [Die's, fragm. 8, line 34] Cf. n. OF L 100. -co.,..miv 6 , icativoetv ae xai o5vcxsv goavvenva The wherefore of thought is cogency, which is what "being" (einai) means, strictly speaking. Hence the fragment quoted by Clement, Plotinus, Proclus, and Simplicius: "The same is thinking and being" (Diels, fragm. 5). Kirk and Raven (The Presocratic Philosophers [Cambridge: The University Press, 1962] p. 277) would seem to make Parmenides a skeptic, unbelievably translating their fragment 352: "What can be thought is only the thought that it is." I believe that Hegel is right and Parmenides stands closer to Plotinus. At all events, some of the ancients have not only felt but thought the I, as strictly not an object. 52. The much older Schelling will say: "consciousness does not come to God; its very first move is away from the true God. . . .consciousness, as soon as it moves at all, moves away from God" (11: 186). 53. Seligkeit means beatitude, gliickselig blessedly happy. In English good "hap" is luck. Schelling plays with the word Gliick which, like its English cognate, may mean sheer luck, as in Gliicksspiel, game of luck. Thus, one might say in English, happiness comes upon us by happenstance. In 1784, in his Idea for a Universal History in a Cosmopolitan Sense, Kant said: "Man, having worked his way up from greatest crudeness to greatest skill. . .and thus to happiness, should alone have the merit," as if nature had planned not "his well-being but rather his reasonable self-approval," not having intended "his comfort, but his being worthy of it." (Cass. 4: 154, prop. 3). 54. On December 24, 1794, the repeal of price control made the assignats of the French Republic depreciate still more. Inflation led to bread riots in Paris on April 1 (12 germinal) 1795. On July 21, 1795, Schelling wrote Hegel that the treatise (Letters) was about to appear itt Niethammer's philosophical journal. 55. Kant said: "All moral value of acts lies essentially in this,-that the moral law alone has determined the will" (PrR, Cass. 5: 79; Beck 74). Aristotle said: "acts done in conformity with the virtues are not done justly or temperately if they themselves are of a certain kind, but only If the agent deliberately choose the act, and choose it for its own sake" (Rackham trans., Nscomachean Ethics 2. iv. 3. 1105a29).

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56. Six years later, in the Exposition of My System of Philosophy (1801), Schelling declared: "I call reason absolute reason, that is, reason insofar as it is conceived as total indifference of the subjective and the objective" (4: 114) Thus defined, "reason is the absolute. But this proposition is valid only with regard to that definition" (4: 115) "The absolute is unchangeably determined as identity [totale Indifferenz] of knowing and being as well as of subjectivity and objectivity. Therefore, difference can be posited only with regard to whatever becomes separated from the absolute, and insofar as it gets separated" (4: 127). Obviously, when Schelling speaks of the absolute, he does not speak of a transcendent object. In the Further Expositions from the System of Philosophy 1802) he says: "It is now easy to see. . .what is the only true method, that is, the method of philosophy according to which everything is absolute but there is no Absolute" (4: 406: nach welcher alles absolut und nichts Absolutes ist). Cf. n. 17. I have no evidence of any Plotinian influence on young Schelling, yet one could compare passages in Plotinus, for instance, Ennead 5. 6. 5: "The act of thinking is not first, either in the order of existence [einai] or in dignity, but secondary and begotten [genomenon]. Primary is the Good, which draws the thinking unto itself, once it has come about. Thus drawn, it sees." 57. At the core of mental illness, the Swiss psychiatrist Balthasar Staehelin found the loss of what he calls the original trust (Urvertrauen). Such an alienation from the real being brings with it the loss of freedom and therefore of the integrity of the individual. Mental healing means finding one's way back to the original unity, to a love that really unites. In that sense Staehelin speaks of human finality. In Der finale Mensch (Zurich: Theologischer Verlag, 1976) he writes: "The unconditional, the being, wants to become a conditional, existing, individual naturalness" (178). "Every meeting with a you invariably brings with it the unconditional summons of nature to manifest the decisive meaning of such human meeting" (171). The meaning is found in the uniqueness of the manifestation. What Staehelin says reminds me of Martin Buber's talk of the you, the you in distinciton from any merely objective it. "Realities (Wesenheiten) are experienced in the present, objectivities in the past" (Ich und Du [Kiiln: Jakob Hegner, 1966], p. 20). "All real life is a meeting. My relation to the you is immediate. . .Between I and You there stands no purpose, no greed, and no anticipation" (18). However, says Buber, the interdependence of the I and you alone does not yet create human life. Only a third does it: "the central You, received in the present" (57). Staehelin speaks of the meeting of two yous, "you always taken in the sense of things, plants, animals, human thoughts, feelings, of anything that is, but also" in the sense of every manifestation of "the great One." And in such a meeting, "every time there arises something quite new, something existing for the first time. The decisive character of every genuine meeting is that it makes possible an entirely new manifestation of the metaphysical great One" (Der finale Mensch, p. 170). Staehelin adds that again and again his own psychiatric observations have confirmed this fact, to the point where he dares to speak of "a universally valid law of nature." He winds up his enumeration of various kinds of such meetings with the question: "Is it presumptuous to assume that the manifestation of the great One occurs most penetratingly in man's meeting with dying and death? . . .Perhaps in death there happens really and without restriction what Plato said of the rare moments of illumination" (176 f.). In the beautiful book of prayers Worte ins Schweigen (9th ed. !Innsbruck: Felizian Rauch, 19651), Karl Rahner speaks in Augustinian terms of God at "the innermost center of my heart" (cf. above, nn. 21 and 36 to Of I). lie says: "My love wants you as you are, . . .not your mere image in my own spirit, . . .yourself with whom my love becomes one, so that you yourself, not merely your image, belongs to the lover in the very moment when he ceases to own himself' (12). "Then, when in death everything will be silent, . the great silence will begin in which you alone resound" (30).

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58. In his summer lectures On the Vocation of the Scholar, given during his first semester at the University of Jena and published in the fall of the same year 1794, Fichte had said: "What would that be which is genuinely intellectual [geistig] in man, the pure I, purely as such, isolated, and without any relation to anything outside of it? This question is unanswerable and, considered with precision, it is self-contradictory. To be sure it is not true that the pure I is a product of the not-I. I call not-I everything conceived as outside the I, distinguished from and set in opposition to the I. I say it is not true that the I is a product of the not-I. To say it is would affirm a transcendental materialism which is entirely against reason. But it is certainly true that the I never becomes aware of itself, nor can become aware of itself, except in its empirical conditions, and that these empirical conditions necessarily presuppose something outside the I" (6: 294 f.). 59. In his Systematic Ethics (Das System der Sittenlehre) of 1798, Fichte wrote: "I posit myself as active does not mean I attribute to myself activity merely as such; it means my activity is specific, this and no other" (4: 6) "What does this mean, a specific activity? And how does it become specific? By this alone, that it meets with a resistance. . . .Wherever you

see activity, there you necessarily also see resistance; for otherwise you see no activity" (4: 7) "What occurs in the apperception of activity is the synthesis of our activity with a resistance" (4: 96). The dozen pages of the introduction to that book may well be the most lucid exposition of the fundamental conceptions of Wissenschaftslehre that Fichte hks written. 60. Aus der Zeit in die Ewigkeit is a formula used in announcements of death and on tombstones. Kant used it in the first sentence of his 1794 essay The End of All Things (Cass. 6: 411. See p. 326 n.). 61. In the Lectures on the Vocation of the Scholar (1794) Fichte said: "The ultimate goal of man is to dominate everything that lacks reason, and to rule it freely under his own law. This ultimate goal is entirely beyond reach and will forever be beyond reach, if man is not to cease being man, and is not to become God. The very concept of man implies that his last goal is beyond reach, and that the way to it is endless. It is not the vocation of man to reach this goal. But he can and he ought to get ever closer to it, and therefore the endless approximation to this goal is his true vocation as man, that is, as a rational but finite, as a sensuous but free being" (6: 299 f.). Schelling's phrase die Bestimmung des Menschen, already used by Kant (PuR 492),

furnished the title of Fichte's book of 1800 (2: 165-319) which, for too long a time, was the only writing by Fichte readily available in English (as The Vocation of Man). 62. See second half of note 57. 63. In 1794 Fichte wrote about logical cases which imply "a task in lieu of a reason. The original and highest judgment of this kind is the 'I am,' in which nothing is predicated of the I, and the place of the predicate is left empty so that the determination of the I is possible and Infinitum" (I: 116). "Quite correctly, Kant and his successors called such judgments infinite though, as far as I know, none has explained them clearly and definitely. Thus no reason can Ice furnished for any specific thetical judgment; but the procedure of the human mind in thrtkal judgments rests on the positing of the I by itself - (1: 117 f.). Fichte's word thetical 'ileum positing, as in positing a thesis. Cf. n. 99 of Of I and n. 23 above. 64. In an Augustinian vein one might comment that God's will simply annuls the will of the naughty devil, whose will is naught as opposed to God's fullness of being. Augustine says

that, for God, "the universe is perfect even in its wrong part." (Solil. 1.i.2) Deus per quem

universitas etiam cum sinistra parte perfecta est. Deus a quo dissonantia usque in extremum nulls est, cum deteriora melioribus concinunt. "God for whom no dissonance goes to the extreme since the worse is consonant with the better." 65. In PuR Kant said: "The will, which is directed to the promotion of the highest good, is 110( determined by happiness but by the moral law (which sets restraining conditions to my

unlimited desire for happiness). Therefore morals do not teach us how to make ourselves happy but how we ought to become worthy of happiness" (Cass. 5: 141; cf. Beck 141).

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66. In 1781 the first edition of PuR put this succinctly: "The transcendental realist conceives of outward phenomena as things in themselves which exist independently of us and of our sensibility. . . It is precisely this transcendental realist who then plays the empirical idealist, finding all our impressions [Vorstellungen] insufficient to establish the reality of the objects of sense" (A 369). "In contrast, the transcendental idealist can be an empirical realist and thus can be called a dualist, i.e., he can admit the existence of matter without going beyond sheer self-awareness and without assuming more than the certainty of the impressions in me" (A 370; cf. Smith 346). In the essay Of the I, Schelling said: "Transcendent realism is necessarily empirical idealism, and vice versa." (Of 1 213). 67. See Of I pp. 235-36. When, in 1796 and 1797, Schelling wrote the Essays to Explain the Idealism of the Wissenschaftslehre, he referred back to those same pages (235-36) and added: In order to explain free will as a fact of common consciousness, we need the idea of absolute freedom; without it we cannot understand any freedom of choice; with it alone we do not understand how there can still be any choice at all in us, nor why the original law in us has not turned into necessity. Here we must remind ourselves that arbitrary choice [Willkiir] or the liberty to take our stand for or against the law belongs exclusively to the phenomenon [Erscheinung] and that we may not in any way use the concept of freedom in order to determine or define the supersensuous in us. Instead, what must be shown is that we cannot become aware at all of the supersensuous in us, that is, of freedom IFreiheit], except through arbitrary choice [ Willkilr] which, therefore, though it does not pertain to the supersensuous in us, yet necessarily pertains to our finiteness, that is, to the awareness Bewusstsein] of the supersensuous. Just as it is necessary that, for ourselves, we become finite, so it is necessary that the absolute freedom in us appear as arbitrariness. Though it belongs merely to our finiteness and is therefore mere phenomenon [Erscheinung], arbitrariness is not on that account mere seemingness [Schein]. It belongs to the necessary limitations of our nature, which we forever endeavor to overcome, but without ever being able to do away with them entirely. And thus, from this otherwise so dark spot of practical philosophy, a new ray of light falls back upon our theoretical idealism, whose significance only now becomes entirely clear. We can now ascertain the transcendental place, as it were, whence the intellectual in us passes into the empirical" (1:439 f.). 68. The endlessness of the challenge is already implied in what Kant wrote 1786, in the Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals: "The question is not whether this action or that actually occurs. Rather, reason as such and as independent of all phenomena commands what ought to occur. Ineradicably the challenge of reason demands actions of which no example may yet have been given in the world" (Cass. 4:265; cf. Beck 24). Presumably in 1780-81, in his Lectures on Ethics, Kant had already said very concisely: "An objective rule states what ought to happen, even if it were never to happen in fact" (New York: (Eine Vorlesung Kants iiber Ethik, ed. Paul Menzer 'Berlin: Pan Verlag Rolf Heise, 1924], p. 2; cf. Harper Torchbook TB 105 [New York: Harper and Row, 1963], p. 2.) 69. There is no English word for Schwdrmerei. The noun Schwarm means the same as the English swarm, as in a swarm of bees. The verb schwdrmen can mean the same physical event as when we say the bees swarm, either when they fly to and fro around the hive, or when a new colony swarms, following the young queen. Said of butterflies, schwdrmen means that they flutter around the flowers. Said of a young man, it means that his mind flutters around his absent girl. A similar fluttering occurs in a mind that begins to be attracted by God. If this religious love becomes steady, the lover can say withh Rainer Maria Rilke that his mind "kreist um Gott wic um cinch alien Turin," that it hovers around God, as a falcon might circle around an old tower, almost without wingheat. But that would not be AchwOrmen, which always retains the meaning of unstable roving. The dictionary is right in telling us that the noun SchwUrtner also means hawk moth on sphinx, an inset t which flies in a [teller likelier, tumbling way. Figto atively a St h teat met 111r411% a (nevi Acker which i111111/14 hither sod von. Its

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[d 69-74]

Switzerland we say of a young man in love "ar hat en Schwarm", he has a Schwarm, and that masculine noun can mean both his affliction and his really quite feminine girl. When he is ready to propose marriage he is beyond mere Schwdrmerei. It seems obvious that God cannot really be an object of mere Schwdrmerei. But that word can designate and therefore can be translated as enthusiasm, in the original Greek sense of being possessed by a god. Thus possessed the mind is beside itself, in the literal Greek sense of ecstasis. And it is that state of irresponsibility which Schelling means here. Instead of enthusiasm I could also translate ecstasy. Sound religiosity is basically quiet. But the unsound religionist lacks that security and therefore becomes a fanatic, in some way a child of the Devil. The dictionary is wrong when it translates Schwdrmerei as fanaticism. The latter is a curdled form of the former. Therefore Schelling can speak of the potential terrors of Schwirmerei. 70. In Cr], 49, Kant says: "The imagination is very powerful in creating, as it were, a second nature" (Cass. 5:389; Bernard 157). And in 57: n.1: "An aesthetic idea cannot become knowledge [Erkenntnis] because it is a vision of imagination [Anschauung der Eimbildungskraft] to which no concept can ever be adequate" (Cass. 5:418 cf. Bernard 187). Schelling's footnote points in the direction of his System of Transcendental Idealism of 1800. See n. 97 to Of I. 71. In 1805 Schelling started his Aphorism no. 48 with the sentence: "Reason does not have the idea of God, it is that idea and nothing else" (7:149). 72. In the Critical Fragments of 1805/6, Schelling says: "The existence of God is an empirical truth, nay it is the ground of all experience" (7:245). Schelling adds: "He who has grasped this and thoroughly understood it, has acquired a sense for Naturphilosophie." Cf. N.R., n.9. 73. To think systematically at all is a responsible act. See n. 121 to Of I. 3 74. As autonomous, the responsible subject is opposed to the absolute object, at least implicitly if not in explicit rebellion. The rebellion takes its cue from dogmatism's conception of God. Dogmatism considers God as absolute object. If the dogmatist reads the words "God is spirit" (John 4:24) he thinks of "a spirit" and he turns spirit into an object by declaring that it is absolutely transcendent, essentially inscrutable, unintelligible to the responsible rational being. Therefore, "in dogmatism my vocation is to annihilate all free causality in me" (334). In our civilization this takes two forms, theological and scientific. The dogmatistic theologian must deny moral autonomy and must demand unconditional obedience to God's revealed laws, into whose meaning and validity man has no right to inquire. The dogmatistic scientist must endeavor to explain every human awareness of autonomy as an illusion caused by chemical changes in the brain. For this scientist, of course, the laws of nature take the place of God. By the same deterministic logic, the dogmatistic theologian would demand "that the subject cease to be subject for the absolute object," in plain language that, for God, man has no more dignity than a rock. To be sure, such a demand could not be reconciled with the notion that God is our loving Father, a notion which could not explain any total lack of human dignity. On account of such theological inconsistencies, many dogmatistic minds prefer quite dogmatic scientific explanations 1 -,1 theological dogrrias.

The dogma of Original Sin tries to account for the autonmous subject's being "something opposed to" God. The old Schelling gives a philosophical account. Between 1828 and 1845 he wrote, "the very first movement of consciousness is not a movement by which consciousness seeks God but a movement by which it deviates from God. Therefore, prior to all real movement of consciousness, God inheres in it a priori, essentially. Those thinkers who let humanity start from an explicit concept of God will never be able to explain how any mythology can result from this concept. What is more, they do not seem to have considered that, no matter how they explain the origin of the concept, hr it through man's own mental activity or else by revelation, in either case they implicitly claim an original atheism of consciousness, an atheism to which they object in other respects" (12: 120 I.).

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Young Schelling's Fichtean criticism must postulate "an infinite striving toward the realization of the absolute in myself' (Dogm. 335). Schelling is strictly in line with Kant when he insists on "a mere practical use of the idea for the determination of the moral being." However, he soon saw the precariousness of positing sheer "passivity in the object." In line with the basic trend of the Critique of Judgment, he began to look for the life that is in nature. In Fichte's System of Ethics of 1798, in section 12 on a "viable ethics" (4: 147j), there are significant pages on a morality that considers case by case. Here is a condensation. "Every possible purpose seeks to satisfy some natural urge. All real volition is empirical. A pure will is not a real will but a mere idea." To be sure, it is not "the natural urge as such which produces a volition. I will; nature does not. Yet, materially, I cannot will anything but what nature would will if it were capable of volition" (148). Still, I cannot abolish my pure moral inclination as a cause; it alone posits "me as an I." This inclination "seeks complete liberation from nature," but the desired "independence never takes place." Therefore my moral actions form " a series by whose continuation the I would become independent." Thus "the final purpose of the rational being necessarily lies in infinity" (149). Some people "speak of infinity as if it were a thing in itself." In that manner of speech one could say, "there must be a series" of moral acations "whose continuation could be conceived as an approximation to absolute independence. . . .And we must state the principle of ethics as follows: In each case make good your vocation!" (150). However, "what precisely is my vocation? . . . At no time can we make good our total vocation. (It is the error of the mystics that they imagine what cannot be attained at any time as attainable in time. To be sure, the total annihilation of the individual and its fusion in the absolutely pure form of reason, its fusion in God, is the ultimate goal of finite reason; but it is not possible in time.) The possibility of making good one's vocation in each specific case lies in nature itself and is given by it. The relation of our natural urge to the principle enunciated is this: At every moment there is something in conformity with our moral vocation, and this something is at the same time demanded by the natural urge (provided it be natural and not an artifice produced by a spoiled fantasy). However, it does not follow that everything the natural urge demands conforms to the moral principle" (151). 75. In 1783, in the preface to Prol. Kant wrote: "I freely confess that it was the reminder by David Hume that, many years ago, first interrupted my dogmatic slumber," a condition he himself had lampooned in 1766 in his Dreams of a Ghostseer Explained by Dreams of Metaphysics, presumably after reading Hume (Cass. 4: 8 Cf. Beck 8. Beck mistranslates as "my recollection of David Hume," which in German would be "meine Erinnerung an," not "die Erinnerung des," as Kant writes.) The alternative offered by dogmatism is moral childhood, heteronomous obedience. 76. Those Kantians who found in Kant's terminology a means for the resuscitation of moral heteronomy and theoretical dogmatism. 77. At this point, Schelling's diatribe against the Kantians turns against Kant himself, who taught that the existence of God is a practical postulate. "For the purely speculative use of reason the highest Being remains a mere ideal, though free from error" (PuR 669; cf. Smith, 531). "A free interest of pure practical reason decides for the assumption of a wise creator . . . on the ground of a maxim to assume something as true in behalf of morals. The assumption is pure, practical, rational faith I Vernunftglaubel." PrR, Cass. 5: 158; cf. Beck 151). 78. Schelling spent his two years at the University of Leipzig, 1796-98, largely in studying natural science. 79. A paragraph like this should make the reader pause when in a textbook he comes across the tale about the alleged pipe dreams of so called German idealism. 80. In 1797, in the hint Introduction Iii the 14/1 , sen+cholt.slehre, Fichte wrote: "One's choice of a philosophy depends on the kind of matt one is, lot a 1/11110301)111( . .11 system is not dead furniture which one can acquire or dispose of at will, but is AllifIlaird by t he soul of the matt who holds it. A t hat ayet cannot rise to idealism if it is flaccid by nature or by intellrt

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[d 80-81]

tual slavery, or is twisted by erudite luxury and by vanity" (1:434). John Lachs translates somewhat differently (Heath 16). 81. The joy of such a union of free spirits had been experienced by the three friends and fellow students at Tubingen, Hegel, Hirilderlin, and Schelling. As a final note I translate four lines of the long poem Eleusis, which Hegel wrote for HOlderlin in August 1796. (See Gustav Emil Muller, Hegel. Denkgeschichte eines Lebendigen, (Bern and Munich: 19591, p. 72.) MUller's book is a treasure trove of insights into the life and thoughts of Hegel.

Our old agreement found still riper, firmer our old trust. No need of oath for our determination to live for the free truth alone, and never to make peace

with feelings and opinions bound by custom, never, never. ... des alten Bundes Treue fester, reifer noch zu Linden, des Bundes den kein Eid besiegelte, der freien Wahrheit nur zu leben, Frieden mit der Satzung, die Meinung and Empfindung regelt, nie nie einzugehn.

Translator's Introduction to

New Deduction of Natural Right

In his book on La filosofia politica di Schelling (Bari: Laterza, 1969, p. 114) Claudio Cesa states that the New Deduction of Natural Right was written right after the Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism.

On March 23, 1796, Schelling wrote to Niethammer in Jena that he would stop in and perhaps bring along some aphorisms written while, as their private tutor, he was teaching natural right to the two young barons von Riedesel, who were going to study law at Leipzig. Schelling told Niethammer: "I would like to send [these aphorisms] if I had a clean copy. I would not like it if another published [his own writings on the topic] before me and if people then thought I had followed his steps" (Horst Fuhrmans, ed., F. W. J. Schelling. Briefe. [Bonn: Bouvier, 1962], 1: 67,77). Fuhrmans notes that this other author is surely Fichte who, as Schelling knew from HOlderlin, had lectured on natural right for the first time in the winter of 1795/96. Gabler in Jena published the first part of Fichte's lectures at Easter 1796. (The lectures are now in Fichte's works, 3: 1-385.) On May 8, 1796, Schelling sent Niethammer the rest of the manuscript. Niethammer published that completed work in the belated April issue of his

Philosophical Journal.

The essay looks like a study of Rousseau's distinction between the general will and the will of all, with emphasis onhe decisive function of the individual will. Schelling's convincing logic flows freely, like lucid music, at least in the first half. No introductory explanations seem to be needed. An abridged outline of some of the main points may suffice. The individual will is restricted by the general will only inasmuch as the restriction by the latter makes the former absolute (§44). The general will demands justice. All are to br free. The form of the individual will is autonomous freedom. But that is impossible without the "matter" of the general will, which i the just freedom of all ( §44). 219

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"Only the matter" of the individual will "(that which is accomplished by it), not its form (the freedom of willing) depends on the general will" (§ 49). What, according to Kant, ought to be accomplished is the establishment of the "realm of God" on earth. But this pax Dei is given only hominibus bonae voluntatis (Luke 2:14). And it is precisely our duty to bring about this peace through the freedom of our will, for it cannot be done in any other way. Therefore "my will submits to the general will in order not to be subject to any other individual will" ( §50). The free "individuality of will cannot be commanded at all" ( § 55,59). It is autonomous. Therefore it implies the possibility of unlawful action. I can do anything. But the question of right is what I may do. Right is what corresponds "to the form of will as such, or (which is the same) to the form of the general will" ( §67). Therefore, "the matter of the permissible [ my right] is determined by the form of the permissible [freedom], not vice versa" (§80). Since the matter of my action is determined by its form, autonomy, all moral beings who can will this matter, the realm of God, must also will its form, autonomy ( §154). A man can will his own freedom and disregard the freedom of all, because I cannot prescribe to him what he wills. Since not all potentially moral beings need to will the matter of my moral action, the justice for all ( § 154), those who will not may have become unable and irredeemable, as it would seem, or they may not yet be able, as is a very young child. But their existence does not do away with "the form of my action" ( §154). In short, "the form of the general will is freedom, its content morality" (§ 35). Schelling's definition of ethics is significant. Ethics is "that part of morality which demands a general will [or the universality of will] with regard to its matter" ( § 52). Since the essay was written only half a dozen years after the definitive establishment of the United States of America, it is interesting to find formulations that could have been penned by a man like Jefferson, for instance § 32 and especially § 15 (see n. 12). How would the entire essay strike an American student of law?

[247, 248]

4 New Deduction of Natural Right (1796) 1. Deduction of the science of right as such, and of its supreme [247] principle. §1 What I cannot bring into reality theoretically, I ought to make real practically. Now, the unconditional toward which reason moves ' is beyond the reach of theoretical reason, 2 for it can never become an object for me. As soon as I try to fix it as object, it falls back into the limits of the conditional. Whatever is object for me can manifest itself only phenomenally. As soon as it is more than a phenomenon for me, my freedom is annihilated.' §2 If I am to bring the unconditional into reality, it must cease to be an object for me. I must conceive the ultimate, which is the ground of everything that exists, the absolute being that manifests itself in every being as identical with myself, with the ultimate, immutable in me.'

§3

Be! in the highest sense of the word; cease to be yourself as a phenomenon; endeavor to be a noumenon as such?' This is the highest call of all practical philosophy. §4 12481 If you are a being by yourselfirin Weser' an Kiehl, no contrary

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[249] power can change your status, none can limit your freedom. Therefore, in order to become a being by yourself, to be absolutely free, endeavor to subject every heteronomous power to your own autonomy, endeavor by freedom to extend your freedom to an absolute, illimitable power.

§5 This commandment is unconditional, because it demands something unconditional. Therefore the demanded endeavor itself must be unconditional, that is, it must depend only on itself and cannot be determined by any foreign law.

§6 If my endeavor is not to be determined by any foreign law, then, in reverse, everything opposed to my endeavor must simply be determined by my endeavor. By proclaiming myself as a free being, I proclaim myself as a being who determines everything resistant, but is not determined by anything. §7 I rule over the world of objects; even in that world nothing reveals itself but my causality. I proclaim myself as master of nature, and I demand that it be absolutely determined by the law of my will. My freedom keeps every object in the bounds of a phenomenon (Erscheinung) and thus prescribes to it laws it may not break. Autonomy pertains only to the immutable self; everything that is not this self—everything that can become object — is heteronomous, and for me phenomenon. The entire world is my moral property.' §8 If I am to rule in the world of phenomena and govern nature in line with moral laws, the causality must reveal* , 7 itself through a physical causality. Now 12491 freedom as such can announce itself only through original autonomy. Therefore this physical autonomy, although it is heteronomous with regard to the object, is autonomous with regard to its principle, that is, it is not within reach of any natural law.' Thus it must unite in itself both autonomy and heteronomy. §9 The name of this causality is life. Life is the autonomy in the phenomenon;" it is the scheme (Schema) 10 of freedom, insofar as it reveals itself in nature. This is why, of necessity, I become a living being. •TitiA is the wiper expirnsion and properly belongs here! Elsewhere the author will explain its reader who has tindristood Jacobi meaning and content. It I anent scent slt.mgc lo

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§I0 As far as my physical power reaches I give my form to everything in existence, I force my purposes upon it, I use it as means of my boundless will. §11 Where my physical power does not reach, there is only a physical resistance: in nature there can be no moral resistance to me. Whatever is physically impossible, is still morally real, and whatever is morally real may still be impossible physically; nevertheless I have accomplished what I ought to do in the moral world." §12 Where my physical power finds resistance, there is nature. I acknowlege the superiority of nature over my physical strength; as a being of sense I bow to it; I cannot do more. §13 Where my moral power finds resistance, there can no longer be nature. I shudder and stop. I hear the warning: Here is humanity! I may not do more.

§14 In its boundlessness my freedom can be conceived only as a power which does away with every resistant causality. Therefore, wherever my freedom ceases to be boundless, it must be confronted with some other unconditional causality. § 15 [250]When I feel that my freedom is limited, I recognize that I am not alone in the moral world, and the manifold experiences of limited freedom teach me that I am in a realm of moral beings,* all of whom have the same unlimited freedom. § 16 This causality is unlimited because it is nowhere confronted by a [specific] goal, because its goal is nowhere specified objectively.' 3 The causality is concerned with unconditionality, yet does not presuppose it but merely endeavors to realize it by a nonfinite act. • That a being similar to myself in outward appearance can he modified by my purposive intention is no proof that it is human; it could be a teachable animal. This is confirmed by the observation that those whose demands never inert the resistance of another human will eventually lose respect for the docile human species, and finally for human dignity itself. Only when I address the wilt of another and when hr rejects my demands with his categorical "I will noir lit else when he is willing il) give up his Itredom lot the price of !nine, do I tecognite that behind his fat r their dwells humanity, and in his breast lierdom

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1251]

§ 17 Its ultimate goal is not objective and therefore not empirical. But because the free causality strives for it only in an infinite sequence of time, its striving is empirical. § 18 Although the ultimate goal of all moral beings is intellectual" and therefore identical, their striving, as an empirical striving (§17), is not

identical. §19 If all moral beings had attained the highest goal, their causality would be one and the same, and there would be no antagonism but absolute concord. § 20 Since it is in time alone that they can strive for a goal, their causality is as manifold (not identical) as the objects in the empirical world.

1251]

§21

Therefore the unconditional causality of moral beings becomes antagonistic in the empirical striving, and I begin to oppose my freedom to

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§ 25 Still, it is impossible that every moral being maintain his freedom as long as the unconditional freedom of moral beings is antagonistic when manifest in their empirical striving. § 26 To be sure, if conceived purely, absolute causality can never be in antagonism to itself. But an absolute empirical causality does away with all empirical causality in the other man. Empirically unlimited activity in one imposes empirically unlimited passivity upon the other. § 27 Nevertheless, every moral being must assert his freedom as such. And that is possible only insofar [252] as every moral being renounces unlimited empirical freedom. For unlimited empirical freedom leads to endless antagonism in the moral world (§26). § 28 Therefore, every moral being must yield his unlimited empirical freedom in order to save his freedom as such. Inasmuch as his striving is empirical, he must cease to assert himself as an individual in order to maintain himself through his striving as such.

the freedom of all others. § 22 Now, as I conceive of my freedom as being in opposition to the causality of others who are like me, it becomes my causality, that is, a causality which is not the causality of moral beings as such (the causality of the entire moral world). I become a moral individual.

§ 29 We must think that all moral beings are striving to maintain their individuality. Therefore this universal striving of moral beings for individuality as such must restrict the striving of each for empirical individuality in such a way that the empirical striving of all others can coexist with the striving of each.

§ 23 I cannot cease to assert my freedom as long as the challenge "Strive for unconditionality!" is not fulfilled. Yet I cannot assert my freedom without at the same time flatly opposing it to the freedom of others, insofar as theirs is in opposition to mine, in our empirical striving. Therefore the in-

§ 30 Since we must think that all moral beings as such have a will, this generic will of all must limit the empirical will of each individual in such a way that the will of all others can coexist with the will of each.

dividuality of my will itself is sanctioned by the highest demand of practical reason.

§81 Here we step over from the domain of morality into that of ethics. Morality as such lays down a law addressed only to the individual, a law that demands nothing but the absolute selfhood of the individual. Ethics sets up a commandment which presupposes a realm of moral beings and which safeguards the selfhood of all individuals by means of the demand addressed to the individual.

§ 24 However, this very demand is addressed to all beings. Every moral being not ought but must -remain an individual, as long as-he still ought to fulfil that demand.

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§ 32 Therefore the commandment of ethics must express not the will of the individual but the general will. § 33 Still, this commandment of ethics ( §32) depends on the higher commandment of morality ( §3). Ethics sets up [253] the general will as a law only in order to safeguard the individual will by means of the general. I do not lay claim to individuality because I submit to the general will, but only because I claim individuality do I submit to the general will. The general

will is conditioned by the individual, not the individual by the general." § 34 What determines the general will is the form of the individual will as such (freedom), setting aside all content of willing. Therefore the content of the general will is determined by the form of the individual will, not vice versa. § 35 The form of the general will is freedom, its content morality. Therefore

freedom does not depend on morality but morality on freedom. I am not free because I am moral, nor insofar as I am moral, but because and insofar as I want to be free, I ought to be moral.

§ 36 Consequently, the problem of all ethics is to maintain the freedom of the individual by means of the general freedom, to safeguard the individual will by means of the general, or—(since the will of the individual can oppose the will of all others only insofar as it becomes empirical, that is, material)— to harmonize the empirical will of all with the empirical will of the individual. § 37 When I conceive of the individual as being in opposition to all other individuals, the question arises whether the empirical will of all others is to become identical with my will, or else my will with the will of all others.

12541 § 38 If the will of all others were to become identical with my own as such, I should be doing away with the will of all others as individuals, that is, the general will would not be conditioned by the individual's ( § 33). This ;mum pt Um would br contradictory.

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§ 39 Vice versa, if my will, inasmuch as it is individual will, were to be determined by the will of all others, then the individual will would be conditioned by the general will, and that in turn is impossible ( §33). § 40 Therefore, either none of the two cases can take place, or else they must both come to pass together. Yet they can come to pass together only if the will of the individual and the will of all are equivalent concepts, that is, if the will of all is at the same time the will of the individual and the will of the individual is at the same time the will of all." §41 Only if the individual will and the will of all are equivalent concepts is the condition fulfilled under which alone an ethical commandment can come to pass (§33). I ought not to act as all the others;" but all the others ought to act as I act. Yet, in order that all the others may act the way I do, I ought to act the way all others can act." Only through the adherence of the will of all others to my will can my will become the will of all, and only by my adherence to the will of all others does their will become the will of every individual, just as the apposition of plurality to unity and the apposition of unity to plurality produce totality." § 42 Only by conceiving of all will as absolute" can I conceive of the will of all others as being restricted by mine, and mine as restricted by the will of all others. Therefore even the restriction of [255] the individual will by the general presupposes the original unrestrictedness of the will. § 43 Only by restricting my will within the limits of the will of all others, and the will of all others within the limits of mine, can I think the will itself as absolute. And the problem of the absolute will, as established by morality, is resolved in ethics through the universal concordance of the wills of all in-

dividuals. § 44 Therefore the individual will is restricted by the general will only in-

asmuch as it becomes absolute owing to this very restriction, and the individual will is absolute only inasmuch as it is restricted by the condition of the general will.

§45 The highest commandment of Al rthics in: act in such a way that your

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will be absolute will; act so that the entire moral world could will your ac✓ tion (in its matter and in its form); act so that your action (according to its content and its form) does not treat any rational being as a mere object but as a cooperating subject."

§ 46 By acting in line with this law, I renounce my individuality, that is, I cease to oppose my freedom to the freedom of other moral beings. However, I cease to oppose my freedom to the freedom of other moral beings only in order that they in turn cease to oppose their freedom to mine.

§ 47 For since the general will is conditioned by the individual will ( § 33) and not vice versa," the general will can determine the matter of my action only insofar as it is conditioned by the individual will, that is, I can submit to

the general [256] will only inasmuch as, through it, I assert my individual will.

§ 48 Since I can think of myself as an individual only insofar as another freedom is opposed to my freedom ( § 22), I can also assert my will as will only in opposition to another will. § 49 In particular, I assert my will: (a) against the general will, though not with regard to the matter of it, yet in regard to the form: I determine the matter of my will through the general will, in order that the will of all others be conditioned by the form of my will. For only the matter of my action (that which is accomplished by it), not its form(the freedom of willing), depends on the general will. And vice versa: Though it is not the matter, yet it is the form of my will (freedom) that conditions the matter of the general will (§ 45).

§ 50 I assert the individuality of my will (b) against the individual will: My will submits to the general will in order not to be subject to any individual will. Or: I impose upon myself the general will as a law, in order that my will may be a law for every other will.

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§51 Thereby I assert the individuality of my will (c) against the will as such."

My will submits to the general will in order that no other endeavor be opposed to my endeavor, [257] no other will to my will as will, that is, in order that my will may become absolute unlimited power (§ 45). § 52 Therefore ethics cannot absolutely do away with the individuality of my will with regard to its matter, without at the same time affirming it absolutely with regard to the form. And ethics, being that part of morality which demands a general will [Allgemeinheit des Willens] with regard to its matter, must be confronted with another science, one that asserts the

individuality of will with regard to its form.

§ 53 This problematically assumed science must be determined only in strict contrast with ethics, and all its problems must be derived from this antithesis. § 54 What ethics demands is that the individual will be identical with the general. But the individual will can be different from the general will only insofar as it is determined materially (§26). Therefore the identity of the individual with the general will cannot be demanded unless the matter of the individual will as individual will be removed, that is, unless I ought to act contrary to the individual will with regard to its matter. But an action contrary to my individual will must be commanded: it must be asked of me imperatively, through an ought. § 55 In contrast, it cannot be commanded that I act in line with the form of individual will. For, that I am at all, and that I am the one who I am is the

unconditional [self-]assertion which forms the basis of all categorical assertions. § 56 Therefore the proposition which asserts the individuality of will would be a theoretical" and absolutely categorical axiom" if, [258] in ethics, it were not faced by a commandment that removes (§ 54) the individual will with regard to its matter.

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§57 Therefore this proposition cannot absolutely assert the individuality of the will with regard to its form without, at the same time, asserting it as mere possibility, with regard to that commandment [§ 56]. Otherwise, again with regard to that commandment, it would have to assert it either as an actuality or else as an impossibility, and neither of the two can be the case. §58 For if it were to assert it as actually posited by that commandment it would assert it as commanded. But the individuality of will cannot be commanded at all ( §55). § 59 If, on the other hand, it were to assert it as impossible in regard to that commandment, it would assert it as absolutely removed by that commandment. And that, in turn, is unthinkable ( § 52). § 60 Therefore the proposition which asserts the individuality of will is by and for itself a categorical-theoretical proposition (I am I!). Yet, inasmuch as the same proposition asserts the individuality of will with regard to the commandment which removes the individuality of will as to its matter [or content], it is a problematically practical proposition that merely allows the individuality of will as to its form. §61 Now the problematically assumed science which asserts the individuality of will ( § 52) is to be actually established ( §52) only in contrast to the science which removes the individuality of will. Therefore, in that assumed science also, the individuality of will as to its form can be asserted only as a practical possibility.

§ 62 Possible is that which, though it is not absolutely, yet on that very account is not under any specific condition. [259] Actual is that which, though it is, is yet on that account under a specific condition. Whatever t he possible loses of existence it gains of unconditionality, and whatever the

actual gains of existence it loses of unconditionality. § 63 Therefore possibility, conceived practically (with regard to ethics), is that which, though it is not absolutely (practically), is yet, on that very ac-

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count, not under the specific condition of a commandment. Actuality, likewise conceived practically, is that which, though it is, is only under the specific condition of a commandment (it is only because it ought to be). § 64 I ought to do what is practically actual, and what I ought to do is obligatory; it is in line with duty. Duty is that which simply is because it ought to be. § 65 Whatever is theoretically possible I can do; whatever is practically possible I may do. In current linguistic usage, whatever I may do is called right, in general, and the practical possibility itself, owing to which something becomes right, is called the right." Right is that which, though it is not necessarily practically actual, is yet on that account not under the specific condition of a commandment [eines Gebotes]. § 66 Therefore I ought to do everything that is duty, or commandment ( § 64). The proposition which alone can express a commandment is a proposition that annuls my will as to its matter (§54). As to its matter, my will is annulled by the general will. Therefore everything is duty that is in line with the matter of the general will.

§ 67 I may do everything that is practically possible ( §65). The proposition which alone can express a practical possibility is a proposition that asserts individuality of the will as to its form, in contrast [260] to the nonindividuality of the will as to its matter ( §57). Therefore everything is practically possible that asserts the individuality of my will as to its form. Or, since the individuality of the will is the form of will as such, everything is practically possible, that is, is right, which is in line with the form of will as such, or (which is the same) in line with the form of general will. § 68 Above [ § 521 we problematically assumed a science that would teach us to assert the individuality of will. It could be nothing but the science of right, and the supreme principle (Grundsatz) of all philosophy of right would be this: I have a right to everything by means of which. I assert the individuality of my will as to its liir n or: I have a right to everything that is in line with the limn ul will as such

(everything without which the will would cease to he will).

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[262]

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§ 69 The science of right (which for a long time was not separated at all from morality, and whose relations to morality was till now left entirely undetermined) can take its place only in contrast to the science of duty.

because no commandments [Gebote] at all can occur in that doctrine, be they affirmative or negative ( §55).

§ 70 For will as will can become individual only in contrast to the general will, just as the general will is general only in contrast to individual will. Without this contrast there would be only one absolute will, which could be called neither individual nor general. 27

§ 76 Just as theoretical philosophy ascends through a series of syntheses to the highest possible synthesis, so in turn does [262] practical philosophy descend through a series of analyses to the absolute thesis, and just as the procedure of theoretical philosophy is synthetic, so the procedure of practical philosophy is analytic.

§ 71 The problem of all moral philosophy is an absolute will. In a moral world, such a will can be attained only by unifying the highest individuality with the highest generality of will. [261] One will of all [men] would contain simultaneously the most unlimited freedom and the highest cogency Gesetzmassigkeit] . § 72

Ethics solves the problem of the absolute will by identifying the individual will with the general [ §45], the science of right by identifying the general will with the individual. If both had completely solved their task, they would cease to be contrasting sciences. § 73 Since the problematically affirmative principles of right can be determined only in contrast to the general will (duty), they can be formulated in the doctrine of duty only as categorically negative principles. Whatever the doctrine of right admits as possible can be found in the doctrine of duty only in the form of its opposite, which the doctrine of duty (proceeding categorically) must imperatively deny. Possibility can be affirmed only problematically; categorically it can only be denied. § 74 In ethics, therefore, the highest principle of right can be expressed only

negatively: You may not do anything at all by which the individuality of will would be negated as to its form; or You may not do anything at all by which the will as such would be negated (as to its form). § 75 These negative imperatives cannot occur at all in the doctrine of right,

2. Analysis of the highest principle and deduction of original rights.

§ 77 All original rights must be deduced analytically from the concept of right as such. For right as such, as to its sheer form, is identical with right as to its matter, because the matter of right is determined by the form of right, not vice versa [ §68]. § 78 To act is mine; to choose a specific action is mine. Therefore one can distinguish between the matter and the form of what I may do. § 79 The form of the permissible is practical possibility. [cf. § 61] But practical possibility is nothing other than independence of the individual will of the general (because something can be determined as practical possibility only in contrast to the general will and, vice versa, something can be determined as practical impossibility only in opposition to the individual will). And this very independence of the general will is the matter of all right. For, as to matter, right is nothing other than that which takes place through the sheer form of individual will, independent of and even in opposition to the general will.

§ 80 Therefore the matter of the permissible is determined by the form of the permissible, not vice versa; and the highest principle of right could also be expressed as follows: Practically possible is everything that asserts practical possibility as such (individuality of will as to form); or: I may do everything by which I assert the permissible as such (as to its form).

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[263]

§ 81 If the matter of the permissible were not determined by its form, it would not be determined by the individual will ( §79) but instead by the general will, and that would be contradictory, since the permissible is conceivable only in contrast to the general will ( §79).

§ 82 If the matter of the permissible is determined by the form of the permissible, I cannot assert the form of the permissible without at the same time asserting its matter. § 83 Since I have an immediate right to the form of my will, by necessity I have also a mediate right to its matter. § 84 In asserting the matter of my will I also assert its form, and vice versa; and if the matter of my will is negated as matter, its form is also negated. §85 The form of my will as willing is freedom. And freedom pertains to the will absolutely, inasmuch as it is always the subject, never the object of any determination, that is, inasmuch as the will is not determined by the matter (the object) of its willing, but the matter by the will itself.* 12641 § 86 Inasmuch as freedom, considered strictly as what it is, cannot be an object in any sense, it can never be the object of any act that could do away with it. However, the matter (the object) of my freedom can become the object of an opposing freedom, that is, it can be negated as the matter of my will. § 87 Therefore the freedom of my will can be negated only insofar as its matter is negated, and the matter of my will cannot be negated except by the simultaneous negation of its form. •t leave it to the judgment of my readers to figure out the corollaries of this proposition with regard to the theory of contracts. I remark only what follows. Since the matter of my will can never determine the will itself, and since the will endlessly escapes from every objective determination, therefore, in order to ensure a contract one would have to assume an endless series of cataracts among which each would confirm the antecedent one, but would in turn be in need of confirmation. However, to demand in this endless series of contracts that I remain consistent, is merely a demand of morality. Now, as long as morality the striving for consistency does not hallow contracts, the question my readers may answer asks whether the 10// interest of men (to which one so readily appeals as soon as one finds it profitable) fur nishes a more certain warranty of our cont racts than that endless series of

tree decisions.

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§ 88 Since it is the problem of the entire philosophy of right to assert the form of individual will, and since this form can be asserted only through its matter, the most immediate principle of all right, which follows from what has been said above, is this: You may do anything by which you assert the matter of your will insofar as it is determined by the form of the will. § 89 Therefore the right to matter is valid only insofar as it is conditioned by the right to form; I may assert the matter of my will only insofar as by that assertion I simultaneously assert the form of will. § 90 The form of will asserts itself only in contrast to the matter of will, that is, only insofar as this matter is absolutely [265] determined by the form and therefore, with regard to the form, is absolutely undetermined (that is, absolutely determinable). § 91 All problems of the philosophy of right concern the possibility of asserting the form of will. Therefore all would have to be developed from this contrast between form and matter of will. § 92 If the matter of my will is absolutely undetermined with regard to the form of the will, that is, must be conceived as absolutely determinable, then as matter of my will it must be determined or determinable by nothing else than this will. § 93 Therefore all problems of the philosophy of right can be derived from the opposition of my will to every other determining causality. § 94 The matter of my will, as matter, can be determined at all only by the will as such, and specifically only either by the general or by the individual will.

§ 95 Therefore all problems of the philosophy of law can be derived from the opposition to will as such, to the individual and to the general will.

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B. AA. Right, in contrast to the general will

§ 96 I subject the matter of my will to the general will only insofar as the matter of the general will is determined by the form of my will. Therefore I would have a right [266] against the general will only if the matter of the general will were opposed to the form of my will. § 97 However, the matter of the general will can never be opposed to the form of my will. For what determines the matter of the general will is only and simply the form of the individual will. Therefore no collision seems possible between the matter of the general and the form of the individual will. (No doubt this difficulty is the reason why, hitherto, the teachers of natural right did not dare to speak of a right against the general will.) § 98 On the other hand, the form of my will can be opposed to the matter of the general will. For, although the general will, as to its matter, is invariably determined by the form of my will, yet this form (the form of my will) is absolutely indetermined, and is not at all determinable by any matter and, therefore, also not determinable by the matter of the general will. For this form consists of nothing other than the absolute undeterminateness with regard to all matter of willing, that is, it consists of this, that the matter of will is conditioned alone by the will, not vice versa, the will conditioned by the matter. In short, I act as I will; I do not will as I act. § 99 Suppose that I act as I will and not as the general will wills, and suppose that the matter of my will is determined by its form (freedom) in opposition to the general will, then the question arises whether my act will be negated by the will of the moral world, or the will of the moral world negated by my act.

§100 In opposition to the general will I have a right only to the form of my will. Therefore, just as, in opposition to the matter [267] of the general will I have a right to the form of my will, so in turn has the general will, in opposition to the form of my will, a right to the matter of my will. The question is whether it can validate that right.

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§ 101 The matter of my will is conditioned by its form, and the matter cannot be removed without, at the same time, removing the form ( § 87). Therefore the general will cannot assert its right to the matter of the individual will without, at the same time, asserting a right to the form of will, that is, without removing my right to that matter. § 102 However, the matter of the general will is determined by the form of the individual will ( §34). Therefore the general will, as such, cannot will that the form of my will be negated nor, on that account, that the matter of my will be removed, inasmuch as it is conditioned by the form of my will. Therefore the right of the general will to interfere with the individual will is an imperfect right, because the general will cannot exercise it without negating the will as such, and therefore negating itself.

§ 103 If the will of the moral world is negated by my will, it is negated only as to its matter, for that will could not determine the form of my will ( §19). Therefore my action, insofar as it is opposed only to the matter of the general will, cannot negate any action that pertains to the general will as to its form. § 104 Therefore, since I have a right to anything that is not opposed to the form of the general will (§67), I am entitled to negate the general will as to its matter. However, I am so entitled only insofar as the matter of my action is conditioned by the form of the individual will, that is, insofar as this matter itself is not opposed to the form of the [268] individual or, which is the same, of the general will.

§ 105 Therefore the principle:

"In opposition to the general will I have a right to the form of my will,' can be expressed as follows: I. In opposition to the general will I have a right to the selfhood of will even as to its matter, insofar as I thereby assert my right to the form of the selfhood of will.

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[269]

§ 106 Yet I can never find a case in which I could assert the individuality of my will as to its form, in opposition to the general will. For if the general will endeavored to negate any will in matter as well as in form, it would thereby cease to be general will. For it is general will only inasmuch as it is conditioned by the individual will [ § 33 1. §107 Therefore this right to individuality of my will as to its matter (§ 106) can never be asserted in opposition to the general will. For, if there existed any right to negate any will in both matter and form, such a right could pertain only to an individual will. § 108 Consequently, the problem formulated above ( §99) is transformed as follows:

May an individual will be executor of the right which pertains to the general will regarding the matter of my will? § 109 But this problem brings us to the more general problem: 12691Does an individual will have any right at all in opposition to another

individual will? BB. Right, in opposition to individual will

§ 110 My will submits to the general will in order not to be subject to any individual will (§50), that is, I assert my individuality absolutely, in opposition to every other individuality. § 111 The general will alone, not the individual will, ought to determine the matter of my will. Hence the firmly established principle: 11. I have a right to the matter of my will in opposition to every in-

dioidual will. § 112 In opposition to any individual will ( §109), therefore, I can have any right only insofar as that will endeavors to negate my will. And the general formal principle which asserts a right in opposition to any individual will is the following: An individual will which endeavors to negate another will,

and insolar as it so endeavors, is absolutely negated by that other will.

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§113 Therefore if I assert my will by means of negating the will of another, the presupposition is that this other endeavored to negate mine. Now, the law of the general will demands that we will whatever all moral beings can will (§ 45). Therefore two wills in opposition cannot both be lawful, but either both or at least one of them must necessarily be unlawful. 1. First Case: both are unlawful as to their matter. § 114 From the principle established above, that the matter of the general will is conditioned by the form of the individual will ( §34), there follow immediately the following principles: [270] a. I can act against the matter of the general will (morality) without also acting against the form of individual will (freedom); I can negate the general will as to matter, without negating the will as such as to form. b. I cannot act against the form of the general will (individual freedom) without at the same time acting against the matter of general will (morality).

c. I cannot act in line with the general will as to its matter without at the same time acting in line with its form (the freedom of will as such).

d. I can act in line with the form of general will (freedom) without at the same time acting in line with the matter of general will (morality).

§115 Therefore, in the case of a collision of unlawful wills two cases in turn are possible: a. Both are unlawful also as to form, that is, both endeavor to annul each other mutually. §116 I have the right to negate absolutely every individual will insofar as it endeavors to negate mine. Therefore opposite wills that endeavor to annul each other mutually have also the right to annul each other, that is, neither of them has the right to assert itself absolutely against the other. § 117 Therefore this principle results: a. Formally tinlaW1111 (letiOn.s, 11150lar us they collide, have mutually a right against each other. There, 12711 where theit conflicting wills meet in

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[271,272]

the empirical endeavor, in the world of phenomena, they annul each other mutually if they are as equal in what they can do as they are in what they may do. b. One of the two is unlawful also in form, yet endeavors to annul the other.

§118 A will that is unlawful in form is on that account also unlawful in matter ( §114,b). If it were annulled because it was unlawful in matter, then the form of its willing would be conditioned by the matter of willing, which is impossible ( §90). § 119 A will, therefore, that is unlawful in form is absolutely negated, however, without any regard to its material unlawfulness, but only because it endeavored to annul the will of another. §120 It is absolutely negated by the will of the other, not because this other will is unlawful in matter, but because it is simply will, without any regard to the matter of its willing.

[273]

can never execute"the general will's right to the matter of the individual will. §122

§ 125 Therefore, according to § 112, the unlawful will, owing to its opposition to the lawful, will be absolutely negated, though not because it is materially unlawful (being opposed to the general will) but because it is formally unlawful (as opposed to the individual will). §126 On the other hand, the lawful will can assert itself in opposition to the unlawful, though not because it is lawful materially but only because it is formally lawful. Therefore, with regard to the antagonism of these two, I inquire into the material lawfulness of the one only in order to prove the formal unlawfulness of the other. § 127 Consequently, another principle results: 3. I have a right to my (materially) lawful will, against every (formally) unlawful will.

§ 128 There can be a right to a lawful will only in opposition to an individual will. For in opposition to the general will there can be only a (formal) right to unlawful will, and in relation to the general will only a duty to will lawfully.

[273] CC. Right, in opposition to will as such

From this follows the principle:

13. I have a right to my materially unlawful will in opposition to every other formally unlawful[272]will; or: I have a right in opposition to every unlawful will, insofar as thereby I (formally) assert my unlawful will.

241

§124 Thus, if there is an antagonism between an unlawful and a lawful will, the ground of it can never lie in the latter. Only an unlawful will can endevor to annul the will of the other.

§121 Therefore the question raised above (§ 108) must be answered simply in the negative. An individual lawful will can never annul a materially unlawful will, because it can never annul it without becoming itself unlawful inform and therefore also in matter. Therefore an individual will

NEW DEDUCTION OF NATURAL RIGHT

§ 129 In opposition to both the individual and the general will, I have a right only to formally lawful actions. However, where there is no longer any will at all, there is no longer any lawful or unlawful manner of acting; my will becomes an absolute unlimited power.

2. Second case: Only one of the two is unlawful in its matter.

§ 123 No will can be lawful in its matter without, at the same time, being lawful in its form ( §114). Therefore the lawful will can never endeavor to annul the materially unlawful will.

§ 130 In the domain of nature, all willing ceases.' The domain of nature is the domain of heteronomy. Consequently, here no other will can oppose mine, and my right to nature must he a right which I assert in contrast to

any will as such.

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§ 131 I declare my freedom by ruling over everything heteronomous [ § 6]. Now, I have a right to everything by means of which I assert my freedom. This yields the principle:

physical world as such can there be no resistance to me as moral being ( §

III. In opposition to every will, I have a right to assert my will by unlimited

Therefore, where my freedom is unlimited it is identical with freedom as such, that is, it ceases to be individual freedom. Therefore, with regard to the autonomous determination of objects, my freedom ceases to be individual freedom.

mastery over nature." §132 For autonomy ought to dominate heteronomy absolutely. Everything that is object ought to be absolutely passive when confronted with the selfaction of a moral subject. § 133 If every object is to be absolutely passive when confronted by autonomy, then the object, insofar as it is determined by [my] autonomy, must not be determinable at all by an opposite autonomy. Therefore my dominion over the objects must assert itself asolutely, against every other will. § 134 Otherwise, one would presuppose that the object is not absolutely passive relative to an autonomy by which it is already determined. [274] If it is absolutely passive relative to my will, it thereby becomes like zero in relation to every other will. It ceases to be object for every other moral being.' § 135 If objects were not absolutely passive when confronted by the freedom of will, there could be no antagonism of freedom with regard to them. For if they were not absolutely determined by the freedom of a moral being, no free act could withdraw them as objects from every foreign will. Yet they would still remain determinable heteronomously. But there can be no collision between autonomy and heteronomy. § 136 Only because the free will determines the objects absolutely" is the autonomy in its relation to an autonomously determined object no longer confronted by the heteronomy of the object but by the autonomy of the determining subject. But autonomy in antagonism to autonomy either annuls itself or is mutually limited by the conditions under which the freedom of all moral beings can exist. § 137 Therefore unlimited autonomy ocurs only where there is sheer nature, that is, where no action of free will has yet determined nature. Only in the

1 lff.) §138

My freedom differs from freedom as such only because of limitation.

[275] § 139 If my freedom is identical with freedom as such, every manifestation of my autonomy annuls every foreign autonomy. As I act, and inasmuch as I act, every other individual must not act, that is, it must be passive. My will, inasmuch as it is mine, must be sacred for the entire moral world. § 140 If we enumerate all single rights in line with the above analysis of the supreme principle of right, they are the following:

1. In contrast to the general will, the right to moral freedom, that is, the right to full freedom of the individual will with regard to materially lawful as well as to materially unlawful actions. 2. Right in contrast to individual will, right of formal equality— the right to assert my individuality in opposition to every other (as to both form and matter). 3. Right, in contrast to will as such—the right to the world of phenomena, to things, to objects as such, natural right in the narrower sense.

3. § 141 Finally, I not only have the right to act at all, rich darf Liberhaupt] but I may do anything by means of which I assert the individuality of my will; I have a right to every action whereby I save the selfhood of my will. §142 As to matter (as to specific actions), my will can be restricted only by the general will. Iloweer, the matter of the general will itself is conditioned by the 12761 form of the individual will (freedom). Therefore, this form cannot he in turn conditioned by that matter.



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[277]

§143 But the form of individual will would be conditioned by the matter of the general will if it depended on the latter with regard to its self-assertion. § 144 Therefore freedom, the original form of individual will, must fall back to its original unrestrictedness as soon as its self-assertion is at stake. It is absolute power that subjects every opposing power. Everything, even the general will, bows to the freedom of the individual if the latter acts to save itself. The general will exists no longer as soon as there is need to save freedom. §145 I have a right to every action by which I assert the selfhood of the will, therefore also a right to annul every action that cannot coexist with the selfhood of my will. § 146 The selfhood of the will is annulled as soon as the form of the will (freedom) is conditioned by the matter of the will (by that which I will), not vice versa. § 147 To coerce anybody, in the widest sense of the word, means to condition the form of his will by the matter. This declaration comprehends physical, in the narrower (external) sense of the word, as well as psychological (internal) coercion. § 148 coercion is a contradiction. Therefore there can occur only an Moral This endeavor is declared by physical someone morally. to coerce endeavor or by psychological coercion, and the general principle of such coercion is this: 1n12771 everyone who coerces you physically you must presuppose an

endeavor to coerce you morally.

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§ 151 The general will has a right only to the matter of my will. Now, the matter of the general will is conditioned by the form of the individual will. Therefore, the right of the general will to the matter of my will cannot be a right of coercion (nobody can be coerced to moral actions). § 152 On the other hand, the individual will has a right to its freedom, even if opposed to the matter of the general will. Now, all rights are comprehended in the original right to the form of a will, to freedom. Therefore the individual will can have no rights unless it asserts them all, even if opposed to the matter of the general will. § 153 Individual will can be annulled only in opposition to individual will (the general will can never will that any will be annulled). If I act only immorally, I am acting only against the general, not against the [278]individual will. I am still always acting the way every individual as such could act. Therefore not even my immoral action can be annulled as action—either by the will of another individual, for I am not moving against his will, or by the general will, for it never has any right of coercion against any will. §154 Since the matter of my action is always conditioned by its form, all moral beings, insofar as they can will the matter of my action, must also will its form, not vice versa. But if the form of my action were annulled because not all moral beings can will the matter of my action, then the matter of my action would be conditioned by the form of it, which is contradictory. 33 § 155 Only the form of will is everywhere identical. Therefore if the form of my will is annulled by the will of some other individual, that one thereby also annuls the form of his will.

§ 149 Consequently, coercion as such is an endeavor to annul the selfhood of will. Now, I am entitled to every action by which the selfhood of will is asserted, and therefore I am also entitled to oppose a similar endeavor to every endeavor to coerce me. Every coercion is opposed by coercion.

§ 156 Only by the identity of the form of will does every moral being become identical with me; only through the freedom of his willing can I recognize a being that is like me.

§ 150 As I assert the selfhood of my will I assert nothing but my right. Therefore, every assertion of my right against an opposing will is at the same time annulment of that will, that is, coercion of it. Therefore, my right in opposing a foreign will necessarily becomes right of coercion.

§ 157 A moral being becomes an individual insofar as he determines the matter of his will through freedom. But for the very reason that he determines the matter of his will by freedom, he must dilfrr from me with regard to the matter, just as hr is identical with me with regard to the form.

246

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [279,280]

§ 158 Therefore if the moral being were to annul the form of the will in himself, he would cease to be identical with me. He would become an object for me. 34 [279] § 159 Everything that is object for me must be determined by my endeavor. I place it within the bounds of phenomena and determine it heteronomously, through natural laws.

§ 160 Therefore every being, insofar as he annuls the form of will in me, becomes mere object for me; he takes his stand within the bounds of phenomena and becomes a mere natural being.

§ 161 Then every right necessarily becomes natural right for me, that is, a right which I claim by sheer natural laws. And in its strife against that right, every such being becomes a mere natural being for me. § 162 Natural right, if consistent (inasmuch as it becomes right of coercion), necessarily destroys itself, that is, it annuls all right. For the last resort to which it entrusts the maintenance of right is physical predominance. § 163 Now, it is the demand of reason that the physical be determined by moral laws," and that every natural power be in alliance with morality. Therefore natural right necessarily leads to a new problem, how to make the physical power of the individual identical with the moral power of right, or to the problem of a condition in which physical power is always on the side of right. But as we endeavor to solve this problem we step into the domain of a new science. Postscript Skepticism is nowhere more dangerous than where self-interest and selfishness move immediately from principles to [280] their application. There, in alliance with the lit eralism of ostensible philosophers, skepticism compels a science to deduce its principles as strictly, cogently and literally as possible, though this might cause the loss of the ingratiating appeal of an easier diction, and the lack of appeal of a casual presentation." On that account, such strict enterprises have merely a temporary merit. As soon as the principles have been strictly established, and the 'genuine

[280]

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philosophers have come to a decision, then—in a quite different form— they ought to be and must be brought before the people at large. However, the people should not demand to partake of the inquiries before they are finished and are ripe for public decisions. Only the mob could think of attacking the philosophers at work, slandering and insulting them because of their diligent endeavor. Being raw and unintelligent, the mob is irritated by everything it does not understand, even though it should turn out to be for the common best. The very lack of understanding is the first cause of the mob's irritation. The present aphorisms are not meant to be more than aphorisms. The author reserves his right to a commentary, all the more because the most recent treatises on natural right, which he could not consult" for the present work, will give him cause for more mature reflections as well as manifold occasion to develop his principles more completely.

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[r 1-5]

Translator's Notes 1. In the Critique of Pure Reason (382 f., Smith 318) Kant wrote, "reason is directed always solely towards absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions, and never terminates save in what is absolutely, that is, in all relations, unconditioned. For pure reason leaves everything to the understanding which, by itself, applies immediately to the objects of intuition, or rather to their synthesis in the imagination. Reason concerns itself exclusively with absolute totality in the employment of the concepts of the understanding, and endeavors to carry the synthetic unity, which is thought in the category, up to the completely unconditioned." 2. Schelling here follows Kant in the questionable limiting of the theoretical to knowledge of objects. But Kant also defined "theoretical knowledge as knowledge of what is, practical knowledge as the representation of what ought to be" (PuR 661; Smith 526). And the finidngs of critical philosophy are something that is (though nothing objective) and in that sense theoretical. 3. In his treatise Of the I (239) Schelling explains that "a system that posits an absolute Not-I antecedent to the I, thereby annihilates the absolute I and can know no absolute freedom of the I." 4. In Poss. (106) Schelling wrote, "the principle of the original form is the basic proposition I am I which, to be sure, is an identical proposition. Yet the fact that this proposition is identical belongs to its content, not to its form as such. Therefore it is only the form so expressed, the form of being unconditionally posited, that can be the original form given by that basic proposition. Its principle thus furnishes the axiom of being unconditionally posited." The reader must remember that "I am I" is not a conditional proposition. To say "if I were I, I'd be I" is the nonsensical. It presupposes the I.that speaks. In Of I (223) Schelling said: "Pure being is conceivable only in the I. The I is posited absolutely. . . . Pure being is the original form of possible being posited in the I." 5. The last sentence of the ninth Letter on Dogmatism and Criticism (335) says: "Be! is the highest challenge of Criticism." The awareness of being I yields what Talleyrand would call "joie de vivre." As teenagers we boys at Berne would say to each other on a free afternoon, "Chumm, mr wei use, e chlei ga sy!" (let's go out [in the country] just to be a while!). To deny that I am I, and to claim that I am an object, is dogmatism. As for "being a noumenon as such," we must remember that Kant used the word noumenon in two senses. The first and precritical usage was that of the empiricists. They realized that our sensations are subjective reactions to the quite different objective stimuli which act upon the senses. Empiricism lets these stimuli issue from things in themselves. A certain wave length of light somehow triggers the respective color which we sense. The color is in our mind. The thing in itself need not have any color, nor any other quality known through sensation. Call it matter as such and define it as "the unknown occasion, at the presence of which ideas are excited in us by the will of God" (Berkely, A Treatise Concerning the Principles ol Human Knowledge, §68). But if this unknown "material" thing is replaced by God,

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as Berkeley would have it, what do you know of God? Berkeley says God excites in us ideas, among them sensations. Is causation by a Spirit less unknowable than a material cause? Hume declares that the very notion of cause arises in us only by the experience that our perceptions occur in some kind of regular sequence. The things in themselves remain unknown. Now, if you call a thing in itself a noumenon, Kant points out, then "it is a noumenon in the negative sense of the term. But if we understand by it an object of nonsensible intuition, we thereby presuppose a special mode of intuition, namely the intellectual, which is not that which we possess. . . . This would be noumenon in the positive sense of the term" (PuR 307; Smith 268). Kant denies intellectual intuition. Yet he truly has it whenever he discovers any intellectual necessity, foremost of which is the necessary identity "I am I." In fact he says PuR 429): in the awareness "of myself in mere thought I am the being itself' and "the assertion 'I exist thinking' determines the subject (which is then at the same time object) in respect to existence." I know that I exist only as I. And Criticism challenges me to know it. Dogmatism replaces the I by an It, an entity called mind or soul, or else by my organism. 6. This, of course, is pure Fichte, in fact early Fichte. The later Fichte made clear that the autonomous self stands under God. Also, of course, this is no solipsistic existentialism, for it does not inhibit the later insight. Kant had raised the question as to "the value of life for us," and he answered it, saying: "There remains nothing but the value which we ourselves give our life, through what we cannot only do but do purposively in such independence of nature that the existence of nature itself can only be a purpose under this condition" (CrJ 83 n. Cass. 5: 514; Bernard 284-. 7. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Ober die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelsohn (Werke 4: 72): "in my opinion it is the greatest merit of the scholar to unveil and reveal what is" (Dasein zu enthiillen und offenbaren). Cf. Schelling's Of 1 156. 8. No natural law can explain the reality of obligation or—"therefore" (according to 9) —of life. 9. Kant saw autonomy only in the noumenon. He said, "the autocracy of matter, in productions which can only be conceived by our understanding (Verstand) as purposes, is a word without meaning" (CrJ § 80; Cass. 5:500; Bernard 270). Kant insists on the mechanism of nature. He says that purposiveness is a mere technical concept, to be used "where natural objects are judged only as if their possibility rested on art" (First Introduction to the Critique of Judgment, trans. James Haden. [Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976] p. 8; Cass. 5:184). In that way, "nature is judged . . . only by analogy with an art and, more particularly, only in a subjective relation to our faculty of knowledge and not in an objective relation to the objects" (ibid.). "If the mere mechanism of nature be assumed as the ground of explanation of its purposiveness, we cannot ask: For what do the things in the world exist? ... What is under discussion is only the physical possibility of things, and to think of things as purposes would be mere verbalization (Verniinftelei) without any object" (CrJ 84; Cass 5: 514; cf. Bernard 284). As for the term purposiveness (Zweckmassigkeit), Cassirer warned the modern reader not to take it in the narrow sense of a conscious purpose but in the wider Eighteenth-Century sense which Leibniz designated by the word harmony (Ernst Cassirer, Kant's Leben und Lehre, in Kants Werke 11:307). Is Schelling indulging in mere verbalization when he simply states: "The name of this causality is life"? Kant said (CI §65, Bernard 221 f.): "We say of nature and its faculty in organized products far too little if we describe it as an analogon of art, for this suggests an artificer (a rational being) external to it. . . . We perhpas approach nearer to this inscrutable property if we describe it as an analogon of life, but then we must either endow matter, as mere matter, with a property which countradicts its very being (hylozoism) or associate therewith an alien principle standing in communion with it (a soul). . . To speak strictly, then the organization of nature has in it nothing analogous to any causality we know. . . .The concept of a thing as in itself a natural purpose is therefore no constitutive concept of

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[r 9-18]

understanding or of reason, but it can serve as a regulative concept for the reflective judgment, to guide our investigation about objects of this kind by a distant analogy with our own causality in line with our own purposes as such, and to guide our thinking about the ultimate ground of such objects." It is significant that Kant entitles his § 80 (Bernard 266)"Of the necessary subordination of the mechanical to the teleological principle in the explanation of a thing as a natural purpose." In that section he says (Cass. 5: 497; Bernard 267): "It is therefore reasonable, even meritorious, to pursue natural mechanism, in respect of the explanation of natural products, so far as can be done with probability; and if we give up the attempt, it is not because it is impossible in itself to meet in this path with the purposiveness of nature, but only because it is impossible for us as men. For there would be required for that an intuition other than sensuous and a definite knowledge of the intelligible substrate of nature from which a ground could be assigned for the mechanism of phenomena according to particular laws, which quite surpasses our faculties. Hence . .. . the naturalist must . . . always lay down as basis an original organization which uses that very mechanism in order to produce fresh organized forms or to develop the existing ones into new shapes (which, however, always result from that purpose and conformably to it)." Schelling, having shown that we do have intellectual intuition of the I as self-positing act, can take issue with Kant, and launch into Naturphilosophie. Cf. Dogm n.72. Incidentally, in this same spring of 1796 Napoleon performed another thing impossible to man when he took the Apennine passes and conquered Lombardy with his ragtag army. 10. Kant had defined the schema as "the representation (Vorstellung) of a universal procedure of imagination in providing an image for a concept" (PuR 180; Smith 182). 11. On one of the last pages of the PrR (Cass. 5: 171; cf. Beck 163) Kant said, "to put everything else after the holiness of duty and to know that we can do it because our own reason acknowledges it as its law and says that we ought to do it -is equivalent, as it were, to lifting ourselves altogether out of the world of sense." 12. This could have been written twenty years before 1796 by one of the Fathers of the American Constitution. It is also a pedagogic axiom that some modern educators seem to have forgotten. 19. Kant's categorical imperative is formulated as the abstract rule: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law" (Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals; Cass. 4: 279; Beck 39). Rules tempt man to follow them unthinkingly and irresponsibly. However, Kant calls his rule a compass (ibid. 20) and a compass does not set the goal but merely shows in which direction to reach it. The very abstractness of Kant's rule is a challenge to responsibility which, from case to case, must freely specify the goal. Of course this "nonfinite" freedom of our decision is coupled with the awareness that we are not infallible. The very significant word Kompass is Kant's own (Cass.

1:260). 14. Not in the Aristotelian sense, in which the ultimate goal is pure insight, but in the KanIlan sense, in which intellectual means the practical insight that I am resposnible and can be so only through my autonomy, not through any heteronomy. In short, "intellectual" not "theoretical." (See, e.g., PrR 'Cass. 5: 114; Beck 1081: "certain actions presuppose such an intellectual, sensuously unconditioned, causality.") 15. Schelling's individualism rests on concepts of Rousseau understood by the concepts of Kant. Schelling's emphatic sentence epitomizes the Revolution; it rejects the divine right of the state over the individual. 16. Rousseau distinguished between the general will (volonte generale) and the will of all (volont# rlr taus). Here Schelling derives the latter from the former by means of Kant's distinction between autonomy and heteronomy. 17. Such conformity would be heteronomous and therefore immoral ( 05). 18. Ibis is a plain and very clear way of expressing Kant's categorical imperative (see n. 13); my maxim can 11r1'11111e a universal law.

[r 19-32]



NEW DEDUCTION OF NATURAL RIGHT



251

19. Schelling thinks of Kant's three categories of quality (PuR 106; Smith 113). Kant observed "that the third category in each class always arises from the combination of the second category with the first" (PuR 110; Smith 116). §41 presents the fundamental idea of the American Revolution in a nutshell. 20. That is, as autonomous. 21. Kant said: "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only" (Foundations of the Metaphysics of

Morals; Cass. 4: 287; Beck 47; Cf. n. 13).

22. That would be even empirically impossible, since in the empirical world I meet with the general will only in the form of the will of those humans who represent or claim to represent the general will, be they legislators, administrators, judges, or be they dictators or religious prophets. The general will is not an individual. If its individual representatives try to make me submit by heteronomous force, I can resist. I can submit only autonomously, asserting myself "through" the general will (which I then would represent or claim to represent). 23. In place of (c) the original edition of 1856 has (1), as does SchrOter's of 1927, but neither has any (2). The logical correction is (a) against the general will, (b) against the in-

dividual will, and (c) against the will as will. 24. Not in the narrow Kantian sense in which theoretical means objective. 25. Schelling's word is Grundsatz (basic proposition), as distinguised from a simple proposition (Satz). 26. The German word is das Recht. It has the same root as right. The Latin equivalent is tus. Prudence can mean foresight; a student of jurisprudence learns to foresee what, under the law, are a man's rights. In Europe you can make your doctorate iuris utriusque, i.e., in "both laws," canonical and secular, hence the double L in our LL.D. We speak of a student of law. The law (lex) formulates what is right. In Germany you study rights, die Rechte. In English, commandment often means religious law. 27. That would be the case in perfect dogmatism which, according to Schelling (Of I, 164, 171), is found in Spinoza. In the first part of the Ethics (prop. 32) Spinoza says, "the will cannot be called a free but only a necessary cause," and therefore (cor. 1) "God does not work from any freedom of the will." In Schelling's Presentation of My System of 1801 he said "that hitherto realism in its most sublime and perfect shape (Spinozism) . . . has been misinterpreted and misunderstood" (4: 110). 28. Schelling uses the now entirely pbsolete word exequiren. In English an exequatur is an official recognition, authorization, or permission. The Latin verb exequi or exsequi means to perform, to execute. 29. Hers Schelling does not question but is in line with Kant's mechanistic view of nature. See n. 9. 30. As soon as the mechanistic conception of nature gives way to a recognition of a life of nature, a respect for natural ecology will limit man's right. Cf. § 137. 31. This would substantiate the absolute right to private property, even to a first possession like that of a squatter. 32. Kant's categories "constitute" the objectivity of objects. Therefore they are the "conditions of the possibility of lobjectivel experience" (PuR 161; Smith 171). As Kant defined them; "They are concepts of an object in general" (PuR 128; Smith 128). Or as Jakob Sigismund Beck put it in his letter to Kant of November 10, 1792 (Cass. 10: 174), the category "is that concept by means of which the manifold of a sense intuition is represented as a necessary unit 1notwendig verbunden1 valid for everybody." In 1794 Fichte had written: "if the Science of Knowledge should be asked 'How then indeed are things-in-themselves constituted?' it could offer no answer, save, as we arr to make them" (1. 28ti; Ileac It 252; f. n. 68 to 0/ /). And in 1795 he stressed that what we ought to make first is out image of the object. "Nahum( It as the I posits this image as a V10111111 111 its 11W11 .11111111$1, it necessarily opposes to that image

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

[r 32-37]

something that is not its own product; something no longer determinable but fully determined, without the act of the I, determined by itself. And that is the real thing, after which the I shapes its image" (1: 375). The image is not the thing, but neither is it a mere fantasy or dream. Thus the objectivity of the thing is "absolutely determined" by the free responsibility of thinking objectively, guided by the constitutive categories. This § 136 looks like an approach to Naturphilosophie from the side of ethics. 33. This seems to be a misprint (photomechanically repeated in SchrOter's edition of 1927). The first sentence of § 154 says categorically, "the matter of my action is always conditioned by its form." That is in line with §80 and 88. My conjecture is that Schelling meant to say, "then the form of my action would be conditioned by the matter of it; which is contradictory." 34. If a defendent pleads temporary insanity, the judiciary process stops. He is no longer

Appendix A Kant's Publications after 1780

treated as a responsible will. He beomes the object of psychiatric treatment. According to § 153 the general will can never will that any will be annulled. The plea of insanity must be left to the now no longer insane defendent. No totalitarian government has any right to declare

him insane. Such a declaration destorys all right ( §162) and replaces the very idea of a just state by sheer physcial predominance. 35. In a key passage of the Critique of Judgment, Kant wrote: "The concept of freedom ought to actualize in the world of sense the purpose proposed by its moral laws" (Cass. 5: 244; Bernard 12). 36. Schelling uses expressions found in Kant. For instance, in the introduction to the Prolegomena, Kant wrote: "Few writers are gifted with the subtlety and, at the same time, with

the grace of David Hume, or with the depth, as well as the elegance, of Moses Mendelssohn. Yet I flatter myself that I might have made my own exposition popular had my object been merely to sketch out a plan and leave its completion to others" (Cass. 4:11; Beck 10). 37. Schelling is thinking of Fichte's Foundation of Natural Right According to Principles of Wissenschaftslehre which came off the press of Gabler in Jena, Easter 1796. The year 1797

brought Kant's Metaphysical Principles of the Doctrine of Right.

1781 Kritik der reinen Vernunft 1783 Prolegomena zu einer jeden kfinftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten kiinnen 1784 Idee zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbiirgerlicher A bsicht Beantwortung der Frage: was ist Aujkliirung? 1785 Rezension von Herders Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit Uber die Vulkane im Monde Von der Unrechtmeissigkeit des Bfichemachdrucks Bestimmung des Begrtffs einer Menschenrasse Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (1. Auflage; 2. Auflage 1786) 1786 Mutmasslicher Anfang der Menschengeschichte Was heisst: sich im Denken orientieren? Metaphysische Anfangsgriinde der Naturwissenschaft 1787 Kritik der reinen Vernunft (2. Auflage) 1788 Uber den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophic. Kritik der praktischen Vernunft 1789 Erste Einleitung in die Kritik der Urteilskraft (published only 1914 by Cassirer 5: 177-231) 1790 Kritik der Urteilskraft 1791 Uber das Misslingen alter philosophischen Versuche in der Theodicee 1793 Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft Uber den Gemeinspruch: Das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht fur die Praxis 1794 Et was fiber den Einfluss des Mondes auf die Witterung Das Ende alter Dinge 1795 Zum eudgen Frieden. Fin philosophischer Entwurf 1796 Von einem neuerdings erho benett vomehmen Ton in der Philosophie

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Verkiindigung des nahen Abschlusses eines Traktats zum ewigen Frieden in der Philosophic 1797 Die Metaphysik der Sitten 1798 Der Streit der Fakulaiten Anthropologic in pragmatischer Absicht abgefasst (1.Auflage) 1800 Anthropologic in pragmatishcer Absicht abgefasst (2.verbesserte

Appendix B Publications by Kant and Others Pertinent to Schelling's Beginnings

Auflage)

*available in English

1781 1783

KANT KANT

1784

KANT HERDER

Critique of Pure Reason (1st ed.)* Prolegomena to Every Future Metaphysics Which Can Claim to Be Science* Idea for a Universal History Regarding World Citizenship Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind Review of Herder's Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals* Presumable Beginning of Human History Metaphysical Principles of Natural Science

1785

KANT

1786

KANT

1787

KANT HERDER

Critique of Pure Reason (2d ed.)* God. Some Conversations,* trans. F. H. Burkhardt (New York: Veritas, 1940)

1788

KANT

Critique of Practical Reason* On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy On the Vicissitudes of Kantian Philosophy up to Now Essay on a New Theory of Human Imagination Letters on Kantian Philosophy (continued to 1792) Critique of Judgment* On the Failure of All Philosophical Endeavors in Theodicy Critique of All Revelation (published anonymously;

KANT KANT

KANT

1789

REINHOLD

1790 1791

REINHOLD KANT KANT

1792

FICHTF.

1793

KANT'

REINHOLD

made Fichte famous)

Religion within the limits of Pure Reason Reclamation of the Freedom of Thought hitherto Repressed by Princes

266

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE FICHTE

Contribution to Correct Current Judgments about the French Revolution SCHELLING On Myths, Historical Legends and Philosophemes of Antiquity 1794 KANT The End of All Things FICHTE Review of the Aenesidemus (of 1792, by G. E. Schulze, against Reinhold) FICHTE Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre (Begriff) FICHTE Foundation of Wissenschaftslehre * (Grundlage) FICHTE The Calling of the Scholar SCHELLING On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy* 1795 KANT About Eternal Peace FICHTE Outline of Wissenschaftslehre (Grundriss) SCHELLING Of the I as Principle of Philosophy * SCHELLING Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism * 1796 KANT Of a New Lofty Tone in Philosophy SCHELLING New Deduction of Natural Right* FICHTE Foundations of Natural Right (see r 37)

Appendix C References to Kant A student of Kant and especially of the Critique of Pure Reason may want to use Schelling as a commentator. Though half a century younger than Kant, Schelling was still a contemporary and wrote the first of the four essays only seven years after the second edition of the PuR and four years after the CrJ. In the following list, the left-hand column gives the traditional pagination of the second edition of PuR (1787). An A indicates the first edition (1781). The other four columns give the numbers of the translator's notes to the respective essays. The sign TI refers to the translator's introductions.

(TI = Translator's Introduction) Notes Page in in Poss PuR 23 AW A66 23 A116-18 A354 A355 A356 A369 f. A373 A396 21 Bxxii 19 xxx xxxii 25 68 72 22 75 94 18 95 104 106

Of I

Dogm.

22.45 101 33 100 66 108 76 3 1,27 119 3 78 4 22 22 104

N.R.

258

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

259

APPENDIX C Poss.

OfI

109 ff. 110 128 131 132 133 134 135 138f 139 157 161 178 182 246 274 275 276 307 308 310 312 n. 321 f. 330 334 345 f. 352 367 382 f. 384 394 f. 403 f. 424 f. 425 429 449 476 498 f. 522 597 604 611 617 f. 633 638 6441 661 f. 664 f. 669 672 713

17 7,19 111 7 TI

Dogm. N.R.

37 78,121 101 101 107

23 23 60 22

23

25 26 24

61

48

4 4 32 10

112 28

109

5

39

77 74

153

40

110

17

5

74 72 64 29

PrR

109 92

117 91 111

19 32

714 726 766 781 827 839 842 846 860-68



7

74 69 8,74,76 10,24 76 67 27 39 66 41 5,17 7 34 65 33 26 5,6 77 77 114

1

Cass. vol. 5 33 35 36 38 49 53 f. 79 90f. 114 115 130 132 136 157 158 171

Poss.

Of!

23 23 37 24

4 9 80 118

26 26 154 24 24

Dogm. N.R.

121 74,119

72

4 55 17

14

17 65 77

CrJ Cass.

5

2

vol. 5 184 221f. 224 272 279 329 335 389 418 482 483 514 515 537

15

22

120 120

3 3 3 3 3 70 70

9 9 34

6.9

68 5

260

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Prol

Cass. vol. 4 8 11 84

Dogm. 75 35 17

Founding of Metaphys of Morals Cass. vol. 4 265 271

Dogm. 68 9

Idea Univ. Hist. Cass. vol. 4 154

53

Letters Cass. vol. 10 97 351 Life Cass. vol. 11 307

TI 21

Of I 2 3

Appendix D Friedrich HOlderlin (1770-1843): Judgment and Being

N.R.

9

Translator's note: HOlderlin takes the entirely legitimate liberty of making explicit the meaning of the two syllables of the German word Urteil. The prefix ur, which never occurs as an independent word, means original. For instance, Urkunde, document, that is, the document without which we could have no information (Kunde) at all on the thing documented. Or Ursache, that is, the entity or event without which the thing could not exist. Teil means part, and teilen means to deal, in the sense of dividing. (The Germanic root of the German and the English verbs is the same.) Unlike HOlderlin, we cannot deal as easily with the English word judgment. But we do expect a fitting decision from a fair judge. The verb to decide comes from the Latin root caedere, to cut. Decidere means to cut off. The judge must decide what is due to each litigant, what is his part by right. See Artistotle's Nicomachean Ethics 1143a24. The following translation is based on pages 226-27 in the fourth volume of HOlderlin's Sdmtliche Werke (Stuttgart W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1962) edited by Friedrich Beissner. In his commentary on pages 391-92, Beissner says HOlderlin's paper was "probably written at the beginning of 1795, presumably on the in-page of a book, one could imagine Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre." Beissner's whole comment is worth consulting, but again that goes beyond the purpose of this book.

Judgment and Being In the highest and strictest sense, judgment is the original division between object and subject, which are most intimately united in the intellectual intuition. It is that division by which object and subject first become

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possible. It is the original cutting into parts (Ur-teil) or dividing. The concept of division already implies the concept of interrelation of object and subject, and the necessary presupposition of a whole of which object and subject are the parts. "I am I" is the most fitting example of this concept of original division, in the sense of theoretical division by means of which the I [as subject] find itself in opposition to itself [as object]. In the practical original division the I posits itself in opposition to a not-I. Reality (Wirklichkeit) and possibility (Moglichkeit) are distinguished like immediate and mediate awareness (Bewusstsein). When I conceive of an object as possible, I merely repeat the antecedent awareness of it in which it was real. For us there is no conceivable possibility that was not reality. Consequently the concept of possibility does not apply at all to objects of reason (Vernunft), because they do not occur in consciousness (Bewusstsein) as [merely] what they ought to be. What applies to them is only the concept of necessity. The concept of possibility applies to objects of ratiocination (Verstand), the concept of reality to objects of perception (Wahrnehmung) and imagination (Anschauung). Being expresses the unity (Verbindung) of subject and object. Only when subject and object are absolutely united, not merely relatively, that is, only when they are united in such a way that no division at all can be made between them without violating the essence (Wesen) of what presumably] is to be divided — only in that case and in no other can there be any talk of simple being (Sein schlechthin), as is the case in intellectual intuition. However, this being must not be confounded with identity. When I say "I am I," the subject (I) and the object (I) are not united so that no division at all can be made without violating the essence of what is to be divided. On the contrary, the I is possible only owing to this division between I and I. How could I say "I" without self-awareness? And how is this selfawareness possible? Only by the act of positing myself in distinction from myself, though still recognizing myself as this same self in this very division. But in what respect as the same? I can ask this question; I must ask it, for in another respect it is [not the same but] opposed to itself. Therefore the identity is not a unity of object and subject that occurs absolutely (die schlechthin stattfande). Therefore the identity is not the same as absolute being.

Indexes It is customary to indicate passages in Schelling by referring to volume and page of the fourteen volume edition of his works edited by his son, K.F.A. Schelling, and published by J.G.Cotta, Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1856-61. The four translations in this book render parts of the first volume of the Cotta edition, where they cover the following pages: Poss, 85-112; Of I, 149-244; Dogm, 281-341, and N.R. , 245-280. The reader who consults this index will want to know at a glance whether a passage referred to is: (1) taken from the body of one of the four essays. (2) found in the translator's documentary notes. (3) is merely in the translator's introductions. (1) Simple page numbers refer to the essays themselves, in their original pagination indicated at the inside top of each page as well as in brackets in the body of the text. (2) Reference to the translator's commentary is made by small case letters followed by the number of the respective note: p signifies notes to Poss, on this book's pages 56- 58; " 129-149; " " Of I, " Dogm, 197-218; d 246-251. N.R. , r 71





11



17

77

71

77

77

71

71

(3) Ciphers in italics refer to pages of the translator's introductions, in the regular pagination of this book.

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Subject Index A = A, 218, i 100 Absolute, there is no Absolute, d 17, d 56; beyond reach of objectivist, 243-44; not caused from without, 235; egress from, 294, 310, d 17; absolute freedom, 235; identity of subject and object, 159 n, 308, i 74, i 76, d 56; in it no controversy, 329, no ought, 324; is no objective entity, d 17; abs. object, 287-88; power, 179, 181, 196; reality, 235; thesis, 297 Abstractions, 290, d 11 Abstract principles, 242 Abyss, d 33, d 34 Accommodation, Kant's system of, 210, 231 n, i 89 Act, see Intellectual intuition Aesthetic intuition, d 4 Aesthetics, 285, 318, d 3, d 43 Age, our, 339-40 Aggiornamento, perpetual of philosophy, 18 Aisthesis, d 43 Alive and dead, 325 American Constitution, N.R. §15, r12; Revolution, N.R. §41, r 19 Analytical proposition, "I am," 206 Anarchy, 233 n Annihilation, 325-26 Anthropomorphism, 285, d 5 Appearance, see Phenomenon A priori, 176 n Arbitrariness (Willkiir), 324, d 67 Arguing (verniinfteln), 308 Art, 285, i 97, d 4 Artifices, philosophical (Kunststiicke), 238 n Assignat, 322, d 54 Atheism, d 27 Attributes, 192 Autonomy, 24, d 9 Awareness of self, 324, d 58 Awkward to tell, d 32 Axiom (Grundsatz), 90, 91, 94, 96, 100, 109 n, 155 Back door, d 27 Be, 308, 335, 347 Beatitude (Seligkeit), 322 Become yourself, 200 n Being (Sein), 209, 209 n

Being itself (Wesen), N.R. §4, §5, §6, §45, r 5, r 21 Belief, 333 n, d 27 Bliss (Gliickseligkeit), 197 n, 240 Block of wood (Klotz), d 32 Boredom, 326 Boxed (eingeschachtelt), 243 Brahmins, 326 Cabbalists, 326 Cage (Schranke), 307 Categories, 22, 105, 107, 153, 194, 199 n, 222, 223 n, 296, p 16, p 17, i 105 Causality, 96, 195, 238, 286, N.R. §8, d7 Chattle (Sache), 157; (Hausrat) d 32 Chinese sages, 326 Circle, unavoidable, 97 Coercion, 233 n, N.R. §147, §148, §149, §150 Common sense, d 11, d 21 Compass, r 13 Concepts, 181, 184 Condescension, 210, i 89 Conditional, 23, 163 Conditioned by itself, 109 n Connotation of all reality, 190 Consciousness, d 52 Constitution, 233 n Content and form, 90 Cove, safe, 152 Creative imagination, d 32, d 45 Creature, finite, 238 n Critical philosophy, 152, 204 Criticism, 170, 290, 328, 331, 335, d 68 Critique of Pure Reason, 20, 21, 101 n, 153, 154, 157, 294, 295, 297, 298 n, 299, 300, 302, 302 n, 303, 304, i 3, i 7, d 26 Dawn, 159 Dead faculties, 238 n Death, 320, 325 Deduction of categories, 110-11 Deity (Gottheit), 333 n, 335 n Delusion (Wahn), 295 Demonstration, 184, 307 Dialectic, 206 Dichotomy, i 47 Divine, in art, 285

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE Divine will, d 9 Document, art organon and document of philosophy, i 97, d 4 Dogmatism, Kant says it proceeds without critique, d 1; posits a not-I as antecedent of any I, 170, 188; holds that not-I is the absolute, 213; must imagine things in themselves, 213; therefore even the empirical I is incomprehensible, 236, 239; contradicts itself by positing an unconditional thing (unbedingtes Ding), 171; denies the absolute I, 205, r 5; for it empirical idealism makes sense, 231; its fascination, 290, 300; cannot be confuted theoretically, 296, 339; its demand of a transition from the nonfinite to the finite is transcendent, 413; connects morality with happiness, 328; in it my vocation is to annihilate all free causality in me, while criticism demands that the absolute cease to be object for me, 334; blind d. uses the absolute as constitutive principle of knowledge, while simple d. only for our vocation, 333; Hume remained a dogmatist, so did Kant insofar as he still needed a thing in itself, d 13 Dualism, p 10 Duration, thinkable only with regard to objects, 202 Duty (Pflicht), N.R. §66 Ecology, r 30 Ecstasy (Schwarmerei), 331; see Schwärmerei Ego (Ich), not capable of objective determination, 320 n Egyptians, golden vessels of, 215 n Empirical, is everything that is in contrast to pure I, 176 n Empiricism, philosophical (1836), d 39 Endeavor (Streben), brings to pass our knowledge of ourselves, 308 Enthusiast (Schwarmer), 319, 332 Epicureanism, 325, 329 Esoteric philosophy, 341 Essence, genuine (ursprilngliches Wesen), 290, d 10 Eternal, original form of I is that of pure eternal being, 203 Eternity, 200, 202, 203, 319, 325, i 88. d 46, d 60 §72, Ethics, 200 it, N R §31, §32,

265

§74 Existence (Dasein), 210, 229 n; God's existence, 308 n Experience, all knowledge starts from immediate e., 318; why e. at all? 310; theoretical question becomes a practical postulate, 311; terminates in a thesis, 297; Bathos of, d 21 Experienced, is what is possible only through objects, 176 n Fact of consciousness, p 6; fact of reason (Faktum der Vernunft), d 4; all mere facts are conditional, p 6 Faculties, dead (tote Vermtigen), 238 n Faith (Glaube), 112, 216, d 1 Fall of Man (Stindenfall), 325, 326 Fantastication (Schwarmerei), 320, 321, 326, 327 Fascination (Reiz), 290 Finite, the (das Endliche), 203, 315 Finiteness (Endlichkeit), 180 n Force (Zwang), 234 n; see coercion Form, formal and material, 90, 217, 229 n; inner and external, 93; of positing, 93; original, 105, 110; of subject and object, 111 Freedom (Freiheit) is the beginning and end of all philosophy, 177, 205; is the essence of the I, 179, 205; of the absolute I, 235; empirical, 234, N.R. §15, §21, §27, §35; and necessity united in the absolute, 330, 331 n; absolute f. incompatible with consciousness, 324; paradox of, 109; of minds, 292 Furniture, a philosophical system is no dead f. (toter Hausrat), d 32 General, the (das Allgemeine), philosophy must start from the unconditional, not from something general, 184 Genus, cannot be something unconditional, 164 Geometry, 243 God, no mere abstraction, 185; consciousness moves away from, i 25, d 17; deus ex machina, d 5; empirical concept of, 308 n; existence of, 209, p8, d 72; fear of, 286; only freedom. d 17; God = I, 168 n, 202, i 79; is nothing but the Ahnoltate I, i 25; is I - not I, 201; as avenging judge, 341; for Kant, 202, d 77;

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for Kantians, 288 n; only Lord, i 70; is nothing in itself, i 70; as object, 290, 340, d 17; is no object, 202, 288 n, i 25, i 34; sees no phenomena, only himself, 210; no personal God, i 25, d 41; only absolute power, 201; practically annihilates not-I, 201; we are never outside God, d 17; is not Somebody, d 9; for Spinoza there is nothing without God, i 58; theoretically is a not-I, 209 n; weak reason desires an objective God, 290 Gods, blessed, 324; immortal, 323; cannot prevail on fate, 337 n Greek gods still within nature, 337 n Greek tragedy, 336-38 Grounds of relation and distinction, d 23 Ground of the unity of the supersensible, i Happiness (Ghickseligkeit), 197 n, 198, 322 Harmony, 198 n, r 9 Hem of the garment of truth, 152 Heteronomy, 23, d 9 Historical probability, 308 n Humanity (Menschheit), 339, 341, N.R . §13, §15 n

1 am I, differs from all other existential propositions, 206; is the basis of all positing, 218 The I (das Ich) is posited because it is that which posits, 96; I am because I am, 167; has reality through itself alone, 177; is determined only in an intellectual intuition, 181; only by its freedom, 182; has no reality except by being posited unconditionally, 186; is at all only for itself, i 7, i 23, for anything outside the I the I is nothing, 177, 193; its essence is freedom, 179; is no object at all, 193, 205; is only owing to its identity, 217; is indivisible, 192; can never become an object nor an idea, 204; whoever can take the I for a concept knows nothing of the I, 184; turned into a demonstrable concept it is no longer unconditioned, 184; the form of its intellectual intuition is eternity, 202; not it was, it will be, but simply, is is, 202; Fichte's classroom way of presenting the 1, i 33 The absolute I. in theoretical (objectivistic)

philosophy is nothing, i 25; is no longer pure absolute I when it occurs in consciousness, 180; assertion of absolute I is not transcendent but most immanent, 205; is not synonymous with the logical subject in consciousness which is possible only owing to the unity of the absolute I, 206, 207; it is neither a merely formal principle, nor an idea, nor an object, but pure I determined by intellectual intuition as absolute reality, 208; anyone who can say the absolue I exists (ist wirklich) knows nothing about it, 209; it cannot be reached by concepts of duration, 209 n; never steps outside of itself, 216, i 58, i 96; in it no synthesis, no duty and right, 233 n; no imperative, 233; in the absolute I the principium essendi and cognoscendi coincide, 235 n; God is nothing but the absolute I, i 25 The empirical I, owes its reality to its restriction by not-I, 180 n; it is by thinking something, 180 n; does not exist through itself, 234; exists only with and through objects, but objects could never produce an I, 236; is I owing to the same causality through which the absolute I is I, 235 n, 236 The finite I, in it is unity of consciousness, i.e. personality, 200; there is an imperative (Sollen) only for the finite I, 232 n; must act as if right and duty existed for the absolute I, 235 n, i 114 The logical I, is nothing other than the formal principle of unity of thinking, 208 The moral I, strives to elevate reality to the level of pure being, 209 n The nonfinite I (das unendliche Ich), contains no synthesis, 180 n; no moral law, 198; knows no object, no consciousness, no personality, 200; its causality is only absolute power (absolue Macht), 201; no imperative (Sollen) for it, 232 n; knows no purposes, 241 Idealism, 23, 23, 191 n, 211, 214, i 16, i 17, i52 Idealism and realism, these names should fall into disuse, dogmatism being the system of objective realism (or subjective idealism), criticism the system of subjective realism (or objective idealism), 302 n, 330, d 66; also 330 n

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE Ideas, 159, d 17 Identity, 177, 178, 217, 230 Identity of subject and object, 159 n, p 10 Image (Bild), 228 n; image (Vorstellung), 110 n Imagination (Einbildungskraft), 202, 332, 332 n, d 45, d 69, d 70 Immortality, 201, 209 n, 333 n, i 72, i 74 Imperative (also see ought), 237, 238, 240, d9 Individual, 233 n Individuation, 200 n, 240 (see moral progress) Infinite duration, 200 Infinity, Hegel: bad infinity, d 41 Intellectual, 235 n, d 67 Intellectuality, 235 n Intuition (Anschauung), i 40, i 97 Intuition, Intellectual, we awaken from it as from a state of death, 325; should I maintain it I would cease to live, 325; is not what we possess, r 5; it alone determines the I, 181, i 40; incomprehensible if likened to sense intuition, 181; cannot occur in consciousness, 181; is possible only inasmuch as it has no object, 182; can be neither refuted nor objectified by consciousness, 182; is only nonsense for those who have not yet elevated themselves, 183; is self-attained insight (selbsterrungenes Anschauen), 216; of the world, 285; for Kant, d 4; for Spinoza, 317; on it depends whatever we know of a supersensuous world, 318; takes place when I cease to be an object for myself, 319; is not that which we possess, r 5; produced by freedom alone, 318 Intuition, Sensuous, 325 Kantians, 285, 286, 287, 288 n, 291, 300, i 28, i 33, d 5, d 14, d 76, d 77 Knot, practical Tiibingian reason cuts it, d 14 Languages, original, 166, i 19, i 86 Language and the supersensuous, 216 Life, is the autonomy in the phenomenon,

N.R. §9; value of, r 6 Light, 155, i 5, i 44 Logic, 229 n; concrete, d 23; formal, 218227, 229 n

267

Machine, Deus ex machina, d 5, d 14 Majority (die Meisten), 302 n Mechanism in nature, 241, r 9 (Kant) Method of practical postulates, 303, 304 Mob, 280 Modality, 229 n, 232 n Moral, actions, N.R. §151; beings, N.R. §19, §21, §22; Causality N.R. §16, r 13; commandment (Moralgebot), 327 n, N.R. §16, §17, §18, r 14; a moral God, 284-86, d 2, d 3, d 6; moral laws, 198-99, i 80; progress, 240; property, N.R. §7; resistance, N.R. §11, §12, §13, r 11; strife, 233 n Morality (Moralitat), 322, 328 Most people (die meisten Menschen), 209 Mysteries, 341 Mystic, 319, 332, i 38 Mythology, d 74 Naturphilosophie, 28, 29, i 122, d 78, N.R. §136, r 32 Necessity, 330-31, 331 n Negability, 228 Negation, absolute, 191 n; of objects, 237 Nobody (niemand), 243, d 17 Non-finiteness, 202, d 41 Not-I, conceivable only in contrast to I, 187; original form of multiplicity, 194; an unconditional not-I is a contradiction, i.e. nothing, 203 n; does not create itself, 206; to have reality it must be posited in the absolute I, 212; posited in time, 228; if posited absolutely it is only absolute negation, 239; a system of absolute non-I can know no freedom, 239 Nothingness, 326; why not nothing ? d 34 Noumenon, 22, N.R. §3; Kant's two senses of noumenon, r 5 Obedience, d 17 Object, to reach one I must already have another, 164; its existence not part of its reality, 165; determinable as non-I, 170; knowable, 202; posited in a specific time, 228; the form of identity does not determine any object as such, 230; all objects are conditional, d 40; absolute object of Spinoza, 319 Objective possibility, 228; judgment, 296; reality, 230; truth, 193; terror of objec ,

tive world, 337

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Obligation (Verbindlichkeit), d 17 Ontological proof, 168 n, 308 n Opposition between subject and object, 298, d 23 Organon, art organon and document of philosophy, i 97, d 4 Original being (das Urwesen), for Kant, d 4, d 5 Original, form (Urform, 216, 217; languages (urspriingliche Sprachen), 209, i 86; sin, d 74; source (Urquelle), 195 Ought (Solien), 23, 24, 199, 232 n, 233, 299, d 23 Outside ourselves (ausser uns), d 17 Painting, a mute painting outside of us, 155 Paralogism, 206, 208 Pathological, Kant's use of this word, 20 Pedagogy, i 33, N.R. §15 n, r 12 Personality, 200 Phenomenon, 23, 172, 173, N.R. §1, §3,

§7 Philosophy, art its organon and document, i 97; its content inherently connected with its form, 90; its content unconditional. 91; cage of a system, 307; esoteric, 341; finite must lose itself in non-finite, 315, d 40; freedom is its principle, 177, 205, 242, 243, 307 n; goal of its synthesis is absolute thesis, 327; incomprehensible

as long as ideas are idle speculation, 243; its influence, 112; not the march of mere individuals, 293; "new" philosophy of Kant, 289; its main task solving problem of existence of the world, 313; problem of all ph. the impossible transition from the nonfinite to the finite, 313, 314, 315; does not progress from object to object, 157; perfect system proceeds from absolute I, 176; its ultimate principle not outside the absolute I, 177, 208; is a

science, 89, 164; unintelligible to the slave of a system, 307 n; its topic the cogency of the supersensuous, d 11; as a

whole, 195 Philosophizing, art of, 18 Physical causality, N.R.§8, §9 Postulate, 288 n, 303, 304, 311, 314, d 9 Power, 201, i 39 Practical, 23, 154, 202, 209 n, 216; practical assumption (Annahme), 287; need (BedUrfnis), 286

Prayer, i 38 Pre-established harmony, 239, 240 Presence (Dasein), 209 Primacy of practical reason, i 8 Principle, an objective pr. would be determined by an ulterior pr., 155 Private property, N.R. §134, §137 §140, r 31 Probability, historical, 308 n Professors, 243 Profoundness of mind (Tiefsinn), 318 Progress in infinity, 200, 241, i 74 Prolepsis, 311, 313 Proofs, theirs is realm of the conditioned, 37, 308; true critical spirit quells vain passion of demonstration (die eitle Demonstriersucht), 307; in realm of absolute not proofs but analyses, 308; unbearable talk of proofs for the existence of God, 308 n; Spinoza, 308 n Pure, 176 n, 195 Purposiveness (Zweckmassigkeit), r 9 Ratiocination (Verstand), 23, d 34 Readers, for whom Schelling did not write, 298 n Realism, 212, 213, 330, i 16, d 66 Realization (realisieren), 327 n Reason (Vernunft), does not have but is the idea of God, d 71; for Kant, r 1; absolute reason total indifference of subjective and objective, d 56; creative reason, 311; weak reason, 286 Religion, for Kant, d 3 Representation (Vorstellung), 337 Resistance (Widerstand), 325, 326, d 59 Responsibility, i 80 Restricted reality, 324 Revelation, 287, d 11, d 27 Reward, 323 Riddle of the world, 310, 310 n Right, concept of r. based on concept of practical possibility, 233 n., N.R. §65; see especially §65, §68, §69, §72, §77, §83, §85 n; natural right, §162

Schema, 198, 199, 209 n, 228, 228 n, i 71, N.R. §9, r 10 Schwarmerei, translated as enthusiasm, eccentric fantasy, fantastication, eccentricities. utopianism, ecstasy, vagrancy of

reason; 3re cl 69

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE Self-annihilation, 200 Self-awareness (Selbstbewusstsein), 180 Skepticism, 153, 279, 307, 338 Slaves, 158 Somebody Uemand, quelqu'un), i 34, d 9, d 33 Soul, 321, d 45 Space, 194 Speculation, 172 State, 233 n Stoicism, 329 Subject, 165, 166, 298 Sublimity, d 3 Substance, 192, 194, 203 Substantiality, 194 Sui securus, i 70 Supersensuous world, 24, 201, 205, 230 n, 318, i 25, d 4, d 11 Switchblade, i 33 Syllogism, d 33 Synthesis, takes what is absolutely posited and posits it with qualifications, 203 n; all s. is particular s., 225; its condition is time, 228; its forms, 229 n; without opposition no s. necessary, 294; when judging objectively the subject is engaged in s., 296; s. thinkable only if 1) preceded by an absolute unity, 2) terminated in an absolute thesis, 296-7 Synthetic, judgments a priori, 175, 194; propositions, 206 System, not object of knowledge but of an activity, 305; not dead chattel, d 32; strife of systems, 293, 304, 307, 308, 313, 314, 329, d 32 Tantalic torture, i 3 Tautology, d 33 Teleology, 161, 241, i 9 Terrors of the objective world, 157 That, a first That, d 35 Theorems (Sitze), 90, 230; theorem of sufficient reason, 230 n "Theoretical" in the Kantian sense, 23, 100 n, 154, 157, 176, 190, 202, 209 n, 229, 230, 238 n, N.R. §1, §76, i 87, r 2 Theoretical philosophy, 298; th. reason, 297, 299 Thesis, absolute, 327; is purpose of any synthesis, 297; posits a phenomenon,

269

d 21; and antithesis, 221, 226 Thetical judgment, 37, i 99, d 23; thetical theorem, 218, 229, 230 Thing in itself (Ding an sich), 101, 101 n, 172, 189, 210, 239 n, 298, 302, 325, 340, i 13, i 54, i 84 Thingify, i 22, i 24 Time, 225, 227 n, 228, 319, i 107 Time and space, 153 Toy of reason (Spielwerk der Vernunft), 291, 323, d 12 Transcendence, 310, 314, r 5 Transcendent use of categories, d 6 Transcendental, dialectic of Kant, 207, 208; freedom, 235, 237; idealism, p 14; determination of time, 228, i 107 Transition from nonfinite to finite, 313, 314, 321 n, d 39 Truth, double, d 27 Ultimate, the, 155, 164 Unconditional, 23, p 7, 164, 166, 179, 216, 235, 247 Unconditionally posited, 106 Unconscious, the (das Bewusstlose), i 97, d 4 Unintelligible, 310 Unity, 296, 297, d 22 Unjust, the (der Ungerechte), 341 Untutored, d 11, d 12 Utopianism (Schwarmerei), 317, 335 1 ,c+ r Vagrancy (Schwarmerei), 339 Validity, universal (Allgemeingiiltigkeit), 304, 307, d 32 Vernunft/Verstand, 20, 23 Visionaries (Schwirmer), 215 n, 291 Voluntarism, i 63 Waffle iron, i 33 Weakness, of mind, 158; of reason, 210, 286, 290, 291, 295, 340 Will, of all, N.R. §71; form of will, §98, §100; general will, §47, §100, §102, §110, §142, §144, §151; good will, 157, individual will, N.R. §110, §153, §155, §158; matter of will, §89, §97, §142, §151; selfhood of will, §146 Wissenschaftslehre, 304. 305, d 32 World, last goal of, 200; my moral property, N.R. §7

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THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

Index of Names

Aenesidemus (see Schulze), 87, 93, 110-11, p 1, i 101, d 20, d 46 Aquinas, Thomas, 61, i 13 Aristotle, i 35, d 35, d 55 Auguatinus, 19, 36, 60, 154, i 7, i 10, i 23, i 35, i 36, i 38, i 40, i 75, i 76, i 96, i 100, d 4, d 12, d 17, d 24, d 33, d 51, d 64 Baggesen, Jens, 320 n, d 50 Beck, Jakob Sigismund, 153 n, i 2 Beck, Lewis White, d 75 Berkeley, George, 211-12, 59, i 52, i 84, i 91, r 5 Brthier, Emile, i 12 Dolman, Frederick deWolfe, 61 Buber, Martin, d 57 Burtchaell, James Tunstead, 19 Cauirer, Ernst, i 74, r 9 Cerf, Walter, 26, i 95 Celia, Claudio, 219 Crusius, Christian August, 102, p 11 Descartes, Rent, 101 n, 102, 308 n, 32324, i 23, i 76, i 79, i 101, d 33 Eaton, Ralph M., i 23 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb; act of positing, 24, 17; art of philosophizing, 18; Augustine, d 51; autonomy, d 27; awareness, act of, d 45, of things, d 21, d 58, d 59; common sense, d 21; dogmatism, i 84; eternity, d 46; feeling, d 21; God, d 61; ground of relation and distinction, d 23; I am I. 23, 36, 60, i 7, i 23, d 46; immortal, 1 72; infinite task, i 119; intellectual Intuition, i 78, d 4; Kant, 24, i 4 (et passim); language, original, i 19; laws of thought, d 20; obedience, d 17; philosophy, art of, 18, choice of, d 80, in contrast to WL, i 27; Schulze-Aenesidemus, i 10, i 101; Spinoza, i 84, d 41; switchblade, i 33; task for a ground, d 63; thetk judgment, 37, d 23; things in themselves, r 32; waffle iron, i 33. See also

p 3, p 4, p 7, p 10, i 100, d 74, 219, r6 Frank, Manfred, 26 Fuhrmans, Horst, 219 Garve, Christian, 21, i 3 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, d 15 Harris, H.S., 26, i 95 Heath, Peter, i 23 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 198-99, 61, i 11, i 12, i 43, d 5, d 27, d 41, d 51, d 81 Hobbes, Thomas, i 84 HOlderlin, Friedrich, 27, Appendix D Hume, David, 19, 26, i 3, d 11, d 13, d 17, d 19, d 75, r 5, r 36 Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 156, 185 n, 216, 313, 318, i 6, i 95, d 37, r 7 James, William, 61 Jefferson, Thomas, 220 Kant, Immanuel, 20-23; analytic and synthetic form, 104; synthetic unity of apperception, p 7; deduction of categories, 105, 107, p 16, p 17; dialectic, 206; empirical I is never without object, 60; facts are conditional, p 6; faith, 19; genius ahead of himself, 232 n; ideas are not objects, 243; beyond Leibniz' formalism, p 13; misunderstood by Kantians, 152-53, 289; noumenon, 22; objectified I, 206; Kant's most compressed pages, 242 n; his phenomenalism, 23, 212 n, i 92; his presupposed principles, 155; purposiveness, i 120; his immanent realism, 212; subject its own object, 60; theoretical and practical philosophy, 154, 176; Urform available, 103, p 15. See also Appendix C. Kirk, Geoffrey Stephen, d 51 Kurz, Gerhard, 26 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm; axiom of contradiction, 94; axiom of sufficient reason, 102-3; ultimate axiom, 94; popularized dogmatism, 300; remnant of formalism,

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE p 13; empirical idealist, 213; principle of identity, 230; unlike Kant, 231-32; monad, 186, 214, i 91; phenomena, 215; pre-established harmony, 186, 213, 239; not purposes but harmony, r 9; his transcendent realism, 212; things as such, 185; thing in itself, 231; i 111; golden vessels of Egypt, 215 n Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 243, 313, 326 Levy-Bruhl, Lucien, 153 Luther, Martin, 19 de Luynes, Louis-Charles duc de, i 23 Maimon, Salomon, 221, p 5, i 85 Marcel, Gabriel, i 34, d 33 Medicus, Fritz, 26, i 33, i 34, d 23, d 34 Mendelssohn, Moses, 185 n, i 6, r 36 Meyer, Ludovicus, 185 n Muller, Gustav Emil, 20, i 47, d 81 Niethammer, Friedrich Immaneul, 24, i 4, 219 Nietzsche, Friedrich, i 35, d 32, 61 Nuovo, Victor, 26 Parmenides, 19, 154, 318, i 11, i 43, i 46, i 48, i 51, d 51 Plato, 15, 216, 233 n, 308 n, 318, 325, d 43, d 45, d 57 Plotinus, 19, i 11, i 12, i 46, i 100, 154, d 51 Przywara, Erich, 19 Rahner, Karl, d 57 Raven, J. E., d 51 Reinhold, Karl Leonhard; axiom of consciousness, 93, 208 n; demands science solely by logic, 101 n; deduction of forms, 110 n, 111; empirical I as principle,



271

175; things in themselves, 213 n; theory of freedom, 238 n; laws of thought, d 20 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 219, r 15, r 16, N.R. §33, §44 Royce, Josiah, d 17 Schiller, Johann Christoph Friedrich, d 15 Schulze, Gottlieb Ernst, see Aenesidemus Spinoza, Benedictus de; his system, 151, 313-16; consistent dogmatism, i 84; sublimest realism, r 27; his contradiction, 317; his opponents, 194; determined the absolute as object, 242 n; how the absolute could oppose a world to itself, 30910; beatitude, 322; causality, 315; why Ethics?, 305; counterpart to his Ethics, 159; existence, 315; freedom, 331 n; God, 196, 210, 308 n 323-24, 331 n, i 46, i 73, i 79, d 3; infinite, d 41; intellectual intuition, 171, 317, 319; necessity, 331 n; not-I turned into I, 185, 207; mute painting, 155; all possibility, 102; not a rationalist, /9; sub specie aeternitatis, 19; substance exists in no time, 203 n; absolute substance, 184; only one substance, i 42; substance objectified, i 35; affections of substance, i 54-59, i 62; unconditional in the not-I, 171 Staehelin, Balthasar, d 57 Sterne, Lawrence, 320 n, d 49 Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, r 5 Tertullian, i 63 Tillich, Paul Johannes, 26, i 35 Villers, Charles, 18 Wolff, Christian, 292, i 3