Yang, Yiran;
(2023)
Schelling's Transition to Identity-Philosophy: the Philosophical Turn between 1800 and 1801.
Masters thesis (M.Phil.Stud), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
[Final with edits]Yiran Yang MPhil Thesis.pdf - Accepted Version Download (682kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Schelling’s philosophy underwent significant changes between 1800 and 1801 when his system shifted from the parallelism completed by System of Transcendental Idealism to Identity Philosophy. This thesis aims to explore whether there are differences between the two systems, what the differences are, in what way the parallel system supports the 1801 system and what the causes of this systematic shift are. By comparing the two systems, I will argue that Identity Philosophy prioritizes nature as the externalization of self-consciousness which serves as an empirical avenue for knowledge of absolute identity. However, reason’s self-knowledge of Identity Philosophy is not dependent on the investigation into the speculative physics of natural science; rather it is epistemologically self-sufficient due to its assumption of total indifference between subjectivity and objectivity. My interpretation of Identity Philosophy contends with the prevalent interpretation of the current Schelling scholarship which attributes ontological primacy to nature and identifies totality with it. Instead, I argue that Schelling’s definition of totality in 1801 must be understood as co-constituted by nature and consciousness. Schelling’s postulation of nature as the absolutely unconditioned was born out of his dissatisfaction with Fichte’s subjective idealism, which falls short of solving the problem of immanent self-knowledge and fails to raise the absolute beyond the standpoint of finite oppositions. Schelling’s positing of nature as the unconditioned in parallel with consciousness calls for an all-encompassing absolute identity between all oppositions, and it is the striving for this standpoint that motivated Schelling to dispense with all antitheses and occupy the original point of absolute identity, in a form of argument that recalls speculative philosophy. This thesis aims to contribute to Schelling scholarship by giving insight into the birth of absolute idealism, a key moment in post-Kantian German idealism in which Schelling played the leading role.
Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
---|---|
Qualification: | M.Phil.Stud |
Title: | Schelling's Transition to Identity-Philosophy: the Philosophical Turn between 1800 and 1801 |
Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
Language: | English |
Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2023. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Dept of Philosophy |
URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10181938 |
Archive Staff Only
View Item |