Beyond Presence: The Late F.W.J. Schelling's Criticism of Metaphysics

Description

This book provides the English-speaking world with a comprehensive account of the still largely unknown work of Schelling’s philosophy of mythology and revelation. Its achievement, however, is not archival but philosophical, elucidating the relation between Schelling and onto-theology. It explains how Schelling dealt with the problem of nihilism and onto-theology well before Nietzsche and Heidegger, arguing that Schelling surpasses onto-theology or the philosophy of presence a century prior to Heidegger. Overall, the author provocatively suggests that Heidegger is perhaps Schelling’s genuine heir and by comprehensively interpreting Schelling’s multifaceted late lectures he analyzes issues as diverse as the Ancient relation between thinking and Being, the Medieval debate between voluntarism and intellectualism, the overcoming of modern subjectivism and German Idealism as well as many themes in contemporary philosophy. The presentation is systematic rather than thematic, following Schelling’s ages of the world through the Past, Present and Future. The results are daring, departing from the half-century long canonical reading of the late Schelling since Walter Schulz. This book is valuable for Schelling-scholars, historians of philosophy and theologians alike. Acknowledgements Abbreviations Used in References and Notes on Translations Part I. Crisis and Method Chapter 1. The Contemporary Crisis of Meaning 1 The Crisis: Meaning and Presence 2 The Crisis and Contemporary Culture 3 The Crisis and Schelling 4 Structure of the Text Arranged According to Epochs Chapter 2. Positive Philosophy as Both Method and Object: A Methodological Analysis 1 The Phenomenological Criterion 2 Denken and Nachdenken 3 Daß Es Ist and Was Es Ist; That It Is and What It Is 4 Positive and Negative Philosophy: Progression and Regression 5 Wanting, Believing and Knowing 6 Empiricism: Subjective, Objective and Scientific (Abduction) 7 The Prior and the Posterior 8 Historical Philosophy: Truth and Falsification 9 Freedom: Novelty, Difference and Presence 10 Experience: Aesthesis Part II. The Past: Eternity Chapter 3. Timelessness: The Potencies at Rest 1 Parmenides’ Statement 2 The Different and the Identical: Duas and Monas 3 Copulation 4 The Potencies 4.1 The First Potency 4.2 The Second Potency 4.3 The Third Potency 4.4 The Concatenation and Simplicity of the Three 5 Who Is das Seinkönnende, the Effusive One? 6 Who is God? 7 The Law of Decisiveness and the Interstice Chapter 4. The Time of Eternity: The Potencies in Act 1 Generation and Creation 2 The Act of Creation 3 The Causes 4 The Holy or God’s Withdrawal from the Created 5 The Ideas as Visions 6 The Idea Chapter 5. Intermittence 1 The Separation of Times 2 Aesthesis, Memory and History 3 Historical Time as Contemporaneity or Simultaneity Part III. The Present: Historical Time Chapter 6. The Philosophy of Mythology 1 From Lordship to Divine Sufferance 2 What are Myths? 3 The Co-Originality of the Myth and the Consciousness Thereof 4 Polytheism and Monotheism 5 The Types of Monotheism 6 Schelling’s Historiography of Mythology 7 Tautegory 8 The Objective Meaning of the History of Mythology 9 Considerations of the Philosophy of Mythology for the Philosophies of History and Religion 10 Ruminations on a Future Mythology Chapter 7. Language is Faded Mythology: On the Origin and Essence of Language 1 Language is not an Invention of Consciousness 2 The Tower of Babel 3 The Case of China 4 China and the Language of Humanity 5 Music and Causal Efficacy 6 The Copula Revisited in Light of Supplementation Part IV. The Future: Advent Chapter 8. Intimations of the Future and Concluding Remarks 1 The Man-God as Exemplary Repetition/Copulation 2 Difference and Identity 3 The World Law Revisited in Light of the Transcendentals 4 Time and the End of History Schema of the Doubled Temporal Relations of the Creation and Mythology with Reference to the Corresponding Gods and Peoples References Author Index Subject Index