Schelling’s Critique of Modern Philosophy’s “Impulse toward Spiritualization” in Clara

Abstract

The following essay explores Schelling’s critique of what he refers to in Clara as modern philosophy’s “impulse toward spiritualization”, as represented by the character of the clergyman. Schelling’s metaphysics embraces an organicism in which nature is the ground for the revelation of spirit, an organicism which implies that spirit becomes real as truth only insofar as it explains nature while testifying to the divine freedom from which all existence emerges. The following essay shows how Schelling himself understands the uniqueness of his metaphysics vis à vis his criticism of modern philosophy and its impulse to regard spirit as self-grounding. This essay proves that Schelling’s organicism underscores the fact that spirit, without nature as its ground, lacks objectivity, and therefore, is reduced to the mere feelings of the subject.

1. Introduction

Among the community of scholars reading Schelling in English,1 Clara, or, On Nature’s Connection to the Spirit World, is one the most rarely discussed texts, a fact which contravenes Schelling’s own intention for the work, which was to make his philosophy “more accessible”.2 The reasons for this relative silence are multiple.3 Not only is the text unfinished, but Schelling himself never published it or intended to, making it difficult to contextualize the dialogue and its role within his corpus. This fact explains why much of the secondary literature on Clara—see Fiona Steinkamp’s introduction to the English translation—focuses on the chronology of the text, pinning the composition of Clara to the early portion of Schelling’s middle period, in 1809–1810. These dates are significant, since they mark the years immediately following the death of Schelling’s wife, Caroline, during which time Schelling was known to be still in mourning. Evidence of Schelling’s grief can be found throughout the text, not the least of which in the main character herself, who, in mourning the death of her husband, contemplates the nature of death, the afterlife, and the connection between the living and the deceased. Clara is consumed by her curiosity in nature’s “secret poison”, i.e., the fact that everything within nature is transient, which her friend the doctor subsequently describes as the “most frightening” attribute of nature. Indeed, death is one of the central topics of the discussion, which is why Rebecca Gagan argues that Clara, for multiple reasons, is a text in “crisis” (Gagan 2019). Not only is there the “crisis” associated with the fragmentary nature of the work—its incompleteness and the missing excerpts—but also the “crisis” of Caroline’s death and Schelling’s grief, which is mirrored in Clara’s reflections. In this way, Gagan argues, the text is born from the confrontation with a reality that is irreducibly “precarious” and “contingent” (Gagan 2019).

The circumstances in which Schelling composed Clara do not take away from the fact that it is still primarily a text about spirit’s connection with nature. This topic is the focus of this essay. In Schelling’s introduction to Clara, which Schelling’s son attached to the dialogue after his death because it had a similar title (“Presentation of the transition from a philosophy of nature to a philosophy of the spirit world”) and because “it was essentially the same content”, Schelling states that his goal is to restore spirit’s “natural relation” with nature, thereby blunting modern philosophy’s “intense striving toward the spiritual” (von Schelling 2002). The objective of this essay is to explain what Schelling means by this “intense striving toward the spiritual” and how it runs aground of Schelling’s concept of organicism—specifically, the idea that nature is the ground from which spirit is revealed as truth.4 What is this “impulse toward spiritualization”, which, for Schelling, defines modern philosophy and inhibits its ability to relate to what is below, i.e., nature, and what is higher, i.e., freedom? How does this “impulse” lead philosophy to a concept of truth divested of its power and authority, wherein truth, as the distillation of spirit, neither explains nature, nor exists as evidence of a freer, more divine reality?

To answer these questions, we need to enter the dialogue itself, focusing specifically on Clara’s interaction with the clergyman, whose skepticism about the relation between the spiritual world and the natural one makes him a central figure. Relative to the other characters in the text, including the priest, the doctor, and Clara, the clergyman may seem inconsequential at first sight, since he appears only in Section One, and his views are the least compatible with the other three. However, his skepticism about the connection between spirit and nature is crucial insofar as it conveys the attitudes symptomatic of the “impulse toward spiritualization” (von Schelling 2002). To be sure, much of the secondary literature argues that the clergyman’s beliefs most clearly resemble Kant’s. However, Schelling never mentions Kant by name, and it can be argued that the presuppositions that support the clergyman’s beliefs are shared by other figures, including the likes of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Fichte. Correspondingly, Schelling’s use of the phrase “modern philosophy” functions as an umbrella term for the attitudes and proclivities that guide modern philosophy as a whole, not any one figure or belief. Caveats aside, this essay demonstrates how, for Schelling, modern philosophy is founded on the assumption that spirit is synonymous with the absolute, i.e., that spirit is self-grounding. This essay proves how the clergyman’s skepticism reflects Schelling’s belief that modern philosophy presupposes the separation of spirit from nature, such that truth is reduced to the mere feelings of the subject.

Insofar as the clergyman embodies the “impulse toward spiritualization”, Clara’s critique of him—and, by extension, Schelling’s critique of modern philosophy—implies a metaphysics centered on the production, or incarnation, of spirit as truth. To be clear, Schelling himself does not use the term “incarnate” in his text, nor do his metaphysics explicitly endorse a specific, or orthodox, brand of religiosity. However, the usage of the word “incarnate”, especially in a Christological context, bears a resemblance to the organicism implicit in Schelling’s metaphysics. Just as Christology purports Jesus to be fully human and fully divine, for Schelling, the production of spirit marks the revelation of a truth that is both visible and invisible to us, intelligible and yet transcendent of our understanding. Indeed, this is the paradoxical nature of Schelling’s metaphysics, in which truth is both wholly material and yet still wholly divine. Insofar as spirit and nature mutually presuppose each other, spirit is revealed as truth insofar as it explains nature while pointing to the divine freedom that gave birth to the material world. For Schelling, this organicism underscores a concept of truth that does not pre-exist the world, but instead unfolds out of it, a truth that becomes real by virtue of taking on materiality. In the essay, we demonstrate how modern philosophy’s emphasis on the consonance of truth with spirit qua spirit runs aground of this insight.

This essay accomplishes its objective in three parts. The first is devoted to understanding Schelling’s criticism of modern philosophy and the “impulse toward spiritualization” as it appears in his introduction to Clara. The second part focuses on how this “impulse” supports the clergyman’s skepticism regarding the connection between spirit and nature, leading him to endorse a concept of truth divorced from its ties to nature and the divine. Finally, in the third section, we demonstrate how the clergyman’s concept of spirit, embodied in his notion of conscience, implies a concept of truth that is “impotent” insofar as it denies the reality of love.5

2. The Hyper-Spiritualization of Modern Philosophy

For those familiar with Schelling’s corpus—specifically his middle period, which dates from 1809 to 1824—his introduction to Clara begins with a familiar refrain wherein he criticizes idealism’s proclivity to privilege the subjective over the objective, emphasizing the production of the latter by the former, thereby reducing nature to a mere semblance of reality. As Schelling writes, “ever since the peaceful harmony broke up in which the sciences lived not so long ago, philosophy can be characterized as intense striving toward the spiritual that decidedly lacks a corresponding capacity to rise to it” (von Schelling 2002). Schelling associates the hyper-spiritualization of philosophy with idealism’s attempts to “purify” metaphysics of its concepts that relate to nature and materiality. Whereas “old metaphysics declared itself to be a science that followed in accordance with, and that to some extent also followed from, our knowledge of nature”, modern philosophy “does away with its immediate reference to nature”, going on to “[throw] away the material that was absolutely necessary to the process” to “[keep] only what was spiritual” (von Schelling 2002). In other words, Schelling believes that modern philosophy has put metaphysics on a Procrustean Bed of sorts, in which its faith in the rationality of the universe and its goal of making the universe thoroughly intelligible has caused it to overlook the element, i.e., nature, which is both non-rational and yet still essential for understanding how it operates. To be clear, Schelling’s critique of modern philosophy—and, by extension, his defense of nature—is not intended as an argument for empiricism or a metaphysics wherein truth is reducible to the physical.6 Such an attitude itself would violate the mutual reciprocity of the Ideal and the Real implied in his dialectic. On the contrary, his aim is to reposition metaphysics on a solid footing by reintroducing nature as the ground for the revelation or production of truth, as the condition for the possibility of the divine essence to reveal itself. Taking this insight seriously means rethinking spirit’s opposition to nature, conceiving of the latter not as something simply to be excluded by spirit, or as merely the backdrop on which spirit is set in relief, but as the opposite whose strength spirit draws upon to actualize its potential.

Schelling’s critique of modern philosophy is not limited to Clara, but also appears in other works from this period in his career, including the Freedom Essay and the Stuttgart Seminars. Take, for instance, his critique of idealism in the Freedom Essay: “All new European philosophy since it began with Descartes has this common defect, that nature does not exist for it and that it lacks a living ground” (von Schelling 1987). Indeed, the concept of a “living ground” calls to mind the organicism at the root of Schelling’s metaphysics, the fact that “every organism possesses unity without, however, enabling us to conceive of its parts as being one and the same” (von Schelling 1994). We observe this unity within ourselves, by virtue of the ways that various organs and bodily structures perform different functions to create a single feeling of well-being. Indeed, there is a mutual reciprocity among these bodily structures insofar as the existence of one structure necessarily depends on the others. In the context of Schelling’s metaphysics of freedom, the concept of a “living ground” underscores a similar organicism insofar as it emphasizes the mutual reciprocity of the Ideal and the Real, i.e., the fact that neither spirit nor nature can exist without the other, while neither is reducible to the other. Alternatively, the concept of a “living ground”, emphasizes what Schelling refers to in the Stuttgart Seminars as the “essential identity” between the Real and the Ideal, the fact that neither element is the absolute, but instead, that the absolute (i.e., God), which expresses them, is the unity of their identity and difference.7 To posit nature as the “living ground” of philosophy is to restore the organic relation between the Real and the Ideal, a relation in which the differences between nature and spirit serve to create the higher reality of the primordial being, i.e., God, whose personality and feeling of well-being is defined by his authenticity and self-consciousness.

In Clara, Schelling’s organicism is underscored by his attempts to re-establish the “natural relation” between nature and spirit (von Schelling 2002). Indeed, spirit is “higher” than nature and nature is “lower” than spirit. But, whereas Schelling believes that modern philosophy takes this insight as the basis for its “impulse toward spiritualization”—an impulse that aims to purify philosophical concepts of their relation to nature—for Schelling himself, it is a reminder of nature’s dignity vis à vis its role in the revelation of spirit. For, insofar as nature is the condition for the possibility of spirit’s revelation, spirit is not simply higher than nature, but a higher expression of nature itself. In other words, spirit does not wholly transcend nature—as if to exclude it—but rather is the epitome of its fulfilment. As Schelling writes, “…how can the subordinate find its goal and be closed, unless the last thing that it brings forth from itself is already something that goes beyond it and that belongs to it only with the subordinate parts of its essence, just as man is in relation to earth?” (von Schelling 2002). This idea of spirit as a “higher” nature—or alternatively, nature as a “lower” spirit—avoids the bifurcation, or “chasm”, between revelation and science which Schelling believes plagues modern philosophy (von Schelling 2002). While spirit becomes real by negating the materiality of nature—thereby affirming the objectivity of knowledge over the objectivity of nature—nature, in that same act of negation, becomes transfigured into something coherent and intelligible. For Schelling, this insight clarifies the dependency of spirit on nature. Nature is the ground, or condition, for spirit’s (i.e., the Ideal’s) becoming real as truth. Hence, truth is produced out of nature, meaning that it does not exist prior to, or divorced from, nature, but rather, emerges simultaneously with it. Spirit, then, is the presentiment of truth locked up within nature, which nature longs to reveal, and in so doing, articulate itself.

In Clara, the production of truth out of nature implies the necessity of a philosophy which takes nature as its beginning. As Schelling writes, “a person earns, so to speak, the right to the most spiritual objects only when he has already taken care to understand their opposite” (von Schelling 2002). Whereas a philosophy that begins with nature is much like a “tree that draws strength, life, and substance into itself from the earth”, insofar as it “may hope to drives its topmost branches hanging with blossom right up to heaven”, the “thoughts of those who think from the beginning that that they can separate themselves from nature, even when they are truly spiritually and mentally gifted, are only like those delicate threads that float in the air in late summer and that are as incapable of touching heaven as they are of being pulled to the ground by their own weight” (von Schelling 2002). Schelling’s juxtaposition underscores his critique of modern philosophy, which he believes overlooks nature as the condition for the possibility of knowledge. In its striving to know, modern philosophy takes on the character of a “hyperphysics”, attempting to improve philosophy by “purging” its concepts of their relation to nature, leaving only the purified, spirit world. The result, for Schelling, is that this “impulse toward spiritualization” moves modern philosophy in the direction of solipsism, where knowledge is taken from the heights of eternal truth and reduced to the “fanciful imaginations” of the subject (von Schelling 2002). Herein, Schelling’s criticism of modern philosophy extends beyond the practicality or applicability of its abstract concepts and the fact that such “purified” concepts do not help us readily understand the realm of becoming. In addition, he believes that modern philosophy’s “impulse toward spiritualization” disregards the very nature of truth, which is something produced and, therefore, continuously evolving. While modern philosophy presupposes that truth is consistent with a concept of being that is strictly in and of itself—thereby implying that truth is self-evident—Schelling argues that the rootedness of truth in nature presupposes a concept of being that, in addition to being in and of itself, is also outside of itself, i.e., a concept of being that is produced. In this way, truth takes on the character of a living organism, where nature reveals it piecemeal, through the production of its own various ages.

The importance of nature as the beginning of truth emphasizes the production of spirit in time. Just as God becomes self-conscious by differentiating what is contained within him as a unity, spirit becomes revealed as truth by unfurling what is contained within itself as a unity across the multiple epochs of history. In the Ages of the World, Schelling describes the production of time with respect to the antagonism between spirit and nature, the former constituting the force of expansion, while the later, concealment. Nature keeps spirit locked up within itself, and in so doing, fuels spirit’s desire to reveal itself. Combined, the two forces constitute the absolute’s act of self-differentiation—which doubles as the creation of time—where spirit reveals itself, but only gradually, since the friction of nature’s act of concealment prevents spirit from disclosing itself all at once. In this way, organisms create time themselves via the revelation of their own individual essences. For Schelling, the consonance of truth and time underscores the importance of a metaphysics that takes nature as its starting point. Truth is a product of history, not the reverse, and so history cannot be deduced from truth, as if to say that history can be known prior to its happening. As Schelling writes in the Ages of the World, only the past can be “known”, while the future is merely “intimated” (von Schelling 2000). Correspondingly, philosophy must begin with nature, insofar as it must be sufficiently patient to observe spirit’s self-revelation throughout history. Just as science comes to know an organism by observing it through the various stages of life, i.e., its growth, reproduction, and diminution, so too does philosophy gain access to spirit by observing the truth of nature unfold over time.8

Historically speaking, Schelling’s concept of knowledge elucidates his proclivity for the “old metaphysics”, which follows from “our knowledge of nature and improved and progressed from that”, a metaphysics that “took the knowledge that it boasted in addition to physics” (von Schelling 2002). Although Schelling does not mention any figure specifically, there is a plausible resemblance between Schelling’s description and Aristotle’s metaphysics. Although a thorough and balanced comparison between the two is well beyond the constraints of this essay, one can imagine how Schelling identifies a likeness between his and Aristotle’s metaphysics, specifically his concept of form.9 While form, for Aristotle, precedes matter and is superior to it, with the exception of God, form does not exist apart from matter, suggesting a relation of mutual reciprocity between them. More importantly, Aristotle conceives of form in a way that connects it with time and becoming. Formal causality, insofar as it is fulfilled in final causality, is the end to which something moves.10 Correlatively, from a Schellingian perspective, one can say it is the eternal that is revealed through time. For Schelling, the idea of motion—a concept that includes both time and becoming—as revelatory of something’s identity bears a resemblance to his concept of a “living ground”. Time and becoming are not merely the opposites of spirit, but instead the opposites through which spirit comes to emerge and disclose itself.

In Schelling’s metaphysics, the simultaneous production of truth and time lends to history a dynamism that navigates a middle space between the extremes of determinism and radical freedom. History, for Schelling, is neither a foregone conclusion nor, in the Sartrean sense, a product of the subject’s authority to exercise one of its countless possibilities. Instead, it is founded on the decision to express or conceal a self that one “knows” only as presentiment, a decision, which, in the famous words of Hamlet, answers the eternal question: “To be or not to be?”. While this concept of history—discussed at length in the Freedom Essay and the Ages of World—extends well beyond the constraints of this essay, it nevertheless clarifies the significance of idealism’s need for a “living ground”.11 By positing nature as the ground for the revelation of spirit, Schelling repositions spirit as a middle term between nature and freedom, a term that simultaneously explains what is lower, i.e., nature, while also testifying to a higher reality, characterized by the interaction between God’s freedom and his eternal longing to be outside himself. Thus, nature supports the positing of the Ideal and, in doing so, enables the fulfillment of spirit’s potential as the ground for the expression of the highest freedom, which Schelling ultimately associates with love.

In the section that follows, we see how the clergyman’s doubts regarding the connection between spirit and nature deprive spirit of its vitality, implying a concept of truth, which, opposite the clergyman’s intentions, neither explains nature nor testifies to the divinity that supports spirit’s existence.

3. The Clergyman’s Skeptical Faith

In Clara, the comportment of a philosophy that “strives toward the spiritual” while “lacking the corresponding capacity to rise to it”—a philosophy, so to speak, which lacks a “living ground”—is most clearly represented by the character of the clergyman, who rejects the concept of a spiritual world that “reason or understanding may want to form”(von Schelling 2002). The clergyman is a difficult character to understand initially because of his quasi-agnosticism, since he believes in God and the afterlife, but rejects “all knowledge about things in the hereafter”(von Schelling 2002). Accordingly, his faith takes on a semi-paradoxical quality insofar as he believes in the existence of the spiritual world, but denies the connection of such a world with nature. This second belief—that there is no relation between the spiritual world and nature—is the focus of Section One of Clara and a point of divergence from Schelling’s metaphysics. Whereas Schelling argues both that spirit is higher than nature and that spirit and nature are codependent, the clergyman argues for the hierarchical relation between the two, but not their mutual reciprocity. Spirit, for the clergyman, is the cause of nature, and nature is its effect. Correspondingly, nature, for him, is separate from its counterpart such that any insight concerning the spiritual world is a miraculous revelation from spirit itself—not an insight discoverable within nature. In the dialogue, this attitude underscores the clergyman’s skepticism toward the others’ proposal that science, i.e., the knowledge of nature, is the starting point for understanding the divine. Since spirit precedes nature, there is no point from within nature through which creation can return to the creator. Consequently, the only way for us, as beings within nature, to relate to the spiritual world is through groundless belief, not knowledge. For Schelling, this discontinuity between spirit and nature forms the basis for his criticism of modern philosophy. Without nature as its starting point, modern philosophy, which purports to relate to what is higher, is reduced to a blind and arbitrary faith. Schelling’s critique aims at avoiding this predicament by placing nature on an equal footing with spirit, positing the former as the necessary condition for the revelation of spirit as truth.

In Clara, the clergyman’s skepticism about our knowledge of the divine underscores his belief in the chasm between spirit and nature. When Clara suggests that those who are deceased, by virtue of being spirit (and therefore “higher” than nature), have the capacity to act on what is “lower” and form a community with the living, the clergyman rebuffs, arguing instead that those who are deceased are “quite dead in respect of this sensible world and that they can’t possibly bring forth an effect in a region for which their tools are as limited as their receptivity” (von Schelling 2002). Likewise, when she conjectures that the ties of love and friendship extend beyond this world—such that we maintain a closeness to our loved ones even after they are deceased—the clergyman expresses his misgivings, claiming that “our view is always restricted to our inner being and it cannot follow the destiny of friends” (von Schelling 2002). Indeed, the clergyman rejects the possibility of spirit and nature coexisting in the “same world”, which is why he subsequently denies our capacity to grasp it. In response, the priest contextualizes these remarks, arguing that they remind him of the “explanation(s) which our philosophizing theologians give today of the wonder of God’s extraordinary effect on the sensible world, without thinking how much of this world is itself completely nonsensible” (von Schelling 2002). Indeed, the priest offers a Schellingian interpretation, arguing that the clergyman’s faith is one in which spirit exists in a rarified air, serving as the cause of all things without leaving any trace of itself in nature. While Schelling himself argues that spirit and nature mutually presuppose each other, for the clergyman, nature presupposes spirit insofar as the latter is the creator of the former. This explains why, later, in a seeming reversal of his previous argument, the clergyman states that “the spiritual world may merge with us”, but that “our lives do not merge with it” (von Schelling 2002). The clergyman is not reneging on his previous claim about the chasm between spirit and nature, but instead qualifying the nature of their difference. As the creator of nature, spirit retains the possibility of merging itself with nature—even though it exists separately from it—while nature lacks this power altogether. Hence, the clergyman’s faith rests on the presupposition that nature is wholly subservient to spirit and contributes nothing to it, that spirit is sufficiently powerful to affect existence independently of nature’s assistance.

From a Schellingian perspective, the clergyman’s faith represents a brand of spirituality that has been wholly purified of its ties to nature. This insight parallels Schelling’s criticism of modern philosophy in the introduction. There, Schelling offers a brief historical stretch, describing how modern philosophy’s predilection for the subjective leads to a strange phenomenon where there is nothing left for it do other than to “testify against itself”, specifically, its capacity to uncover truth (von Schelling 2002). As Schelling writes, “just when philosophy wanted to take its highest approach to the spiritual, it sank to the very bottom and became more and more inadequate and incapable in relation to all higher objects” (von Schelling 2002). Schelling’s criticism is aimed at modern philosophy’s “impulse toward spiritualization”, by which he means its attempts to purge spirit of its relation to nature. Schelling believes this process occurred gradually, and in multiple degrees. Initially, through its privileging of knowledge, modern philosophy “[gave] up the connection to what is objective or to insensible nature” (von Schelling 2002). However, there eventually came a time when philosophy realized that giving up this connection was not enough, “that knowledge itself was too solid”, and that “spiritualization would be perfect only when, instead, a tender, fleeting spoor of a feeling or hunch alone remains; that is, when the subjective is subjectified again” (von Schelling 2002). Schelling lamented this “subjectification of the subject” as a turn towards “ignorance”, insofar as it marked the moment when truth lost its objectivity, i.e., when truth was no longer recognized as the essence of nature and instead reduced to the will of the subject (von Schelling 2002). In this way, one can argue that Schelling believes that modern philosophy is a victim of the Enlightenment’s success. For, because of the Enlightenment’s accomplishments in science and its otherwise impressive ability to demonstrate the truth produced out of, and which presides over, nature, modern philosophy became convinced that spirit existed independent of nature, such that spirit preceded nature, and therefore could be better understood by purging philosophy of its ties to nature in its entirety—hence, the “impulse toward spiritualization”.

Schelling’s criticism highlights the irony of the “impulse toward spiritualization,” namely, that in the privileging of the Ideal over the Real, modern philosophy strips spirit of its dignity as the eternal truth that presides over nature. On the one hand, the “impulse toward spiritualization” follows from the belief that knowledge is “higher” than the material, i.e., that the Ideal is superior to the Real. Nevertheless, this superiority is made possibly only insofar as spirit differentiates itself from nature, that is, insofar as nature becomes the ground that spirit conquers. Without nature as the ground for the revelation of spirit as truth, the objectivity of knowledge is not affirmed as superior to the objectivity of nature, but instead is collapsed into the solipsism of the subject. Indeed, this is what Schelling means when he accuses modern philosophy of “making a virtue of ignorance” (von Schelling 2002). As opposed to a concept of objective truth, where knowledge exists above nature, a concept often reflected with respect to time—i.e., truth is eternal, while the physical world is temporal—knowledge without nature as its foundation is reduced to the groundless affirmations of the subject. The result is that knowledge loses its authority insofar as it becomes nothing more than the arbitrary attitudes of the subject. In this way, Schelling believes that modern philosophy undermines the very presupposition on which it is founded, since it effectively negates the possibility of accessing truth, except through blind belief.

Schelling’s critique aims at replacing the “impulse toward spiritualization”, which presupposes spirit as the ground of truth, with the concept of truth as self-consciousness. The latter concept of truth coincides with Schelling’s organicism, which affirms spirit’s codependence on nature and the free subject. Whereas modern philosophy identifies truth with a distilled subjectivity, for Schelling, truth is the product of the free subject’s quest for self-consciousness, i.e., the act through which the free subject posits nature as the ground for the revelation of spirit. This insight compliments Schelling’s criticism of Fichte in the Stuttgart Lectures, in which he refutes Fichte’s affinity for solipsism. Fichte, according to Schelling, believes that there is no existence “other than what is for itself”, i.e., that only the self is for itself (von Schelling 1994). Consequently, Schelling believes he overlooks the “dualism that inheres in identity”, a dualism that recognizes how “subject and object constitute the universal form in matter as well as in the self (and only later can we point up the differences that separate the two)” (von Schelling 1994). As Schelling goes on to say, “…the absolute identity of the Real and the Ideal must not only be in and of itself but also outside itself…” (von Schelling 1994). Schelling’s point is that Fichte’s idealism fails to take seriously the question of spirit’s existence, resulting in a solipsism in which spirit and truth are identical. For Schelling, the mutual reciprocity between spirit and nature prohibits this elision, for, insofar as nature is the ground of spirit, spirit does not reveal itself as truth, but instead is revealed by a positive third, namely, the free subject, which posits nature as the ground of spirit’s revelation.

So far, we focused primarily on the symbiotic relation of spirit and nature, specifically the notion that spirit is revealed as truth by being differentiated from nature. However, since spirit and nature presuppose each other, the act by which they are differentiated is not reducible to either element, but instead presupposes a positive third in which they are already united. This positive third, which Schelling identifies as the primordial being (i.e., God), is the free, eternal essence, which unfolds the unity within itself for the sake of God’s self-consciousness—which it does by positing its own negativity. It follows, then, that the revelation of spirit as truth presupposes both freedom and nature insofar as it is a product of God’s decision to posit nature as his ground—thereby enabling spirit to emerge and preside over it. The organicism of Schelling’s system underscores the contrast between his system and the “impulse toward spiritualization”. For Schelling, truth does not pre-exist nature as something finished and complete, but instead emerges alongside nature, unfolding progressively over time. Time is the unfolding of the eternal truth inside of it, not the reverse, and so any systematic metaphysics must be sufficiently flexible enough to account for the fact that eternal truth does not reveal itself or create time, but instead affirms both the free subject and nature.

Schelling’s organicism, in which the truth of self-consciousness affirms the reality of the free subject, nature, and the progressive unfurling of truth, redefines the relation between philosophy and the absolute. At the center of Schelling’s system is God, the primordial being who differentiates the eternal essence—whom Schelling describes in the Stuttgart Lectures as the “unconditional” element “wherein all demonstration becomes possible” (von Schelling 1994). Like the geometer who does not demonstrate space, but instead presupposes it, philosophy, too, does not demonstrate God, but instead presupposes him. God is the condition for all explanation, and yet still, as that condition, he is incommunicable as a finite being. Schelling is especially judicious in the way he articulates this relation. Philosophy presupposes God, and yet God does not precede philosophy. Rather, insofar as God reveals his essence through time, philosophy is the ongoing demonstration of God’s existence. Schelling’s articulation of the relation between philosophy and God underscores the self-attested “affinity” of his philosophy with theology (von Schelling 1994). Insofar as theology presupposes faith as the beginning of understanding, it establishes belief as a solid basis for rational inquiry. And yet, for theology, while reason can explain some truths of faith, in doing so, it also proves that some truths are themselves indemonstrable. Hence, reason serves a dual function for theology, insofar as it demonstrates the intelligibility of faith and its superiority over knowledge. To be sure, Schelling does not intend to align himself completely with theology, which he later accuses of treating God as a “particular object”, thereby limiting the possibility for him to explain “other creatures” (von Schelling 1994). Nevertheless, Schelling envisions a metaphysics wherein knowledge takes on a similar role, articulating nature cogently while also pointing to a higher, more sublime reality.

For Schelling, the paradoxical relation between philosophy and the absolute is implicit in the mutual presupposition of nature and spirit, which, by their existence, attest to the freedom by which God self-differentiates himself from them. If to prove God’s existence is to prove the irreducibility of his freedom, then the revelation of spirit as truth is simultaneously the revelation that God transcends spirit, i.e., that the ultimate basis of existence exceeds the rational. As opposed to Leibniz, for whom the rationality of the universe corresponds with God’s own perfect rationality, for Schelling, the rationality of the world implies God’s superiority over reason, and, thus, the fact that he creates according to powers that are themselves preconscious and supra-rational. In this way, one can say that Schelling’s philosophy echoes the sentiments of Saint Anselm, who, in the Proslogion, claims that God remains “that-than-which-nothing-greater-can-be thought”, regardless of whether he punishes or redeems the sinner—an insight that declares the unconditional righteousness of God’s actions at the expense of our ability to rationally infer his motivations for choosing one option over another.12 Indeed, for Schelling, the existence of God establishes an aporia insofar as it affirms his authority over, and, thus, liberation from, spirit itself. This aporia serves as the basis for his metaphysics of freedom, which explores God’s preconsciousness as the condition for the possibility of existence—a preconsciousness that Schelling ultimately identifies as both rational and non-rational, coherent but not always capable of being fully articulated. The result is a metaphysics that aims at fulfilling philosophy’s ultimate potential by reaching for a wisdom that is itself supra-rational.

Returning to Clara, it is evident how the notion of self-consciousness as grounded in nature and the freedom of eternal essence contextualizes Schelling’s critique of modern philosophy. Motivated by the “impulse toward spiritualization”, modern philosophy neglects spirit’s dependence on the other elements, and instead posits spirit itself as the ground. The result is that spirit, instead of drawing its strength from freedom and nature, truncates them into the spontaneity of the subject. As opposed to the truth self-consciousness, which is both necessary and indicative of the subject’s power, modern philosophy offers a concept of spirit where truth is arbitrary and indicative of the subject’s impotence. The latter results in the schism between freedom and nature, such that the former occupies a higher, but unintelligible, realm, while the latter occupies a lower one that is accessible to us, but in a prohibitively narrow sense. Alternatively, the positing of spirit as ground results in the bifurcation of faith and science, such that, in losing their connection with the other, the authority of each is weakened. While faith without science amounts to a groundless belief in the inaccessible divine, science without faith relegates nature to mere appearance, presuming nature has no other basis for its existence than the mechanical processes that it carries out—and which are visible to us. In Clara, these truncated versions of faith and science are implied in the clergyman’s insistence that the spiritual world is separate from the natural one. With spirit as ground, there is no concept of truth beyond the spontaneity of the subject, since there is not one world in which freedom and nature coexist, but two diametrically opposed ones. One can believe in God or one can believe in science, but there is no concept of truth in which the two are linked, and thus, no ground for choosing one over the other. Instead, the only ground for choosing between them is spirit itself, which, when purged of its relation to nature and freedom, is reduced to a contingent feeling. In this way, the clergyman’s notion that we must “honor the old divisions” lest we start to feel not at home is ironic from a Schellingian perspective, since the separation of the spiritual world and the natural one means that there is no firm ground on which belief can stand, but instead only the arbitrary choice between two mutually incompatible—and consequently, dissatisfactory—worldviews (von Schelling 2002).

4. Conscience as a Negative Concept

In severing the connection between spirit and nature, the “impulse toward spiritualization” affects a schism between faith and science, such that truth becomes reducible to spirit. According to Schelling, in a hyper-spiritualized metaphysics, spirit is the only plausible alternative to the truncated versions of faith and science posited by modern philosophy. Faced with the choice between an arbitrary religiosity or a crude empiricism, modern philosophy argues for a concept of spirit in which spirit itself, divorced from its connection to freedom and nature, is consonant with truth. In this way, the circularity of the “impulse toward spiritualization” becomes self-reinforcing. Guided by the presupposition that spirit is ground, modern philosophy replaces the organic relation between spirit and nature with the presupposition that spirit alone is real. In Clara, this identification of spirit qua spirit with truth is presented in the clergyman’s concept of “conscience”, which, in resembling Kant’s deontological ethics, emphasizes the values of duty, lawfulness, and self-discipline. Schelling’s critique aims at underscoring the “impotence” of this concept, vis à vis its disassociation from the other forces that make existence possible, i.e., freedom and nature. His insight is that a concept of the Ideal built on the solipsism of spirit lacks the authority to motivate adherence to it insofar as it fails to appeal to those values that ground the revelation of truth. For Schelling, these values are rooted in spirit’s organic relation with nature and are highlighted by both the free subject’s desire for self-consciousness and its ability to recognize its other. Without their serving as ground for the revelation of the Ideal, spirit no longer retains the vitality of truth, and instead is reduced to something unnatural and unfree—what Clara herself refers to in the text as not having a “heart”.13 The goal of this section is to consider how the clergyman’s notion of conscience runs aground of this error, divesting spirit of its ties to nature, such that it reduces truth to the subjectivity of the subject, causing it to lose the “heart” from which it draws its strength.

In Clara, the clergyman’s notion of conscience reflects his belief in a concept of spirit that is both superior to, but divorced from, nature. In the introduction to her translation of the text, Fiona Steinkamp argues that the clergyman is analogous to Kant, a claim that is readily justified given the clergyman’s claim that conscience is “the point that is open and through which heaven shines in” (von Schelling 2002). “Conscience”, for the clergyman, resembles the Kantian notion of “duty” insofar as it has “one law and one purpose”, which “cannot be from this world, for more often than not it is in conflict with it” (von Schelling 2002). What is intriguing about this concept is how it reflects both the clergyman’s belief in our higher purpose and his skepticism about the connection between spirit and nature. Conscience is a “pledge from a higher world” that “raises him who has learned to follow it to the comforting thought of immortality”, and yet still, it is also representative of a “spiritual world”, which has “nothing in common with this world”, a world that “may merge us”, but not vice versa (von Schelling 2002). Much like Kant himself, who famously “put limits on knowledge in order to make room for belief” (Kant 1996), the clergyman’s doubts about the concept of a separate, higher world are epistemological in nature. Indeed, it is not so much that the clergyman rejects the existence of a higher world, so much as he believes it is inaccessible to us, an attitude that coincides with his subsequent claims that any transition from nature to the spiritual world requires a total separation from the former. The result is a concept of conscience that emphasizes both the non-reality of nature relative to spirit and the unintelligibility of the divine, a solipsism, dominated by spirit, in which nature and freedom are no more than appearances of the former.

The clergyman’s notion of conscience is formed out of his response to the priest, who opens the dialogue in Section One by sharing his thoughts on the local festivities during All Saints’ Day. When the priest reflects on how the events of the day have affected him—reminding him of “how the life we now live is a completely one-sided one and that it will become complete only if what is more highly spiritual could combine with it and if those, whom we call deceased, were not to stop living with us, but were simply to make up, as it were, another part of the whole family” (von Schelling 2002)—the clergyman is the first and only one to offer a rebuttal, arguing that such traditions are “detrimental” and should be “abolished” insofar as they distract from the fact that “we are allocated to this world only once” and that, therefore, “we should do as much as good we can” and “show our every love and trust to those to whom we are close… for as long as we remain with them on their path” (von Schelling 2002). At first, the clergyman’s charge that “we would certainly fulfill this duty to each other far more closely and conscientiously if we were continually to remind ourselves of their mortality” appears to foreshadow the existentialist claim that consciousness of our finitude makes possible our capacity to love, and find meaning in, the things of this world (von Schelling 2002). Nevertheless, in the discussion that follows, the clergyman is skeptical about our ability to form real, lasting bonds with others, arguing that love in this life amounts to a form of “selfish love” insofar as “we imagine that our friends and companions through life are ours, when really they are only God’s; free beings, subject only to the One” (von Schelling 2002). For the clergyman, the freedom of others underscores their inherent value and proximity to the divine. However, it is also the same freedom that admittedly drives a wedge between individuals, rendering it impossible for a real connection to be formed. The upshot is a concept of duty, in which the value of fulfilling one’s obligations to others has little to do with our relationships to them. We can do good for others, but not because we feel concern for them, or because our relationship to them dictates our obligation to them. On the contrary, we do good because it serves a higher purpose in demonstrating our obedience to God. For Kant, this insight forms the basis of his ethics, where he distinguishes between acting out of respect for the moral law and following our inclination (Kant 2012). Although these two paths can overlap in many circumstances, for him, the capacity to be moral rests in knowing the difference between them and choosing the former when it separates from the latter. Comparatively, the clergyman believes that the value of serving others is distinct from the benefits we can create for them.

From a Schellingian perspective, the clergyman’s reduction of love and friendship to self-love reflects his skepticism of spirit’s relation with nature, insofar as it implies a concept of truth divorced from objectivity. For the clergyman, our affinity toward others coincides with our wish to do as much good as we can for them. And yet, still, he believes that it is not the relationships themselves that ground our feelings, but instead, our feelings that ground the relationships—as if to say that our attitudes towards others are wholly subjective and lack a true ground. In the text, this insight is revealed thorough the clergyman’s exchange with Clara, who argues that “in friendship and love there is something that is by its very nature eternal, a tie that God has joined that neither death nor God himself could break” (von Schelling 2002). In response, the clergyman argues that “in itself the natural relationship doesn’t produce that eternal feeling, rather it is the feeling that makes the relationship eternal”. Indeed, for the clergyman, “only our attitude is truly eternal”, which is why he believes it is possible for us to form “unnatural” relationships where we form bonds with others to whom we are unrelated or dissimilar (von Schelling 2002). The clergyman’s rebuttal of Clara embodies Schelling’s description of modern philosophy, which, guided by the “impulse toward spiritualization”, reduces truth to the subjectivity of the subject. For the clergyman, there are no “natural relationships”, only the relationships conferred by the spontaneous feelings of the subject. Correlatively, all the relations we form with others amount to an affirmation of the self. Thus, if we take seriously the clergyman’s rebuttal, then natural relationships are non-existent relative to spirit. Although we can feel an “invisible hand” joining us to certain people, or as Clara states, a “quiet, unconscious, but thereby all the more compelling, necessity” drawing our soul to another, these feelings are not indicative of a divine, or objective, relation between us and others (von Schelling 2002). Rather, they are only the unprompted impulses of the free subject.

Intriguing is the way in which the clergyman’s skepticism of natural relationships doubles as a skepticism of human freedom. For him, the “natural power” of which Clara speaks, i.e., the sentiments that draw one soul to another, constitute a “deep depravity”, such that one “no longer has the capacity to draw purely from one or the other source of life”. Here, the clergyman reduces freedom and nature to the spontaneity of the subject. As the antithesis of spirit, this spontaneity exhibits a groundlessness that draws it into contradiction with the spirit. Consequently, to abide by the former is “almost as dangerous to direct man toward freedom as it is to direct him toward necessity” (von Schelling 2002). The clergyman goes on to distinguish between this spontaneity and spirit.

I am highly doubtful about any relationship in which freedom plays even only a part and I do not venture lightly into the labyrinth. I let justice be done to the warmth of each beautiful heart, only let us take care not to shape the inspiration of feelings and the inventions of longing into general truths, for then there will no longer by any divisions. The grim and unruly mind will have the same right as the right and ordered one, and we know what monsters have arisen from this drive to realize creatures from uncontrolled longing or from wild imagination.

(von Schelling 2002)

Aside from its resemblance to the Kantian distinction between duty and inclination, the clergyman’s concerns imply a connection between nature and freedom, such that both are positioned antagonistically towards spirit. The clergyman associates human freedom with the spontaneity of the subject, the same spontaneity from which our feelings of good will toward others emerge. His point is that freedom, like our feelings towards others, implies a gratuitousness that is antagonistic to the nature of truth as objective. Indeed, for him, to conflate freedom as the ground of truth is to run the risk of putting the “unruly mind” on equal terms with an “ordered” one, to put unreason on equal terms with reason. Spirit, in this context, becomes the alternative of “self-love” doubling as the love of one’s neighbor. As truth, it is the objectivity that exists independent of this world, immune to freedom and nature. For the clergyman, this is what it means to respect the “old divisions”. It is to respect the independence of spirit from nature, such that spirit alone is consonant with truth.

For the clergyman, the consonance of spirit with truth amounts to a religiosity that denies the reality of nature by subsuming it under the power of spirit. The clergyman emphasizes this point in his discussion about death. If spirit and nature are disconnected, then death is the affirmation of that separation insofar as it teaches us that spirit is real, and nature is mere appearance. The clergyman articulates this point by his argument that nature “belongs” to God. Death reminds us “that there isn’t anything we can call ours in the true sense of the word, that the vows of poverty, deprivation, and in particular obedience are vows taken in relation to a higher and hidden will and are vows that each person should take upon himself” (von Schelling 2002). Combined with his admitted ignorance of God’s true intentions, the clergyman’s emphasis on asceticism underscores his skepticism of spirit’s connection to nature. People must be “cautious” of their attachment to the goods of nature—especially friendship and love—since they are nothing relative to God. What is more, these goods of nature include our own freedom, for, in death, we learn that our lives belong to God as well:

A moment nevertheless comes when the soul no longer belongs to us, but belongs once more to the whole, when it returns home into its original freedom and perhaps, in accordance with God’s will, begins a new course that will never meet our own again and that serves to fulfill a quite different purpose from what it fulfilled here in working to develop our inner being and ennobling our essence.

(von Schelling 2002)

There is an ambivalence in the clergyman’s attitude toward human freedom, insofar as he acknowledges our freedom in this world, while suggesting that our soul ultimately belongs to God. However, his notion of an “original freedom” that we return to in the afterlife is compatible with his skepticism of spirit’s connection to nature. If nature does not exist for spirit, then our existence is not our own, but instead belongs to spirit itself, i.e., God. Hence, it follows for him that “original freedom”, i.e., real freedom, is not independent from spirit, but reducible to spirit itself. In essence, it is obedience to God. Freedom, in this context, takes on the impartiality associated with duty. Purified of its relation to nature, freedom is marked by its indifference to this world and everything in it, including ourselves. To be free is to find solace in the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience. It is to find relief from our interests in the world, and perhaps even more so, the burden of having to decide what to do with them. Such freedom finds its highest expression in the absence of all desire and choice, a freedom that seeks comfort in nothingness itself.

As a rebuttal to the clergyman, Clara argues that his notion of “conscience” implies a concept of spirit that lacks the vitality of nature. Conscience, for the clergyman, includes the “vows” of poverty, deprivation, and obedience, which are taken in relation to a “higher and hidden will”. On the one hand, these vows coincide with our duty to do as much as good possible and to love our neighbor. However, given that the clergyman believes that all love is selfish at its root, for him, the significance of taking these vows does not rest in the people they serve or in satisfying our self-interest, but in the “comforting thought of immortality”. Clara is quick to acknowledge that such a thought seems “far too weak for the impressions [she] has” and goes on to describe briefly how the notion of conscience divorced from nature renders the former powerless:

“What do cold words and merely negative concepts have to with ardent [heisse] longing? Are we satisfied in this life with a purely bleak existence? Does nature make us put up with such generalities”.

(von Schelling 2002)

For Clara, the “weakness” of conscience rests in its ability to motivate an adherence to it. Insofar as conscience is a wholly spiritualized concept, divested of its ties with nature, it necessarily loses all its attractiveness for us. Just as Kant questions the possibility of acting solely out of duty because it involves overcoming self-interest, the clergyman questions our ability to love others precisely because we are inclined to see them as ours—or, in Kantian terms, as means and not ends. Thus, the spiritualization of conscience represents a challenge for Clara—and for Schelling—insofar as it commands without the motivating force of desire. As the clergyman suggests, conscience obliges us to love without the inclinations that typically make such love possible. However, for Clara, that is exactly the problem, since love needs “ardent longing” in the same way that spirit needs nature. Without desire as its ground, love simply cannot exist, meaning that a life lived in accordance with conscience does so without love altogether. This explains why Clara states that a life lived in accordance with conscience seems “bleak”; conscience reflects a “coldness” that violates the very principles that motivate existence. As opposed to conscience, which implies the existence of the law prior to and independent of our relations with others, for Clara, the law emerges from, and is verified through, our relationships with others. We have a duty to others because we love them, not the reverse, and so any philosophy that starts from the former lacks a real foundation.

Clara’s argument against the clergyman’s notion of “conscience” coincides with Schelling’s organicism, which rebukes idealism’s presupposition of spirit as self-grounding. By divesting spirit of its relation to nature, idealism’s “impulse toward spiritualization” assumes the consonance between spirit’s spontaneity and the actuality of its self-expression. In doing so, idealism fails to take seriously the question of spirit’s existence, the fact that spirit, simply by virtue of its affirming power, fails to necessitate the creation of the universe. In his metaphysics, Schelling articulates this problem with respect to the paradox of freedom qua freedom, which is simultaneously capable of all things, but never acts—a freedom that, one might suggest, is both everything and nothing. The paradox of this freedom consists of its perfection. Although freedom qua freedom is complete, and therefore capable of expressing itself, by the same token, it needs nothing, and therefore lacks a basis for reproducing itself. Thus, freedom must take nature as its ground to unlock its own capacity to create. In this context, nature serves as spirit’s “longing to be outside itself”—what Schelling refers to in the Ages of the World as “Sehnsucht”.14 If existence is characterized by the ecstatic acts of self-consciousness and self-expression, then nature is the longing, or attraction, to the outside, without which spirit remains concealed. Indeed, nature is the solution to spirit’s solipsism. As the ground of spirit’s revelation, it is the foundation out of which spirit is transfigured from potential to actual, a transition that marks the fulfillment of its highest potential.

As Clara suggests in her critique of the clergyman, the notion of a “conscience” purged of its relation to “ardent longing”—i.e., a concept of spirit divested of its ties to nature—introduces a morality that is both infeasible and inferior to one with that is not. With respect to the infeasibility of “conscience”, a similar difficulty is acknowledged in Kantian ethics, wherein Kant famously affirms the authority of the moral law, while simultaneously doubting the possibility of acting solely out of respect for it. On the one hand, one can argue that the impossibility of acting from duty appears more as an indictment of human frailty than as a limitation of the moral law, i.e., that the problem rests on us and the weakness of our will, not the purity and perfection of the law. However, Clara clearly disagrees. In her critique of the clergyman, she takes the opposite position, questioning the validity of a morality divested of its ties to desire. Nevertheless, what is more intriguing is the implicit claim that, even if total obedience to “conscience” were possible, such a life would be less satisfying to us. How can this be so? Although Clara herself does not elaborate further, her claim appears to prefigure existentialist concepts of meaning, which associate freedom’s highest dignity with action, creativity, and the assignment of values. Clara’s comment implies a similar emphasis on the ecstatic character of freedom. Indeed, longing is the antithesis of spirit, and yet, as the ground of spirit’s revelation, it is the condition for spirit’s self-transcendence, i.e., that which transfigures freedom into self-consciousness, self-expression, and love. In other words, without longing, spirit is reduced to solipsism, the “bleakness” of which rests in its total isolation. Clara’s insight is that this solipsism is part and parcel of the clergyman’s concept of “conscience”. To abide by the clergyman’s idea of conscience is, paradoxically, to live without a concern for others, to be alone, to live without the possibility of satisfaction.

5. Conclusions

By way of conclusion, Clara’s criticism of the clergyman underscores the direction towards which Schelling aims at repositioning modern philosophy. The first step in this procedure is re-establishing modern philosophy’s respect for nature and its essential function concerning the revelation of spirit. Indeed, nature is the negativity that realizes its own potential in the revelation of spirit as truth. While this means that nature is a “lower” form of spirit, nature is not the effect of spirit, nor the backdrop on which spirit is set in relief. Instead, nature is the objectivity that gives spirit its concreteness and, therefore, its authority. In other words, nature is the vitality that, in supporting the revelation of truth, gives spirit the character of being alive. For Schelling, this “liveliness” raises new questions about the essence of truth. What does it mean to think of truth more organically, in greater consonance with nature, as something that grows, matures, and decays? How does nature, in its embryonic form, bear the seeds for spirit’s revelation. And, finally, how does nature possess the possibility for the affirmation of the highest reality, one which transcends spirit in its positing of the highest freedom, a freedom defined by love?

The scope of these questions underscores the open nature of Schelling’s systematic philosophy, which, in addition to emphasizing the centrality of freedom, builds connections with past and future thinkers—as opposed to excluding them in the quest for epistemological absolutism. Unlike systems founded on a rational principle, Schelling’s system, by virtue of its locus in the mutual reciprocity of subject and object, takes on an organic character, establishing connections between idealism’s past (i.e., Plato and Aristotle) and future (i.e., the existentialists)—while challenging the presuppositions of both—without establishing dominance over them. While other systems run the risk of treating other philosophies as adversarial, Schelling’s system is compelling, precisely because it encourages us to consider other thinkers and their concepts—and to do so on their own terms. In this way, Schelling’s philosophy engenders a creativity that is consonant with organic life, which, grounded in freedom, originates from a state of possibility, not conceptual lucidity. Indeed, there is a primordial transcendence endemic to Schelling’s organicism that is also implicit in the preceding questions. For, in answering these questions, one must confront their irreducible ambiguity, the fact that, like all organisms, the answers to them can grow, diminish, and evolve over time. If philosophy is the ongoing demonstration of God’s existence, then philosophy’s attempts to revisit these questions constitute a renewal of the most sublime reality. For Schelling, an awareness of this insight marks the beginning of a genuine confrontation with the “whole” and the emergence of self-consciousness, the beginning of self-expression and the self-rejuvenation of life.