Philosophical inquiries into the nature of human freedom

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom and the Objects related to it from 1809 is a central work of the philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , in which he endeavors to develop a theory of freedom that develops its basic theoretical principles essentially from a metaphysics of evil. Despite its brevity, the Philosophical Investigations are one of the most important works of German idealism .

Friedrich Wilhelm Schelling, painting by Christian Friedrich Tieck , ca.1800

content

After introductory remarks on the occasion of his publication and the presentation of his topic as well as an examination of the philosophy of reason and the subjective idealism of Fichte, Schelling concentrated on the explanation of his model of human freedom in divine creation.

The investigation begins with the question of the origin of evil and freedom of choice (p. 352 ff.). Schelling discusses various theses in philosophy (e.g. Leibniz ', p. 367 ff., Plato, p. 371) and theology of lack of perfection or a demonic force of chaos or an earthly principle of the contrary to reason Sensuality and takes his view that evil “often shows itself to be united with an excellence of the individual forces, which seldom accompanies the good. The cause of evil [must] therefore [...] rather lie in the highest positive that nature contains ”(p. 369). Both forces have a common root and are in a dialectical process to one another. Only “the wrong unity” (p. 371) of the forces is negative.

Schelling substantiates this point of view with the “sight of the whole of nature”: “The irrational and accidental, which appears in the formation of beings, […] connected with the necessary, proves that it is not just a geometric necessity that is at work here has, but that freedom, spirit and self-will were involved. [...] Nobody will believe that the desire, which is the basis of every special experience of nature, and the drive to maintain oneself not only at all, but in this particular existence, was added to the created creature, but rather that it is Been creators themselves. [...] in nature there are accidental determinations that can only be explained from an excitation of the irrational or dark principle of the creature that occurred in the first creation - only from activated selfhood ”(p. 376). In nature, here Schelling Leibniz contradicts, “not pure pure reason”, but “personality and spirit [...] otherwise the geometric understanding that has ruled for so long would have long since permeated it and its idol of general and eternal laws of nature would have had to prove more true , than has happened up to now, because he rather [must] recognize the irrational relationship between nature and itself more every day ”(p. 395 f.). "On the other hand, a system in which reason really knew itself would have to unite all requirements of the spirit as well as the heart, of the most moral feeling as well as the strictest intellect". Because “all personality rests on a dark ground, which, however, must also be a ground for knowledge. But it is only the understanding that develops what is hidden in this reason and only contained in potential and elevates it to an act ”(p. 413 f.).

Schelling postulates a twofold principle for every natural being as well as for God: on the one hand the ground (= material basis, will that is still incomprehensible, instinctual dark, ego of creature, egoity, self-will as a means and tool to the end of reaching the light, including instinctual emotionally irrational) and secondly of the mind (= existence, light, ideas, ideal, spirit, actual being, universal will as structure and goal).

He tries to derive the two principles of creation from a common one. The essence of the ground and the existing is already present in a “primordial ground or rather unground”, in an “absolute indifference” (p. 406), that is, an indifference or neutrality between the two. This only divides “so that life and love and personal existence” (p. 408), which do not exist in indifference, become possible. In its two modes of action, this one being is divided into two beings, in one it is merely a reason for existence, in the other it is merely an ideal being. Only God as spirit is the absolute identity of both principles because “both are subject to his personality” (p. 409).

A central point of the investigation is the question of why God revealed the dark principle in creation and thus made it possible for man to be endangered. Schelling explains this by saying that God; and on this point he contradicts both Fichte and Spinoza that it is not a “mere logical abstraction”. Because of the "bond [...] with nature" (p. 395) he has a "personality" (p. 394) and this leads to a separation of the original unity of principles, that is, to one of his "relative" [... ] "Independent reason from reality" (p. 395). Since “God is a life, not just a being” (p. 403), “[be] himself a dynamic. But all life [has] a fate, and [be] subject to suffering and becoming. ”, Because“ [i] in the realization through opposition [is] a becoming ”(p. 403).

This aspect is related to the question of the ultimate purpose of creation. Schelling assumes a process, at the end of which, at the end of Revelation, evil is cast out from good and “the good raised from the ground up is combined to form an eternal unity with the original good”. With the end of duality “subordinate the word or the ideal principle to itself and the real [principle] that has become one with it, and the spirit, as divine consciousness, lives in the same way in both principles” ( P. 405). At the same time, the human being as “the beginning of the new covenant” is the “mediator” (p. 411) who connects God with nature.

For this development God had to “necessarily reveal himself” (p. 374). So that “the word spoken in opposition to the evil in the world could accept humanity or selfhood and become personal”, the unity that was indissoluble in God was gradually loosened and finally with the creation of the “archetypal and divine human being [en] ”, in the“ highest peak of revelation ”, separated: Because“ [i] n the initial creation, which is nothing other than the birth of light, [had] the dark principle as the ground [= basis] his [...] so that the light could be raised from him (as from the mere potency to the act). […] This principle is precisely the spirit of evil awakened in creation through the excitation of the dark ground […], to which the spirit of love […] now opposes a higher ideal. ”(P. 377, similar to p. 395). The will to reveal God works accordingly in connection with the will of the ground: God "moved only according to his nature and not according to his heart or love" (p. 378).

This “longing of the one to give birth to himself, or the will of the ground” cannot “be free in the sense in which it is the will of love. He [is] not a conscious will or will connected with reflection, although not a completely unconscious will that moved according to blind mechanical necessity, but of a middle nature, like desire and pleasure, most closely comparable to the beautiful urge of a nature that is growing and striving to develop , and whose inner movements are involuntary (cannot be omitted), without her feeling constrained in them.
Absolutely free and conscious will [be] the will to love [...] the revelation that follows from it [be] action and deed ”(p. 395). It follows from this that, according to Schelling's view, creation is the result of both a non-free and a free, conscious process. "All existence requires a condition so that it becomes real, namely personal existence". This also applies to God, “only that he [has] this condition in himself, not outside of himself. He [could] not abolish the condition by otherwise having to abolish himself, he [could] only cope with it through love ”(p. 399).

In this context, Schelling poses the question of God's intentions to have consciously-unconsciously initiated creation with the accompanying circumstance of evil, or to have allowed it, or according to the conception of man and his freedom of choice. Like all creatures, man springs from the dark ground and therefore has, through his “selfhood” (p. 364) “a principle that is relatively independent of God” (p. 363). Evil can therefore "arise only in the creature" (p. 374). In “God as Spirit” and “purest love” “there can never be a will to do evil; just as little in the ideal principles ”. But these could not "resist the will of the reason, nor cancel it". This reason must "work independently so that love can be" (p. 375). Since the dark ground pushes towards the light and thus towards unity with it, man has a share in the divine principle of the spirit, which puts him in the top position of creation through the "pronounced [] word", the competence of the logos .

Evil is at the beginning of creation as an accompaniment of the natural principle "aroused and finally developed into a general principle through the work of the ground for itself" (p. 381), but here it "never comes to fruition", even if it does “Constantly striving towards it” (p. 380). At a later stage of development, evil is first activated in humans through the “fear of life” and the rule of the “special will [s]”, the “siren song from the depths”, over the “general will” and always remains his “own” Choice ”(p. 381).

In the discussion with the views of Kant (p. 383 ff.) And Fichte (p. 385 ff.), However, Schelling sees no true freedom in this, because “free action follows directly from the intelligible human being” as "Necessary [...] certain action" according to the "law of identity and with absolute necessity", d. H. "His being, [...] his own nature should be his determination" (p. 384) and not an external or internal compulsion: "The being of man is essentially his own act". In the original creation man was an "undecided being" (p. 385). And here, in what, as Schelling emphasizes, according to the general way of thinking, difficult to understand, time-spanning primary choice, man decided on an "eternal deed", so to speak to a certain disposition, so that he is not "accidentally or arbitrarily" (p. 386), but inclines towards good or bad without coercion. But in spite of this special kind of predestination, man is not released from his responsibility or guilt, as it were, after a personal premature fall, even if he could not defend himself against an act: “Because evil can only ever arise in the innermost will of the person of one's own heart, and is never accomplished without one's own deed ”(p. 399). But “[the] activated selfhood [is] not yet evil”, because it is “necessary to sharpen life”. It only becomes evil "if it has completely torn itself away from its opposite, the light or the universal will" (p. 399 f.).

Schelling includes Christian thoughts of the fall in his model by deviating from the divine principle: Man leaves the real-ideal unity by disturbing its balance and the "dark principle" of "selfhood" (p. 392), the egocentrism, make the center of his actions. In this way, “the spirit of man opens up to the spirit of lies and falsehood” and is “soon fascinated by it” that it “loses its initial freedom.” The “true good [could] only be brought about by divine magic [...] ] namely through the immediate presence of beings in consciousness and knowledge. True freedom is in harmony with a sacred necessity, such as we feel in essential knowledge, since mind and heart, bound only by their own law, willingly affirm what is necessary. If the evil exists in a discord between the two principles, then the good can only exist in the perfect harmony of the same and the bond that unites the two [must] be a divine ”(p. 391 f.).

Man has the possibility (p. 374) not to represent positive values, to separate himself from the spirit, to pursue selfish goals of selfhood (e.g. desires, lusts) and thus to alienate the means to an end (p . 365), which means the "evil" or the "disruption in himself" (p. 366). “[T] he bond of principles in him is not a necessary one, but a free one. He stands at the crossroads ”(p. 374). But with this man is not really free, because true freedom and “true life” (p. 366) lies in the path to light, to unity and eternal love through a control of the dark forces that are essential for life. Man never gets the conditions of the dark ground under his control, which is why “his personality and selfhood can never rise to a perfect act”. This explains the “deep, indestructible melancholy of all life” (p. 399).

Schelling sees a correspondingly justified danger in the historical development, comparable to that in the nature unfolding from the unconscious (inorganic, organic, animals) to the conscious (human): "But like the undivided power of the initial ground only in the human being as inner (basis or center) of an individual is recognized, even in history the evil remains basically hidden at first, and the age of guilt and sin is preceded by a time of innocence or unconsciousness [the golden age] about sin ”(p. 378). In this legendary time of “blissful indecision, where there was neither good nor bad” (p. 379), the “whole divine being, just not as a unity” was at work in this “working for itself of the ground”.

In the following era of the "ruling gods and heroes" the "omnipotence of nature [...] in the visible beauty of the gods and all the splendor of art and ingenious science" ruled and guided life through "the power of earth-oozing oracles" (p. 379): “At that time, understanding and wisdom came to people only from the depths [...] all divine forces of the ground ruled on earth [...] until the fundamentally operating principle finally emerged as a world-conquering principle, to submit to everything and a firm and to found a permanent world empire ”(p. 379). And again and again, when “the bond of love was missing” (p. 378), the story “sank back into chaos” (p. 378). This is announced by “evil spirits” and the replacement of belief in gods by “false magic” (p. 379) “And so come the time when all this glory dissolves […] and the beautiful body of the previous ones World falls apart ”(p. 379). Then God intervenes in the form of Jesus in the development of a “second creation”, in a “new kingdom”, in which “the living word” forms the center of the “fight against chaos” to “restore connection with God at the highest level” (p. 380).

analysis

The division of God

Schelling's freedom-theoretical considerations are based on the distinction between God as existent and God as the ground of his existence - with this distinction he also speaks of the principle of understanding and the principle of ground. In this way he creates a division of God that hardly bears any resemblance to the traditional conception of God as causa sui , since Schelling assumes that the principle of the ground forms something in God that is not himself; something that even God as an existent can hardly influence. Schelling explains that this reason of God is also the reason for the creation of nature. The principle of the ground is thus transferred from God to nature. Everything that exists is thus also composed of a duality of existence and the ground of existence. The principle of the ground unfolds in creation (i.e. in nature and ultimately also in humans) as the self-will of the creature. Schelling insists on the epistemic impenetrability of self-will:

After the eternal act of self-revelation, everything in the world as we now see it is rule, order and form; But there is still basically what is irregular, as if it could break through again, and nowhere does it seem that order and form are the original, but rather that what was initially irregular had been brought to order. This is the incomprehensible basis of reality in things, the remnant that never opens up, that which cannot be resolved in the mind with the greatest effort, but remains fundamentally forever. From this mindlessness the mind is born in the real sense. "

With this conception of an absolute limit of knowledge, Schelling responds to GWF Hegel's main work Phenomenology of the Spirit , published two years earlier , in which he records the path of knowledge up to absolute knowledge. According to Hegel, the mind must be completely transparent. In principle, this is not possible with Schelling.

Possibility and reality of evil

According to Schelling, humans are also made up of these two principles . The principle of reason describes the will of the creature and assumes the spirit of evil in man, while the principle of understanding forms the universal will and is realized in man as the spirit of love. In Schelling's conception, the human being is the only being who can make a choice as to how to arrange the two components in himself. If he places the spirit of evil above the spirit of love, then this would mean making egocentric interests the motivation for his action. According to Schelling, this would be evil. Conversely, man does good when he uses the spirit of love to motivate action. He lets his own interests take a back seat and acts according to the principle of understanding in a mediating and communicative manner, ie communicating.

The self-revelation of God

Like the Bible, the Freedom Scripture ends with a section of revelation . According to Schelling, God's self-revelation consists in a historical process that has been going on since creation and is heading towards the complete suppression of the principle of ground, that is, evil, both in God and in nature. Schelling insists, however, that evil should never completely disappear, since love can only develop in contrast to evil. Thus, according to the process of revelation, evil forms eternal potential , while love forms eternal actuality .

"But the good should be raised out of darkness to actuality in order to live with God forever; however, the bad should be separated from the good in order to be cast into non-existence forever."

Position in Schelling's complete works

In Schelling's oeuvre, the Freiheitsschrift is generally seen as a bridge between his early and late philosophy, as on the one hand conceptions of his identity philosophy (i.e. the unity of nature and spirit) can be felt and on the other hand an outlook on Schelling's later approaches can be anticipated, e.g. echoes historical-philosophical considerations as he later implemented them in the ages of the world .

expenditure

  • Schelling, FWJ; About the nature of human freedom . Hamburg, Meiner, 2001.
  • Schelling, FWJ; About the essence of human freedom: With an essay by Walter Schulz "Freedom and history in Schelling's philosophy" . Frankfurt aM, Suhrkamp, ​​1988.

Secondary literature

  • Heidegger, Martin; Schelling's treatise on the nature of human freedom . Second, revised edition, Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1971.
  • Höffe, O. and Pieper, A. (Eds.); About the nature of human freedom . Explaining Classics (Vol. 3), Berlin, Akademie, 1995.

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ The page numbers refer to: FWJ von Schelling's entire works, Stuttgart and Augsburg 1860, VII
  2. ↑ See Schelling, FWJ; About the nature of human freedom . Hamburg, Meiner, 2001, pp. 29–33.
  3. ↑ Schelling, FWJ; About the nature of human freedom . Hamburg, Meiner, 2001, p. 32.
  4. ↑ See Schelling, FWJ; About the nature of human freedom . Hamburg, Meiner, 2001, p. 46.
  5. ↑ Schelling, FWJ; About the nature of human freedom . Hamburg, Meiner, 2001, p. 76.