Schelling's Conception of Positive Philosophy

Author(s): Emil L. Fackenheim

Source: The Review of Metaphysics , Jun., 1954, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Jun., 1954), pp. 563-582
Published by: Philosophy Education Society Inc.

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 SCHELLING'S CONCEPTION OF
POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY
EMIL L. FACKENHEIM

Preface

When Schelling died a hundred years ago (August 20, 1854),

his contemporaries' opinion of him might be summarized as fol
lows. A precocious thinker, Schelling made a great contribution
to philosophy around the year 1800, when he was still in his
twenties. But he lacked system and thoroughness, and his con
tribution was soon assimilated and superseded by the system of
Hegel. Moreover, he lacked stability. While Hegel spent his
whole life working out his system, Schelling changed his stand
point so often as to drive his interpreters to despair. Finally, at
least from 1804 on (when Schelling was not yet thirty) these
changes were for the worse, for he moved more and more toward
mysticism and obscurantism.
This appraisal became conventional opinion, and has remain
ed conventional opinion until this day. In practically any history
of philosophy which bothers with Schelling at all one can find
this threefold condemnation of his work: that it consists of a
number of more or less disconnected systems; that none of these
is properly worked out; and that from 1804 on, they get worse
and worse. As a result of this opinion, few historians have been
interested in Schelling. When in 1944 air raids destroyed the
Munich University Library, among the treasures destroyed were
thousands of Schelling manuscript pages, mostly written in his
later years. It seems that in nearly one hundred years nobody
was sufficiently interested in these manuscripts to do anything
with them.
But during the last few decades interest in Schelling has
revived, at least in Germany and France. This new interest re
flects the beginnings of a revision of judgment; indeed, a drastic
revision. This is illustrated by the fact that this new interest
centers on Schelling's last phase, the phase hitherto most neglect

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564 EMIL L FACKENHEIM

ed. It is a pity that this revival came too late to make possible
the publication of more than a fraction of the manuscripts, before
their destruction.1
As a result of the new investigations, it has already become
clear that the conventional opinion of Schelling is grossly unjust.
That opinion is based on the judgment of the contemporaries or
near-contemporaries. And these were subject to prejudices which
made an adequate understanding of Schelling difficult, if not
impossible. Schelling's critics were theologians, positivists and
Hegelians. If they were theologians, they looked to Schelling for
an apologetic which they did not get, nor were meant to get. If
they were positivists, they had even less sympathy with Schelling
than they had with Hegel. And if they were Hegelians (as most
of them were), they saw the most important criterion of judgment
in systematic completeness, the very point in which Schelling was
weakest; further, they were bound to regard his development
after 1804 as an aberration or an outright betrayal.
To be sure, the conventional opinion is not entirely mistaken.
Schelling does lack system and thoroughness; and his conse
quent tendency to mix the ill-considered, or even the absurd, with
the profound confounds the present student as it did the past. But
Hegelian prejudices have led to an exaggeration of this vice.
Schelling may be weak in execution, but he is strong indeed in
programmatic statement. Moreover, the latter strength accounts
at least in part for the former weakness. Schelling was able to
penetrate with extraordinary swiftness to first principles and ul
timate implications. No sooner had he conceived a system than he
perceived implications which made it problematic. While others
would plod along, working out the details of a system Schelling
had outlined, he himself already found it necessary to go beyond
it. Thus time and again he faced philosophical crises. If Schel
ling never worked out any of his systems, this is in part because
his systematic tendency was forever at war with his aporematic.
But theologians, positivists and Hegelians had this in common:
if they were prepared to admit philosophical crises at all, they
regarded them as resolved, once and for all.

1 See Manfred Schr?ter's edition of the 1811 and 1813 versions of the
Weltalter (Munich, 1946).

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SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 565

Because of their blindness to the aporematic element in

Schelling's thought, the critics arrived at the opinion that his
various systems were more or less disconnected. But this is in
fact far from the case. The new system tends to spring from the
problems created by the old. Indeed, it is doubtful whether there
is any discontinuity in Schelling's development at all.2 The
modern student who fails to perceive a connection does well to
suspect that the fault lies, not with Schelling, but with himself.
Because of their prejudices, the critics have been particularly
unjust to the philosophy of Schelling's old age. Schelling here
made the most radical shift of his entire career. He repudiated
absolute idealism, and turned to what can only be called a post
idealistic metaphysics. Absolute idealism now became a mere
"negative philosophy," i.e., a mere preface (though a necessary
preface) to metaphysics proper, or a "positive philosophy," which
did not as yet exist. But Schelling's critics were either hostile to
all metaphysics, or else hostile to all but Hegelian metaphysics.
Hence they were unable or uinvilling to take the program of the
positive philosophy seriously. As a result of their prejudices,
Schelling's four volume Philosophie der Mythologie und Offen
barung is still little known, and less understood.3
But the climate of philosophical opinion has changed, and in

2 For an attempt to understand one aspect of Schelling's thought as

a continuous development, see E. L. Fackenheim, "Schelling's Philosophy
of Religion," University of Toronto Quarterly, XXII, pp. 1-17.
3 We must stress, towever, that the Schelling-revival has already pro
duced a number of substantial studies. See e.g.: Paul Tillich, Mystik und
Schuldbewiisstsein in Schelling s philosophischer Entwicklung (G?tersloh,
1912); G. J. Dekker, Die R?ckwendung zum Mythos: Schellings letzte
Wandlung (Munich and Berlin, 1930) ; H. Schelsky, "Schellings Philosophie
des Willens und der Existenz," Christliche Metaphysik und das Schicksal
des modernen Beivusstseins (Leipzig, 1937), pp. 47-108. The most sub
stantial work on Schelling's last phase is H. Fuhrmans, Schelling's letzte
Philosophic Die negative und positive Philosophie im Einsatz des Sp?t
idealismus (Berlin, 1945). For Schelling bibliographies available in
English see Schelling: On Human Freedom, tr. with introduction and
notes by J. Gutmann (Chicago, 1936), and The Ages of the World, tr. with
introduction and notes by F. de Wolfe Bolman (New York, 1942). These
two works belong to earlier phases in Schelling's development, but they
contribute to making the last intelligible. Of the Philosophie der Mytho
logie und Offenbarung, no part has as yet been translated into English.

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 566 EMIL L. FACKENHEIM

such a way as to explain the newr interest in the philosophy of

Schelling's old age. At least one school of contemporary thought
can approach that philosophy with sympathy, if not enthusiasm.
This is existentialism. Existentialist thought, whatever else it is,
is post-idealist, not simply non-idealist or anti-idealist. One
might almost say that existentialism is misunderstood to the degree
to which this fact is ignored. It is no accident that existentialists
tend to see the decisive event for modern metaphysics in the col
lapse of Hegelianism in the middle of the nineteenth century ;4
and it is a most suggestive fact that practically every existentialist
seems to have to struggle with Hegel.5 This would appear to
indicate an agreement that one can neither return to a pre-idealist
metaphysics, nor remain with idealism. But this is precisely the
conviction which gives rise to Schelling's positive philosophy.
This serves to explain, not only why contemporary philos
ophers do, but also why they should, take Schelling seriously.
Schelling is not only the first in a long line of post-idealistic meta
physicians, but he also possesses unique qualifications. For hav
ing himself been the founder of absolute idealism, he is the critic
who can be trusted most to have understood what he is criticizing.
This fact alone should make us suspect that the Philosophie der
Mythologie und Offenbarung is of first-rate importance not only
for historical scholarship but also for contemporary philosophy;
or at least for such consciously post-idealistic philosophies as
existentialism. On the centenary of Schelling's death, it is fitting
to draw attention to this work, which has been ignored for so
long, but does not deserve to be forgotten.

4 For an excellent account of this collapse, see K. L?with, Von Hegel

bis Nietzsche (Zurich-New York, 1941).
5 In the case of Kierkegaard, this fact is too well known to require
documentation. Heidegger appears to have struggled with Hegel early in
his career (see L?with, op. cit., p. 159), and he has more recently written
on him (see "Hegels Begriff der Erfahrung," Holzwege, Frankfurt a/M,
1950, pp. 105-92). F. Rosenzweig's Stern der Erl?sung (Frankfurt a/M,
1921) is a running fight against Hegel, and it was written after his Hegel
und der Staat (Munich and Berlin, 1920). Tillich 's thought is clearly
related to his early Schelling-studies (see, in addition to his above-quoted
work, Die religionsgeschichtliche Konstruktion in Schellings positiver
Philosophie . . . , Breslau, 1910), and thus indirectly to Hegel. It would
be easy to give further examples.

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SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 567

1. Introduction

In 1841 the aged Schelling emerged from decades of semi

retirement and literary silence. He came to Berlin, the stronghold
of Hegelianism, in order to present his "positive" philosophy.*
Everybody knew beforehand that this was a theistic metaphysics
of freedom and existence, and thus not only an attack on Hegel
but also a repudiation of Schelling's own former system, the sys
tem of identity. In his first lecture, however, Schelling defined
the sense in which he repudiated idealistic dialectic: it was an
indispensable part of philosophy, but only a part. The basic
error of absolute idealism consisted in making the dialectic
absolute.7
Schelling's lectures were not a success. The reaction of the
Hegelians was epitomized by Eduard Gans, who remarked that the
Hegelian system could be refuted only by a better system.8 Per
haps the system had left something unabsorbed; but to recognize
the unabsorbed as such was to begin to absorb it. The Hegelians
failed to appreciate that Schelling's criticism of the system was
radical. He pointed to freedom and existence as facts which no
possible dialectical system could absorb; the step from rational
system to existence was a melabasis eis alio genos.
No less significant is the reaction of that great enemy of the
Hegelian system, Kierkegaard. He had come to Berlin especially
in order to hear Schelling. At first he showed enthusiastic
approval.9 But his enthusiasm soon waned. "Schelling drivels

6 According to Schelling's own testimony, the "positive philosophy"

was completed as early as 1831; see II 4.231. All quotations refer to the
complete edition of Schelling's works, published under the editorship of
Schelling's son (Stuttgart and Augsburg, 1856-61).
7 II 4.366.
8 Gans* comment was made as early as 1833, and based on hearsay,
cf. Hegel, Werke (ed. Gans et al, 2nd ed., Berlin, 1845 ff.), vol. VIII,
pp. xii-xiv. Schelling took Gans' remark very seriously, and regarded it
as typical enough to comment on it in his inaugural lecture (II 4.364).
9 He wrote as follows: "I am so pleased to have heard Schelling's
second lecture?indescribably. I have sighed for long enough and my
thoughts have sighed within me; when he mentioned the word 'reality'
in connection with the relation of philosophy to reality the fruit of my
thought leapt for joy within me as in Elizabeth. I remember almost every
word he said from that moment on. Here perhaps is the dawning of

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568 EMIL L FACKENHEIM

quite intolerably," he wrote. "His whole doctrine of potency

betrays the greatest impotence."10
These two reactions illustrate the problem discussed in this
paper. Hegel confronted his age with a choice: an all-inclusive
dialectical system, or the salvation of the particular brought about
by the surrender of all system. The system was everything or
nothing. Schelling's positive philosophy is an attempt to escape
this dilemma. It by no means surrenders the notion of dialectical
system, but seeks to combine a dialectic of essence and necessity
with an undialectical doctrine of existence and freedom. Because
of the latter, it displeased the Hegelians; because of the former,
it displeased such opponents of the system as Kierkegaard. In
their displeasure, neither party subjected Schelling's conception
to the impartial examination which it deserved.

2. The Nature and Limits of the "Negative" Philosophy

Dialectic breaks through the apparent externality of things

and reaches an inner bond which unites them. Its progression is
an "immanent necessity,"11 its discovery, an "inner organism of
successive potencies." 12 By means of this method, the young
Schelling had arrived at his metaphysics of absolute identity. In
1801 he had written: "The absolute identity is not the cause of
the universe, but the universe itself." 1S
The positive philosophy rejects the system of identity but
not the method of dialectic. Yet the meaning of dialectic is funda
mentally altered. Dialectic does indeed move in an "immanent

truth .... Now I have put all my hopes in Schelling . . . ." (Journals,
ed. and tr. by A. Dm, London-New York-Toronto, 1938, p. 102).
10 Ibid., p. 104.
11 II 3.128.
12 II 3.76.
13 I 4.129. Nicolai Hartmann rightly comments: "Von allen anderen
Formen des philosophischen Monismus unterscheidet sich der Schellingsche
dadurch, dass hier nicht nur 'im letzten Grunde' alles eins ist, sondern
gerade auch im konkreten Einzelsein" (Die Philosophie des deutschen
Idealismus, Berlin, 1923, I, p. 160). Schelling wrote in the same work:
"The basic error in all philosophy is the presupposition that the absolute
Identity has actually externalized itself" (I 4.119). Now the positive philos
ophy turns to this very "error"!

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 SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 569

necessity"; but it does so on the basis of a prior abstraction from

what is outside this necessity. For the structures of thought and
reality are not identical. Dialectic constructs a priori a system of
essence, but it can do so only by abstracting from existence. Thus
it moves necessarily toward God; but this is a non-existent God,
a mere idea. God exists necessarily if He exists. Whether He
exists is a question outside the reach of dialectic.14
With this fundamental limitation, the first question arises
for the new philosophy. In almost literal anticipation of Heideg
ger,15 Schelling asks: "why does anything exist at all? why is
there not rather nothing?" 16 The dialectic constructs a priori
what can be; it knows nothing of existence.
Schelling does not ask: does anything exist? The existence
of the world is an empirical fact, and the dialectic is object
related from the start: it understands characteristics of the real
world. The problem is that dialectic cannot understand the mean
ing of existence; and this means for Schelling that dialectic cannot
absorb existence into a system. Dialectic is fragmentary knowl
edge 1T and must turn to experience for the knowledge of fact.
It might appear, then, that the dialectic constructs a priori
the nature of the actual world. If so, the positive philosophy
would have to answer only a single question : why does this world
?which is the only possible world?exist? But this would be to
misunderstand Schelling's conception and to reduce it to non
sense. If existence resists dialectical absorption, so does individu
ality. Reality is not in fact the internal unity which it is in ideal
construction. The facts not only appear to, but really do, fall
outside each other; and their irrational infinity is as inaccessible
to dialectic as the fact of existence itself. Experience encounters,
as a brute fact, externality; and along with externality meaning

14 Schelling argues this point on many occasions, perhaps most clearly

in his critique of Descartes (I 10.15 ff.).
15 Was ist Metaphysik? (Frankfurt a/M, 1949), p. 38.
16 II 3.7, also II 3.242.
17 Dialectic is capable of "no actual cognition"; it is dependent on
something beyond itself (II 3.152 ff.). Since this "beyond" is, at all levels
save the last, experience, the negative philosophy may be called "a priori
empiricism." For it concerns itself with the a priori aspects of a knowl
edge which is otherwise empirical (II 3.130). Cf. infra, note 43.

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570 EMIL L FACKENHEIM

lessness and evil. Thus the second question arises for the new
philosophy: why is what exists in discrepancy with what it ideally
ought to be? Why is the world "questionable"?18
The questions posed by the positive philosophy may well
appear non-sensical. How can one ask for the meaning of the
meaningless? The meaningless is either ultimately not meaning
less, or else it is a brute fact. Schelling emphatically rejects the
former alternative: is he, then, not driven toward a simple accept
ance of the facts, surrendering the quest for their meaning as
itself meaningless? But this would be to ignore the negative
achievement of the dialectic. All empirical fact, while indissoluble
into dialectic, is yet subject to all-pervasive dialectical qualifica
tions. Dialectic isolates this character of the facts and thus shows
them to be in need of explanation. Because of its abstracting
from their factuality, dialectic at the same time reveals itself as
incapable of the explanation required. Dialectic is thus "negative
philosophy," in a double sense. It negates absolute idealism as
being a false philosophy, and empiricism " as being no philosophy
at all.
Internal unity and externality, the a priori meaningful and
the a priori meaningless, are both real characters of the real world;
their togetherness in the same world is the problem requiring a
solution. This is the situation which gives rise to the positive
philosophy.

18 The positive philosophy raises further, derivative, questions. In

answering these derivative questions, it becomes philosophy of history and
speculative theology. But since we are here merely concerned with Schel
ling's concept of a positive philosophy we may ignore the derivative
questions which determine parts, and concentrate on the primary questions
which determine the principles of the positive philosophy. For although
Schelling never succeeded in working out any except the historical and
theological parts of the positive philosophy, he firmly maintained that that
philosophy was one whole, of which history and theology were merely
parts. And he rejected sharply any suggestion that the positive philosophy
was not metaphysics at all, but dogmatic theology or even apologetics
(cf. II 3.174).
19 Schelling has occasional words of praise for empiricism, but only
insofar as it is a "mere, and partly blind, protestation . . . against a one
sided rationalism" (I 10.216).

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SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 571

3. The Crisis of the "Negative" Philosophy and the "Leap"

The questions of the positive philosophy are not nonsensical,

but can they be answered? Qua dialectically qualified, the facts
demand an absolute in terms of which they may be explained ;
but qua facts, they can be explained by no mere idea. The first
principle of the positive philosophy cannot be an absolute Idea,
but only an absolute Fact. But such a fact is beyond all possible
human knowledge. For wherever knowledge grasps fact, it is
fact dialectically qualified; and wherever it grasps an Absolute, it
is mere idea.
Here the negative philosophy carries out its third and most
important negation. It has negated relative fact, as being
relative; it has negated absolute Idea, as being mere idea. It
now discovers that it cannot think of the Absolute other than as
idea, and that it can negate it as such only by negating itself as
well. The negative philosophy therefore brings about a radical
"crisis of reason"30 and sets the stage for a radical leap.31
"The last aim of rational philosophy," says Schelling, "is
to reach God as separate from all relative being."32 This aim it
reaches in one sense, but fails to reach in another. Examples are
Aristotle's actus purus, or the "necessarily existent" of the scho

20 Cf., e.g., II 1.565. In this passage Schelling states clearly that

there are two elements in this crisis, one theoretical and one that he calls
"practical," cf. infra, note 28.
21 Schelling does not actually use the term "leap" in this connection,
although it had made its appearance in his writings as early as 1804 (I 6.38).
Cf. also in this connection Schelling's assertion that there is a "wide, nasty
moat" (ein garstiger, breiter Graben) between Hegel's Logic and his
Philosophy of Nature (I 10.154; I 10.213). It is most probable that Schel
ling writes with Lessing in mind. Lessing uses exactly the same expression
when considering the relation between "necessary truths of reason" and
"contingent truths of history" (Werke, ed. Bornmueller, Leipzig and
Vienna, n.d., V, 494-5). And Schelling had earlier used this expression
with explicit reference to Lessing (I 5.250). Kierkegaard, too, comments
on the Lessing passage, quoting Lessing's words: "Das, das ist der garstige
breite Graben, ?ber den ich nicht kommen kann, so oft und ernstlich ich
auch den Sprung versucht habe" (Concluding Unscientific Postscript, tr.
Swenson and Lowrie, Princeton, 1941, p. 90, my italics).
22 See II 1.413. That this is the aim is evident throughout the entire
negative philosophy. The aim is reached when finally the "self declares
itself as not-principle and subordinates itself to God" (II 1.560).

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572 EMIL L FACKENHEIM

lastics. Rational philosophy here has, in its independence, the

principle on which everything depends; but it has it as a mere
idea. And this means that the end of rational philosophy, far
from being the end of all philosophy, involves a paradox requir
ing a wholly new point of departure. Rational philosophy is
driven to the idea of an absolute Individual who necessarily exists;
but this idea, qua idea, is universal and non-existent. The form
and the content of this idea are in necessary contradiction. In
its highest idea reason necessarily points beyond itself; but,
equally necessarily, it fails to achieve this beyond. Schelling
refers to this pointing-beyond when he says that reason, in its
crisis, becomes "ec-static." 23
Rational philosophy here reaches an unavoidable impasse.
From the start, it necessarily abstracts from existence; but what
it must mean in its last term is the pure Existent beyond all essence.
But it cannot attain what it means.
This deadlock can be broken only if it is remembered that
rational philosophy, as a whole, is merely the abstract expression
of a concrete spiritual condition; it has an existential setting. The
idea of God is not only the last concept of reason; it is also the
highest expression of a spiritual attitude, viz., philosophical con
templation. In contemplation the philosophizing person seeks to
sub?ate in an Absolute, not just existence in general, but his own
personal existence. Contemplation is an attempt at self-surrender
and self-oblivion. But just as a mere idea will not absorb any
existence, so it will not absorb my own. The logical paradox here
turns into a personal paradox which the philosopher lives and
suffers. "The self might be satisfied with the purely ideal God,
if he could remain in this state of contemplation. But this is
impossible. The surrender of action cannot be carried out.
Action is inevitable . . . the former despair returns." 2*
Thus for objective philosophical reasons, subjective personal
interest enters. "The last idea of reason . . . has this peculiar
ity, that the philosophizing subject cannot be indifferent to its
existence or non-existence. Here the watch-word is: Tua res

23 II 3.163.
24 II 1.560.

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SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 573

agitur."25 The pure Existent is inaccessible to rational detach

ment because it abstracts from the existence of the thinker.
The finite spirit is in search of the existing God.26 But in
his life he asserts himself and thus has only finite existence; and in
his contemplation he has God, but merely in idea. Existence and
idea cannot be synthesized in thought. But they can be synthesiz
ed in will. From the lonely despair brought about by the search
for God, a search at once rational and existential, arises the will,
not to posit Him?for any such God would again be idea only?
but to accept Him, as prior to all thought and experience. Deci
sion is the radical leap from the last idea of the negative to the
first principle of the positive philosophy.27
This leap is indeed radical and outside all reason. But it is
not arbitrary. The predicament from which it arises is the human
condition itself, in which rationality itself is rooted.28 Thus the

25 II 3.171.
26 See, e.g., this remarkable passage: "Only now does the individual
recognize the abyss between God and himself .... Hence he now yearns
for God Himself. Him, Him he wants, the God who acts . . . , who, as a
factual God, can alone deal with the factual fall, in short, the God who
is the Lord of all Being" (II 1.566).
27 Schelling makes it perfectly clear that the issue is not rationalism
vs. irrationalism. The issue is between a philosophy asserting a gap
between man and God, and the system of identity, whether in the ration
alist version of Hegel or the irrationalist of Schleiermacher. Thus Schelling
does not exalt feeling at the expense of reason; for it is open to the same
(and worse) objections. Irrationalist idealism implies the deification of
feeling rather than reason; and an irrationalism which abandons the
doctrine of identity leads to the view that "God is only the creature of our
feeling . . . , each religious idea has merely psychological significance"
(II 3.154). Because there is a gap between man and God, a leap is
required to bridge it; and this Schelling finds in will and decision. "A
free action is not a gradual transition, but absolute beginning, pure
positing . . . , decision and deed" (II 3.114). It is significant to note in
this connection that Schelling does not equate faith with religious feeling,
but asserts that it involves an act of will (I 10.183); and we may observe
in passing that contemporary existentialist theologians tend to speak of the
"decision of faith," whereas idealists are apt to speak of "religious expe
rience." It would seem that the issue between these two schools is not
dissimilar to the issue between Schelling and the philosophy of identity.
28 More precisely, Schelling means the condition of man, not qua
man, but qua individual or existing man. See II 1.569: "We have seen
that the self's need to possess God as external to his reason (as other than
mere thinking or idea) is practical. But this is not an arbitrary will; it

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574 EMIL L FACKENHEIM

individual philosopher has the choice only between taking this

leap, or remaining within the sphere of the negative philosophy.
"The positive philosophy is genuinely free philosophy: the per
son who does not will it may leave it alone."29

4. The Conception and Method of the Positive Philosophy

The principle accepted by the leap is by no means an existing

God. This would be sheer dogmatism. The leap achieves only
what is strictly beyond thought and experience, and yet necessary
in order to explain them. The metaphysical principle is individual
beyond all universality, existent beyond all essence, and precisely
for that reason beyond all thought. The leap from reason into
existence has to abandon also God, the highest idea of reason;
we are left with an absolute Existent who (or rather which) is
unknowable and unthinkable. Schelling calls this existent "Un
vordenkliches Sein," i.e., that being which is forever prior to
thought, and which thought cannot encompass. For purposes
of convenience, we shall refer to it by using the English term
"absolute Existent."
The absolute Existent is the principle by which the real world
is to be explained. It must therefore be related to the world. But
this cannot be a necessary relation; for in that case dialectic would
encompass the absolute Existent. The absolute Existent, as the
Individual beyond all universality, must be outside all dialectic.
The relationship can therefore be only one of free will. Free will is
Schelling's fundamental existential category. Reason may explain
essence; only will can explain existence. "Wherever will enters
we deal with actual existence."30 Free will, for Schelling,
transcends all necessity; it is absolute freedom of choice. All free
will is therefore a mystery until it acts.31 The absolute Will

is a will of spirit which, by an inner necessity, and because of its yearning

for liberation, cannot remain satisfied with the mere God-idea. This
demand for the existing God cannot arise from theory. But neither can
it be a postulate of practical reason. Not, as Rant wants it, this latter, but
only the individual as such leads to God. For not the universal in man,
but only the individual desires beatitude."
29 II 3.132.
30 II 1.579.
31 II 4.11.

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 SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 575

is subject to no pre-existing necessity, whether it be a realm of

pre-existing possibilities outside itself or its own essence. Indeed,
the absolute Existent has no essence; or rather, if it has an essence,
it has itself created it. If the absolute Existent is God, He Himself
has made Himself God. The Thomists make much of the myste
rious passage in Exodus which they translate: "I am who I am."32
Schelling translates: "I shall be who I shall be"33?a translation
which, incidentally, would appear to be more faithful to the
Hebrew text.
It might appear that to attribute will to the absolute Existent
is inconsistent with its supposed unknowability. This, however,
is not the case. We know that the first principle has will because
it has actually willed the world. Here lies the core of Schelling's
"metaphysical empiricism."34
But an unpredictable absolute Will, by itself, is wholly insuf
ficient for the purposes of the positive philosophy. That Will, as
far as the evidence of the facts shows, reveals itself, now as a God,
now as a devil, now simply as an omnipotent jester, explaining no
more than that nothing can be explained. The positive philosophy
has made existence, rather than reason, primary. If it is to move
a single step from its first principle, it must now derive reason
and universality from the absolute Existent which is beyond
both.35
Moreover, unless this can be done, the first principle itself
collapses. The negative philosophy has led up to an absolute Exist
ent by dialectically relativizing all empirical existents; the validity
of this procedure depended entirely on the assumption that these
dialectical relations have an ontological status; but this assump
tion the negative philosophy itself could not justify. Unless the
positive philosophy can ground dialectical necessity in the absolute
Existent which is itself beyond it, the entire negative philosophy

32 Exodus 3.14.
33 II 1.171, II 3.269 ff. See also, and especially, the searching dis
cussion in the Ages of the World, I 8.263 ff., Bolman, op. cit., 151 ff.
34 E.g., II 3.113 ff., 129 ff., and numerous other passages. See infra,
note 43.
35 E.g., II 1.565: "With the pure That . . . one can do nothing. In
order that there should be science, the Universal, the What, must enter,
but now as consequent, not antecedent to the That."

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 576 EMIL L FACKENHEIM

collapses, and we are left, not with an absolute Existent, but with
as many existents as there are empirical facts: we have landed,
not in the positive philosophy, but in empiricism. The negative
philosophy, it now becomes clear, has founded the positive philos
ophy only hypothetically; the positive philosophy must now
directly found the negative philosophy, and indirectly, itself.
We might summarize the situation as follows: if an absolute
Reason can explain only rationality, but not existence, and if
therefore existence, not reason, must be metaphysically ultimate,
then this absolute Existence must be the ground, not only of
other existence, but of rationality as well. Schelling must there
fore ask: "why is there reason? why not unreason?" 36 This is
the crucial problem of the positive philosophy; it is, as we shall
see, the problem on which it founders.
Schelling proceeds as follows. The absolute Existent and its
free Will are a priori unknowable. But we can consider a priori
what free will as such involves. Dialectic may examine the cate
gory of free will, or rather, the category of the absolutely free will.
What does such an examination exhibit? Free will is freedom to
will or not to will. This involves a distinction between two ele
ments, potential will and actual will. And since neither potential
nor actual will is, by itself, free to will and not to will, still a
third element is involved. This is the synthesis of potency and
act, and this alone is free to will and not to will. These three
potencies Schelling calls "that which can be" (das Seink?nnende),
"that which must be" (das Seinm?ssende), and "that which is to
be" (das Seinsollende). They are the fundamental categories of
the entire positive philosophy.
It must be clearly realized that Schelling does not move from
the absolute individual Will to the dialectical category of will;
such a move would clearly be impossible. He moves from the
category, which is as such an abstract universal, and then seeks
to ground it in the absolute Existent.37 For purposes of con

36 I 10.252; II 3.247 ff.

37 Negative philosophy concerns itself, not with what exists, but with
what can exist. At its culminating point (which is at the same time its
crisis) it asks how the Ultimate can exist. And it becomes ecstatic in
answering this question because the Ultimate must be pure Existence beyond

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 SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 577

venience, we shall term the dialectical unity of the three potencies

the "absolute Essence." Since the universal does not, as such,
exist, the absolute Essence can only be adjective to the absolute
Existent. Moreover, it cannot be an adjective constitutive of the
absolute Existent; for (as we have seen) the latter cannot enter
into the dialectic. Thus the absolute Existent must freely assume
its Essence. The absolute Essence, which is the ground of all
rationality, is thus in turn grounded, as a primordial accident, in
the absolute Existent which is beyond all rationality. Schelling
expresses this as follows: " Absolute Spirit is free in relation to
itself; to-be-Spirit is for it only a mode of being." 38 "Reason is
not the cause of Spirit, but only because [the perfect Spirit] . . .
exists is there reason. W7ith this conclusion all philosophical
rationalism is destroyed in its foundations." 39
The positive philosophy has now laid its foundations. It will
explain both essence and existence, necessity and freedom, mean
ing and meaninglessness. It will be able to do so because, on the
one hand, the absolute Essence is the ground of all dialectical
necessity, and because, on the other, this essence is itself existen
tially grounded in an act of Will which is not only free itself, but
which also imparts to the Essence it grounds, at crucial junctures,
radically indeterminate situations.
We shall illustrate the method of the positive philosophy by
considering two of these junctures, the creation and the fall.
Creation is the realization of the absolute Essence. By an act
of will, the absolute Existent spreads Itself out into the unity of
potencies; or, which is the same thing, It makes Itself absolute
Spirit. This doctrine differs from pantheism in one crucial re
spect. The absolute Existent is linked to the creation, not by
necessity, but by an act of free will. It does not require it for its
own self-realization. Creation is not an a priori necessity but an
a posteriori fact.

all possibility. The positive philosophy is the inversion of the negative;

for here pure Existence is primary, possibility secondary (II 3.155 ff.).
For the problems implicit in the transition from Existence to possibility,
see further II 1.565.
38 II 3.256.
80 II 3.248.

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578 EMIL L FACKENHEIM

The creation strictly corresponds to the ideal construction of

the negative philosophy, with this difference. It is the product
of a real will, and therefore a unity of existing forces, not of
abstract ideas.40
With the doctrine of creation, the positive philosophy has
answered two of its three questions. "Why does anything exist?
why is there not rather nothing?" This question cannot be
answered in terms of relative fact or absolute Idea. Something
exists because an absolute Existent has willed it.
The second question is: "why is there reason? why not un
reason?" No rational philosophy could raise, let alone answer
this question, since it presupposes what is in question. The
positive philosophy answers: there is reason because the absolute
Existent has manifested Itself, in the creation, as absolute Spirit.
But has the positive philosophy really answered this question?
The creation is by no means an empirical fact; it is an ideal con
struction. To validate this construction, the positive philosophy
must presuppose precisely that absolute rationalism which the
doctrine itself puts in question. As we shall see, on this inescap
able contradiction the positive philosophy suffers shipwreck.
Schelling's real meaning here is: the absolute Existent is
free whether to create but not what to create. Hence we cannot
know a priori whether anything will be; but we can know a priori
what will be if anything is.41
Only now is the third question meaningful: "why is what
exists in discrepancy with what it ideally ought to be?" Or, as
we may now put it: how are externality, meaninglessness and
evil possible in a creation which, as such, has none of these? It
is this question which had led Schelling, many years earlier, to
abandon the system of identity.42
We are here faced with a radically new fact. And, as in the
case of all new fact, only a new act of will can explain it. Where,
in the unity of the three potencies which is the creation, is freedom
possible? Of the three potencies, we recall, only the third is free

40 II 3.244 ff.
41 This is Schelling's explicit teaching in his earlier Ages of the World.
I 8.310, Bolman, op. cit., p. 200.
42 Cf. Fackenheim, op. cit., pp. 5 ff.

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SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 579

to will or not to will. This third potency is man, the original

man, or man-in-God. His primordial freedom consists in the
bare choice between willing and not-willing. For any particular
decision presupposes the decision to will at all. The primordial
choice of man is between total surrender to the absolute Existent
and total self-assertion.
Since the decision is free, no dialectic can encompass it. But
dialectic can work out the consequences attendant upon either
choice. The decision not to will would leave the creation wholly
unchanged. The decision to will would bring about a radical
change. In asserting himself, original man would tear himself
loose from the absolute Existent; and, since the other two
potencies are synthesized only in him, he would cause, by his
own fall, the fall of the entire creation. The fall would bring
about universal externality, which is the cause of meaninglessness
and evil. Has man in fact fallen? Here the positive philosophy
stops constructing and points to the facts.
We have indicated enough of the positive philosophy in order
to be able to formulate its conception and method. Negative
philosophy is not metaphysics, but the search for the metaphysical
principle. Its method is purely dialectical; it reveals the facts as
in need of explanation, and progressively eliminates what cannot
serve as principle of explanation. Its search for the principle
is limited in two respects: (i) because it abstracts from existence
it cannot itself issue into the first principle; it merely leads to
a point at which a radical but unmistakable leap can be made;
(ii) because its strictly necessary movement is not an ontological
movement, it has, as a whole, a merely hypothetical status. It
requires validation by the positive philosophy.
Positive philosophy is metaphysics proper. Its principle is
an absolute Existent which, qua absolute, is beyond experience,
and qua existent, beyond thought. It enters into both by an
expression of free will. Its first creation is the dialectical unity
of the potencies. This creation, on the one hand, validates the
negative philosophy, and, on the other, makes construction with
in the positive philosophy possible. The positive philosophy
explains the actual world. Explanation here involves three terms:
(i) the absolute Existent, (ii) the dialectical unity of potencies,

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580 EMIL L. FACKENHEIM

(iii) the world of empirical fact. All three terms are required.
Only the first term can explain why anything exists. Only the
first and second in conjunction can explain the rationality found
in the world. And only all three terms in conjunction can explain
the togetherness of rationality and irrationality which makes up
the actual world. The method of the positive philosophy may
be termed "progressive" or "metaphysical empiricism." 43 It starts
out, a priori, with the absolute Existent; proceeds, still a priori,
to consider the alternative possibilities implicit in the dialectical
unity of potencies; but discovers only a posteriori which of these
alternatives has become fact. The positive philosophy is thus very
far from indiscriminately collecting empirical evidence. It selects
for consideration only those facts which, according to its a priori
principles, can be explained only by a novel cosmic act of will.

5. Concluding Evaluation

It would appear that Schelling was gravely concerned about

the problem which in fact is fatal to the entire positive philosophy.
For in one of his last lectures he singles it out for treatment. But
here, as elsewhere, he failed to solve it.
The problem is indicated by the title of the lecture: "On
the Source of the External Verities." 44 Rational truths must have
an inherent necessity; but what metaphysics will justify this
necessity? After dismissing pre-idealistic metaphysics as inad
equate on dialectical grounds, the lecture comes to grips with the
crucial alternative: the system of absolute reason, and the positive
philosophy. An absolute Reason justifies rationality, but it ex

43 See supra note 34. Cf. the following summary: "Not the absolute
Prius itself is to be proved; (this is beyond all proof, the absolute Begin
ning which is in itself certain).... But we must prove, as a fact, what
derives from it, and thus the Godhood of that Prius. We must prove that
it is God and that God exists" (II 3.129). See also this summary of the
characteristics of negative and positive philosophy: "Negative philosophy
is a priori empiricism, i.e., the a priori of empiricism, and for that reason
itself not empiricism .... Positive philosophy is empirical apriorism,
i.e., the empiricism of the a priori, inasmuch as it reveals the Prius, via
the Posterius, as God" (II 3.130).
44 II 1.573-590. The problem is also raised elsewhere; cf., e.g., II
1.331.

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SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY 581

plains nothing else; it cannot explain (i) the existence and

irrationality of the actual world, (ii) its own existential ground.
For "the universal essence exists only if there is an absolute Indi
vidual." 45 The first principle, therefore, cannot be a universal
Reason; it must be an individual Existent. But if this is so, how
are we to justify the necessity indispensable to rationality? Reason
cannot flow necessarily from the essence of the absolute Existent,
for the latter has no essence. Nor can it be the product of an
arbitrary will, for this would make rationality itself an accident,
and destroy the a priori. Schelling ends up by asserting that
reason is a "necessary accident" of the absolute Existent.46
But this is surely a mere admission of failure. For if the
absolute Essence is in any sense necessary to the absolute Existent,
this necessity encompasses the absolute Existent and we have
returned to the system of reason; but if the absolute Existent is
really beyond reason, the absolute Essence is not a necessary acci
dent, but accident pure and simple. In the terms used earlier
in this paper: the transition from the individual Will which is the
Absolute to the universal category of free will cannot be made.
Schelling himself appears to admit this when he remarks: "Here
is the last limit which cannot be transcended." 47
But this admission is fatal to the whole conception of
the positive philosophy. For with it vanishes the right to all
a priori metaphysical construction. The Absolute might express
its will in an indefinite number of ways, rationality being
but one of them. Moreover, the absolute Existent itself, as a
principle of a cosmic system, becomes indefensible. For the neg
ative philosophy is deprived of its ontological foundation. Dialec
tic becomes either a mere play of the human mind, justifying no
sort of leap, and landing us in empiricism; or else it is merely the
dialectic, not of reason-in-reality, but of man-in-his-environment.
From such a situation a leap may indeed have to be made; it may
even have a certain metaphysical significance; but it will be an
entirely different significance, and what is achieved by it cannot
be the principle of a cosmic system. To illustrate what may be

45 II 1.586.
46 II 1.589; cf. also II 1.314, 331.
47 II 1.587.

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582 EMIL L. FACKENHEIM

achieved by it we may point to contemporary existentialism, and

perhaps even to certain types of pragmatism.
Schelling's positive philosophy illustrates this profound prob
lem: if the dialectical principle is true that there can be only one
Absolute, but if at the same time this Absolute cannot be reason
itself, how is reason to be grounded? Rationality must be justified
in some way; without such a justification speculative metaphysics,
at least, is impossible. Schelling's positive philosophy clearly un
derstands this problem. It fails to solve it.

University of Toronto.

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