Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of
Human Freedom (German: Philosophische Untersuchungen
über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit
und die damit zusammenhängenden Gegenstände)
is an 1809 work by Friedrich Schelling. It
was the last book he finished in his lifetime,
running to some 90 pages of a single long
essay. It is commonly referred to as his "Freiheitsschrift"
(freedom text) or "freedom essay".
Described by Hans Urs von Balthasar as "the
most titanic work of German idealism", it
is also seen as anticipating much of the collection
of basic existentialist motifs. Its ambitions
were high: to tackle the problem of radical
evil, and to innovate at a metaphysical level,
in particular to correct dualism. As its title
suggests, it intends to give an account of
human freedom, and the requirements on the
philosophical side to protect this idea from
particular formulations, at issue during the
period, of determinism.
== Influences on Schelling ==
The literature on the history of philosophy
contains many assertions about the general
influences on Schelling. There are also more
specific comments about other thinkers and
traditions that had a definite effect on this
transitional work. The opening pages make
it clear that Schelling is engaged in arguing
against Spinozism, a position which (often
simply called "dogmatism") had been a target
for both philosophical and religious thinkers
in Germany for decades. Schelling was not
concerned about rejecting all that Baruch
Spinoza's thought implied, in the terms of
that debate, but to salvage something from
the unification of view (monism) that came
with it, while allowing room for freedom.
At this time Schelling was influenced also
by Franz Xaver von Baader and the writings
of Jakob Böhme. In fact Of Human Freedom
contains explicit references to Baader's doctrine
of evil, and Böhme's schematic creation myths,
and uses the term theosophy; a detailed mapping
of Böhme's thought onto Schelling's argument
in the Freiheitsschrift has been carried out
by Paola Mayer. On the other hand Robert Schneider
and Ernst Benz have argued for the more direct
influence of the pietist Johann Albrecht Bengel
and theosophist Friedrich Christoph Oetinger.
== Themes ==
Explicit concerns of Schelling in the book
are: the existence of evil and the emergence
into reason. Schelling offers a solution to
the first, an old theological chestnut, in
brief that “evil makes arbitrary choice
possible”. On the other hand, by no means
all interpretations of the work come from
the direction of theology and the problem
of evil. The second idea, requiring a rationale
of emergence, was more innovative, because
of the place it gave to irrationalism and
anthropomorphism, within the "cosmic" setting
(which need not be taken literally). The work
stands also in relation to a decade of previous
publications, formulations, and rivalries.
A view from the nineteenth century is that
of Harald Høffding (who sets the book in
the context of a supposed personal crisis
and philosophical block):
Modern readings of Schelling's intentions
can differ quite widely from this interpretation
(and each other). This writing of Schelling
is also seen as the beginning of his critique
of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and an announcement
of a transitional moment in philosophy; part
of the purpose was self-justification, verging
on polemic in defence of Schelling's panentheism.
It is therefore a signpost marking a fork
in the road for what is now called "classical
German philosophy": even if it had its time
of dominance, absolute idealism in Hegel's
sense is (after the "freedom essay") just
one branch of the discussion of the Absolute
in German idealism. Hegel became a system-builder
while Schelling produced no systematic or
finished philosophy in three decades after
the Freiheitsschrift.
=== Evil as radical ===
The conception of evil is set against both
the Neoplatonic privatio boni and the Manichaean
division into two disconnected and contending
powers. Evil must be seen as active, in both
God and natural creatures. There is a distinction:
in God evil can never stray out of its place
(at the base), while in man it certainly may
exceed its role of basing self-hood.Slavoj
Žižek writes that the central tenet is that
John W. Cooper writes
=== 
Spinoza and pantheism ===
At the time of writing the Freiheitschrift,
Schelling had on his mind an accusation of
pantheism, levelled at him by Friedrich Schlegel
in Über Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808).
The German Pantheism controversy of the 1780s
continued to cast a long shadow. F. H. Jacobi,
who had launched it, was someone with whom
Schelling was in contact in Munich, where
the book was written.
In his book, Schelling takes up the issue
of pantheism, concerned to refute the idea
that it necessarily leads to fatalism, so
negating human freedom. Here he is closer
to Spinoza, erasing the distinction between
nature and God. On the other hand, Schelling
is trying to overcome the distinction made
in Spinoza's system, between natura naturans
(dynamic) and natura naturata (passive). Schelling
wanted to locate the fatalism in Spinoza,
not in the pantheism or monism, but in his
formulation.
=== Synthesis claimed ===
According to Andrew Bowie:
Schelling considered that the idealist conception
of freedom, in Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb
Fichte, had remained undeveloped, absent a
cleaner break with the rationalist systems
of Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz, and a distinctive
theory of its human element. In another view
of the book's main theme, leading onto the
further development of the philosophy of the
Weltalter (Ages of the World), Schelling
In this approach, the Absolute takes on a
darker side, and shows therefore the connection
to the theme of the problem of evil. This
aspect then pervades all life:
== Summary ==
This is an approximate summary of the content
of the Freiheitsschrift using page numbering
as appears in Schelling's Works. There is
no division except into paragraphs.
336-8 There is a traditional view that system
excludes individual freedom; but on the contrary
it does have "a place in the universe". This
is a problem to solve.
338-343 Reformulation as the issue of pantheism
and fatalism.
343-8 Spinoza and Leibniz.
348 German idealism versus French atheistic
mechanism; Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre.
349-352 It is a mistake to believe that idealism
has simply displaced pantheism.
352-355 The real conception of freedom is
the possibility of good and evil.
356-357 Critique of the abstract conception
of God; Naturphilosophie.
357-358 Ground of God and light.
359-366 Critique of immanence.
366-373 Conception of evil according to Baader.
373-376 Evil is necessary for God's revelation;
exegesis of "matter" in Plato.
376-7 The irrational element in organic beings;
disjunction of light and darkness.
379 Golden Age.
382-3 Formal conception of freedom; Buridan's
Ass.
383 Idealism defines freedom.
385 Man's being is his own deed.
387 Predestination.
389-394 General possibility of evil and inversion
of selfhood's place.
394 God's freedom.
396 Leibniz on laws of nature.
399 God is not a system, but a life; finite
life in man.
402 God brought forward order from chaos.
403 History is incomprehensible without a
concept of a humanly suffering God.
406 Primal ground (Ungrund) is before all
antitheses; groundlessness self-divides.
409 Evil is a parody.
412 Revelation and reason.
413 Paganism and Christianity.
413 Personality rests on a dark foundation,
which is also the foundation of knowledge.
414 Dialectical philosophy.
415 Historical foundation of philosophy.
416 Nature as revelation, and its archetypes.
Promise of further treatises.
== A debated transition ==
Schelling placed the Freiheitsschrift at the
end of the first volume of his Sämmtliche
Werke (Collected Works). The correct periodisation
of his philosophy is still a contentious area,
and there are differing views of what kind
of punctuation mark it really represents in
Schelling's work. It is admittedly important
that the book itself begins with an outright
rejection of “system”. The publication
of this book is said, on the one hand, to
mark the beginning of Schelling's “middle
period”. As such it marks the break with
the “identity philosophy” on which he
worked in the first decade of the nineteenth
century, after his beginnings as a follower
of Johann Fichte and developer of Naturphilosophie.
The divergence of Schelling and Hegel becomes
clear from around this year, with Hegel's
ambitions being systematic and explicitly
encyclopedic, notions of freedom being quite
different, and the use of dialectic becoming
obviously distinct on the two sides. Hegel's
star was in the ascendent, while Schelling's
other road led into the wilderness, at least
as far as academic respectability was concerned.
Academic recognition for Schelling's work
as important to philosophy, as opposed to
an idiosyncratic contribution to philosophy
of religion, was indeed slow to come. Samuel
Taylor Coleridge, one of Schelling's contemporaries
and followers, rated it highly.In 1936, Martin
Heidegger gave a series of lectures on Schelling's
freedom essay. These were published in German
in 1971 and translated into English in 1984.
Heidegger largely treated the Freiheitschrift
as continuous with the "identity philosophy"
period leading up to it. Heidegger by 1941
had hardened his line to the position that
Schelling is still a theorist of an enclosing
subjectivity, while treating the Freiheitsschrift
as the apex (Gipfel) of the metaphysics of
German idealism. This view is still contested:
other authors read the book as the start of
something new in philosophy. Schelling's Stuttgart
Vorlesungen of 1810 reformulate and build
on the freedom essay, and the Weltalter manuscripts
go further in trying to work out details of
the Behmenist insights. The debate is therefore
really whether the Freiheitschrift is culminating,
seminal, or possibly both.
== English translations ==
James Gutmann (1936), Of Human Freedom
Jeff Love and Johannes Schmidt (2006), Philosophical
Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom
== Notes
