The disputes of philosophers provide a place to view their positions and arguments in a tightly focused way, and also in a manner that is infused with human temperaments and passions. Fichte and Schelling had been perceived as "partners" in the cause of Criticism or transcendental idealism since 1794, but upon Fichte's departure from Jena in 1799, each began to perceive a drift in their fundamental interests and allegiances. Schelling's philosophy of nature seemed to move him toward a realistic philosophy, while Fichte's interests in the origin of personal consciousness, intersubjectivity, and the ultimate determination of the agent's moral will moved him to explore what he called "faith" in one popular text, or a theory of an intelligible world. This volume brings together the letters the two philosophers exchanged between 1800 and 1802 and the texts that each penned with the other in mind.

Correspondence and texts by Fichte and Schelling illuminate their thought and the trajectory of their philosophical falling out.

Appearing for the first time in a complete English translation, The Closed Commercial State represents the most sustained attempt of J. G. Fichte, the famed author of The Doctrine of Science, to apply idealistic philosophy to political economy. In the accompanying interpretive essay, Anthony Curtis Adler challenges the conventional scholarly view of The Closed Commercial State as a curious footnote to Fichte's thought. The Closed Commercial State, which Fichte himself regarded as his "best, most thought-through work," not only attests to a life-long interest in economics, but is of critical importance to his entire philosophical project. Carefully unpacking the philosophical nuances of Fichte's argument and its complex relationship to other texts in his oeuvre, Adler argues that The Closed Commercial State presents an understanding of the nature of history, and the relation of history to politics, that differs significantly from the teleological notions of history advanced by Schelling and later Hegel. This critical scholarly edition includes a German-English glossary, annotations, and page references to both major German editions.

Three seminal philosophical texts by F. W. J. Schelling, arguably the most complex representations of German Idealism, are clearly presented here for the first time in English. Included are Schelling's "Treatise Explicatory of the Idealism in the Science of Knowledge" (1797), "System of Philosophy in General" (1804), and "Stuttgart Seminars" (1810). Of these texts, the "Treatise" constitutes the most comprehensive critical reading of Kant and Fichte by a contemporary thinker and, as a result, proved seminal to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's efforts at interconnecting English Romanticism and German speculative thought. Extending his early critique of subjectivity, Schelling's "System of Philosophy in General" and his "Stuttgart Seminars" launch a far more radical inquiry into the notion of identity, a term which for Schelling, increasingly reveals the contingent nature and inescapable limitations of theoretical practice. An extensive critical introduction relates Schelling's work both to his philosophical contemporaries (Kant, Fichte, and Hegel) as well as to the contemporary debates about Theory in the humanities. The book includes extensive annotations of each translated text, an excursus on Schelling and Coleridge, a comprehensive multi-lingual bibliography, and a glossary.

This is an English translation of Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (first published in 1797 and revised in 1803), one of the most significant works in the German tradition of philosophy of nature and early nineteenth-century philosophy of science. It stands in opposition to the Newtonian picture of matter as constituted by inert, impenetrable particles, and argues instead for matter as an equilibrium of active forces that engage in dynamic polar opposition to one another. In the revisions of 1803 Schelling incorporated this dialectical view into a neo-Platonic conception of an original unity divided upon itself. The text is of more than simply historical interest: its daring and original vision of nature, philosophy, and empirical science will prove absorbing reading for all philosophers concerned with post-Kantian German idealism, for scholars of German Romanticism, and for historians of science.

The life and ideas of F.W.J. Schelling are often overlooked in favor of the more familiar Kant, Fichte, or Hegel. What these three lack, however, is Schelling's evolving view of philosophy. Where others saw the possibility for a single, unflinching system of thought, Schelling was unafraid to question the foundations of his own ideas. In this book, Bruce Matthews argues that the organic view of philosophy is the fundamental idea behind Schelling's thought. Focusing in particular on Schelling's early writings, especially on Plato and Kant, Matthews explores Schelling's idea that any philosophical system must be perspectival and formed by each individual student of philosophy, providing a unique new understanding to an important and often overlooked figure in the history of philosophy.

This is the first English translation of Schelling's novel, most likely written after the death of his first wife, Caroline, the former wife of August Wilhelm Schlegel. Although only a fragment, Clara remains unique. Part novella, part philosophical tome, its central theme is the connection between this world and the next. Schelling masterfully weaves together his knowledge of animal magnetism, literary techniques, and his doctrine of the potencies to make his philosophy accessible to all. Steinkamp addresses the main issues concerning the dating of the work—many commentators have deemed Clara to be a sketch for Schelling's The Ages of the World or an outline for the third, missing book of that work—and provides a short biography of Schelling with particular emphasis on events claimed to play a role in the conception of Clara, such as the deaths of both Caroline and her daughter, Auguste. She also shows how passages in Clara are strikingly similar to the content of Schelling's touching letters mourning Caroline, written to Pauline, the daughter of Caroline's best friend and the woman who would become his second wife. Clara, strongly influenced by the Romantic movement, is an early illustration of Schelling's attempt to unite his positive and negative philosophy.

Explores Schelling’s Essay on Human Freedom, focusing on the themes of freedom, evil, and love, and the relationship between his ideas and those of Plato and Kant.

The reception history of the French Revolution in France and England is well documented among Anglophone scholars; however, the debate over the Revolution in Germany is much less well known. Fichte's Contribution played an important role in this debate. Presented here for the first time in English, Fichte's work provides a distinctive synthesis of Locke's "possessive individualism," Rousseau's general will, and Kant's moral philosophy. This eclectic blend results in an unusual rights theory that at times veers close to a form of anarchism. Written in 1792–93, just before Fichte moved to Jena to develop his philosophical system in a series of works—above all the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794—the Contribution provides invaluable insight into Fichte's early development. In addition, Fichte's work predates much of Kant's political philosophy, and can shed light on the rich dialogue in German political thought in the 1790s.

In this essay, Hegel attempted to show how Fichte's Science of Knowledge was an advance from the position of Kant in the Critique of Pure Reason, and how Schelling (and incidentally Hegel himself) had made a further advance from the position of Fichte. Hegel finds the idealism of Fichte too abstractly subjective and formalistic, and he tries to show how Schelling's philosophy of nature is the remedy for these weaknesses. But the most important philosophical content of the essay is probably to be found in his general introduction to these critical efforts where he deals with a number of problems about philosophical method in a way which is of general interest to philosophers, and not merely interesting to those who accept the Hegelian "dialectic method" which grew out of these first beginnings. Finally, the Difference essay is important in the development of "Nature-Philosophy" as a movement in the history of science.