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Logic and Logogrif in German Idealism

An Investigation into the notion of experience
in Kant, Fichte, Schelling

Kyriaki Goudeli

Submitted for the degree of PhD

University of Warwick Department of Sociology March 1999

For Isi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to my supervisor Gillian Rose, whose memory always remains a source of inspiration. I wish to thank Howard Caygill and Robert Fine, who undertook my supervision after Gillian Rose's sad death, for intellectual stimulation and generous support. Also, I wish to thank my parents, for their invaluable support at all levels, and all my friends, for their love, delightful company and delicious food. My special thanks to Nick Ye Mint, for his generous help with all practical matters.

Abstract
In this thesis I investigatethe notion of experiencein GermanIdealist Philosophy. I focus on the exploration of an alternative to the transcendental model notion of experiencethrough Schelling's insight into the notion of logogrif. The structural division of this project into two sectionsreflects the two theoretical standpointsof this project, namely the logic and the logogrif of experience. The first section- the logic of experience- exploresthe notion of experienceprovided in Kant's Critique of Rure Reason,Critique of Judgementand Fichte's Scienceof Knowledge.I that Kant's fundamentalquestionabout the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements argue in succeeds thernatisingthe aporia of cognitive experiencebut results in a subject-oriented, model which radically confines the notion of experienceto the constitutive representational laws of the understandingor to the normative preceptsof Reason.Experienceis founded a sharpdivision betweenfaith and knowledge, will and logic, desire and reflection, upon accountof absoluteand finitude. Fichte's endeavourto articulate a non-representational experience,doesnot succeedin extricating itself from the representational model, so long as is reducedto the ever-producingdeedsof the self-positing ego. experience Despite the seriousdifferencesbetweenKant's and Fichte's notions of experience,both standpoint,attempt to resolve so long as they unfold from a transcendental accounts, experienceinto conceptuallaws or determinationsof the ego's absolutewill. Experienceis transformedinto an object of the subject's cognitive or volitional faculties. The paradoxesof either by the law-giving man's interaction with the world are intendedto be accommodated the understandingand the Architectonic of Pure Reasonor by the overspontaneityof the self-positing ego. This implies the conceptualisationof the self powerful primordial act of in terms of constantidentity-through-time, or sheerself-determination.However, this the normative or prescriptive level, which in turn is projected conceptualisationremainsat upon the world. The latter, though appearsas the subject's property, essentially remainsalien the radical limitations of the ego rather than its order-giving and opaque,confirming Moreover, this notion of experienceis ultimately founded upon a radical expulsion authority. the divine from the world, the de-spiritualisation of the sensualand the de-sensualisation of the spiritual, the sharpjuxtaposition betweenabsoluteand finitude. This results in a selfof defeating subjectivity, whosefirm identity and rule-giving authority does not rescueit from its perennial unattainability to 'organise the conditioned' or 'conquer the unconditioned'. In Kant's and Fichte's thought, however, I detect elementsthat potentially transgresstheir transcendental accountof experience.Theseare found in Kant's concept of spontaneity and free play betweenunderstandingand imagination, and Fichte's conceptof productivity. I that theseelementslose their potential dynamism, so long as they are absorbedby the argue demandsfor the solution of the aporiasof logic. However, theseelements transcendental to the needfor a radical re-conceptualisationof the notion of experience.This is point by meansof Schelling's logogriflic approach,which constitutesthe theme of the provided secondsection. The secondsection - the logogrif of experience- attemptsto articulate a different approach towards the notion of experience,through an exploration of Schelling's versatile and provocative thought. This sectionfocuseson Schelling's original insight into the notion and act of logogrif, which opensthe dialogue between logos and mythos, cosmic becoming and human soul, cosmic imagination and human reflection, faith and knowledge. This section attemptsto illuminate Schelling's fascinating philosophical investigations and discoveries that have beenrather overlooked, possibly, due to Hegel's overwhelming critique. This section, after a brief critical examination of the Identity Philosophy, attemptsto elucidate

Schelling's notion of experience through his middle works, Of Human Freedom, Ages of the World, The Deities of Samothrace, which are treated as a self-developing trilogy.

Schelling re-addresses aporiasof logic not as part of Reason'sself-interrogation but as the In part of the cosmic paradoxesand living experiences. this way, Schelling resetsthe sceneof the debateon the conditions of possibility for cognitive experienceby putting on the stagethe enigmasof the cosmosand life rather than the Tribunal of Reason. Logic itself is conceivedas a potency in the cosmic becoming, and consequentlycan no longer attempt to establishthe transcendental conditions for the possibility of cognitive experience. Cosmic becoming, in which man is an active part, is conceivedas the processof the movement,the interaction, the transformationsand transmutationsof multiple potencies. These,far beyond any mechanicalconceptualisation,appearas self-moving and yet interdependent, unknown yet familiar, inscrutableand yet manifest powers, describing the mystery of life itself. The latter is depicted as an ever-recurrentact of longing for selfas active unity. Experienceis conceivedas the lived processof a network of living expression potencies,which may not only resist rational powers but may also puzzle and seizethem. In this context, reflection acquiresa plastic dimension, as opposedto its rigidity in the representational model of experience.Reflection depicts cosmic longing's self-formation, whoseman is part. This self-bendingformation partially illuminates the nature of longing, from this standpointis the logic of the longing. However, this formation is movable, and transmutableand mostly ineffable, and from this standpointis the logic of a riddle: a logogrif. Logogrif is the transitive term that attemptsto describethe transition of experiencefrom its to its allusive conceptualutterance,and in this sensethe term itself participates enactedphase in both phases,as both form of thought and form of life. The logogrific approachto experiencein turn transposes as from the realm of pure conceptsto the realm of the us mystery of life, from pure thought to acts of longing, from the Architectonic of Pure Reason to Cosmic Theurgy.The latter term attemptsto graspthe paradoxand dynamism of cosmic and non-cosmicbecomingby meansof multiple, vanishing and ever-recurring,transmutable potencies,or in Schelling's terms 'the magic of insoluble life'. Schelling's logogrific account consistsin a powerful voice for the re-enchantment the world, the introduction into the of in notion of experienceof the imminence of the divine. This is not suggested terms of the adoption of old religious doctrinesbut by meansof the discovery and re-discovery of the theurgy of life, through the intensification of our artistic mood, the creative expansionof our deeds. This notion of experienceallows for the reconsiderationof the notion of the self, in terms of a dynamic, conflictual processbetweenconsciousand unconsciouspowers and the critical revaluation of the accountsof subjectivity which reduceit to the sphereof selfconsciousness. The thesis concludeswith the needfor an investigation into the relation betweenlogos and mythos, which only tangentially has beenintroduced by the presentproject. In this context it will be possibleto re-appraisethe potential that the logogrific approachopensfor an to both logical and traditional mythological patternsof thinking. alternative

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 1

Section I: the logic of experience

Chapter 1 Kant's Transcendental Deduction: the conceptual reconstruction of
experience Chapter 2 From Determinant to Reflective Judgement: the normalisation of experience 23 52

Chapter 3 Fichte's will-to-freedom: the appropriation of experience

88

Section II: the logogrif of experience

Schelling's notion of experience: Introductory Remarks 122

Chapter 4 Identity Philosophy: its critique and its criticism Chapter 5 Schelling's dynamic account of the Absolute and finitude Chapter 6 Schelling's conception of the self Chapter 7 The Deities of Samothrace: towards Schelling's Aoyoypupua

131 159 194 226

Section III
Conclusion: Helmet and Pomegranate
Appendix I Appendix II Abbreviations

242
252 277

Select Bibliography

282

Introduction

If in ancientGreek cosmogonyit is Moira that allots to eachgod its province', as the delimited field of activity and power, in the Age of Reasonthis task untransgressable,
is assigned to Reason itself, which is called to institute a tribunal upon itself and justify its lawful claims2. The latter can be sought only in that province which is

conditionedby our faculty of sensibility, and by no meansin the realm of the the unconditioned,that always seduces "light dove" of Reason,which "cleaving the air
in her free flight, and feeling its resistance, might imagine that its flight would be

easierin empty space"(CPR, A5). Reasonshould rise from its immaturity and clearly demarcate provinces of knowledge and faith, cognition and feeling, thought and the will, theory and praxis. Accordingly, the relation betweenman and world is itself divided into separate cognitive-contemplative,moral-practical, scientific and religious all being objects of Kant's wide-ranging philosophical investigations.The provinces, issue,though, around which the latter revolve, and that seemsto most stimulate interest and nourish the debateamongstGermanidealist thinkers, is that philosophical inquires into the modesand the possibility of cognitive experience.Kant which brought the various investigationsconcerningthe claims of Reasonunder the central " question: "How are a priori syntheticjudgementspossible? (CPR, B 19) The very formulation of this questionincludes, in a condensed way, the core of Kant's logic, and pre-emptshis notion of philosophical thought, namely, transcendental experienceas an object of the cognising subject, establishingthereby its

1Cornford F. M., From Religion to Philosophy, 12,15, PrincetonUniversity Press,1991 p. 2 It is Immanuel Kant who set the sceneand formulated the conditions of the debateabout the notion of by legitimate and illegitimate provinces. experience, sharply distinguishingbetweenReason's

conceptualisation in dualistic terms, theoretical and practical, conditioned and

unconditioned.This division assumes clear separationbetweenfinitude and infinity, a

fixates the concept of Absolute, and Reason's inherent tendency to conquer it, and

either in the form of truth or in the form of freedom. However, as long as this aim is renderedunattainable,Reasonis restrictedto its legitimate provinces and becomes, with regard to its unconditionableclaims, either prescriptive or perennially melancholic.

This thesis focuses on the exploration of the various responses, in the context of German Idealist Philosophy, to the main Kantian question "how are a priori synthetic

judgementspossible" and on the concomitant conceptualisations the notion of of Through this enterprise,we first discover the main tenetsof the grounding experience. logic, of representational, transcendental conceptualthinking, and the limits of this of thinking. The investigation of the Kantian questionis carried through Kant's mode of differing approaches the Critique of Pure Reasonand the Critique of Judgement, in Fichte's Scienceof Knowledge, and Schelling's early and middle works. The logic doesnot develop from a Hegelian discovery of the limits of transcendental speculative- standpoint,as might be expected,but from a Schellingian alternative, introducesan original challengeto transcendental logic, by meansof which Schelling's insight into the concept and act of logogrif 3. As this thesis will show, Schelling's logogrific approachtowards the central Kantian questionand the philosophical themesimplicated thereby - i. e. the questionof judgement-power,the logic. And notion of the self and the issueof freedom - in fact shakestranscendental

3The term logogrif hasbeen coined by Schelling; seeSchelling, F. W. J., Philosophical Investigations into the Nature of Human Freedom,p.35, footnote.

this, not simply by introducing an alternativelogical model, but by breaking the rigid boundariesbetweenlogical and mythical thinking and reconsideringthe possibility of an alternativeto the Kantian and Fichteannotion of experience,emerging out of the intertwinement of thesedistinct realms.The idea of logogrif, however, should not be as some sort of middle term or any kind of outcomeof the investigation of understood the relation betweenLogos and Mythos, since Schelling's thematic in the works we is not focusedon this wider issue.This should be the object of another examine, indeed our presentstudy will show in its conclusion. research,as

Our scope of research focuses on the specific configuration of Logos, in the form of

logic, as the predominantform of modern, conceptuallogic and in its transcendental through the original notion of logogrif, which evokesand recalls critical challenge thinking and action. The idea of logogrif, as such, is not elementsof mythical by Schelling. Schelling himself simply announcedthe task for the explicitly elaborated formulation of a new mythology, in his Systemof TranscendentalIdealism (1800), further elucidation of this bold statementuntil his late writings, which without any
attempt to establish a systematic Philosophy of Mythology. Here, though, we are not

concernedwith the investigation of traditional mythology and its relation to logical patternsof thought. Instead,we follow a reversepath. We start with the main Kantian and through the discovery of the severelylimited characterof the notion of question logic, we find in Schelling's responses the provided by transcendental experience for a new notion of experience,intimated in the idea of logogrif. We detect, potential though, even within the context of the transcendental approach,elementsthat already augur the possibility and the needto seekforms of an alternative mode of thinking and expression.The latter is preliminary understoodas a mode that doesnot unfold from
3

the Kantian conception of Pure Reason, the `land of oughts', with the perennial

demandsof Reasonto seekthe unconditioned,its consequent boundsand retreat to faith or melancholy, its necessary logic - as and inevitable restriction to transcendental the only secureand legitimate zone - in which Reasonmay find the satisfactionfrom the use of its principles. Instead,theseelements- which are found in Kant's notion of
spontaneity and free play, and Fichte's notion of productivity - anticipate the

dissolution of the sharpboundariesbetweenfinitude and infinity, knowledge and

faith, pure logic and experience, conceptual thinking and feeling or will. They also introduce the perspective of considering logic as an act of self-generative productivity, which potentially alludes to unknown forces and unpredictable acts, and from this

of view harboursa mythic dimension. point

logic, though, comesthrough Schelling's The main challengeof transcendental insights, though his early writings develop from a transcendental standpoint. original However, the orbit of his thought seemsto radically diverge from the gravitational field of pure logic, in order to reformulate the original questions,and readdress them not simply as part of Logic's self-interrogation,but as parts of the cosmic paradoxes logic comeswith The major break with transcendental and living experiences. Schelling's main shift - from the Identity Philosophy phase(1800-1804)to his Of Human Freedom treatise (1809) up to the Deities of Samothrace(1815) -, which resetsthe scenefor the debate,putting on the stagethe paradoxesof the cosmositself, rather than the Tribunal of Reason,as the field proper into which the aporiasand The paradoxesof pure logic are no paradoxesof logic itself could be readdressed. longer sheerconceptualissues,but expressthe riddles of life and the cosmositself. From forms of pure thought, we are transposedto shapesof life, where the latter term
4

intendsto include experiencein a more holistic mode, through conceptand feeling, cognition an wi , reflexivity and immediacy, conceptualappropriationand free play, order and chaos,transcendence immanence.According to Schelling, the Kantian and questionscannotbe adequatelyaddressed long as they remain restricted to the as boundariesof the conceptsof the understanding,despitethe latter's claim on their
right to organise experience. The `I', even though retreating to the phenomenal

security of the limits of its concepts,cannot content itself with its entrenchmentfrom the world and the rigid separationof knowledge from faith. The major logical questionsbecomepart of the paradoxesof cosmic becoming and consequentlycan no longer be exhaustedwithin the limits of inquiry into the transcendental conditions of experience,not even into the retrospectiveconclusionsof its recollection. For it is not only Schelling's suggestionthat there is always "an irreducible remainder'A- that seemsto resist any orderly classification on behalf of rational illumination -, that leads to the needfor another form of expressingexperience;it is also, Schelling's implicit discovery that the very rational reconstructionof experiencemay take a perplexed, elusive, and allusive form, which attemptsto retain the vital paradoxesof experience and and carry within it its dynamic movementand life, in both its openness immanenceand transcendence. familiarity and strangeness, The notion of closedness, logogrif is precisely the transitive term that attemptsto describe,this time, the

itself from its enacted transitionof experience to and expression, phase its conceptual
in this sensethe term itself aspiresto participate in both phases,as both form of thought and form of life.

4 Schelling F. W. J., Of Human Freedom, 34 p.

We begin our investigation of the central Kantian questionwith a thorough of his attemptto deducethe employment of the conceptsof examination for this undertakingessentiallyconstructsthe main tenetsof understanding, thinking and establishthe notion of experienceas the conceptual-representational object of the subject's conceptualconstruction. Kant's enterpriseof the Deduction of the Categoriesresults in the necessityof establishingthe formal, continuousidentity from the self though time. The conceptsof the understandingspring spontaneously of the human mind and act as the unifying, formal rules, which render experience with the notion of a possibleat all. The spontaneityof the concept is associated unifying rule. Both spontaneityand order, seemparadoxically then to constitutethe The deeperquestionof legitimacy, namely, the necessary conditions of experience. self-legitimacy of Reason'sspontaneity,thereby arises,and indeed,as one which delivers order upon the passiveand chaotic sensematerial. A spontaneityof order can only to anotherillegitimate demand,namely the self's certainty of its identity, resort which is claimed to exist 'before its eyes'. (CPR A 108) Thus, the deduction of the it the main tenetsof logical-conceptualthinking, draws its categories,and along with from the necessityof the establishmentof the formal identity of ultimate validation the self, which is self-confirmed by the organisationof experienceaccording to its

formal rules.Spontaneity absorbed the primordialidenticalself, andthusits role by is is reduced thedeliverance orderaccording the needs a formally unified self to to of of
through time. Accordingly, spontaneityundergoesa further severedeformation: it becomesa transcendental concept.The story of the limits of Pure Reasonbegins from this point. The conceptsof understandingseektheir legitimacy in the identity of the demandrather than as an unquestionable self, which now appearsmore as a desperate foundation of experience.Reason'sspontaneitycan exist only as prescribing order,
6

and so its employmentis limited to the province of the applicability of this order, namely to the passive,inactive intuition, through the aid of the understanding.Hence, is identified with a law-giving, ordering activity, which, moreover, spontaneity pertainsexclusively to human Reason.Reasondiscoversits limits, according to Kant, lawgiver, for it cannot give order to anything that falls outside the boundsof as experience.Reasoncan only organisewhat appearsas inactive to it, as its object. The limits of Reasonarise then precisely becausespontaneityis conceivedin terms of order, of a law-giving faculty. Kant's fruitless conclusionsof the Deduction do not derive from his 'resorting' to the infinity of the understandingand the thereby alleged introduction of the notion of the absolutesubject, as HeideggerclaiMS5.In contradistinction,Kant's resorting to the spontaneityof understandingdoesnot prevent him from establishingthe radical limitations of the subject,rather than its absolutestatus.For the conceptsof understanding,conceived as order-giving rules, au are exclusively conditioned by what seemsto be susceptibleto their law-giving authority. Consequently,the problem is not Kant's resorting to the notion of spontaneity.Instead,we find in it a potentially exceptional insightful notion, especially so long this is conceivedas both infinite and yet finite, self-enactedand yet limited. The problem is not one of an absolutereliance on the notion of spontaneity,

but rather,contrariwise, this notionhasnot beenadequately Firstly, in that expanded. Kant's system, has to the realmof humanReason, spontaneity beenrestricted only
whilst nature, intuition, standsfor a lifeless, inactive massin needof external organisation.Secondly, spontaneityis conceived in terms of order-giving and indeed, as the type of order which correspondsto the formally, identical-through-time self,

5 SeeHeideggerM., Kant in and the Problemsof Metaphysics.Heidegger'scritique will be discussed Appendix I

that is, to the universal and necessaryrules that should arrangethe temporally and distinguishedmomentsof empirical experience.Hence, spontaneity spatially with static classification, sequentialand systematic eventually is associated

its and arrangement in this context,reaches mostand andself-refuted

conceptualisation, namely, that of a transcendentalconcept,a logical presupposition for the possibility of experience,as if the very thought of the conditions of the possibility of experienceis not itself an act of spontaneity.

In the Critique of Judgement,where Kant addresses samefundamentalquestion, the ", "i. e. how are a priori judgementspossible? from the standpointof the contingent particular, we are provided with a new perspectiveon the concept of spontaneity, which potentially augursnew insights into the relation betweenman and the world and the notion of experience.Thesederive from Kant's innovative notion offree play during reflective judgement's preoccupation betweenimagination and understanding with the contingent particular. Here, spontaneityseemsfreed from its rule-giving role and manifestsitself rather as afeeling ofpleasure, arising from the free interplay betweenthe subject and its contingent representations. However, as long as the from the transcendental judgement of the contingent is addressed standpoint,its promising dynamism annuls itselL The contingent, although not constitutedby the

lawsof the understanding, the conformto them,for otherwise, identity of the should
self, as the latter hasbeenestablishedin the CPR, could not be sustained.If the gap betweenthe laws of the understandingand the contingency of experienceinitially ap earsto be mediatedby a free play betweenthem, the requirementsof a Ip transcendental notion of experiencecommand a different solution. This is given by the Architectonic of Pure Reason,whose principles establishits internal systernaticityand
8

harmony. In this context, the judgement of the particular is rendereduniversal and by virtue of the prescriptive conforn-ity the contingent with the laws of necessary of Hence,if experiencehad so far been constitutedby the laws of the the understanding. now it is prescribed by the preceptsof Reason,so that it satisfies understanding, Reason'sArchitectonic. Accordingly, spontaneityregainsits order-giving role, this time not by meansof constitutive rules, but through Reason'spreceptsfor the securing its inner harmony.The prescriptive universality and necessityof the judgement of of the particular, is, in turn, deducednot by meansof the constitutive identity of the self, but by meansof a normative inter-subjective communicability: put summarily, this the normative dimension of the notion of subjectivity, as long as its duties enhances are not only the maintenanceof its identity, but also its universal communicability, through discipline and culture.

Through Kant's philosophical investigations,we are left with a

dualistic/representational of account experience, which resultseitherin a constitutive

or in a normative appropriation of the world, by the laws of understandingor the preceptsof reasonrespectively; in both cases,a model that attemptsto transfer order, transparencyand unity; and resolve the contradictions and paradoxesarising from

engagement the world. The world, though,remainsfundamentally man9s with alien

and opaque,reconfirming Reason'sradical finitude and the unattainability of its perennial striving for self-legitimacy.

We turn thence,to Fichte's responseto the Kantian question, since he unfolds his project precisely with a view to refuting the representationalmodel of experience. Fichte's project intends to provide an accountof experiencethat would do away with
9

the sharpKantian dichotomiesbetweenthe conditioned and unconditionedprovinces of reason,necessityand freedom, cognition and will, theory and praxis. He the Kantian questioninto the following: " What is the sourceof the reformulates which are accompaniedby the feeling of necessity,and of this systemof presentations For, feeling of necessityitself?996 accordingto Fichte, experienceis defined precisely that are accompaniedby the feeling of necessity, the systemof the representations as and the main task of Philosophy is to furnish the ground of all experience.Fichte's answeris that the sourceof the feeling of necessity,which groundsall extraordinary is the very feeling of absolutefreedom of the self-positing self, which is experience, itself a factual and incontestablenecessity.Experiencethen, is defined as the everdeedsof the self's unlimited productivity, as long as the self itself is producing " an absoluteproductive power", an infinite outreachingactivity. The conceivedas Kantian dualismsare definitely dissolvedby the overwhelming activity of the ego's becomesan the world, from being mere representation, absolutepower, only now,

and checkon the ego'sunconditionable voluntaristicexpansion. annoying

Nevertheless, find in Fichte's notion of productivity an interesting insight that, in we with his reconsiderationof the notion of intuition as active, potentially combination the notion of experiencefrom its sheerlogical, conceptualreconstructionand releases imports to it the problematic of powers rather than of pure concepts.

Fichte, however, doesnot extricate himself from the kernel of the representational model of thinking, since productivity pertains exclusively to the subject, and is essentiallyrenderedas its property. The subject assumes absolute experience an status, whose self-reverting activity intends to ground and generateReality as a
6 Fichte J. G., The Scienceof Knowledge,p.6

10

so long as every entity acquiresits real existenceby virtue of its falling into the whole, field of the self-positing ego. In this context, the spontaneous productive productivity of the ego becomesboth all-inclusive and the grounding of all experience.The activity Kantian dualism is substitutedby the monolithic and engulfing identity of the selfwith ego, suspendingany difference or contradiction in man's engagement positing the world and with himself. If in Kant's systemthought and emotions are severely in kept separate, Fichte's they are entirely identical, reducedto the stormy impulse of the primordial ego, losing any relative autonomy, solidifying thus the assertiveidentity the self. In turn, experienceis determinednot by meansof the logic of the concepts of but through the logic of the will. The latter seemsto dissolve the Kantian categories into the crucible of the primordial, atemporal,self-positing act, which, however, of with any action of the self, breaking the succession time with an act of recurs No matter how insightful the latter idea is, it loses its fascinating eternity. implications, as long as the paradoxes experienceare intended to be accommodated of by the repetitive, predictabletransparencyof the determinationsof the self-positing ego.

It is in Schelling's thought that we meet a radical break with representationalthinking.

is not merelyreconstructed the subject, is by Accordingto Schelling, nor experience the subjectalwaysableto recollectits experiences consciously moreover and
formatively. Schelling introducesthe bold statementthat the subject may also be by experience,and that the consciousappropriation of experiencedoesnot seized necessarilyimply the subject's Bildung. Conceptualrepresentations but a are of the power of human intelligence, which discoversits relative configuration autonomy from the cosmic processand attemptsto captureits movementby meansof
11

abstraction,and thereby to resist its - i. e. the cosmic process' - seizing power upon it. Reflection thus, is a power of abstractionfrom the infinite complexity of reality, and indeed one associated with a specific and rather slenderdimension of human However, reflection's conceptual subjectivity, namely that of self-consciousness. constructionsare not dismissedas fictions of subjective fancy or entirely impertinent for the latter themselvesare a moment, a manifestation of the various abstractions, forms that cosmic forces, in their interaction, may take. Man himself is conceivedas a "nexus of living forces"7 part of and interacting with the cosmic forces. Hence, man , can seizeand be seizedby its experiencesbecausehe is conceivedin the same dynamic and yet not identical terms. This meansthat Schelling doesnot intend to instrument for explaining the constitution of us with anothertranscendental provide the cosmosby meansof the methodology of 'forces'. The latter are not meantto be conceivedas somesort of fundamentalconstituent elements,that allegedly construct the cosmosthrough their infinite combinations.Schelling's use of the term force lies in the antipodal position since by meansof it he attemptsto hint at the inexplicability , than at its rational and lawful exegesis.Through the of cosmic processes rather terminology of forces, which later gives its place to the terminology of potencies, Schelling reunifies man with the cosmos,by meansof their most multiple

in differentiation. Cosmicbecoming, which manis an activepart,is the process the of

the interaction, the transformationsand the transmutationsof multiple movement, These,far beyond any mechanicalconceptualisation,appearas selfpotencies. living, unknown and yet familiar, inscrutable and yet manifest powers, moving, describingthe mystery of life itself. The latter is mostly describedas an ever-recurrent and omnipresentact of longing, yearning, desire for self-expressionas active unity.
7 Schelling F. W. J., Of Human Freedom, 41 p.

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Nature, empirical reality, experience,is no longer the lifeless or passiveobject which can be resolvedinto the laws of conceptualthought. Experienceis itself alive, a network of potencies,which may not only resist rational powers but may also puzzle and seizethem. As such,the potenciesare called gods: theseare no longer expelled to spiritual beyond, but transpire from the very sensualrealm, an unknowable spiritualising the natural and naturalising the spiritual, bringing back the paradox to the conceptuallytransparent, rendering the 'beyond' immanent. In this context, reflection acquiresa creative and plastic dimension, as opposedto its rigidity in the representational model of experience.If in the transcendental context reflection finds the abstractthoughts of a pure logical subject, which bendsback to itself, in the context of potencies,reflection finds the activity of the potenciesin which the subjectconsists.In fact, the very reflective act is a potency itself, it is longing reflecting back to seeits image. Here reflection depicts longing's self-formation, longing giving shapeto itself, longing expressingitself, giving itself concrete individuality and differentiation from an amorphousand self-consuming, character, This, however, seemsto be the very material which reflection strives untamedcraving. to bend, to tame and formulate, or rather, a part of longing, contra to itself, bendsupon itself and shapesitself. However, what it seesand what it shapesis always a complex of intractable powers, whose formation is part of their own movement,and thus dynamic, restless,transitive, elusive. It is a formation, which partially expresses and thus illuminates the natureof longing, and from this standpoint,it is the logic of the longing. However, this formation is itself movable, transmutable,mostly ineffable, and yet recognisableand familiar- as the colours- and from this standpoint,it is the
logic of a riddle; a logogrif.

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Logogrif, as the reflection of longing upon itself, is not only the word of longing but its act. As such, logogrif containsnot only the thoughtful reflection on experience also but it is a form of experienceitself. The image which longing seesin its reflection is
its representation, but what is caught in the net of its bending movement, for not

originally meansplait, and logogrif, the plaited image of longing which sees grifos and utters itself. This image apparentlyis not the image of perception,which the pre-existing forms. Instead,it is the image which unfolds the sensual replicates density of longing, interrupts momentarily its flow, and depicts an elusive form which its unity. The logic of longing consistsmore in the creative formation of utters speakingimages,and from this point of view, we call it the imagination of the longing, the expressionof cosmic imagination. For man's longing is part of cosmic longing and its movementre-enactsthe movement of life and cosmic becoming and of recalls their paradoxical creativity. Logogrif then standsfor the active engagement man with the cosmic enigma: it portrays man's play with the world, in its multiple wonder and fascination, manipulation and frustration, arroganceand configurations, humility, domination and paralysis,joy and despair.Thesemomentsare no longer aspectsof the subject' consciouslife only, but configurations of the uncontrollable movementof the "nexus of living forces", as part of the cosmic nexus and thus

but andunconscious, uttcrablcandincffablc,transparcnt inscrutablc, conscious and

always lived and experienced.Logos, though caught in the net of enigma, seemsthus flexible and liberated; for it is freed from its duties to conquerthe more 'unconditioned' and to organisethe 'conditioned'. The strict boundariesbetweenthem seemto blur in the all-infusing mystery of life, which yet is accessibleand tangible, experiencedand enactedby man's life itself, which is but part of the cosmic enigma.
14

Logos doesnot strive to impose its laws on the sensible,or to prescribeits preceptsto the contingent.It rather prefers to play with both, to let the contingent free, and a fascinatingopponentin cosmic spontaneityand contingency.Logos, rather recognise being frustratedby its inability to conquer the absolute,rediscoversmeaningin than its activities, precisely by virtue of its finitude; not by a self-heroising resolution to perform the extraordinary,but by meansof its ability to get perennially fascinated, intrigued, provoked by a puzzling cosmos.Accordingly, the world is no longer to the Architectonic of Reason.The latter as comprehensible potentially conformable gives its place to the Cosmic Theurgy.This term attemptsto graspthe dynamism and of cosmic and non-cosmicbecoming, by meansof multiple, self-generative, paradox interdependent and yet self-moving potencies,transmutableand transformableto each vanishing and ever-recurring,generatingand destroying new potencies;or other, in Schelling's terms, the " magic of insoluble life". simply,

Schelling readdresses questionsof experience,judgement and subjectivity in the the the cosmic theurgy, where their aporiasare no longer resolvedby Reason's context of sacredrealm of noumena. positing solutions, nor expelled to the untrespassable, Schelling rather draws the aporiasto their extremes;for he brings the sacredback to the profane, eternity in time, and rendersthe sacredaccessiblethrough the profane, and the profane inaccessiblethrough the sacred,both fused into the enigmatic " insoluble life", transpiring its universal theurgy. Schelling's logogrific movementof thought attemptsto introduce to the notion of experiencethe imminenceof the divine, in the irrational marriage of time with eternity, sensualitywith spirituality, all-present nourishing and unexpectable,liberating and paralysing, immanent and transcendent, the vital engagement man with the world's paradoxes.From this point of view, of
15

Schelling's thought is a powerful voice for the re-enchantment the world, not by of of the uncritical adoption of old religious doctrines,but by virtue of the means discovery and re-discoveryof the theurgy of life, the history and prehistory of cosmic becoming,in our unique experiencesand deeds.

turn to a more detailed exposition of the structure of the thesis. now The first chapterexaminesKant's responseto his main question about the possibility syntheticjudgements.The latter apply to judgements constitutive of of a priori and thereforethe foundational conditions of their possibility are sought experience, the deductionof the categoriesof understanding.This, as already mentioned,is via derived from the establishmentof the formal identity of the self and its a priori of this identity. Experienceis conceived as being constitutedby the formal certainty the understanding,which are spontaneously producedby the reflective act of rules of the subjectupon its cognitive faculties.

The secondchapterpursuesKant's reconsiderationof the samequestion,this time from the standpointof the contingent, namely from the particular relations pertaining to empirical experience,which are not exhaustibleby the generalrules of the

Throughthe investigation Kant's attemptto providethe 'lawfulness of understanding.

the contingent', we find the prescriptive characterof experience,in terms of the of Pure Reason,according to its Architectonic structure. preceptsof

In both the Critique of Pure Reasonand the Critique of Judgement,the notion of experienceis defined by meansof the subject's constitutive or normative order. We consequentlyconsider it relevant to corrunenton Kant's notion of experienceby

16

discussingHeidegger'scritical appraisalof Kant's enterpriseof the Deduction of the which arguesfor Kant's ultimate underestimationof the notion of finitude categories, and his resorting to the notion of the absolutesubject.This is undertakenby Appendix I, in which we examinethe relevanceof Heidegger's critique, as regardsKant's finitude" of imagination to the "comforming allegedshift from the "uncomprehended infinity" of the understanding. This position falls within Heidegger's major criticism of GermanIdealism, which, following the tradition of Western Metaphysics,neglected the fundamentalissue of finitude and insteadfounded its systemson the conceptof the absoluteperson.Heidegger's critique unfolds as part of his wider philosophical to establishhis FundamentalOntology. In the appendix,we do not intend to project discussHeidegger'sproject as a whole, but only focus on those aspectsthat relate tangentially to our research.In this context, we arguethat Heidegger's critique of

finitude-infinity,eventuallyreplicates same Kant's account the relationbetween the of

'resolutions' to the antinomiesas Kant's. For, as will be shown, Heidegger pattern of conceivesthe relation betweenfinitude and infinity in the sameterms, substituting the to understanding,with man's seizureby his suppressed moment of infinity, as resort the meansof redemption from his "original finitude". We will argue,consequently, that the notions of radical finitude and absolutesubject are essentially supplementary,

are so long asinfinite andfiniteness conceived mutuallyexclusiveandseparate as

concepts.

It is Fichte's responseto Kant's representationalmodel of experiencethat attemptsto

foundthe notionof an absolute his projecthasnot subject,although, surprisingly,

beenthe object of any sustainedcritique by Heidegger.According to Fichte, the aporia of synthetic a priori judgementscannot be resolved as long as their ground, namely,
17

the transcendental unity of apperception,is not itself grounded.Fichte's project consistsin a systematicattempt to establishthe identity of the self, which in Kant's remainsinsufficiently thernatised.In Fichte's system,the formal identity of context the self is now conceivedas the primordial act of the ego's self-positing: the latter is declaredto constitutethe fundamentalground of any kind of experience,theoretical and practical, thereby dissolving the antinomy betweennecessityand freedom, and nournena,knowledge and will, in the identical act of the self-positing phenomena Fichte's enterpriseis expoundedin his major work, The Scienceof Knowledge ego. (1794). Here, he deploys his accountof The FundamentalPrinciples of the Entire Scienceof Knowledge, which are claimed as common to both theoretical and practical activity, the latter being conceivedin terms of knowledge. The core of his argumentis in the SecondPart of The Scienceof Knowledge - where we mainly focus presented our attention -, which consistsin his attempt to deducethe grounding principle of the self-positing ego. The content of the third chapter of this thesis is an investigation of Fichte's enterpriseto resolve the Kantian aporia, by meansof the radical revision of We arguethat Fichte not only fails to deduce the transcendental unity of apperception. his grounding principle, but also provides a narrow theoretical framework that brings the movementof philosophical investigations to a dead-end,so long essentially as any contradiction betweenman, world and himself seemsto be engulfed by the 4'ego'sabsolutepower", which is declaredto ground, generateand determine experiencein its totality.

The remaining four chaptersof the thesisengagewith Schelling's philosophy. His thought presentsan extraordinary versatility. Almost every single work has a different and unique terminology and an imaginative approachtowards the sameunderlying

18

themes,namely, the investigation into a non representationalaccountof the relation betweenman and nature,freedom and necessity,mind and matter, finitude and infinity. However, Schelling's thought has predominantly beenreducedto a specific his intellectual development- probably due to Hegel's monochromaticand phaseof devastatingcritique -, namely that of the Identity SystemPhilosophy(1801-4).Hence, begin the investigation of Schelling's philosophy with a thorough examination of we the Systemof Identity, in order to gain a deeperinsight into the most influential aspect his thought, and, moreover, in order to understandits relative position within the of This constitutesthe topic of the fourth chapter.Here, we arguethat the Identity whole. Principle has indeedbeenthe locus of Schelling's early writings, which considerably the promising dynamism of theseworks. We proceedto a critical accountof restricted the Identity Systemalong with an assessment Hegel's and Heidegger's critique. of Heidegger'sis an instantiation of his typical pattern of critique towards German Idealism, namely, the unfolding of the latter's philosophical systemsfrom the the notion of the Absolute and the 'forgetting' of the notion of finitude. standpointof We arguethat Heidegger's fixation on this position preventshim from seeing Schelling's radical conceptualshift, which leads him to interpret Schelling's Of Human FreedomTreatise in the light of the Identity System.Instead,we arguethat the Of Human Freedom treatiseinauguratesSchelling's rupture with Identity philosophy,

his substantial self-critique,alongwith the introductionof his new andprovides

towards the notion of the Absolute and finitude, which allows his radical approach the notion of experience.Our researchon Schelling focuseson his middle revision of (1809-1815), since from this transitive phasewe can gatherthe transition from works logic to logogrif, which is the main issue of this thesis.

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In the fifth chapter,we pursuefurther Schelling's new conceptualisationof the relation betweenAbsolute and finitude, as this has been deployedin the Ages of the World. Schelling's break with the Identity principle - in the Of Human Freedom and the Ages of the World - enableshim to perform a disturbing exodusfrom the transparentrealm of logic and his quasi-theological commitment to the Absolute and a new context for the examination of the notions of cognitive experience, provide judgement-power,subjectivity and freedom. This new context, mainly expoundedin the Ages of the World, consistsin the dynamic and enigmatic nexus of cosmic potencies,of which man is an active part. From this point of view, experiencecan no longer be conceivedas conditioned or reconstructedby logic's abstractingconceptual logic itself is already a form of experience,and moreover,part since presuppositions, of the cosmic enigma itself. However, what seemsto deprive logic of its 'authority', namely its conceptualisationas part of the cosmic potencies,is precisely what it with the new dimensionsthat liberate it from the perennially tormenting provides

dutiesfor the attainment universalandnecessary objectivityandunconditioned of

freedom.Logic as a part of, and reflection on, the cosmic enigma, is not destroyedand paralysedby the 'forces of chaos': it rather plays with them, recognisesthem entirely in its own dynamics, it allows itself to experienceand blend with them, and becomes logogrif. It is as if Schelling's thought performs this sort of movement, and transmutes the potenciesof the Ages of the World into the gods of the Deities of Samothrace,in to provide his logogrific depiction of the cosmic enigma, as will be seenin the order concluding chapter.Prior to this, we attempt, drawing on the conclusionsof the previous chapters,to gain a new approachtowards the notion of the self, which constitutesthe topic of the sixth chapter.

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The sixth chapterexan-ines different accountsof the notion of the self, as the latter the derived from Schelling's differentiated approaches toward the notion of the are Absolute, before and after the break with the Identity principle. Hence,we first discussSchelling's accountof the self, as this has beenexpoundedin his early work, Idealism (1800), in which we identify the normative the Systemof Transcendental requirementsof the predominant characterof his account,due to the transcendental identity in this phase.In turn, we endeavourto provide an alternative conceptof be account,which, although not explicitly presentedby Schelling, can nonetheless from the Freedom treatiseand the Ages of the World. Through this, we gain a garnered insight into the notion of the self, the question of judgement power and freedom, new especiallyby virtue of the discovery of the role of the unconscious.

We conclude our researchon Schelling with his logogrific accountof the cosmic becon-ing, it hasbeenportrayed in the Deities of Samothrace.This final chapter is as

of an alternative modeof thinking,i.e. the expounded an experimental as example

logogrific, and is written in a different style to the previous chapters,reflecting Schelling's changeof style as well, in the light of his attempt to createa new mythology.

The conclusion defendsthe need,which emergesfrom the whole of our research,for a

the notionof experience, throughthebreakof its radicalreconceptualisation of

transcendental account and by meansof its logogrific grasp.This points to the requirementfor further investigation into the relation betweenLogos and Mythos, possibly, this time, beginning with a thorough exploration of mythical thinking in its
21

implicit relation to Logos, and the story of the marriagesand divorces between philosophy and mythology. In this context, it would be possibleto re-appraiseand further explore the horizons that the logogrific approachopenstoward the potential of an alternativeto the pure logical or traditional mythical patternsof thinking.

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Section I The Logic of experience

Chapter 1

Kant's Transcendental Deduction: The conceptual reconstruction of experience

In Kant's theoretical philosophy "pure reason leaves everything to the understanding",for "the understandingalone can apply immediately to the objects of intuition" (CPR, B383). Hence, in the first part of the Critique of Pure ReasonKant explores "the territory of pure understanding",which is "... the land of truth- enchantingname!- surroundedby a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of illusion ... (CPR, B295). However, "that a concept should be produced completely a priori and should relate to an object , is altogether and impossible" (CPR, A96) How then, he asks, do the concepts of pure contradictory apply to experience? By what right can we possessknowledge that is understanding only by meansof this application? produced In Kant's time, deduction was a legal procedure that decides a quaestio quid juris by demonstrating that a particular claim or possessionis not obtained surreptitiously but lawfully. The deduction of the concepts of understandingmeans then, that the latter are likewise brought under such a procedureof proving entitlement. As Kant noted "everyone must defend his position directly, by a legitimate proof that carries with it a transcendental deduction of the grounds upon which it is itself made to rest" (A794/B822). Since the grounds in question are the subjective conditions of possible knowledge, he also claims that "only a single proof is possible, namely, from the concept of the subject." This general guideline gave rise to a predominant interpretation of the deduction in terms of the

24

unelaboratednotion of 'consciousnessin general', missing thus the implicit result of Kant's enterprise,which is not the successfuldeduction of the categories,but rather, the construction of the main tenets of the representational pattern of thinking and the

in thenotionof self-consciousness termsof this model. of establishment

Kant himself consideredthe task of the deduction in question extremely difficult. Indeed, both editions of the text on the deduction presentconsiderableentanglement,obscurity and internal contradictions. These problems, in combination with the real difficulty of the depth and complexity of Kant's thought, have led to a vast amount of understanding different interpretationsand reconstructionsof Kant's enterprise.In the presentchapter, we do not intend to provide a historical exposition or critique of this literature, but only to interpret some basic critical points of a specific but influential kind of reading, to the that they facilitate the presentation of our understandingand the extraction of the extent from Kant's undertakingthat are relevant for our research.Hence, we will first conclusions based on the spirit of the Prolegomena to Any Future present a reading which, Metaphysics, places at its centre the notion of objectivity of 'consciousnessin general'. This not only fails to provide a sufficient argument for the deduction, but generally reads Kant in a fruitless way, accentuatingthe most negative features of his thought. We will then, presenta reading that attemptsto deducethe categoriesfrom the notion of the identity of the subject. In this section, we mainly employ D. Henrich's elaboration of the notion of identity. We will try to show that this reading is not only a more suitable ground for the deduction, but also brings out Kant's elaborate problematic of the notion of selfconsciousness.

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Deduction from knowledge of objects

In this group of arguments, Kant first assumes,in different ways, the already existing knowledge of objects' and then deducesthe categories from this very assumption, since by meansof the categoriesis this kind of knowledge possible. The common feature of only the argumentsis a firm contrast between experienceof objects - which includes necessary subjective states - which are deprived of any kind of necessary connections - and This pattern of argument,under the guise of the very idea of judgement itself, connection. in both the Prolegomena and in the heart of the Critique. The judgements produced exists by the use of the categories are objective, in the sense that they assert necessaryand distinct from subjective judgements which consist in contingent universal validity and are This sort of argumentationalready anticipatesthe limits and and arbitrary representations. deduction, since it restricts the task of the deduction itself, the outcome of a possible its failure. In other words, in the context of this dichotomy, which, therefore,predetermines the task of the deduction is narrowed to the justification of the use of the categoriesmerely

is by virtue of their 'objectivity-conferring'role. The function of the categories presented

as a rather external super-addition of truth and necessityto otherwise arbitrary, subjective The latter are somehow createdthrough mere logical connections,as Kant statesin states. 2 for the subjeCt. In contrast, the subordination of the the Prolegomena,and hold good only

1 "Since thesesciences it is quite proper to ask how they are possible;for that they must be possibleis exist, proved by the fact that they exist " (CPR, B 21). ' In the Prolegomena,Kant distinguishesbetween"judgements of experience"and "judgementsof which perception".The distinction is madein terms of the employmentof the conceptsof the understanding, the first kind of judgementsobjectively valid, and the useof mere logical connectionsof perceptionin render a thinking subject,which renderthe latterjudgementssubjectiveand contingent. Kant doesnot sufficiently clarify the featuresof the merelogical connectionsof a thinking subject.He rather provides asexplanation the result of their employment,namelyjudgementsthat are valid for a specific subjectand are deprived only validity. He doesnot, though, elucidate,at this stage,the relation betweenthesemere logical of universal It connectionswith the conceptsof understanding. is only in the CPR that the formal characterof the concepts is brought into relief, and the notion of self-consciousness concomitantly,formal of understanding acquires, in interpretationof the term " consciousness general", status.This may also be the reasonfor the hypostasised 26

subjective statement under the category transforms the former into a "judgement of experience",which holds true for anyone, since it relates to an object which is 'there' for and distinct from the subject3. everyone However, once the role of the categoriesis thus reduced to discrin-ination and addition of objectivity, the attempt of their deduction is an already foregone failure, due to the way that the subjective/objective distinction is posited. This problem, as will be seen, recurs with any similar attempt at the deduction; for the required objectivity is taken as something imposed,which leads inevitably to a regressivetactic. externally

Deduction in Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics

In the Prolegomena,Kant deducesthe categoriesfrom the claim that it is only by meansof them that a "judgement of experience" is renderedpossible. The latter however, is merely assumedand taken for granted. The notion of experience already assumesknowledge of
objects:

"Experience consists in the synthetic connection of appearances(perceptions) in one in consciousness, so far as this is necessaryand so 'judgements of experience' possessa new relation, namely to an object" (22), which signifies nothing else than its universal validity. Any such claim to universal and necessaryvalidity however, as a claim to an a
that appearsin the Prolegomenaas the sourceof the objectivity-conferring concepts. . ......if we havereasonto hold a judgement to be necessarily universally valid ( which never restson perception,but on the pure conceptof the understanding we the perceptionis subsumed), must under which considerit to be objective also, that is, that it expresses merely a referenceof our perceptionto a subject, not but a quality of the object. For there would be no reasonfor thejudgements other men necessarilyto agree of " with mine, if it were not the unity of the object to which they refer and with which they accord;

27

knowledge, requires "special concepts originally generatedin the understanding" priori (( 18), under which "the perception is subsumed". These a priori concepts are but the categories. The notion of the category, as that which by means of its application discriminates an it with mere subjective representations,correspondsto its role as an object and contrasts textra-logical constraint' upon the employment of the merely logical function of by judgements.Hence,in the subject-predicaterelation, the object which is represented the has subject-concept rigidly to be in the position of the subject and can never be a predicate. As Kant clearly states,

They are concepts of an object in general, by means of which its intuition is regardedas determined in regard to one of the logical functions of judging. Thus the function of the categoricaljudgement was the relation of the subject to the predicate, e.g., all bodies are divisible. Only in regard to the merely logical employment of the understanding it remains undetermined which of the two conceptsone is to give the function of the subject and which that of the predicate. For one can also say: something divisible is a body. Through the concept of however, if I bring the concept of body under it, it is determinedthat its substance, empirical intuition in experiencemust always be consideredonly as subject, never as mere predicate;and so with all the other categories.(Prolegomena 128)

Therefore, the notion of the category is not taken as a form of a mere logical function within a judgement, but as a constraining rule that somehow makes the use of the mere logical function necessary.The rigid relation between subject-predicatein the judgement reflects the equivalent rigid separationbetween subject-object,the lack of any mutual interpenetration or interchange of their roles and eventually, as a result of this, their mutual estrangement (for this indisputable knowledge produced by the application of the

(Prolegomena,298)

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is only a phenomenalone). categories Furthermore, the claim on the universality of the application of the categories appears doubtful. For if, as the Prolegomena states, "judgements of perception" are based upon mere logical connections and not upon categorical ones, how can the categories assume their universal applicability to any kind of unity? Are combination and the term of judgement relevant only for objective judgements, and should every subjective statealways be consideredas incoherent? Here, Kant's argumentfails to deducethe categories,not only becausehe begsthe question the assurninga kind of knowledge which necessarilypresupposes use of the categoriesbut also becausehe is inevitably led to this kind of regressionby virtue of the role itself which is initially ascribedto the categories(i. e. truth-conferring, external constraints).This role however, is hardly deduced by Kant in the Prolegomena, but is only postulated through the axiomatic introduction of the vague concept of 'consciousnessin general'. Nevertheless,this failure is not the result of the analytical method of the Prolegomena. Even in the CPR, where Kant introduces the so-called synthetic method, which forswears appealto the a priori knowledge of objects, there are considerablesectionsthat can be read according to this line of argument. For both the synthetic and the analytic approaches derive from Kant's higher standpoint,namely, that of transcendental logic.

29

Deduction from the "objectivity of self-consciousness"

In the CPR, though the texts of both editions provide a much more sophisticatedexposition the Deduction than the teaching version of the Prolegomena, there are many passages of that allow a readingin terms of the Prolegomena.In the Critique, Kant's path is the reverse that found in the Prolegomena: instead of assumingthe a priori knowledge of objects of to justify the employment of the categories by means of this original and seeking he puts at the centre of his enterprise the necessity of the subject's selfassumption, the source for the justification of the employment of the categories.As as consciousness be shown, neither doesthis more elaboratestrategysucceedin deducing the categories, will for it is again built on a transcendentalassumption, namely the transcendentalunity of However, through the investigation of this key concept, we gain a deeper apperception. of the main tenets of conceptual-representational thinking, and the understanding the identity of the self. The successof the deduction concomitant conceptualisation of lie then, not in the achievementof its original task, but in its side-effects, endeavour,may that is, the thernatisationof the critical notion of the transcendentalunity of apperception, it, the elucidation of the meaning and the limits of transcendentallogic. and along with However, if the notion of the transcendentalunity of apperception is consideredas a static is frequently suggested Kant himself, we do not gain any further insight into by concept,as Kant's notion of experience, since we can easily slip into a kind of reading - indeed dominant in the Kantian and neo-Kantian literature - which reiterates,in a reverseway, the argumentof the Prolegomena.

30

According to this interpretation, the categoriesare deducedfrom the very fact of making judgements whose ground is the "objective unity of consciousness".In this context, we first find the introduction of the notion of the transcendentalunity of apperception, which is consideredobjective as opposedto the mere subjective statesof inner sense. the transcendentalunity of apperception is that unity through which all the ... manifold given in the intuition is united in the concept of an object. Therefore, it is entitled objective and must be distinguished from the subjective unity of that is a determinationof inner sense(B 139) consciousness

At this stage,Kant does not specify the kind of objectivity that he ascribesto the unity of The character of this objectivity is disclosed when Kant collapses the apperception. transcendentalunity of apperceptionto our truth-capacity, to the ability of making valid objects: judgementswhich expressknowledge of external, and independent-of-the-subject, "A judgement is nothing but the manner in which given modes of knowledge are brought to the objective unity of apperception.This is what is intended by the copula is .... it indicatestheir relation to original apperceptionand its necessary unity"(B141). Kant specifiesmore clearly the nature of objectivity as follows:

Thus to say the body is heavy is not merely to state that the two representations have always been conjoined in my perception, however often that perception be is that they are combined in the object, no matter repeated;what we are asserting what the stateof the subject may be. (B 142)

Therefore, the judgements have objectivity as long as they assertsomething about objects on the basis of perception.An object is somethingwhose reality can be establishedin many circumstancesby anyone and consequently,this is also the kind of objectivity which is ascribed, as immanent property, to self-consciousness; objectivity understoodin terms an

31

unity and sameness the I think". As W.Walsh -a contemporary of the unchangeable of commentatorin this line of interpretation - describesit: "The unity of apperception... refers not only to any actual self but only to an ideal subject-selfwhich is the samein all of us or Consequently,he himself posits the question: "But would be if we were wholly rationalvv4 . why should we take at all seriously the supposed self-identical self which represents in consciousness general?
115?

In brief, the above reading of the Critique proceedsas follows: it introduces the notion of transcendental unity of apperception as the ground of the deduction of the categories. However, instead of exploring the possible inner relation between the unity of apperceptionand the categories- as will be seenlater-, it identifies the transcendental unity of apperceptionwith the ability of making objective judgements, which draw their validity by virtue of their claim to expressknowledge of objects. Since the categoriesare but the constitutive elements of objective judgements, they can be deduced from the very possibility of making suchjudgements.The ground of this possibility is the"objective unity

it Therefore, is assumed, almostby flat, a 'strong' kind of objectivityas consciousness". of

immanent property of self-consciousness, virtue of which the capacity of truth-claims, by in the form of judgements, is renderedpossible. The argument is again regressive:it sets out to derive the conditions for knowledge of objects from the conditions of selfconsciousness,but instead, it ends up merely identifying them, through the arbitrary

nomination the latteras 'objective'. of

4 Walsh W. H., Kant's Criticism Metaphysics, 50. of p. SIbid., p. 56.

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"The Ego the crucible and the fire ....

There is, however, another sense of objectivity that may apply to the analysis of selfthat is, one that is directly related to self-consciousnessand not defined consciousness, through its relation to an external object. The unity of self-consciousnessmay be considered as objective, in this sense, as long as it consists only in the "I think"in consciousness its relation to every content which can be a thought: it indicates the ability to have the simple consciousnessof myself to whatever I represent, regardless of its This notion of objectivity (as formal universality and necessity)was demonstrated content. by Hegel in his critique of Kant: The Ego is what is originally identical, at one with itself, and utterly at home with itself. If I say "I", this is the abstractself-relation, and what is posited in this unity is infected by it, and transformedinto it. Thus the Ego is, so to speak,the crucible the fire through which the indifferent multiplicity is consumedand reducedto and This, then is what Kant calls "pure apperception.6 unity.

We have to bear in mind this sense of objectivity if we are to further investigate the of the deduction of the categories, especially with regard to their a priori possibility However, if this notion is equatedwith the actual structure of self-consciousness character. is hypostatisedin terms of a latent T, which allegedly underlies and thus unifies all and thoughts, we may relapse into the notion of a general, impersonal consciousness, which the basis of the 'objective' unity that we previously discussed.Instead, will again constitute

we will try to examinethe unity of apperception, as a unity of thoughts-contents not

effected by a latent, non-transitory T, but in terms of the unification of the internal states

I Hegel G. W. F., TheEncyclopediaLogic, p.84.

33

the self itself, and to use the notion of objectivity pertaining to this processonly as the of This mode of employment of the thought of the forinal dimension of self-consciousness. the recurrent problem of the hypostatisationof 'consciousness notion of objectivity avoids in general'. The choice between these two directions dependson the way we read the following critical proposition: "It must be possible for the "I think" to accompanyall my (B 131 CPR). If we read it, as Kant suggests,as an analytic judgement and representations" fix the roles of subject and predicate,the most possible outcome is to understandthe also all of "I think" in terms of an entity, which unifies, by meansof its formal sameness, notion its possiblerepresentations if it were an underlying substratumquite external to them. If as the "I think" as possibly being and possibly not being identified with we, rather, consider this statementin a more dynamic way, as the prefix "it we every representation, may read in be possible" hints at; i. e., that I do not immediately unite all my representations one must in "consciousness general,but that the "I think"-consciousness may well not accompanyall since it is no longer conceived as a permanentunderlying substratum. my representations,

is Instead, "I think"-consciousness inextricablyattached its specificcontent,and it to the

be considered as pure fonn only as a logical abstraction. In other words, the above can hasto be read not as an immediate unity of thoughtsunder a simple T, but as a proposition process:in each one of my thoughtsI have to become reflexive and moreover,prescriptive I this thought as mine, and so long as I am consciousof a representation, must consciousof be said to 'apperceive' my thus being conscious. Hence, the unity of apperception also to the necessity of the unification of the infinite "I think"-consciousness. If refers the prefix with the accent on the aspectof possibility, now the stressis previously we read on the necessity,i. e., it must be possible. However, the abstractthought that I can be selfin each of my thoughts, regardless of the concrete content of any particular conscious thought, can exist, and refers to the formal constitution of self-consciousness.
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Deduction from the transcendental unity of apperception

We now turn to a more promisinginterpretation throughthe detailedexamination the of

deduction of the categoriesfrom the notion of the transcendentalunity of apperception.In this context, the notions of category,object, and experienceacquire new meaning and even the task of the deduction is redefined in terms of this new meaning. According to this reading, Kant intends to prove the 'objective validity' of certain rules that prescribe a He priori a variety of kinds of unity among representations. intends to prove that without such unity, experiencewould be impossible. He tries to show that this necessity(i. e. the unity of experience)essentially amountsto the possibility of the existenceof a permanent, through time. The unity of the latter is renderedpossible only under the self-consciousself the categories and in this sense, the categories are necessaryand unifying activity of universal conditions for the possibility of all experience and thus objectively valid. Categories then are considered as rules which function a priori, i. e. universally and necessarily,as unifying operatorsof experiencewhich render it possible. Kant, however, is not content with this claim. He also asserts that only such rules can account for the possibility of experience,otherwise, there can be no notion of experienceat all. How can Kant make such a strong claim? As we will try to show, its strengthis derived from Kant's severe claims for the identity of the self, since the conditions of the possibility of experience are essentially reduced to the conditions for the establishment of the self-

conscious self.
We cite once more the key proposition, this time, in order to read an implicit determination for of experience:"It must be possible, for the I think to accompanyall my representations;

35

otherwise something would be representedin me which could not be thought at all, and that is equivalent to saying that the representationwould be impossible, or at least would be nothing to me" (CPR, B 131). Here, experienceis conceivedas being inextricably linked with the self-consciousstatesof the self, with the taking up of each representationby selfthe consciousness, activity of the self upon its own contents as continuous self-affection, and from this point of view, as a continuousprocessof unification. The latter should not be considered as the bringing of many representationsunder one consciousness,but as unification of these representationssimultaneously with the unification of the infinite "I think"-consciousnessof the self, which includes the former. Kant does not claim that the self first experiencesthe intuition, and then subsumesit under the concept. The only way is the I think" can accompanyits representations to grasp their manifold at once as unity. In this sense the unity of apperception is not just an analytic unity, as Kant himself misleadingly states(CPR, B 135),but a synthetic one, since it consistsin a unifying process rather than in the tautological connection implied by the statement, "in so far as all The analytic conception they are connectedin one consciousness". representations nune are of unity cannot account for the necessity of rules, that is, for the necessaryconnecting relations among the different representations, since the latter would be unified by a simple (the act of one consciousness crucible of the Ego). Kant does not clarify this distinction, thus allowing for the reading that we previously discussed.He generally statesthat the basic idea of the unity of any experience must be effected by the understanding,which is the only possible active faculty of combining, as opposedto the passivereceptivity of sensibility: the unity which the object makes necessarycan be nothing else than the formal unity in " of consciousness the synthesisof the manifold of representations. (CPR, A 105).

36

however, provides a new perspectivefor our inquiry into the nature The following passage, unity of apperception: of the transcendental Whatever the origin of our representations is, whether they are due to the influence of outer things, or are producedthrough inner causes,whether they arise a priori, or being appearanceshave an empirical origin, they must all, as the mind, belong to inner sense. All our knowledge is thus modifications of finally subject to time, the formal condition of inner sense.In it they must all be ordered,connectedand brought into relation. This is a generalobservationwhich, throughoutwhat follows, must be bom in mind as being quite fundamental. Every intuition contains in itself a manifold which can be represented as a manifold only in sofar as the mind distinguishes the time in the sequenceof one impressionupon another; for each representationin sofar as it is contained in a single moment,can never be anything but absolute unity [my emphasis](A99)

Kant conceivesthe diversity as being eventually generatedby time, and consequently,its in turn can occur in temporal terms. Since each representationbelongs to inner synthesis is thus subject to time, its taking-up by self-consciousness occurs concomitantly sense,and in time and accordingly the unity of apperception has to be conceived in terms of the

temporality self-consciousness. of
Why, though, should this unity be prescribedaccording to a priori rules? Why could not a be effected by custom, habit, by the empirical association of the various unity representations, posteriori? Why should a 'transcendentalground' exist for this unity? a One response could be attained through the recalling of the necessary character of experience, the assumption that if there were not necessarily and universally connected representations, then experience would not exist at all, but only ineffable glances. However, if the answer rests on the definition of experience, the argument becomes regressivein the way we discussedin the first section. Therefore, the necessityof this kind of unity should not be derived from the definition of experience, which constitutes the
37

result rather than the point of departurefor the proof: experienceis conceivedas being thus united becauseotherwise there would not exist a permanentself through time. This is the essentialpoint and the core of the whole enterpriseof the deduction: "... only in so far as I in do can graspthe manifold of the representations one consciousness, I call them one and all mine. For otherwise I should have as many-coloured and diverse a self as I have of representations which I am consciousto myself."(CPR, B 132) In other words, eachtime I am consciousof a representation,I have to become conscious that I am the same self as that which had the former representation.This condition has to be understood only as a fonnal one; for only the formal requirement of the identity of the self can account for the necessitationof the a priori nature of the rules. Kant' s thought is determinedby the notion identity as absoluteand undifferentiated 'sameness'and 'oneness', which can exist only of of so far as - as it is arguedin the Paralogisms, Rational Psychology- there is not the "least trace of intuition" in the "I".

That the "r' of apperceptionand therefore the "r' in every act of thought, is one, and cannot be resolved into a plurality of subjects, and consequently signifies a logically simple subject, is something already contained in the very concept of thought, and is therefore an analytic proposition. But this does not mean that the thinking "F' is a simple substance.That proposition would be synthetic. The conceptof substance always relatesto intuitions which cannot in me be other than sensible, and which therefore lie entirely outside the field of the understanding and its thought. (CPR, B408)

This formal condition - that I have to be one and the sameself-conscioussubject in each of my thoughts,regardlessof the concretecontent of eachthought - can be prescribedonly by a priori connections.Only a priori rules can guaranteethe formal identity of the self for, otherwise, an empirical consciousness would arise, which "is in itself diverse and without

38

to the identity of the subject" (CPR, A120). As already mentioned, Kant is rather relation with the notion of the identity of the self aspure unity, but since he also wants to obsessed demarcatehimself from the metaphysical tradition - where the T is identified radically the soul that is simple substance- he conceivesthe identity in an entirelyformal way. with Also, in the Paralogisms,he claims:

Consciousnessis indeed, that which alone makes all representations to be thoughts, and in it, therefore, as the transcendentalsubject, all our perceptions be found; but beyond this logical meaning of the "I", we have no knowledge must of the subject in itself, which as substratum underlies this "I", as it does all thoughts.

The above extract presents Kant's understandingof the 'I' in terms of a mere logical, thoughts. As we have seen,Kant's use of this notion undermineshis empty vehicle of all to deduce the categories; for if any such non-transitory empty T pre-existed attempt then the need for rules would not arise. However, Kant in the Third representation,

identity for a formal,thoughtime-determined, Paralogism notionof numerical space makes

the self, which can supply a sufficient ground for the need of both rules - in order to of mediatethe transitions -, and their a priori nature as well. He claims that from the notion of the self s identity, nothing about the knowledge of the personality can be inferred - as in rational psychology does -, but only the notion of self-consciousness time: "For really it says nothing more than that in the whole time in which I am conscious of myself, I am conscious of this time as belonging to the unity of myself-, and it comes to the same whether I say that this whole time is in me, as individual unity, or that I am to be found as numerically identical in all this time." (CPR, A362). Kant's reference to time has no relation to any empirical, social or historical conceptualisationof it, for these forms imply

39

consciousness preclude the transcendentalconstruction of the identity of the and empirical The notion of time is introduced in terms of an a priori form of intuition that is self compatible with the requirement of the formal identity of the self. Moreover, the transcendentalaccount of time is provided in terms of a linear successionof time-units, is compatible with the requirement of mediating rules for their unification. "We which the time-sequenceby a line progressing to infinity, on which the manifold represent dimension only; and we reasonfrom the properties of this line to constitutesa seriesof one properties of time, with this one exception, that while the parts of the line are all " simultaneousthe parts of time are always successive. (CPR, B50) Therefore, according to the preceding analysis of the notion of the unity of apperception,in a schematicway, the deductionof the categorieswould be achievedas follows: 1. There can exist the thought, as condition, as requirement, that I am one and the same self-consciousself in all of my thoughts,regardlessof the concretecontent of eachthought. This thought refers to the formal structureof self-consciousness as such determinesthe and in the required unity of apperceptionas a priori, i. e. universal and necessary and nature of this senseo ective. 2. Nevertheless,the very fact of being conscious in the sensethat I can be one and the self-consciousbeing in all of my representations,is itself an actual thought, which same as an instanceof the "I think" -thought, and not as a non-transitory "I think". Hence, exists in every instance of my self-consciousness there is a reference to the totality of all other instances,and it is through this referencethat the self s identity may be constituted. From the above,the needfor an ordered transition of the self from one stateto another,emerges, so that the constantformal sameness and onenessof the self may be secured.This type of orderedtransition can only be effected by meansof universal and necessary rules.

40

3. The categoriesthen, are nothing but functions for the co-ordination of all possible "I think"-instanceswhich render possible the identity of the self and establish its persistence through time. The argument is completed by the confirmation of the unity of the self through its relation to experience, since the synthesising function of the categories is into an 'object in general' and is expressedin the form of judgement (object as crystallised that under the conceptof which the manifold of an intuition is united).

In brief, the formal unity of the self requires the a priori ordering of its representations. This makesexperiencea coherent,ordered whole in which, in turn, the self recognisesits own unity: ".. if cinnabar were sometimes red, sometimes black, sometimes light, heavy, if a man changedsometimes into this and sometimes into that animal sometimes form imagination would never find opportunity when representingred my empirical . ......

" colour to bring to mind heavy cinnabar. (CPR, A 101) Hence, Kant establishes the "supreme principle" of all possible employment of the which is "that all the manifold of intuition should be subject to conditions understanding, of the original synthetic unity of apperception"(CPR, B306). However, the critical question arises: how can the spontaneous activity of the understandingtake the form of rule-delivering in the first place ? Kant needsto resort to a further crucial presupposition,which, however, is never subjectedto the needof any sort of deduction. This is the fundamental assumptionof the self's a priori certainty of its formal identity.

All possible appearances belong, as representations,to the entire possible selfFrom this however, as a transcendentalrepresentation,numerical consciousness. identity is inseparable,and a priori certain, since come into cognition nothing can
41

by meansof its original apperception.(CPR, A 113) except For the mind could not possibly think the identity of itself in the multiplicity of its indeed this a priori, if it did not have before its eyes the representations,and identity of its action. (CPR, A96)

However, the a priori certainty of the self is never deduced, and thus the limits of the transcendental appear,as is the case for every transcendentalargument, which in method to establisha priori knowledge has to resort to anothera priori assumption. order We are thus provided with a more sophisticatedand seemingly consistentargumentfor the deduction, based on the notion of the identity of the self, but we question precisely this the ungroundedcertainty which is required by virtue of the nature of notion, and moreover, the required identity. The latter, though, doesnot deliver Kant's enterprisefrom consequent internal inconsistencies.

As we saw, Kant established the supreme principle of the employment of the according to which any kind of combination of all possible representations understanding, be subject to the categories. The employment of the categories becomes the should awareness. Accordingly, even empirical or subjective unity of condition of all consciousness which is a determination of inner sense - should be derived from the unity of apperception:".... only the original unity is objectively valid; the empirical original unity of apperceptionupon which we are not here dwelling, and which besides is merely derivedfrom the former under given conditions in concreto, has only subjective validity" (B 140, my emphasis).Kant doesnot suggest- as he does in the Prolegomena- that there is either mere subjective unity of empirical association,or objective judgement by meansof

42

the employment of the categories.Instead of sharply cutting off the subjective unity from the objective, he considers the former as arising from the latter. How then are we to unity understandthe notion of subjective unity as being 'derivable' from the transcendental A of apperception? possibleinterpretationcould run as follows: when I make a claim based on subjective association,e.g., I conjoin two events as being causally connectedaccording to my subjectivejudgements of perception, the unity of this claim may be consideredto derive from the original unity of apperceptionin the sensethat I make my subjective claim in terms of causality. In other words, only becauseI have in my mind the notion of formal rule which has to order the manifold, do I ascribe causal connection causality, as a to the relation between the two representations,regardless of any further specification to which I can subsumethe proper content under the categoryof causality. But if according this is the case,which then are the criteria - if they are not the categorieswhose application as universal - according to which we could clearly discriminate between is claimed subjectiveand objective claims? This problem remains unsolvable in the context of the Kantian sharp distinctions between form and content, concept and intuition, truth and illusion. It especially revealsthe impasse causedby any notion of category, either as an objectivity-conferring constraint, or as a universal and necessaryrule of unification of any manifold of intuition, because both derived from the sharp dichotomy between form and content, according to notions are which objectivity and necessityare ascribedto the former, subjectivity and contingency to the latter.

Furthermore,the requirementof the static, formal identity of the self excludesthe

possibility of dreams,visions, or any stateswhere the subject does not recognisein them its continuing and absolutely same Ego - in fact, states which, as will be seen in following

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Instead,accordingto Kant, may lead to even deeperlevels of self-consciousness. chapters, but thesestatesdo not count at all as synthesised representations as mere ineffable glances, ultimately as irrational ones; the formal unity of the self excludesthe possibility of any and break, loss, or changeof its pure abiding identity. senseof However, the deduction from the unity of apperception,as we tried to present it above, which consists in the provides a serious contribution to the notion of self-consciousness, as conceptionof self-consciousness a mediated and conditioned process,as opposedto the Cartesianrevelation of the Ego through the immediate introspection of the inner sense.The is not conceivedas pre-existing or immediately acquiredby the unity of self-consciousness but can be achieved only through the mediation of the synthetic activity of the cogito, understanding,the recognition of a coherent experiencewhich reconfirms the unity of the is Self-consciousness constructedthrough a continuing self-mirroring to its 'objects in self. The a priori certainty of the self s identity can be actualised only through the general'. However, this notion of mediation is too mediating synthesisof the self's representations.

in fact is spurious.For, as we will try to elucidatein the next weak and elementary and
section, the issue of the relation between subject-object in Kant is eventually internalised within the self, betweenits two faculties - understandingand receptivity-, where the former is ultimately determinesthe latter. The mediation of self-consciousness then a play between the 'selves' within the same self, the transcendentaland the phenomenal one, as in the practical philosophy between the noumenon and the phenomenal ego. One could object that in Critical Philosophy empirical realism is a permanent feature and that Kant

tries systematically to avoid any solipsisticreductionof empiricalreality to consciousness'

products. The Refutation of Idealism section is indicative. This may well be the case,but so long as empirical realism has no consistent relation with Kant's arguments in the

44

deduction, especially with regard to the role of the understanding and its relation to intuition, it ends up as a mere assertion:empirical realism is ultimately equatedwith the of the 'things in themselves', and, consequently,does not essentially intervene assumption in the understanding-intuition relation, despite Kant's permanent efforts to incorporate reality in his cognitive enterpriseand render legitimate - by delineating the limits empirical the conceptsof the understanding. for We turn then to an examination of the natureof this mediation and its consequences the deduction.

The spurious mediation

So far, we have seen how Kant establishedthe supreme principle of the understanding. However, in 21(CPR), he claims that only a beginning of the deduction is made.Hence he states:

In what follows (26) it will be shown, from the mode in which the empirical intuition is given in sensibility, that its unity is no other than that which the (according to 20) prescribes to the manifold of a given intuition in category general. Only thus, by demonstrationof the a priori validity of the categoriesin respect of all objects of our senses,will the purpose of the deduction be fully attained.(CPR, B 145)

However, the remaining task for the completion of the deduction is not as stated above7,
7 See Henrich D., "The Proof-Structureof TranscendentalDeduction", Review Metaphysics (88), of where Henrich claims that Kant up to 20 "does not clarify the range within which unitary intuitions can be found".

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i. e., the applicability of the categories to all objects, as their universal and unrestricted The latter, in our view, has already been proved by the claim on the use of the validity. conditions of the persistenceof the self in time. For the requirement categoriesas necessary the of the unity of the self necessitates unity of all possible representations the self, and of from this point of view, the categorieshave to be applicable to any manifold which may possibly count as experience. Instead, the remaining task for the deduction is that the categoriesare actually capableof taking up the 'given' into the unity of apperception;that all the manifold, not only should be subject to the original unity of apperception, but also, can be so. In other words, that there is no possibility for the casethat: "Appearancesmight very well be so constitutedthat the understandingshould not find them to be in accordance the conditions of its unity." (CPR, B 123). Hence, by meansof this secondstep, Kant with intends to prove that the applicability of the categories is not only a condition for the possibility of experience, but also an actuality which makes systematic knowledge of experienceand self-consciousness possible. This crucial and indispensablestep, however, is proved in such a way that undermineseven more the legitimate use of the conceptsof the understanding. Kant saysthat until this stageof the deduction, he had abstractedfrom the proof, the mode in which the manifold is given and paid attention solely to the unity of the understanding. He will now try to prove that all the manifold can be taken up by the categoriesand that its unity is no other than that prescribedby them precisely by virtue of the mode in which this manifold is given. He transfers the centre of gravity of the deduction from the necessityof the unification of the given, to the 'givenness' itself which allows for this unity. He completesthe deduction by proving that there would not exist intuitions that would fail to conform to the categories due to the mode of their 'givenness' in space and time. The

46

following footnote is quite illuminating:

Space, than mereform of intuition; it also represented object,containsmore as to combination the manifold,given according the form of sensibility, contains of in an intuitive representation, that theform of intuition givesonly a manifold, so theformal intuition givesunity of representations.
In the Aesthetic I have treatedthis unity as belonging merely to sensibility, simply in order to emphasise that it precedesany concept, although, as a matter of fact, it but a synthesiswhich doesnot belong to the senses through which all presupposes of spaceand time first becomepossible (my emphasis).For since by its concepts (in that the understandingdetenninesthe sensibility) [my emphasis],space means and time are first given as intuition ... (CPR, Bnl6 I)

Deciphering this obscureand densepassage, can make the following remarks: the mode we 'givenness' which renders all intuitions conformable to the categories, relies on the of that: a) all intuitions belong to the a priori framework of spaceand time (form assumptions of intuition), and, consequently,their form can be conformable to a priori rules, b) space and time themselves, thus everything which is intuited in their terms, presuppose a is deterniined by the understanding(fonnal intuition). Kant, in trying to synthesiswhich show the possible way through which given intuitions are conceptualisable,claims that conceptualconformity to the intuitional conditions of human sensibility, itself presupposes their minimal conceptualisation(not in temporal but in epistemological terms). Hence, he his own dichotomiesbetweenthe strict roles of spontaneityand receptivity, concept refutes and intuition, thereby radically relativising the notion of the object. If Kant claimed that Locke sensualisedconcepts and Leibniz idealised intuitions, he himself seems to be trappedby a similar way of bridging the dichotomies that he himself created. The point that we want to illuminate is that the understandingthat was supposedto be conditioned by sensibility, ends up itself conditioning and determining its 'other'. Self47

is supposed to be mediated by its experience, but the latter, precisely consciousness it because is exclusively its experience,rendersthe mediation 'spurious' and finally always to both - real but unknowable - world and Ego. remainsalien

From the previous inquiry into the attempt of the deduction of the categories,we can trace, the degreeof successof the deduction per se, the formulation of the main regardlessof features of the conceptual-representational mode of thinking and of transcendentallogic. We now offer the following generalremarksby way of concluding our discussion. 1. Conceptualthinking proceedsfrom the assumptionof an external manifold which stands to the subject of knowledge. This manifold is conceived as the passive material opposed is immediately given to the subject. However, it seems that nothing breaks which immediately into the subject. The manifold is given to the subject through the subject's faculty of receptivity. The immediacy of the material is mediated through the a priori time and space, and becomes,from mere presentation, conditions of sensibility, namely,
representation.

2. We understandtime as an a priori form of intuition, as an indication of thefiniteness of the human mind, in the sensethat all possible sensible representationsof outer and inner are eventually subject to inner sense,which appearsto function as the sieve through sense, the world is filtered by the faculty of a priori sensibility. As such, time pertains only which to the mode of givenness,or to the conditions of receptivity, which is conceived in entirely terms. Time is associatedwith the structural limitations of human sensibility and passive thus only with the concept of human finitude. Moreover, this conception of time takes on a more specific meaning. It acquires the structural form of the mind that conditions it to

48

intuit every possible sensual material as continuous, infinite, successive,isolated units, in a linear mode. Through this conceptualisationof time, we identify a secondbasic given of conceptual thinking, namely, that it proceeds through the path of thorough element distinctions in terms of precise temporal determinations. These analytically analytical distinguishedsensibleelementsin turn, lie in need of synthesis,if they intend to constitute knowledge.This conceptualisationof time proves to be the key mediating form, objects of is through which self-consciousness perceived as a process of unification. The temporal is dimension of self-consciousness a fruitful contribution. However, as we saw, time stands
for an a priori form of intuition, and as such is not associated with the spontaneity of

themselves.In addition, the confinement of time exclusively to the domain of concepts finitude of human receptivity does not imply that the latter should be specified in the form It linear succession isolated representations. seemsthat the Kantian conceptof time, of of a claims a priori status, rather reflects the predominant 17th century scientific which conceptualisation of time. The restriction of the concept of time to the conditions of

betweenthe finite natureof sensual fixes a rigid separation representations sensibility, are subject to temporality - and the infinite nature of the concepts of the which spontaneouslyout of time. Time and Eternity appear to understanding - which spring to two sharply distinct realms. The highly modem conceptualisationof time then, pertain the old distinction of a traditional mythological pattern of paradoxically, reintroduces thinking between the temporal and the eternal, the profane and the sacred,in the modem forms of the dichotomy between phenomenalknowledge and faith, sensuality and moral autonomy. The essential contribution of Kant's enterprise is the establishmentof the problematic of in self-consciousness terms of time and mediation. He thereby introduces the possibility of

49

with both the asocial, ahistorical Cartesian and the empiricist models of selfa rupture awareness.However, the limitations of this problematic of self-consciousness,which derive from its restriction within the realm of a transcendentalconceptualisationof time, the need for a further rupture with precisely this way of conceptualising time and suggest in the concomitantmodel of self-consciousness terms of formal identity. 3. The above analytically distinguished sensible representationslie in need of synthesis. The latter is an act of spontaneity, perfonned by the faculty of understanding,which is a pure self-legislating activity. Understanding,by means of the spontaneous consideredas of laws, transforms the fragmented sensible representationsinto a coherent, production unity; into objects of experience. The concepts of understanding, as they rule-governed the 'land of truth, are required to prove their right to employment. They have to be ground legitimate, otherwise their use would lead to illusions, paralogisms,and antinomies, as the illegitimate use of Reasondoes whenever the latter transcendsthe bounds of experience the unconditioned.This, however, belongs to faith, not to knowledge. Only the and seeks the understandingwithin the limits of experience could be justifiable: conditioned use of only a legal contract between the understandingand the senseswould render the former legitimate. Nevertheless,as we saw, this contract ultimately amounts, after a long journey in the realm of appearances, the conditions for the existence of the self-conscious, to persistent-in-timeselL The self can secureits unity only so long as its representationsand corresponding states in can be synthesised an a priori way. However, theserepresentations already 'inwardly are determined' by the understanding: the legal contract turns into the domination of the understandingupon the sensibility. The requirement for the formal unity of the self is none other than that which pertains to the assurance of the bearer of the faculty of the

50

Therefore,the understandingeventually acquiresits right to use its concepts understanding. by virtue of the requirement of its own existence! This striking contradiction is but the of the transcendentalmethod itself-, a method that pursues the validation of the result faculties of Reasonas autonomousand so a priori. A faculty thus consideredis one that finds its law in itself and at the same time, becauseof its self-legislating nature, has to judge itself in order to legitimise - i. e. to give universal validity - its own right to legislate is particular. The reduction of the 'enchanting land of truth' to the 'mere play of our which is then, an unconfessed acceptance this antinomy by Kant himself. of representations', Hence, in the context of transcendentallogic, spontaneity is specified as a rule-giving is confined to the representations that are taken up by the formally activity and experience identical self. Experienceis the unity through which the self confirms its identity, and from this point of view, experienceis essentially conceived in terms of the conditions for selfaffirmation and therebyof property relations. 4. In Kant's conceptual thinking the world is turned into a representation of the subject. The latter not only implies a dualistic separation between subject-object, but also the suggestion that, in this relation, only the subject is active, while the object assumesa passive,lifeless character.In fact, this distinction is replicated within the subject itself in
8

the form of the internaldistributionof active and passiveroles for the understanding and
the predominance of the former over the latter. The sensibility respectively, and derives not only from Kant's dualism, but also from representational accountof experience his restricted conception of spontaneity. The latter pertains only to the faculty of understandingand indeed is conceived as a rule-giving activity. Moreover, spontaneityis eventually reducedto a logical concept. Transcendentallogic essentially claims its right to
RoseG., Dialectic of Nihilism, p. 15 16. 51

experience,but so long as this claim is based on the self-legislative character of engulf the objectivity of representationsis transformed into a mere play, and the spontaneity, legislator into an impotent subject, confronting the realm of noumenawhere its laws have

no authority.
Hence, we can hardly see in Kant's resort to the understanding's self-legislative a claim for the establishment of the notion of the absolute subject, as spontaneity, Rather,we recognisehere, Kant's attempt to construct a notion of the Heideggersuggests9. s identity that intends to protect it from its severelimitations - namely its paralogisms self whenever it engageswith the paradoxes of the cosmos. It is not the and antinornies but its limitations that appearas absolute,and theseappearso, due to the role that is subject to the subject's spontaneity,i. e. law-giving. The main problem does not consist in ascribed the resort to the spontaneityof the understanding,but in the confinement of spontaneityto logic. the domain of transcendental Kant's responseto his central question on the possibility of synthetic a piori judgements is by the conceptualisationof experienceas a transparentand orderly unified whole provided by the acknowledgement the radical limitations of this notion, since of and, simultaneously, it pertains only to the realm of phenomena.Cognitive experienceis conceived at once as formally transparentand impenetrably opaque: this is an aporetic account of experience, aporia is intendedto be solved and yet - ironically by virtue of its solution - becomes where fixed and static.

I SeeHeideggerM., Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics.We discussthis issuein detail in Appendix I.

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Chapter 2 From Determinant to Reflective Judgement: The normalisation of experience

In the previous chapter, we examined Kant's response to his main question on the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements.The necessityand universality of the latter has been deducedby virtue of the requirement of the formal identity of the self through time. The latter, in turn, can be attainedby meansof the synthetic activity of the understanding, which spontaneouslygeneratesthe universal and necessaryunifying rules. Synthesis is through the law-giving spontaneityof the understanding.However, the laws, which carried I understandingprescribesfor nature, do not exhaust the multiplicity and infinite variety of the particular relations that aboundin experience.These also need to be lawfully organised

if experience still intendedto be consideredorderly unified. The lawfulnessof the is

the new problem, and indeed in terms of its compatibility with the laws particular arisesas the understanding,for otherwise the identity of the self would be suspendedby the of lawless irruption of the particular. The difficult task for the resolution of this problem is now assigned to a new type of synthetic judgement, the reflective judgement. This judgement, starting from the particular, is called to find its law, so that it be commensurate with the laws of the understanding.According to Kant, if this aim is met, a feeling of

in the subject:"The attainment everyaim is coupledwith a feelingof pleasure emerges of

10). Hence, the central question of the possibility of synthetic judgements pleasure"(0, arisesanew, in the form:

53

How is a judgement possible which, going merely upon the individual's own feeling of pleasurein an object independentof the conceptof it, estimatesthis as a pleasure attached to the representation of the same object in every other individual, and does so i. e., without being allowed to wait and see if other , will be of the samemind? ( CJ, 36,288) people

Reflective judgement lies in need of deducing its claims. However, since the former is not through the conceptsof the understanding,what is the bearer of synthesis,or rather carried how is synthesis now conceived, and on what ground are the results of this synthetic activity conceivedas universal and necessary? We needthen to proceedto a close investigation of Kant's account of reflective judgement. As a preliminary remark, we would like to emphasisethat synthesisnow is introduced in terms of feeling, and indeed as one of pleasure, which usually for Kant pertains to the than to the conceptualrealm. Moreover, synthetic unity is associatedwith empirical rather the innovative conception of free play, occurring between the interactive parts imagination - in the reflective procedure. This approach endows understanding and

judgementwith new dynamic features,which may potentially break Kant's reflective

transcendentalstandpoint and open new insights into the notion of experience and the relation between man and the world. However, as far as the free play pertains exclusively to the subjective cognitive powers, reflective judgement is conceived as a syn-thetic act, and its promising dynamism is absorbed by the positing of Reason. principles

Nevertheless,reflective judgement is characterisedby an internal tension, which, despite Kant's ultimate determinationto resolve it, is worthwhile considering. In fact, the tension of reflective judgement originates in the unresolved aporias of determinantjudgement. These are not traced in the concept of the identity of the self, since this seemsto constitute an unquestionablecondition of experience in Kant's problematic.

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The aporiasare associated with the faculty of judgement itself, with our ability to judge at all, namely, to think the particular as containedunder the universal. In the First Critique, Kant arguesthat, in fact, there can exist no further rule that would instruct judgement on how to subsumea particular under a rule:

If it [general logic] sought to give general instructions how we are to subsume under theserules, that is, to distinguish whether somethingdoes or does not come under them, that could only be by meansof anotherrule. This in turn, for the very reasonit is a rule, again demandsguidancefrom judgement. Thus, it appearsthat, though understandingis capable of being instructed, and of being equipped with rules, judgement is a peculiar talent, which can be practised only, and cannot be taught. It is the specific quality of so-called mother-wit; and its lack no school can make good. (CPR, A133, B172)

Not only is there a logical problem of infinite regress implied in these rules, but also a the very act of the determinantjudgement itself, that is, the subsumptionof problem with and formal universals. However, while natural talent particulars under pre-existing, rigid

transcendental cannotbe taught,andfor its lack "thereis no remedy.... philosophyhasthe

peculiarity that besides the rules (or rather the universal conditions of rules), which are given in the pure conceptsof the understanding,it can also specify the instance to which the rule is to be applied" (B 175, my emphasis). It is the Analytic of Principles, the Schematismand the System of the Principles of pure understanding,under the common title, the Transcendental Doctrine of Judgement, which will provide the canon for judgement.

In this section, Kant attempts to solve the problem of the judging-power, but in fact only specifies the terms of the subsumption of the particulars under the universal, without actually addressingthe issue of the instance of the subsumption, namely, the problem of
55

how this particular could be subsumedunder a given concept. The Schernatismmerely attemptsto give a plausible exposition of the way in which a pure intelligible concept can to an entirely sensibleintuition, i. e., how theseentirely heterogeneous entities could apply be united. The answerto this enigma is given by the notion of time, the pure intuition that is claimed to be homogeneouswith both concept and intuition. The schema is a formal determinationof time provided by the productive imagination, according to the demandsof It the understanding. is therefore a method, a rule in terms of time, and not an image, as M. ' Heideggerand H. Arendt have argued. An 'image -version' of the schemawould be a universal, determining, substantialeikon of the particular, which would allow for a Platonic eikastic reading of the Kantian concept, leaving out hisformalist methodology which is central to the whole critical project. In fact, the whole enterprise of the deduction of the categories is based on Kant's formalism, particularly as regards the requirement of the unity of the original apperception as the exigency for the formal identity of the subject. On Arendt's reading, taking the schemato be a substantial image, there could not exist any organisation and unification of the manifold under rules, but merely the recognition of a 'faint copy' in its perfect eikon. The conceptualisation of the schema as given by the productive imagination and as partaking in the rules for the subsumptionof the manifold, can be properly understoodby a considerationof the relationship betweenimagination and understandingin the CPR.

1 Hannah Arendt interprets schemaas an image, in order to parallel it with aestheticjudgement: "It is something beyond or between thought and sensibility; it belongs to thought insofar as it is outwardly invisible, and it belongsto sensibility insofar as it is somethinglike an image" (H. Arendt, Lectureson Kant's Political Philosophy (LKPP hereafter),p.82. Arendt is influenced by Heidegger'sreading of Kant's notion of the schematism, and the role of imagination in his work. In Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics,Heidegger interprets the schemaas a schema-image, distanceshimself from Platonic interpretation. He usesthe but a term merely in order to emphasisethe 'sensual' dimension of the schema (KPM p.97). This is again problematic,sincethe schemais consideredby Kant as purely formal.

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In the 'A' deductionwe read: A pure imagination, which conditions all a priori knowledge, is thus one of the fundamentalfaculties of the human soul. By its means we bring the manifold of intuition on the one side, into connectionwith the condition of the necessary unity of pure apperception the other. (A 124) on

Imagination (we are mainly concerned with productive) appears as a mediating faculty betweenintuition and conceptthat belongseither to sensibility or understanding.

Imagination is the faculty of representingin intuition an object that is not itself Now since all our intuition is sensible, the imagination, owing to the present. condition under which alone it can give to the concepts of subjective intuition, belongs to sensibility. But inasmuch as understandinga corresponding its synthesis is an expression of spontaneity...., and which is therefore able to determine sensea priori in respect of its form in accordancewith the unity of imagination is to that extent a faculty which determines the apperception, its synthesisof intuitions, conforming as it doesto the categories, sensibility ; and imagination. This synthesisis an action of be the transcendental synthesisof must the understanding(my emphasis)on the sensibility. (B 152)

Here, imagination seemsto hold an equivocal status,betweensensibility and similar to that of time, which is assumedto pertain to both concept and understanding, intuition. However, this twofold naturedoesnot addressthe main question of the applicability of the universal upon the particular, as long as the latter pertains to the The sameconfusion appearsconcerning the various definitions of inner empirical realm. sense,which, on the one hand is associated with mere subjective or empirical

representations, on the other,asthe site of time, with formsof intuition. and

The tension which accompanies determinantjudgement with regard to the applicability of its concepts,is deflated by meansof the 'Solution' of the schernatism.In the latter though,

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the twofold statusof imagination and time loses its transitive, mediating role between intuition, so long as imagination and understanding universal and particular, conceptand to the subjectivesphere.This becomesmore obvious by briefly looking at the are restricted imagination'sactivity. In the CPR, imagination appearsresponsiblefor two natureof functions: the figurative synthesis,and the production of the schema.The figurative crucial the synthesisof the manifold of sensibleintuition, which constitutes synthesisconcerns Kant namesformal intuition. It is a unity that belongs to spaceand time, and from what this point of view, hangson the sensibleaspectof imagination, but is determinedby the understanding(B 151, B 153,B 161 note 1). The schema,as hasbeen mentioned,is a transcendental product of imagination that enablesthe application of the conceptsof the formal intuition. Therefore, in both activities, to the alreadysynthesised understanding imagination works under the tutelageof the understanding,in order to enablethe latter's Imagination'screativity is restricted to the possibleways of bridging subsumptiveaction. the gap betweensensibility and understanding,under the latter's authority. In this context, imagination plays a secondaryrole to that of the understanding,and its activity is in fact power. only an extensionof the understanding's Schernatism thernatisesthe riddle of judgement-power and despiteits claims on its solution by meansof time, the unresolvedtension betweenuniversal and particular, recursthrough the perplexity of reflective judgement.

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In Search of a principle of Judgement

Despite Kant's attempt to elaboratethrough the transcendentaldoctrine of judgement, "the under which objects can be given in harmony with theseconcepts" (B 174), and conditions thus to answer the riddle of the capacity to judge (urteilskraft), the mystery remains "This schernatismof our understanding..... is an art concealedin the depths of unsolved. the human soul, whose real modes of activity nature is hardly likely ever to allow us to discover, and to have open to our gaze. (B 180). In the CJ, Kant confessesthat the very " judgement itself entails that "the discovery of a principle peculiar to judgement nature of must be a task involving considerabledifficulties. " Yet, "a critique of pure reason,i. e., of our power of judging on principles, would be incomplete if the ability to judge, which is a cognitive ability, and as such lays claim to independentprinciples, were not dealt with in its own right," And so "the critical search for a principle of judgement... is the most important in a critique of this faculty" (CJ 174). Indeed, in the Third Critique, we do not have the exposition of cognitive, moral or aestheticjudgements, but rather the judgingpower itself reflects upon itself, and becomesreflective. There is a tendencyamong most of the commentatorson the CJ to rush to give solutions to the aporiasof the judging-power, confining their readingsto the searchfor a principle, and We would not disagreethat the organisation of the Third thus to the transcendental realm. Critique suggests this reading, but an exclusive concentration on the remarks in the Introduction leads to a lack of consideration of the internal contradictions of Kant's procedure. Consequently,there is often little identification of the points in Kant's - often perplexing - ramblings in searchof a principle of the j udging-power, where he exceedshis

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analytical distinctions. Thus the problernatizing of the transcendental areaitself in the own Third Critique, and the new, yet incomplete, and often self-contradictory, dynamism that is here introducedinto the critical project, remains under-theorised.Therefore, D. Bell argues 2 The that in the Critique of Judgementwe find Kant's solution to the aporia of judgement. latter consists in "our ability to enjoy a spontaneous, criterialess, disinterested, universal, non-cognitive, reflective feeling that certain diverse elements of presumptively belong together,and that they comprise an intrinsically satisfying whole experienceas such in virtue of their seemingto have a point.
,, 3 The

origin and expressionof this feeling is our

and primordial 'feeling at home in nature'. "This is the principle of nature's spontaneous formal finality for our cognitive faculties in its particular (empirical) laws -a principle " which understanding could not feel itself at home in nature. (CJ 193/5) According without to the samecommentator,the riddle of judgement is solved by such a direct awarenessof an intrinsic coherence,a primordial, innate feeling at home in nature that is the subjective condition for the possibility of objective knowledge. Without this feeling, phenomena

would alwaysbe problematicand opaque.Bell gives as the following exampleof this

feeling:

As I walk into the gallery, my attention is caught by a particularly large canvas,a work of abstractexpressionism,a JacksonPollock, for example. I walk over and stand before it...., and look. But it remains stubbornly problematic, obstinately refusing to yield whatever senseit may have.... I persist, however, and after a while I begin to find a pleasure in the painting that causesme to smile: it has begun to work for me- on me. And in the pleasure I feel in contemplating it, I approach, I believe, as closely as I know how to an exclusively aesthetic response.... [This response] is a feeling.... an immensely complex one, and involves the feeling that the whole has an integrity, a point. 4

2 Bell D., "The Art of Judgement"In Kant. Critical Assessments, Yo 14. 3 Ibid., p.24. 4 Ibid., p.28.

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In other words, the solution to the mystery of judgement is revealed in the aesthetic by dint of our primordial familiarity with the world which enablesus to have an response, immediate awareness unity, to make senseof the unstructured manifold of the world. of The notion of finality is hypostasizedas an immediate personal awareness our harmony of the world, or as the super-sensiblesubstratum of humanity. Through this approach with though, Bell misses the prescriptive character of the notion of finality, and thereby the the term, in a similar manner as the hypostasizedconception of the cultural connotationsof in notion of 'consciousness general', which we discussedin the first chapter, misses the fonnal character of the transcendental unity of apperception and its temPoral

determinations.5

Kant indeed gives crucial importance to the principle of finality, and, as will be discussed later, is concernedwith integrating his whole search eventually within the transcendental field. However, this is not to be taken as the end of the story; for, even in the Introduction, a few lines below the statementof this principle, he says:

[But] the transcendentalprinciple, by which a finality of nature, in its subjective

5 This kind of conceptualisation the notion of finality, namely in terms of the primordial familiarity in the of Arendt, in turn, projects this principle onto the aesthetic,recalls Heidegger'snotion of pre-understanding. realm of the social, through the notion of communicability. Communicability, based on common sense, the transcendentalsociability of man, which enables him to establish a harmonious integration represents within society, which parallels to the harmonious pre-adaptation between man and nature. As Arendt it: the characterises The term 'common sense'meant a senselike our other senses- samefor everyonein his very privacy. By using the Latin term (sensuscommunis), Kant indicates that here he means something different: an extra sense-like extra mental capability (menschenverstand)thatfits us into a community (my )( emphasis)5 LKPP, p. 70 ). Arendt is concernedto advocate such a reading in order to invoke a principle which would prove man's essentiallypolitical nature: "The Critique of Judgementis the only one of Kant's great writings where the point of departure of the world, and the sensesand capabilities which made men (in the plural) fit to be inhabitantsin it. This is perhapsnot yet political philosophy, but it certainly is its condition sine qua non. If it be found that in the capacitiesand regular traffic and intercoursebetweenmen who are bound to each could other by a common possession a world (the Earth), there exists a principle, then it would be proved that of man is essentially a political being "(H. Arendt, unpublished lecture from a course at the University of Chicagoon Kant's political philosophy, Fall 1964- HannahArendt papers,Library of congress,Container41, 032272,Cited in Beiner, 1983).

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to our cognitive faculties, is representedin the form of a thing as a response the of its estimation,leavesquite undetern-dned question of where and in principle what caseswe have to make our estimateof the object as a product according to a principle of finality, instead of simply according to universal laws of nature. It resigns to the aesthetic judgement the task of deciding the conformity of this (in its form) to our cognitive faculties as a question of taste (a matter product judgement decides,not by any harmony with concepts,but by the aesthetic which feeling). (CJ p.35)

Thus, it is within the aestheticjudgement's procedureof decision that its rich and creative activity is unfolded, along with its social and cultural presuppositions,which together show that the judging-power cannot be so easily exhaustedin the assumptionof its hypostasized primordiality.

Understanding and Orientation towards the World.

initially, a We proposeto set up our investigationof reflectivejudgementby accepting,

'open' conception of finality, in the sensethat it does not exhaust the search for the more judgement's art in its primordial breath. Kant, in introducing finality as the principle of the judging-faculty, points out that judgement, according to this principle, doesnot legislate for any realm at all, but only for itself. Finality is a regulative, and not a constitutive principle. This is an implicit avowal of the inadequacyof the legislative activity of the subject upon

It givesthe subjectthe the world. The principleof finality guidesonly the subject's attitude.
confidence to come to grips with the world. In this sense,finality is like the remains of the self s old pride, rather than the sourceof the laws that would construct the world out of the understanding's certainty. However, there is still a certainty about the world's pre-

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to the subject'scognitive faculties. Now, though it appearsmore as a primary adaptation about the familiarity of the world, so that the subject orients itself toward it in assumption to investigate and to explain it through its particularities, rather than imposing its order

on structural complexes it. self-certain own

We provisionally assumethe notion of finality as a positive disposition of the subject toward the world, which as such enables its actual interaction with it. This is again a however, being at a minimal and regulative level, has subject-centredassumptionwhich, its role restricted to the stimulation of an orientation of the subject towards the world. It is that carries with it the presuppositionof a break in the subject'sinteriority, an assumption from a self-complacent inwardness, which may enable us to explore the and a retreat judgement.6 potential of reflective The type of aestheticresponsewhich allows a feeling for the depth of the world, however, is not due to the status of the reflective judgement, but, rather, comes about becauseof a for the world, an interest in the particular, and an interaction non-authoritative concern it. Aesthetic judgement, as Kant has expounded it, is concerned with the singular, with the disclosure of new deeper aspectsof the world. The experience of the beautiful with breaks through the quotidian in the sensethat it silences our familiar - i. e., by means of categories- view of the world, and evokesin our subjectivity an abundanceof conventional thoughts and images which do not solidify into a single perspective,but seem to present new facets of the world. ever

6 The assumptionof finality as an a priori principle lies, in our view, in an original ontological separationof andjuxtaposition betweenman and the world, i. e. the Cartesiansubject-objectrelation. The reconciliation of this gap, in turn, dictates solutions either of the kind presentedby Leibniz as a pre-establishedharmony between man and nature, or that of the Kantian Copernican revoiution, where the world conforms to the subject.

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We can now move on to a closer examination of reflective judgement. We will not use the term 'faculty', which implies the existenceof a certain mental capacity or innate structure of judgement as a procedure,an activity. the mind, but will rather approach

The Activity of Judging.

As we have alreadymentioned,when Kant addresses issue of the judgement of taste in the the CJ, he facesthe problem of judging the particular, and, as we will seebelow, he opens for dealing with the riddle of the judging-power. His answers oscillate new avenues betweena powerful undermining of the understanding's authority, and an attempt to restore its status. Kant both abolishesthe concept and keeps it in an indeterminate form. It is the is subject to the imagination, but imagination still schematises understandingnow which without a concept (A287). This equivocation has led to a variety of different kinds of which can roughly be distinguished between those which keep the third Critique readings, exclusively in the transcendentalsphere, and those which stress the exceeding of the transcendental realm, leaving aside the foundation of Kant's enterpriseon a principle. Both readingsarejustifiable and consistentwith various sectionsof the text. Here, we will try to show to what extent Kant really exceedsthe transcendentalrealm, and to what degreethe limits of his enterpriseare dependenton his simultaneousestablishmentand undermining of the foundational principle of the aestheticjudgement. It has often been argued that the basic distinction between determinate and reflective is that the former is mediated by concepts,while the latter due to the absence judgement -

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7 is immediate and spontaneous. We will argue that the distinction is much of conceptscomplex, and in fact, as regards their mediate nature, the case may be exactly the more opposite.This hasto do with the relation betweenunderstandingand imagination which, as

judgement,leads to a rather spuriousnotion of the we alreadysaw in the determinant

mediate nature of that form of judgement, where the latter appearsas a mere extension of the understanding'sactivity. We will see that the reflective judgement arises out of the formative activity of the imagination in its interaction with the understandingand as such hasboth a mediateand immediate nature. In the Analytic of the Beautiful, judgements of taste are characterisedby relating them to the four general logical functions of judgement, i. e., quality, quantity, relation and modality. Each of the four highlights an aspectof the pleasurethat is peculiar to aesthetic judgement. At the outset of the first moment, Kant remarks, "if we wish to discern if anything is beautiful or not, we do not refer the representationof it to the object by means of imagination (acting, perhaps, in conjunction with the understanding)" (CJ 203). Reflective judgement is thus intimately concernedwith imagination, and a new role will be given to it, as we shall see. The negative determinations of the judgement of taste, with regard to the four moments of its possible determination, also illustrate the degradationof the role of the understanding.The exclusion of judgement's conceptual subsumption does not imply its sheer immediacy, but only the implicit avowal of the inadequacy of the methodology of the schernatism.Here, Kant reveals a structure of judgement which is not only prior (both epistemologically and temporally, as has been argued) to any determination by the categories,but also one which could not accommodateconcepts as they have been defined in the first Critique. Nevertheless,Kant insists on the need for a

7 See,for example,J.F. Lyotard, Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime,and Bell, 1992.

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kind of concept(CJ 207), even an indeterminateone. This insistence,and its implications, are more obvious in the Deduction and the Solution of the Antinomy of Taste, which betweenthe Analytic and the rest of the text of the aesthetic.Hence, informs a discrepancy it will be seenthat while Kant, in his searchfor a principle of the judging-power, actually field, eventually retreatsto it. doesexceedhis transcendental In the Analytic of the Beautiful, Kant setsout to explore "a new mode of judging", a "quite faculty of discriminating and estimating" which is not basedon the application of separate concepts,but on the feeling of pleasure and displeasure(CJ 204). The heart of this new judging consistsin the unfolding of imagination's activity in itsfree interplay with mode of the understanding.Imagination is identified as "our power of intuitions" (CJ 292), or as to our "power of sensibility" (CJ 354). The important point here is the equivalent intuition and imagination, and the latter's gaining a much more independent of convergence autonomousstatusthan it had in the first Critique. In the imagination's activity, we also and see a new role for intuition. Imagination, in its free interplay with the understanding, differentiates and discriminates the manifold; it moulds its own forms for its own 8, and not under the command of the understanding.It is longer the working of pleasure no an active understandingupon the passivematerial of sensibility, but intuition producing its own possible configuration out of the manifold. However, the feeling of pleasure, which in this free movement of interplay, arises only when imagination settles the arises proportion of the manifold that brings about a harmony with the understanding.This stage is called commonsense(CJ 238). What is the meaning of this balance,this harmonious conformity of the imagination with
8 If imagination worked exclusively in order to conform to the requirementsof the understanding, and not for its own pleasure as well, then it would simply perform the work that it did in the first Critique, merely gatheringtogetherand uniting the manifold indiscriminately.

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A the understanding? preliminary answer is that imagination has arrangedthe manifold in is a way that the understanding satisfied with the unification of the manifold by means such the attainmentof its optimum ratio. The latter though has been effected without the use of of understanding'sconcepts.If this is the case, in what sensecan the understandingbe satisfied with imagination'sactivity? In what sensedoes imagination show conformity with the understanding,since the latter does not subsume it under its usual restrictions? The is usually satisfied when it discovers the invariant homogeneousfeatures understanding that are sharedby different manifold-configurations. It can then classify them according to its rules, leaving aside any particularities and assuming authority over the imagination. However, this doesnot seemto hold in this case.Understandingis now satisfied by virtue the achievementof an alternative unity, a unity of play. This is not a unity achievedby of the external application of concepts,mutilating the particular for the sake of homogeneity. Rather, it is a unity emerging out of a playful interaction between the two faculties, in which none assumesa predominant role. It seemsthen, that unity results by means of an internal self-sustenanceof the manifold which comes about through the manner of its formation in its active interplay with the understanding, that is, through the playful interaction among the different parts, which together constitute a whole displaying a transitive order. It is a unity that preservesthe particular, and indeed is based on it. This unity can mainly be felt; it is a "feeling which the subject has of itself' and, "what is more, [is referred to] its feeling of life under the name of pleasureor displeasure. "(CJ 204) The in turn involves a turning toward the subject. We come in touch with "the entire pleasure faculty of representations,of which the mind is conscious in the feeling of its state. (CJ " 204) The feeling is of the vitality of our cognitive powers, and the unity is one whose order 9 is that of life. Here, pleasureis linked to the feeling of life life to the feeling of play. and
9 This interestinginsight hasbeenfruitfully endorsedby Schiller in his Letters on the AestheticEducation of 67

Therefore,in reflective judgement there is revealed, as in the determinant,the unity of the However,the subjectnow, being liberated from its imperative needto organiseand subject. the world according to its determinantcategories,appearsrelaxed and playful, appropriate to feel pleasureand discover the feeling of life in it. Hence, its unity is now conceived able in terms of the unity of life - though the latter is conceived as hartnony of internal diversity opposedto the abstract,absoluteand undifferentiated unity of the formal identity of the - as subjectin the first Critique. In the General Remark to the first section of the Analytic of the Beautiful, Kant makes explicit the nature of the proportion that occurs in the aestheticjudgement. He contrastsit with the static uniformity obtained by the application of conceptswith which - beyond the satisfaction of cognitive or practical ends - we "grow tired" as "all stiff regularity is inherently repugnantto taste. Instead, the proportion achieved in the judgement of taste, " imagination works as the "originator of arbitrary forms of possible where productive intuition" looks dynamic, movable, of "quite irregular beauty.... subject to no constraint or like when "we watch the changing shapesof the fire" (CJ 242). In this new artificial rules", kind of order, imagination's freedom can be simultaneouslyreconciled with its conformity to law, which now arisesfrom the dynamic of the mutual interaction, rather than from an act of subordination. Understanding may be puzzled by this flagrant contradiction (CJ 241), nevertheless, it is satisfied because the harmony with the imagination is there achieved,and the condition met for the possibility of judgement.

Man. Schiller, however,modified Kant's mental stateof free play, tuning it into the play of two impulsessensualand formal - and breakingthe subjectivecharacterof aestheticcondition. Moreover, he elevatedthe notion of play into an alternativemode of man's interaction with the world and with himself. "In the midst of the awful realm of powers,and of the sacredrealm of laws, the aestheticcreativeimpulse is building unawaresa third joyous realm of play and of appearance, from all the in which it releases mankind shacklesof circumstanceand freeshim from everything that may be called constraint,whetherphysical or moral..... For, to declareit once and for all. Man plays only when he is in the full senseof the word a man, and he is only wholly man when he is playing" (Letters on the AestheticEducation of Man, p. 137,80).

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The achievedaccord between understandingand intuition is not like that achieved in the CopernicanRevolution, where intuition was taken up by the understanding,but is rather closer to its opposite,in that intuition is the active element, unfolding in its self-orienting in order to meet the understanding.In fact, the universal is never 'there', cut off activity from the particular, but is, rather, always inherent in it. Understanding's satisfaction, therefore,cannot come from the potential application of its categories.This is the casenot becauseof the nature of the proportion which resists all levelling, but also for the only that if this was the case,every single object of possible knowledge would be simple reason judged as beautiful. However, if understandingis satisfied with this kind of unity, then this the notion of cognition as well. This might be the meaning anticipatesa new conceptionof 'cognition in general', implying a more holistic and dynamic notion of cognition than of that achieved by the rigid alignment of intuitions with concepts. Indeed, it implies a that might be attainedby meansof both feeling and reflection, beyond categorial cognition synthesis,but rather by meansof a playful interaction with the world, in which the subject appearsfreed from its 'convulsive self-importance' and combines cognition with pleasure. In the structure of reflective judgement, we can also assumean anticipation of a different time, inherent in it. In the first Critique, the particular (not distinct from the notion of individual) was conceivedas "nothing but absolute unity", insofar as it was "contained in a

its unification with the other particularswas achievedby external single moment" and
that unified temporal momentsas well. Now, the particular is no longer categorial synthesis taken as an absoluteunity, as the Leibnizian legacy bequeathed Kant in the first Critique. to Insteadit gains a rather 'organic' nature,being in connection with other parts, thus forming a whole that is sustainedthrough them, and no longer standsopposedto them. In turn, this could contribute to another conceptualisation of time, since the latter may no longer be conceived as a continuous linearity of successivemoments, but as the expression of a

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where every moment already contains its past and anticipatesits future, and yet it process, may arise unexpectedly,by a sudden interruption of the continuity of the process,as the moment of the rise of the balance invokes. In this case, there would not unpredictable be any temporal synthesisin the aestheticjudgement, as Lyotard claims. However, really this by no meansleadsto the latter's contention that for this reasonthere is no subjectivity, but merely the dazzling immediacy of a "pure feeling that promises a subject. In the "10 we aestheticresponse, might not have the 'I think' which accompanieseachrepresentation, but we do have the emergenceof a more vital and substantive subjectivity. Aesthetic judgement involves reflexivity and self-awareness of one's feeling of pleasure or displeasure.The lack of the categorial, temporal synthesisdoes not imply the absenceof synthesisat all. There is another kind of synthesis,due to the interactive activity of the any imagination and the understanding, which allows a subjectivity in a fuller and more complex mannerthrough its correlation with life and the world. It is a synthesisarising out op ayll.

SensusCommunis, Culture, Humanism

Reflective judgement, however, claims universality and necessity.Despite its wanderings,

it eventuallyhas to conform to the laws of the understanding therebyto resolveits and

antinornies. This task is carried out by the section on the Deduction of the aesthetic
0 SeeLyotard J. F., Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime,p.20. 1This new type of subjectivity is associated with the particular mental stateof Gemir,rather than with Pure Reasonand its distinct faculties. As Howard Gaygill notes,Gemit "does 'mind' or 'soul' in the not mean Cartesiansenseof a thinking substance, denotes,instead, but of a corporealawareness sensationand selfaffection." (SeeH. Gaygill, A Kant Dictionary, p. 210, Blackwell, 1995).In particular, Gemii in the CJ is describedas the 'life principle itself, which is quickenedin the during the enlivenedharmonisationof subject

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It has been arguedthat to the extent that we do not make a traditional reading judgement. the third Critique (i. e., waiting for the deduction text to prove what was built up in the of part), but read it as the exploration of the riddle of the art of judgement, we should analytic 12Indeed the Deduction as less weight on the Deduction as a foundational element. put that is the procedureof proving the legitimacy of using the judgement that was built such, in the Analytic, concerns the legitimacy of logical properties, i. e., universality and up necessity, and marks the exit point for the quaestio quid juris. The procedure of the Deduction itself confers legitimacy, and makes the judgement legal, universal and The Analytic, on the other hand, despite the structure of the logical analysis compulsory. in terms of categories,eventually builds up, as we have seen,the structure of a judgement that cannot conform to a logical form. From this point of view, the Deduction would not be secondary, but pointless, unless Kant could introduce a new conception of only beyond the categorial area. This would imply a further universality and necessity elaboration of the relation between universals and particulars, and that of the exemplary that we met in the Analytic. The text of the Deduction, and that of the Dialectic, necessity intendsprecisely to meet this needand proves to be particularly important since it provides transcendental patterns of thinking and its implications on the new aspects of conceptualisationof the notion of experienceand the relation betweenman and the world. These issues will be elucidated by focusing our researchon the illumination of the key concept of sensus communis, which holds central position in the undertaking of the deduction of the reflective judgement. This will help us to make a retrospectivereading of the Analytic, to clarify contradictions in Kant's thought, and to further explore the notions of communicability and common sense,which have outstanding significance for Kant's

the cognitive powers- imagination and understanding in their free interaction. 12 SeeCaygill H., Art ofJudgement.

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moral andpolitical philosophy. In the following text we will explore the notions and status of common senseand communicability, and the implications for a new understandingof the structureof reflective judgement.

Reflective judgement has been so attractive for political thought becauseof - among other its referenceto the social. It has been presentedas "inherently social" 13 or as properties , faculty of men'sminds where "sociability of men [is] the condition of its functioning" 14 the This may seemwell justified, since most of the part of the text of the aestheticjudgement is permeatedwith the notion of the communicability of the judgement of taste as its condition sine qua non, and the concomitant notion of a common sense. Kant, referring to the key to the critique of taste, addresses issue of the logical priority the betweenthe communicablecharacterof the specific mental state of balancethat pertains to reflective judgement and the feeling of pleasure(CJ 217). He defines taste as "the faculty feeling in a given representationuniversally communicable, of estimating what makes our 15However, Kant, in CJ section 9, where he without the mediation of a concept" (CJ 205). deals with the question of the relative priority in a judgement of tastebetweenthe pleasure and the estimating of the object, immediately after the exposition of the fundamental need for the judgement to be universally communicable, shifts the emphasis to a thorough exposition of the specific mental state of the mutual accord (common sense)between the
13 Beiner R., "Judging In World Appearance",in Political Judgements. See a of 14 LKKP, p. 14.

15Arendt founds her reading of the third Critique precisely on this 'property' of communicability along with its 'mental status. According to Arendt, the communicable character of the judgement is the constitutive element of the pleasure or displeasure attending the judgement. "It says it pleases or it displeases. It is called taste because, like taste, it chooses. However, this choice is still subject to yet another choice: one can approve or disapprove of the very fact of pleasing.... The very fact of approbation pleases, the very act of disapprobationdispleases. In short, "the condition ,45 beautiful objectsis for

. communicability"(LKKP, p. 14 ).

sine qua non

the existenceof

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faculties, setting aside the question of priority. It will be seen that the specific cognitive nature of common sense provides the ground of both pleasure and communicability, of the issueof their relative priority. It will also prove to provide the solution to regardless the antinomy of reflective judgement and to qualify its distinctive universal and necessary dimension,rescuingit from its potential illegitimacy.

SensusCommunis: Back to the Unity of Apperception?

As it hasbeenalreadymentioned,in this section we will be less concernedwith the success or failure of the deduction of the judgement of taste, than with the nature of the common and its relation to the communicability of the aesthetic judgement. In order to sense, I demonstrate universal and necessary the characterof the judgement of taste, Kant mentions that the subjective conditions of the employment of an aestheticjudgement, i. e. common sense, are those "which we may presuppose in all men (as requisite for a possible experience" (CJ 290). Here, Kant seemsto be suggestingsomethingrather interesting with regard to his generaltheory of experience,undermining again his first Critique, that is, that it is the mutual interaction between imagination and the understanding which is for experience,and not the subsumptionof the consideredto be the necessary prerequisite former's activity under the categories of the latter. It is here where we can trace the suggestionmade by certain commentators,that in the reflective judgement there are the determinantalso.16 However, in the significant 38, footnote, Kant remarks: origins of the

16 SeeBell, 1992and Caygill, 1989,where reflective judgement is as a precursorof determinant considered judgement,and in which the propertiesof the former are hidden or forgotten. However, the featureswhich

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In order to be justified in claiming universal agreementfor an aestheticjudgement merely resting on subjective grounds, it is sufficient to assume: (1) that the subjective conditions of this faculty of aestheticjudgement are identical with all men in what concernsthe relation of the cognitive faculties, there brought into with a view to a cognition in general.This must be true, as otherwise men action, would be incapable of communicating their representations or even their knowledge.(CJ 38n 1).

In this section,in combination with 21, Kant seemsto classify aestheticjudgement within the field of judgements of 'cognition in general'. In these types of judgements, what happensis that the cognitive powers demonstratea relative proportion, differing in actually with the diversity of the objects that are given. The aestheticjudgement is that accordance which correspondsto one specific mental ratio "which is best adapted for both mental in respectof cognition (of given objects) generally.... This disposition can only be powers determinedthrough feeling (and not by concepts).Since, now, this disposition itself must admit of being universally communicated,and hence also the feeling of it (in the caseof a given representation),while again, the universal communicability of a feeling presupposes a common sense" (CJ 239). The communicability of aestheticjudgement is explained by virtue of the communicability of the judgements of cognition in general,as their subset,or in other words, the mental state of the aestheticjudgement appearsas a particular case of the mental stateof thosejudgements.Whence, though, doesthe communicablecharacterof thejudgementsof cognition in generalderive, accordingto Kant?

Cognitions andjudgements must, together with their attendantconviction, admit for of being universally communicated; otherwise a correspondencewith the object would not be due to them. They would be a conglomerateconstituting a mere subjectiveplay of the powers of representation,just as scepticismwould have it(CJ 238). (my emphasis)
havebeenrevealedin the activity of the reflective judgement are rather petrified and typified in determinant judgement.

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In the above statementwe discern the recurrenceof the sort of Prolegomena argument, since it is founded on the distinction betweenjudgements of experience(judgementsthat to the object, and thus assume universal agreement), and judgements of correspond perception(subjectivejudgements).To be sure, Kant cannot consider as granted - i. e. the agreementupon an object - exactly that which he wants to prove - i. e. the universal universality of those judgements that refer to an object. Moreover, Kant now reduces aesthetic judgements not merely to judgements of 'cognition in general', but to judgements that coffespond to an object, i. e. to judgements of cognition as they are described in the Prolegomena. In fact, in the Prolegomena and the CPR, it is not the assumptionof the communicability of knowledge that justifies the communicability of the mental state to thosejudgements of knowledge, but exactly the other way correspondent around; it is the identity of the concepts of the understanding that renders possible the communicability of cognition. Furthermore, the existence of the concepts of the is founded on the requirement of the formal identity of the subject (the understanding original unity of apperception),which is a logical assumptionon the identical structure of human consciousness. The factor of communication among people, actual or possible, doesnot enter the argumentat all. We have therefore traced the gradual reduction of aestheticjudgements to judgements of in general, and in turn to judgements of cognition of objects, where the quite cognition introduction of the notion of different proportions between imagination and promising understanding,is deflated suddenly to the unity under a feeling that stands more as a category- since it validates the correspondence than as an indefinite with an object - rather sensation.Accordingly, the nature of common sense in this context, is reduced to "the

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subjective conditions [of this faculty of aestheticjudgement] [which ] are identical with all in what concernsthe relation of the cognitive faculties" and to its strict formal status: men "that the judgement has paid regard merely to this relation (consequently merely to the formal condition of the faculty of judgement), and is pure, i. e. is free from confusion either with conceptsof the Object or sensationsas determining grounds (CJ 38n 1). Taking into account that common senseis conceived as a state which is i) identical with all men, ii) and formal, and iii) possesses cognitive statuswhich conditions aestheticjudgement a pure and allows its communicability, we could conclude that common sensenow acquires the features of a mental structure sharedby all human beings as judging subjects. The strict formal condition of common senseinevitably cancels imagination's former creative role, which was intelligible only as formation and configuration of the manifold. Imagination thus losesits formative character,and becomesconcernedwith the spatio-temporalform of the perceptualobject. "Admitting that in a pure judgement of taste the delight in the object is connectedwith the mere estimateof its form, then what we feel to be associatedin the with the representationof the object is nothing else than its subjective finality for mind judgement" (CJ 38). The feeling of pleasureresults exclusively by virtue of the attainment of an internal balance between the mental faculties of the subject, rather than by discovering a moment of attunement to the world. The latter seems to withdraw from reflective judgement's domain and imagination is aligned more closely with the understanding'scommandson universal validity. Objectivity is not based on an object in nature, and yet an act of objectification is at work in the play of the cognitive powers, securing thereby the subject's illusory self-contentment. Aesthetic judgement becomes formal, and consequently, entirely disinterested, sensually or cognitively. In this purely way, aestheticjudgement becomesdistanced,and impartial, losing any interest in its object, itself to the distant, pure contemplation confining its form. The former judgement, of

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deeply interestedin the world, arises now as merely interested in its inner harmony, thus losing its free playful characterand its penetrating ability. In this context, common sense seems to lie within the chain of conditions that connect the original synthetic unity of the concepts of the understanding.The harmony acquires rigid, static apperceptionwith features, and loses its dynamic character,resembling a more static, peaceful conjugality. This accord signals the end of any further movement, and the communicability of this judgement is due only to the identity, the uniformity and the sameness men as subjects. of We must now turn to a further, antipodal developmentof the notion of common sensein Kant. For, in addition to aligning it with a fundamental, minimal rational ability common to all human beings, Kant also appearsto conceive common senseas a result of a longlasting culture -a historical Bildung.

SensusCommunis: Back to Tradition?

Kant, after having given (according to him) adequatereasonsfor presupposinga common sensein section 21, moves immediately to his next strong claim in section 22: "The necessity of the universal assent that is thought in a judgement of taste, is a subjective necessitywhich, under the presupposition of a common sense,is presentedas objective." The Deduction, in combination with 21, as we have presented it, was supposed to demonstratethis peculiar objectivity of common sense(i. e., the universality and necessity of an individual feeling), by virtue of those rational faculties which are identical in all human beings and, as such, necessaryfor knowledge and experience.He thereby reduces feeling to cognitive attributes and to the conditions of However, in objective experience.
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22, he posessome further important considerations,which, although they have not been taken into account in the Deduction, already anticipate a more complex account of the common sense. Kant asks at 240 - though without investigating possible alternatives - whether such "a in fact exists as a constitutive principle for the possibility of experience,or common sense it is formed for us as a regulative principle by a still higher principle of reason, whether first seeksto beget in us a common sense.Is taste, in other words, a that for higher reasons, faculty, or is it only the idea of one that is artificial, and to be acquired natural and original by us, so that a judgement of taste, with its demands for universal assent, is but a " of reasonfor generatingsuch a consensus? requirement Up until now, we have a positive answerto the first part of the question without, however, it being very convincing. Instead,we read already from 20 that sensuscommunis"differs " from common understanding,which is also sometimescalled common sense. essentially Or again,even more clearly, in 40:

Common human understanding which, as mere sound (not yet cultivated [my emphasis])understanding,is looked upon as the least we can expect from anyone claiming the name of man, has the doubtful honour of having the name of (sensuscommunis) bestowed upon it; and bestowed, too, in an common sense acceptationof the word common....which makesit amount to what is vulgar what is everywhere to be met with- a quality which by no means confers credit or distinction upon its possessor 293). (CJ

It is therefore to the obviousnow that Kant no longerascribes notion of commonsense the

subjective conditions of the cognitive faculties that are identical in all men (38nl) i. e. the common ground with which we are all fortified. The universality and necessity of the

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aestheticjudgementcannot lie in thesecommonly sharedrational faculties. However, there is now a distinct quality conferred upon the bearer of sensuscommunisthat is presentedas in understanding, contrastto a mere soundone. Moreover, in 32, a cultivated There is no employment for our powers, no matter how free, not even of reason itself (which must create all its judgements from the common source), which, if eachindividual had always to start afresh with the crude equipment of his natural state,would not get itself involved in blundering attempts,did not those of others lie before it as a warning. Not that predecessors make those who follow in their steps mere imitators, but by their methods they set others upon the track for seeking in themselves for the principles, and so of adopting their own, often better, course.(CJ 283) and Following, which has reference to a precedent,and not imitation, is the proper expressionfor all influence which the products of an exemplary author may exert upon others- and this meansno more than going to the samesourcesfor a creative work as those to which he went for his creation, and learning from one's predecessors more than the mode of availing oneself of such sources.Taste, no just becauseits judgement cannot be determined by concepts, or precepts, is among all faculties and talents the very one that standsmost in need of examples of what has, in the courseof culture, maintained itself longest in esteem.Thus, it avoids an early lapse in crudity, and a return to the rudenessof its earliest efforts. (CJ 283)

With justification then, Howard Caygill has suggested, that "the universality of the judgement of taste is legitimated, surprisingly, by the appropriation of tradition, a both autonomy and heteronomy".17 Accordingly, for remembrance which surpasses Caygill, "the sensuscommunisis this critical relation to tradition, the principle of its active appropriation, but it also refers to the fundamental proportion which evokes pleasure" .
18

However insightful, the above statementdoes not capture the main role of sensus
communis, as this is envisioned by Kant. The appropriation of the tradition may be one

17 Caygill, 1989,p.350. 18 Ibid.

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factor, as far as the function of the judgement of taste is concerned,but it exhaustsneither the requirement for its grounding in a principle, nor, moreover, the, function or role by Kant to sensuscommunis.The interpretation of sensuscommunis as merely ascribed the "active appropriation and relation to tradition" has an element of whitewash towards Kant's political philosophy. We suggestthat in order to understandthe meaning of sensus we have to incorporate in it the solution to the Antinomy of Taste. It has been communis, that Kant's suggestedsolution to the antinomy is obscure, often unintelligible and argued 19 Contra Guyer, we should not be surprisedby the suddenintroduction of the metaphysical. metaphysical realm, nor do we have to surmise what Kant might mean by his rational concept,and his distinction betweenthe phenomenaland nournenal supersensible, in the caseof an aestheticjudgement.20We will argue that the introduction of the elements for the aesthetic judgement, is not at all supersensibleconcept, as underlying ground in the sensuscommunis does not lie in any The supersensible element suddenor obscure. Guyer claims, but only in its normative character, mysterious new ontological realm, as in the kind of social order that it implies. This interpretation allows for the and in terms of the active appropriation of accommodationof sensuscommunis understood tradition, yet without exhaustingthe former in the latter.
21

19 SeeGuyer P., Kant and the Claims of Taste,p.311. 20SeeColemanF., The Harmony Reason.Here, Coleman, in to make intelligible the solution to the of order antinomy of taste, proposes to interpret Kant's distinction between phenomenal and noumenal aesthetic properties as a distinction between mechanical (dead, wooden) and vital (inspired, fecund) ones. He then judgement hasto be characterised 'vitalistic', i.e. having a proposes,accordingto this model, that aesthetic as soul, and from this point of view, can be understoodas having a supersensible ground. He also mentionsthat he draws the opposition betweenthe vital and the mechanicalfrom Aristotle's accountof the soul. 21SeeGuyer, 1979, 3 10. p.

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SensusCommunis: In the Architectonic of Pure Reason.

We now turn to the final part of the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement,the Dialectic. Here image of the judgement of taste and its conditions. We may thus be we acquire a complete to find the thread that unifies the apparently different versions of the notion of able The principle of tasteexhibits an antinomy: sense. common

1. Thesis: The judgement of tasteis not basedupon concepts;for, if it were, it would be to dispute(decisionby meansof proofs). open 2. Antithesis: The judgement of taste is based on concepts; for otherwise, despite diversity of judgement, there could be no room even for contention in the matter (a to the necessary of otherswith the judgement). (CJ 339) agreement claim

The suggestedsolution to this antinomy is that a judgement of taste does depend upon a however, is an indeterminateone. This is a rational concept, i. e. an Idea of concept,which Reason,which standsas an indeterminate idea of the supersensible within us, and may be substrateof humanity. In a quite illuminating sentence,Kant regardedas the supersensible says:

All contradiction disappears,however, if I say: The judgement of taste does dependon a concept (of a general ground of the subjectivefinality of nature for the power of judgement) [my emphasis],but one from which nothing can be cognised in respect of the object, and nothing proved, becauseit is in itself indeterminable.(CJ 340)

In the following Remarks, Kant also clarifies his notion of the rational concept and the

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both as a principle of the subjective finality of nature for our cognitive supersensible, faculties, and as the endsof freedom (CJ 346). From theseremarks therefore,we seethat, for Kant, the indeterminateconcept which underlies aestheticjudgement, and provides it and necessity, is the "concept of the general ground of the su ective with universality finality of nature for the judgement", i. e. the Idea of Reason as an harmony (a finality) betweenour cognitive faculties and nature. For example, in a judgement about a beautiful object, this object is seenas a work of art, as if it had been designedso that its form natural to be harmonisedwith our cognitive faculties. In a judgement of taste, we enjoy the was harmony both betweenour cognitive faculties, and between nature and our mind, precisely becausewe have assumed that nature is final for us. Nevertheless,not everybody is able to have this feeling of internal and external harmony, becausethis presupposesability for disinterested contemplation, an ability to abstract from charm, emotion or any sensual to judge only according to the pure form. It is the ability to appreciate agreeableness, and the beautiful, and the ability to discriminate nature's finality, which can be brought about through culture. By the introduction of the supersensiblesubstratum of the judgement of taste, Kant simply reiterates, in a more general way, the foundation of the judgement of taste on the form of finality of an object, which generatesthe finality of form of our cognitive faculties (CJ sections 11,12). The form of the finality of an object is just an instance of the form of the finality of nature in general. In the aesthetic judgement therefore, we feel the harmony of our cognitive faculties by virtue of our ability to recognisein nature its preadaptationto thesefaculties. What is then, the relation of finality

is the ideal harmonyof our cognitive faculties Sensus to sensuscommunis? communis

which comes about not merely through their harmonisation with the form of the beautiful object, but, indeed, with society as a whole. In other words, sensuscommunis is the ideal normfor the attainment of a perfect harmony within and betweenindividuals, and between

their cognitivefaculties. The attainment of that harmony presupposes culture. This kind of enablesthe individual to judge and act in such a way that it becomes an active culture member in a harmoniouswhole, and contributes to the attainment of this ideal order. In

its to do that, the individual has to strive to overcome personal, private, subjective order
bias, and narrow personalinterests.Its reflection therefore must constitute a weighing of its judgement with the collective reasonof mankind.

By the name sensuscommunis is to be understood the idea of a public sense,i. e., a faculty which, in its reflective act, takes account of the mode of representation critical else, in order, as it were, to weigh its judgement with the collective reason of everyone mankind, and thereby avoid the illusion arising from subjective and personal of which could readily be taken for objective, an illusion that would exert a conditions, influence upon its judgement (CJ 340). prejudicial

Therefore, the significance of sensus communis lies in its normative character for the of a harmonious social order, which would, in turn, reiterate the internal attainment harmony betweenthe mental faculties of each individual. It is the attainment of a mutual betweensociety and individuals, which is reminiscent of the Platonic Republic or osmosis the Rousseauianideal society of the social contract. However, this raises the question of how the common senseand the concomitant social unity could arise. Kant suggeststhat it is through the reflective act, which takes account of the mode of representationof everyone the weighing of judgement with collective reason.This again suggeststhe relation to, else, and the active appropriation of tradition, as Caygill suggested.Appropriating tradition involves remembering, the exercise of the faculty of the reproductive imagination, and Thus, concern with the accumulated,actual, crystallised judgements of our predecessors. judging according to tradition plays a harmonising role in society, as this judgement

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incorporatesthe wisdom of the past, the weight of endurancethrough time, and the respect for history. Sensus communis,however, may be accomplishedby weighing the judgement so much with the actual, but rather with the merely possible judgements of others. not Accordingly, sensuscommunisis concernedwith possible consciousness, which points, not to the appropriationof tradition (where thesepossiblejudgements may lie), but to any only kind of consciousness that might be imagined, and would enable social unity. Thus, this allows for the possibility of breaking with tradition, and in this way enabling social As sensuscommunis is an ideal norm, the achievementof a harmony between cohesion. and among individuals is one for which ideals of participation in dialogue, persuasionas to force, and mutual respect for reasoning individuals are required. It is these opposed featureswhich underlie aestheticjudgement, along with the exclusion of any sensualand inclination. In this sense,the contemplation of the beautiful becomesa symbol of natural as well, and aestheticjudgement is assigned a general humanising role. The morality proposed model of social order under the norm of the sensus communis hardly exceed, either the ideality of the Kingdom of Ends, or the principle of the universalisability of the

22The notion of cultureas it is expounded the Third Critique doesnot imply in law. moral
any constitutive social character underlying the aestheticjudgement, and this is further borne out when we look at Kant's ethical and political texts. In the Doctrine of Virtue (51/8 1), culture is understood as man's power to set and work for an end which he chooses 'independentof nature'. In the Metaphysicsof Morals, culture comesto be associatedwith the struggle for perfection, and "the ideal of morality belongs to culture." (Universal History, 21/26) The task of culture progresses through skill and discipline. Discipline helps the control of sensual impulses, so that culture serves to bring about the conditions necessaryfor following the moral law and exercising freedom. Culture as discipline is
22 The respectivefeeling is, in this case,the respectfor the moral law.

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directed to a community in which "no member shall be a mere means,but should also be an end, and, seeingthat he contributes to the possibility of the entire body should have this and function in turn defined by the idea of the whole." (CJ 375 footnotel). The position developmentof culture is connectedwith the emergenceof humanity; culture deals with "Man as such(humanity, really)." (Doctrine of Virtue 45/386)

The questionthat Kant posesin section 22 must now be considered.

Is taste a natural and original faculty, or is it only the idea of one that is artificial and ... to be acquiredby us, so that a judgement of taste, with its demandof universal assent, is but a requirementof reasonfor generatingsuch a consensus, and doesthe 'ought', i. e., the objective necessityof the coincidenceof the feeling of all with the particular feeling of each,only betoken to the possibility of arriving at some unanimity in thesematters? (CJ 240)

Kant eventually answers positively to both alternatives since, in the Deduction, he demonstratedthe identity of our rational faculties which, however, constitute merely the potentiality, the common ground that, through culture, could be elevated to the higher, cultivated feeling underlying aestheticjudgement. The universality and necessity of this judgement is normative and prescriptive. The necessityof judgement implies, essentially, the necessityof culture, and thereby a universal assentto the samefeeling is expectedand demanded.

Sensuscommunis, as an Idea of Reason, is intended to restore a harmony between our rational faculties, between man and nature, and between man and society. Together, these

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are ultimately equivalent to "the expedient to bring reason into harmony with itselU (CJ 341) Reason,after an exhaustive trial of successivetribunals upon itself, seemsto pursue the restorationof its internal harmony, and, along with it, the justification of its possessions (cognitive, moral and aesthetic).

We conclude our discussion with the following remarks. The question of reflective judgement emphasisesthe enigma of judgement-power, since it is addressedfrom the standpoint of the contingent particular, which is assumedto fall beyond the laws of the understanding. We consider that Kant's major contribution is precisely the very thernatisation of this enigma. In his theoretical ramblings throughout the Critique of Aesthetic Judgement,we find the interesting problematic of the feeling of pleasure, as form betweenconcept and intuition, in which may be detectedthe potential for mediating enriching the notion of cognition, by including in its processexperiencesof pleasure and the feeling of life, thereby breaking the stiff distinctions between pure logic and will,

thoughtanddesire.We alsomeetthe possibilityof an order,which emerges from the not

imposition of rigid, constraining rules, but through the feeling of pleasure,rising out of the free play between the interacting parts. The order of pleasure arises as self-regulated, unplanned, unruled, transitive and yet surprisingly energising, since it quickens in the subject the feeling of life itself. However, theseinsightful conceptionslose their dynamism, to the extent that they becomeconstituentsof the undertaking of the solution of the enigma of reflective judgement. This is the requirement of Transcendental Logic, as long as reflective judgement has to align with the conditions for the possibility of experience as establishedin the CPR. Since experiencecannot now be exhaustedas the legislative realm of the understanding,the alignment of the particular with the laws of the understanding

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does not take on a constitutive character but only a normative one. Hence, we enter the Reason,whereby we are provided with an additional feature of Transcendental realm of Logic, namely its nonnative character.

The conditions for the possibility of experience, from the standpoint of reflective judgement, consist in the normative Idea of Reasonof harmony between its faculties and In this context, the feeling of pleasureis but Reason's satisfaction, arising from the nature.
of the attainment of the particular's alignment with its principles. The mental assumption

of free balancebetweenthe understandingand imagination functions as the bearer of state type of synthesis,which transforms the contingent particular into a necessarilyfinal a new judgement with regard to the laws of the understanding.The order of pleasure object of to the pleasure of order, since the free play proves to be but a programmed gives way for the celebration of the principles of Reason.Experience is again the outcome ceremony of a synthetic act, this time, not through the rules of the understanding,but through the

finality which renderpossiblethe harmonisation the subject's cognitive of preceptsof

faculties. Accordingly, spontaneitymay be releasedfrom its rule-giving function, but still indeed a harmonising one. Universality and necessity of assumesa unifying role, and in turn, are securednot by means of the concepts of the understandingbut by judgement meansof the preceptsof Reason,and the order of rules is coupled by the prescription of an order of han-nony. The normative and communicable character of the universality of

the reflectivejudgement,however,necessitates transpositionof its conditionsfrom the identity of the self to the prescriptiveinter-subjectivityof sensus conceptual communis.
Experience in turn, is redefined in normative terms, according to the conditions for compatibility between the laws of the understandingand the principles of Reason,so that

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Reason itself attains its self-generated systematic unity. Yet, although the tension of judgement is eventually settled in the Architectonic of Reason, its implicitly reflective demandsbetray the unbearablelimits of this settlement, since the contingent may restless its final normalisation and the feeling of pleasure may well turn into an well resist intractablebewildennent.

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Chapter 3 Fichte's Will to Freedom: The appropriation of experience

Fichte is the main philosopher, preceding Schelling and Hegel, who questioned Kant's According to Fichte, Kant's major aporia, with representationalmodel of experience. to the legitimacy of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements, is not ultimately regard long as the ground of their deduction - the apperceptive subject - is not resolved, as thernatisedand itself deduced.This ground in turn, would lay the foundation not properly for theoreticalbut also for practical experience,thereby providing a radical solution to only the aporias generated by the Kantian dualism, disentangling the subject from the betweennecessityand freedom, phenomenaand noumena.However, for Fichte, antinornies the legitimacy of the apperceptive subject can not be attained in the context of Kant's For, as we will representational-dualistic method. discuss later in detail, the

is basedon an inherent reflexive act of the pure T model of apperception representational

itself, which can neverbe deduced, what precisely sincethis act alwayspresupposes upon
to found. Consequently, Fichte's major project is to provide an account of attempts that would be liberated from the perplexities of the reflexive apperceptive subjectivity ' This task is carried through Fichte's major insight, which consists in his model.

1 Here, the term reflection is used in the Hegelian sense.Hegel uses the term reflection in a broad sense, referring to philosophy in generalinsofar as it is developedas reflection upon externally given objects,rigidly cut off from the subject, which usually standsabove to them. Reflection, thus conceived,is a way of thought by dualisms and the positing of rigid dichotomies.This, according to Hegel, reachesits height in permeated Kantian philosophy, where the mere positing of these oppositions leads Reasonto irresolvable antinomies. This way of philosophisingcould not but include the investigation of the subject itself and the conditions of its self-consciousness, wherein the self turns itself into its own object. In turn, it was again Kanfs philosophy which built, in Hegel's early terminology, the "totality of limitations", that is the realm of the understanding, to the limitations of Reasonitself.1 attesting In Kant's thought Reflection appearsin the CPR only in the Appendix on the amphiboly of the conceptsof reflection, arising from the confusion of the empirical with the transcendental employment of the understanding. Here, reflection is mentioned as a state of mind, which intends to distinguish the that belong to pure understandingfrom those that pertain to sensible intuition, in order to representations

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of the subjectin terms of activity, as opposedto a static substratumor a logical conception concept. The intellect, for idealism, is an act, and absolutely nothing more; we should not even call it an active something,for this expressionrefers to something subsistentin which 2 inheres. activity Through the introduction of the subject as sheer activity, indeed as productivity, Fichte mainly attemptsto give a unified account of theoretical and practical reason,which would found the unitary natureof subjectivity. One of the fundamental goals of his thought, as he declaresin 1795,is to "bring unity and coherenceinto the entire human being.
3 ,,

In this chapter, we will pursue a thorough investigation of Fichte's project to unify the Kantian contradictions. We will begin with Fichte's account of the contrast between his method and that of reflective theory, as it is expounded by himself and by a own thinker, D. Henrich. This will allow a perspectiveon how Fichte attemptsto contemporary formulate his alternative theory and to what extent he has really detachedhimself from the reflective method.

Fichte's Critique of Reflection: In Search of an Absolute Ground.

Fichte's critical insight againstReflection occurs within his concern for the possibility of a unified account of subjectivity, a theme arising from Kant's two distinct accounts of Reason. The search for unity of reason has indeed been of fundamental importance to severalgenerationsof Kant critics. The source of this possibility in the form of a common faculty or structural identity of theoretical and practical reasonhas often been assigned(as

avoid misuseof the conceptsof the understanding and antinomiesof Reason.

2 Fichte J. 0, The Science Knowledge, 21, of p. 3 po. Cit., p. 21

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intention or incomplete task) to Kant himself, as is the case with Heidegger's concept of the role of the imagination and in Fichte's further elaboration of the subject within the Kantian system. As already mentioned though, the unity of reason arose for Kant only as aporia, accompaniedby antinomies and paralogisms of Reason or as regulative either ideal. Fichte's basic concern with the unity of subjectivity is presentedin the Scienceof Knowledge (1794) as a fundamental question concerning the difference between our of representations freedom and those of necessity. It is followed by his statementof his goal to provide a unified, fundamental principle grounding all experience and thereby celebratinghumanautonomy.

D. Henrich has proclaimed a rediscovery of Fichte, presenting him as a powerful voice againstreflective models of thought, particularly on the question of the self-consciousness. Henrich praisesFichte mainly for the discovery of the difficulty embeddedin the reflective models and, consequently, the new status given to the theory of self-consciousness. According to Henrich, Fichte was the first philosopher to recognisethe circle around which the reflective theory of self-consciousness revolves. In Henrich's formulation the circularity in consistsin the following: According to the reflective model of self-consciousness, order to becomeawareof myself, I have to direct attention to 'me' as an object of consciousness. However, if I do that, then, insofar as I know I am doing it, I am already self-conscious. Therefore, the 'act' of self-consciousnesspresupposesit, and I can only become selfconsciousif I already am so. For Henrich, Fichte was the thinker who discovered and also experiencedthis perplexity. Accordingly, Fichte's attempt to get out of this circle generated his radically different account of the type of subjectivity that pertains to self- consciousness. Fichte understands the latter not only as a force capable of acting upon itself, but also as an objective activity

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the notion of subjectivity itself. In Henrich's words, constructing

Fichte's view can be elucidatedin the following way: The reflection theory does indeed but begin with a subject-self-, it then proceedsto think of it only as a force capableof itself. With this, the theory gives up the distinctive senseof subjectivity acting upon The latter is interpreted instead in terms of a that belongs to self-consciousness. 4 belongsto the sphereof objects. matter-of -fact activity that really Thus, the formula Fichte counterposed to the reflective model was an account of subjectivity, which posits itself as both subject and object, without assuming for its
any priori subject-self5 In Henrich's formulation: existence

be derived from the subject-factor. Hence, it The whole of self-consciousness cannot not emergefrom anyoneof its factors, but simultaneouslywith them all, in a trice, will as it were, or EatTvqq as Plato had already taught in the case of the highest knowledge....Thus, we have no basis for objecting that somethingthat doesthe positing the act of positing. The self is the act through which it comes to be for must precede itself, through which a subject-selfbecomesaware of itself as Object-Self 996 . Thus, Henrich points out that Fichte, first, avoids the problem of circularity by meansof the immediate self-positing, and second, that he develops a new theory of selfin consciousness which the subject does not pre-exist its activity, but instead, is part of it and constituted through it. Nevertheless,for Henrich, there is still a sensein which Fichte is never completely disentangledfrom the reflective model; "we can see that elements of 197 the reflection theory are now insinuating themselves into Fichte's counterproposal. On Henrich's reading, Fichte himself becomesaware of a continuous problem with his whole

4 Henrich D., Fichte's Original Insight, 21,22. p. 5 Henrich expoundsthe evolution Fichte's theory the in three stagesin a detailed of of self-positing subject discussion.In the presentchapter,we will not deal with details in the evolution of Fichte's thought, but treat it in a unified mannerfrom the angle of the needsof our discussion.Elements the internal subtle distinctions of among the 3 stageswill be only mentioned, as the detail would detract from the heart of the matter that inheresin all the versions,i. e. the subject-objectstructureof immediate self-consciousness. 6 Henrich, ibid, p.23 7 Ibid. p.26.

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namely, that in the act of immediate self-positing, such a positing does not enterprise; but, even such a self-causedoriginary act, is itself a self-consciousactivity. simply occur, "Now the T has to be a self-positing, and know itself as a self-positing, which seemsto mean positing itself as a self-positing, ad infinitum.
8 ,,

The same problem appearseven

more acutely in Fichte'sexpansionof the first formula as "the self posits itself absolutelyas
positing itself. Or, in Henrich's terms, Fichte never achieves a unity of the intuitive and

conceptual componentsof his position. However, Henrich does not explain why Fichte freed himself from the model per se. That is to say, his account focuses on what never elementsin Fichte's theory point beyond a reflective model, but avoids the problematic with reflection itself and of the elementsbeing themselvesstill embeddedin a associated henceshot through with contradictionsin their entirety. reflective model, and

In our view, Fichte's relapseback into reflective theory seemsto be the crux of the issue in any re-evaluation of Fichte, and its proper explanation reveals the severely limited especially when this is deployed, as of Fichte's account of self-consciousness, contribution Henrich does, against the philosophy of Existenz.9 To be sure, Henrich is coffect in his analysis as long as the inseparability of the subject and its activity (activity and product) be sustained.The self is indeed immanent in its activity and thereby the criteria of its can self-perceiving are likewise immanent. The articulation of the notion of the self presented as product (object) of its own activity is indeed a real contribution. This is to be also understood in context as in opposition to a dirempted or primary agent whose 'being' consists in an 'essence' prior to its deeds,who choosesor plans his actions and is never

by them.In this sense, considerthat the notion of the self as both subject conditioned we

8 Ibid., p. 19 911enrich, 15. P.

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and object is positive, i. e. as the self who not only posits, but is posited as well. How though, is this element preserved in Fichte's thought? Is this indeed what successfully, Henrich describes as Fichte's "distinctive sense of subjectivity that belongs to selfthat consciousness.... is the latter being interpreted in terins of a matter-of-fact activity that belongs in the sphere of objects"?10 Indeed Fichte, in his lectures on the really Wissenschaftslehre novo methodo in 1797, in analysing the self -positing self of the Wissenschaftslehre 1794,describesthe subject as that which discoversitself as acting as of both discoverer and discovered. He claims "I simply posit myself." This means I am consciousof myself, first as the object of consciousness, and then again as the subject, i. e. the subjectwho is conscious.The discoveredand the discoverer are one and the same;the I is identical with immediate consciousness. However, the discovered,as Fichte explains "" a few pageslater, is the intuition of the subject'sabsolutefreedom! "The object in question is freedom,productive activity, the intuiting subject, I-hood in its entirety.... The immediate is object of consciousness no object as such, but is rather the productive activity itself, i. e., freedom. 12This appearsto be the provision of the missing evidence for the most desired " "the most prized" 13of Reason's possessions, e. freedom. In fact, however, this i. proof of allegedproof - the intuition of freedom - goesno further than the Kantian claim of thefact the moral law. Only as irony then could we understand the postulate that the self is of by the fact - the object that it is absolutely free, i. e. able only to posit. posited Accordingly, when Fichte claims that the self is constituted by its activity, we can now understandby what sort of activity this is so. In fact, it is not any kind of activity, but rather a specific self-interaction, an act of self-reverting, of thinking oneself immediately without referenceto any mediating factor. Thus, the self turns out to be constituted exclusively by
10 Ibid., p.21 11 Fichte J. G., Foundationsof Transcendental Philosophy. WL

nove methodo, 1796-99,p. 118.

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its thought about itself, and in particular its thought as an absolutely free agent. Nevertheless, even in this casethis self-constitution could be fruitful if the self allowed his to be exposedin a real interaction with the world. In this exposition, the self-perception might, possibly, experiencethe strength and validity of its immediate self-certainty. self However, this exposition never occurs since self-positing has a transcendentalstatus, as be seenlater. will

It becomesclearer now why Fichte is never completely freed from the reflective model, his immediate self-positing reproduces precisely the heart of this model, i. e. the since of a subject-self as pure concept: the vicious circle of abstract reflexivity. The concept lineage of the problem can be seen here between the agent of freedom in the Cartesian formulating objective judgements of experience in Kantian transcendental cogito, of in Fichte. This conclusion is opposedto Henrich's argument. subject, and of self-positing This can be seen if we look at this issue further. Henrich considers Fichte's critique of in reflective theory as a powerful immanent critique against it, and thus, the circularity latter's model of self-consciousis classified as anti-reflective. It is our contention, however, that Fichte's critique of the circularity of reflective theory occurs within the bounds of this thought, and he thereby replicatesthe difficulty. The motivation for his critique lies way of in his inner need of an assertionof the existenceof a fundamental ground that would allow the firmest establishmentof human autonomy, rather than in the overcoming of reflection itself. Fichte does not identify the origin of the circularity problem. He rather presentsit as an infinite regressin which the essence the problem becomeseven more obscure.In his of words, the problem is formulated as follows:

12 op.

cit. p. 144. 13 RoseG., Dialectic of Nihilism, p. 12.

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I am conscious of some object, B. But I cannot be conscious of this object without also being conscious of myself, for B is not I and I am not B. But I can be conscious of only insofar as I am conscious of consciousness. Therefore, I must be conscious myself this act of consciousness, i. e., I must be conscious of this consciousness of of How do I become conscious of this? This series has no end, and consciousness. therefore consciousness cannot be explained in this manner.... The only way to avoid this objection is to discover some object of consciousness that is at the same time the of consciousness. One would thereby have disclosed the existence of an subject immediate consciousness, i. e. an object to which one would not have to oppose a new 14 subject.

It is worthwhile considering closely the way Fichte conceives the problem and why, he does not exercise an immanent critique of the problem of the reflection consequently, The first two sentencesconstitute a loose statement of the Kantian condition of model. i. e. the original unity of apperception.Kant, as we know, specified the required experience, the self-consciousnessof the self s formal samenessin all its unity of apperception as (I =1, as formal identity). In the next 4 sentences,Fichte poses the representations the unity of apperception itself or, in other words, the requirement of condition of the unity of apperception.As we have discussedin the first chapter, Kant apperceptionof did not specifically addressthis issue,but rather took it for granted by assumingarbitrarily the a priori certainty of the self s formal identity through time: "For the mind could not think the identity of itself in the multiplicity of its representations, and indeed this possibly if it did not have before its eyes the identity of its action." (CPR A 96, my a priori, in or "numerical identity is inseparable [from self-consciousness its entirety], emphasis), and a priori certain, since nothing can come into cognition exceptby meansof its original " (CPR A 113, my emphasis. The latter statementis illuminating. For Kant, ). apperception. original apperceptionis the exclusive condition of all possible consciousness, even of so itself, taken as object of consciousness. Thus, he was obliged to assume self-consciousness

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the a priori unprecedented certainty of the unity of apperception. Hence, it was Kant who

first posited the a priori certainty of the identity of the self implicitly, and thence Fichte isolated and developedfurther the conception of a priori certainty as activity of the selfit a strong practical dimension, that is, not only the attribute of the positing and gave identity of the self but the certainty of complete self-determination. By numerical
emphasising and rendering this a priori certainly as a necessary condition of the possibility

Fichte essentiallyprovided the transcendentalcondition not only of of self-consciousness, 15Now the issue, but also of the unity of apperception itself. which Kant experience implicitly and Fichte made explicit, is exactly the reason why could we never asserted attain the apperceptionof the unity of apperception; or, more generally, why could selfwithin the reflective model never be attained. Although Fichte did indeed consciousness the difficulty explicit, he never explained the origin of the difficulty, and therefore make himself from it. The answerlies precisely in the characterof this unity of never extricated in apperception,or self-consciousness the reflective model, where the latter is considered as a relation of pure, static identity, and thus what it presupposesis purely identical with to attain. In turn, this relation of static and pure identity is the inevitable result what wants and requirement of the reflective model where the subject is conceived in pure logical, formal terms. Besides,only in conditions of a transcendental context could the subject ever be consideredso static, and cut off from any empirical or historical movement. Fichte, by positing a first beginning does not reply to the difficulty of the determinate circularity, but only to the problem of infinite regressor to circularity in general,to which he reducedthe difficulty. However, circularity becomesvicious only within the reflective model; instead, if we try to think of self-consciousness beyond the reflective model, circularity does not

14FTP, p. 113

15See Second Introduction, Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte's discussion of Kant pp.48-53.

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constitute a problem at all. For, whenever we think of ourselves - become aware of This doesnot mean we alwaysdo it from a level of pre-existing self-awareness. ourselves(as in the reflective model) that we already assume what we want to achieve. Selfis not a static, solid product of one single act or a stateof an equation whose consciousness relata are perfectly equal and identical (I=I, as formal unity of apperception). Selfis an ever-evolving process, where the relation of a self to itself is both consciousness identical and non-identical, since it involves both moments of 'truth', and illusions, frustrations and self-confirmations, always mediatedby the self s interaction with the world the internal contradictions generatedwithin it. The acknowledgement that we always and discover ourselvesmediatedby and within an already existing level of self-consciousness is not necessarilyrelated to any transcendentalpresupposition, which is always the same static and external condition. Instead,it signifies that the conditions of possible experience are conditioned by experience itself, and thus movable, dynamic, and immanent to the movement of self-knowledge. The beginning that we inevitably make some time, in this process,has nothing to do with any absolutebeginning or foundation, but simply is a point in a circle, both mediated and immediate, contingent and yet necessary,insofar as pertains to the necessityof the movementitself. Hence,we have a further explanation of why Fichte cannot escapefrom the reflective model, at the methodological level: he seeksto overcome the reflective model by throwing the coin of reflection onto the other side. He replacesthe rigid dichotomy of concept and intuition with their pure identity which, though, can never be attained and thus reproducesa similar vicious circle. Moreover, the conceptualisationof the act of self-positing as pure identity, essentially annuls the potentially fruitful

connotations the notion of productivity,which is claimedto characterise self. For the of the
notion of pure identity either - as an abstractconcept - brings back the problematic of pure logic, or - as a pure and all-inclusive act the problematic of a monotheistic theology, or 98

On rather both in their mutual supplementary. Henrich's reading, the issue of the true origin the difficulty is never broached;perhaps,becauseHenrich's problematic itself develops of from a reflective standpoint, thereby discovering Fichte's insight in his positing of the immediate, pure identity rather than in his potentially dynamic notion of productivity. Once this issue is raised, it points to severelimitations in Fichte's theory that Henrich does not of acknowledge.The substance theselimitations will becomeclearer as we proceed. We move on now to look at Fichte's positing of his first principle, his internal and therebythe generationof his entire system. contradiction,

The Discovery and Loss of the Ground

As we have seen,Fichte articulated his basic contention in terms of the recognition of the difficulty of self-consciousness. above-mentioned Thus, Fichte counter-proposesthe immediate emergence of the subject-object self for which, moreover, is claimed the status of the founding ground of all possible human The requirementof such a self-groundedfirst foundation is justified simply in the activity. name of the systematiccharacter of any theory that claims to be science.The grounding principle is necessaryin order to transfer its certainty to the rest of the propositions and thus to establish the systematicapodicticity of scientific knowledge. This first grounding in the absoluteand unconditioned act of the self-positing ego, expressed principle consists by the pure identity I=I.

The issue of an unconditioned beginning has been the object of severecritique in Hegel's Scienceof Logic. Hegel's critique develops as follows: the notion of a pure, undetermined beginning, which as such is intended to constitute the ground of experience,is self-refuted.

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For, the concept of ground implies that the latter, by virtue of its grounding, is connected But, if it is connectedit is thereby determined, and so the ground with all experience. to be absoluteor the unconditioned indeterminate. On the other hand, if it is not ceases it does not ground anything. Hegel cites Jacobi's eloquent expression of this connected, logical paradox: "What brings about pure spontaneity(ego) into oscillation? Whence does its pure vowel get its consonant,or rather how does the soundless,uninterrupted sounding interrupt itself and break off in order to gain at least a kind of 'self-sound' (vowel) an
accent?,, 16

Or in Hegel's words:

With this wholly abstractpurity of continuity, that is, indeterminateness and vacuity of it is indifferent whether this abstraction is called space, pure intuiting or conception, thinking: it is altogetherthe sameas what the Indians call Brahma, when for years pure unmoved in sensation,conception, fantasy, on end, physically motionless and equally desireand so on, looking only at the tip of his nose,he saysinwardly only Om, Om,On 17 or else nothing at all.

Hegel's argument against the notion of an undetermined beginning unfolds from his problematic that runs through the first section on Being of the Science of Logic. general

This canbe succinctlyformulatedasthe basicidea that, what appears sheerimmediacy as

is already mediated by a specific mode of thought which thinks in terms of static Being, in the SL, standsprecisely for a dualistic mode of thought, which does oppositions. the immanent relations between things, the mobility of concepts, the not recognise of contraries.Hence, Hegel arguesthat the notion of indeterminacy is already a alternation determination.The notion of sheerindeterminacy, in contrast to any determination, can be only by a mode of thought pertaining to the sphere of Being (in Hegel's SL sustained

terms).However,our contentionis that the determination indeterminacy refers to the of

of indeterminacy,that is, determination is attributed by thought to something that is notion
16Ibid. p.95

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a thought. This in fact, is brought forward by Hegel himself in the secondpart of already the SL, the section on Essence,in particular on the passages Determining and Positing on Reflection, which criticise the Kantian and Fichteanmodes of thought. Apparently, we will to a further discussionon Hegel's Scienceof Logic. The point that we want to not proceed is that Hegel's refutation of absolute beginning occurs within the context of emphasise thought's determinations,which distil experience.By this we mean that the refutation of indeterminacy - as an already logical determination - is only partially sustainable, for it is implied that indeterminacy,just by being thought, is cancelled. This would otherwise, be the case if indeterminacy were only a thought itself Moreover, this sort of argument Fichte's account, for it is ego's thought itself that posits the essentially enhances determination, which thus allegedly annuls indeterminacy. Nevertheless,what happensif indeterminacy pertains to something more or even, beyond thought? What happens if indeterminacypertainsto a cosmic power? For if we consider the interaction of ground and experiencenot in terms of abstractconceptsbut in terms of powers - as living forces -, the process of their interaction does not imply their exhaustive and necessary

intercletermination,for, as powers, they have their self-moving, relatively autonomousand indeterminable dimension. We will not pursue here the controversial issue to what extent Hegel claims that thought-determinationsultimately exhaust experience. This requires a However, our remark is that even in the case that also the Notion - the separateresearch. third section of the SL, which presents thought's determinations in its most richness for an illusory conceptualisation of experience, Hegel's account of experience stands from the standpoint of its transcription at the conscious-logical level, whilst the unfolds remaining gap - between experienceand its logical recollection - is never thernatised.We suggestthen that the notion of an indeterminable beginning is sustainable,insofar as it is
17 Ibid. p.97.
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as a moment, as a dimension in cosmic movement, which escapesits grasp by considered Accordingly, our objection to Fichte's self-positing ego does not thought's determinations. aspect, so long as this act is considered as a spontaneous concern its indetern-inable and a self-moving productivity. Instead, our objection concerns the absolute movement status that Fichte ascribes to ego's self-positing spontaneity, whose determinations are intended to ground and appropriateexperiencein its totality. In Fichte's system,thought's is consideredas an all-determining power. Its unconditioned status does not spontaneity to its logical indeterminacy,for logically it is determined,namely, as sheeractivity as refer opposedto sheerpassivity. The unconditioned, absolute status refers to its overwhelming to determineeverything, evoking thus more the power of a transcendentgod rather power than the lifeless conceptof abstractidentity.

However, Fichte lies in need of proving his extraordinary assertions,for he acknowledges that the all-powerful ego finds itself in lack of sufficient power, loss of control, being by what was so far consideredto be sheerpassivity. paradoxically suppressed Accordingly, the 'F is now defined in contrast to the 'not-I'. They are defined as utterly different, for this is the only sufficient way of retaining the ego's status as pure activity. Along with this - despiteFichte's project to raise the dichotomies of representationalmodel dualisms is set out: infinite activity, as opposed to finite, pure, -a whole set of rigid unmediatedself-activity as opposedto activity directed to objects, sheeragility as opposed to sheerpassivity, consciousness opposedto being and positive as opposedto negative. as At this point we reach our initial and basic concern, that is, to seehow Fichte attempts to unify the Kantian dualisms which, yet, he himself reproduces and reformulates at a new level.

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Now Fichte is obliged to unify his own poles. In fact, thesepoles are but the positing of his two basic principles postulatedin the Scienceof Knowledge of 1794.From now on, we will in follow a close textual analysis of the Wissetischaftslehre, conjunction with his lectures 1797,in order to seethe mannerin which Fichte treats the contradictions that undermine of his grounding principle.

First, we turn to inquire into the mode Fichte posesthe problem of the distinction between theoretical and practical reason,and from which perspectivehe attemptsto bridge it. In the First Introduction to WL (1794), the main questionsare formulated as follows: Someof our representations accompaniedby the feeling of freedom, othersby the are dependon freedom no question feeling of necessity"18 While for the representations which their sourcereasonablyarises,for the latter it doesso. "But the question, 'what is the about by the feeling of necessity, the systemof representations sourceof which are accompanied and of this feeling of necessityitselff is one that is surely worthy of reflection."19By the word necessityin this context, Fichte meansconstraint and not objective validity. The rest of this short introduction is essentiallydevotedto explaining why he is going to treat this questionfrom the angle of idealism. The latter correspondsto a "higher type of man who believesin his self-sufficiency and independence from everything that is outside 20This type himself.,, of man lies in direct contrast to those "who have not yet raised [and thus] themselvesto full consciousness their freedom and absoluteindependence of 21 find themselvesonly in the presentationof thingS,, (the dogmatist or realist). Apparently is the Wissenshaftslehre developedwithin idealism and the celebratedstatement"what sort
18SK. p. 6. 19Ibid.

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22 depends, iS,, has only a therefore,on what sort of man one of philosophy one chooses , characterand is of no relevanceto Fichte's allegedly anti foundationalism or rhetorical 23The latter argumenthasbeen mainly developedon the relativism, as hasbeenargued. basis that Fichte postulateshis first principle as somethingwhich should be discoveredby everyonewithin his soul, and so should not be subject to the requirementof proof. True, a simple appealto immediateself-evidence,as Fichte eventually does,fails to establisha first principle. However, this doesnot absolveFichte from his foundationalism, but simply his demonstrates failure to found an absoluteground, a failure that will becomeclearer through our examinationof his enterpriseto deducehis grounding principle. To begin with, although Fichte claims his first principle as unproved and self-grounded,he himself implicitly confesses that he violates it, by meansof the secondprinciple, which is not derivable from the first. Hence,the third principle and its analysis - which constitutesthe bulk of the WL - is an unacknowledgedattempt at a deduction of the first founding principle; a deductionthat consistsin its attempt to synthesisethe utterly opposed principles.

The Grounding of the Ground

Before undertakingin detail a discussionof Fichte's analysisof his third grounding in the foundation of theoretical knowledge, we would like to make a more general principle comment on his third principle. Through the first principle, Fichte assertsthat the category of Reality in general is posited. Through the second,in contrast,the category of Negation in general is posited. Thus the following contradiction arises:"How can A and being -A,
20Ibid., p. 15. 21Ibid., 16 p.

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and non-being.Reality and Negation, be brought together without mutual elimination and
24The destruction?,, suggested 'solution' is given by means of their mutual limitation so

their divisibility. "To limit that they will be both partially posited.The latter assumes to abolish its reality not wholly but in part only, by negation.Thus, apart from somethingis the notion of limit also contains that of divisibility (the capacityfor reality and negation
in general)"25 However, how is infinity divisible? What means 'Part of the quantity .

infinite', either as being or as non-being?In which doesthis absolutedifference between Reality and Negation consist,and if they are thus absolutely different, how can they limit In fact, Fichte doesnot explicitly addressthesequestions.However, the eachother? by him suggests that the so far absolutely different realms of provided schema-solution Reality and Negation be now consideredin identical terms, namely as quantity in general. divisibility of infinity claimed by Fichte, in our view, can only be The incomprehensible by its converseas a quantifiable, self-sametotality, divisible in infinite identical explained This quantitative homogeneous totality turns out to be the all-inclusive Fichtean self units. itself now as infinite, total self, then as finite self along with its which simply posits to the different amounts,which are posited by concomitantnot-self, respectively, according the ego from its total quantity. Hence the final formulation of the third principle: "In the self I opposea divisible not-self to the divisible self."26Thus, the absolutedifference

between andnot-selfis turnedinto sheer self self-sameness, it is preciselythe and

procedureof the dissolution of qualitative difference which we want to emphasiseas the guiding thread of his thought. Therefore, in this light we can more easily follow the tortuous path of his attempt to perform the desired synthesisbetween self and not-self.
22Ibid. p. 16

23 Williams R., Recognition, Fichte Hegel and the Other. p.35. 11WL' P.108.
25Ibid., p. 109 26WL' p. 110.

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Grounding by Means of Efficacy a)

We now turn our attentionto Fichte's method of unifying the contradictions in order to legitimise his anti-dualistic project. The third grounding principle, applied to theoretical knowledge, generates fundamentalcontradiction that Fichte attemptsto resolve. The a of the grounding principle in theoretical knowledge is that "the self posits itself application as limited by the not-seIL" However, this standsin flagrant contradiction to the first principle, which thus requiresre-affirmation. Thus the opposing propositions to be are: synthesised

" 1. "The not-self (actively) determinesthe self (which is to that extent passive). 2. The self posits itself as absoluteactivity.

Fichte presentsthe contradiction in quantitative terms and states:"If the self is to be determinedthis meansthat reality is destroyedtherein. Therefore, if the self thus posits within itself only a portion of the absolutetotality of the real, it thereby destroysthe remainderof this totality within itself. And so... it posits a portion of reality, equal to that destroyed,in the not-self.27Hence, a first synthesiscan be achievedby positing on behalf of the self a portion of its reality in the not-self. In that sensethe not-self determinesthe self, while the latter remains self-determinedsince it posits by its own activity part of its reality. The abovesynthesisis renderedpossibleby the "higher genericconcept" of "indetermination" according to which "the quantity of the one is posited in terms of its opposite,and vice versa.In determining the reality or negation of the self, we

27Ibid. p. 126.

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determinethe negationor reality of the not-self and vice versa. simultaneously

,, 28 However,

the contradictionremainsin anotherform: "But how, then, are we able to remove parts of from the self?", since all reality is posited absolutely in the self. How is the reality transferenceof reality, or of activity from the self to the not-self possible?Fichte, throughout various argumentsconstantly makesuse of tautologousargumentsand technical deviceswhich never succeedin answeringthe main question of why the self this voluntary transference activity to the not-self, or of reality (activity) to the of makes He doesgive a merely implicit answer:"the not-self has reality for the self only to not-self. the extent that the self is affected,and in the absence such affection, it has none of ',29The implicit answeris that reality is removed from the self when it is affected whatever. by the not-self. The abovesynthesisis called the synthesisof efficacy (causality) where the factor is the not-self. But if the not-self is consideredas sheerpassivity, how doesit active the self? Whencedoesthe not-self find the energy before the self s voluntary affect donation of activity? And if the not-self already had the activity to affect the self, how be posited by the self? Fichte does not undertaketo tackle such would all activity objections, so his first basic synthesisseemsunsuccessful.

Grounding by Means of Independent Activity

Indeed,Fichte himself acknowledgesthe insufficiency of the preceding synthesis,and he acceptsthat the main questionis still unanswered.He then asksagain, why doesthe self

"how, then,cana passivitybe positedin the transferactivity to the not-self?Consequently, "30 Fichtethenturnshis focusalmostexclusivelyon the self, andessentially rest the self? .
28Ibid. p. 126.

29 WL, p. 130. My emphasis. 311 WL, p. 132.....

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his exceptionallydetailedand pedantic analysisconsistsin his attempt to further of the notion of the self. Thus in the question mentioned above,Fichte first proceeds elaborate to show how the self could be both free and constrained.Here, we can discern somemore flexible elementsin his thought, where he tries to combine freedom and positive and He definesthe self as substancein general in the senseof the infinite ability for necessity. becomes,through its determinateacts, but the manifestationof this substance infinite acts; the determinatechoicesof the self where freedom and necessityare conjoined. In this passivity is defined as simply a lesserdegreeof activity (always in quantitative context, terms). Then the questionarisesthat if the self is infinite, why should it chooseat all? Why it determineits passivity through its activity? So, in spite of this elaboration,Fichte should up at the samepoint, positing the samequestion: "why should the self posit passivity ends in itself, even if passivity is now called a lesserdegreeof activity 7v931 At this crucial point, Fichte is no longer willing to linger on the problem, and he accepts the needfor a radical solution. Here he introduces(in a completely arbitrary way) the conceptof independentactivity, which dissolves,as a deus ex machina, all thesespells. Nevertheless,this activity, in the form of the imagination, constitutesthe heart of his method.At this point in addition, he acknowledgesthat up until now he did not advancea single step from his initial point.

If the self posits itself as self-determined,it is not determinedby the not-self, if it is determinedby the not-self, it doesnot posit itself as self determined....But the question why in generala passivity must be posited, insteadof letting mattersrest with the activity in the first thing, that is, why in general,there has to be an interdetermination,it is not vet answeredthereby.32

The answerto this problem is again given in an obscureand technical way, which is yet

31Ibid., p. 124 32WL, p. 140 & 144.

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illurninating for the rest of his enterpriseand for our interest. Fichte, insteadof answering his own questiondirectly, i. e. why in generala passivity must be posited in the self, sets answeringhow - in which manner passivity can be posited - rather than why it is about at all. However, even from this exposition we can infer a useful conclusion. Fichte posited that in order for passivity to be posited in the self there must be possible the asserts transition of the activity of the self towards the not-self. "In this transition, however, there is and must be a connectinglink, or a ground which is here the ground of conjunction. The This, as we know, is quantity, which is alike in both self and not-self.9933 transition is smoothsince it occurs within the uniformity of quantity. Here, self and not-self completely are explicitly claimed to be self-same.Consequently,when the not-self takes on the form it is consideredas identical to one 's sel4. He then assertsthat of anotheractual subject, this ground of conjunction is not dependenton the principle of interdetermination; instead, the latter is dependent it. He claims on 64once passivity hasbeenposited in the self, it will be granted without hesitation that is posited in the not-self; but why then, in general,is activity posited?The activity answerto this questionis no longer to be found in the principle of interdetermination, but in the higher grounding principle. "35

At last, this higher grounding principle is to give the accountof the passivity in the self. Now, if the ground lies in the not-self, "we are no longer talking of mere quantity, but of quality", by meansof which "we arrive at materialist Spinozism, which is a form of dogmatic realiSM.,,
36

Fichte excludesany possibility for the not-self to be different from the

self and active on its own; this would lead directly to a lower type of man. Neither self nor not-self could be simultaneouslyactive and passive.Therefore, the ground must necessarily
33WL, p. 145

34 would like to stressthe We authoritarianimplications of the projection of this idea onto the sphereof the olitical. 5Ibid. p. 145 (my emphasis). 36 Ibid., p. 146

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be soughtin the self itself, what Fichte calls the thirdfactor X. Fichte doesnot simply that passivity is able to be posited,to be transferreddue to the sameness quality of assert betweenself and not-self, i. e. the determinationof quantity. He assertsthat this smooth transition shouldbe allowed and, in turn, should be performed by a third factor X. "Passivity and activity as such are opposed;but if passivity is to be immediately positedby they must also concur in a third thing X which permits the transition from passivity activity to activity. This third thing, which is the ground of conjunction, is the independentactivity constitutesa larger circuit which incorporatesinterdetermination. which
37 ,,

Therefore,

Fichte here hypostasizes, ratherpersonifies, the positing of passivity in the self. This or independentactivity is nothing but imagination itself, i. e. the self itself which decidesagain to limit itself! The desiredsynthesisdoesnot occur through any independentdynamics of the interaction betweenthe two supposedlyopposedpoles. Instead,it is performed by a third agentwho manipulatesthe allegedinteraction from above.Next, we will examine how Fichte attemptsto further elaboratethe notion of this self-limiting self by meansof the imagination. This is the true site of his critical idealism where the intellect operatesby its laws, self-determining,self-differentiating and synthesisinganew its internal selfown differentiation.

Act. Self-GroundedGround, or the Fact Becomes The 'Baffled' Consciousness:

So far, Fichte hasbeen left with two main syntheses, that of efficacy and that of the independentactivity. The first seemstoo 'realistic', the second,too 'idealist'. The former

for an activenot-selfthatdirectly affectsthe self that is therebydetermined. accounts

According to this, the self's finitude is utterly dependenton somethingexternal. The latter
37

WL, p. 147
110

for an active self, which regulatesthe distribution of passivity and activity in accounts itself, essentiallytaking no accountwhatsoeverof the not-self. Fichte, though moving idealism, is nevertheless concernedto avoid an extremeversion of crude idealism within for the restrictedness the self. Hence, his next and final that would give no reasonat all of step is to attempta sufficient synthesis,which could take account of the role of the not-self however,questioningthe independence the self. The above task will be of without, within the context of a further elaboration of the concept of substantiality, that performed is, by a more profound analysisof the operationof the intellect. The latter, accordingto his idealism, would function in a law-giving mannerof self-determination,delimiting critical itself from a totally lawless and chaotic activity. In what follows, we will seeto what extent Fichte doesattain a sufficient accountof the synthesisin question. Fichte doesnot seeka fundamentaldivergencefrom the role of independentactivity. Instead,the latter is consideredas an important result of his investigation, which simply hasto be elaboratedfurther in order to incorporatein its explanatory framework the realist anomalyof the conceptof efficacy.

We have seenso far that the independentactivity is the higher ground that accountsfor the of the passivity of the self within itself. Fichte elaboratesthe way this process positing occursthrough the further developmentof the concept of substantiality. As we have

Fichtedefinedthe self assubstance general in (thegeneral mentioned, notionof selfpositing, infinite activity, absolutefreedom) within this framework. Now, he statesthat the self doesnot posit the whole of reality at once; it simply posits a part of reality, a limited sphereA, (the positing of passivity) and thus the non-positedactivity is posited as the sphereof exclusion B (negation through affirmation in his words.). He gives the following example,comparing substance(the self) with a piece of iron that moves!!:

III

Supposea determinatepiece of iron = C, that moves. You posit the iron absolutely, as an absolutetotality, as it is posited through its mere concept =A (in virtue of the A =A), and in the sphereof this you fail to find the movement =B; henceby principle the positing of A, you exclude B from its sphere.Yet you do not eliminate the notion of the iron =C, you have no wish to deny absolutelythe possibility of this; so you posit it the sphereof A, in an indeterminatesphere,becauseyou simply do not know on outside condition, andfor what reason,the piecesof iron =C may move. SphereA (is) if what the totality of the iron, and yet is also not so, for the motion of C, which is also iron, is not included therein.38 after all, The sphereA is determinate,limited already,the sphereB is a detern-dnable one, and the totality C will be the result of the further determinationof A (i. e. the concept of iron) by acquiredin the sphereB. "The absolutetotality is to be meansof the new detern-driation Or, neither A, nor A+ B, but A determinedby A+ B.909 more simply, the self is not utterly determinedbut will be determinedby meansof its further interaction with the not-self. Substance, self, is the totality as determinatedetenninability."40 the

It hasbeenarguedthat this procedureof determinationconsistsin the fruitful interaction betweenself and not-self, subject and object: "The subject is itself, but must also always be to an object in order to be a subject.The determinability of a subject needsboth, related i. e., only through both can one ever understandthe intrinsic characterof a subject is Substance only a relationship with nothing fixed iA 1To be sure, it is here that we can find the most fruitful elementsof Fichte's accountof the constitution of the self, where the conceptionof the self as activity becomesmeaningful, especially in his suggestionthat self-consciousness results from the never-endinginterplay betweensubject and world. Nevertheless, have to examine closer the nature both of this interplay and consequently we of the acquireddetenninations.
38WL, p. 176. 39Ibid. p. 181

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We first examinethe way the self posits this limited sphere;in other words, how doesthe limit itself and in what doesthe limit consist?It is here that Fichte seeksto take into self

the of account concept efficacy.His solutionis to turn a cruderealisminto a refinedone,

that is, to reducethe uncomfortableaffection to a gentle check (Anstoss),a resistancethat insteadof setting a definite bound to the I's activity, merely servesto give the I the task of setting boundsto itselL The '1' feels the resistancein its flight in the air, abovethe ground 42and thereby setsa boundary to itself, i. e. posits itself as limited (viz. sphere of experience A). SphereB is the sphereof its potential determinationby meansof positing its future
boundaries during its outreaching activity. Thus, the object declares its presence simply by

a mere checkof the self' activity and the alleged interplay is but a clash, an instant contact the generates feeling of resistance. which

The objective to be excludedhas no needat all to be present; all that is required- if I may so put it- is the presenceof a check on the self that is for somereasonthat lies merely outsidethe self s activity, the subjective must be extendible no further. Such an impossibility of further extensionwould then delimit- the mere interplay we have described,or the mere incursion.43

Hence,the object is translatedinto simply the boundary, which, since it is only posited by the ego, is arbitrary and indeterminate.Furthermore,in the lectures of 1797,the object is explainedexclusively as an instant of the I's activity, and its origin is completely forgotten. The following statementis telling: "Why should we and why must we posit any at all?... Weposit objectsprecisely becausewe haveposited an absolute acting, to object which the objects of our experiencerefer and by mean of which theseobjects are given to
40

WL p. 182. 41Hohler T. P., Imagination and Reflection in Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre, 39. p. 42See CPR pp.46,47 where Kant comparesReason,which seeksknowledge beyond senseconditions, to a light dove which "cleaving the air in her free flight and feeling its imagine that its flight resistance,might " would be still easierin empty space. 43WL p. 189 (my emphasis)

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"44Now, the object hasbeenabsorbedby the subject,it has been appropriatedby the us. Hence,the statement, self-assertive1.45 it is not sucha trivial matter as it appears somepeople, whether philosophy should to begin from a fact or from an Act (i. e.,from pure activity which presupposesno object but itsefcreatesit, so that action immediately becomesdead).For if it startswith the fact it placesitself inside the world of existenceand of finitude, and will find it hard to if discover the way that leads from there to the infinite and the supersensual; it begins from an Act, it will standat the point where the two worlds meet and from which they 46 both be seenat a glance. can However, the sourceof the check still remains inexplicable; the realist residueis still there, the desiredsynthesisstill unattained.However, Fichte still claims a synthesisto have been This happenswithin the internal world of the self itself, where the subjectaccomplished. has now taken its proper formulation, namely, as the clash betweenthe object opposition of its absoluteindeterminacyand its feeling of finitude. The synthesis self's certainty is not the result of any procedureof interaction, since anyway the third term has apparently beenexpelled,but is a mere holding-togetherof the opposedterms.

This interplay of the self, in and with itself, whereby it posits itself at once as finite and infinite- an interplay that consists,as it were, in self-conflict, and is self-reproducing,in to that the self endeavours unite the irreconcilable, now attempting to receive the infinite in the form of the finite, now, baffled, positing it again outside the latter, and in that very moment seekingonce more to entertain it under the form of finitude- this is imagination.47 the power of the

Imagination proves to be the basic bearer of the uniting of the opposites,having first translatedthe object into the subjective feeling and quite easily justifying this feeling as a
FTP, p. 162 45It is in this context that we can understand the causticcharacterof the criticisms, which Fichte initially received.Consider,e.g., the following extract from a letter from Schiller to Goethe:"To him the world is only a ball that the ego hasthrown and that it catchesagain in 'reflection'! By this logic he could have really declaredhis divinity, as we recently expectedhim to." (Schiller to Goethe,October 28,1794. cited by Hans Blumenbergin Work on Myth, p.266. and note 5. The MIT Press,1985. ) 46WL, p.42 (my emphasis)
44

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of the I's infinite nature! The unification of the distinctions is nothing but the selfproduct justifying activity of the self, which, in every encounterwith the world, exhaustsits activity its self-projection.In the sight of the other it recognisesonly itself and thus absorbsit as it, by the activity of imagination. Imagination is but the power that enables within intellectual intuition (the original self-positing) to shine upon the other. But the light is so blinding (absoluteself-certainty) that the self cannot seethe other, but only the reflection of its shining upon it. Thus the synthesisis nothing but the harmoniousyet baffling coof the self's infinite self-assertionand the illusory moments of its attainment. existence From this point of view, Fichte identifies infinite and finitude, whilst he previously them as utterly different. "Both are one and the same;this signifies, in brief. no considered infinity, no bounding; no bounding, no infinite; infinity and bounding are united in one and the samesynthetic component.
9948Nevertheless, in

the realm of the Practical49 things are

radically difficult. Imagination is helpless,for the object, the negligible realist residue,now becomesmonstrous,alien, unconquerable, thing-in-itself. The feeling of resistanceis the longer a moment of freedom,but an unbearable,infinite indication of the self's inability no to be what it believes itself to be. The dominant duty for the self now is to transcendits limits, an ought, an infinite striving to jump beyond its shadow.The happy consciousness of harmony in the sphereof imagination now becomes grieving and mourning for the loss The determinationsresulting from the processof the its previous achievements. of subject's unfolding self-determinationare poor and repetitive, for the ego eventually remainsa vacuousself-relation. The ego never allows a real interaction with its other, and thereforean essentialself-differentiation never takes place, only a fictitious one between its self-repelling. The third term the other functions merely as a remote echo; ego and 47

WL, p. 193. 48 Ibid. p. 192

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this only gives the ego the task for its determination.The thus received determinationsare faded,vague,indefinite with the weight of a shadow- the shadowof the distancedother floating in the midst of an illusory determinacy.The notion of contradiction itself is and so

in blemishto be eradicated the nameof the inviolableunity of consciousness. a considered

The interaction of the opposedterms thus appearseven more frightening, its outcome and threateningto the ego's authority. The contrariesnever really interact; unpredictable they arejust conjoined and disjoined togetherby an intermediateneutral space:the spaceof the void where imagination oscillates.They are kept apart and move in a linear manner roles, fixed and static. Accordingly, the sought unity acquiresthe statusof with separate a normative duty for the sakeof harmony, through subjugation (in the practical either the monotonouscelebrationof an empty identity, which never daresto expose realm), or itself in its unconfessed, tormenting contradictions (in the theoretical one).

Conclusion: The Act BecomesFact: Fichte's Fundamental Ontology.

Did Fichte eventually succeedin his Deduction of the first fundamentalprinciple? In the first principle assumes form of an infinite the practical reason,apparentlynot, since ought. In theoretical reason,the principle took the form of an unjustifiable usurpation of the object by the subject: the claim of the first principle was rather repeatedthrough the of its various forms, and no deduction was forthcoming. Fichte's initial question exposition in the first introduction regarding the sourceof the systemof representations accompanied by the feeling of necessityis answeredessentiallyby establishingthe subjective act of the infinite activity of the self. This is the reasonwhy the secondintroduction is much more far-reachingand conspicuouslybent toward exposing the first principle as a matter of
49

Ibid. p.281

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The questionof the first introduction is now shifted to the question validity. unquestionable Despite the answergiven by the Wissenschaftslehre. of the validity of his claims that his

beginsfrom an act (the self-positing ego) and not from a fact, the oppositeis philosophy the case."How then is the philosopherto ensurethe objectivity of this purely actually I answer:this act is by its nature objective. That I exist for myself is a subjective act?...
50 fact.,, Thus,

the failure of the deductionof his first principle in the 1794

Wissenschaftslehre other relevant critiques led Fichte to give more weight to the and factual, unprovednatureof the first principle, insteadof questioning the veracity of that fact.51The original fact is one that everyonemust discover in himself, "the source original 9952 life is containedtherein, and without it there is death. The unproved and assertive of that fact, however, along with the confessionof the Wissenschaftslehre it this characterof becomesa task for the ego, leadsto a moderation of the nature of the original eventually Thus, in the secondIntroduction he insists that "it is not a conceiving; this it only positing. becomesby contrastwith a not-self, and through determination of the self within this By the act described,the self is merely endowed Hence it is a mere intuition opposition. .... but therewith of all other consciousness; no and with the possibility of self-consciousness, into being as yet.',53This is the reasonfor the wide discussion true consciousness comes the natureof the self-positing ego. Is it the positing of the reality of and controversyover

Is it an Henrichclaims or a simpleintuition asdescribed above . as self-consciousness, ,

50Ibid. p. 35

54

55

51 This is why Hegel, in Faith and Knowledge,classifiesFichte'sphilosophy as faith rather than knowledge. 52Ibid. p.38. 53Ibid. p.54. 54Henrich states"there is more to be seenin the thesis that the self posits itself absolutely than hubris and begin to credit Fichte with a seriousconcern for truth. It can be presumption;otherwise, we could not even as the intelligible attempt to explain somethingwhose existenceno-one can doubt- the reality of selfread " For Henrich, this is the reason why 'the present age has turned a deaf ear' to Fichte. For consciousness. contemporaryphilosophy replaced the talk about self-consciousness the notion of 'existenz' and the with analysisof language.Here, Henrich doesnot make any claim about the reality of self-knowledge as a completedact. He simply seeksto point out that the subject does come to a self-consciousstate, that selfis consciousness a statethat can exist and is not fundamentally impossibleas the vicious circularity of the

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or underlying substratumof all consciousness doesit permeateself-consciousness 56Is it a claim about the practical natureof the self, or merely for the throughout? 57We have given our responseto this questionimplicitly through the theoretical? of Fichte'stext. We shall here spell out our precise account of this question. reconstruction As we saw, Fichte's enterpriseof the deduction of the original self-positing develops from the conceptof substantiality,in quantitative terms, despitehis introductory mainly remarkswhich warn againstanything "subsistent". Moreover, his successiveattemptsto accountof synthesisis carried through the external introduction of new concepts, give an to appearthemselves be the bearersof the movement of his pedantic argumentation, which rather than the promising dynamicsof the processof productivity. In his later work, Scienceof Ethics, Fichte even claims the actuality of this original self-awareness, manifestedin the whole ego as an impulse, a primordial momentum for absolutefreedom. In fact, in our discussionwe found it as the arrogant and naive level of consciousness the of absoluteself-certainty of the self's pure autonomy, and its ability to determine anything to it. It is a concretedisposition towards itself and the world, that of claiming external completeconformity of the latter to the subject.This act is infinitely performed, an infinite number of times, with eachencounterof the self with the world, and thereby the selfof consciousness the self is the processand result of theseexperiences.However, since the nature of theseexperiencesis exclusively self-centred,the nature of the thereby recollected is self-consciousness concomitantly static. It is the same,unchangeable self-consciousness,
reflective model rendersit. Though Henrich's main point is sustainable i.e. the reality of self-consciousness the issueis to what extent this point can be convincingly defendedby meansof Fichte'sself-positing ego. 55Pippin also, in his reply to Henrich, the usesthe secondintroduction in Wissenschaftslehre, stresses and 'intuitive character'of self-positing. SeePippin R.: "Fichte's contribution" in PhilosophicalForum 19. 56The latter dilemma has beenposedin F. Neuhauser, Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity,and resolvedin favour of the former version. 57Ibid. p.44. Neuhauser mentionsthat this dilemma is one of the most fundamentalcontroversieswithin Fichte scholarship.He supportsthe view that the first principle in the WL concernsonly the theoreticalpart of the ego, as the "Cartesianr'. This interpretationmissesthe heart of Fichte'senterprise,i. e., the searchfor a principle which could found both theoreticaland practical reason.

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insensitiveto its frustrations,now triumphant, in the vanity of self -affirmation, now in its self-refutation,but always stubborn and not susceptibleto formation. miserable, Hence,the act of self-positing standsfor both an underlying substratumof consciousness, the reality of self-consciousness, indeed for the transcendental condition of any and and In fact, it doesillustrate the "reality of self-consciousness", Henrich claims, as activity. in the oppositedirection of Henrich's intentions, namely, in the exposition of the albeit, limited, marginal or even negativerole that the processof self-consciousness may have to the constitution of the self. For self-consciousness, viewed as a self-oriented with regard rather than to its seemsto give rise to the validation of the ego's self-assertiveness goal, formative Bildung. This is concomitant with the nature of the ego's activity. Fichte has beenmainly presentedas the philosopher of praxis. This soundsrelevant since all is generated and reducedto the act of freedom. However, this act is by experience describedby Fichte as the activity of the eye,i. e. a praxis of mere seeing,and successfully indeed of self-mirroring, thus, a praxis with no formative strength for either the subject or the object, a praxisform the securedistance of the beholder. From this point of view, the theoretical and practical reasonis indeed accomplished.In addition, the ability for unity of this praxis is not given to anybody. It is somethingthat the philosopher attains by meansof logical abstractionand by those few who are able to discover it in themselves.Thus, it is also highly esoteric,and elitist. In the light of theseconclusions,we can gain a wider perspectiveon the substance of Henrich's analysis.Henrich justifiably claims that it is necessary situate the to philosophical problems within their historical context. From this viewpoint, Fichte's insight is powerful indeed, as being critically located in the tradition of reflective theories, including Descartes,Leibniz, Locke, and especially Kant. Moreover, exactly because,as Henrich points out, we have to treat philosophical issueshistorically, the central objection

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to Henrich's orientation is that one cannot criticise the philosophy of Existenz from a that advocatedby Fichte. For, it is the latter way of standpoint,eminently subject-centred that rendersthe former as a seemingly well justified one. In other words, the philosophising defenceof the reality of self-consciousness could only be sustainednot from the standpoint self-certainty,but from precisely the refutation of that standpoint, working of a static through the way of despairof self-consciousness, along with it, the tradition of and itself. philosophy Fichte's response the Kantian questionleadsus to an exceptionally narrow field of to problematic. The Kantian dualism is raisedby an act of monolithic identity: philosophical the relation of man with the world is dissolved in the illusory power of the self-positing the aporia of judgement is settled in the primordial impulse for absolutefreedom, the ego, by of subjectivity is exhausted the obstinateself-certainty or the perennial striving notion for sheerautonomy.Fichte's overwhelmingly self-centredphilosophy constituted the themeof sharpcritique by Schelling, to whose thought we now needto turn our research.

Section11
The logogrif of experience

Schelling's Notion of Experience. Introductory Remarks

In the previous chapterwe dealt with Fichte's endeavourto resolve the basic Kantian the conditions for the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements. For question of Kant, this issue was essentially reduced to the necessary assumption of the transcendental unity of apperception, along with the ability to schernatise the derivative categories.The latter appearsto have been completely ignored by Fichte, focused his enquiry instead toward that area in which Kant remained silent; who the conditions for the transcendental unity of apperceptionitself. namely, In consequence, have Fichte's resoundingclaim for the self-positing of the Ego, an we intendedto suspendthe old dualisms and consequentimpassesof reflection, an act act monolithic enoughin its overwhelming drive to dissolve theseconceptualgaps. It is in the sameproblematic that Schelling's Idealism originates, yet in such a way as

from the subject-centred if the Fichteandrive is but the impetusfor his detachment
system. Schelling is tormented by the philosophical problems of his age which surface as questionsin his own work. "How do ideas of external things arise in us?" "How it comes about that in us the object and the idea are inseparably united" [Ideasfor a Philosophy of Nature (1797)].

"How a subjectiveis annexed thereto[i.e. to the objective],which coincideswith

it" [Systemof TranscendentalIdealism (1800)].

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How could a systemthat unites intuition and conceptsever be conceivable?[Bruno or On the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things (1802)]. The abovequestionsreceive various and differentiated responses, since Schelling's by intellectual developmentis characterised an exceptional multifariousness, as far as both the content and the fonn of his works is concerned.It is not the object of this thesis to give a thorough and systematic account of all the different phases of his thought and of the transitions between his intellectual transformations. We rather focus on illuminating those powerful dimensions of his thought that open new perspectivesto our themes,but also, potentially, impinge on many areas of modem investigation, with regard to the relation between the absolute and philosophical finitude, thought and being, epistemology and ontology, philosophy and mythology. Schelling's thought, which remained for many decadesin the darkness of Hegel's far from being 'the night where all the cows are black', presents overriding critique, resources,which our researchbroaches an extraordinary richness and uninvestigated in a preliminary and preparatoryway. only

As already mentioned in the Introduction, Schelling's originality consists in his radicalisation of the whole context and tonality of the debatearound the conditions of cognitive experience,by transposing the aporias of logic from the realm of human subjectivity to the realm of cosmic becoming. As will be seenlater, logic is considered itself as an immanent power amongst the infinite configurations and transmutations that the interaction of cosmic powers takes in a specific stage of the history of the

engagement man with the world. Throughthis idea, Schellingdoesnot intend to of

develop an anthropological account,but simply to point to the historical dimension of the processof reflexivity: a history denoting man's rise from his immersion in natural
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forces, which to the extent that it becamecompletely cut off from nature, acquired an entirely abstractform. It is in the context of this abstractingseparationof man and and from the worldly powers that the notion of the condition for the possibility of becomesa persistenttheme in modem epistemology. The notion cognitive experience the condition for the possibility of experience assumesthe status of an isolating of factor - by means of reflective abstraction from experience itself - which, as such, intends to found andjustify knowledge. Schelling, by relocating logic within the realm its origins, without dismissing logic's specificity, undermines its ability to found of as a whole by means of an isolating, conceptual factor. For, if logical experience thought is manifestation and part of cosmic spontaneity,it cannot found the realm of its genesisitself. The question of justification and objectivity of knowledge, however, is not wholly discarded, but is implicitly re-addressedby means of a different objectivity relates to the known and unknown powers that enable and approach: sustainthe interaction betweenman and the world, and in this senseobjectivity stands for both clarity and confusion, necessity and contingency. Objectivity is not by transferred or imposed upon the subject's representations means of its conceptual conditions, but rather seemsto signify the very processof interaction betweenthe real forces pertaining to man and the world, the real powers that seize upon consciousness and consciousness'active responseto them. However, the problematic of forces still a status,so long as it becomesitself the new condition for the assumes transcendental comprehensionof experience,even though the notion of experiencenow embracesthe cosrnic, and not only the subject's activity. In the first edition of the Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1797), Schelling, by a philosophical explanation of the dynamic polarity of nature, sets out to demonstrate that the concepts of "universal attraction and repulsion" must be "conditions for the possibility of all objective

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knowledge"'. Indeed, Schelling deploys his early writings (1793-1804) from a transcendental standpoint,whose locus is his principle of Identity. This underlies the of his more important early writings, Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature structure (1797), Systemof TranscendentalIdealism (1800), Bruno or On the Natural and the Divine Principles of things (1802), becoming the exclusive theme of his major project to articulate his Identity System (1801-4). The Identity principle takes different forms through theseworks, until it becomesconsolidatedin its most clear form in the System Philosophy in General and of the Philosophy of Nature in Particular (1804), which of will de discussed in detail later. We do not intend to provide here a thorough of all the various forms of the Identity principle in the above works, though exposition their main traits will be discussedin context. At present,we will provisionally provide succinct formulation of the Identity principle, in order to see the connection with a Schelling's early transcendentalism

The notion of Identity in generalis intended to constitute the highest principle which the original identity of subject-object, spirit-nature, that has been split by postulates reflection. At this stage, according to Schelling, philosophy's task is to demonstrate the ultimate identity betweenspirit and nature,thought and being. Hence the statement

in the STE "The highestconsummation natural sciencewould be the complete of

laws into laws of intuition and thought',2 and spiritualising of all natural correspondingly,for transcendentalphilosophy, its 'highest consummation' would be to prove the rise of nature from the spiritual realm. A philosophy of nature and a
'See SchellingF. W. J., Ideasfor Philosophy a ofNature, p. 171."For forces, after all, are nothing that in can be presented intuition. Yet there is so much reliance on theseconceptsof universal attraction and repulsion,they are everywhereso openly and definitely assumed, that we are automatically led to the idea that, if not themselves be objects of possibleintuition, they must nevertheless conditions for the " possibility of all objective knowledge.

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of knowledge are therefore seen as symmetrical philosophical accounts, philosophy that in their supplementarywould demonstrate the original identity of nature and 3 To be sure, in both STI and PN, Schelling gives an spirit, object and subject.

interestingand dynamicaccountof both natureand subject.Theseare conceivedin

terms of polar forces, whose interaction and various dynamic balances result in the different forms of natural phenomena or subjective states. Their higher unity is as an inclusive cosmic productivity, of operative, oppositional and conceived interacting processes, where man and nature are but different moments. The dualistic terminology of mind/matter, idealism/realism, is suspendedby a dynamic approach according to which everything would be apprehendedas an interaction of forces. In the Ideasfor a Philosophy of Nature, for example, conceptsare conceived as forces in (quantity), whilst sensationsas different deviations of this equilibrium equilibrium (quality). Reflection is taken as a state of upset equilibrium in man, where man's productivity is disconnectedfrom nature's productivity. Identity is therefore assumed the basis of the common nature of these forces, which is conceived in terms of on However, at this stage,Schelling assumesa higher type of productivity productivity. is characterised an ideal balance,or indifference, betweenthe two postulated by which oppositional forces, that constitutes the original and ultimate identity of all forms of and spirit. From this point of view, particularity and multiplicity are considered nature as mere modification of this highest identical principle. Accordingly, the process of productivity is abstracted from its vital and substantial, internal diversity and is
2 Schelling F. W. J., System Transcendental Idealism, p. 6 of 3 Ibid. " To make the objective primary, and to derive the subjectivefrom that, is, as hasjust been If, shown, the problem of nature-philosophy. then, there is a transcendental philosophy, thereremainsto it only the oppositedirection, that of proceedingfrom the subjective,as primary and absolute,and having the objective arise from this. Thus nature-philosophy and transcendental philosophy have divided into two directions possibleto philosophy, and if all philosophy must go about either to make

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to the statusof an identical and abstractconcept,which, in turn, is renderedas reduced the transcendentalcondition of knowledge. This line of thought culminates in the Systemof Identity, where Identity is no longer conceived in terms of productivity, but an immediate, self-positing, absolute, total Oneness.This is postulated as the as of all beings, which shinesthrough them in their illusory particularity. Hence, essence any dynamism and relative independenceof the particulars, implied by the previous model of forces, is dismissed since the particular is considered as a non-essential,a as merely the medium through which the Absolute manifests itself. The non-being, way that the Absolute shines through in the subject is, accordingly, named after intellectual intuition. We suggestthat it is the notion of the absoluteIdentity between spirit and nature that Schelling's early transcendentalism,for this principle allows nature's or sustains thought's full transparencyby means of intellectual intuition, which stands for the fundamental condition for all possible experience. In fact, this condition is even stronger and more substantialthan the Kantian conditions of the formal categoriesof the understanding,since the latter apply only to phenomenal knowledge, while the former, dissolving the realm of noumena,renders the universe fully transparent.It is only after Schelling's radical rupture with the Identity System that he abandonshis transcendentalstandpoint. This rupture can be traced to the Of Human Freedom treatise (1809) and was further pursued in the Ages of the World (1811) and the Deities of Samothrace(1815). In these works, Schelling no longer seeks to establish the original and absolute identity of nature and spirit, nor does he conceive the forms of cosmic becoming in

an intelligence out of nature,or a natureout of intelligence, then transcendental which has philosophy, the latter task, is thus the other necessary basic scienceof philosophy. p. 7 ",

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dual terms.Now, he discoversthe inexhaustible richness and multiplicity of the mere which doesnot originate from an ideal stateof primordial balance, cosmic movement, but has alwaysbeenas the recurrent or unpredictable,balancedor disorderly interplay of 'real powers'. These are seen as multiple, transformable or transmutable to each but not reducible to a common, identical, allegedly elementary constituent, or other, derivable from a higher origin. In this context, the dynamism of his thought restricted by the confines of the Identity principle - recovers its resources previously dimensions: the forces are transformed into potencies, pointing to and acquiresnew their autonomousand self-generative dimension, the potencies are transmuted into pointing to the ineffable "magic of insoluble life". Logic is itself a potency of gods, the cosmic becoming, a moment in the mystery of life itself, partaking of the paradoxicalnexus of the powers of order and chaos.Being thus implicated, no logical
au

its right to condition or found experience, so long as its very abstraction can claim

is itself brought about by the very powers it attempts to found. One could production presuppositionfor the possibility arguethat this accountis just anothertranscendental of experience.Schelling, however, at this stageof his development,is not pursuing the foundation for a new system of knowledge. The thought process is no longer conceived as an act of conceptual abstraction from experience - which would

the ostensibly escape contingent whimsicalcharacter the subjective but as an and of activity of the living powers of man in his engagementwith the cosmic powers. Considered thus, thought's products take on a logogrific expression rather than a transparent,orderly and systematicclassification of the world. However, the logogrific

form, in its elusiveness perplexity,seems carry morecognitiveweight than the to and

clear and unequivocal universal and necessaryconcepts.For logogrif is woven by the real and intractable powers of a living experience- and thus re-enactsthe paradoxical
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powers of the cosmic becoming - rather than by the distillation of experience,which therebyclaims a pure and thus meaninglessobjectivity.

In this thesis we will explore Schelling's 'post-Identity' works, in particular, the Of Freedom treatise,the Ages of the World and the Deties of Samothrace,which we will treat as a trilogy. We begin, though, with a thorough investigation of his Identity as this has been expoundedin his lectures at Wurzburg (1804), the System principle, Philosophy in General and of the Philosophy of Nature in Particular - which of in its most clear formulation, the Philosophy of Identity - becausethe latter condenses has been consideredas the core of Schelling's philosophy4.However, the Philosophy Identity constitutes only a phase in the history of his versatile intellectual of development, and any reduction of the latter to this phase misses the exceptional

it his ever-transforming thought.In fact, aswill be seen, is and richness complexityof

Schelling himself who provides the strongest critique of his own philosophical identity. This gives rise to new and imaginative investigations, emerging concept of from his inquiries into the nature of human freedom and his provocative account of the notion of good and evil. The rupture with the System of Identity and the of the transcendental conditions of experienceis accompaniedby a break problematic

conceptualisation God,as an absolute, of all-perfectBeing,and with the monotheistic

a shift from the 'monotheism of Reason' to the 'polytheism of imagination'5. Indeed, in the course of this research,we discern a paradoxically close connection between monotheism and the faith in Logic's ability to explain the world. It would appearas if
4 SeeHegel in the Prefacein the Phenomenology Spirit the Lectures in the History of Philosophy of and and contemporarycommentators, A. White, Absolute Knowledge,A. Bowie, Schelling and Modern as EuropeanPhilosophy, M. Vater, in his introduction in the Bruno, or on the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things 5 SeeCassirerE., ThePhilosophy Symbolic Forms, 3 of p.

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the notion of the Absolute, which monotheismcultivates, after God's withdrawal from the world, is appropriatedby Logic itself in its claims to organise and illuminate this 6 The issue of the relation betweenmodern logic and disenchanted world. monotheism, would constitute an interesting, though different project, will not be pursued which here.We would merely emphasise that Schelling's decisive undermining of the notion of the absoluteidentity and transcendentallogic is attained, in our view, only in the Deities of Samothrace, where he discovers the fascinating messages of this 'mysterious polytheism' For the re-introduction of the gods in the world renders it alive, dynamic, unpredictable,enigmatic and yet not alien nor merely awe-inspiring, of the gods assumesan absolute status,but as multiple and transmutable, since none be partially discovered in man's living forces eternal and mortal, may even themselves.

Schelling's re-enchantment the world announces innovative union of knowledge an of and faith, clarity and riddle, and from this point of view, we consider the Deties of Samothrace a work of major philosophical significance rather than a marginal religious study. With these introductory remarks, we can now proceed to the further examination of Schelling's controversial, elusive and disturbing thought.

6A typical example this of connectionlies in Newton's mechanisticphilosophy of naturealong with his to God. A more subtle version of this 'worldview' would be adherence the notion of a transcendent Kant's accountof the separationbetweenknowledge and faith.

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Chapter 4 Identity Philosophy: its critique and its self-criticism

Schelling, despitethe versatility of his thought, hasbeenmostly registeredin the history of Modern Philosophyas the philosopherof Identity par excellence,mainly due to Hegel's critique. Therefore,we needto gain a view into this period of Schelling's overwhelming development,with regard to Hegel's critique but also to its relative position philosophical Schelling's thought as a whole. The Identity Systemwas the focal point of Schelling's within concernsfor the short period of time during 1801-1804, mostly built on the philosophical basisof Schelling's blatant reaction to the Fichteansystemand possibly due to this, determinedby it. negatively Idealism (1800), Schelling has already introduced his In his Systemof Transcendental Identity, in terms of his notion of Absolute Synthesisoccurring in Intellectual conceptof Intuition. Through the latter Schelling broachedthe idea that everything in the history of the has alreadybeenposited and the only task for the philosopher, towards getting cosmos knowledge, would be his attempt - by an act of imitation - to rehearsethe most distinctive of the history of cosmos.The latter, since they are intendedto be reproducedby the phases itself in philosopher's mind, will inevitably constitutephasesof the history of consciousness the broader senseof the tenni. In this sense,Schelling has alreadybroken with the Fichtean model of intellectual intuition, inasmuchas his notion of intellectual intuition doesnot refer to the act of the self-positing of the individual ego but rather to the projection of the concept of Absolute Synthesisonto the multi-layered level of the human psyche.Our main point though, regarding the

1In the senseof including unconscious, reflective, volitional , moral and aestheticmoments.

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of intellectual intuition in the Systemof TranscendentalIdealism, is that conceptualisation Schelling introducesthis term in a double sense,namely the dynamic and the geometric one. Accordingly, Intellectual Intuition is conceivedboth as an ongoing self-reproductive activity the that generates different configurations in the processof the self-constitution of one's and as the abstractconceptthat describesan already immediate, one-actplay personality,
of creation whose limitations appear as the different modes of consciousness. Hence, event

the first conceptionintroducesintellectual intuition in terms of a dynamic, productive process in time, while the secondone depicts it as a static all-inclusive, closed totality whose determinationsare but artificial delimitations of its uniform and homologous status.The latter is explicitly statedby Schelling when he parallels intellectual intuition with the conceptof spacein geometry:

Intellectual Intuition is for the latter (i. e. philosophy ) precisely what spaceis for geometry.Just as geometrywould be absolutely unintelligible without spatial intuition, since all its constructionsare simply different ways and meansof delimiting that intuition, so all philosophy would be unintelligible without intellectual intuition, since its conceptsare simply delimitations of a producing having itself as object, that is of intellectual intuition. 2

by However, as long as the philosopherrehearses, meansof imitation, this original act of synthesis,in order to recapturethe compactedhistory of cosmos,he himself reabsolute

If a of enacts moment creation. so,creationis no longeroriginalbut recurrent, thusboth and

temporal and eternal.According to Schelling, in the action of imitation the philosopher enacts his freedom in a creative way and therefore the abstracttautology A=A is transformedinto a syntheticone: Now by intellectual intuition there arisesfor us the self, in so far as it is its own product, at once producing and produced.This identity betweenthe self as producing
2 Schelling F. W. J., System Transcendental Idealism, p.28. of

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in the self asproducedis expressed the proposition, self=self. since it equates and to itself, this is by no meansan identical proposition, but a synthetic one. opposites into a synthetic one.3 Thus the proposition self=self convertsthe proposition A=A

intellectual intuition standsfor the creative dimension that permeatesthe In the abovesense and accountsfor the diversequalitative leapsthroughout its activity. The self s production in different forms of consciousness the STI seemto arise not as logical conclusionsor determinateinversionsof the previous states,but rather by way of an inexplicable leap, a raisesthe self in a new qualitative stage,such as the rise of the self from suddenact which to productive intuition or from reflection to artistic creation. These original sensation they may occur consequences; transitions,as alreadymentioned,do not appearas necessary but also they may not, as long as the creative potential of intellectual intuition doesnot get In any case,the transitions imply the potential or actual qualitative differentiation expressed. intellectual intuition and, from this point of view, they stand at odds with their comparison of the smoothquantitative transitionsthat occur by meansof delimitations of a uniform with such as the transition from an oblong to a triangle by the simple drawing of a straight space, line. The tension presentedabovebetweenthe dynamic and geometric accountof intellectual intuition not only permeates through the STI as a whole, but seemsto follow Schelling's thought until it is resolvedin favour of the geometric model in his Systemof Identity, to turn in more detail. We will deal with the texts of the lecturesdelivered by which we now Schelling during the winter 1803-1804,which were culled and published posthumouslyby his son, and are widely consideredto be the most lucid and definite exposition of his Identity Philosophy.

Op. Cit. p, 30.

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Schelling expoundshis thought following Spinoza's method, that is, in a rigid, axiomatic His introductory sectionsof the text focus on his attempt to refute "Fichte's style. dualistic or representational of knowledge. accounts subjectivization", aswell as betweensubject and object, Accordingly, knowledgedoesnot consist in the correspondence in the arbitrary Fichteanappropriationof the object by the self-positing ego; instead nor "there exists neither a subjectas subject nor an object as object; but that what knows and is known are one and the same,and consequentlyno more subjective than objectiveO what . This One is called supremeknowledge, insofar as it is the eternal self-identity that recognises itself This knowledgeis called Reasonand thereby Schelling claims the defeat of all knowledge.In fact, Schelling by rejecting subjectivization also subjectivization of rational insofar as he deniesthe concept of object as standingopposedto refutes objectivization, Both terms are characterised fictional, one-sidedrepresentations a primordial of as subject. both belong as dissolved.The previous accountof knowledge derives unity to which they from the fundamentallaw of Identity that dissolvesthe very distinction betweenepistemology thereby depicts simultaneouslythe stateof immediate knowledge, namely and ontology, and Reasonor Intellectual Intuition, and the stateof cosmos,which is Reasonrecognising itself. We will focus our inquiry on the investigation of this conceptof absoluteIdentity with regard to the controversial issue of the derivation of determinationsfrom its infinite and status,since this constitutedthe areaof severestcriticism on Hegel's part. undifferentiated

Schelling seemsto follow Spinoza,not only with regard to his method, but also as far as the contentof his central ideas.Hence,he expoundsthe concept of Identity or Absolute along similar lines to Spinoza's conception of Substance:

4 Systemof Philosophyin General,(1804), in Idealism

and the Endgameof Theory, p. 141.

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The Absolute is that which is, by virtue of its idea (i. e. absoluteself-affirmation), immediately is, or that whoseideal includes its Being and whose idea is thus the 5 immediate affirmation of Being and not idea or Being in a discrete sense.

is The Absolute is defined as that whose essence identical with its existence,since its essence is consideredas causasui, self-affirmed, which as such, immediately generates and thus with its existence.Concomitantly Being, as existence,is defined in terms of coincides absoluteautonomy,sheerself-creation,while anything that is producedby anotheris defined The conceptof the Absolute embracesthe whole universe and constitutesthe as non-being. of essence eachparticular entity, which otherwise,as regardsits particularity, is very as characterised non-ens,non existent.

We furthermorerecognisethe universal concept as that of a given particular only to the extent that this particular is being looked as the negation of the former, not as in itself The conceptof plant, for example,is possible only to the extent something that the latter is not adequate the concept,that is , to the extent that the affirmed is to the universe,as is the affirming. For if we posit the particular as being entirely not identical with, and dissolvedinto its concept,then this concept is also immediately the conceptof the universe,that is an infinite and eternal form. What is essentialin the plant other than the eternal procreation and affirmation of
itsep6

The aboveabstractprovides us with the crux of Schelling's thought. He conceivesof the Absolute in Spinozian terms, namely as an infinite, eternal creativity, as self-creating agency, but in turn, he compresses rigidifies this activity, rendering it into an homologous, and uniform act that is assignedto every particular as the abstractconcept of its permanent In essence. this sensethe particular doesnot exist in itself, since what exists in it is only its

dimension, doesnot pertainto its particularitybut to the self-generative which,however, In Absolute. this way, Schellingmisses concrete the conditionsunderwhich eachparticular
Op. cit. p. 148.

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forms and sustainsitself and confines himself only to the extraction of the conceptual entity of the act of self-creationthat inheresin it, which in turn is conceivedas a abstraction This position could perfectly match with a dualistic monolithic, identical, absolutesubstance. the Absolute as an external Creator, who imbues finite entities with his conceptualisationof that shinesthrough them; this is the direction of Bowie's reading of the Identity pneuma 7. However, Schelling insists on strongly demarcatinghimself from any version of philosophy dualism, aligning himself to the Spinozian thesis of immanence.The Absolute or God should be understoodas the all-inclusive totality:

For the true philosophy, God is not the supremebut the unconditionally One, not the but or the last link in a sequence the centre.There is no world outside him endpoint to which he relatesin the mannerof causeand effect; for otherwise God would be determinedby a law other than that of identity; by Nothing can emanatefrom God, for God is everything, and He is characterised no infinite affirmation of Himself. 8 other relation than that of the eternal and

Hence,if the particulars are thus dissolvedin God, as non-beingsin themselves,whence do

It of theyderivetheir particularstatus? is at this point wherewe canseethe celebration the

method.According to the text, the particulars are derived by meansof various geometrical delimitations of the homologous,uniform totality of the immediate self-createdact, or in by meansof various subtractions,removals from the totality. This is why the other words, is is defined as non-being,non-ens,as a mere schema;for, its essence what is particular there, the infinite self-procreationof the universe,whilst its particularity is just the always

form, the circumscription the removalin eachcase, specific of asdifferentshapes similarly

6 Op. Cit., p. 172,173. 7 See Appendix Il

8 Op. cit. p. 150.

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be consideredasbeing derived by various modesof delimiting - i. e. subtractingfrom may the totality of space. Accordingly, the critical questionarises:By whom are the subtractionsmade?According to Schelling, it is our intellect or imagination that performs them:

What do we generallyunderstand when we speakof particularity? Even for a but subordinatereflection, it is nothing in itself, not substance, it is merely a form or for an ideal determination.What makesthe plant a plant is not a substance, the plant substance with all other natural beings; conversely,the plant is neither real shares in and for itself, but it is strictly a concept or a schematismof the nor something 9 imagination.

The intellect or the imagination, however, is in itself a creative particular, but Schelling does any explanationfor the emergence this specific particular that seemsto be of not provide for the derivation of the rest. Here then, we reach the internal limits of Schelling's responsible In fact, Schelling attemptsto address this problem by meansof the sudden account. introduction, in the final pagesof the text, of the mechanismof potencies;the latter, though, lie in blatant inconsistencywith the whole spirit of the rest of the text, since by the of preponderance any of the arising potencies,he reintroduceswhat he precisely tries to throughout all his previous enterprise,namely the subject-objectdivision. In addition, abolish he doesnot offer any explanationfor the origin of the so called "reciprocal domination of one factor over the other"10,and the consequentloss of equilibrium betweenthe two potencies that would createparticularity. Hegel's critique draws on this aspect,highlighting the strictly quantitativecharacterof the potencies.

Hegelin the final Remarkon the Quantitysectionin the Science Logic, mentions the that of
of understanding Quantity as infinity through the concept of quantitative infinity missesthe

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momentthat appears even in the sphereof Quantity. So, alluding to Schelling's qualitative three potenciesof the Identity System,he remarks:

The only further remark to be madehere concernsthe intrusion of quantitative forms into the pure qualitative forms of thought in philosophy. It is the relationship of in particular that hasbeenapplied recently to the determination of the powers Notion. The Notion in its immediacy was called the first power or potency; in its or difference,in the determinatebeing of its moments,the secondpower; otherness in its return into itself or as totality, the third power. It is at once evident that and as usedthus is a categorywhich essentiallybelongs to quantum-these power powers bear the meaningof the potentia, the 8wagiq of Aristotle. ' 1 do not

Schelling indeed,definesthe potenciesin quantitative terms;

Where the stateof being affirmed hasrelative dominanceover the other that of affirmation, and where the latter affirms this very affirmation, we speakof A; where the affirmation dominates,and where it affirms the affirming factor of the first itself, we have A2 (A to the secondpower); where both of these,the power (A), and that which affirms this affirmation (A 2), affirmation of the affirmed penetrateand reduplicateone another,we speakof A3 or the power of indifference factors of A and B are reducedto a quantitative equilibrium. 12 where the Schelling then, seemsto try to savethe particularsby meansof the abovepseudo-scientific but he fails even to explain the suddenappearance the originally balancedpotencies proof, of in the axiomatically posited homologousand monolithic primal Identity. This objection soundsand is indeed a logical one, to which Schelling could perfectly riposte that the potential of its inexplicable and suddenself-division pertains precisely to the nature of this all-powerful Absolute. In this case,however, the claims about the Absolute's monolithic and immediateself-positedidentity are self-cancelledand the only remaining meaningis but the tofaith in the idea of a total, omnipotent Being. postulation and the concomitant adherence

9 Op. cit., p. 171. 10Op. cit., p. 171.

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We can examinenow in more detail Hegel's critique, which is expoundedin the Prefaceof the Phenomenology Spirit and more explicitly in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy. of In the prefaceof the PS the Schellingian Absolute is dismissedas the idea that "sinks into insipidity", since "it lacks the seriousness, suffering, the the mere edification and even The latter, namely the labour of the negative,is the labour of the negative"13. patienceand exposedby Hegel in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy as follows: succinctly

What is lacking in Schelling's philosophy is thus the fact that the point of indifference of subjectivity and objectivity, or the Notion of Reason,is absolutely without any attemptbeing made at showing that this is the truth. presupposed, The true proof that this identity of subjective and objective is the truth, could only ... be brought aboutby meansof eachof the two being investigatedin its logical, i. e. determinationsand in regard to them, it must then be shown that the essential the transformationof itself into the objective, and that the subjective signifies itself subjective.14(MY signifies its not remaining such,but making objective emphasis) According to Hegel then, what is only postulatedby Schelling in an abstractand static way, from the beginning, should be proved by meansof the movementof the Absolute itself. right This consistsin the reflection of the Absolute upon its own internal negativity, in fact a logical movementthat would generatethe essentialdeterminations,inherent in the Absolute being possibly recollectable,as a result of this movement.Hegel in turn, applying his and in the Scienceof Logic, shows that the abstractconceptof Infinity - i. e. the way method Schelling conceivesof the Absolute in his Identity Philosophy - being deprived of internal finitednessis but a spuriousconceptualisationof infinity.

11 Hegel's Scienceof Logic, p. 324. 12 System Philosophy in General, p. 171. of 13 Hegel's Phenomenology Spirit, .16 of 14 Hegel's Lectureson the History of Philosophy, p.526, III Volume

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Hegel by reflecting the abstractconceptof infinity upon itself, revealsits internal, logical, i. e. determinations: essential

The infinite is; in this immediacy it is at the sametime the negation of an other, of the finite. As thus in the form of simple being and at the sametime as the non-being of an other, it hasfallen back into the categoryof something as a determinatebeing in general-more precisely,into the categoryof somethingwith a limit, becausethe infinite is determinatebeing reflected into itself. 15 Hence,Hegel using the power of logic - to be sure not of a formal logic, but one of the determinateness laborious recollecting of thought-experiences discoversthe necessary of -, is initially taken as indeterminateinfinite. It is not surprising then, that he wonderswhy what Spinozawho discovered"true"
16

i. e. determinateinfinity did not move further than the ,

indeterminateconceptionof Substance, critical point that Hegel equally applies to a Schelling, in the context of his discussionof Spinoza's philosophy: "This defect appearsin Spinozaand Schelling in the fact that they seeno necessitywhy the Notion, as the implicit its unity, should make a separationof itself into different parts; so that out of the negativeof

17 itself becomes known" the simpleuniversal real,the opposed,

Hegel praisesSpinozafor his insight into the conceptof determinateinfinity by interpreting Spinoza'sexampleof the notion of infinity, namely the caseof the sum of the inequalities of distancebetweenthe circumferencesof two non-concentriccircles: the smaller one being inscribed into the other; the latter - infinite inequalities - though infinite, are yet delimited in the determinatespacewhich is interposedbetweenthe two circumferences.Nevertheless, accordingto Hegel, Spinozadid not manageto properly develop his own speculative discoveries,similarly to Schelling's inelaborate 'truths'. It seemsthough bizarre why

15 p. 138. SL, 16 Hegel's Lectureson the History of Philosophy, p.263. 17 Hegel's Lectureson the History of Philosophy, p 263,269.

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Spinoza,who himself first introducedthe idea of a determinateinfinity and Schelling who developedthe conceptof infinite finitude in his Bruno essay(1802) jailed to proceed also to the proper logical elaborationand retainedthe concept of an indeterminateabsolute.Our is that the main critical issuewith regard to Schelling's conception of the Absolute suggestion Spinoza" Substance, their undifferentiated infinite status,cannot be exhaustedat s regarding or the logical level, as Hegel suggests, namely to the inadequateunfolding of the logic of infinity Instead,in our view, their entrapmentby the conceptof absoluteinfinity should not as such. in be mainly tracedto logical shortcomingsbut rather to their implicit embededness the tradition, despitetheir adherence the concept of immanence.The latter, as to monotheistic doesnot necessarilyimply the refutation of the compelling omnipresenceof an allsuch, Being, so long as it doesnot move beyond the doctrinaire level. At this stage powerful Schelling's re-enchantment the world remainspetrified, as long as the essence the of of is derived from the law of identity. particular It is only when Schelling breakswith his monotheisticbackground, during his philosophical
18

from the Freedom investigations which will be up essay to the Deitiesof Samothrace,
discussedlater, that the conceptof inunanencerecoversits dynamism. At present,we needto examinethe specific connotationsof the conceptof Infinity of the period in question and thus the to assess limits of Hegel's critique as well. To begin with, Hegel ascribesto Spinoza's Substance conceptof infinity that Spinozaheld for anothercase,namely, his fourth caseof a

18 The notion of an infinite finitude is introducedin the Bruno essaywhich unfolds as a dialoguebetweenBruno, Fichte. The topic of their dialogue is the Identity principle standsfor Schelling and Lucian, who represents who andquite soonthe discussionfocuseson the relation betweenAbsolute and particulars.Lucian asks,'How in the world can you reconcile this endlessserial determinationof things, which seemto pertain merely to existence within time, with the eternal being of things in their ideasT It is at this point that Schelling broaches notion the of infinite finitude, which attemptsto graspIdentity as a union of oppositesand thus 'incarnatesthe dialectical impulse' namely,the tendencyto either posit the infinite within the finite, the to set the finite within or reverse, the infinite. This methodthen, for Schelling, quoting Plato, 'is a gift of the gods to mankind, akin to that purest heavenlyfire that Prometheus brought to earth'. SeeF. W. Schelling, Bruno essay,p. 143.

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infinity which refers to "the thing which is called infinite insofar as its parts, although included within a maximum and a minimum, cannot be expressedby any number"19. Schelling stresses in his exposition of the concept of the Absolute refers to Spinoza's that first, fundamentalcaseof the infinite, which is consideredas altogether different from the cases,and appliesto a being which is infinite by virtue of its essence: other

The Absolute is unconditionally infinite. There are two forms of infinity: one that we ascribeto what we are capableof delimiting, e.g. space,time, etc. or what is infinite by its cause,such as the speciesin organic naturethat are infinite by virtue of their There exists anotherinfinity, however, altogetherdifferent from the former cause. two, that appliesto a being by virtue of its definition, as Spinozaputs it, or by virtue of its idea. Such an infinity is that of God. For God is the absoluteaffirmation of infinite reality.20 Himself as Schelling here draws on Spinoza's elaboration of the concept of infinite, expoundedin his by Letter on Infinite (Letter X11,to Louis Meyer). In this letter Spinoza attemptsto address, meansof distinguishing amongvarious cases- actually six - of infinity, "the causesof errors which have arisenof this questionof the and confusions
,, 21 Infinite.

The relevant issuefor our discussionis try to gain a view into the qualitative difference of the first caseof the infinite that appliesto Schelling's notion of Absolute. According to the latter, Infinite in this senseshould be understoodas the thing is infinite by virtue of its essence. a and coincidenceof essence existencethat may apply to an all-inclusive causa sui. In other signifies its uninhibited, immediate self-positing in the words, a being infinite by its essence entire expansionand intensity of its potential. Infinite in this caseis not the non finite, for this

to positinghasno relevance anyprior determination, indeedthat of a logical Absolute and ., it thoughtthatwouldjuxtapose to finitude.A beingthat is considered completely as
19 Spinoza'sLetter on the Infinite, p. 189,in Spin=4 A Collection Critical Essays, by M. Grene, 1973. p. ed. of 20 System Philosophy in General, p. 156. of 21Spinoza'sLetter of Infinite, 183. p.

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simply exists as infinite, since it actualisesby itself, and self-created, autonomous immediately, all its potentialities.The law of Identity in this casestandsfor a claim on hierarchical priority of absolutepower and indeed of one that can not be fully graspedby our The very fact that it can be thought doesnot annul its infinite status,but reflective capacities. to its various forms of manifestations,in this case,as thought itself that is only attests In immanent to the absolutesubstance. this sense,Spinoza's Substancecould become intelligible only through two Attributes - extensionand thought - whilst its infinite attributes To incomprehensible. be sure,through Schelling's intellectual intuition, an immediate are of the Absolute could occur, but this still doesnot render it intelligible in terms of revelation determinations. The latter rather depicts an overwhelming, usually terrifying and conceptual experience,as that describedby the evangelists,transferring the feelings of paralysing and hun-fflity. perennial awe In Schelling's text, the Absolute standsfor the eternal self-affirmation of God's existence.As it is not opposedto anything for it includeseverything. It never starts or ceases be. Its to such, has no duration, not becauseit is infinite in terms of time, but becauseit bearsno existence to time whatsoever.Eternity thus is not defined in terms of time, as infinite is not relation defined in terms of finitude, for the Absolute standsfor an act of power and necessityand not for a conceptof speculation.The Absolute, far from being an empty logical universal in the beginning of an inelaboratethought process,rather appearsas the fullness of the actualisation all potentialities. The postulation of the Absolute then carries more the weight of religious of intensity rather than the scientific rigour of geometricalrigidity. The latter, though, seemsto

for be indispensable the validationof the former.In this sense, notionof the infinite the
to the Absolute is qualitatively different from the other casesof the notion. The referring latter now fall within the areaof conceptualunderstandingand, in Spinoza's context, are

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Accordingly, Spinoza's alreadyto the sphereof the modifications of Substance. related as far as the fourth caseof the infinite is concerned,was not a claim for the notion example, the determinateinfinite, which, accordingto Hegel, could be applied to Substanceand thus of initiate its divisibility. Instead,Spinoza'sexamplewas intended precisely in order to prove For the indivisibility of Substance. the main point of Spinoza's casewas to show that between and a minimum, there are infinite numbersor points, which atteststo the infinite a maximum and of substance thereforeto its indivisibility. Moreover, for Spinoza, this casewas continuity for the inability of our imagination to graspthe infinite that is always there, also an example despitethe limits that are formed by the schemata imagination, anticipating the similarly of inferior role that Schelling ascribesto imagination in the Identity System.

In the Identity Philosophy the Absolute standsfor the static fulfilment and infinite satiation of homologousand powerful totality. Now, as already mentioned,Hegel's suggestionis the an of the Absolute in terms of its self-reflective becoming. The identity of the conceptualisation

thenwouldbe provedby means the discoveryof their inversionandof their of opposites

statusin the processof their movement.In fact, the movement itself derives from alternating the developmentof the contradiction betweenthe oppositesthemselves.It is in this line of thought that Schelling developshis self-critique, the period during 1809-1811,but in our view, in a much more interesting and richer way than Hegel's suggestion.For Schelling's doesnot develop in the safe meansof thought-contradictionsbut in the movement field of the contrariespertaining to God himself and thus to the surprising depths provocative the world and human soul. From this point of view, our final critical remark on Hegel is of only that he exhaustedhis critique of the Identity System to the logical level, but mainly not that he reducedthe complexity and differentiation of Schelling's philosophy to the short

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Identity period, neglectingall the previous and later phasesof a restlessand imaginative development.In fact, Hegel not only neglected,but also dismissedSchelling's philosophical innovative changes throughout his long intellectual activity: "In the various recurrent his view Schelling on eachoccasionbeganfrom the beginning, because,as presentationsof before did not satisfy him; he has ever pressedon to seeka new form, we may see,what went thus he has tried various forms and terminologies in successionwithout ever setting forth and 922 However, what Hegel considersas a problem, seems one complete and consistentwhole. be, rather, Schelling's strength,especially as regardshis radical ruptures with his own ideas to the elaborationof unexpectedlynew thoughts. and

We will now turn to Schelling's rupture with the Identity Systemthrough the examination of his self-critique, which inauguratesa new phasein Schelling's philosophy, starting from the Of Human FreedomTreatiseup to the Deities of Samothrace. In the FreedomTreatise,Schelling introduceshis thoughtsby demarcatinghimself from Spinoza's system.According to Schelling, the latter consistsin a static pantheism,which it conceivesof things as immanent in God, in fact separates them and re-establishes although connectionsbetweenthem. This mode of thought was presentin Schelling's mechanistic Identity text, where he himself pointed out the distinction betweennatura naturata and natura naturans.

However, a more complete differentiation of things and God can hardly be than is madein the teachingof Spinoza which is said to be the classic conceived instanceof that identification. God is that which is in itself and is conceived solely through itself-,whereasthe finite necessarilyexists in anotherbeing and can only be conceivedwith referenceto it. Manifestly, in consequence this distinction, things of different from God merely in degreeor becauseof their limitations, as a are not
22 Hegel's Lectureson the History of Philosophy,volume III, p.515.

view of the doctrine of modesmight indeed seemto reply, nor they differ superficial from God toto genere,thus whatevertheir relation to God may be, they are differentiatedfrom God through the fact that they can exist only in and absolutely dependent upon anotherbeing (namely himself), and that their concept is a derivative one which would not even be possible without the concept of God.23 According to Schelling, the main reasonthat leads Spinoza to this implicit dualism, is not his of immanenceas suchbut his rigid distinction between the concept of Substance, conception self-identical, and the conceptof particular, consideredexclusively in another. as

The error of his systemis by no meansdue to the fact that he posits all things in God, but to the fact that they are things, to the abstractconception of the world and itself, which is also a thing for him its creatures,indeedof eternal substance . ...... Hence the lifelessnessof his system,the harshness its form, the barenessof its of its definitions;24 the conceptand expressions, relentlessausterity of Spinozism in its rigidity then, is regardedlike "Pygmalion's statue,needing of being given a through the warm breath of love." But even this comparisonis imperfect, as Spinoza's soul more closely resembles"a work of art which hasbeen sketchedonly in its most general in which, if it were endowedwith a soul, one would still notice how many outlines and lacking or incompleted. 25 s, featureswere Schelling's concernis not only to animatethe deadparticulars and indeed by meansof a selfreflective movementof the Absolute, as Hegel would suggest;but also to sketch a of God which would allow us to imagine the ineffable richnessand paradox conceptualisation the universe.God is no longer conceived as the all-perfect, omnipotent Being, as actus of "God is more of a reality than is a mere moral world-order, and he has in him purissimus:

23Schelling, F. W. J., Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom, p. 12. 24OP Cit., p. 22.
25 Op Cit.,

p. 23.

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other and more vital activating powers than the barren subtlety of abstractidealists quite ascribeto
, 26 him.

Schelling, by expoundinghis new conceptualisationof God, in fact, presentsthe way he the processof differentiation and individuation in the cosmic becoming. This is conceives depictedin terms of creation or God's self-revelation, which has usually been also in strict theological terms. We will try to show that Schelling holds a more misinterpreted complicatedmeaningfor the terms of creation and God himself, thereby opening subtle and horizons in the problematic of the absoluteand finitude. new Schelling setsout a new conceptualisationof immanence,in terms of becoming.

The conceptof immanenceis completely to be set asideinsofar as it is meant to a deadconceptualinclusion of things in God. We recognise,rather, that the express to of becomingis the only one adequate the nature of things. But the process concept their becomingcannotbe in God, viewed absolutely, since they are distinct from of him toto genereor - more accurately- in eternity. To be separatefrom God they have to carry on this becomingon a basis different from him. But since there would can be nothing outside God, this contradiction can only be solved by things having their basis in that within God which is not God himself, i. e., in that which is the basis of his existence.(In footnote) This is the only correct dualism, namely a dualism 27 which at the sametime admits a unity. Immanencethen, now signifies a process,a becoming of things consideredboth in God and distinct from him. God is understoodas a being diversified in himself, as a becoming which itself the processof determination and individuation of beings. We needto dwell constitutes Schelling's accountof becoming in order to take a view on the specific way he on the conceptualises processof determination.

If we wish to bring this Being nearerto us from a human standpoint,we may say: it is the longing which the eternal One feels to give birth to itself. This is not the One
26Op cit., p. 30. 27Op cit., p. 33.

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itself, but is co-eternalwith it. This longing seeksto give birth to God, i. e. their unity, but to this extent it has not yet the unity in its own self. unfathomable Therefore,regardedin itself it is also will: but a will in which there is no and understanding, thus not an independentand complete will, since understanding is actually the will in willing. Neverthelessit is a will of the understanding,namely the longing and desirethereof........ But there is bom in God himself an inward, imaginative response to this longing, which is the first stirring of corresponding divine Being in its still dark depths.Through this response,God seeshimself in his image, sincehis imagination can have no other object than himself. This image own is the first in which God, viewed absolutely,is realised,though only in himself-,it is in the beginning in God and is the God-begottenGod himself. This image is at once at the sametime, reason- the logic of that longing, (in Schelling's footnote) in and the sensein which onefinds a Logos in Logogriphs. (my emphasiS)28 How are we to understand abovequotation?As a preliminary remark, Schelling's essay the Of Human Freedomcould be read in at least two possible ways. The first reading, viz., Heidegger's version, is in the light of the Identity System,which still leavesits tracesin Schelling's presenttreatise.The second,which we will follow, is in terms of Schelling's immediately later works, namely the Ages of the World and The Deities of Samothrace.In fact, Schelling allows for both readings,since he both carries elementsof his previous system break with his own previous systemsand concomitant traditional a spectacular and performs

Schelling'saccount teleology, we andidentity.At present, will examine of necessity accounts

determinationthrough the secondreading, trying also to show Schelling's ambiguities, of until we gain the more mature elaboration of his thought in the Ages of the World. According to the quotation cited above,Schelling conceivesof the processof determination in terms of the interaction betweenlonging or love, the so-called will-of-depths and will-to-love, or Ground and Existence.Movement occursby meansof the contrary interplay betweentwo principles, thesetwo wills, both pertaining to the nature of things. The first, that of longing, is

This thedesireandwill that strivesto spread awayfrom itself towardsexpansive expression.

to indeterminatepassions,impulses and desiresthat urge away from themselves, refers

28Op cit., p. 35.

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diffuse themselvesand explodein a disoriented,mute mode. Schelling seesthat in this longing itself thereis born an 'inward imaginative response',the logic of this longing, the This secondwill, immanently born in longing itself yet not identical with it, is will-to-love. the stirring of love. The latter should be understoodas the will, springing from longing itself, that wills to express,to actu ise onging. This will, that takes over longing and gives it form, rendersit explicit and sound.The will-to-love wants to establish longing by creative it, by relating it to other beings,by giving it shapeand holding it distinct and connecting distinguishable.Hence,the will-to-love transformsthe diffused and indeterminatedarknessof longing into the light of its creative formation. In this self-bending movementlonging primal upon itself and forms its image. But this image is producedby the elliptical reflects a living force, which, in its self-touching, reverberatesitself, and thus becomes movementof image. It is in this sensethat the will-to-love utters the word: in the gathering of a speaking dispersionthrough the becoming awareof the needto expresslonging. Yet this word is the of an image, the longing's image of itself, the word of the 'Logos one finds in the word Logogriphs'. The logos of the Logogriphs, however, is the logos of an anagram,of a riddle: the word of the image is the unity of the elusive articulation that an image may recall. The of this image is the unity of the ineffable vibration of longing, which unfolds its mute word density into the rhythms of its imaginative expression.This unity cannot be the unity of a fully transparentutteranceof a concept of the faculty of the understandingin the Kantian sense.Instead,it is a unity of a logogriph and therefore a unity that attemptsto give a symbol for the indefinite complexity of longing. Longing translatedinto logos, longing seeingitself, can only give an allegorical and transitive unity. The logogriph, or the image, then, allows the variation of significance that can be graspedby whoever tries to decipher it, according to his own senseof longing and love. In this context, we can rethink the role of intellectual intuition, where the latter may now signify the self-image of longing, the enigmatic unity that 149

the logic of the logogriph recalls.The word, the utteranceof longing, the will-to-love, does or moreoverannihilate longing. Rather, it takes it over, with love, in order to not exhaust it, as the poem treatsone's desires.The will-to-love is nurtured by longing, which express always remainsas the mainspringof movement.

In this context, Schelling gives a new meaningto the notion of Identity. Identity now stands for the becoming of creationout of the contrary intercoursebetweena will that strives for infinite expansionand the will that tries to form longing and to incorporate it in the nexus of beings. Identity also standsfor the momentof formation of the longing, a moment of transient fulfilment. The copula 'is' then, signifies both the processof expressionand the moment of This double significance of Identity refers also to God's double meaning. actualisation. Accordingly, God is conceivedboth as the becoming of the oppositional vital powers in him the moment of the celebrationof love. and as longing, standsfor the material out of which the willThe will-of-depths, that is unexpressed to-love createsits deeds.The richer the longing and the strongerthe will-to-love, the deeper the processof determinationand individuation. In this sense,the term determination doesnot a conceptualprocessof logical discriminations but the creative processof longing's signify Now, the relation which is characterised the prevalenceof the will-to-love by self-formation. longing is called by Schelling, the Good. Instead,when longing doesnot retain the role upon of feeding love, resistsits self-formation and deniesits self-seeing,i. e. deniesits movement to its own contradiction, becomesblind, attemptsto prevail upon love and is according Evil. Theseconcepts,Good and Evil, needto be further explored, in order that we rendered can gain someinsight into Schelling's controversial concept of creation and thereby his of determination. Schelling calls Good, the specific relation according to which the account

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circumscribesand thus subordinateslonging. This is also depictedby embraces, will-to-love image of the circle where the will-of-depths is in the centre, surroundedby the the i. e. the will-to-love. Hence,Good, for Schelling, is called the Systemin the circumference, betweenthe will-of-depths and the will-to-love; a relatedness form of this specific relatedness hierarchy.Heideggercalls it the jointure of Being, which for him, also, of structure and the 'immanent lawfulness' of beings. Consequently,Evil seemsto be that which represents to overturn and threatenthe System.Here, the following critical questionsarise. attempts Does Evil, for Schelling, constitutean immanent act of creation itself, in fact a necessary one, that becoming be sustainedas such and love manifestedat all? In other words, is Evil a so conceptwith regardto the Systemof Good and as such, a condition for love and relative becoming?Or is Evil an act againstcreation, an activity to be discardedand expelled, as darknessshould be sunderedfrom light? The approachto this question dependson the way the relation betweenthe two wills, ground and existenceand thereby the concept we conceive God. Schelling himself develops,in our view, contradictory thoughts throughout the of Freedom essay,until he eventually, in the last section,elucidates,in a fruitful way, his of Identity and Indifference, preparingthe way for the Ages of the World. concept Accordingly, if the relation betweenthe two wills is conceived as one of primal identity, God is conceivedas a primordial act of original self-revelation. In turn, the processof becoming of things in him is rendereda teleological movementtowards the revelation of God, which is Schelling allows for this reading, insofar as their hidden, inner, universal essence. as assumed immanent in the the One that longs to give birth to itself is understoodas a uniform essence, depthsof things. Also, his attribution to the will-to-love the name of universal will, enhances in this reading.However, Schelling explicitly stresses the last pagesof the treatise,the nonidentity of the wills and yet the possibility of their becoming identical. This is to be understoodin the context of Schelling's final remarks on Indifference. Here, he considersthe

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two wills as two equally eternalbeginnings.Darknessand light, reality and ideality, good and take meaningonly so long as thesetwo wills stand in a &relation. Only within a evil, systematicunity can the aboveconceptsacquire their meaning.Antitheses exist by virtue of

this relationandin this way constitute defineunity, indeeda polar,oppositional and and
Becoming itself cannot take place except through the movement which exists by moving one.
the relation between those contraries. Good takes its meaning with regard to Evil virtue of

light with regardto darkness, none of thesecharacterisations as exist in themselves. and Hence, Good is defined as the specific structureof the preponderance the will-to-love over of the will-of-depths. The latter, though, should not be understoodas a static or ultimate one. Longing which sustainsthis structureis but the indispensable,disquieting energy which yet threatensthis structure,maintaining thus becoming. This undermining potency is indeed disorganisingand disruptive: it threatensthe previous balancewith chaosand disorder, so long as it challengesor even dissolvesit. At this stage,longing is called Evil. However, Schelling keepsthe conceptof Evil, not for the disquieting, overturning longing, but only as long as the latter establishesitself upon the will-to-love and reversesthe system.Evil then, is System,insofar as it standsfor a static structure,i. e. the reversal of the Good. We can again therefore say that, as long as there is a continual domination of one will upon the other -a hierarchy in the form either of order or chaos- then we implicitly have the notion permanent of a systematicstagnation,pertaining either to static order or to entropy. In contrast,the becoming assumes conceptof none of the previous fixation of roles of the wills, but the presupposes alternation and moreover the free activity of the wills in the processof their

interaction. is preciselythe dimension It offreedomthat is implicatedby the

conceptualisationof the will in terms of two equally eternal beginnings.The polarities of Good and Evil, darknessand light, are interchangeablenot only by of their intervirtue according to a logic of hetero-determination,or inversion, but also, according to relatedness,

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Schelling, by virtue of the moment of Indifference, inherent in their relationship. Indifference is characterisedas the groundless,that which abstainsfrom any relation, or predicate and thus from any antithesis.This dimension is what ascribesto eachwill a freedom of itself, a by meansof which old structuresdissolve and power potential of an unprecedented itself, not only in the pattern of inversions, but possibly in new movement maintains paths.The groundlessthen, is not a stageof abysmal night before creation, as it unpredictable 29 interpreted but rather the dimension of freedom and unpredictability pertaining to has been , eternalbeginning, within the very nexus of relations with its other. every will, as

Reality and Ideality, darknessand light, or however else we wish to designatethe two principles, can never be predicatedto the groundlessas antitheses.But nothing their being predicatedas non-antithesis,that is, in disjunction and eachfor prevents itself, wherein, however,this duality (the real twofoldness of the principles) is 30 established. Thesetwo wills are consideredto be of the same'nature', namely that of will or potency, as in the Ages of the World. This doesnot, however, imply their original identity, but we will see

their ability to transmute transfigure into the other,whilst maintainingtheir one or only
difference and independentdynamics,exactly becausethey are consideredas real potencies rather than as mere concepts.

Heidegger'sinterpretationof Schelling's treatisedevelopsfrom the standpointof the Identity System.Heidegger's first application of his thinking in terms of identity lies in the identification of longing with the will-to-love. The latter is but the very essence longing of itself, except that it remainshidden in its depths:"the ground as longing seeksprecisely what

29 Viz. Heidegger'sreadingof the Freedomessay,which will be discussed later. 30FreedomEssay,p.88.

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1.Accordingly, for Heidegger,the becoming consistsin the understanding seeS"3 processof the striving of longing to discoverthe inner unity which hides in its depths.This is also the deeperessence every entity, which is consideredas God's Being. God is still conceivedas of becoming - sinceSchelling doesnot allow any ambiguity on this issue - but now understood in terms of the movementtowards the revelation of this hidden unity, through the clearing This fits with Heidegger's interpretation of God - also separationof light from darkness. and Existencein the text - as an act of primordial revelation and original unity before any called "Existence is the primordial and essentialself-revelation of God in himself before creation: the eternal act of creatingthings"32 . Creation then, is but the processof revelation of the inner essence things, that was of in God's Being, but then seemsto have been buried in the dark depthsof originally revealed beings.In this casethough, Heideggershould provide us with an accountof Fallennessfrom the presumedoriginal unity, which would also raise his inconsistencywith his account of longing as both, fundamentally identical with understandingand yet somethingto be cleared However, Heideggerdoesnot engagewith the inconsistenciesof his interpretation, since off. his main concernseemsto be the elucidation of the relation betweenthe Absolute and things, Schelling's,adherence the concept of the Absolute. to which presumablydemonstrates

The thinghood of things consistsin revealing the nature of God. To be a thing means to presentGod's Being, which is an eternal becoming, itself a becoming This .... interpretationof thinghood, however, is also a presuppositionfor correctly understandingwhat Schelling is trying to say in the statementthat the being of things is a becoming. He doesnot mean that platitude that all things are continuously changing.Nor doeshe meanthat external ascertainmentthat there is nowhere at all in the world a stateof rest and things do not have being. Rather, the statementmeans that things, of course,are, but that the nature of their being consistsin actually in which the Absolute is anchored andpresented33 presentinga stageand a way .
31Heidegger M., Schelling's Treatise On The Essence Human Freedom, p. 12 1. of 32OP.Cit. 132. p. '

33Op. cit., p.123.

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Therefore, the Absolute in Heidegger'sreading standsfirst as a primordial, pre-temporalact of God's self-revelationand then, consequently,as a telos, which is reflected through the The "Absolute is anchored" meansthat becoming of things towardstheir primordial essence. the ultimate goal always shinesthrough the striving of things to reveal their essence and thus God's Being. Accordingly, creation is reducedto the unity which the understanding,the logos the longing, brings about.The utteranceof the word is but the revelation of the inner of lawfulness, the so-calledjointure of Being, which lies hidden even in that which appearsas unruly.

This word co-responds the ground in the ground. Ground and existencein their to the jointure of Being is uttered. Into what? Into the other, what God is not as unity, he Himself is, into the ground, the unruly and what is yet ordered in a hidden way, is still presentwithout gathering Ground and Existence are each in their what ....... the totality of the Absolute, and as such they belong together and are way inseparable.What longing insisting upon itself wills is the sameas what the word of 34 the understandingwills and raises to the clearing of representing . In Heidegger'sreading, creation is conceivedas the teleological movement towards the the revelation of the inner lawfulness of beings, which seemsto necessitate separationof darknessfrom light, the clearing of order from chaos,logic from longing. Having thus Schelling's accountof creation, Heidegger criticises Schelling for excluding the reconstructed opposition betweenground and understandingfrom the realm of beings as a whole, and thereby for his alignment with the tradition of Western thought, the tradition of separationof logos and Being and the sequentialforgetfulnessof the latter.

But when the systemis only in the understanding,the ground and the whole opposition of ground and understandingare excluded from systemas its other and systemis no longer systemwith regard to beings as a whole. That is the difficulty
34Op. cit., p. 128,129.

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more and more clearly in Schelling's later efforts with the whole of which emerges the difficulty which proves to be an impasse.And this impasseis philosophy, sincethe factors of the jointure of Being, ground and existenceand their evident only becomesless and less compatible, but even driven so far apart that unity not Schelling falls back into the rigidified tradition of Western thought without 35 transformingit. creatively Hence, accordingto Heidegger,Schelling's elusive accountof cosmic becoming is reducedto the teleological movementof beings towards the revelation of their hidden essence, and the thereby revelation of God; this reconstructionallows Heideggerto classify Schelling in the traditional rank of the GermanIdealist thinkers whose thought develops from the standpoint the Absolute rather than finitude. of Schelling's accountof systemand creation, however, is at odds with Heidegger's interpretationof it, which narrows the processof creation to the systemsof the understanding the expulsion of the unruly. Ground, as the-will-of depths,is neither a foundation of the and 36 which as such should be wholly appropriatedby it , nor its "corrupting will-to-love, to be discardedfor the revelation of the inner essence things. Ground and of principle"37 , Existenceneither signify nor separate ontological phases,and moreover, their relation is not in hierarchical terms, so that Ground should either becomeExistent or it should be conceived Instead,as we have seen,theseterms standfor the mutually interacting and relatively cleared. independentwills in the cosmic movement,which both feed eachother, and do not exclude, neither exhausteachother. The latter accountderives only from Heidegger's initial of the identification of the understandingwith the 'inner law' of longing. This, assumption though, is to be found not in Schelling's essaybut in Heidegger's own conception of the
35op. cit., p. 16 1.

36 op. cit., p. 78,107,110. " Ground always meansfor Schelling foundation, substratum, "basis", thus not "ground" in the senseof ratio,....T'heground in God is that in God which God himself "is" not truly himself, but is ratherhis groundfor his selfhood". 37SeeSlavoj Zizek, TheAbyssof Freedom,p.6, whoseinterpretationof the relation betweenGround and Existencedevelopsin Heidegger'sline of thought; " the enigma residesin the fact that Ground is ontologically

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identity betweenBeing and logos, expoundedin his lectures,An Introduction to primordial Metaphysics.Here, Heideggerclaims the essentialsameness Parmenides'and Heraclitus' of thought, as long asboth - implicitly or explicitly - announcethe primordial identity of logos being. The latter is founded on the common conception of logos and being in terms of and In the sameway, Heidegger identifies understandingand emerging, self-gatheringpower. longing, since what essentiallylonging seeksis to find its essence through its selfThis, however,hardly fits with Schelling's far more complicated accountof the gatheredness. two inseparableand yet irreducible wills. Moreover, Schelling doesnot ascribeany ultimate inner lawfulness or inscribed order to the movementof things, as we will seein the Ages of the World. In this context, ground and existenceare but the conceptualtenns that describethe in cosmic becoming, inhering rather unpredictablemovementof various potencies simultaneouslyin every entity, in a processof mutual transformation, conflict and free play.

Schelling eloquently emphasises inevitable inability to discover an ultimate order in the the

"irreducibleremainder", enigmatic that lies in the depthsof beings.This, however, the unruly
is not to be 'cleared' by the understandingand thereby excluded from beings as a whole; the oppositeis the case:for Schelling the unruly constitutesthe fruitful soil out of rather the will-to-love originates and, as such, is the 'sublime mother' of the understanding: which

All birth is a birth out of darkness light: the seed into be buriedin the earthand must die in the darkness orderfor the lovelier creature light shouldrise andunfold in of itself in the raysof the sun.Man is formedin his motherwomb; andonly out of the darkness unreason of feeling,out of longing,the sublimemotherof (out of 38 understanding) grow clearthoughts.

"less" than Existence,but it is precisely as suchthat it non accomplished, corrodesfrom within the consistency of the ontological edifice of Existence". 38Schelling F. W.J., Freedom, essay,p.35.

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Finally, Heidegger'sreduction of creation to the systemsof understanding,is but the him to apply to Schelling his generalpattern of criticism on preparation which enables German Idealism, namely,the shrinking back from a position that potentially betrays human finitude - presumablythe notion of ground in this text - to the infinity of the understandingExistence- as the allegedly ultimate revelation of God. Heidegger's fixation on the notion of idea precludeshis seeingthe subtlety of Schelling's account of the Absolute and this Indifference. Hence,he only sees- in a very Hegelian way indeed - in Schelling's conceptof Absolute the lack of predicates,whose impressive significance is that it rendersthe Absolute notion, allowing thus the celebration of the concept of finitude: a nugatory

The highestunity is that of the Absolute.... In such a unity no duality can be discernibleyet. Thus the unity is 'absoluteindifference". The only predicate that can be attributed to it is its lack of predicates.Absolute indifference is nothingnessin that every statementabout Being is nothing with regard to it, but not in the the sense that the Absolute is nugatory and merely of no use. Here, too, Schelling does sense the necessityof an essentialstep.If Being in truth cannot be predicatedof the not see Absolute, that meansthat the essence all Being is finitude and only what exists of finitely has the privile 19 and the pain of standingin Being as such and experiencing e is true as beings. what As long as the Absolute is declarednugatory, Heidegger deprives finitude of its infinite dimension, fixing it as radically opposedto infinity and thereby performing himself that he ascribesto Schelling and to the whole of the western tradition. Instead, Schelling's which Indifference, as we will seein more detail in the Ages of the World, can give new accountof insight and dynamism to the notions of absoluteand finitude, dismissing the prejudice with or to the obsessive adherence any of both concepts.

39 M. Schelling's Treatise On the Essenceof Human Freedom,p. 161,162. Heidegger, ,

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Chapter 5

Schelling's dynamic account of the Absolute and finitude

Despite Hegel's and Heidegger'smonochromaticinterpretationsof Schelling's thought, the latter's conception of identity is diffused throughout his various works and in many different versions, as if the concept itself undergoes multiple transmutations. Indeed, Schelling develops his philosophy in a surprisingly versatile way - now characterisedas kaleidoscopic,now as inconsistent- which is exceptionally interesting and diversified with both to form and terminology. In the previous chapter, we examined Schelling's regard account of the Absolute, during his Identity System phase. It is the aridity of monolithic this period that justified Hegel's overwhelming critique and also Heidegger's simplified interpretation of Schelling's Of Human Freedom, along with the consequentclassification of Schelling under the category of the defenders of the notion of the Absolute. In this try to get a purchaseon Schelling's dynamic and original account of the chapter, we will concept of the absolute and finitude as the latter have been elaborately expounded in the seconddraft of the Ages of the World. We start our investigation by following up the main line of Schelling's critics with regard to his concept of the Absolute. First, we will look briefly at his intellectual wanderings before the solidification of his thought into the Identity System which we previously discussed- where we can already discern the potential of his dynamic and elusive thought, which reachesits richest expression and ongoing transformation throughout his middle works, the Of Human Freedom (1809), Ages of the World (1811-15) and The Deities of Samothace(1815).

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in his early work, Ideasfor a Philosophy of Nature (1797,1802), Schelling conceives the Absolute as an ongoing becoming of continuous self-division and differentiations which the infinite particularities. The act of eternal self-division is called subjectivity, or produce "the unknowable infinitude hidden therein", terms intended to refer to the mystery of itself, to the initiations of infinite differentiations, to the battle of forces. productivity This [the birth of things] doesnot take place through the intervention of stuff or matter, but through the eternal self-division of the absoluteinto subject and object, whereby its and the unknowable infinitude hidden therein, is made known in subjectivity, finitude and turned into something.' objectivity and

Matter, for example, is conceived as a dynamic and fragile equilibrium of forces, which be broken at any moment, by the very forces that produce it, as the various chemical may to. Combustion, or magnetism, for example, are only and physical phenomena attest of those dramatic breakdowns of equilibrium and the victorious manifestations of the strong forces of cohesion or attraction respectively. This conflict of predominance free forces, which abovewas namedsubjectivity, is also called contingency and constitutes 2 the very processof nature's activity.

For when once the first step has been taken, from the necessaryto the contingent, it is certain that Nature does not remain on any lower level if she can advanceto a higher one. But for this it is sufficient that she simply permits a free play of the forces in matter, it is also not impossible that some third thing (whatever it may be) should make this conflict of free forces permanent, and that matter (now a work of nature) should thereby find this continuancein this very conflict itself. 3

1Shelling F. W. J., Ideasfor Philosophy Nature, 150. a of P. 2 Schelling mentionsin his Ideasfor Philosophy Nature, a of of with regardto the phenomenon combustion: "If the secret of nature consists in the fact that she maintains opposed forces in equilibrium, or in lasting, forever undecided, strife, then the same forces, as soon them acquires a lasting as one of predominance, must destroy what they were maintaining in the previous state. Ideasfor a Philosophy " of Nature, Book 1, p.57. 3 Ibid., p. 149.

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Accordingly, "the whole material Universe branches out from the highest unities into becauseevery possible unity again breaks up into other unities, of particular universes, differentiations.,A which eachcan appearas the particular one only through continued

A great deal of controversy surrounds the 'beginning' of the process of division, a which remains so long as the Absolute is considered as an original state of controversy 5 The above question namely, how does differentiation begin assumesa indifference. Schelling's subtle concept of indifference. Moreover, it separatesthe of misapprehension Absolute from its activity, whilst it is precisely this very activity that Schelling calls 'Absolute'.

For through this very act in which the Absolute makes known its unity in diversity, formed in the particular has the necessaryendeavourto be in itself, and to every unity 6 its identity as such. in knowable the essence the particularity or nature of make Although Schelling has already introduced the meaning of indifference in his Ideasfor a Philosophy of Nature, it is only from the Of Human Freedom essay and the Ages of the

term.In the Ideasfor a Worldthatwe cangaina deeper of understanding this controversial

Philosophy of Nature, we have the concept of the Absolute as the becoming of diversified in forms by meansof its self-division, mixed with the peculiar clothing of its essence form, sounds indeed suspicious, recalling a prima materia, a primordial substance,or a which form that takes on different shapes.However, the term essenceseemsto hint neo-Platonic

4 We quoted thesetwo abstractsfrom the first and secondEdition (1797,1801) of Schelling's Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, as indicative of Schelling's concept of the Absolute as a process of eternal selfdivision. Many commentators, amongthem Robert Stern - who wrote an introduction for the abovebook - see a substantialdifference betweenthe first and the secondedition. The first is consideredto be basedon the assumptionof the polarity of nature which is "purely dialectical - as the transition of one moment into its oppositeor other - [while] in the secondedition this polarity is conceivedas the unfolding into difference of an original unity." (seeRobert Stern's Introduction to Ideasfor a Philosophy of Nature p.xxi. ). The above distinction is grounded on the interpretation of the Absolute as primordial, original, undifferentiatedunity, and is derived from a misconceptionconcerningthe processof self-division itself. 5 SeeAlan White, Absolute knowledge:Hegel and the Problem of Metaphysics 6. Schelling F. G. J., Ideasfor Philosophy Nature, 145. a of p.

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at a much more dynamic and rather elusive idea, viz., that of the world-body. The latter attemptsto graspthe unbegunand unendable,namely the eternal history of each particular finitude; a history woven by its invisible, unimaginable and unpredictable transfigurations The term 'world-body' or 'Idea' signifies the infinity of the potentialities that and relations. latent in any manifest, concrete individuality. From this point of view, such concrete are individuality is nameda relative identity, in the senseof actualising - at a specific time -a potentiality, realising thus, relatively, its potential. Hence, the world-body concrete 7 interdependence among ostensibly enclosesthe pulses of the world, recalls the ultimate things. unconnected but insofar as the whole is likewise reflected as form in this relative identity, so that ... in appearance they are still Ideas, they are bodies that are simultaneously worlds, even is, world-bodies.8 that In this context, indifference does not signify lack of distinction; rather, it includes all the differences in their infinite potentialities. But if this is so, how does the concrete actuality come about, or how - out of the infinite potentialities that are assumedto remain indifferent

different form emerge? Schelling'sexplorationof these to one another- doesa concrete

is to be found in the Ages of the World and the Of Human Freedom essay. problematics To begin with, Schelling does not assumeany original state of indifference which starts suddenly to differentiate itself. If the latter were the case, then he would assume a dichotomous approachbetween the existenceof things and its origin. As we have seen in the previous chapter, in the Of Human Freedom essay,he discussesthe issue in terms of the 'old distinction'9 between 'Being in so far as it exists and Being in so far as it is the

7We can discernhere the anticipation of moderntheories of Chaos. 8 SeeIdeasfor a Philosophy Nature 150,15 1. of p. 9 Of Human Freedom 3 1. p.

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basis of existence"O.Here, Schelling starts to elucidate his dynamic account of the mere Absolute and its relation to finitude. God is not the Highest Being, the omnipotent causal finite being. Nor is he identical with things, as a simplistic version of power of any Nor, yet, do finite things differ from God in the manner of pantheism would suggest. Spinoza's lifeless system. Schelling clearly demarcates himself from a concept of immanence "insofar as it is meant to express a dead conceptual inclusion of things in God."11 He recognises,rather, that the "concept of becoming is the only one adequateto the nature of things" , where things are both in god and distinct from him, and where God is both the becoming of things and distinct from them. "This is the only correct dualism, dualism which at the sametime admits a unity." 13 namely a Differentiation then, never started at a definite beginning of the history of time, nor was there ever a primordial causeof finite things.
12

In the cycle whence all things come, it is no contradiction to say that that which gives birth to the one, is, in its turn, producedby it. There is here no first and no last, since everything mutually implies everything else, nothing being the 'other' and yet no being the other. God contains himself in an inner basis of his existence, which, to without this extent, precedehim as to his existence,but similarly God is prior to the basis, as 14 this basis,as such,could not be if God did not exist in actuality. In his later work, the Ages of the World, Schelling clearly statesthe unthinkability of any beginning of the cosmos. original

If, however, the true ground and beginning is also a knowledge or science of the past, where is there a stopping point? For even when it arrives at the last visible thing, spirit still finds a presupposition that indicates a time when there was nothing but the one inscrutable, self-sustaining essence, from whose depths all has come forth. Furthermore, if this is considered in the proper spirit [rech im Geiste], new abysses would be discoveredin it as well. It would not be without a certain kind of horror that spirit would finally recognisethat even in the primordial essenceitself, something had
10 Ibid., p.3 1. 11 Ibid., p.33.

12op. cit. p. 33. 13Op. cit. p. 33. 14op. cit. p. 33.

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to be posited as a past before the present time became possible, and that is precisely this past that is borne by the present creation, and that still remains fundamentally 15 concealed.

The abyss,rather than being an undifferentiated One, is the crucible of the most different fermentations, a moment of an infinite becoming, remote and unrecognisable by our categories.Moreover, by the tenn abyss,Schelling brings about a rupture of the conceptual concept of foundation, either in the form of the Cartesian cogito, or in the form of the ground of beings. Both versions of ground - which are indeed supplementaryempirical a dualistic account of the relation between man and world which sustains and constitute itself in a rigidified categorial. system, usually named as representational regenerates attitude. The introduction of the notion of the abyssattemptsto challenge this attitude. The concept to an indeterminablevariable - at least in terms of fixed and clear conceptsof abyssrefers and aspires to describe the experience of the Fall from the realm of our established subjective categories.However, this fall leads neither to empty space,nor to the ground of our sensibleimpression of the world. The abyss,in the context of Schelling, is an elusive claim for the groundless,self-sustainingmutuality between man and world, as well as the experienceof this mutuality. It can be the experienceboth of panic and relief, of loss and finding, of disorder and new certainty, which we might get through the awarenessof this inextricable mutual conditioning betweenman and world. The abyssis both paralysing and liberating insofar as it mocks the severeclaims of Reasonfor certainty and autonomy. It is then, a notion that attempts to categorise the indefinability of our conditioning, the remotenessof primordial and present determinations. It is also the confession of the inability of the human intellect to torment itself with its perplexity in thinking immemorial, infinite time and the consequentsolution to the perplexity with its fixation under a new
15Schelling F. W. J., Ages of the World, p. 122.

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The irony, though, is that it is now the concept of the abyss itself that seeksto concept. becomethe new foundation. It is in this - usually neo-Platonic - context of thinking where such as abyss or eternity lose their fluidity and elusiveness and become rigid concepts frames, which accommodate the notion of Schellingian indifference. Accordingly, 'indifference' itself becomesthe 'ground' anew and not surprisingly meets - after a short traversal through the history of Philosophy - the principle of identity in its Cartesian or Fichtean version proper. It seemsthough, that it is the fate of some intriguing conceptsto acquire such an autonomy by virtue of their indeterminacy - so that they can raise themselvesagainst the text and alone in shadowypaths.The conceptof the abyssdefinitely belongs here. move

Dealing with Schelling implies the inevitability of following thesepaths. To read Schelling is to embark on an intellectual and even emotional venture, especially with regard to his later philosophical investigations in which he retrieves the language of ancient myths, and symbols.The Ages of the World can be read as a modem Creation myth, except oracles

that creationin this work neverstartsor finishes,but beginsand dies at any momentand
etemally. However, if this work is but a story, a new myth, then why should we take it seriously at all? It is here that we need to consider Schelling's implicit suggestionfor the abolition of the barriers between faith and knowledge. In this work, Schelling simply thinks about the unconditioned.His suggestionseemsto be that, when we think of the unconditioned, we do not necessarilyreach impenetrable dead-ends;instead, we can create stories, myths and

sunnises

(EtKmrEs

jUt)jqOt)S)

16,

but which arecertainlyfull of antinornies paradoxes, and

16 This term is found in Plato's Timeus,whereTimeus explains to Socrates he choosesto expoundhis why ideasin the form of myth, here understoodas an elliptic form of expressionof truth by dint of the partial

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endlesslyso. We can do this, for man himself is part of the 'unconditioned' nonetheless, and becausethe unconditioned becomesitself conditioned by man's re-enactmentof the of creation, in the special experiences where man comes in contact with the moment of life and death that permeateshis own mode of being. Man's "nexus of living paradox forces", imagination, reason, creativity are but moments in the paradoxical unity of the history of becoming;

Man must be granted an essence outside and above the world; for how could he alone, of all creatures, retrace the long path of developments from the present back into the deepest night of the past, how could he alone rise up to the beginning of things unless there were in him an essence from the beginning of times? Drawn from the source of things and akin to it, what is essential of the soul has a co-science/con-sciousness (MittMan often sees himself transposed into such wonderful Wissenschaft) of creation ...... relations and inner connections through precisely this innermost essence, such as when he encounters a moment in the present as one long past, or a distant event as if he it! 17 himself were witness to

Man can think and even play with the 'unconditioned' for, in a way, he witnesses the of 'Creation', since he eternally recreateshimself-, he himself is a form of selfmoment generation.This is the case,in different forms and degrees,for any finitude, but above all

in man, where we meet the most advancedmanifestationof the so-far-knownselfgenerativeabilities of spiritual life.

We now turn to a closer discussion of the text Ages of the World, for in the latter we find Schelling's most fruitful and illuminating exposition of his account of the concept of the Absolute, but also of finitude. This will be explored through the agesof the world, namely, the history of time.

abilities of humanreason:"Don't thereforebe surprised,Socrates, on many mattersconcerninggods and if the whole world of changewe are unablein every respectand on every occasionto renderconsistentand accurateaccount. You must be satisfiedif our accountis as likely as any, rememberingthat both I and you who are sitting in judgement on it are merely human and should not look for anything more than a cliccaroc " g,uOo(likely myth) in suchmatters. Plato, Timeus29c-d

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From the early pagesof the essay,Schelling attempts to clarify his position as far as the betweenthe Absolute and finite entities. Here, he seemsto have taken into account relation his critics, insofar as the inexplicable derivation of finite entities from the supposedstateof

is restfulness concerned. undifferentiated

Now the great riddle of all times originates precisely here, the riddle of how anything could havecome from what is neither externally active nor is anything in itself. And yet life did not remain in that state of immobility, and time is just as certain as eternity. Indeed,to the casualglance,the latter even seemsdriven out by the former; a world full movement,full of conflict and strain of all forces seemsto have taken over the place of the highestindifference, eternal rest, and universal satiation once divert. where There have always been those who claimed that this riddle was easy to solve. The unconditioned,they say, is at first purely in itself, devoid of externalisation and hidden; but now it steps out, externalisesitself, and sublates its eternal indifference by itself. But theseare words without sense.It is a founding and principle rule of science(though few know it) that what is posited once is posited forever and cannot be sublated again, since otherwiseit might just as well not have been posited at all. If one does not remain steadfastly by what one has once posited, then everything will become fluid as it and everything will wear away again, so that in the end nothing really was progresses, True progress, which is equivalent to an elevation, takes place only when posited. somethingis posited permanentlyand immutably and becomesthe ground of elevation Thus, either the highest is not a restful will (such as we have and progression. it is one. If it is one, then it must also eternally remain as such from itself. assumed),or For it is entirely incomprehensiblehow the highest could cross over from rest into Thus it can neither emerge from itself, nor can it separate off or exist as motion. from itself, nor can it produceanything outside of itself. 18 something So Zeno's abolition of the concept of motion and change is perfectly consistent with his teacher's, i. e. Parmenides,assumption of the undifferentiated One, only that the latter is rather in blatant contrast to Schelling's Absolute. The latter now is expounded in its most mature form. Schelling no longer usesthe terminology of forces. These may recall - even though Schelling never used them in this sense-a mechanistic reification of the deeper, inward drive of activity. Schelling here introduces the term of the will. The Absolute initially is conceived in terms of a will that produces itself and this is precisely the way time acquires its definition; namely as organic process. It is worth remarking that
17

Ibid. P.114.

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Schelling, in order to expound his account of the notion of the Absolute, or the Unconditioned, first introduces the manner in which he perceives the movement of finite The Absolute, in turn, will be conceived precisely through the paradoxical entities.

thefinite, in its multiplicity andtransformative productivity. of movement

Schelling distinguishes in every entity, the two principles which characterise time. One is that which negates expression and formation and stands for the selfless, principle dimension and Schelling calls this being. The other principle, which is called objective is that which affinns the entity's expression and fulfilment and stands for its what-is, dimension. Both though, are pure categoriesthat never operate as such. In fact, subjective the above principles simultaneouslygovern any entity's development or decay and it is by virtue of their enduring contradiction that motion exists at all. Time is defined precisely in terms of thesecontradictory principles.

Whoever takes time only as it presentsitself feels a conflict of two principles in it; one forward, driving toward development,and one holds back, inhibiting (hemmend) strives striving against development.If this other principle were to provide no resistance, and then there would be no time, becausedevelopment would occur in an uninterrupted flash rather than successively;yet if the other principle were not constantly overcome by the first, there would be absoluterest, death, standstill and hence there would again be no time. the principles we perceive in time and the authentic inner principles of all life, and ... 19 is not only possiblebut in fact necessary. contradiction In fact, these two principles are but configurations of the will, for both are considered as

principlesof action,negativeor positive,but in either case,determinations pertainingto

activity. Time exists by virtue of change, which derives from the oppositional, polar under discussion. Here, change and movement do not assume any formal principles uniformity and universality, which, correspondingly, would imply a mechanistic
18 Schelling F. W. J., Ages of the World, p. 135,136 (my emphasis).

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of the conceptof time. Instead,Schelling brings forward the organic nature of construction Although he doesnot further elaboratethis idea, we can seefrom the text the way in time. Schelling ascribesthe term organic to the concept of time. At first glance we could which to Schelling - as is usually the case-a naIve reduction of the cosmos to the activity ascribe accordingly would define the concept of time. However, this of an organism,whoserhythm with the homogeneity and uniformity of the biological of time, associated vitalistic concept any substantialdifference to the mechanistic model. What is needed cycle, would not make is an interpretation of the term organic which accords with its derivation from the term The latter term has a double meaning: it means, first, instrument, signifying organon. objectivity; it also means vpjVV , i. e. product, production, that which pertains to passivity, Both meaningsare derived from the past participle, copya, of the activity and subjectivity. rpyo), which meansto work, to produce. The past perfect tense in ancient Greek has verb indeed a double, paradoxical senseof both passivity and activity that is transferred to the double meaning of its derivative word, opy(xvov. We do not know if Schelling was aware the double operation of this term, but it seems to correspond precisely to the double of dimension of the plastic will operating in life, that both posits and is posited, stands for both what-is and being and thus allows for the organic nature of time. These principles, as wills, as organic forces, operate in every entity but in indefinite configurations; this multiple differentiation of the same principles allows for both the subjective (individual) and objective (cosmic) dimension of time, as well as, for its diversified conceptualisation historicity. and If in every finite entity the contradiction between these two principles is actual and active, in the Absolute it is taken as implicit and non-active. The Absolute, the Unconditioned, the Highest - according to Schelling's different terms is considered as the concept of 19Ibid. p. 123,124.

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of the infinite potentialities, or, as the latter are clarified in two categories,of expressing the being and of the what-is . According to the conceptof the unconditioned we have put forward, we must say that is what-is, and yet is being as well. But this proposition itself still requires explanation. To begin with, what is this It (Es) that is both being as well what-is? Clearly, a twofold examination of it is possible.We can examine it to the extent that is both whatis, as well as being; however, we must examine it to the extent that it is merely It - in words -simply that which is both being and what-is. But as that which is both other being and what-is, it is necessarilyneither the one or the other. For as that which is both, it is the expressing( das Aussprechende) both and can therefore be neither one of in particular nor both at the sametime; it is above both.20 of them The Absolute stands for the concept which correspondsto a non-restful, dynamic phase, out of which anything could come up, as a result of the potential activity of the polar wills. The latter seemto be indifferent to each other, nevertheless,they are in a state of mutual, longing and yearning for each other. "Being is for its part, perfectly indifferent unconscious to what-is. But the more this composureis profoundly deep and intrinsically full of bliss, the soonermust a quiet longing produceitself in eternity.
, 21

Hence,the notion of the Absolute so far, attemptsto depict a dynamic statefull of immense implicit forces, similarly to a "surging, billowing sea'
922

"pregnant with a future". ,

23

It is a

of becoming out of the endless productivity and self-producing of the will. The process latter produces itself unconsciously, out of presentiment and inexpressible longing, yet necessarilyso. 'We understandeternity to mean the whole: what-eternally-is and being, as

as the (still concealed)expressingof both; as such, eternity is not consciousof well

itself. 924 is the processof an unconsciousproduction of the will which, nevertheless,is It

its n to recognise productsas distinct from it, namely,as essential, what-is.In other as able
20Ibid. p. 126. 21Ibid. p. 136. 22Schelling's expression, referring to the primal longing in the Freedom treatise,p.35. 23 Nietzsche'sexpressionin the Genealogyof Morals 24 Ages of the World, p. 136.

'k

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and as expressed fufllled productions, as opposed to the producing will, which is words, yearning, longing, striving for its externalisation. still unexpressed,

We needthough, to further consider the above process.We can start from the investigation the story of any finite entity, for, according to Schelling, to investigate meansto retrace of the history of the entity under research,so long as the history of any being leads us to the its multiple relations with the cosmos, to the history of the cosmos itself. unfolding of Therefore, in order to investigate the mysteries of the cosmos, the philosopher could start from any event, or entity, under the condition that he himself would be predisposedto treat it not as an alien object but as something in which he could discover the thread of his own to it as well. We would hazard that this is the meaning of the continuous connections transformations of subject and object in the process of their interaction in the Systemof Idealism (1800). Transcendental In the above work, this processculminates in the production of the work of art, in which both subject and object are in a dynamic relation of mutual liberation and subordination, fulfilment and exhaustion.The producer (artist, worker ) discovers his own self, liberates ... his internal forces through the struggle with the material, inside and outside of himself. Accordingly, the object both guides the subject and is transformedby it. Nature speaksto man and man speaksto her; the previously mute and dead material now its latent forces, which man can see and feel only if he wants to, and tries to, unleashes through his work. Man and nature now speaka new language,one mediated through work, desire,struggle and violence. It is this sort of language,as artist, as violent transgressorof the privacy of the mysteriesof the world, that Schelling speaksin the Ages of the World. He invites us to decodethe inner oracle of the order of things and thus of ourselves. The inner oracle, anyway difficult to 171

describe,standsfor the 'essence' of things, the what-is of things. It is mute and unable to that which is enclosedwithin it. It is mute becausethe 'what-is' of things is not a express that underlies things or reveals itself. In fact, it is only in its static permanentsubstance to the other that it actualisesitselL relation is this essence in itself mute and cannot expresswhat is enclosed within it. Indeed it ... never open unless it were escorted by an other, itself in the process of would becoming This (inner oracle), however, feels no less drawn to the other. Buried ... it is the memory of all things, their original condition, their becoming, their within But this archetypal image of things slumbers within it - not, indeed as an meaning. and forgotten image, but rather as an image growing with its own essence extinguished that it cannot take out of itself and call upon. This image would certainly never awake if a presentimentof and longing for knowledge did not lie in that unknowing again, itself. But incessantlycalled by this (other) to its ennoblement, the higher essencenotices the lower is assignedto it, not to be held in idleness, but rather that it might have that instrument in which it could behold itself, expressitself, and become intelligible to an itself. For everything lies within it at the same time and without distinctions, as one; is (distinguishable) in itself. 25 but in the other, it can distinguish and separateout what Schelling clarifies the above processby means of his new terms of potencies. These are determinationsof what previously was introduced by the less rigid notion of rather analytic the will, which now divides itself into three potencies. According to this line of thought, finite thing is characterisedby a network of multiple potentialities. This is what every Schelling calls the first potency, namely the potency of being, and relates to the entity's dimension. The entity as such, is not an object only for us, but also for itself, in objective the sensethat it has not expresseditself, it has not releasedits inner latent powers, and is also completely unawareof this. This aspectis called, analytically, being or object, but in a different way from what the reflective/representational classification would completely

as object. In fact, it is a being full of life, insofar as it is specifiedas a stageof name

longing, hunger, desire, presentiment, and thus stands for the dynamic state of an exceptional energic density. This is why Schelling usesthe terms 'posits itself', even when

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he refers to the objective dimension of an entity, or rather even more so, since 'positing' here does not signify the spontaneityof the intellect but cosmic spontaneity. For here, we deal with wills that Posit themselves, even though unconsciously, as spontaneous springinessof energy,as manifestation of the active and self-generative characterof every finite entity in the cosmic becoming.
For considered purely as such, being is selfless and completely immersed in itself. But this account, being draws its opposite into itself, and is a constant thirst for on precisely to attract what-is, or to attract a subject, so that by means of this essence, a yearning it might step forth from a state of mere potentiality into activity. But when being subject is considered as already active (wirkendes), as a being that is also again by itself, then it is necessarily already accompanied by a thing- that-is (ein Seyendes); and this conflicts being, with what is based entirely in itself. 26 with the

This longing, 'regarded in itself, (it) is also a will.... not a conscious but a persistent 27,we alreadyfind in the Of Human Freedom Treatise. There, it is called the will- ofWilli, depths, or the self-will of creatures 'by means of which alone all life achieved distinctivenessto the last degree.28 This longing, the potency of whatdifferentiation and is-not, constitutes the impulse and strength of all life. It is the principle of individuation

is for the longing for self-expression the dividing power that the cosmos that makes rich,
uniquenessand unity, that creates in-dividuality. It stands for the process of ingives dividuation, understood as a process of acquiring uniqueness by means of continuous divisions and differentiations. But what does differentiation mean and how does it come It would appearto consist in an act of both sheerspontaneityand inner necessity,an about? kind of freedom that raises new, tighter bonds. It is, for example, the act of a new experience of a new thought, the discovery of a discrimination that reveals new

connections with things,or the spontaneity the duplicationof a cell that thus becomes of
25

Ibid. p 114,115. 26 Ibid. p.123. 27Of Human Freedom,P.34,359.

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doubly related to the living tissue. From this point of view, the deeper a process is differentiated, the deeperit discovers itself to be interrelated with the rest of the universe, division simply discovers the new, already there, so far untraced since the process of We are used to ascribing the task of division to reflection. The threads of relations. interesting point about Schelling here, is that he claims that longing, the unconsciouswill for self-expression,is what brings about differentiations in life. For this longing is the desire, the hunger - immanent in things - to express their inner potential. This is the thingg themselvesin nature, in man, in the cosmos. "If the eternal will - that condition of force of negating - could ever stop working, everything would turn into nothing original it would againbe nothing as it once and
,, 29 hasbeen.

This longing is also called the inexorable drive of everything to become master of its inner force of negating formation, that is, of resisting the stagnation and yet an original essence, delimited form. Schelling uses the terms desire, hunger, presentiment, longing, of any in order to make even more explicit his contrast to the mechanistic terminology of possibly his age. These terms also echo the poetic imagination of creation myths of ancient

to the philosophies Gnosticsectswhich standas a remotebackground of and mythologies

30Longing also recalls though more distantly Aristotle's concept of 5-uv(xgtq, his works. the moving principle of things and anticipatesNietzsche's will-to-power. Hence, we see that the terminology of forces is transformed into an emotional one. The latter not only encapsulates dynamic nature of cosmic processes,but also emphasises the
28

Ibid. p.52,376. 29 Ages of the World, p. 144. 30As an example,we can notice the interestingsimilarity of Schelling's (in the Ages of the World philosophy the FreedomEssayat least) with the cosmogonyof Simon Magus, the founder of the Gnostic sect. In the and Simon Magus there is the idea of an eternal, unbegunpower that subdivides itself, increases cosmogonyof itself, finds itself, is its own father and mother, its own son, one, the root of all things, and is itself Desire. It is a pre-conscioustotality which contains ego and the unconscious;through desire, it createsall things. This desire to create, comes from fire and is also the origin of consciousness, Logos. Intense terms such as of

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their creative, generative dimension, since creation proper is actually the product of emotion accordingto the original meaning of the word emotio, as that which moves one out move. Emotion is thereby different from feeling or of something, which makes one is associated rather with passivity or even stagnation. Schelling's sentiment, which language becomes emotional in this sense: emotions, moods, presentiments become and creative,working hard to releasethe potential from its lethargic state. extrovert

One would expect Schelling to complete his account of becoming through the above However, he introduces two other potencies: a) the potency of what-is or problematic. the affinning principle that pertains to an entity that posits itself as essence, subjectivity, as that which rendersit as having expressedits potential and b) the potency of unity, or spirit, the common affirming of both previous potencies. We need to examine the difference as betweenthe first and secondpotencies.If the first potency is mostly the driving will that longs for self-expression,then what is the distinction between it and the secondpotency?It has been suggestedthat the secondpotency consists in the realisation of the lack and the 31 formulation of a goal, a plan posited by the entity. The above suggestion,though, missesthe main point that the potencies (as terms) refer to to processes, activities rather than to static products or fixed and external determinations, such as a specific plan indicates. We suggestthat the secondpotency attempts to account for the process of internal discipline, concentration and determination that is needed in for an entity to expressitself in a formative way. It refers to the processof longing's order self-bending, which unfolds its primal density, and seesin its image its internal colourful diversity. However, this self-bending occurs against longing's resistance,in a battle with
hungerare also met in old Hindu texts of ancientcreation (cf. Marie-Luise Von Franz, Creation Myth, myths. Spring Publications, 1972. )

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itself, and from this point of view, is a struggle for its intense, conscious concentration, intense recollection of energy; a type of energy that gives shape and style, form and light and warmth. This is what mythologically has been depicted by the motif of meaning, the golden genn, the appearanceof Phanes, the shining God, who the original egg, or himself exactly as consciousness enlarges itself, suddenly, after a creative and procreates intense concentration upon itselL Then consciousness becomes transparent, at once diffused and concentrated,like the energy of the light, illuminating and warming, the love. The secondpotency is the power that strives to give form to the unifying strengthof drive of self-expression, not according to a self-imposed duty or external goal, but, to Schelling, out of a new type of substantial religiosity, and an inner unity of according knowledge and action. In the Of Human Freedom essay,referring to what he has named he qualifies it as that type of religiosity that is in contrast to 'idle brooding, will-of-love, ' 32He demarcateshimself from a concept of intimations, or will-to-feel divinity. pietistic love and duty that could be associated with formal moralising.

I admit willingly and gladly to all who wish to assert,that morality is excluded from my in this sense,as a virtue which an individual can acquire for system of philosophy himself. It is a miserableundertaking to seekto derive God from morality, and not only because find the assumptionof a God useful as a meanstoward morality. Such people so many have a utilitarian viewpoint. God is for them a householdremedy which one can use to himself.33 strengthen Insteadhe links this conceptof will- to- love with a new understandingof religiosity. We understandreligiosity in the original, practical meaning of the world..... it is the expressionof the highest unity of knowledge and action which makes it impossible for one's act to contradict one's will..... Even in its origin, religiosity means action being bound, in no wise and a choice between opposites as is assumedwhen the freedom of

31 BeachE. A., ThePotenciesof Gods,p. 113. 32Of Human Freedom,p.7 1. 33Ibid., footnote on *3 89, I 11. p.

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the will is an equilibrium arbitrit, as it is called, but the highest commitment to the 34 right, without choice.

The potency of what is, then, seemsto relate to the will-to-love that actualises,expresses

its fulfils itself by virtue of expressing inner need.It is the freedomthat comesfrom and
the highestcommitment,since the latter internally coincides with the former. In this respect,the will-to-love is also the actualisation of the overcoming of one's blind the self-will of the first potency -, and thus standsfor the communion with the selfishnessIt is the experienceof self-transparencyand awarenessof the universal, and thus it whole. is like an inner birth, a gradual and painful or sudden rise of a state of fulfilment and as if the wholenessof the previous abysshas now been filled with light. clarity, It is, then, the inversion of the previous potency, the transmutation of hatred into love: from divisions to diffusing unification, from brutality to religiosity, from ongoing sharp inexorable hubris to mild humility, from lack to fulfilment, from hunger to satiation. Both potenciesare categoricaltools that attempt to grasptwo polar, illusory states:the first, the illusion of blind individuation, the second,the illusion of transparentuniversality: the first, the illusion of a disconnected individualist self-will; the second, the illusion of a complete connection with ourselves and the world, insofar as we project - in a Fichtean to way - our illuminated consciousness the world itself and thus assumeharmony with it.

The third potency is the unity of the previous ones. Or, it is rather the only one process occurring, already there, that we split into its analytical components. As potency, it describesagain both the processof producing in its movement and its distinctive moments. As term though, it is again a new category that anew fixes this movement. The advantage of this categoryis that it attemptsto grasp the movement in a richer and more contradictory
34Ibid. footnote on *392, I 11. p.

177

way than the previous ones, which caught only the extremes. This category, therefore, less rigidity; more of a moving image than a mere snapshot.It refers to the whole assumes to its paradoxes,culminations and decays,to its different moments processof expression,

It to the momentof actualisation. is both a creative and destructive and, in particular,

be destructiveand destruction can be creative. potency, where creation can In particular, Schelling refers in detail to the moment of the attainment of expression, he calls spirit and which standsfor the unity of the principles. "This is the first pure which
joy of mutual finding and being found. "35

This unity is the moment in which the unexpressedis expressed, actualised, formed, But its utterance comes more from the sounds of the free play between the uttered. interacting forces rather than from the logical articulation of the attained unity that may lead to the domination of one will over the other. Schelling prefers to depict this free unity through the allusive meaningsthat the image of youth may evoke.

Now this would be the most excellent and perfect unity, since the conflicting elements free and yet at the same time one, and free movement neither cancels unity nor does are free movement. Even when this type of unity presents itself on perhaps a unity cancel lower level, it still deserves to be kept in mind and indeed comprehended. If we want to similar, the most fitting comparison would probably be with the unity give something forces of which one becomes aware in the innocence of youth. There, all forces are of indeed present and in mutual interaction amongst themselves, excited by gentle interplay; but no character, no I-hood, no one has stepped forth to dominate and control 36 them.

This vibrant and thriving unity is a creation out of love and hatred, out of longing and discipline: as a child of both strife and love, it is fragile. In fact, it is not a final product at but just a new configuration in the processof transmutations.It is describedas a state all,

that longedfor of bliss or ceaseless excitement, which existsonly because therewas a will

35 Agesof the World p. 145. 36 Ibid. p. 146.

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For only a deep disquieting wave of longing and insatiable desire can give rise to inexhaustiblepleasureand pure joy. Deep satisfaction arises only as a response momentsof to an equally deep desire. But the deeper the fulfilment, the stronger its disquieting

becomes.
But after this force achievestotality and recognisesitself in the unity of spirit, this onesided relation cancels itself again. For the affirming essenceeternally calls for the will, in order that it might eternally be generatedfrom this will and rise up negating 37 over it as the essence. The unity attainedby the moment of actualisationcalls again for disruption. For unity or for spirit, however, the opposition servesas an eternal pleasure[lust], since becomes sensible to itself in the opposition; and far from sublating this spirit only insteadto constantly posit and confirm it. 38 opposition, spirit seeks For it is a unity of living, creative powers and indeed of theirfree interplay, which implies that each one of the polar forces holds its full vitality and strength. The distinctive feature, then, of the moment of expression,consists in this type of dynamic unity that allows and the freedom of the interacting powers that constitutes this unity. It is a even strengthens of unique co-ordination of different forces, the mutual finding of mutually seeking moment forces, rare and exceptional, and thus, fragile. It is a moment where longing enjoys its free "rejoices in the soothing of its harshness expression, and severity, in the quieted hunger of t'39 its attracting desire This moment of dynamic concord is called totality, but it is exactly its fragility and transitoriness that attests to its openness,or rather, its non-closednessin

the contrastto what the term totality usually implies. Here, Schellingencapsulates third

37 Ibid. p. 1.44 38Ibid. p. 145. 39Ibid. p. 145.

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illusory moment, which is however, much more dynamic and vanishing, in so far as "far from sublatingthe opposition, spirit seeksinsteadto constantly posit and confirm it. 9940 But in what doesthis opposition consist?So far, according to Schelling's own distinctions, have dealt with the opposition betweenbeing and what- is, objectivity and subjectivity, we But if in the moment of spirit, there is a mutual finding, as potentiality and actuality. Schelling claims, how does the opposition maintain or even develop itself? It is here that idea of potencies,as wills, as self-generativepowers, proves its importance and makes the the dynamism and resourcefulness of Schelling's thought. Our even more explicit is that it is precisely the event of mutually finding that transforms the polar wills suggestion the opposition, but also transforms it into a new one, according to and not only maintains circumstancescreatedthereby. In this way, we could also avoid a crude the new qualitative teleological determination of the notion of opposition and consequently, of movement itself. In any case,the opposition is much more immanent and internal than that depicted between the two, allegedly completely distinct wills. Thus far, Schelling uses a pictorial 41 the languagethat externalisesand even substantiates concept of opposition. We suggestthat we should think of opposition - and thereby of the source of movement itself - as an internal and generative process within the complex that we analytically distinguish betweenthe expressibleand the expressed.Schelling clearly states:

40

Ibid., p. 145. 41Seefor example:"the forces becomeperceptible to each other (my but without fighting each emphasis), other.This is the first purejoy of mutual finding and being found. Essenceshould, by right, be in-itself, and it not without bliss that it sensesits first and purest reality; the negating power, for its part rejoices (my in and emphasis) the soothingof its harshness severity, in the quieted hunger of its attracting desire.For unity or for spirit, however,the opposition servesas an external pleasure[lust]." Ages of the World p. 145. Or, "Now becausethe oppositesare not bound to each other, or to unity by a necessarylink, but rather only by the inexhaustiblepleasureof having and feeling the presenceof each other, this is the freest life, the life that plays with itself, as it were, filled with ceaseless excitementand bursting with its own renewed vitality. " Op. cit. p. 145

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What-is-not and what-is are not two different essencesin it but are rather only one from different sides. That by virtue of which it is not, is the very essenceregarded thing by virtue of which it is. For it is not due to a lack of light and essencethat it is not, but rather as a dynamic hiding-away, an active striving backward into the depths, into concealment, and thereforeas an active force that likewise is- and henceis comprehensible..... But it [i. e., 42(my emphasis) the will] negatesitself only in order to reach essence. Is this a claim for teleology? To begin with, there is definitely a demand that the This demandis always there - since the will, as a whole, is must be expressed. expressible hunger and severity, or as silent disquieting and imperceptible self-generative- either as Hence, the opposition moves and is transformed, in an ongoing movement of stirring. moments of despair and bliss, hunger and satiation, evacuation and fulfilment, recurrent births and deaths."No entity to this day can be createdwithout the repeatedproduction of its archetype.Indeed we will hazard the assertionthat every act of generation occurring in a return to a moment of the past, a moment that is allowed for an instant to nature marks 43It is this type of movement that the presenttime as an alienated (re)appearance". enter for the creation of archetypalimages, as a mode of apprehendingthe world and its allows history, especially as a mode of visualising the future and re-experiencing the past. Now is that it is the concept of archetype that can accommodatethe notion of our suggestion telos that is implied by the above abstract.The concept of archetypeapparentlybrings us to field of investigation. In order to understandit, we would need a separatefield of a new inquiry. At present, we will focus only on the connotations that are derived exclusively from Schelling's text and are relevant to our discussion.

42Ages of the World p. 143. 43Ibid. p. 162.

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Schelling expoundshis ideas on archetypesin a scatteredway during the last pagesof his text. In fact, theseare the most opaqueand challenging part of the book and consequently its possibleimpoverishmentthrough our reading. Schelling mentions that we are awareof

the doctrine of the archetypesis lost in deepestantiquity; the Greeks already regardedit legacy. This certainly fosters the suspicion that the doctrine had lost as a sacred of its original meaning by then, since even Plato was only a reporter and something 44 interpreterof this ancientteaching. Schelling's approachto archetypescomes from his more general conceptualisation of the time. In fact, the archetypeis but a possibility that can be renderedactual organic nature of exactly by virtue of the organic conceptualisationof time. The archetype, as condensed psychic and cosmic energy, allows the experience of a time, in which the future, in a way, becomesexperiencedbefore its spectacularreversalof fleeting sensation,and the most remote past can be readvent, as vision, as a momentary through the living experience of an archetypal image, in which enacted and relived 66nothing enduring, nothing was solid, but everything was in unceasingformation. 945 was The archetypes are considered as images of future things, as visions of the future or distant past, far beyond the limited span of our individual life time, as if we evocation of a them from the hand of the cosmic memory. receive

The production of such archetypesor visions of future things is a necessarymoment in the overall development of life, and even if these archetypal images cannot be as physical natures in precisely the normal sense,they certainly cannot be understood thought apart their physicality. They are neither merely universal concepts of the understanding,nor fixed models; for they are Ideas precisely becausethey are eternally 46 full of life, in ceaseless motion and production.

44

Ibid. p. 161. 45 Ibid. p. 154. 46 Ibid. p. 161.

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But how do they come about?How are they connectedwith the organic nature of time? In order to approachthe above questions we need to connect our previous discussion on time with Schelling's remarks on mesmeric sleep, normal sleep, animal magnetism and them scatteredin the last pagesof the text. oriental mythology, all of living forces47_, seemsat least partly subject Schelling suggests that man - as a network of that cancelsthe free relations of forces within him and transforms the to an outer potency into a necessary " Further, one. relation Internally, a waking man and a sleeping man are entirely the same. None of the inner forces that are active in the waking stateare lost in sleep.From this it is already evident that the difference between these states, as well as their alteration, is not determined from within the organism; rather, it is the effect of a potency external to the organism, All forces of a man in the waking state are apparently now attracting, now releasing. by a unity that holds them together, like a common exponent (or expressing), governed it were. In sleep,by contrast,eachforce and eachinstrument seemsto work for itself, as freely willed sympathy takes the place of an externally determined unity. And and a the whole looks as though it were dead and ineffective on the outside, the freest while intercommunicationof forces seemsto unfold on the inside. play and In the normal course of life, the effect of that outer force of attraction appears as disruptive, in regular alternation. When this happens,an sometimeswaning, sometimes this force seemspossible, according to the familiar of unusualsuspension weakeningof of phenomena the so-calledanimal magnetism.
Indeed, the power seems actually given to one man to transcend that outer potency and to the free inner relations of life, so that he appears dead externally, return another man internally a steady and free connections of all forces emerges from the lowest up while highest.48 to the

He describesmesmeric sleep and dreamsthat originate out of the mutual independenceof the inner forces, as states that are characterisedby those "free inner relations of life", liberated from external unifying potencies. Here, "there is a disruption of forces, a )9949 emphasis (my of all links, and being is posited-outside-itself. relaxation Generation and Death are similar phenomenafrom this point of view. In generation the of all links enablesthe bursting forth of a new entity, which, in its actualisation, relaxation
47 This suggestionis also madein the 0 Human Freedom essay 48 Agesof the World, p. 158.

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the ever-recurrentact of creation, recalls the archetypeof eternal birth; in death,the repeats the entity's links enablesits sinking back to the eternity of its non-actualised relaxation of Every death then recalls a birth and a future rebirth. They are phenomena potentialities.

by virtue of this liberationof forces,encapsulate momentof eternity,in the sense a which,

the infinite possibilities of being. This is the sense- in our view - where of encapsulating being is understood as being-posited-outside of itself, namely being that recalls and its infinite potentialities by virtue of the unprecedentedliberation of its inner projects forces. The latter seemto be able to acquire their full potential; to be tuned to the latent forces of the cosmos. The idea that Schelling seemsto be suggesting is that when man liberates himself from a potency that keeps him in control and external unity, and hence himself, then his inner forces - wills - operatein a much more free becomes posited outside level. In such states,man's sensitivity and imagination are expanded, and multidimensional insofar as the spectreof his possibilities appearsnow magnified, promising and terrifying the sametime. Here, longing becomesintensified and the expressible's inexorable drive at to be expressed,ruthlessly grasps images from the past and future, or plays the blissful imagination's free variations. Time then becomesconfused, loses its proper order game of backwards and forwards in this state of infinite joy and infinite and succession,moves

teffor.
Schelling clearly states that man can achieve higher things when able to posit-himselfoutsideof himself.

Why do all great doctrines so unanimously call upon man to divide himself from himself, and give him to understandthat he would be able to do anything and could effect all things if he only knew to free his higher self from his subordinateself? It is a hindrancefor man to be posited-in-himself-,he is capableof higher things only to the extent that he can become posited-outside-himself [auber-sich-gesetal, how an

49

Ibid. p. 162.

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even higher, free, inner contact takes place according to the different gradations of 50 how the samething is required everywhere. spiritual productions,and Archetypes,accordingly, are the visions of the future or of the past that can come about in the above state of ecstasisThese visions are new possibilities, new potentialities, that having been liberated get caught by the imagination, or get tuned with the dormant and imperceptible pulses of inner life, at that moment when man has become-posited-outsidehimself. They are produced during "that inner state of pure contemplation in which [the as if in a vision, the miracles of time [and etemity]. "51They expressthe eternal] perceives, innermost longing of the expressible, "eternally full of life", "in ceaselessmotion and and thereby,could constitute a telos for man's activity. But this telos is not an production", posited model, a duty or social obligation, nor a static end to be achieved.It is a externally that even if attained, will be destabilised anew by the new forces generated or goal, by dint of its expression,which in turn createnew contradictions, new visions. annihilated

It would appear that at least one critical question remains: how could this ecstasisever

Is it an exclusively personalissue related only to mesmeric sleep and inner occur?

withdrawness? The approach that we can adopt with regard to this issue - related to Heidegger's concepts of authenticity and temporality - critically depends on the interpretation of the meaning of this "outer potency that cancels the free relation of forces" within man. Schelling offers no further clarification on the matter. However, he definitely attemptsto describea state, a potency which restricts the individual in a field of confined potentialities, acts, roles, thoughts. In this sense,we could associatethis potency with the function of a self-controlling force that integrates man within the context of predictability and conceptualrigidity, social conformity and regularity. The stateof mesmerismand sleep
50

Ibid. p. 163.

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do not constitute alternative suggestionsfor the attainment of an ecstatic state. They are that could facilitate the understandingof visionary moments in a relaxation only examples links. Schelling, apparently,does not provide us with alternative solutions, nor does of all he articulate a political philosophy. He wants, at this stage, to emphasisethe need for a that can expandthe horizon of potentialities and accentuatethe need for expressibility state according to one's innermost inclinations and desires, as opposed to externally imposed For example, in Schelling's beloved ancient ages, it was Dionysus, with his models. Epiphany and even more shatteringdisappearance that effected the dissolution of shocking familiarities, social rules and order, therebyprovoking statesof mass-ecstasis social all and mania. This ecstatic moment does not reveal the tragedy of the original finitude of man in his confrontation with the infinite whole. Instead, it weds man with infinity, precisely by of his finitude, in the paradoxical linkage between life and death, in his active virtue immersion in the cosmic enigma,of which man himself partakes. Dionysus, though, has been expelled from Olympus and ever since then from any social or he divine Institution, for the ecstases instigated were massive and social and not isolated desperate internal journey for 'authenticity'. Is Schelling's own vision, then, momentsof a the return of Dionysus? We are not sure if Schelling wanted Dionysus back, but he certainly suggestedthat the experiencesrelated to Dionysus were conditions for the expansion of man's personality. However, the experiencesof dionysian ecstasis do not constitute the final stage either. They are only moments towards man's expressibility, creativity, actualisation. For the visions one has seen, namely the experience of liberation of his inner forces and its consequentfeelings - cheek or contempt for social rules, loss of individual identity, panic

51 Ibid. p. 161.

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delight for life - are necessary experiencesin order for him to come-to-himself, to work and to his potential and give shapeand form to it. according We can easily observethat it is not sufficient for a man's complete actuality that he be somethingor implicitly have something. In addition, he needsto become merely he is and what he has. He is a thing-that-is, and he has a being by aware of what as a child. But both this thing-that-he-is and this nature without any effort, even being [that he has] are ineffective until a force is found that is independent of both, that becomesawareof them both and activatesthem. It is not enough that forces (or be presentin man; he must recognise them as his own, and only then is it abilities) for him to graspon to them and put them to work and into effect this possible ......... the moment when it becomes aware of what it is, is the moment of moment, This was the highest goal.52 in the true sense awakening,of coming-to-itself ...... Does this visionary quality pertain to nature as well? Schelling remarks: "Nature still in a certain sense,it actsblindly, ". appearsvisionary although, Schelling dismissesboth any account of external intelligence that guides and organises Nature's patterns,as well as the blind mechanismexplication. How, then, could we understandthis dimension of visionary quality along with a certain kind of blind action in nature? Is it a version of the Kantian claim about purposiveness It seemsthat Schelling again suggestsa rather original approachwhich without purpose? transcends not only mechanism and teleology, but also the distinction between and purpose. We have already seen the latter as far as man's activity is purposiveness The main point was basedon the idea of the liberation of man's living forces so concerned. that the latter could reveal and posit in man as his own purpose, of the expression of his inner potential in its most creative and imaginative dimension. The visionary quality of nature's activity is also related to a spiritual dimension in nature itself, a spirituality that transpiresfrom the sensual,since "nature for its part becomesever more the visible imprint of the highest concepts, [and] it is, in truth, only the ignorant who still looks with scom

52Ibid. p.167.

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9953 Nature's elusive spirituality is connected with every entity9s the physical. upon inexorable drive to become master of its inner essence. It refers to the power that to "what makes gold into gold"54and to that "something else in alchemistssought,namely, things [that] grants them the full sparkle and shine of and aroundcorporeal
,55 life'

It is the .

indefinable power that holds the magnetic poles together, that makes gold shine, that the green in plants, that emanatesas grace in the highest transfiguration of replenishes 56It is a force that holds oppositestogether as opposites,that gives life human corporeality. individuality to the different entities. We still need to dwell on the question as to what and the paradoxical activity of nature - blind and visionary - consists in. The 'blind' dimension is connectedto the power of longing as discussedabove: the uncontrollable drive of selfthat spreads, diffuses itself, dashes against and collides with infinite other expansion forces. However, there is a returning force which is not the outcome of the blind collisions, force to the expansive one, but immanent in matter itself and only or a reactionary distinguishedfrom the supposedlypure expansive force. This dual characterof analytically in its infinite divisibility allows for the multiplicity and richness of forms in nature, matter in life. It seemsthat the visual dimension in nature is precisely this 'ability' to maintain unities of tensions and thereby to restore dynamic balances of forces that constitute the different determinate individualities at different moments. The above approach accords Schelling's anti-dualism, i. e., that the structureswe perceive in nature are a dynamic with finite intersection of our forces (cognitive, perceptive, emotional) and nature's forces, and and not just a subjective and completely arbitrary classification of chaos according to our

Or, is convenience. to put it anotherway, even our convenience conditionedby our

53

Ibid. p. 119. 54Ibid. p. 152. "Matter's spirituality seemsto be liberated again with the waning or transforming of that outer potencythat restricts the freedom of its inner life: this time the outer potency is more clearly specified as the coagulating potency". 55 Ibid. p. 151.

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immersion in the cosmic forces which we call chaos. Order and chaos represent two but also two archetypesinsofar as both have been experiencedin man's history. categories, In this sense,the assumptionof nature's purposivenessis renderedmeaningless,since this

the fundamental of separation man from nature,accordingto which conceptpresupposes

is assumed organiseitself in patternscomprehensibleby man's intellect. Nature's to nature dimension then, can be interpreted as nature's self-seeing tendency - nature's visionary imagination - the latter understoodas its formative power. Hence, nature's visionary aspect to coincide with its tendencyfor self-differentiation, and it is here again where telos seems and spontaneity, necessity and freedom meet, and where mechanism and teleology are Does this augur the most perfect possible world, as the coincidence of necessity suspended. freedom, as the compulsive suggestionof the 'inner necessity of the agent' in the Of and Human Freedomessayimplies? It is at this point that we needto recover the deepermeaning of the concept of indifference. Our suggestionis that indifference, contra its various misinterpretations, is the concept, in Schelling, that attemptsto encapsulate possibility of contingency (or, if we really want the image for that concept,it is the trap of the infinite contingencies). an ontological In our previous discussion of the Absolute, we reached a point where the state of Indifference had been conceived as the dynamic, non-restful state of latent operative wills, infinite possibilities. "According to the concept of the unconditioned we have put of forward, we must say that it is what-is and yet it is being as well. But this proposition itself still requires explanation. To begin with.... It is above both .
,, 57

Attention must now be

focusedon this 'above', or the 'before', as Schelling also calls it. Here, Schelling attempts

56Ibid. p. 152,151,150. 57Ibid. p. 126. ,

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to graspan even more elusive possibility than the multiple potentialities of the expressing; namely, the possibility of a complete non-expressibility. "The unconditionedcan expressitself as what-is and as being, and it can refrain from itself asboth. In other words, it can be both, or it can let both alone. Free expressing ',58 is just this ability to be somethingalong with the ability to not-be-it. will Here then, we have the possibility of the absorption of time, a moment of eternity, a before the self-positing of any possibility, mute and lost. At the sametime, it is an moment instance of explosion, of bursting out, of expression; a transmutation, a moment of Indifference then, means the absenceof any determinate relation, a lack of contingency.
to any relation, and is thus contingency, surprise. Indifference can be seen as commitment

the 'mood' of transmutation and the inversion of teleology: in the former (i. e., time sinks in a moment, while in the latter (teleology) time unfolds according contingency), to its telos. It is as if time stops at the moment of the attainment of expression, as it also before the discovery of any potentiality. It halts in a moment of free will, of sheer stops determination seems to be inadequate. Indifference is the contingency, where every ineffable shock where 'all plausible connections collapse'. moment of sheer surprise and Hegel would possibly riposte that this is already a determination, but this is so only after the understandinghas managedto recover and reorganiseits unity through the recollection of its shock. To be sure, the shock does not occur in an absolute void. However, the determinationsof the shock can be found - partially - only after its occurrence,when, by its happening,it illuminates its conditions. The contingent can become determinateonly very when, by meansof its advent, it betraysits tracks, thereby indicating that our understanding blind, or unprepared. The moment of contingency inheres in every being, as an was uncontrollable, unclassiflable dimension and also as its possible, interesting

58 Ibid. p. 127.

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unpredictability. This is why the abyss is always present, as the discrete or violent for the continuousliquidation of our intellectual and intuitive categories. compulsion This moment is defined as free, pure, unmitigated will. It lacks any predicatesbecauseit

indifferentto any specificexpression, sinceit is free to expressor not express any stands
and as such is also called the will that wills nothing. From this point of view, potentiality, the lack of predicatesindicates not its nugatory status, but the sheer unpredictablity of its This is precisely the meaningascribedto the concept of the Absolute by Schelling, activity. the dimension of free expression in any direction, the moment of contingency namely lurking in every finite entity in the enigmatic movement of cosmic becoming. The Absolute higher Being, nor an ultimate telos in the movement of things, but the is not a hypostasised the that " always penetrates greatestturmoils of life and the most violent movement of will
all forces"59

In this way Schelling brings eternity back to time, the sacred to the profane. This can be further seenthrough a brief recapitulation of his notion of time in the Ages of the World and in the Bruno essay.In the Ages of the World, time is the conflict of two oppositional

and is thereby the mediation between the expressibleand the expressed. principles
Accordingly, when the expressible is suddenly expressed(as in a moment of magic, or transmutation), or remains buried in muteness,we have the concept of eternity. Similar ideas are expressed the Bruno essay."Things in the universe are more or less perfect, the in more or less they embody time. But all the things of the pre-eminent sort incorporate

9v60 time. Time hereis conceivedin termsof self-limitation, as the process establishing of
one's particularity. Time is an act which, as self-limitation, differentiates the specific entity from the rest of the universe and createsthe conditions and intensity, quality of succession

Ibid. p. 134. 60Schelling F. W. J., Bruno, or on the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things, P.173.

59

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difference.Time as an act of self-limitation pertains to every entity: the more a finite and being returns to itself, the more it establishesits own time, its own rhythm and style, and from this point of view, the processof self-limitation is parallel to that of self-expression, both of them manifestationand creation of time. Every culture, therefore, consideredas a particular finitude in the history of the cosmos, its own conception of time, and vice versa: from the different conceptions of time creates infer certain typical features of different cultural and historical epochs. The we can of time in the Ages of the World elucidates the remarks extant in Bruno, conceptualisation the strange phenomena of the inner sense of time which some entities concerning (as migratory birdS)61,insofar as time is conceived in terms of surprisingly possess forces operative in every entity and in the cosmos. Accordingly man, as the conflictual finite entity that aspiresto self-expressionxar' E4qXijv establisheshis own time, which is 62 as 'the expressionof self-consciousness'. conceived Time then, is the manifestation both of finitude and infinitude. It is the outcome of limitation, for otherwise the expressible would be already expressed, the infinite be infinitely accessibleor actualised and successionor differentiation possibilities would would be redundant,since everything would be perceived immediately and simultaneously. The a priori characterof time is the already given fact of our finitude (and of any other finitude insofar as it becomesaware of time). But time is also the outcome of nonentity's limitation in so far as it is an act of self-limitation, attesting to the actualisation of potentiality, to the establishing of one's identity. It is in this context that we locate the
61 Ibid. p. 182 'The successionof seasonsis not alien to things that actively contain time, things such as migratory birds that steertheir flight toward anotherclimate and thus act as an indicator of time." 62 Bruno essayp. 175. "But any individual thing is more self-identical the more perfectly it incorporates time..... unifying difference through the identity of the concept and of the line, which is the expression of self" consciousness.

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of the Fall. Fall, for Schelling, is precisely the act of self-limitation, the act of time concept and it seemsthat the more one 'falls', the freer one becomes. and self-expression. In the aboveconceptualisationof time, as indicating both finitude and infinitude, we meet Schelling's account of eternity. Eternity inheres in the history of the cosmos, now again shiny and uttered,but always presentand recurring. "For since time obscureand mute, now absolutely in each living thing, and since at the beginning of each time is commences to eternity anew,then an eternity must immediately precedeeach life. "63 connected

in the Ages of the World we encounterthe unexpectedbreakthrough of the absolute in the history of cosmos and simultaneously the violation of its sacred precincts by the reThe world appearsas both transparentand opaque as never before. The enchantedprofane. Reasoncan no longer be settled in its Architectonic structure. For the agesof the aporiasof world have no architectonic.Instead,they transposeus to 'the greatestturmoils of life' and the 'most violent movement of all forces'. It is in this field that now logic and human have to readdress their aporiasand reconsidertheir own movement. subjectivity

Or, "Just as the thing constitutesits time by containing an actuality possibility lies outsideof it or a whose possibility whoseactuality lies beyondit, so too doesthe conceptinsofar as it is simply finite. " Bruno p. 180
63Ages of the World, p. 162.

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Chapter 6

Schelling's conception of the self

In the previous two chapterswe examinedSchelling's differing approaches regardsthe as the absoluteand finitude. In this chapterwe will discussthe implications of these notions of for his conceptionof the self, in particular, with regard to the notions of judgement, accounts and freedom.Theseissueswill be explored respectively,through his early work, reflection Idealism (1800), and the Ages of the World (1811). the Systemof Transcendental Schelling mainly provided his conceptionof the self in his major work, Systemof Idealism (1800), which was written just a year before he formulated his first Transcendental of the Systemof Identity, and as such mostly moves within the 'spirit' of this articulation though, there are alreadyin it the interesting elementsof Schelling's philosophical phase, later thought. These,however, do not unfold their dynamic potential since they are enclosed the requirementsof the identity principle. Hence, we will not deal with a thorough within of the STI, in order to proceedto his conception of the self, as the latter can be examination drawn from the Ages of the World, which radicalisesthe break with the Identity Systemthat from the Freedomtreatise.So, after a brief discussionof the STI, we will endeavourto started Schelling's possible accountof the self, according to the ideasexpoundedin the reconstruct Ages of the World.

Schelling's STI originatesin the Kantian problematic, as far as the possibility of objective judgementsis concerned.As a whole, the work attemptsto provide philosophy with cognitive

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the principle that can raisethe main dualismsbetweenreasonand sensuality,nature and freedom, and would constitutethe SupremePrinciple of Knowledge.

How both the objective world accommodates presentationsin us, and presentationsin to to the objective world, is unintelligible unlessbetweenthe two worlds, the ideal and us the real, there exists a pre-determinedharmony.But this latter is itself unthinkable unless the objective world is produced,is at bottom identical with that the activity, whereby itself in volition, and vice versa. which expresses Now it is certainly a productive activity thatfinds expressionin willing. ( my emphasis)' It seemsthat accordingto Schelling the pre-determinedharmony is not postulatedby the humanreason,but comesabout through the identity of the activity that pertains to positing of both cognitive representations nature.This statementconstitutesthe strengthbut also the and of Schelling's thought at this stage,as long as the interesting idea of productivity is weakness to the statusof a transcendental and absoluteprinciple for the totality of all possible rendered Schelling statesthe aboveprinciple in Fichteanterms, i. e., as the identical act of experience. which consistsin the absolutefreedom of the self-positing of the subjectself-consciousness, The latter, Identity, called Intellectual Intuition or Original Self-Consciousness. object

doesnot referto the individualegobut to a universal,all-inclusivetotality, which however,

in its identical and absoluteact the infinity of the cosmos,Spinoza's natura naturans posits at once, or what Schelling called in his Identity System,Absolute or Reason. as subject-object

The eternal,timeless act of self-consciousness which we call self, is that which gives all things existence,and so itself needsno other being to support it; bearing and supporting itself, rather, it appearsobjectively as eternalbecoming, and subjectively as a producing 2 limit. without

We will not pursuein detail the examination of the relation betweenthis principle and its developmentin the Identity System,but we will only focus on the issuesrelevant to the topic

1SchellingF. W. J., Systemof Transcendental Idealism, p. 11. 2 Ibid. p.32.

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this chapter.From this point of view, an interesting difference to be remarked,is that the of in absoluteor original self-consciousness the STI, is not conceived as an immediate act act of identity, but as an infinite becoming condensed an absolutesynthesisof the in of primordial betweenopposingactivities. Self-consciousness results as the outcome of primordial conflict two infinite, mutually contrastedactivities; one expansive,which is a pure producing out toward infinity and is called real, and a secondcontractive, which infinitely limits the first by turning its productsinto objectsof its intuition and is called ideal. The reverting, activity, intuitant activity is conceivedas an act of absolutefreedom, which in its continuous limitations of the producing activity, builds the infinity of limitations and differentiations in the whole of reality.

Both activities, the real and the ideal, mutually presuppose each other. The real, originally into infinity, but to be limited for the sakeof self-consciousness, nothing is striving the ideal, for which in its limitation, it is infinite. Conversely, the ideal activity is without limitable, and on that very account,the real.3 nothing without the to-be-intuited, the It can alreadybe concludedfrom the foregoing that the identity expressedin self..... is consciousness not an original identity but a createdand mediatedone. What is original 4 is the conflict of opposing directions in the self; the identity is the resultant of this.

For Schelling, the original conflict must be resolvedby an absoluteidentical synthesis,and this is the point where the dynamism of the insight into the conflictual productivity reachesits limits. This will be seenlater, as far the implications of his conception of individual selfand its freedom is concerned. consciousness By meansof the infinite condensingof the original act of the Absolute self-consciousness, Schelling states- in a Spinozian line of thought - the immanent necessityof the infinite configurationsof the cosmos,as a result of the very nature of the Absolute itself, which through its unconditionally free act, infinitely limits itself, self-objectifies itself. Intellectual

3 Ibid. p.41. 4 Ibid. p.45.

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Intuition is precisely this simultaneousact of necessityand freedom, in which selfintuits its own products.Intellectual intuition therefore, standsfor a free, selfconsciousness by meansof which self-consciousness attains full transparencyof its reverting productivity, own productivity.

The action that is causeof all limitation, and can no longer be explained by any other, be absolutelyfree. But absolutefreedom is identical with absolutenecessity.If we must imagine an action in God, for example,it would have to be absolutely free, but this could freedomwould simultaneouslybe absolutenecessity,since in God we can think absolute law or action that doesnot spring from the inner necessityof His nature. Such an act of no is the original act of self-consciousness; absolutely free, since it is determinedby nothing the self; absolutelynecessary, since it proceedsfrom the inner necessityof the outside nature of the selL5 Through this idea Schelling introducesmultiplicity and internal differentiation or limitation in the absolutebut doesnot annul the totality of the absolute.It is in the Freedom essay,where he dismissesthe notion of an all-perfect, and all-powerful, supremeBeing, that multiplicity duality in the Of Human Freedom- is not appropriatedby an encompassing act, as that of still Intellectual Intuition, but acquiresits independentdimension. Here, finitude is not just a of the absolutebut a manifestationof this dynamic multiplicity. This is manifestation the reasonwhy Schelling transforms,from the Freedom essayonwards,the probably terminology of forces to that of wills and potencies.However, Intellectual Intuition is in terms of productivity, and indeedbetweenconflictual forces, and it is this aspect conceived that allows Schelling's original approachto the notion of the self. In fact, Schelling, in the STI, elaboratesthe most fruitful dimension of Fichte's thought, i. e., the self as productivity, which, as we saw in chapterThree, for Fichte remainedundevelopedin favour of his 6 deductiveenterprise.

5 Ibid. p.47. 6As we discussed the third chapter,Fichte simply postulated in the productive characterof the self-positing ego but he did not further developthe productive processof self-consciousness. by Productivity was rather exhausted

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includes the infinity of all Since the productivity of the original self-consciousness of reality, it can be understoodas a genetic concept,out of which the notion of manifestations The understandingof the self's production as part of this the self can also be generated. is the difficult task of the philosopher.However, the latter can never fully grasp original act infinity of actionscontainedin the absoluteact. He can only grasp some distinctive the From this point of "epochs" in the "history of self-consciousness". actions which constitute Schelling, alreadyfrom the beginning of his work, presentsthe STI as the view, demonstrationof thefundamental impossibility of the self's attainmentof its complete selfthe cosmos,and thus of the impossibility of intellectual of or transparency comprehension intuition itselL

the Since, therefore,there is an infinite conflict in self-consciousness, one absoluteact from contains- united and condensed an infinity of actions whose total we start forms the content of an infinite task; (if it were ever to be completely enumeration the whole structureof the objective world, and every determination of accomplished, down to the infinitely small, would have to be revealedto us.) So, philosophy can nature those actionswhich constituteepochs,as it were, in the history of selfonly enumerate 7 and establishthem in their relations with one another. consciousness,

intellectualintuition cannot occurasan all-inclusivecomprehension the of If, however,

it infinity of the actions of the absolute,nonetheless, can irrupt as a momentin the self, since latter is part of the absoluteand partakesof its forces. This is the moment when the self by the its own spontaneityattemptsto come to itself, and thereby imitates, momentarily, the original becauseit is part of it. As such, intellectual intuition constitutesthe mainspring act, precisely the self's perennialproductivity as its infinite, creative dimension. "Hence it is that at of
the ego's striving to deduceall the determinationsof experiencefrom its original act. The latter was carried throughthe introduction of external 'synthesising' concepts,rather than through the immanentdynamismof the productiveprocessitself. Moreover, in Fichte's systemthe only active force is the self, while the not-self passive.Schelling, in this work, also seeksto deducethe whole of experiencefrom the original act of remains absoluteself-consciousness and hereis the point where the limits of the STI are to be found. However, this deductionis carried through the elaborationof the productivity of the two conflictual, active forces,Pertainingto both self and nature,allowing thus a more dynamic conceptualisationof the processof the self

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moment I can come to be for myself, exactly as I come originally to be for myself. "8 every

However, during the exposition of the different "epochs" of the self's productivity, the term that accountsfor the various phasesof the productive processis not intellectual intuition, but

distinction,which attests intuition.We needto dwell for a while on this interesting productive
to Schelling's subtle account,in the STI, for the relation betweenthe finitude of the self and its final ability to attain the absolute.The self is conceivedin the sameoppositional terms yet the original act of self-consciousness, namely, in terms of the real and ideal activity. as Productive intuition attemptsto describethe unifying aspectof the double-naturedactivity, Productive intuition, as opposedto the latter pertainsto a finite self-consciousness. when intellectual intuition - which is immediate transparencyof one's own products and therefore apply to an absolutely self-born being - attemptsto describethe various stagesin would only the processof the constitution of the self by its own activity, which both producesand reverts itself and the world, thereby creating a developing field of fusion betweenthe self and upon the world. Here, the boundariesbetweenworld and self dissolve and the roles of subject and interchangeand alternate:"I posit a region of consciousness this separationdoes where object

' innerandouterworldsareconceived interfused". As such,productive as not exist andwhere

intuition attemptsto accountfor both the self s infinite dimension in its self-producing and its finitude, so long as the self finds itself limited by external forces. The activity, interaction betweentheseforces createsthe field of interfusion betweenthe self and the The different 'epochs' of the self, in turn, are defined according to the relation of the world. with this field. At this point, we would like to remark that although Schelling introduces self the conceptof productive intuition in the end of the first epoch, i. e. sensation,as the rise of

it intelligence, consider to be the termthat describes productiveprocess the self asa we the of
7 System Transcendental Idealism, p.50. of 8Ibid. p. 48.

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and whosevarious configurationsconstitute the different modesof the self's whole, Productiveintuition is the ever-transformingprocessof both producing and selfconstitution. intuiting that pertainsto the self's productivity and characterises self in all its activities. the The notion of productive intuition standsfor the spontaneityof the self's ongoing Hence,spontaneityis primordially associated with intuition andfeeling, which productivity. as will be seenlater, the specific spontaneityof reflection, as an act of genetically creates, from the field of fusion. As far as the relation betweenproductive intuition and abstraction intellectual intuition is concerned,we suggestthat we interpret productive intuition as intellectual intuition in its imitation, by the philosopheror any finite subject that attemptsto the original act of absolutefreedom.By this we mean that the attempt of the rere-enact freedom,by any finite being, such as the human act enactmentof any supposed of absolute will inevitably take the form of a finite act, which, however, as productive and subject, has an infinite dimension. Schelling doesnot discussthis issue. regenerated, spontaneously He definitely suggests though, aswe alreadysaw, the partial or momentarycharacterof the imitation of the original act, indicating the finite characterof human subjectivity. This is more in Schelling's discussionof the various epochsof the self, that emergeprecisely as evident different phasesof the processof productive intuition.

The various forms of the self's relatedness the world and itself - which by Kant are with as faculties of the subject, and by Fichte as being positedby the ego - are mostly conceived as different modesor momentsin the self's processof self-constitution, arising now presented dynamic balancesout of the continuous conflict among the oppositional forces operating as inside and outside the self. Accordingly, Sensationis a phaseof the self's constitution in which the self, at this stage,feels affected and is unawareof its own activity. Here, the self
Ibid. p.74.

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intuits the field of fusion as entirely objective or external,excluding its own activity. Sensationonly ariseswhen the self doesnot intuit its own productivity and considersitself to be entirely passive.The latter is, accordingto Schelling, the empiricist dead-endapproachit Kant did not avoid -, because fails to accountfor the self's ability to be which even that sensibility is also an active process,except that the self at all. Schelling suggests affected of it. On this point, Schelling introduceshis interesting concept of remainsunaware which standsfor the generativepotency of the self uniting both forces. in productive intuition, though, the self is not awareof this fusion. The conflict betweeninner the stageof sensation forces is conceivedas static " Since it is the outcome of opposing infinite and outer it will necessarilybe finite. It is not the conflict of theseactivities conceived of as activities, is a static conflict. " 10. This is the casewhere the self isolates itself from its in motion; it internal forces and its activity and in turn, conceivesit as reified and alien to it. This betweenthe self and the object gives rise to the emergenceof the stageof polarisation in which productive intuition takeson the form of a Fichtean appropriation of the reflection, 4common region of interfusion' back to the self, which is no longer simply self but seemsto Reflection, for Schelling, ariseswhen the self itself to the level of self-consciousness. elevate feels strongly restrictedby external forces, or by those forces that it itself rendersthus The self, being absorbedby its fixation to an object which cannot be recalled restraining. from its own activity - feels, as Schelling puts it, "trapped in a present".11 The stateof the self at the presentjuncture is thus briefly as follows. It feels itself driven back to a stageof consciousness which it cannot, in fact, return. The common boundary to of the self and the object, the ground of the secondlimitation, forms the boundary betweenthe presentstageand the past one. The feeling of being thus driven back to a that it cannot in reality return to is the feeling of the present.Thus at the first stage stage the of its consciousness self alreadyfinds itself trapped in a present.For it cannot oppose the object to itself without feeling itself restricted and committed, as it were, to a single
10 Ibid. p.5 1. " Ibid. p.103.

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This feeling is no other than that which we describeas self-awareness. All point. begins with it, and by it the self first posits itself over againstthe object. 12 consciousness

The self, experiencingthe object as a constraining,threateningforce, reactsthrough a radical its internal forces that seekto liberate it from the restraining trap and the enslaving releaseof Reflection then, springsforth as the outcomeof an unbearablyconstraining present. againstwhich the self discoversits inner liberating forces. Reflection is another experience, of the conflictual interaction of forces, where the conflict becomeseven more static product However, reflection is still a configuration of productive intuition. From this and polarised. judgement power itself is a form of the self's productivity and its point of view, determinationswith regardto the world are possibleby virtue of the interaction betweenthe common forces pertaining to the world and the self, no matter how polarised they are at this Suchpolarisation may be the reasonfor Schelling's characterisationof the conceptsas stage. mere shadowsof reality; yet theseshadowsare 'real', by dint of the assumptionof the common productivity that pertainsboth to reality and to the human ability to representits and acts as an internal, primordial force springing from within the self and nature. shadows

The necessityof productive intuition, here systematicallydeducedfrom the entire the self, has got to be derived, as a generalcondition of knowing as such, systemof directly from the conceptthereof-, if all knowing borrows its reality from an immediate for
it this alone that is to be met in intuition; whereas concepts, in fact, are merely cognition, shadows of reality, projected through a reproductive power, the understanding, which itself presupposes a higher power, having no original outside itself, and which produces itself by from force.13

within

a primordial

Will and self-determinationin turn, are momentsof further polarisation of the above conflict. Reflection, will and self-determinationare conceived as static configurations of productive intuition, where the self experiencesits self-reverting productivity in an exceptionally exalted

12 Ibid. p. 103. 13 Ibid. p.73.

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dual activity of antithetical forces, and it is precisely the recognition of this immanent a dualism that allows the possibility of a non-dichotomousseparationor possessive identification betweenthe self and its other. Thinking arisesas a moment of this dual

intuition andassuchdoesnot necessarily asa specificmodeof productive coincide operation,

the awareness the self's identity or with reflection in the sensethe term had during the of with 17thcentury philosophical debate.If this is so, then who is the agent of thinking? It is Schelling's notion of personality, which is not exhaustedby the conceptof subject and yet is as active, that allows a fruitful engagement with the above question.This notion considered a different approachto the conceptof the unconsciousthan that which we have presupposes far come acrossin the STI, that is, an understandingthat enrichesits function beyond the so level of the natural and concomitantly reconsidersthe conceptof natureitself,

In the STI the unconsciousseemsto be restrictedto the function of drives, impulses, instincts, i. e., to the role of an 'other' that works in opposition to the self's will and determination. Here, Schelling, despitehis original conceptionof the unconscious,developshis conception from the standpointof a clear-cut separationbetweenconsciousand of personality activities. The self is conceivedas entirely absorbedby the unconscious,during unconscious the first epoch,whilst being entirely cut off from it in the secondand third one, i. e. as reflection and will, until eventually the two activities find each other in the last epoch of

artisticproductivity.

The intuition we have postulatedis to bring together that which exists in separationin the appearance freedom and in the intuition of the natural product; namely the identity of of the consciousand the unconsciousin the self, and this the consciousness this identity. of The product of this intuition will therefore merge on the one side upon the product of

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and on the other upon the product of freedom, and must unite in itself the nature, both14 characteristicsof

By meansof this idea, Schelling introducesthe core element of his new conceptualisationof the notion of personality,namely, in terms of the consciousunification of unconsciousand pertaining to the self. Accordingly, freedom now is conceived as being consciousactivity only through the self's consciousdetermination to welcome its 'other' and express attainable its desires,through the labour and discipline required by the work of art. Schelling creatively this insight in his later works but, as we shall see,he developsit in a dynamic way, will retain leaving asidethe simplified dichotomiesor identities of this stage.For as we saw, Schelling keepscompletely separate unconsciousand consciousaspectof the self until he discovers the their absoluteidentity in the sphereof artistic creativity. In this way, Schelling assignsto the almost exclusively, a natural and alien quality, whilst he deprivesreflection of unconscious, dimension,rendering it barren and sterile. Accordingly, he ascribesto art an any creative ideal, redemptiverole, restricting artistic productivity - whose characteris more paradoxical in than the sheerlyliberating one which is assumed the STI - to the sphereof aesthetic Aesthetic production appearsas the ultimate stageof productive intuition, in production. which the completeidentity betweenthe self and nature is attained.In this way, movement seemsto halt in the work of art and aestheticproduction is exalted as an act of absolute freedom.This position derives from Schelling's initial standpointof the necessityand indeed the pre-existenceof an absolutesynthesis,which in the act of limitation manifestsitself in the form of the work of art.

Theintelligence will therefore with a complete end the identity expressed recognitionof in theproductasan identity whoseprinciplelies in the intelligenceitself-, will end,that it is, in a complete intuiting of itself; The intelligencewill feel itself astonished and ........
14

Ibid. p.219.

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blessedby this union, will regardit, that is in the light of a bounty freely grantedby a higher nature,by whoseaid the impossible has madepossible.
This unknown, however, whereby the objective and the conscious activities are here brought into unexpected harmony, is none other than that absolute which contains the ground of the pre-established harmony between the conscious and the common 15 unconscious.

The unconscious, the unknown, eventually gets trappedby the work of art, which as such or to reveal the mysteriesof nature.Is this product, however, thus transparent?According seems to Schelling, the attainmentof the absolutedoesnot refer to a logical transparencybut rather to the emotional statein which the self has a feeling of infinite harmony - with itself and the and thereby attainsthe deepemotion of absolutefreedom. world In this way we considerthat the principle of identity radically restricts the dynamism of the the self's constitution, which completesits movementin the alleged attainmentof processof freedom of the work of art and the perfect harmony with nature.The researchinto absolute the internal contradictionsof the aestheticproductivity falls beyond the scopeof the thesis; the former's strength- i. e. aestheticproductivity -, in our view, lies in its dynamic to reveal and sharpenthe producer's contradictionsand the paradoxesof the word, rather than resolving them. Moreover, if in the last epoch Schelling discoversthe absoluteidentity betweenconscious activities, in the previous epochs,theseare conceived in a dichotomous and unconscious

mode.
Hence,Schelling, in this work as a whole, seemsto be describing the processof individuation for the modem self, - through the suppressionof the unconsciousand the celebration of pure logic, or the inversion of this through the deification of pure art the consolidation of disciplinary specialisationand the dissociation of sciencefrom art, morality from pleasure, work from love. However, despitethe partial validity of this approach,we still find that great

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from the conceptionshavebeennurturedby inspired and visionary messages scientific or that greatworks of art have beenthe product of long-lasting and arduous unconscious, of the "logic of the longing", attestingto the inevitable interaction between expression consciousand unconsciousactivities, despitethe demandsof methodical and predictable organisationof the self's actionsas a whole.

We needthen to turn our attention to the Freedom treatiseand the Ages of the World, from can draw the more dynamic and flexible approachof Schelling's conception of which we and freedom.In theseworks, as we saw earlier, Schelling is freed from the personality necessityof the absolutesynthesisof the conflictual. activities that permeatethe cosmic becoming. In the Ages of the World, he shifts the emphasisto the exploration of the movementof finite entities. As we saw, he conceivesevery entity as a nexus of paradoxical interacting potenciesthat strive, in their different way, to expressthe entity's inner potential. We will not repeatthe dynamic, non-teleologicalprocessthat takesplace towards the entity's for self-expression. We focus now on theseparticular aspectsof this processthat struggle to draw the dynamic insights of Schelling's conceptualisationof personality, mainly allow us through his reconsiderationof the relation betweenthe unconsciousand the conscious,though now the terms are not mentionedwith regard to man but with regard to the potenciesof the Hence,the following accountfor the notion of the self is not as such articulated by cosmos.

but Schelling, constitutes reconstruction, to our according our readingof the text in the
chapter.The conclusionswe drew from the conceptof indifference will again be previous proved exceptionally fruitful for our research.

15 Ibid. p.221.

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The forces pertaining to the self are now conceivedin terms of wills or potencies,anticipating dimension.The first potency, the so-called being that standsfor their relatively autonomous productivity, lies in active interaction with the secondone, the so-called what-is, unconscious that standsfor the self-reverting,self-recollecting,consciousactivity. The contradictory and of thesewills, as we saw, results in the various creative stagesof antagonisingoperation but also in the recurrentdisquieting of the momentsof fulfilment which never expression, final or absolutestatus.This process,which also defines the constitution of one's a assumes in a becomingof findings and losses,bliss and despair,satisfaction and personality, consists and possessing dispossessing. anxiety, We needto look closer at the aboveprocess,especially with regard to Schelling's concept of indifference. The latter provided insight into the dimension of autonomy, of the self-moving, uncontrollable and unpredictablecharacterof eachwill, which accordingly allows an but dependence also of autonomybetweenthe unconscious understandingnot only of mutual in the consciousactivities, and yet the latter were apprehended a non-dualistic way. A and dualistic accountof this conflict, as we saw, results either in a separationof the self from its

identificationof in the stages sensation, to a complete of reflectionandwill - or products them in the aestheticproduction. In contrast,we will try to develop an accountof the interaction betweenthe consciousand unconsciousthat allows both the self's conflictual distancefrom its productions, and more importantly, the acknowledgementof surrenderand the anisotropic and a-symmetricalcharacterof theseactivities. Thesemay feed eachother, but do not assumea supplementaryrole in the perspectiveof the attainmentof complete harmony betweenthemselvesand thereby in the self and its relation to the world.

In the context of this new approach,the products of the unconsciousare not reducedsimply to the natural level, i. e. instincts, drives and impulses, which, even in their consciousand 208

transformationby meansof artistic activity, still assumea restrictive understanding creative This approachleads to the new illusory freedom attainedby the role of the unconscious. of the allegedcompleteidentity betweenthe consciousand unconsciousin the realm of meansof in Schelling suggests the STI, absolutising thus the role of art, artistic productivity, as the moral law with an equivalent aestheticnorm and reintroducing the delusion substituting appropriatingthe 'other', albeit through its projection to a 'third', namely the work of art. of This approachthen, doesnot lead us far beyond a Fichtean aestheticism.However, the despitethe constantefforts of the conscious,will always remain unconscious, unconscious, i. e. unknown, enigmatic and unconquerable, "irreducible remainder" in any form of an expression. Yet this unknown would prove to be our best, our most loyal friend; for it will always remain free, our constantnourishing 'mother' and at the sametime our most challenging, mocking, It will unwelcomely intrude into our fixed conceptions,it might attack and cruel adversary. with intolerable and incredible fantasiesand dreamsbut it will also feed us with beautiful, liberating and pleasurableimagesand emotions.It may connect us with the immemorial past the prehistory of the cosmos,it may bring us the voices of our forgotten ancestors, it or of to us scenes the future, momentsof our undiscoverablepotential life. It may of may reveal disclosethe most forbidden and shameful aspectsof our self-constructedpersona,but it may also reveal hidden beautiesand gifts dwelling in our inscrutableself. Schelling explicitly

the of states relativeautonomy the two wills insideus.

The conflicting wills are certainly not bound to eachother. If in the expressible,the betweenthe oppositesis characterised an inner necessitycompelling them to by relation be one (because both are equally necessary the whole) then, in the expressing,the to betweenthe forces is characterised an inner freedom not to be one, but rather by relation for eachto be for itself. Each of the wills is individual and self-sufficient, and eachhas the completefreedom to posit itself and to negatethe other. But precisely becausethey are equally unconditioned,neither will can negate the other without being negatedby it in

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turn; and similarly the other way around: neither can posit itself without positing the 16 (my emphasis) other . Accordingly, the ego doesnot have the identity of itself before its eyes.What rather is our unconsciousaspect.The two wills acting and accompaniesall our representations the self lie in a relation of both collaboration and autonomy, and this also seems constituting be the way they can be, if personality is conceivedas a dynamic process.Consciousactivity to hasthe right to try to give meaning,unity and order to its various perceptive,mental always Otherwisethe self would be absorbedand surrendered,not only to its messages. or emotional aspect,but moreoverto the predominantsocial patternsof propriety and to unconscious and cultural norms. The unconscious,for its part, has its own life, since it concomitant moral doesnot only consistof forgotten, repressed marginalisedconsciouscontents.Instead,its or life manifestsan extraordinaryrichnessand complexity which rarely reachesthe threshold of as the inexplicability of unexpectedmoods and unplanneddesiresatteststo consciousness in which caseit rather takesthe form of a riddle, of an oracle. Everything that is somethingwithout being it must by nature seekitself; but this is not to that it will find itself, and still less that a movement or going out from itself takes say This is a seekingthat remains silent and completely unconscious,in which the place. alone within itself, and is all the more profound, deep,and unconscious, remains essence fullness it containsin itself. 17 the greaterthe

The unconsciousoperatesin a much more disorderly and erratic way than does incessantlyproducing contentsthat even when they do not reach consciousness, inform it providing its conceptswith tones,colours, huesand shadesthat consciousness, , enrich or destabilisetheir assumedfixed meaning.The unconscioussurroundsand sustains the conscious,nurturing it with its rich material upon which consciousness may creatively

16 ling F. W. J., Agesof the World, p. 172. Schel 17 Ibid. p.137.

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work, cultivating and embellishing, challenging and subverting its - usually rigid - contents, the comfortableness its lazinessand inertia. But "neither will can negatethe of unsettling being negatingit in tUM.,,18 other words, neither the unconsciousnor the In without other try to acquirefull domination upon one's personality. For, if the conscious consciouscan dismisses,neglects,suppresses tries to dominate the unconscious,this, in turn, will and it. It will return, shatteringone's artificial identity, ridiculing and disclosing the empty negate delusory freedomproclaimedby it. In this case,consciousness may seekshelterby further and of this identity through the vain pursuit of social status,power, and the fearful consolidation locking-up of its 'threatening' other. Accordingly, consciousness not be entirely can For in this way, individuality and uniquenessis dissolved into to the unconscious. surrendered so long as the self is unable to detachitself from an undifferentiatedpermanentstate,which, it and realise its uniqueness, also take the form of an external collective consciousness, can blind commitment to religious or political doctrines or uncritical conformity to social such as cultural norms and fashionable'ideologies'. The processof personality and individuation and seemsto follow the difficult and challenging path of the interactive struggle betweenthe and the unconsciousand indeed through the self s consciouswillingness to take conscious should allow its loss in the unknown and to allow itself to take this path. Consciousness depthsof the self. In this unexploredareait may discover, with surprise and horror but also delight and relief, not only forbidden desiresand suppressed instincts but with unprecedented ideas,thoughts,stories and myths, imagesand soundsthat can effect a fascinating also of its horizons, its knowledge, its new wisdom, its taste and its judgement. For the expansion unconsciousdoesnot only consist of chaotic and unruly contents,as appearsfrom the standpointof modem identity. The unconscioushas its own judgement and memory, as long

18 Here, the term negationhasnot the Hegelian meaningof determination,but the literal senseof the word, rather namely,denial, rejection or, since it refers to potencies,to the power to annul or annihilate anotherpower.

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it also discriminates,selects,remembersandjudges, and it performs thesewith a surprising as For it seemsthat it lives more intensely in the rhythm of the cosmic becoming, and wisdom. lies connectedwith immemorial times. It is the unconsciousthat witnessedand remembers the experiences our ancestors of and the mysteriesof life in its perennial births, deathsand being woven by the unique threadof our own unrepeatableindividuality blended rebirths; the history and pre-history of the cosmos,recounting thus the agesof the world. with Man must be grantedan essence outside and abovethe world; for how could he the long path of developmentsfrom the presentback into alone, of all creatures,retrace the deepestnight of the past,how could he alone rise up to the beginning of things unless there were in him an essencefrom the beginning of all times? Drawn from the sourcesof (Mittthings and akin to it, what is essentialof the soul has a co-science/con-sciousness holds time enveloped,it servesas a Becausethis essence Wissenschaft) creation of ....... link that enablesman to make an immediate connectionwith the most ancient past as well the most distant future. Man often seeshimself transposedinto such wonderful with inner connectionsthrough precisely this innermost essence, such as when he relations and in the presentas one long past, or a distant event as if he himself encountersa moment to it! Accordingly, the unfathomable,prehistoric age restsin this were witness But this archetypalimage of things slumberswithin it - not, indeed, as an essence; ... forgotten image,but rather as an image growing with its own essence extinguishedand that it cannottake out of itself and call upon. This image would certainly never awake if a presentiment(Ahndung)of and longing for knowledge did not lie in that again, itself. 19 unknowing

The unconsciousis mostly conceivedas the immanent longing, rising from the depthsof the for the expressionof the latter's inner life, providing the self with an incomparable self and a different type of security. This is not the fragile security of the constant strength identity, but that which the self discoversthrough the liberation of its unacknowledged the welcoming of its 'other', the recognition of its genuine autonomy and the relief potential, because this, the courageto face it and interact with it. Schelling then invites us to an open of confrontation with our 'other', and yet he reminds us that this is not mostly 'ours', as long as we tend to consider the products of our consciousness will as our properties.Human soul and

19 Ages of the World, p. 114.

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of the world, participatesin its enigma, and thereby not only the individual, but also as a part , historical consciousness, could never assimilateit by meansof its transparentrecollection. a Hegel also suggested mainly in his major work the Phenomenologyof Spirit (1807) - the the self in terms of its self-constitution, of its Bildung, by meansof its conceptualisationof formative experiences. However, in Hegel the experiencealways takes the form of successive Hegel was unawareof other emotions,but becausethe self frustration, apparentlynot because initial self-positing self-certainty. To be sure, Hegel mainly attemptsto an always assumes by a phenomenologyof the formation of modern identity, which is thus characterised provide the inevitable, continuouscollapsesof the roles that it assumes every stage,as well as by at the illusory certainty that it can appropriatethe 'other' and make the circumstancesconform to its own positings. However, Hegel expoundshis project from the standpointof selfthat and, moreover,a self-consciousness proves able to gradually educate consciousness, itself through its continuousstruggle for recognition. This seemsto be the highest form - as the most spiritual manifestation- of desire.The battle takes place mostly among conflictual the whosecontradictionsnecessitate overcoming of the narrow, self-consciousnesses, individual level and the restorationof the social and historical arena,as the proper field for the unfolding of the recurrent contradictions.In this way, Hegel presentsself-consciousness from the perspectiveof its perennial intention to assimilatethe 'other', to establishits only indubitably sophisticatedand highly cultivated - identity, in a context where historical could successfullyrecollect its experiencesand write the retrospectiveself-consciousness history of the world. Instead,for Schelling, the field of the contradictions consistsin the unsolvable paradoxes permeatingman and the world, coming from the 'prehistoric ages' and heralding a coming future. Schelling suggestsa dual, conflictual positing, i. e. consciousand unconsciouswills, and moreover,the recognition of their free and relatively autonomousactivity. Accordingly, 213

the confrontationwith the 'other', inside and outside the self, may lead not only to frustration, the self s standpointwas not exclusively the confirmation of its initial identity, but also since to fascination,pleasureand hope,precisely by virtue of discovering somethingbeyond, different from itself that revealsthe richnessof the world. Thus, the world and its history in the languageof our conceptualreconstructionsand classifications,but also appearnot only in the oracular languageof the unconscious,as it presentsitself in nebulousdreams,elusive fantasies,morbid symptoms,unheardvoices, speakingimages,puzzling symbols, incomprehensible yet full of meaninglogogriphs, in the ineffable movementsof our and bodies and the betraying colours of our emotions.All theselanguagesseemto expressa new type of Bildung, as manifestationof the enigmatic wisdom infusing the cosmic becoming. This wisdom transpiresfrom chaosand order, darknessand light, destructionand creation, cruelty and love, senseand spirit, words and silence.It occupiesa unique place in all ancient in and religions, represented the most versatile and contradictory divine female mythologies Sophia,mother and mistressof Logos, now sensuous figures, the most ancientgoddess and now spiritual and protective, shiny, warniing, transparent,veiled, blackenedor seductive, inaccessible, tenderand cruel, virgin and muse,receptive and giving, destructive reddened, and creative. Reasonreflecting on its origin, can arise in an enrichedform. No longer drained and rigid, but imbued with the moisture of wisdom, it may acquire new plasticity and an imaginative dimension.Logos acceptsthat is not the exclusive creator of the world, since inside it, before it utteredthe word, Sophia was dwelling silently and meaningfully. Schelling is the only philosopherof the modem era, who mentions this interesting relation betweenLogos and Sophia,bringing back to philosophy the expelled goddess,mainly associated with unknown, dark, pre-cosmicforces, but also with generative,colourful, illuminating ones,mother and lover of Logos. 214

The peoplesof the Orient have clearly recogniseda playful pleasureat the beginning of the life of God, which they have eloquently termed Wisdom; it is an unblemishedmirror divine force and (due to passivequalities) an image of his benevolence.With of astonishingprecision,they everywhereascribedof a passivethan active nature to this For this reason,they did not call it, ( as we have been doing, the ) spirit; nor did essence. they call it ( the ) Word (or the Logos), although wisdom was often ( incorrectly ) this term. Ratherthey ascribeda feminine name to it to suggestthat this confusedwith is only passiveand receptive,in contrast to the higher essence. essence Languagein a book that is rightly considereddivine drifts over us like a fresh morning breezefrom the holy dawn of the world, languagethat introducesWisdom in speech."The Lord possessed in the beginning of his way, before he did anything. I was set up from me from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths,I was eternity, brought forth; when there were no fountains aboundingwater. Before the mountains were before the hills am I brought forth. When he preparedthe heavensabove,I was settled, there: when he set a compassupon the face of the depth; when he appointed the foundations (Grund) of the earth, then I was by him, ( as one brought up with him): and I daily his pleasure,playing always (by) him." was With thesewords, Wisdom is sharply distinguishedfrom the Lord. The Lord possessed Wisdom, but shewas not herself the Lord. She was with him before the beginning, before he did anything ...... Wisdom was by the Lord. But who is the Lord? Indisputably he is that will which rests being and what-is, the will through which alone being can actually be being and within 20 can actually be what-is.... he is the expressingof all essence. what-is Here, Schelling has discoveredthe imaginatively creative Logos, but not yet the active Sophia, even though, from the Freedomessay,he emphasisedthe will-of-depths as the

It "sublimemotherof the understanding". is in the Deitiesof Samothace he will fully that

the discoveriesof his own thought, discovering also the proper gods who can appreciate them. accommodate

But did Schelling, at this stage,want Dionysus back? Dionysus is always presentand yet absent.This is his nature.He suddenly appearswith tumult and terror, shaking all presentregularity, but disappearseven more unexpectedly,

preciselywhenwe needhim the most,andsinksinto his original place,the moist perhaps,

20 Ibid. p. 163,164

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Styx Lake21 or to the deepof the flowing rivers and the springing fountains, element,the , fairies, elves and sorcerersdwell. This is the location where our dreams,desires, where longings, our imagesof past and future and our dancesin the festivity of time lie. Dionysus doesnot compel us, doesnot force us. He only setshis chorus, his thiasos to play the aulos, the forbidden musical instrument from Plato's Republic, and Aristotle's Politics, and he us us his tastes,his smells and his rhythms. Thus he seduces to his manic dance,in the offers element,in his magic liquid that paradoxically, though water-like, rekindles fire, and he moist drives us back to our dark and unknown self, only to strengthenus in order to make us able to face it, to experienceit, through his weapons:myrth, wine, ivy and aulos. For, the with our unconscious,the liquidation of our artificial persona, the dissolution confrontation is conceptualschemata not a conceptualenterprisethat only requires the strenuous of rigid a highly activatedintelligence, but can rather be attained through the transformation effort of thymos.This is the main gift of Dionysus; the provision of a liberating courage, the of our imagination of the soul and thymos,which apart from characteralso meansanger. Hence,if the biblical God, with his "let therebe lighf', inauguratesthe decisive separationof darknessand light, of unconsciousand conscious,Dionysus overthrows this regime, smashes the new order, and blurs the boundaries,intermingling the two worlds. This is where Schelling, in his own philosophical way, attemptsto transposeus. Thus he inducesus to discover our gods, inside and outside us.

But do we ever return from the manic dance?Does Schelling want us back from Dionysus? From what we have seenso far, it seemsthat the crucial issue, if personality is to be a dynamic process,is the maintaining of the conflict betweenthe consciousand unconscious,
21 Styx is the namefor a river-lake and goddessof Greek mythology, that nine times encirclesand confinesthe Underworld. It is by the samelake that Persephone was playing with Okeanides- nymphsof the deepsea- and

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the enduring interfusion of the two worlds. In fact, out of this conflict a 'third' always arises. The consciousalways attemptto appropriatethis 'third', to normalise it, to round it. This is deepermeaningof the identity of the self - indeed a duty to identity - in Kant, of the the 'synthesis' of the original ego in Fichte. The unconscious,for its part, will also try to engulf it in its depths.However, the 'third' is much more intractable and elusive: child of the the unconscious,by virtue of its double nature, it standsuntameableand consciousand in the midst of its contenders:Logic, Will, Nature, Morality, God, Society, contradictory, History, Abyss it? What is the fate of this 'third'? What is going to expressit? Who is going to possess Schelling seemsto be reluctant to give it away to any of its beloved claimants. He rather that we externaliseand transform the conflict into creative deeds,which rather than suggests the conflict, enableits creative and challenging development.Our participation in resolving Dionysian danceis precisely the preparationwe needfor the intensification of our creative the dimension.During this experiencewe are taught the art of surrenderand resistance,we the liberation from all old bonds,we discover, to our surprise, immensehidden experience being locked by our inert soul and body. For the Dionysian mania transmits a new energy type of sophrosyne- Sophia's daughter?- to those who welcome it, whilst a ferocious for those who refuse punishment
it. 22

Being thus transformed,we do not remain for ever surrenderedto the manic dissolution, but feel the inexorable needto channel our new energy into action and creative deeds.This is we the expandedmeaningof artistic productivity, which doesnot pertain only to a genius or to a artist, but to whoever allows himself to discover and expresshis creative dimension gifted through his various activities. This is, in turn, the spherewhere freedom lies, namely in the

suddenlywas abductedand carried off by Hades, once shecaught the radiant flower narcissus. 22 This was, for examplethe fate of Pentheas,see.Ovid's Metamorphoses, book III

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the perennial conflict inside our soul, which lets processof creative,extrovert expressionof itself be exposedto, listens to, and is fascinatedby the paradoxesof the world. In this process discover our limitations and the limits of theselimitations themselves.We experienceour we harmony and generosity,the freedom to effect good and evil. The violence and selfishness, latter seemsto be the inevitable manifestationsof eachentity's activation of its various in the struggle for its self-expression, conditions of its very movement. Good the potencies but the transientfonns of the relation betweenthe self and its other, in its and evil are in tune, now clashing, now in mutual support, now in ruthless destruction. movement,now Good and evil are the moral connotationsfor the inevitable configurations recurring in the dynamic interaction amongentities, since the latter are finite and none of them can assumean imply that becoming itself would be arrestedby its, i. e. the absolutestatus- which would In this context Schelling announcesfreedom as absoluteentity's, utter predominance. in our ability to do both good and evil, that is, to incessantlyactivate essentiallyconsisting to a static clinging to an abstractrule of action. From our contradictory potencies,as opposed this point of view, man can never - and indeed should not - be beyond good and evil. It seems it is again the freedom of creative productivity that can disentanglethe self from the that web of moral labels and duties. For, this kind of freedom - to be sure contradictory, stifling but for this reasonsubstantial- doesnot prioritise the needfor, and thus decreasingthe from, social recognition, since satisfaction or frustration springs mainly from the dependence itself. The latter though, rather than effecting the feeling of complete harmony in the product the producer,has demandingcriteria of judgement, so long as it condenses outcomesof a deeperconflict and carries with it the history of many battles, confrontations, hopesand anxieties.It crystallises,in a unique and more critical way, the producer's complex connectionswith society, nature,religions, cultures and indeed in their historical dimension. From this point of view, it constitutesa much more challenging and respectfuljudge than that 218

of current social and cultural norms. It therefore demandsa critical distanceof the producer, a temporal withdrawal from the buzz of current critics and admirers, in order to achieve deeperbondswith the world itself and its history. Solitude seemsto be strongerand in order for the creator to be able to rethink and rediscover old and new forms of necessary, bonds,which in turn will again prove to be both liberating and constraining, setting the social for new ruptures,breaksand transformations. scene

battle, seemsto transitively dwell in The 'third' then, the child of the conscious-unconscious the products of desire(maast),thought (mysti) and memory (maadijan), namely in the evasive processof myth-making, as the previous semanticelementsare but the Sanskrit roots of the ptoq, myth. This is where Schelling eventually invites us, and this is the way he finds word for adequate accommodatingthe paradoxesof the world and his elusive thought. more

Schelling already stressed significanceof mythology in the STI, as the medium which the brought all the individual streamsof knowledge into the "universal oceanof poetry", before the radical breachbetweenscienceand poetry, philosophy and art. The needof the restoration of this breachinauguratesthe possibility for the rise of a new mythology: a task, though, which belongs to a future historical era.

Philosophy was born and nourishedby poetry in the infancy of knowledge, and with it those sciencesit has guided toward perfection; we may thus expect them, on all completion, to flow back like so many individual streamsinto the universal oceanof poetry from which they took their source.Nor is it in generaldifficult to say that the medium for this return of scienceto poetry will be; for in mythology such a medium existed,before the occurrenceof a breach now seemingly beyond repair. But how a new mythology is itself to arise, which shall be the creation, not of some individual author, but of a new race personifying, as it were, one single poet- that is a problem whose solution

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be looked for only in the future destinies of the world, and in the course of history to can 23 come.

Although Schelling did not further develop this insightful idea, we can extract someof the featuresof his conceptionof a new mythology from the last sectionsof the STI. We suggest that Schelling's genericand elementaryforethoughtson the notion of a new mythology inhere in his brief accounton the characterof the work of art and the relation betweenart and As we saw, Schelling introduced the insightful notion of productive intuition, philosophy. through which consciousand unconsciousactivity, producing and thinking are consideredas of the sameunifying productivity. However, in the STI, productive intuition appearsas a parts in the stagesof sensation,reflection and will, whilst it recoversits unity only in split activity the aestheticproduction. In the latter, accordingto Schelling, for the first time the unity of and unconsciousactivities is manifested.Art, as opposedto philosophy, realises conscious the expressionof the unconsciousin acting and producing.

it is self-evident that art is at once the only true and eternal organ and document of ... philosophy, which ever and again continuesto speakto us of what philosophy cannot depict in external form, namely the unconsciouselement in acting and producing, and its 24 identity with the conscious. original

Despite our objectionsregarding the exclusivity ascribedto art - as the only sphereof expressingthe unconsciousand moreover, as that in which the absolute identity betweenthe

is and conscious unconscious attainable the first featurethat canbe drawnfrom this -,
position with regard to the conception of the new mythology, is that this indicates a form of expressionthat allows the unconsciousto 'speak' - in its own language- through action and creativeproduction. But why is this identity - effected by the work of art in the STI -, so important?

23 System Transcendental Idealism, p.232,233. of

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Art is paramountto the philosopher,precisely becauseit opensto him, as it were, the holy the holies, wherebums in eternal and original unity, as if in a single flame, that which in of and history is rent asunder,and in life and action, no less than in thought, must nature 25 forever fly apart

Art's unique significancederives from its power to reveal the sacredin the world, and from this point of view, art itself is a form of mythology. In turn, the new mythology seemsto from the various forms of the sacredrevealedby artistic production. The sacred, emerge the though, in the STI is the all-inclusive, absoluteact of original self-consciousness, 'holy of the holies', in whoserevelation all movement stops. If this point in production is reached,the production must absolutely stop, and it must be impossible for the producerto go on producing; for the condition of all producing is precisely the opposition betweenconsciousand unconsciousactivity; but here they have absolutelyto coincide, and thus within the intelligence all conflict has to be eliminated, all 26 contradiction reconciled.

The revelation of the absolutein the work of art restoresthe absoluteidentity betweenman and the world, and thereforerendersthe riddle of the cosmostransparent.

as natureis a poem lying pent in a mysterious and wonderful script. what we speakof Yet the riddle could reveal itself, were we to recognisein it the odysseyof the spirit, deluded,seeksitself, and in seekingflies from itself, for through the which, marvellously world of the sensethere glimmers, as if through words the meaning, as if through dissolving mists the land of fantasy, of which we are in search.Each splendid painting owes, as it were, its genesisto a removal of the invisible barrier dividing the real from the ideal world, and is no more than the gateway,through which come forth completely the and scenesof that world of fantasy which gleamsbut imperfectly through the shapes 27 real. The announcement the new mythology, just a year before the Identity System,could not of possibly have other featuresthan the promise of the ultimate revelation of the absolute.

24

Ibid. p231. 25 Ibid. p231. 26 Ibid. p221. 27 Ibid. p232.

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However, evenin this fonn, Schelling broachesthe powerful idea of the possibility of the the "holy" in this world through our creative productivity. This insight acquires rediscoveryof its dynamismonly when Schelling dismissesthe concept of "the holy of the holies" and

disclosable elusive,shinyand discovers sacred multiple,transmutable, instead the and as

from all forms of life and becoming. obscure,eternal and mortal, emerging and vanishing This shift startedfrom the Freedom treatiseand signalled a new phasein Schelling's thought, developsthrough its ongoing transformation in the Ages of the World up to the Deities which Samothrace.It is this last work that, in our view, may better accommodateSchelling's of radical vision of the possibility of the rise of a new mythology. The Deities of Samothraceis never mentionedas an important philosophical work in Schelling's intellectual history. At most, it is presentedas a supplementto the Ages of the
Instead, we find in it Schelling's most fascinating World, reducing its ideas to the former' S28.

his previous philosophical investigations with new which provide philosophical messages, dimensionsand perspective.In the Freedomtreatise,Schelling discoveredthe evil in God and intractable longing - the unruly of the depths- which nurtures all life, becoming and the

28SeeRobert Brown's philosophical interpretationof the Deities of Samothrace,(Schelling's Treatiseon The ScholarPress, 1977).In this commentary,Brown analysesthe significanceof the deities Dieties of Samothrace, by of Samothrace reducingthem analytically to the correspondingpotencieswhich are expoundedin the Ages of the World. In this way, Brown missesthe multi-dimensionedsignificanceof eachdeity, sinceeachpotency in the in AW, describes an abstractand conceptuallevel the various momentsof the cosmic movement.Brown, though, that in the DS there is a shift from mere "structuresof thought''to the actuality of beings,ascribingto states Schelling a shift from the realm of pure thought to the realm of ontology. This is arguedon the basisof Schelling's transpositionfrom the "highest reality of thoughf' to that of the will, which startedalreadymidway in the AW. However,as we saw, Schelling even from the STI never conceivedthe "highest reality" in terms of thought,but in termsof the absoluteproductivity, which anticipateshis later conceptof will. The shift, that mere also arguefor, from the potenciesto gods,doesnot meanthat Schelling now valuesmore reality in its we from thought, but that this reality cannotbe revealedand exhausted independence precisely by ontological humanproductivity - viz. his early Fichteanaestheticism- since its theurgic movementexceeds man's productive by as powersand can be only partially experienced them. Brown, by exhausting the deities of Samothrace the threepotenciesof the AW, essentiallyannulsthe shift that he states.As will be seenin the following chapter,our interpretationof the DS attemptsto show that the transformationof potenciesinto godsdoesnot consistin the transformationof conceptsinto wills, for the potencieswere already conceivedas wills. The shift brings about the logogrific apprehension gods as wills, which thus does not presentthe structuralpatternof the three of The latter, no matterhow dynamic and transmutableis, still conceivesevery entity as being potencies. by characterised the samepotencies;instead,in the context of the cosmic theurgy, there is no structural betweenhumanand divine potencies,nor definite enumerationof them; correspondence

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In the Ages of the World, he discoveredthe silent and plastic Sophia, dwelling in creativity. and mildness, indifference and this dark longing, endowing it with order and chaos,harshness The Deities of Samothrace,would appearto be generated,as if Schelling commitment. himself reflects - with love - upon his own longing to savour the paradoxesof the cosmosand in a logogrific form his new discoveries. articulates

As logogrific, this form doesnot attempt to posit its own absolute,even in the cunning form the declarationof the absolute'sdeath.It doesnot proclaim that it is the highest medium of the world. This form rather, prefers to mock any claims on absolutetransparency that explains provides us with old and new riddles, showing thus the paths that reconnectthe various and of knowledge. streams in this phaseof Schelling's intellectual development,cosmic becoming is not condensedin the destiny of the self-enveloped,primordial, absolutesynthesis,but appearsas the and unpredictablemovementof cosmic theurgy. The "odyssey of spirif 'has no multifarious becausespirit cannot manageto break the barriers between the real and ideal return point, not In or never breaksthrough the mist of the senses. this work, spirit appearsand world multicoloured and obscure,liberating and compelling, all-present and invisible, in vanishes, the very visible processof life itself, in the riddle of its self-procreation,destruction and It is not bizarre then for Schelling to be attractedby the paradoxical deities of regeneration. Samotharce the enigmatic Cabeiri - whose mysterieswere dedicatedto the mystery of life, in its multiple transformationsand the magic inherent in them. What Schelling has conceptuallygraspedas indifference in the Ages of the World, now becomesa real power; the

of procreation life, which springsfrom the borderlineof the subjective the and power and
objective, as the moment of their indifference, which may reveal and expresslonging's inner contra ictions ut may also not expressthem. "The unconditioned can expressitself as what223

is and asbeing, and it can refrain from expressingitself as both; in other words, it can be both, or it can let both alone.Free will is just this ability to be something along with the to not-be-ir'29 But the life of the cosmos,as the movement of self-generative, ability . destructivepowers is elusively depicted as the life of known and unknown procreativeand This is why the deities of Samothrace, whose nature is still concealedin darkness,can gods. Schelling's thought. For the image of the cosmosthey evoke is not the accommodate transparentrevelation of the mythology of Phanes,a mythology of original and ultimate but the image of a logogrif, which anticipatesa mythology of both order and chaos. order, The unity of this image doesnot reveal an absolute,original, all-inclusive act, but the "magic insoluble life", in its multiplicity, orderly and unruly movement, expressingman's direct of the forces of order but also with the forces of chaos.The logogrific encounternot only with this magic, in turn, cannot result merely from a profound thought process- as a expressionof but from a more holistic experiencewhich more complex conceptualrepresentation living forces in man's being and allows him not only to seizebut also to be stimulatesall by the cosmic powers. Hence,logogrif becomesa form of life, an intenseexperienceof seized battle or play with the riddles of the world, a real force in the field of fusion betweenman and dimensionsin the world, rendering it, as ever, accessibleand the cosmoswhich provides new inaccessible,familiar and enigmatic.

We can now seeSchelling's philosophical insights from his engagementwith the messages of this "mysterious polytheisrW'.In the STI Schelling statedthat in order to capture some

distinctive'epochs'of the historyof self-consciousness, - the philosopher should one an act of imitation of the original absolutesynthesis.In fact, by this, Schelling makes perform imitation essentially constitutesan attempt at rea mythological claim, since the suggested
29Ages of the, World, p. 13 1.

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the origins of the cosmos.The act of imitation is a modern ritual, to be performed by enacting the philosopher.In the Deities of Samothrace,Schelling - in a way - imitates not the original, synthesis,but the elusive drama of the Cabeiri, and thus his creative reconstruction absolute us the new 'epochs'of his paradoxicalcosmogony. offers

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Chapter 7

The Deities of Samothrace:Towards Schelling's Aoyoypt(ptKq

is Samothrace the namefor the visible part of a conic, shaky, volcanic mountain top, always being, mysteriously, surroundedby a cloud ring, that rises abovethe wavy and windy waters the northern part of the AegeanSea. of The island as a whole consistsin a continuous,inaccessiblyforested mountain chain which abruptly broken by vertical cliffs, dark chasms-whose sight disappearsinto the depthsof gets innumerable springs, namely an the subterranean volcanic rock-, powerful waterfalls and of suddenbreaks,in such a way as if the island by its very compelling elusive continuity speaksout the disruptedunity amongchthonic, earthly and heavenly realms, life, presence deathand rebirth, in pacewith the cyclical flow of waterfalls and springs, and the alternating of the volcanic convulsionsand the restful breath of the cloud ring. It hasbeen rhythms by historiansthat the island hasbeen populated in the first instanceby people surmised out-to sea,far sailing foreigners- most probably Pelasgiansor Phoenicians-who venturing with " incense,purple dye and ivory there also transplantedtheir gods and along 911 sancuaries. Samothrace then, has had a reputation since antiquity for its Cabeiri mysteries,which are to be the most ancient and important mysteriesof ancient times, as equally or even considered more honouredas the Eleusinian. This is why Samothraceis characterisedas X(j)p(xOvj, sacredland, hostessof wondrous orgies of gods, unnameableto mortals, as the namely Orphic hymn informs us

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Z(Xoq lagoopa",
EVOCC Mt (J)V OPYLCC (PptKTCCOF,

OpoTotcnv.( Orphica Argonautica 468) (xppil, r(x

This is the place and time-the indeterminatetransitive period between magic and Greek Spirit, post-'barbarian' and pre-hellenic- that Schelling choosesas accommodationfor his thought. The Ages of the World seemto be seizedby this magnetic land and philosophical to stop here,to listen and recount its story. need The significanceof the Cabeiri deities still lies in darknessand the beliefs, practices and by their cult are characterised particular mystery and obscurity. Their eventssurrounding indeterminate,as doesthe meaning and the role of each namesand numbersremain individual deity. It seemsthough that this obscurity doesnot only derive from their in the night of time or the limits of historiological research,but mostly from their remoteness nature,which appearsas flexible, transmutableand mainly theurgic, namely creative and very higher or lower deities. It is mainly from the standpointof their theurgic generativeof new, dimensionthat we hazardto explore the messages this "mysterious polytheism'. of As far as the origins of the Cabeiri is concerned,there have been a plethora of surmisesand from the various fields of mythology, history, philology and etymology, whose suggestions details are not our concern,since this very multiplicity of suggestions-indeed supplementary betraystheir manifold nature. Hence we find them as Uranus' children- Titans' ones-only brothers-orancientdemonsof the volcanoesof the Thracian Sea,giants or dwarfs, Koryvantesfrom Phrygia, as sonsof Zeus and Electra or sonsof Prometheus,almighty or lower deities. The most predominantsurmisethough, that Schelling also seemsto prefer, is that the Cabeiri originate from Hephaestos, divine smith whom Hera expelled from the
1Schelling's Treatiseon the Deities Samothrace, 17. of p.

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Olympus due to his natural deficiency, who, though lame in both legs, is the only god who knows the secretsof motion, possibly becauseof his extraordinary knowledge of fire, the to on which even Zeus confesses be dependent.The Cabeiri, as unique gift, Hephaestos'offspring, children of fire and the art of fabrication, are also mentioned as burning and 7wpoTevaq, i. e. fire-generic, rising from the earth's bowels icatovre;, namely transfusingtheir fire-like energy to their invokers; their suddenepiphany has also been and registeredas exceptionally paradoxical,more obscurethan shiny, extremely helpful or paralysing,in any caseeffecting a spectaculartransformation to anyonewho ruthlessly discoveredthem.

However, the most distinctive feature of the Cabeiri, as already mentioned, is their theurgic Schelling repeatedlystresses element: "One could say of them that they are not so this nature. divine as they are god-producing,theurgic natures,and the whole chain presentsitself much more and more as theurgic.
2 ,,

How then could we understandthe movementof the Cabeiri as theurgic but also as chain ? It seemsthat their movementtranspiresagain the unity of cosmos,what hasbeen philosophically and theologically registeredas oneness,and yet the latter conceived not as an supernaturaland mystical divinity - as is the casewith monotheistic or even external polytheistic traditions, which cut off the divine from the natural and reduceit to a noble, substance but as the miraculous unity which springs from every act of creation, universal life and birth, and infuses the cosmic becoming throughout. Creation then, doesnot refer to original act performed once, in the beginning of time, by an external Demiurge and one not to the imposition of order on primordial chaos.Creation is the ever recurrent act moreover in all processes life, movement,birth, growth and procreation, of as such inextricably and

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linked to death,decayand degeneration.Creation comesas the outcome of the resolution of highestcontradiction and the living confirmation and expressionof it. It comes as the the the highest conflict betweenthe cosmic potencies,the will that negates externalisationof

leadsto contraction the will that strivesfor fulfilment andexpansion. and and expression
Schelling alreadywrote in the Ages of the World

One and the samewill is activatedas the will that wills nothing and is also activated as the (life and actuality). Becausethe highest contradiction is will that wills something also the highest movementof life, it can thus be seenhere and from the outset necessarily How is a decision possible here?Perhaps that an absolutedecision is demanded ....... might say that one of the wills is by nature subservientto the other, in which someone it would necessarilybe overcomeby the other will, and this other be the victor. But case is false. 3 this presupposition This would be the caseof the creation of order by a victorious benevolent creator, triumphing However, "both wills are by natureequally important, eachhas the sameright to over nature. it is necessarilytrue that neither retreatsbefore the other',4 be active, and How then is a decision possiblehere?According to Schelling, the decision comesthrough the

its peakand both wills in full intensity,wherecontradiction reaches activity of simultaneous

the encapsulates highest tension. Out of this moment of highest energy, creation as such bursts forth as an act of highest love. This is not an act of planned decision, nor the outcome a wilful agent,but, simply and miraculously, it is the mystery of life itself, in its infinite of For, according to Schelling, the very existenceof cosmic becoming is itself a manifestations. love.5 Love doesnot generateonly the products of order, good perennialand recurrent act of beauty,but is the very process of life and becoming, the magic of perennial creativity in or the cosmos,in its paradoxical continuity, breaks,destructionsand rebirths. It is this
2 op. cit., p. 24.

3Agesof the World, p. 169. 4 op. cit. p. 172,173.

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love and the magic involved in it that the notion of theurgy attemptsto grasp.But procreative 6 and it can only this theurgy createsremainsinexpressible,unutterable, the unity which and momentarily be encounteredthrough the experienceof the epiphany of possibly, partially This is possibly the reasonwhy the Cabeiri were mainly relived through their (pptK-T(x gods. famous Cabeirian mysteries,rather than taught through official institutions. This is opywc,the is signified by the qualitative leap in Schelling's thought, from the Ages of the also what Deities of Somothrace,namely, the move from what has been conceptually World to the in the Ages to what is now only a part of the life of gods, whose whole movement uttered remains (xppilTn.

in the Ages of the World, now becomegods, The various potenciesand wills, which we meet becauseSchelling gets trappedinto a naive personification or anthropomorphicapproach, not it but because is possibly the notion of gods that may better accommodatethe elusiveness, dynamism,self-generativeand mostly (xppilTq nature of the cosmic becoming, and as such immanentand transcendentwith regard to man. From this perspective,the divine does both transcendent status,and moreover does not constitute a unique, separate, not assumea wholly holy substance, yet is not exhaustedas man's inner forces, by his and static, self-contained, man - as finite part of the cosmos- being himself a psychic and spiritual potencies,since lies in the midst of cosmic forces, lower and higher, similar specific complex of potencies, different to him, seizing them and being seized,controlling them and subject to them. He and

5Theseare only the conclusionsthat we draw from Schelling's extensiveengagement with this issue,seeAges of the World, p. 167-175. 6"We can thereforeseethat in the very moment when the Highest is supposed expressitself, it becomesthe to Let inexpressible. no one be mistakenaboutthis, or wastetime in debatingagainstthosewho deny it. One must it in fact insist on this very inexpressibility, because is necessary the highestlife. If what wills to express for itself in all life were not inexpressibleby nature,how would there be any vital motion? How would there be an impulsetoward expressibility, articulation or organic relation? ", SeeOp. cit., p170

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then be able to discoverthe gods inside him, but they may mostly appearto him through may their unexpectedand compelling epiphany.

deities seemto expressthe various unities of The Cabeiri in turn, consideredas separate tensions,depicting the various momentsof cosmic becoming; each deity standsfor a fragile and generativestate,as a complex of contradicting potencieswhich produces new ones; each deity is then product of the other and yet indifferent to its other, since it is theurgic by itself, has a self-generative,free and independentdimension, its own uniqueness. In the Ages of the World, Schelling already stressed.

This entire life, after all, originated in the first place out of the longing of eternity for itself. All merely germinal life is of itself full of longing; it increasingly demandsto form mute, ineffective unity and to be lifted insteadinto an active unity. In the emerge the whole of natureto be equally full of longing; the earth sucksthe sameway we see force of heaveninto itself through countlessmouths; the seedstrives toward light and air, in order to catch sight of an image, a spirit; the flower sways in the sun's rays in order to into itself as colour.7 pull them

longing, this everIt is Ceresor Demeter,the Cabeiri deity Axieros, who now accommodates infusing activity and ever-presentmode of being.

But according to the literal translation of the first name,Axieros, in the Phoeniciandialect not very well meanother than (in the first instance)"hunger", "poverty", and in can "yearning", "seeking"..... Another image of this first nature, whose whole consequence is essence desire and passion,appearsin the consuming fire which so to speakis in itself is in essence only a hunger drawing everything to itself. Hence the ancient nothing, precept:fire is the most inward, therefore also the oldest; through the subduing of fire first beganto be a world. Thus it was that Hestia came to be revered as the everything oldest (first) of beings, and the conceptsof Ceresand Proserpina,the most ancient deities, becameintertwined with that of Hestia. The feminine characterof this many-namedbeing points to the conceptsof longing and of yearning desire, as do all namesof the first nature either obscurelyor clearly; so especially the nature of Ceres,whom the ancient historian interpretedas the first Samothraciandeity, ariseswholy as yearning passion.8
7 Op.cit., p. 165. 8Schelling's Treatiseon The Deities of Samothrace, 19. p.

Demeterappears lack, as the night of nothingness,of non-being, and yet she is the as "the moving power through whose ceaseless attraction everything, as if by creating goddess, is brought from the primal indeterminateness actuality or formation."9 For her night, to magic, the realm of the invisible and inexpressible,the mute and the silent, is the which appearsas the most intensecontraction of all creative powers, as the blacknessof the night of of all colours, and as such, her night is at once light and colours, life and word. contraction Demeter standsfor the inextricable connectionbetweenfertility and death, the perennial and destructionpertaining in the "universal magic and the theurgy ever abiding in creativity the whole universe,through which the invisible, indeed the super-actual,incessantlyis " 10 brought to revelation and actuality. What the relation of this Demeterwith the Homeric one is, we do not know. We learn though from the Homeric hymn that Demeterlaid Demophoon- the son of the king of Eleusis - into the fire in order to give him her major gift, namely, immortality. What appeared,to the eyes the ignorant mortals, as Demophoon'sloss and destruction, was what would render him of immortal, eternally young; this is why Demeter decidedto teach humansthe Eleusinians that is, in order to show them the immanent link betweencreativity and mysteries, destruction,fertility and death,loss and rebirth, and to infuse them with love and faith to the that the Cabeirian Demeter sends.Her fire theurgy of insoluble life. This is also the message dissolveseverything, and out of this burning and consuming fire everything springs melts and

itself. As such,Demeter the regenerates carriesthe burningtorches, symbolof out and

life and persistentflame, which keepsmovement alive and regenerates out yearning passion death.For Demeter is love herself, the love of longing and burning desire for Persephone, of is actuality, visibility, sensuality,expression,concretelife, rebirth, but mainly, for which
Op. cit. p.20. ,

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Demeter's love is mostly angerand inexhaustible strengthto get back what she lost. She is Demeterloving and nurturing but mostly DemeterErinys, the powerful and threatening despises Zeus and forces him to retreat in the sight of her frightening fury. As goddesswho Demetercarriesthe moon-shaped the symbol of linkage between fertility and sickle, such, death,now as an act of love and violence, reminding us, that every creative act is with an act of violence, as the com has to be cut in order to spreadits seeds,as accompanied Aphrodite and Erinyes both sprung from the blood of the castratedUranus. We find then Demeter-karpophoros, the bringer of fruits, and Demeter-Black, DemeterDemeter-Mother,Despoina and Demeter-Mistress,young and aged, Erinys and-Nemesis, beautiful and impressive,repulsive and imperceptible, grievous and triumphant, vulnerable longing in its multiple configurations. But "the flower sways in the sun's rays and powerful, in order to pull them into itself as colour", and Demeter turns to Helios - the Sun god and the with Ecate, of her daughter'srape- and becomesPersephone,colourful and only witness, tangible, goddessof sensualityand carelessgames.The world of actuality though, is but an of the cosmic drama and every concreteentity carries within it all the dormant forces episode it emergedand into which it will sink again, its invisible past and future. out of which breathesDemeter and Demeter embodiesPersephone, Persephone identical and different, as the "intelligible dyad", " togetherconstruct the cosmosthrough a twofold magic."" Persephone teachesthe immanent spirituality of the sensualand is the one who daresto allowed her loss in the Underworld in order to experienceDemeter's teaching,for Persephone emergeagain,reborn, wiser, and even more sensual;for it is in the Underworld that she

the Queen the experienced tasteof thepomegranate, symbolof fertility andyet shebecame of The paradox the connection Dead. between fertility anddeathreaches peakin this its of

10 Op. cit., p.29. 11 Op. cit., p.33, number64,80 from Schelling's notes.

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Cabeiri god, Axiokersa or Persephone,goddessof sensualityand the pleasuresof life second Queenof the Dead,both. But it seemsthat it is precisely by virtue of her sensualitythat and is Queenof the Dead.For Persephone, concretesensualityis unique and unrepeatable, as she "the one who weavesthe garmentof mortality,"12and thus standsfor the uniquenessand actual episodein the cosmic becoming, as a unique manifestation of unrepeatabilityof every the fragile balanceof the infinite forces concurring in its expression.Nevertheless,this transpiresits past and future metamorphoses, invisible world, chthonic and the uniqueness heavenly,intangibly sensualand unintelligibly spiritual, where Persephone reigns. Hence, is Persephone Queenof the Dead in a double paradoxical sense,affirming both the transience of and persistence things, their uniquenessand recurrence,vanishing and yet presentin the the theurgic chain of insoluble life. Persephone, seductivegoddesswith the slim ankles, with in and pomegranates her hands,carelessKore and Hades' wife, dwells in both narcissus visible and invisible, and calls us to accompanyher in her adventures. worlds,

is Persephone a sorceress, the initial beginning of future bodily existence,as the one as but the who weavesthe garmentof mortality and generates deception of the senses, most as the first link of that chain extending from the depthsto the heights, binding generally is togetherbeginning and end. Persephone even called "Maja", a name which reminds us little of magic.13 more than a

Persephone reborn, though, is no longer the same,the carelessKore. It is not only the sudden abduction,the marriagethrough rape, the pomegranate,the surprise,the shock, the loss of herself and her mother, the grief the discovery of a new world, that gave rise to her change; , it is mostly that sheherself now becomesmother of herself, giving birth to her new self, transforming herself into a new god, Dionysus, the fourth Cabeiri god.

12op. cit. p. 20. 13Op. Cit. p.20.

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discoverednew dimensionsof sensualityin the realm of spirituality, for it is in if Persephone Dionysus discoversnew spirituality in the the underworld that shetastedthe pomegranate, themselves.Dionysus, carrier of a wine vesseland ivy leafs, Lucius i. e. the senses realm of dimension of freedom through the expansionof liberator, announces unprecedented an experience.It is the freedom of the involuntary movementsof a body which responds sensual to the Bacchic rhythms, perceivesnew colours, hearsunheard sounds,discovers forbidden and createsnew bonds with the mind, which also expandsits horizons and pleasures, discoversnew worlds, of visions and images,so far closed off by its restricting concepts. Mind then, feels itself to be seizedby divine madness, this necessaryEtcricptutq,what we in-spiration, which rendersit productive, imaginative and creative. Body and Mind now call their unity in the marriage of sensualityand spirituality, in its most intense rediscover 14 "the blessingsof madness" in the miracle of life, in the act of procreation expression,in , regeneration.For Dionysus is himself the miraculous child of an absurd and perennial marriage,namely that of the goddessof sensualitywith the god of Death, and the conditions of his birth and recurrent rebirths are even more absurd. Dionysus hasbeenbom and reborn many times, by different gods and mortals, by Persephone Hades,by Zeus and Semele,by Demeter and Athena, as many as he has been persecuted, and murdered,dismembered.He suffers and dies, but there is always, paradoxically, a arrested, saveshim, now Athena-Pallas, who rescueshis pallomeni, i. e. vibrating heart, who goddess Demeter,who reconnectswith fire his fragments.Dionysus carries the fire-like features now his mothers,but he is also mild and plastic. Rising out of the moist depthsof the of underworld, he hydrates,moderatesand gives new plasticity and form to the harshness the of consumingfire of his primal mothers.Joyous,vital, sensual,he recalls the initial careless
14 Socrates saysin the Phaedrus" Our greatestblessings,come to us by way of madness provided the madness .... is given by divine gift", Phaedrus244A. The aboveexpresionis owed to E. R. Dodds, The Greeksand the

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and of Persephone celebratesthe freedom of an unsuspiciouspresent.Yet this sensuality holds the history of the cosmosin it, and heraldsits future lives. Dionysus, the magic present forces,becomesharbinger of new forms of life and is transformed child, as generatorof new into Hermesor Kasmillos, the fourth Cabeirian god.

betweenthe two words, in which Hermesis the traveller god, who transfersthe messages Dionysus unreflectively dwelled. Longing, which passedfrom burning desire to plastic now seemsto reflect upon itself, to announceitself, to discern its transformations, sensuality, to foretell its future ones.Hermes,with his golden sandals,flies like the wind from one world from past to future, enlivens memories and dreams,but also to the other, sendsmessages organisesplots and plans, and carries the magic wand, the golden rod which suddenly gives luck or misfortune, fulfils or destroysthe plans that he inserted in mortals' minds; he is called the guide of dreamsand the protector of travellers but he is also the patron of robbers and thieves and all who are expert in gaining advantagethrough trickery. Hermes is the first Cabeiri god who utters the word, by announcing his theurgy, as the forerunner of a future Through Hermesthere is the premonition, the senseof awaiting, preparing for, even god. the creation of the future god, and thus he carries the sensationof time, the first planning seedsof order, which, yet, may suddenly spreadaway under a simple movement of his wand. Hermesthough, the god of communication, seemsto stand as servant of the god whom he heralds.This is Zeus, the Highest Derniurge, god of order andjustice. "If then thosepreceding are ( inner)-worldly deities, so the god to whom they are the leader and ladder, personalities whom Kasmilos directly serves,is the transcendentgod, the god who rules them and thus is the lord of the world, the demiurge, or in the highest sense,Zeus."15

Irrational, p.64. 15 Schelling's Treatiseon The Deities of Samotrace,p.24.

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for the order which is depictedby the transient and dynamic balancesof forces in Zeus stands becoming,but as long as this order appearsto govem and subordinatethese the cosmic long as order is uttered and proclaimed as permanent,then it becomestranscendent forces, as Zeus loseshis touch with the world, ascendsto the top of the Olympic and subjugating. the world, accordingto his own order, becoming thus the highest Pantheon,and recreates Demiurge. However, even Zeus is not a static figure, for he himself seemsto violate his own The god of justice and highest power becomesthe initiator of deception and conspiracy, rules. impotent in the face of Demeter's threats,dependenton Hephaestos'skills, vulnerable to his desires.Now he sendsthunderboltsand claims his gifts from the sacrifices of the own but then becomesgolden rain and descends earth to get what he desires.Zeus to mortals, Dionysus and Dionysus to Zeus anew. " But Dionysus is also a derniurgeand returns to the creation from the indeed,so to speak,the demiurge overcoming Hephaestos who releases bonds of necessityand setsit forth in free multiplicity ......... Zeus is also again

Dionysus.....That is, Zeus is again relatedto the first three potencies,as the secondis related to the first ....... But moreover, 16 Dionysus returns once again to the higher potency"

The chain now seemsto bend back on itself, to close itself and enter into the rhythm of a We are left with the messages five gods. However, theseseemto of recurrentmovement. for somedistinctive momentsor potenciesoperative in the cosmic becoming. In standonly

16 op. cit. p.35, Schelling's notes,number 80. In this note Schelling,attemptsto explain the non- hierarchical relation of Zeus with the previous deities drawing on the Pythagoriandoctrine of the generativemonad.Although this mode of correlation may allude to a sort of approach- which Schelling otherwiserejects - the main issuearising from this note is that emanationism to Schelling,Zeus doesnot constitutea highest, ultimate stage,but emergesout and sinks again to the according other potencies.Also, we stressSchelling's interestingremark, that Zeus's number is always 4, the numberof and order and completion. Carl Jung also, in his writings on the archetypesof the collective unconsciousness the fourfold symbols and systemswith the archetypeof order, totality, oneness, notion of quartenity,associated fulfilment.

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fact we met an indeterminablemultiplicity of potencies,since eachof these gods is itself multi- naturedand mainly theurgic, perennially producing new potencies. First of all it is clear that those initial deities are the very samepowers through whose rule the whole world chiefly was constituted; thus it is clear that they are action and cosmic deities. Collectively they are called Hephaestos....Hephaestoshimself is worldly, in the sequence Cabeiri, as little as his name appearsamong those of the seven of not or in the circuit of the days of the week, (which is) the key to all systemsof gods, planets I hope to show someday.Taken all togetherthesepreceding deities, or as we also could as The creation of Hephaestosis the world of theseserving deities, are Hephaestos. say, He is that which holds the All in strict constraint. But he is also the artistic necessity. of the Whole. He is also that which forms the innerworldy seatof the gods, sculptor of the oneshigher than he himself..... But Dionysus is also a demiurge and certainly indeed, so to speak,the derniurgeovercoming Hephaestos, who releasescreation from the forth in free multiplicity. 17(my emphasis) bonds of necessityand sets doesnot standas a separate deity. In the Cabeiri cosmogony there is no higher Hephaestos Deity - what the Greeksheld asMoira or Fate - to bind and externally predestinethe cosmic becoming. It is rather the very existenceand movementof this becoming that is itself Hephaestos'world standsfor the necessityof the interaction of cosmic forces and necessary. their arising orders.The potencieswhich weave the web of necessityare the very sameones undo it, breaking and relinking the cosmic chain. Zeus and Dionysus play and struggle which transform into eachother, construct and deconstructthe cosmosand infuse it with eachother, throughout.However, thesedeities do not exhaustlife, but are consideredas merely initial, and further productive of new deities, lower or higher, latent or manifest, which constitutive for their discovery, hidden in the uniquenessof each culture, historical epoch and human call

soul.

The Cabeiri and Schelling through them, utter their word more as a riddle, rather than as a doctrine. Hence,they speakthe oracular languageof logogriphs, not only with revelatory regardto what they say but mostly with regard to what they do not say, but only allude to. Yet

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their languagepresentsan extraordinary intensity and fullness, and even managesto effect a influence upon one's personality, for what they do not say they let it be experienced. shaking This is the meaningof the mystical which characterises their cult practices.The mystical does to any supra-naturalentity, nor to the allegedly closed and inaccessiblecharacterof not refer their rituals, since the Cabeiri mysteries,precursorsof the Dionysian ones, were a collective festivity. The mystical, instead,comesimmediately from the natural element itself, and open is not deadand fragmented,but transpiresthe miracle of life, the mystery of perennial which this is precisely the central meaningof the Cabeiri mysteries.These are said to be creation; dedicatedto the light of dawn, to the wondrous springing of life out of unknown cosmic 18In this context, the mystical element in the experienceof the mysteries does forces. not intend to hold a redemptivefunction, as would be the caseif the mystical was associatedto an and the liberation from natural bonds and sins deriving thereby. Instead absolutespirituality the notion of the mystical in the Cabeiri rituals attemptsto describethe distinctive sensuality of emergesout of the particular atmosphere the mysteries: the sensationof sinking in which

flash of light in the midst of the darkness, the the darkness an all-night festivity, the sudden of
of burning torchesand moist ivy leafs, the rhythms of vibrating cymbals, all these smells bring Dionysus' vibrating heart close to mortals and render the divine elementswhich imminent to man, too close and yet too far, immanent and transcendent,palpable and invisible, presentand all-infusing but app7lrov. As such the mystical signifies the unique and exclusive mode through which eachone experienceshis participation in the mysteries. Yet this mystical experiencecould open new, unprecedented paths of communication, understandingand knowledge of the world and one's soul, since it mostly consistsin an with the divine, in an extraordinary activation of one's inner physical, active engagement

17 Op. cit. p.24,35, footnote 80. 18 Kerenyi, The Cabeiri Mysteries, in The GreekMysteries. C.

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mental forces, mediatedthrough a seriesof symbolic deeds,the so-called psychic and 8p(*cva, where 'truths' are communicatednot only through their utterancebut by meansof dramatisation. It is by meansof one's SpWv(x that one discovers and createshis evertheir

in this is also,possibly,themeaning Schelling'sstatement the Freedom of self,and changing

19 that "man's being is essentiallyhis own deed' . essay

We may now recover the deepermeaningof the Cabeiri messages, which seemsto be the of the imminenceof the divine and the personaltransformation or even experience transmutationemergingout of it. This experiencein turn, seemsto be expressiblethrough a logogriphic or a mythic form. Here, myth is not intendedto stand for another explanatory for a religious doctrine; for the Cabeiri are neither abstractand anaernic schemaor moreover ontological personalities.The Cabeiri deities stand for the living, nor hypostasised concepts, transmutable,dynamic, unpredictable,unknown and manifest potencies non-hierarchical, constitutethe paradoxesof the world, the magic of insoluble life. Hence, their mythic which is both an allegory and a tautegory, since it attemptsto name the (xppilrov of a representation becoming, since this form allows the inexhaustibleengagementof man with the paradox real the world, as being an active part of it. It seemsalso that this mythic form requires the of of of the absolute,since the appearance the latter either engulfs and occupies all eclipse becoming - which appearsas but a manifestation of its own homogeneoussubstance or -, becomestranscendent and rendersbecoming disenchanted .
20

it However, is not the Cabeirimythsandtheir cult that intendto accommodate Schelling's

for the creation of a new mythology. Schelling doesnot suggestthat we should adopt vision
19Of Human Freedom, p.63.

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21 beliefs and rehearse their rituals, as the Romansdid, even printing them on their coins; their devoid of creative spirit lies in needof borrowing the spirit of its ancestors, for only an age it in objectsof exchange.Schelling discoversthe Cabeiri spirit only in order to only to ossify

to discover own gods,to create own 8p(*cvcc andmyths,according our our our call us to
The re-enchantmentof this world is not going to different and sin-fflar,experiences. own , the excavationof old templesand the dogmatic adoption of old religions. A come through be awaited and recalled and Schelling seemsto be suggestingthat it theurgy seemsto new lurks in this very disenchanted world. As far as the fate of the Cabeiri is concerned already "To us the finest employment of the namewould be grantedin that moment when it also Cabeiri-like alliance, through which the power of a truly Typhonian realm was recalls that broken, and at last its final convulsions stifled, one which threatenedto end in general first demoralisation.
22 ,

20Schelling devotesextensivecritical commentson scholarswho reducethe Cabeiri polytheism to monotheistic dogmasor emanationsystems,seeSchelling's Treatise on The Deities of Samothrace p.22,23,24,25. , 21&t flattery;
In the later period of the Roman empire the once holy name of the Cabeiri was profaned through on not only the bust of the pious Antoninus or of Marcus Aurelious appeared, but even the head of a Domitian coins the inscription of the Cabeiri deities. ", Schelling 's Treatise on the The Deities of Samothrace , p. 30. along with 22Op. Cit. p. 30.

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Section III

Conclusion: Helmet and pomegranate

The twenty-eight line Homeric Hymn attemptsto presentthe true identity of the Athena and her astonishingepiphany among the other Olympian gods: goddess I begin to sing of PallasAthena, the glorious goddess,owl-eyed, inventive, unbending Tritogeneia. From his awful head heart,pure virgin, saviour of cities, courageous, of Zeus himself bore her arrayedin warlike arms of flashing gold, and awe seized wise the gods as they gazed.But Athena sprangquickly from the immortal headand all before Zeus who holds the aegis,shaking a sharpspear:great Olympus beganto stood horribly at the might of the owl-eyed goddess,and earth round about cried reel fearfully, and the seawas moved and tossedwith dark waves, while foam burst forth the birth son of Hyperion stoppedhis swift-footed horsesa long while, until suddenly: the maidenPallasAthena had stripped the heavenly armour from her immortal ' And wise Zeus was glad. shoulders.

Hence,Athena, the goddessof mind and thought-nouskai dianoia- has been bequeathed later agesas the celebrateddaughterof the mighty Zeus. According to to the poet, the goddessknows only of a father and belongs wholly to him. No mother birth to her. The most famous image of the goddesscomes from her Acropolis gave her body coveredby a shield and the headby a huge helmet, ready statue:armed,with to attack or to guard;Athena Poliuchos, the great, impregnable protectressof the polis of Athens; her statue,sign of the Athenian valour in the Persianwars. Athena kindles the heroesand inspirits them at the right instant. She standsby Achilles, Diomedes,and others favourites in battles and shows exceptional care to Hercules,the serni-godhero, who paveshis way to the gods by his extraordinary

1Homeric Hymn to Athena

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deeds.In Aeshcylus's Eumenides,sheunambiguouslydeclaresher masculine nature: "No mother bore me, in all things my heart turns to the male, saveonly for the 2 And, yet Athena does not stand for the and I incline wholly to the father.', wedlock, brutal masculinity of the god of war, Ares. Nor her bright reasoning for the Apollo. For the encouragement the battles is always of contemplativereasonof by moderationand prudenceand her wisdom by practical spirit and the accompanied knowledge of skills and handicraftship.She is not predominantly the warrior goddess, but the great counsellor,the prudent admonisherand also the patronessof craftsmanship,teacherof useful skills, goddessof healing powers and peaceful arts. At this stage,Athena seemsto needalso a mother, and her various admirers remember the 'monstrous' aspectof the myth: Athena did not spring from Zeus's head ex nihilo, Zeus had devouredhis wife, Metis, in order to avoid the Fate of his father but because However, Metis was alreadypregnantwith Athena, who grew and grandfather. in Zeus's head and violently burst forth out of it. As daughter of Metis painfully counsel,measureand order - Athena is also called poly-metis, i. e. manywhich means Sheis the goddessof thoughtful and practical consideration of things. counsellor. Sheshifts knowledge from the exclusive realm of her father's power to humankind. Sheis interestedin the emancipationof humansfrom the gods, in the enhancement of the civilising progressand the defenceof the polis. She teachesskilful techniquesand humansto bridle their passionsand uncontrollable desires.She guides admonishes she humansin the market-placeand enablesthem to take reasonabledecisions.She

inventsthejury, in orderto renderthe humans ableto maketheir ownjudgements hidden in the realm of the gods or the relentlessMoira and to wrest human until now from the whims of the gods. consciousness
2Cited in W. Otto's, TheHomeric Gods, 173. p.

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Athena is thus the bright and benevolentgoddess:the owl-eyed goddess,whose flashing eyes- as the owl's - are able to seeall around and in the dark. She standsfor the ability of reflection, assessment the whole, prudentjudgement. But she is not of

her combatingspirit is Her insightfulmind is no detached as reasoning, merepensive.

unconstrainedimpulse. She is the goddessof thoughtful action, of reflective, not awareness her actions,which leadsher to the Victory, as it has been of recollective by Phidias's statue,where Athena holds the goddessof Nike in her right represented hand. As such, sheis the 'owl of Minerva', who flies - victoriously - in the dusk. Athena is, above all, Zeus' daughter.For all her civilising undertakings Nevertheless, under the aegis of her father. She fosters humans' emancipation from the gods, occur but only within the limits of Zeus' tolerance.It is with his advice that she helps his devotedheroes,whilst shedeniesaid or even horribly punishesanyone who threatens Zeus' monokratoria (exclusive power), anticipating thus, the paradoxical linkage betweenmonotheismand logic. It haseven been suggestedthat the vulture which

liver, dueto his disobedience Zeus,wasAthena on to everynight pecked Prometheus'

3 herself.

Athena's victory seemsthus to be buttressedby Zeus' power and his incontestable order.

However, thereis another, marginalmyth which alludesto the possibilityof a

completely different accountfor the birth of the goddess.The myth was written by Apollodorus and Virgil and is as follows: Askalaphos was the son of Acheron river the Underworld - and Gorgyia - also called Orphne, i. e. Darkness.Askalaphoswas of mentionedas a tailed, semi-human,semi-lizard-like creature, and possibly the root of

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his nameis a-skallo, which meansthe non-cultivated. When Hades gave Persephone in order to captureher in the Underworld, Askalaphos - as dweller the pomegranate, fatal act, without, Hades- was the only witness of Persephone's of the realm of

into a Askalaphos in her.Demeter, her fury, transformed though,trying to prevent

in lived with Persephone the Underworld. The connection of the screechowl, which Askalaphoswith the owl of Minerva may sound artificial, but transformed in the ancient statueof Athena-Nike, Athena holds in her left paradoxically enough, hand a pomegranate, the Athenians also called her their Kore, that is their and Persephone.

The myth stopshere, and the book continueswith other stories. What happenedto the we do not know. It may have stayedfor agesin the underworld, owl afterwards, until the defeatof the old regime of Cronus and the victory of the perhapswaiting Olympian Pantheon,whenceit might have flown into Metis' body. For Metis does not meanscounsel,measureand order. Metis was a Titaness, and thus her measure simply for the old order, that pertaining to the age of the Titans and not to the order of stands Zeus. And this is, possibly, the missing link betweenAthena's masculine nature and her feminine countenance, and not her counsel aspect,which doesnot necessarily her masculinetemperament,nor contradict Zeus' order4.For, if Metis' order modify that of Zeus', he would not feel threatenedby her forthcoming child. The owl was to be Demeter's wild creation, and moreover, the irresponsible, now seems

child of the river of the underworldandthe darkness, uncultivated nurturedby

and forbidden desires.This child had probably to wait until the polis pomegranates
3 Shearer Athene,Image and Energy, p. 17, Arkana, 1998 A.,

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to consolidateZeus' order, and the Athenians to establish their Panellenic, needed identity - againstthe barbarianinvaders-, in order to be transformed into victorious Athena's mysteriouspast appearsas impregnable as the goddess the prudent goddess.

itself only in the enticing fruit that she image- andbetrays herself- in herprominent
holds in her left hand. Yet, there are other suspiciousstories that also reveal a less bright, rather dark aspectof the goddess,as the following, written by Philostratus: Athena was chasedby Hephaistos,but she resistedhim, and his semenfell to the Earth (Chthon). However, out of their strife (eris), a child was born, Eri-chthon. Athena soughtto savethe child and to bring it up in secret.She received it from earth shelaid the child in a coveredbasket- probably such as those which are used in and the Mysteries. From the basket a serpentcrawls out, and later was said that Athena ' longer the virgin maiden - had borne a serpent. no If in ancienttimes, Athena was the mother of a serpent,by the time the Parthenonof Athens was dedicatedto Mary as mother of God, Athena was officially recognisedas the Mother of God, Thetokos,while in the Age of Enlightenment she standsagain for

the the powerof humanreason, owl of Minerva.What Athenawould be in Schelling's

epochof a new mythology, it is hard to guess. visionary

It may now have becomeobvious why we began our concluding remarks with these two different myths with regard the birth of Athena. Our investigation, as a whole, revolves aroundthesetwo depictions: Athena as solid goddessof the brightness and of reason,immutable order and restitutive power, and Athena, as elusive purity goddessof transmutations,unknown flights and unpredictable images.
4 SeeW. Otto' and A. Shearer'sinterpretations, where they attribute Athena's feminity to her counsel and aspects her action-orientednature.

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in fact, in the courseof this researchwe met someof her transformations.We found her rescuingDionysus' heart, and sitting silently by Logos - as Sophia - but mainly, saw her fighting for order and power. The latter image standsfor the mode through we has the goddess predominantly been understoodby the modern era. She has which beenidentified with the realm of humanreasonin its order-giving authority, of the world or its possessiveappropriation. Accordingly, normative comprehension we saw the confinement of the notion of cognitive experienceto the realm that falls under the aegis of reason,that is, under its rules, preceptsor precisely drives. We found, though, that this was a too narrow realm to expressa voluntaristic restlessand ever-transformativegoddess. Schelling's thought points to the discovery of the unsettling images of the goddess.He her not only as the sensiblevirgin, moderatecounsellor and protectressof understood the polis, but also as mistressof logos, impulsive actress,destroyer of polies. He discoveredthat the goddessof calm reflection emergesfrom intractable longing and furious passions.He called us to rediscoverthe goddessin her inexhaustible transmutationsin the theurgy of the cosmic becoming and the 'magic of insoluble life'.

Hence,we may now turn to the main conclusion of our research,which is needfor a radical reconceptualisationof the notion of experience. philosophy's In the courseof our investigation, we first examined the logic of experience,through Kant's and Fichte's accountsof experience.
Kant's major contribution is the thernatisation in various ways of the aporia of cognitive experience: the aporia of phenomenal knowledge in its juxtaposition to the
5 Kerenyi C., The Godsof the Greeks,p. 125,Thames

and Hudson, 1961

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realm, the riddle of judgement-power, the perplexity of reflection in its nournenal the disorderly abundanceof nature, the normativity of Reason's confrontation with Architectonic. However, the original question of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgementspre-emptsthe solution to the aporia. For, the very formulation of this to the necessityof the invention of the foundational questionessentiallyamounts for the attainment of synthetic a priori knowledge. This, as has been shown conditions in the first chapter,leadsto the reduction of the notion of experienceto the formal the understanding;a model, which presupposes and satisfies the conditions for rules of identical-through-timeformal subjectivity. Cognitive experienceappearsas an an internally consistent,organisedand transparentwhole, which managesto purify itself from the enigmasof the world. Theseare compactedto the realm of noumena,as if, in this way, understanding can do its work unperturbed,namely, the ordering and of the world. However, this task appearsimpossible when reflective systernatisation judgement confronts the contingent, which escapes rules of the understanding.It is the the confrontation with the contingent that stirs the rigidified conceptualisationof in the CPR and forces the understandingto a free play with imagination. experience Reflection, in its engagement with the inexhaustible richness of the world, appears and powerless;its previous entitlements to legislative authority upon nature puzzled 'illegal', and, moreover, no other contract seemsto be forthcoming. For, are rendered the free play betweenunderstandingand imagination excites the feeling of life in the judging subject,and life can hardly be regulatedby contracts.However, reflection, insteadof welcoming its puzzlement- through a deeperengagementwith the paradoxesof life -, turns to the securerealm of Reason:Reflection, even in the elusive caseof the contingent, must be able to accomplish synthetic a prior! judgements. The latter, if they cannot be constitutive of experience,should at least be prescriptive.

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Hence,Reasonfrom Judgebecomesan Architect, in order to establish this time its harmoniousedifice rather than its severetribunal. In both cases,experienceis the outcomeof a syn-thetic activity, performed by the judging eventually conceivedas subject: a constitutive synthesisof the understanding,which transforms the into an orderly, unified cognitive fragmentedspatio-temporalrepresentations judgement, and a normative synthesis,of the harmonious mental statebetween and imagination, which transforms the contingent into a final object for understanding the Architectonic of Reason.Both syntheses attempt an ultimate resolution of the of cognitive judgement, whilst the world remains essentially opaqueand alien enigma to the subject.Thus, the enigma of the world loses its fascinating and provocative dynan*s, since it is either settled in the rules of the understandingand the preceptsof to the realm of pure faith: the aporia of cognitive experience reason,or expelled betweenan orderly settlementand a static fixation. oscillates

Fichte's accountof experienceturns the Kantian duality between knowledge and faith into their identity: the faith in logic and the logic of faith. His project, as we saw in the third chapter,essentiallyamountsto a severelogical enterpriseto prove his faith in the self-positing ego. Fichte's identity-thinking does not rescuethe notion of absolute from the limitations of the representationalmodel. In fact, it enhances experience them, since in Fichte's account,experienceis entirely exhaustedby the ego's determinations,without even acknowledging the subjective and limited characterof thesedeterminations.If Kant expels the divine from the realm of experience,Fichte appropriatesit and deforms it by reducing it to the absolute,primordial ego. Identitythinking, rather than providing a richer notion of experiencethan the representational, leadsto a doctrinaire accountof experience:a dual separationbetweensubject/object,

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infinite/finitude, is substitutedby their identity, where the absoluteego self/world, the world and its enigma. absorbs This is the case,in a reverseway, with Schelling's early Identity Philosophy, which, due to its obsessionwith the concept of the Absolute, constructsthefaith of experience.

This thesisarguesfor the needof a radical reconceptualisationof the notion of challengesboth the logic and the faith of experience,through the experience,which logogrif of experience.This is intimated by Schelling's original insights into the theurgy and man's active engagement with it. notion of cosmic The logogrific approachtowards the notion of experiencerecognisesneither the Architectonic of Reasonnor the Architectonic of the Cosmos: it neither expels the divine nor exalts it. Logogrif welcomesthe divine in the world, in its enigmatic and multiplicity, sensualityand spirituality, mortality and regeneration,transcendence immanence.The logogrific notion of experiencethus maintains the enigma of world, in its most various and unpredictablemanifestations,thereby maintaining the dynamicsof man's active engagement with it. Cognitive experiencesprings from the diversified shapesof life, which, in their exuberantrichness,carry the enigmatic most of the most intensecontradictions: the logogrific approachtransforms the static unity into a moving and ever-transmutable riddle. aporia

Therefore,we come to the conclusion that experiencecannot be reducedto the

level of the orderlyclassification the world, according the rulesof "rrinirnal-6 to of

6 SeeBenjamin W., Program of the Coming Philosophy.

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the cognising consciousness the latter's needto consolidateits firm identity; and can it be soughtin the enlargednormative reconstructionsof the architectonic neither Moreover, experiencecannot be degradedto the ego's obsessive of reason. jealous wilfulness. Instead,through Schelling's insights, we have and possessiveness inclusive and yet incomplete and allusive notion of experience,which seena more derives from the untameablerealm of the cosmic theurgy and the inexhaustible of life. In this context the recurrent problem of the subject-object multifariousness by dichotomy is readdressed an innovative approach:this dichotomy is not suspended by the ego's will nor doesit alternatein thought's recollective inversions. The subjectpolarity blurs in the magic of life itself, which standsfor the paradoxical realm object their indifference,the enigmatic indifference of their highest autonomy and deeper of bond, both. The logogrific notion of experienceis woven by a longing consciousness: longing for penetratinginto the mysteriesof the cosmos,longing to decodify, and play with them. This notion includes the erratic, ineffable and experience

historyof theunknownforcesof the unconscious, inscrutable history of the recurrent

the life of the gods, the theurgic history of the cosmic becoming. Thesehistories but though, as histories not of self-consciousness of its 'others', are mythologies. Accordingly, Logos needsto reflect not only upon its own history but also upon its and the history of its 'other': Mythos'. This brings us to the brink of a pre-history forthcoming project, namely to the investigation of the relation betweenlogos and through their entangledhistory, but also in the light of their intriguing future. mythos,

" The very fact that Kant was able to commencehis immensework under the constellationof the Enlightenmentindicatesthat his work was undertakenon the basis of an experiencevirtually reducedto " nadir, to a minimum of significance.

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Appendix I Heidegger's critical remarks on Kant

Heideggerexpoundedhis critical interpretation of Kant mainly through his major book, Kant and the Problems of Metaphysics( 1929).Heidegger's critique is wellknown and highly influential, mainly with regard to the disclosure and upgrading of imagination in the task of the deduction of the categories,a role which has the role of implicitly assignedby Kant and later was abandonedin favour of the only understanding. This substantialinsight however, belongs to a wider project to which Heidegger the retrieval of the ground laying of Metaphysics and thereby the attempts,namely introduction of his FundamentalOntology. In this thesis, we will not be concerned the wider Heideggerianproject, since this would require a separateresearch.We with focus our remarkson the issuesrelated to Heidegger's appraisal of German will Idealism and consequentlyon his conceptionof the issue of finitude, which also to be the standpointof his critique of Schelling. appears As alreadymentioned,Heidegger's undertaking of Kant's CPR developsfrom the the laying of the Ground of Metaphysics.According to perspectiveof reconsidering Heidegger,Kant's fundamentaltask of the Deduction of the categoriesshould not be interpretedin cognitive or epistemologicalterms. Instead,it rather implicitly addresses

in therebyformulates, a specificmode,a groundfor Metaphysics indeedfor and and

Ontology. The transcendental question, by introducing the idea that in order for beingsto be understood- ontic knowledge in Heidegger's terms there should be -,

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conditions that make the knowledge in question possible - ontological somea priori knowledge-, lays the ground for Metaphysics,in the specific mode of an inquiry into the realm of Pure Reason.The Kantian mode of ground laying atteststo the ongoing the fundamentalquestionof Being, even though in the reduced and recurrenceof disguisedfonn of a critique of Pure Reason. Heideggerthen discernsthat Kant introduced the laying of the ground not only in Pure Reasonbut also, implicitly, in terms of Being, by meansof the role of terms of by the imagination. The latter hasbeen insightfully suggested Kant in the first edition the Deduction,but was neglectedand ultimately expelled from the secondedition: of "Kant himself ....helped to preparethe turn away from an uncomprehendedfinitude toward a conforming infinitude"'. Imagination, with its double nature and intrinsic temporality, constitutesa much more fruitful ground than that of Pure Reason,so long it anticipates Heidegger'sDasein, thereby inaugurating the retrieval of as Metaphysicsin terms of Heidegger'snew ontology. Being manifested itself in a

but to of remembrance, sincethen,seems haveagainsunkinto deepoblivion. moment

We will discusslater the relevanceof imagination to the Kantian project, in order to to Heidegger's main point, namely the retrieval and reformulation of the now proceed laying of the ground of Metaphysics. So far Kant hasbeen appraisedfor the acknowledgementof the necessityto distinguish betweenontic and ontological knowledge; this is the way Heidegger introducesthe questionof Being, namely in transcendentalterms:

If we ask about the possibility of comprehending something like Being, we

1SeeHeideggerM., Kant and the Problemsof Metaphysics.

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do not then invent this "Being" and violently force it into becoming a in order, perhaps,to take up again a question from the philosophical problem tradition. Rather what is asked about is the possibility of comprehending of us as human beings already and permanently understands.For its what all part, the question of Being as a question concerning the possibility of the of Being, springs forth from the preconceptual understanding of concept 2 Being. Heideggerattemptsto maintain the difference betweenontic and ontological knowledge,betweenexperienceand the conditions of its possibility, but in such a way to avoid the fixation and thereby the oblivion of Being. Transcendentalmethod as itself. the conditions for possibility of experienceare already then transcends by experienceitself. The understandingof beings presupposes the conditioned Being, which, however, transpiresfrom beings themselves. understandingof He However, Heideggerwill forget his transcendence. will require the removal of beings for the understandingof Being, relocating Being in the very tradition that he dismissedand yet reproduced. himself reconstructed, The main point of Heidegger's undertakingis the "authentic result" of the Kantian

in laying.The latterconsists the confession aboutthe finiteness human of ground

therefore about finitude in general, as the fundamental essence the cognition, and of humancondition. Despite Kant's retreat to the convenienceof sheerspontaneity,the issueof finitude arisesinexorably out of the mere utteranceof the three central what can I know, what should I do, what may I hope?. questions: The innermost interest of human reasonunites thesethree questionsin itself. In it, an ability, a duty, and a allowing (to hope) of human reasonstand in question. Where an ability is questionableand wants to be delimited in terms of its it alreadyplacesitself within a disability. An all powerful entity need possibilities, What can I do, i. e., What can I not do? It not only does not have to ask, but not ask: it accordingly to its essence cannot posethis question at all. This disability, however,is no deficiency; it is rather what is untouchedin very deficiency and
lbid. p.158.

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"not". Whosoevercomeswholly to be moved by his innermost interest in this 3 a finitude in the depthsof his essence. questionreveals

Hence,the recognition of finitude - as the deeperessence the human being - is what of the basis for the retrieval of Metaphysics.The legacy of German should constitute Idealism should be reconsideredso long as the claims of Pure Reasonforget the fundamentalconceptof finitude: On the basisof a fundamentally inadequatemetaphysicalconception of man (as ego) humanpersonality, Kant and his successors appealto the notion of absolute and of spirit, and then attempt to determinethe essenceof man on the person or absolute basis of this inadequateconceptof spirit. The self-containedcharacterof this of only concealsthe questionableness its initial approachand absolutesystematicity its point of departure,since here the problem of man, of human Dasein in general, has not beenproperly recognisedas a problem. But Hegel's step from Kant to idealism is the sole consequence Western philosophy. It becamepossible of absolute through Kant becausethe problem of human Dasein, the problem of and necessary finitude, did not properly becomea problem for Kant himself. That is to say, this did becomethe central problem of philosophy becauseKant himself, as the second not the Critique of Pure Reasonreveals,helped to preparethe turn away from edition of finitude toward a conforming infinitude. 4 an uncomprehended

Hence,Heideggeradmits that Kant introduced the notion of finitude, either in terms the undevelopedform of the imagination or through the very limits of a being who of is obliged to ask what could he know, do, and hope, but not ultimately so, so long as Kant eventually appealsto the notion of the absoluteperson. The fundamental indeed in terms of Dasein, becomes,then, the key issue so conceptoffinitude, and that the notion of the absoluteperson should be dismissedand along with it a new dawn for the history of philosophy would arise. Does, however, the concept of finitude as such constitute the escaperoute from the impasseof the notion of absolute person,or rather, are they perfectly compatible and indeed supplementaryconcepts?

Ibid. p. 142.

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To begin with, Kant not only implicitly introduced but he rather built his whole the basis of the assumptionof finitude. Our conclusion from the systemon deduction,namely the necessityof the continuous through- time, transcendental formal identity of the self, derives precisely from the assumptionof an absolute finitude in the human condition: a non creative intuition, which merely receivesthe a spontaneitythat is able to deliver only rules. For only a being who is so givenness, cut off and thus ultimately alien from its world, standsin need of persistent radically rigid rules and incessantregularity, as the constantformal identity self-control, In turn, only a being abstractedfrom nature needsthe assumptionof prescribes. finality in Nature, and again only a being intolerably tormentedby its finitude strives for its absolutepurification by meansof the moral law. In other endlessly contention is that it is the assumptionof finitude itself, in Kant, which words, our leadshim to the notion of an absoluteand yet self-defeating subjectivity. In fact, it is the specific conceptualisationof the finitude that leavesthe human being thus exposed an arrogant identity or a self-humiliating either and consequentlynecessitates discipline. It is a conceptof finitude that standsin absoluteseparationfrom infinitude thus becomesa relation of awe and obedienceof the former to the latter. In turn, and the this separationdesecularises infinite itself; it rendersit a compelling, omnipotent, indestructibleand even faultless concept,which man has always to take seriously. Man can no longer competeor play with his gods; he thinks only his ineluctable and he could never conceive of the possibility of theirs', i. e. gods', as well. mortality This conceptualisationof finitude coffespondsto a conceiving of time as an a priori form of intuition deprived of any creative potential and to a conception of temporality

4 HeideggerM., The FundamentalConceptsof Metaphysics, 208. p.

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sequentialmonadic moments.Heidegger's original as a processof unifying interpretationof Kant's CPR is precisely built on his enterpriseto prove the creative intuition and the receptive element of pure understanding,both elementof pure

but from the common, no longer,"to us, unknownroot" of human actuallyspringing

knowledge, the transcendental power of imagination. Heidegger claims, contra to Kantian scholarswho "all too quickly deny that something is intuited in pure most
intuition in general"5, and simply consider intuition as a mere form, that pure intuition

is in fact formative and therefore creative. Pure intuitions are claimed by Kant as because they "let somethingspring forth... .....they are (i. e. pure intuitions) original formative in the peculiar sensethat they pro-posethe look of spaceand time in totalities which are in themselvesmanifold. In this presenting, however, advanceas Now, the creative dimension of lies the essence the pure power of imagination.996 of intuition hasbeeninsightfully brought out by Schelling in his Systemof Idealism (1800). Here, Schelling, breaking from the ego-based Transcendental of intuition, elucidatesthe point that in order for receptivity to be receptive conception it should also be active since the fact of receptivity itself manifests an ability to at all, , and therefore a creative element.Schelling, though, did not rush to classify receive, his discovery under a new generic concept,but he let it flow in the still unknown and inscrutablerealm of cosmic or even non-cosmic forces. Heidegger though, specifies the creative elementof pure intuition as follows: The rooting of pure intuition in the pure power of imagination becomesclear if we ask about the characterof what is intuited in pure intuition What is .... discernedin pure intuition is a whole which is unified in itself, although it is not empty, and whose parts are alwaysjust limitations of itself. But this unified whole must allow itself to be discernedin advanceregarding this togetherness its of
5 HeideggerM., Kant and the Problemsof Metaphysics, 1oo. p. 6
Op. Cit. 'P. 99.

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which is for the most part indistinct. Pure intuition - originally manifoldness, i. e., giving unity - must catch sight of the unity. Kant therefore rightly unifying, here not of a synthesis,but rather of the Synopsis.The totality of what is speaks intuited in pure intuition doesnot have the unity which characterisesthe The unity of the totality of intuition, therefore, also universality of a concept. forth from the "synthesis"of the understanding.It is a unity which is cannot spring in advancein the image-giving imagining. The "syn" of the totality of caught sight time belongsto a faculty of formative intuition. The pure synopsis, if it spaceand the essence pure intuition, is only possible in the transcendental of constitutes of imagination, and that is all the more as this ( transcendentalpower of power imagination ) is in general the origin of all that is synthetic. "Synthesis" must be here in a way, which is quite wide enoughto encompassthe synopsis of taken intuition and the " synthesis"of the understanding.(my emphasis)

From the aboveextract, we can draw the following results: Heidegger exhauststhe creative dimension of intuition as a unifying role, which, however, does spontaneous, from the spontaneityof understanding,and thus is synoptic rather than not spring How are we to understandthis apparentlyimportant distinction between synthetic. In and synthesis? fact, here,Heideggermakes a claim about his conception synopsis Being and Logos, their common origin and their split. Imagination's power is of it because is intended to pertain to the essenceof Being. conceivedas a unifying one The latter is conceived,mainly in his lecture-textAn Introduction to Metaphysics, as the power that springs forth, emerges,appearsin its simultaneousdisclosure and in and most importantly, as standingin itself, gatheredtogetherness itself concealment by itself, and maintainedby itself in such togetherness. Logos also, consideredas and 7 the emerging power that "the steadygathering,, , standsfor the "intrinsic togetherness

i. theessent, e., thebeing' , still belongsto Being.Nevertheless, "synthesis"of the of

belongs to the epoch of the separationof Logos from Being; synthesis understanding hasforgotten synopsis,and yet it insists to determine it, insofar as this appearsmore

,8

7 HeideggerM., An Introduction to Metaphysics,p. 130. 8Op. cit. p.131.

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in We discussed, the fourth chapter, Heidegger's conception of Being as comfortable. with respectto his interpretation of Schelling's philosophy. At present,our gatherness is to find out to what extent the Kantian concept of pure intuition could main concern in Heidegger's ontological project, as he attempts to.9 be indeed accommodated As alreadymentionedthe angle from which Heideggerdiscovers the creative element intuition is its mode of totality, in its springing forth. Heidegger did not further of pure develop the idea of springing forth itself, as a process,but he rather focused in its
forth as a totality, which in this way attests to pure intuition's creative springing

It is the caseindeed,that accordingto Kant, spaceand time, as pure intuitions, power. as totalities apart from the synthetic activity of the understanding.This are represented however, doesnot entail the unifying, and moreover, the thus creative element of intuition, for in fact this immediate inference missesthe crucial point that Kant does totality in terms of any unifying activity, even in the wider senseof the not conceive Instead,Kant conceivesthe totality of pure intuition in the form of notion of synthesis. basic feature of any intuition at all-, being consistent with his their singularity -a of intuition as sheergivenness,as demonstrationof the inexorable generalconception finitude of human knowledge. When Kant refers to pure intuitions, he passivity and assumptionsfor human receptivity under spaceand time as the necessary means could be manifestedat all to human beings. It is highly which empirical manifold the why Kant doesseparate conditions of givennessfrom the givenness questionable itself, but this critical question should not lead us to an interpretation of pure intuition that would indeed raise the Kantian inconsistencybut would miss Kant's point about
9Heideggerattemptsto appropriateKant's CPR in a double sense,namely both with regard to the role of imaginationthat allegedly anticipateshis wider conceptof Being and with regardto Kant's shrinking back from it, which thus confirms Heidegger'smajor claim on the forgetfulnessof Being by the philosophicaltradition.

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spaceand time. Kant associates spaceand time exclusively to human finitude; a divine understanding be in needof receiving things in their successionor spatial order, for it would never immediately graspeverything in its absoluteintensity and extensity. This, in could turn, implicitly suggests conceptof eternal and rather static infinity: a major issue, a not be pursuedhere.The relevant point is the conceptualisation of space which will time as exclusively subjectiveconditions of human sensibility, by virtue of its and finitude. Sensibility is understoodas sheergivenness,not as affection by meansof henceits pure, a priori status;the purity doesnot refer to any lack of senses, but by the senses to its conception as transcendentalnotion. Human contamination beings then can relate immediately to the world only temporally and spatially, for this is the only possiblemode accordingto which the word manifold could be received at Now the questionis, if in this mode of immediacy and receptivity a creative all. As we saw, accordingto Heidegger, this element does exist by virtue elementexists. the unifying power of pure intuition, which lets it appearas totality. However, of Kant, apart from his derivation of spaceand time by dint of human finitude, especially their singular status.The latter is not conceived as a result of any unification stresses but as simple oneness, since Kant, implicitly, distinguishes the concept of process time as pure form of intuition from the concept of temporality that is associatedto of various processes synthesisof sequentialmoments,which themselvesare as manifold. Whence then doesthis singularity come? Our suggestionis considered that the singularity could be understoodas the tangential intersection of the numerical identity of the setf with the world manifold, or in other words, as the inevitable mode in which the world could be given to a being characterisedby a numerically one,

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identity. Kant stresses concept of the original numerical identity of the the persistent alreadyfrom the first Edition of the TranscendentalDeduction, and in fact even self, in the secondEdition. 10 The threefold synthesis, i. e. the there,than more explicitly in intuition, the synthesisof reproduction in imagination synthesisof apprehension the synthesisof recognition in a concept,is groundedon spontaneity, to which and both imagination and understandingbelong under the tutelage of understanding: If eachrepresentation completely foreign to every other, standing apart in were isolation, no suchthing as knowledge would arise. For knowledge is (essentially) a in which representations standcomparedand connected.As sensecontains whole a manifold in its intuition, I ascribe to it a synopsis.But to such synopsis a synthesismust always correspond;receptivity can make knowledge possible only combinedwith spontaneity.Now this spontaneityis the ground of a when threefold synthesis,namely, the apprehension representations modifications of as the mind in intuition, their reproduction in imagination, and their recognition in of a concept.Thesepoint to three subjective sourcesof knowledge which make the understandingitself- and consequentlyall experienceas its empirical possible (my emphasis)" product

From the aboveextract, we can also seethe way Kant usesthe term synopsis. According to Kant, the awareness empirical manifold presupposes time, considered of both as the a priori condition, in order for the manifold to appearat all and as inner which allows the mind to distinguish the manifold in its manifoldness, i. e. sense, Synopsisthen, standsprecisely for the awarenessof the diversity, which multiplicity. to appearas suchby virtue of time - consideredas isolated moments of was possible inner sense-, and not for the awareness unification. It is this chaotic manifoldness of its as such, in order to necessitate synthesis.In Kant then, intuition which must appear

for dispersion not for unity; for time is considered and stands eitherasa singularform
or as infinite isolated momentsin this oneness.Both accountsof time are consistent
10 CPR A108

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the modem 17'hcentury scientific conceptionof time, namely abstract and with linked to a correspondingabstractsubjectivity. uniform, 12

imagination as partaking both in sensibility However, it was Kant who conceivedof it doesnot require that much effort to seethat, almost by its in spontaneityand and imagination appearsas the common root of its very constituents elements. definition, for Kant the hypothetical common root of the two stems of human However, his third Critique - where imagination escapesfrom the tutelage knowledge,even after but at the sametime implicitly introduces a new conceptualisation of understanding, beyond the notion of pure form of intuition - remains unknown. Heidegger's of time be that Kant was embeddedin the Western philosophical tradition which view would forgotten Being, as if the dynamics of a philosophical project could be explained has in terms of logical grounds,dismissing social and historical conditions. If exclusively during the first Critique was indeedrather strongly immersed in the tradition of Kant, dualism, and still, though with a much more loose and ambiguous way, Cartisian Critique - restricting thus imagination to the realm of understandingin during the third CPR, and eventually to the demandsof the sensuscommunis in the CJ -, the he seemsto be able to draw from the strengthsof this tradition, namely nevertheless, thesetwo equally incomprehensiblestemsof human the aspectof non-identity of knowledge.For Kant, the common root remainedunknown, perhaps,becauseKant, by his aporia, makesan implicit claim about the ultimate non-reducibility of meansof

11 CPR A97 12 Plato for example,time and spacehave a very different meaning;time has an objective status,as In the moving imageof eternity, and the conceptof spacedoesnot exist at all. Insteadof the abstract of choros (space),Plato usesthe concreteconcept chora or hypodochi.This standsfor concept concrete,material indeed,like a wax surface,that registersthe deformationsthat an Idea something it getsreceivedby the chora. Chora is the receptor and indicator of degrading when undergoes which in a way, fits with Plato's accountof a deluded self in a world of doxas and degraded changes, polis.

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Imagination may transmuteitself from one form to the other but this theseelements. doesnot entail the qualitative identity of thesedifferent forms. Perhaps,this is the the tradition that Heideggerforgets and yet follows him in the construction of point of his own system. However, concerningthe main point of his enterprise,namely the concept of finitude human knowledge,Heideggerseemsto follow rather close the Kantian legacy. of Heideggerdoesnot explicitly link his discovery of the role of imagination with his i. e. to bring forward the finitude of human essence. seems,though, He purpose, main to be suggestingthat imagination, taken as a conceptthat anticipateshis concept of Being, lets the two cognitive stemsspring forth. Man does not posseshis cognitive the latter rather spring from Being, to which man belongs and of which he is powers; Human being should no longer be conceived as cut off from the world; instead it part. is alreadyimmersedin it, partakesof its movement and is constituted by it. Man's finitude is conceivedin terms of man's belonging to the world. In Heidegger's terms,

because thereis Beingthat dwellsin him, andendowshim with his manexistsat all
different faculties. In turn, man is finite exactly as a specific mode of Being, as Dasein. Dasein, though should be understoodas a relation to Being, which Heidegger the understandingof Being. The understandingof Being consistsin the different calls of relating to the manifestation of Being in man, as Dasein. The dynamics of modes the different modeswith which man relatesto how Being manifests itself to him and therebyhow man relatesto himself, by meansof how he lets Being manifest itself to

him, would be indeeda quiteinteresting fruitful contextfor the investigation and of

the conceptof finitude.

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However, Heideggerdoesnot develop his accountof finitude in this line of thought, he constructively brought out. He shifts his account to a more specific which direction: "Dasein shouldbe construedin its finitude, namely, with a view toward the intrinsic making-possibleof the understandingof Being....The finitude of Dasein -the lies in forgetfulness. " 13 of Beingunderstanding Finitude no longer consistsin the very fact of understandingof Being, but in the mode of understandingasforgetting Being. This shift already prefigures a specific of the identification or split between finitude and rather rigid conceptualisation infinity, man and Being, man and himselL Heideggerspecifieseven more the conceptof finitude, as the condition of original finitude, which consistsin the suppressionof Dasein in man, which is manifested as in the mode of everydayness inauthenticDasein. Moreover, how are we to understand How are we to understandthe abovestatements? the overcoming of this finitude, by meansof the fundamental the major claim about in "a rememberingagain"?14 ontological act, which consists We needto examinecloser Heidegger's concept of Dasein, in order to grasp in what its suppression consists.The texts which illuminate this issue are Heidegger's later lectures,The Fundamental Conceptsof Metaphysics, and An Introduction to Metaphysics,1935.Theselie rather as supplementaryto the first division of Being Time, that dealswith the analytic of Dasein in its everydaynessmode, and sustain and the abrupt transition to the seconddivision of Being and Time. According to

13 HeideggerM., Kant and thePproblemsofMetaphysics, p. 163. 14 Heideggerclaims: " The basicfundamentalontological act of the Metaphysicsof Dasein as the laying of the groundfor Metaphysicsis hencea "remembering again", in KPM, p. 164.

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by Heidegger,in the FCM, Dasein is characterised a fundamental tripartite structure in three interconnectedbasic momentsthat occur in it: a) Dasein's prewhich consists for logical openness beings as such and holding itself toward the binding characterof for b) Dasein's openness beings as completion and c) Dasein's unveiling of things, the being of beings. By the first moment,Heideggermeansthe unique way in which Dasein comports beings.Human beings have the potential to relate to beings (other human towards beings, animals,plants, and nature), in such a way as to let them manifest themselves to man, as such.This connotesthe specific mode of opennessof Dasein towards beings so that the latter are let by Dasein to be accessiblein a meaningful way. This is of openness juxtaposed to animal's behaviour that is characterisedby specific mode to beings becauseof their instinctual drives. Animals, a self-absorbingrelatedness towardsbeings since they do not have accessto them, or then, are not really open is their access encircled by the narrow ring of their instinctual drives; their rather is poor and closed off from the meaningof beings. Instead, Dasein lets beings world be open to it and thus it relatesto them as such. This term remains rather unelaborate in Heidegger's text, but drawing on his further clarifications, we can understandit as a to beings in terms of a meaningful binding of man with beings. mode of relating beings, i. e. lets them appear Dasein lets beings manifest to it so that man apprehends to Dasein as unified, ordered,and gatheredin themselves,whereby man agreeswith them and binds himself with them in a meaningful way; the latter in turn, takes on the

form of Xoyo; andlinguisticutterance:

therebelongs to man a being open for ... of such a kind that this being open for... hasthe characterof apprehendingsomethingas somethingThis kind of relating to beingswe call comportment,as distinct from the behaviour of animals....

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Soundswhich emergeout of and for thisfundamental relation of letting .. comeinto agreementand holding it together are words..... essential something is discoursepossiblein its essentialfunction: 0-11gatmV, giving that agreement 15 is understandable be understood. to which

The relevant point for our discussionis that this ability, i. e. opennesstowards beings byfreedom. Freedom is what mostly is possibleonly for a being characterised as such, to Dasein and allows the disclosureor the concealmentof the meaning of pertains beings by meansof koyo;: Such ability is possibleonly as this ability if it is groundedin beingfreefor beings It is upon this that beingfree in that pointing out that points toward and as such. is grounded,and this beingfree in-can then unfold as beingfreefor away (truth or falsity) In short, the koyo; wco(pavnico; as revealing or concealing is possibleonly where there is freedom.16 assertion

Dasein's then first major moment, which occurs inherently in it, is its potential to be free. The latter mode of freedom shouldbe understoodas the Dasein's ability for its beings and thereby for its being bound by their intrinsic meaning. attunementwith Aoyo; also is groundedin this pre-predicative,pre-logical disposition of man toward beings,whose very essence consistsin freedom. "Being open for is from the very ... afree holding oneselftoward whatever beings are given there in letting oneself outset
17 be bound" .

Sofar, Heidegger an suggests interesting problematic with regardto the conceptof in freedom termsof bindingandtherefore limiting oneselfaccording the of to immanent to beings.However,Heidegger relationspertaining a ascribes specific
15.Heidegger,The FundamentalConceptsof Metaphysics, 308,309. p. 16 Op. cit. p.339. 17 cit.,p.342. Op.

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to this type of freedom,which radically removes the potential dynamism of meaning the previous approach;the latter consistsin the free opennessof Dascin toward beings "as &gas whole". It is this mode of openness a whole" or completion, which a the deeperessence freedom in Dasein, and, consequently, constitutes its of announces fundamentalmoment that determinesthe others.Heidegger is exceptionally most in the exposition of this crucial notion, which also highlights the meaning of the vague "fundamental ontological act" and his conceptionof finitude. By way of exegesis, Heideggergives only a spatial example: that the way we perceive things in space,i. e. badly positionedboard in a lecture theatre,presupposes pre-logical relatedness our a to the whole of space,in this case,the whole of the lecture theatre and indeed in its functional sense,accordingto which the different positions of things assumea

functionalorderin this whole.

The pre-logical being openfor beings,out of which every Xoyo; must hasin advancealways completedbeings in the direction of an "as a speak, whole". But this completion we are not to understandthe subsequentaddition somethingmissing, but rather the priorforming of the "as a whole" of 18 already prevailing. In fact, Heideggerelevatesthe notion of the term "as a whole" to his central concept, only by meansof which we may grasp- though always imperceptibly - the "enigmatic "19 distinction betweenbeing and beings. The prior forming of the world "as a whole" has nothing to do with the impossible at graspof the totality of beings, not even with the previously suggested, by any casehis example,preconceptualawareness functional relatednessof beings in the of the oppositeis the case.The manifestation of the world "as a whole" whole; rather the presupposes removal of beings as such, and only thus the Being of the beings

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be openedto Dasein. The manifestationof the world "as a whole" then, does could indicate any intuitive referenceto any holistic relatednessamong beings, but it not to a fundamentalmood, to a fundamentalattunementof Dasein with the rather refers that lets Dasein to be exposedto the "mystery of Being"20It refers to a mood world, of abysses Being and thereby renders that conununesus with the deeper,unspeakable our coming to terms with our inexorable finitude. The fundamental possible of graspingthe world "as a whole" disclosesto us the very essenceof the attunement a prevailing one; "a prevailing that man doesnot have power over, but which world as prevails through and aroundhW'21 The manifestation of the world "as a precisely doesnot occur to ordinary understanding.The latter rather forgets it, whole" 22 in its everydayness busy occupation, and sticks to the undifferentiated immersed and of beings,which only appearuniformly as objects to it, as isolated multiplicity entities. Instead,the undifferentiatedness the "as a whole" is of a of present-at-hand by different type, sinceby its removal of beings, it would unveil their essence virtue of baptism in the mystery of Being. The latter, namely the unveiling of the Being of their beings,constitutesthe third fundamentalmoment of Dasein. The three fundamental of Dasein's structureconstituteswhat Heidegger calls the processof worldmoments formation, whose central act lies in Dasein's letting the world manifest itself "as a in its prevailing and abysmaldimension. This is the meaning of Dasein's whole", freedom,and Dasein's essence. The aboveanalytic exposition of Dasein's,essence presentedin a more literary way is in his lectures,An Introduction to Metaphysics.In this work, Heidegger deals with
18Op. cit., p.348. 19Op. cit., p.352. 20Op. cit., p.35 1. 21Op. cit., p.26.

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"the questionof the essence man", "by consulting the poetic project of beingof human amongthe Greeks"23, through his interpretation of an extract of the chorus of Antigone.24Here, man is conceivedas the 8Ctvo'r(x'rovof all beings, Sophocles' the the strangest, most terrible being, "in the senseof the overpowering namely as compelspanic fear, true fear" and "in the senseof one who usespower, power which only disposesof power but is violent in so far as the use of power is the basic who not trait not only of his action but also of
,, 25 his being-there.

Man is deinon being because

is a prodigious, powerful being in the midst of beings, but is the deinotaton, the most all beings, for only he daresto confront and measurehimself prodigious amongst the powerfulnessof Being. against his But man is the strangestof all, not only becausehe passes life amid the strange in this sensebut becausehe departsfrom his customary, familiar understood his limits, because is the violent one, who tending toward the strangein the sense limits of the familiar. 26 the of the overpowering,surpasses

However, man, accordingto Heidegger,in the epoch of forgetfulness, no longer to surpassthe limits of the familiar. Man now lives in the customary; sunk in attempts in the realm of ordinariness,lost in inauthentic and meaningless everydayness, in Dasein is suppressed man; this is the condition of his original finitude. existence: It seems,though, that it is Heideggerwho forgets that that the essence human being of

by the Greeks only asdeinon,i.e. inspiring awe but alsoasdeilon, not wasconceived ,
i. e. wretched;coward, slothful, canny, sly and self-interested;moreover, as
22 op.

cit.,p.275,277. 23 HeideggerM., An Introduction to Metaphysics,p. 143. 2' We will not deal with the validity of Heidegger'sinterpretation of the poem, since this is not the object of our inquiry. We will only focus on the aspectsthat may clarify Heidegger'sconceptionof the of essence Dasein.

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i. deisidaimon27, e. as a being which itself feels awe - for the daimons -; the latter were tendenciesin the diverse modes of human always acting as conflictually co-existing

expression.
Hence, finitude is understoodas the suppressionof Dasein, where the latter is the overpoweringpower, the deinon in man. This dimension is what can consideredas Dasein to let the world be manifested "as a whole", and thus to make Dasein be allow home, i.e. the totality of the abyss. everywhereat Novalis himself What is all this talk about philosophy as homesickness? "an urge to be everywhereat home"... What is demandedby this urge? elucidates: To be at home everywhere-whatdoesit mean?Not merely here or there, nor even in every place, in all placestaken togetherone after the other. Rather, to be simply home everywheremeansto be at once and at all time within the whole. We at this within the whole and its characterof wholenessthe world. We are name by somethingas a whole. This "as a whole" is the world. always called upon We are asking: What is that- world? to This is where we are driven in our homesickness: being as a whole. Our very We being is this restlessness. have always already departedtoward the whole, or better, we are always alreadyon the way to it. But we are driven on, i. e. we are tom back by something,resisting in a gravity that draws somehowsimultaneously downward.(my emphasis).We are underway to this "as a whole". We ourselves us this underway,this transition, this "neither the one nor the other". are What is this oscillating to and for betweenthe neither/nor?Not the one and likewise not the other, this "indeed, and yet not, and yet indeed". What is the "not"? We name itfinitude 28 unrestof this

Finitude then is our way back from the i ourney towards the confrontation with the in its manifestation"as a whole". But how could we find our way back to world home,the home of the uncannyness the dwelling of the deinon? How could we and

25Heidegger An Introduction to Metaphysics,p. 149. M., 26Op.cit.,p.151. 27 Both deisidaimonand deinon derive from the sameroot, i. e. deido, which meansto feel awe; deinon awe,while deisi-daimonis what is seizedby the awe of daimons or gods. what generates means 28 HeideggerM., The FundamentalConceptsof Metaphysics,p.5,6.

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Heidegger'sansweris, by awaking in Dasein those fundamental rememberagain? that will disclosethe world "as a whole" in its prevailing, overpowering attunements, Heideggermeansthe mood of profound dimension. By fundamentalattunements, boredom, that revealsthe telling refusal of all beings and lets us be exposed negatively in the totality of the world, in the FCM, or the mood of the anxiety towards death, that the inexorablefinitude of our existence,in Being and Time. These reveals deinon in Dasein, may awake man in turn, may recall the suppressed attunements, from his lethargic oblivion. though, is an event that cannot occur to any The awaking of theseattunements Only the destinedones,thosewho honour the mystery of Being can let ordinary man. to the return of the deinon in them. themselvesopen All observationof whateverkind must remain eternally distant from what world is, in what we call the prevailing of world, a prevailing insofar as its essence resides that is more originary than all thosebeings that pressthemselvesupon us. The of fundamentalattunements...serveone purpose: to prepare our awaking into the occurrenceof the prevailing of world. This philosophising entry entering of man into the Dasein in him can only ever be prepared,never effected. and return Awaking is a matter for eachindividual human being, not a matter of his or her even skilfulness, but of his or her destiny, whatever falls or does not good will or fall to him or her. Everything that contingently falls upon us, however, only falls falls due to us if we have waited for it and are able to wait. Only whoever and 29 honoursa mystery gains the strengthto wait.

Heideggerthen lamentsfor the original finitude in human being that led it - inevitably though, since Destiny governsBeing - to its inauthentic condition. Finitude is as a derogatorystateof Fall, a statethat deprives man of his original considered Heideggerlaments,even more, for the degrading consequences this deinon essence. of decline, which culminated in the unprecedented emasculationof the spirit in the age
29Op.Cit., p.35 1.

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of contemporarywesterncivilisation.
For the basic fallacy underlying such modes of thought consists in the belief that history begins with the primitive and backward, the weak and helpless. The is true. The beginning is strongest and mightiest. What comes afterward opposite is not development but the flattening that results from mere spreading out; it is inability to retain the beginning; the beginning is emasculated and exaggerated into a caricature of greatness taken as purely numerical and quantitative size and 30 extension.

However, finitude might be overcome.The reverenceof moral law now gives its place to the honouring of the mystery of Being, with the difference though, that it does not an endlessduty for every individual but a destinedrevelation of those who constitute to their fateful call. The humble finite being could then, by its can respond with the mystery of Being, break its limits and dare a new hybris. But confrontation hybris ? why this questionthat we can gain the deeperand implicit significance It is by addressing Heidegger'sconceptionof finitude. For, what is most celebratedby Heidegger is of the moment of resolution toward the disclosure of Dasein in man, but rather the not of this act. Heideggerexpoundsthis position in his analysis of the relentlessfutility in stropheof Sophocles'poem, which, it is claimed, encapsulates the deepest second According to Heidegger's reading of the poem, the questionon humanessence. way the suprememanifestationof the enigmatic magnificence of the deinotaton human being consistsin the inevitably self-destructivenature of his adventures.Man, the violent, creative fighter, ultimately comesto nothingness. overpowerful, For man, as hejourneys everywhere,is not without issue in the external sensethat he comesup againstoutward barriers and cannot go on. In one way or another he He always go further into the etceteras. is without issue becausehe is always can thrown back on the paths that he himself has laid out: he becomesmired in his in the beatentrack, and thus caught he compassesthe circle his paths,caught of
IM., p. 155.

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and entangleshimself in appearance, so excludeshimself from being ... The world, its that originally createsthe paths engenders own mischief of versatility, violence 31 issueless is intrinsically which Here, we can recover the deeperessence human finitude, namely, man's issueless of fight, even when he recalls the deinotaton in him, or rather even more so, exactly by this recalling. For man discoversthe moment of infinity in him, only to virtue of deeperthe relentlessness his radical finitude. The tragic recognition of of realise even finitude though, seemsto be the essence a meaningful existence. this meaningless of Man sunk into forgetfulnesscan arise out from it, through a leap into remembering however,will turn out to be a fatal leap into the void. The latter appearsto be which, the only dignified redemptionfrom his original finitude, an act of artistic despair; an that provesthe original impossibility of the confrontation of man with the act and yet the hidden charm of this vain battle, which absorbshim in prevailing whole,

its vortex.
Finitude standsagain in abysmalopposition to infinity. The latter appearsas the prevailing whole, which engulfs in its seductivemystery whoever unconquerable honoursit. However, infinity appearsin such a compelling, overpowerful mode, only being that posits itself as equal to it, namely posits itself with the intention of to a it and controlling it. For a being that doesnot harbour the projection appropriating of its absoluteinfinity, that doesnot long for eternity and immortality, would not feel

by threatened this whole.The latterwould generate it not only feelings or shattered to

and impotencebut also thoseof wonder, curiosity, love and pleasure.This of awe 'whole' and the notion of infinity in turn, would not be perceived in its eternal, indestructible,omnipotent, and indeed personified absoluteness, in its attractive, but

" IM., p. 15g.

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terrifying and amusing,constraining and liberating , lawful and lawless playful, to-be, and recurs in transmuted forms, diversity, where everything comesto-be, ceases in a processof incessantmotion. Issueless results only as long as the issue is the infinity; as long as man attemptsto discover his meaning in the projection conquestof his absolutepurification and despises meaningof his contradictory present. the of Finitude, in Heidegger,is conceivedin terms of a struggle for its overcoming. If in Kant this struggleremainedan endlesstask, in Heidegger it appearsin a reverse way, tragic celebrationof the impossibility of its completion. This in turn, becomesa as the heroic infinity, registered,possibly, in the golden pagesof the "strangest moment of beginning", the honoureddawn of the history of humanity. and mightiest Heideggerthen seemsto maintain the Kantian tradition of the concept of finitude. Finitude reminds imperfection, incompletion, deprivation, our non-creative dimension,a resentful 'not', what binds us and fetters us, what "draws us downward". Finitude, in this sense,namely fixation and termination of movement, standsfor the counterpartof the mathematicaldefinition of infinity, i. e. indefinite conceptual of progressiveor regressivesequence abstractmoments If in Kant's systemfinitude createsa self-humbling person,which perennially strives for the attainmentof its theoretical and moral integrity, in Heidegger's, finitude signalsthe revelation of self-heroising creativity, which, however, exhaustsits desperate, tragic leap in the abyssof the unconquerableabsolute. potential as a Instead,we suggestthat we should adopt a more dynamic approachtoward the notion finitude, which, in combination with anotherconceptualisationof infinity of as that above-, allows for a creative movement that does not derive from their mentioned

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fixed roles, but from their paradoxicalintertwinement The latter consistsin conceiving of finitude as the necessary condition of incessant diversity and freedom.This implies that we consider finitude as the movement, termination of one statein order to give its place to another. necessitated Finitude then implies differentiation, movement,multiplicity. This should be in the context where finitude is apprehended the manifestation of the as understood the inner potential of expressibility of an entity. Exhaustion in turn, may exhaustionof by meansof transientfulfilment, completion, or through violent occur either destructiveinteraction, in both cases,representinga dynamic process encounterand towards one's struggleof expressinghis potential in a network of multiple interactions.Finitude may then describea moment of dynamic completion of one which in turn, by virtue of its completion can generatenew phases, phaseof a process, further movementat a differentiated level. In this context, our suggestionis to We interpret finitude in terms of excess. can draw this meaning if we appealto the of the term limit in Greek, a method - i. e. resort to etymology - that etymological radix Heiderggerrelishesso much. For the root of peras, i. e. limit in ancient Greek, which the is Per, meanstoo much, and generates term peras, that signifies limit and the term that signifies beyond,accordingto the verb pero which meansto traverse. peran, Finitude then as excess refers both to the excessthat is required in the processof in order for fulfilment to be attainedbut also to the excesswhich is expressibiltity, displayedin the attemptto traverse,to passbeyond the limit. Finitude in this sensestandsfor the different shapesthat the dynamic play of interactingpotenciestake, and from this point of view for the beautiful or the ugly.

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for the interestsof the potencies,as the latter may have been delimited Finitude stands to the all-powerful, disinterestedand rather battle of their encounters, contra in the 32 boring infinityfinitude, i.e. as excess, enclosesin itself the dimension of infinity, not This meaningof but by virtue of its finitude. For it is the infinity of the excessive longing in contrast for expression,the excessivedesirefor reaching one's limits, and the excessive to even overcometheselimits. This is possible the reason why the exertion of energy
Greeks, who were so much afraid of trangressions (hybris), connected the perata

(bondS)33 Parmenides Ananke, Destiny, whom (limits) with desmous and put , Heideggeralways recalls, to bind the limits of the One. Heidegger seemsto inherit from the Greeksmore their bonds than their limits.

32 example,finitude manifestedas the curvatureof space-timeunity, in Einstein's generaltheory For of of to the predominance the interestsof the gravitational forces.Also, the discontinuous relativity, attests of energyby meansof quanta,i.e. finite quantities,gives us an example of emission andunpredictable finitude asthe exhaustion the inner potential of the entity which emits the energy.This scientific of alludesto the idea that cosmic energymoves through ruptures and that spaceand time then, observation longerconceivedin a uniform, abstractway, since they are defined by this very movement. canno 33 Homer, for example,when the companionsof Odysseus bound him to the mast,they fastenedthe In bondsaroundhis uncontrollablelimits, so that he might listen to Sirens in safety. But Oceanus,the in GreekMythology, is consideredas limited, imagined as a circular begetter everything, of river, in limits are but the repetitive circles of its ongoing generativeactivity. perpetualmotion, whose

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Appendix 11

Andrew Bowie, in his Shelling and Modem European Philosophy, reads Schelling's concept Identity in such a way that renders him precursor of Heidegger's ontic/ontological of distinction, the disclosureof the Being of beings. Bowie quotesthe following abstractof Schelling's text.

Taken in an absolute sense, the proposition A=A does not claim that A exists at all, that A exists as subject or as predicate ...... In this proposition one can, therefore, nor from everything, from the reality of A at all, as well as from its abstract reality as as predicate; but what absolutely cannot be abstracted from, and what subject and the sole reality in this proposition is the sameness (Gleichheit), or remains as identity itself, which is accordingly the true substance of knowledge in this absolute The samenessdoes not exist via the subject and the object, but proposition ..... rather way round, only in so far as the sameness is, i. e., only in so far as both are the other ' one and the same, are subject and object as well.

Then he commentsas follows:

There is, Schelling claims, a 'doubling of identity', in which the sameness what is of divided is only possible on the basis of a prior absolute identity. This can be by pondering the fact that the statement that two things are absolutely explained in different is meaningless that if they are absolutely different they are not even two and the statementrefutes itself. things, if I say that the subject is the predicate,what is on each side of the proposition can the same person can be angry and not be angry at different times. What change: changeis the ontological priorfact that both subject and predicate are. The cannot fact that they both are is the prior condition o their being identified with each other f kind of being they may be. This samenessmight appear suspiciously as whatever like the night in which all cows are black, but the argument does not entail such a 2 result.

'Andrew Bowie, Schellingand Modern EuropeanPhilosophy, p. 62 2Op. cit., P.62

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in order to clarify his last proposition, Bowie undertakes an explication of the relation betweenAbsolute and particular beings. Here, he usesM. Frank's notion of transitive being. that Schelling conceivesof being as the 'transitive relationship of a "Manfred Frank suggests its predicates'. Instead of 'to be' functioning as an intransitive linking verb, in the subject to
Absolute, things are transitively 'been'.
3 ,,

From our school books on syntax, we know that the term 'transitive' is used for a verb when by the latter we assumethe transition of energyon behalf of the subject towards the predicate. It is precisely this quality, which is here assignedto the Absolute, namely, the infusion of Infinite's breath into the lifeless particulars. It is indeed this line of thought that Bowie developsin the rest of this chapter.

Our particular being as you or I, in which my identity is arrived at by my difference from you or all other yous, is 'affirmed' by a being which we cannot know as our own because that being cannot depend upon difference, which would be the knowing it. 4 condition of possibility of

Hence,the Absolute constitutesthe higher Identity to which particulars are related. The latter, though,appearas mere links in the infinite chain of causalconnections.

Every single being is determined by another single being, which in its turn is determinedby anothersingle being, and so on into infinity. For as a single being it is not determined by itself, becauseit does not have the ground of its being in itself. But it is just as little determined for existence by God; for in God lies only the of the totality and of beings to the extent to which it is in the totality..... the ground single being..... can only be determinedfor existenceby another single being; but the latter must, for the same reason, be determined again by another, and so on to 5 infinity.

-' Op. cit., p, 63 4 Op. cit., p.64 1 Op. cit., p.63

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Therefore,the appearingworld of objects is in fact the 'complete negation of true being'. The image is hardly original. It conjures Newton's cosmology, namely his deterministic whole of nature, along with the God's implanting of energy into it. More interesting conception is that this position (i. e. the relation of the Absolute to the appearing world) is though, strictly monistic and, in addition, as a way to avoid relativism. The argument presentedas for the above claim, is basedon the idea of the disclosure of Being, which always provided transcendsany particular through which it is disclosed, as the eye discloses itself in its but in fact transcends entirely the medium of its reflection, i. e. the mirror. reflection Similarly, the One is like the eye, insofar as it discloses itself through the medium of the and yet it transcendsthem as the eye transcendsthe mirror. This position requires particulars the assumptionof a hypostasisedAbsolute that would disclose itself as such through the It is this assumptionthat allows us, according to Bowie, to move beyond reflexive particulars. knowledge.Since the Absolute doesnot dependupon difference, we cannot 'know' it, yet we could 'feel' it through its disclosure: "to get to this Being we must, therefore, go beyond knowledgev6 and let the One reveal itself in itself and therefore to us. But even if reflexive , this is accepted,is still not sustainablewhy the manifestations of the Absolute should be in an entirely finite way - by our limited and dependent faculties of reflective conceived knowledge- while the Absolute itself could be felt in an infinite way, as if our ability even to by be possessed the Absolute is not limited as well. Accordingly, man is explained in terms of this dualistic account of the particular, i. e. on the hand, as a being entirely dependentupon other particulars and therefore requiring a one priori

judgements to unify the differences in the field of rational knowledge, and synthetic on the isolated medium that allows the disclosure of the Infinite in the other, as a mere sphere of non-reflective cognition, namely the 'moral law' of aesthetic truth: the dichotomy of
Op. Cit.,

p.63

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theoretical and practical reason once more and relativism attacked by the unquestioned theology. validity of aesthetic Heidegger himself seems to abandon an account of Identity that discloses itself through beings, when he conceives it as an 'event of appropriation' in a mutual and mediated Being7. 'Events of appropriation' are taken to belong to the between man and correlation
Same, where this Sameness itself is interpreted as active interaction, acts of mutual

be-longing, recalling, thus, Schelling's notion of longing in the appropriation, mutual Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom.

7 HeideggerM., ldentiyand Difference, p. 14,

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ABBREVIATIONS
LKPP SK or WS FTP FK SL PS BT FPM ID im KPM Prolegomena Ci CPR Bruno Arendt, H., Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy Fichte, J. G., Scienceof Knowledge Fichte, J. G Foundations of TranscendentalPhilosophy Hegel,G. W. F., Faith and Knowledge Hegel,G. W. F., Hegel's Scienceof Logic Hegel, G. W. F., Phenomenologyof Spirit Heidegger,M., Being and Time Heidegger,M.,. The Fundamental Conceptsof Metaphysics Heidegger,M., 1dentityand Difference . Heidegger,M., An Introduction to Metaphysics Heidegger,M., Xant and the Problem of Metaphysics Kant, I., Prolegomenato Any Future Metaphysics Kant, I., Critique of Judgement Kant, I., Critique of Pure Reason Schelling, F. W. J., Bruno, or, On the Natural and the Divine Principle of Things Schelfing, F. W. J., Ages of the World AW Schelfing, F. W. J., Ideasfor a Philosophy of Nature PN Schelling, F. W. J., Philosophical Inquiries into Of Human Freedomor Freedom essay the nature of Human Freedom Schelfing, F. W. J., Systemof TranscendentalIdealism STI

SELECT
Aeschylus,Eumenides

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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