1809: A Genealogy of the Present

Schelling published the first volume of a planned collection of his philosophical writing in 1809. It contained four earlier essays and a new treatise on freedom. The volume was published in a philosophical world in which the familiar historical development from Kant through Fichte and Schelling to Hegel was not yet established as the accepted narrative of German idealism. In the volume, Schelling sketches a different story, one which did not establish itself with the same success as the story with Kant and Hegel as the key figures. For various reasons, Schelling barely published during the remaining years until his death in 1854. The 1809 volume remains as a fascinating pointer towards an unwritten counter-history. This talk will show how the model of philsophical practice Schelling briefly imagined in 1809 has particular resonance for the early 21st-century.