Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 92. Bd., S. 304–321 DOI 10.1515/AGPH.2010.014© Walter de Gruyter 2010ISSN 0003-9101

From a Philosophy of Self to a Philosophy of Nature:Goethe and the Developmentof Schelling’s Naturphilosophie

by Dalia Nassar (Villanova)

Abstract: One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism isSchelling’s break from his mentor Fichte. On account of its significance, there have beennumerous studies examining the origin and meaning of this transition in Schelling’sthought. Not one study, however, considers Goethe’s influence on Schelling’s develop-ment. This is surprising given the fact that in the fall of 1799 Goethe and Schelling meetevery day for a week, to go through and edit what came to be Schelling’s most path-break-ing work. This paper considers Goethe’s influence on the development of Schelling’sthought, and argues that it was by appropriating Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis thatSchelling was able to put forth a conception of nature as independent from the mind.

One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism is the movefrom a philosophy of self to a philosophy of nature. Rather than beginning with the act ofself-positing, namely self-consciousness, and from there deducing the not-self, the philos-ophy of nature begins with the not-self (nature) and from there derives the self. Therefore,while the philosophy of self takes the activity of self-intuition to be primary, both onto-logically and epistemologically, the philosophy of nature accords such primacy to nature.1

The heart and culmination of this debate is Schelling’s break with his mentor Fichte.The break can be understood as nothing less than a fundamental disagreement on themeaning and methodology of idealism. While Fichte repeatedly emphasized that philos-ophy can only be transcendental, i.e., its goal is to examine the conditions that make ex-perience possible, Schelling came to argue that a transcendental procedure fails to ac-count for its own possibility. In other words, Fichte claimed that philosophy must beginwith the I’s self-positing, and Schelling maintained that the act of self-positing presup-poses a not-I, and thus cannot serve as the foundation of philosophy.

Because these questions reveal the complexity of idealism and extend beyond idealismto encompass fundamental philosophical concerns, much attention has been devoted to-ward understanding the nature of this break and the origin of Schelling’s understanding

1 In the case of Schelling, the primacy of nature does not undermine the primacy of theself. Rather, as he sees it, within the philosophy of nature, i.e., the study of nature asabsolute, nature must be conceived of as primary. In turn, from within transcendentalphilosophy, the self must be perceived as absolute. From the perspective of the abso-lute, however, both self and nature are expressions of (or two sides of) the absolute.The radical claim therefore concerns the equality Schelling grants to nature and theself, and, in turn, his inauguration of a philosophy of nature which posits nature asprimary.

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of and interest in nature. Schelling’s interest in nature has been traced back to his Tüb-ingen student years.2 Furthermore, his early works Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie(1795) and Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kriticismus (1795–1796) alreadysuggest a non-Fichtean approach to philosophy.3 However, his first two publications onthe philosophy of nature, the Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797) and the Weltseele(1798) remain squarely within the paradigm of transcendental philosophy. In contrast, hisErster Entwurf einer Philosophie der Natur – and especially the Einleitung to the Entwurf –both composed and published just one year after the Weltseele, reveal a radical shift inSchelling’s understanding of the essence of idealism.4

2 The “origin” of Schelling’s philosophy of nature, or more accurately, the seeds of whatlater came to be his philosophy of nature, remains a disputed topic. Many scholarstrace his work in Naturphilosophie back to his Timaeus fragment from his time in Tüb-ingen in 1794, prior to his encounter with Fichte’s work. See Schmied-Kowarzik 1996,67; Baum 2000. H. Fuhrmans argues that Schelling’s “turn to the philosophy of naturewas in no way sudden”. Its roots go back to his time in Tübingen and reveal the “trueSchelling” (Fuhrmans 1962, 75). For A. Denker, it is “the pietistic belief in the con-nection of everything [which] was the origin of Schelling’s pantheism, and thus onecan claim, that he had been working out this problem throughout his life” (Denker1997, 37).

3 The absolute I, as elaborated in Vom Ich, has little in common with Fichte’s concep-tion of the pure I – something which Reinhold points to Fichte in a letter from De-cember 1795, writing that “I had until now believed that the pure I […] arises from outof moral laws – not that the moral laws must be deduced from it. I remain afraid thatthe true sense of the moral law can be in danger, if one derives it from the absolutelyposited absolute I […] in Mr. Schelling’s writing [Vom Ich] there are expressions on thispoint […]” (J. G. Fichte Gesamtausgabe 3/2, Nr. 330). The Philosophische Briefe grantequal status to criticism and dogmatism, idealism and realism, thereby moving in a di-rection that Fichte, later on, would find problematic. Thus in his May 23, 1801 letter(sent on the 7th of August of that year), Fichte writes, “your claim in the Philoso-phische Journal concerning two philosophies, one idealistic, one realistic, both ofwhich are true, and could stand next to one another, which I immediately opposed[i.e., in the Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre] because I saw it to be wrong,lead me to think that you had not penetrated the Wissenschaftslehre” (Traub 2001,194). See also Beiser 2002, 477.

4 It was not until about a year later, however, following Schelling’s publication of theSystem des transcendentalen Idealismus (1800), that Fichte became aware of Schel-ling’s move. This has to do with the fact that Fichte did not read Schelling’s work onthe philosophy of nature, and was himself embroiled in the atheism controversy, whichlead to his dismissal at the University of Jena. The disagreement is most clear in theirletters from that year. Schulz argues that it was only after 1800 that their letters cameto have the philosophically rich content in which a difference of opinion can begleamed. See Schulz 1968. Jacobs writes, “The letters written in the year 1799 revealno difference at all” (Jacobs 1984, 24). Fuhrmans similarly claims that the letters from1794 till 1800 suggest a “unity of thought between Fichte and Schelling”, and that itwas only after 1800 that the correspondences begin to reveal a “break”, and gain“substance” (Fuhrmans 1962, 201–209). More recently, H. Traub argues that 1) theletters pre-1800 were philosophically rich and 2) that already there you can see implicitdifferences (Traub 2001, 55, note 79, and 23). What Traub sees as the fundamental dif-ference between the two is Schelling’s insistence on idealism and Fichte’s transcenden-tal-philosophical or critical idealism, which puts him on the side of Kant.

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The question is, what inspired this shift, and why did it come about at exactly that time?There have been a plethora of responses to this question: Spinzoa’s influence on Schel-ling’s philosophy of nature, Hölderlin’s critique of Fichtean philosophy, with which Schel-ling was familiar already in 1795, and Schelling’s early interest in Plato as well as Leibniz’monadology have all been identified as sources of inspiration.5 Though the presence ofthese various influences is evident in Schelling’s philosophy of nature, it is Spinoza’s pres-ence, most especially in Schelling’s claim in the Einleitung, that the philosophy of nature isa “Spinozism of physics”, that is most evident and that has therefore been most elaborated(HKA 1/8, 30). Yet, Schelling is never entirely sympathetic to Spinoza’s position. In theBriefe, the text in which he places dogmatism and criticism on almost equal levels, Schel-ling identifies Spinoza with dogmatism and argues that dogmatism is ultimately self-contradictory in that it wishes to eliminate the self, yet retain a way by which to know thenon-self.6 In the Ideen, he critiques Spinoza on similar grounds: “I myself was only one ofthe Infinite’s thoughts, or rather just a constant succession of presentations. But Spinozawas unable to make it intelligible how I myself in turn became aware of this succession”(HKA 1/5, 90). In later writings from the time in which he is considered to have been mostsympathetic to Spinoza, Schelling retains this critique of Spinoza, writing in the essay“Ueber das Verhältnis der Naturphilosophie zur Philosophie überhaupt”, “Spinoza madea mistake in that he did not go back far enough in construction [daß er nicht weit genug zu-rück construirt]”, and thus did not fully consider the fact that philosophy “is not only aknowledge [ein Wissen], but always and necessarily also again a knowledge of this knowl-edge [ein Wissen dieses Wissens]” (SW 1/5, 127). Spinoza, according to Schelling, couldnot explain self-conscious knowledge. Schelling’s concern with knowledge does not disap-pear in the Entwurf. Thus, although the primary aim of the text is to ground a philosophyof nature, the possibility of knowing nature remains a key question. In fact, the first partof the Einleitung is dedicated to explaining precisely this possibility.

This is not, however, the only difficulty with such an interpretation of the trans-formation in Schelling’s thought. What Schelling was unable to accomplish in his earlywritings on Naturphilosophie and what he does accomplish in the Einleitung to the Ent-wurf is establishing the independence of nature from the mind. He does this by showingthat nature is self-producing. In his earlier writings, Schelling had struggled with the prob-lem of the productivity of nature. On the one hand, he argued that nature, as a mere ob-ject, could not produce itself. Only a subject, i.e., a self-intuiting being, could produceitself. On the other hand, he saw that natural relations could not be reduced to mechan-ical, external relations. Thus nature appeared to necessitate a notion of self-productivity.However, given his basic assumption that only a subject can produce itself, Schelling wasunwilling to grant self-productivity to nature, concluding that nature is a product of ourintuition (HKA 1/1, 386). The question then is, how does Schelling’s thought shift, such

5 In light of his early work on Plato’s Timaeus, some interpreters see Schelling’s shift asin some way related to his Platonist inheritance, see for example Holz 1977. See alsonote 1 above. Others consider Hölderlin to be the most formative influence on Schel-ling. See Frank 1985, 108f. and more recently Beiser 2002, 476–478. The influence ofSpinoza has been traced in detail by Grun 1993. That Schelling developed a concep-tion of nature comparable to Leibniz’s monadology has been argued by Rudolphi2001, 145–154.

6 See HKA 1/3, 88f. This critique may have been posed against Hölderlin, who had al-ready been developing his anti-Fichtean position in 1795.

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that he is able to grant to nature self-productivity, and, thus independence from the mind?The answer to this question is the key to understanding the transformation in Schelling’sconception of nature, and his break from Fichtean idealism. As I will show in the follow-ing, however, this transformation had little to do with Spinoza, and much to do withSchelling’s appropriation of Goethe’s understanding of nature as metamorphosis.

Beginning in 1798, Goethe came to play a significant role in the development of Schel-ling’s thought. Not only was Schelling deeply impressed by Goethe’s optics and his theoryof colors, undertaking experiments with Goethe during his first visit to Weimar in May1798, but he also found in Goethe’s conception of plant metamorphosis the key to under-standing nature as a self-producing, organic whole. Thus, in a letter to Goethe from the26th of January 1801, Schelling writes,

Your presentation of the metamorphosis of plants has proven indispensable to me forunderstanding the emergence of all organic beings, and the inner identity of all organicforms amongst themselves and with the earth […] thus the organic was never createdbut has always existed.7

The question then is, in what sense did Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis become so centralto Schelling’s own conception of nature, and how did it prove to Schelling that the organicwas never “created”, but always “existed”. It is the goal of this paper to answer preciselythis question, and in this way illustrate the role that Goethe’s natural-scientific workplayed in the development of Schelling’s philosophy in particular, and in the developmentof German idealism in general.

Although there has been a tremendous amount of scholarship dedicated to understand-ing the shift in Schelling’s conception of nature, and his break with Fichtean idealism, noone has taken into consideration Goethe’s role in this development.8 In turn, while therehave been several studies which consider the influence of Schelling on Goethe, Goethe’sinfluence on Schelling has not been accorded the same degree of attention.9 By demon-strating the significance of Goethe’s thought on Schelling, and explicating the way inwhich the idea of metamorphosis enables Schelling to put forth a theory of nature as self-productive and independent of the mind, this paper hopes to remedy the lacuna in thepresent literature.

The paper will proceed as follows. First, I briefly outline Goethe’s understanding ofplant metamorphosis which he began to develop on his Italian journey, and which he elab-orates in his Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790). I then provide an over-view of Schelling’s relationship to Goethe, as witnessed in their correspondences as well as

7 Fuhrmans 1962, 243.8 See notes 2, 4 and 5 above. See also Jacobs’s Introduction to the Historisch-Kritische

Ausgabe, in which he mentions Goethe only in passing (HKA 1/8, 8ff.).9 While there have been studies of Schelling’s influence on Goethe, these works have

only cursorily attended to the significance of Goethe for Schelling. See Richards 2002,463–471; Jäckle 1937; Schmidt 1984, 111f.; Breidbach 2006, 214–225, esp. 225. J.Adler, in an article on Goethe and Schelling, takes a more promising approach, writ-ing that he wishes to understand the “dialogue” between the two thinkers. Thus, he iscareful to note the influence of Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis on Schelling’s de-velopment; he does not, however, detail the significance of this theory, nor does he ex-plicate its importance in relation to Schelling’s break with Fichte. Adler’s primary in-terest lies in a historical investigation of Schelling’s poetic works, and Goethe’sinfluence on those in particular. See Adler 1998.

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in their collaboration. I go on to consider Schelling’s understanding of nature in his earlywritings, up to the 1798 Weltseele, and explicate Schelling’s reasoning as to why naturecould not be independent of the mind. Finally, I provide an analysis of Schelling’s concep-tion of nature in the Einleitung to the Entwurf, the text in which Goethe’s influence is mostpalatable. Not only did Schelling seek Goethe’s advice in editing this text, but he andGoethe also met for a week in November of 1799 to go through it together. It is in thiswork that Schelling grants to nature an independence from the self, and justifies this con-ception through a theory of metamorphosis. I elaborate what Schelling means by meta-morphosis and show how, through metamorphosis, Schelling was able to put forth a phi-losophy of nature as self-productive, and, as such, independent.10

1. Goethe

It was on his first Italian journey (1786–1787) that Goethe began to clearly formulate hisidea of an archetypal plant or Urpflanze. In the garden in Palermo, he was “confrontedwith so many kinds of fresh, new forms, I was taken again by my old fanciful idea: might Inot discover the Urpflanze amid this multitude? Such a thing must exist after all! How elsewould I recognize this or that form as being a plant, if they were not all constructed ac-cording to one model” (HA 11, 266).11 What Goethe seeks in the garden is that whichmakes it possible for him to recognize all these varieties of plants as plant – the unifyingprinciple of plants. Importantly, he does not seek it outside of the multiplicity, but “amidthis multitude”.

In a letter to Herder, dated exactly one month following his visit to the garden, Goethewrites that he has come to comprehend “the secret of plant generation and structure” (HA11, 323). He has realized that the unity he is after is integrally connected to plant growthand development. Given this insight, Goethe claims that he can now imagine an infinitevariety of plants, which, although non-existent, could exist.

It is not until July of that year, however, that Goethe arrives at a deeper understandingof the plant. In a report in which he includes the two passages quoted above, he adds theimportant conclusion: “it has become apparent to me that in the plant organ we ordi-narily call the leaf a true Proteus is concealed, who can hide and reveal himself in allformations. From top to bottom, a plant is all leaf, united so inseparably with the futurebud that one cannot be imagined with the other” (HA 11, 375). By this Goethe does notmean that the plant is reducible to the leaf, but that the parts of the plant are variousmanifestations of what he saw as the archetype of all plant life, namely the leaf.

In the first four paragraphs of his Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790)Goethe elaborates on the way in which the plant parts are manifestations of the plantwhole. An observation of the plant, he begins in the first paragraph, reveals “that certain

10 The influence of Goethe on Schelling need not – indeed should not – be limited to histheory of plant metamorphosis. In fact, Schelling’s theory of knowledge in the Einlei-tung reveals an incredible proximity to Goethe’s own theory of knowledge. Richards,for example, sees Schelling’s emphasis on “experience and experimentation” to be theoutcome of Goethe’s influence (Richards 2002, 141f.). Though I agree with Richards,I think it is only the tip of the iceberg. At this time, however, I limit my considerationsto the theory of metamorphosis.

11 The letter is dated April 17, 1787.

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of their external parts sometimes undergo a change and assume, either entirely or ingreater or lesser degree, the form of the parts adjacent to them” (HA 13, 64, Nr. 1). If theplant’s parts are perceived alongside one another, one begins to recognize continuity be-tween the parts, and it becomes clear that each part assumes a form that is to some degreerelated to the other parts.

The parts are moments in the plant’s developments – particular manifestations of thetransformation which the plant undergoes from seed to fruit (or seed). Transformation innature, he elaborates in the third paragraph, is the bringing forth of “one part through an-other, achieving the most diversified forms through modification of a single organ” (HA13, 64, Nr. 3). The parts relate to one another such that they “develop one after another,and apparently from one another”. This, he concludes in the fourth paragraph, is the“process by which one and the same organ makes its appearance in multifarious forms[and] has been named the metamorphosis of plants” (HA 13, 64, Nr. 4).

In these first four paragraphs, Goethe brings together the insights gained in his obser-vations, concluding that what makes a plant a plant, what grants it an integral unity andcoherence, is the way in which each of its parts develops from other parts, and is, in thisway, a manifestation of the whole of the plant. What grants the plant unity, then, is not astatic substance or idea, but the fact that the plant is in a process of metamorphosis,wherein each part is a physical manifestation of the different stages of metamorphosis. Al-though Goethe makes no mention of the archetypal plant, it is this generative or develop-mental unity – the plant in transformation – that is the archetypal plant.

Plant metamorphosis takes place on two levels simultaneously. First, the plant trans-forms through a process of contraction and expansion, such that each of the parts of theplant is a moment of either contraction or expansion. While the seed is a contraction, thestem leaves are the first expansion. The calyx is a contraction, and the petals are an ex-pansion. The sexual organs are once again a contraction, while the fruit is the “maxi-mum expansion” and the seed within it is the “maximum concentration”. Alongside thisdevelopment, is a second development – that of progression or intensification (Steige-rung). Each of the parts comes progressively closer toward reaching the goal of growth, at-tained in the final parts of the plant, the reproductive organs (HA 13, 79, Nr. 50; HA 13,99, Nr. 113). “In these six steps”, Goethe writes, “nature ceaselessly carries on her eternalwork of reproducing the plants by means of two sexes” (HA 13, 86, Nr. 73).

As the developing interrelation between inherently connected parts, the archetypalplant is not a static substance or a quasi-platonic form that simply precedes its parts.12

Rather, the archetypal plant is the lawful process of metamorphosis. This means that thearchetypal plant is only in its parts, but is nevertheless not reducible to any of its parts.Therefore, although the archetypal plant is an ideal reality, it is not separable from thereal. It is what constitutes the real, informing its growth and transformation. This impliestwo things. First, although the archetypal plant informs the parts, it does not in any sub-stantial way precede the parts. Second, the archetypal plant is not a thing or a completedproduct, but productivity. Thus it cannot be made equivalent with any one of its products.

What Goethe attempts to show in the Metamorphose der Pflanzen is how the whole ofthe plant kingdom is in a process of metamorphosis, and, in turn, how each species is aparticular expression of the possibilities inherent in metamorphosis. By seeing not onlythe separate parts of the plant or the plant kingdom, but seeing the connections between

12 For Goethe’s conception of metamorphosis as not merely a structural principle, but asthe very development of nature – as nature itself – see Breidbach 2001, 52.

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each of these parts, Goethe was able to recognize the successive and simultaneous produc-tion underlying the plant’s form and development.

2. Biographical Sketch

In his 1798 Von der Weltseele, Schelling is clearly familiar with Goethe’s conception ofmetamorphosis and quotes the Metamorphose der Pflanzen, invoking Goethe’s under-standing of plant growth to show the underlying law of natural development. Growth,Schelling explains, takes place through the two opposing forces of expansion (Aus-dehnung) and contraction (Zusammenziehung) (HKA 1/6, 221).13 The goal of growth is in-dividuation, which, once attained, leads to reproduction (HKA 1/6, 222).14 What at firstappear as two different laws of productivity in nature – growth and reproduction – are infact two aspects of the same law.15 Schelling agrees with Goethe that the essential charac-teristic of nature is transformation or Bildung.

However, in spite of the clear similarities between Goethe’s conception of metamorpho-sis and Schelling’s understanding of nature in the Weltseele, Schelling remains within theparadigm of transcendental philosophy. For one, he opposes the empirical and the tran-scendental. Then, he argues that those who rely on experimentation cannot, on the basisof physical evidence, explain the original antithesis in nature – the antithesis that makesmovement and change possible (HKA 1/6, 86). “The origin of this antithesis”, he writes,“is to be sought in the original duplicity of our spirit [Geist]” (HKA 1/6, 91). Therefore, al-though Schelling has appropriated some of Goethe’s ideas concerning metamorphosis, heeither does not completely understand or agree with Goethe’s fundamental premise –namely, that metamorphosis is an ontological principle in which the empirical and thetranscendental, the real and the ideal, are not separated. In other words, that the meta-morphosis of the plants refers to a real formative principle that is not imposed upon theorganism by the mind is a claim which Schelling, at this point, does not concede.

In fact, this is precisely the criticism which Goethe levels against Schelling’s writings onnature. In a letter to Schiller from the 6th of January 1798, he criticizes Schelling’s concep-tion of nature and his method in the Ideen. “I happily admit”, Goethe begins, “that he isnot speaking of the nature which we recognize, rather of a nature which we take in by wayof certain forms and capabilities of our spirit […] the idealist can try as much as he likes todefend himself against things-in-themselves, but he will nevertheless stumble up againstthem before he knows it” (MA 8.1, 489). In a letter written just a week later, on the 13th ofJanuary, Goethe once again complains to Schiller about the newest philosophy. He writes,“In reading Schelling’s book I have realized that there is little hope for help from the mostrecent philosophy” (MA 8.1, 494).

13 Goethe writes, “From seed to fullest development of stem leaves we noted first an ex-pansion; thereupon we saw the calyx developing through contraction, the petalsthrough expansion, and the sexual organs again through contraction; and soon weshall become aware of the maximum expansion in the fruit and the maximum contrac-tion in the seed” (HA 13, 85, Nr. 73).

14 See also HA 13, 99, Nr. 113.15 Schelling writes, “the growth of all organization is only an advanced individualizing,

whose pinnacle is reached in the developed reproductive force [Zeugungskraft] of op-posing sexes” (HKA 1/6, 222).

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This critical attitude soon changed, however, following Schelling’s visit to Jena in May1798. In a letter to Christian Voigt, Goethe expresses his interest in having Schelling be-come a professor in Jena, writing that “he is a very clear, energetic and […] organizedmind”, concluding that Schelling “would do us a great honor if he were to become usefulin the academy” (MA 6.2, 922). Less than a month later (21st of June 1798) Goethe writesto Voigt to repeat his plea, emphasizing that “Schelling’s brief visit was a great pleasurefor me; it would be beneficial for both him and us [if he came here] […] [for him] so that hewould be introduced to experience and experimentation and an assiduous study of nature[…]” (MA 6.2, 922f.). Just a couple of weeks later, Schelling received an invitation fromGoethe to join the university in Jena.16

In the winter semester of 1798/99, Schelling offered a course on the philosophy of na-ture.17 In October of 1799 he published his Erster Entwurf einer Philosophie der Natur andin November of that year published the Einleitung to that work. Goethe read the ErsterEntwurf toward the end of 1798 prior to its publication (TAG 2, 264f., 277, 314), and fol-lowing his reading of the Einleitung (September 1799), went through the work with Schel-ling in October of 1799 (TAG 2, 318–320). In a letter from the 9th of November of thatyear, Schelling remarks that “just a while ago [Goethe] and I spent a lot of time together. Iwas at his place daily and had to read and work through my text on the philosophy of na-ture with him. What a growth of ideas these conversations were for me, you can only im-agine […]” (HKA 3/1, 244).

3. Schelling

3.1 Schelling’s early work

In his early writings, Schelling developed a conception of intellectual intuition based onhis understanding of the absolute I. As unconditioned and thus non-objectifiable, he ar-gued that the absolute I can only be given or determined through non-sensible, intellectualintuition. Thus, although not entirely in agreement with Fichte’s conception of intellec-tual intuition as an act of self-consciousness, Schelling’s claim is that intellectual intuitionpertains only to a self – to an absolute I – and not to any (necessarily determined) object.

In the Briefe, he describes intellectual intuition as an act of self-reflection, whichinvolves a turning back or return of the self into itself. He writes, “we awaken throughreflection, i.e., through the necessary return into ourselves” (HKA 1/3, 95). Thus, he limits

16 There is clear indication that Goethe’s transformed attitude toward Schelling hasmuch to do with Schelling’s sympathetic reception of Goethe’s scientific writings.During their brief meeting at the end of May, Goethe learned that Schelling was fa-miliar with his scientific writings – both his work on the plants and his optics. Follow-ing this meeting, Schelling sent Goethe a copy of the Weltseele, in which Goethe’sinfluence in his thinking is clear. Goethe was so impressed by this work, that he re-commends it to Voigt (MA 6.2, 923). Nevertheless, as is clear from his letter to Voigt,Goethe thinks that Schelling has much to learn in the study of nature.

17 Henrik Steffens, who was present at the lecture, writes: “He spoke on the idea of aphilosophy of nature, of the necessity to grasp nature in its unity, of the light thatwould be thrown over all objects if one dared to consider them from the standpoint ofthe unity of reason […]” (Tilliette 1974, 28).

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intellectual intuition to an intuition of a self, i.e., a being which, in turning back ontoitself, gains self-consciousness. He also limits intellectual intuition to the first person per-spective: we can only intuit our selves. Schelling contrasts intellectual and sensible intu-ition, explaining that while the latter concerns itself with objects outside of ourselves,which we do not produce but which are already given, the former only concerns itself withits own products.

This leads to the second point, namely that intellectual intuition is productive. In VomIch Schelling draws a distinction between the unconditioned (das Unbedingte) and theconditioned object or thing (Ding) on the ground that the unconditioned is self-produc-tive. While “the unconditioned realises itself, brings itself forth through its thinking”, theconditioned is brought forth by something other than itself, i.e., the thinking subject(HKA 1/2, 87). In the unconditioned, therefore, there is no separation between being andthinking, for in thinking itself, the self brings itself forth, and therefore necessarily is. Thethought of the object, however, does not imply its existence. “I can think its reality”,Schelling writes, “without at the same time positing it as exiting” (HKA 1/2, 88). For thisreason, the absolute or unconditioned can never be an object, i.e., something whose real-ity is not self-determined.

As a non-object, the absolute cannot be known through either concepts (discursiveunderstanding) or sensible intuition. Only intellectual intuition can grasp the absolute(HKA 1/2, 106). In the Briefe Schelling elaborates that this “secret, wonderful capacity”does not concern already given objects (and is therefore not determined by such objects),but is free because it brings forth its object, or, more to the point, it is itself “brought aboutthrough freedom” (HKA 1/3, 87). In other words, intellectual intuition does not concernan already given object, but the act of producing an object. Therefore, when Schellingwrites in the Briefe that all knowledge begins with experience, he does not intend the com-mon sense of (external) experience, but the most immediate experience of the self, the ex-perience of the self as a non-object (HKA 1/3, 88).

That intellectual intuition does not concern an object implies that it also does not grantknowledge of external objects, i.e., objects as they are in themselves as opposed to and de-termined by the subject. In intellectual intuition, Schelling explains, we are not given overinto an object – we do not vanish into it, but it is lost “in us”18. Schwärmerei, he writes inthe Briefe, arises out of an “objectivised intellectual intuition”, in which one “takes hisown self-intuition as an intuition of an object outside of himself, [takes] the intuition ofthe intellectual world for the intuition of a supersensible world outside of himself” (HKA1/3, 90). The fact that dogmatism takes its object as already realized means that its objectis an object of knowledge. In contrast, the object of criticism is merely realizable, it is “aninfinite task”, and is therefore an object of freedom (HKA 1/3, 102). For criticism, the ab-solute is unreachable, for it is not an object but an act.

18 To this Schelling adds that Spinoza “deceived himself, in that he believed this” (HKA1/1, 88). Although Schelling is sympathetic to dogmatism in the Briefe, placing it onan equal footing with criticism, his preference for criticism ultimately rests on what hesees as the desire for self-elimination in the dogmatic conception of intuition. The de-sire to see the object completely and thus overcome himself, Schelling explains, is im-possible. “For, insofar as the dogmatist intuits himself in the absolute object, he is stillintuiting himself. He cannot think of himself as eliminated [vernichtet], without at thesame time thinking himself as existing” (HKA 1/1, 89). See also HKA 1/1, 97–99.

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Schelling’s conception of nature as a product of self-intuition is most explicitly putforth in his “Abhandlung zur Erläuterung des Idealismus der Wissenschaftslehre”(1796–1797). He begins by stating that there are two ways by which to understand the re-lation between matter and form: either matter and form are given from something outsideof me, or they are given to nature by me. The first case implies that matter is something “initself”, which in turn implies that it is also “for itself”. However, Schelling continues,matter is not something that is for itself, since it is something which is not self-intuiting(SW 1/1, 373). Even if it were for itself, he argues, then it would be impossible for us toknow how it is for itself. In order to gain such knowledge, we would have to be matter.However, insofar as we are not matter, but knowing subjects, such knowledge is imposs-ible. Therefore, he concludes,

so long as we presuppose, i.e., assume, that matter is something that precedes ourknowledge, then we do not know what we’re talking about. Instead of going furtherwith such incomprehensible concepts, it is better to ask what it is that we originallyunderstand and can understand. Originally, however, we understand only ourselves.Since there are only two possible systems, one which makes matter the principle ofspirit, the other which makes spirit the principle of matter, there remains for us onlyone system which we can understand, namely not that spirit is born out of matter, butrather that matter is born out of spirit […]. (SW 1/1, 373f.)

Matter, as Schelling puts it some pages later, is nothing other than the product of ourspirit (Geist). This, he continues, is what it means to say that “intuition is fully active andthus productive and immediate [thätig, eben deswegen productiv und unmittelbar]” (SW1/1, 379f.). Importantly, Schelling’s reasoning in this text, as in the others, rests on what hesees as a deficiency in matter. Intellectual intuition grasps what is self-forming and self-organizing, i.e., the absolute. Matter, however, does not have any such “power [Kraft]”, be-cause it is only turned outward, while the self is turned both outward and inward. In otherwords, it is only a self that can turn back into itself, and thus produce itself, that can be ab-solute and known through intellectual intuition (SW 1/1, 380). Matter, in contrast, pos-sess no interiority (ein Inneres), and is therefore neither self-productive nor absolute andhence excluded from intellectual intuition (ibid; see also SW 1/1, 387).

That the self produces itself implies a duplicity, an interiority and an exteriority, whichmatter does not have. This duplicity, in turn, is the ground of all being, the ground of pro-duction, or what Schelling calls “construction”. He writes,

in that both tendencies of the self are simultaneity penetrating one another, a productarises, a real construction of the soul itself. This product is in the self, is not distin-guished from the self, is immediately present to the self, and this is in fact the placewhere everything immediate and thus certain in our knowledge lies. (SW 1/1, 380)

That all things that appear in intellectual intuition are constructions of the self is whatguarantees and secures the immediacy and certainty of the knowledge given in intellectualintuition. The self only can know with certainty what it produces.

Schelling’s concern with nature appears to be with the impossibility of explainingorganic nature. Nature, as he sees it, does not have an inner activity. Lacking such in-teriority, nature is not a self-causing cause (an organism). Yet, nature is also not merely aset of mechanically caused and related objects. This leads Schelling to claim that the onlyway by which to understand nature as self-causing and hence organic is to see it as equiv-alent to the self (SW 1/1, 386). It is only by understanding nature as the product of our self-intuition, then, that we can understand how nature functions in a non-mechanistic manner.

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3.2 Metamorphosis in the ‘Einleitung’

In the first paragraph of the Einleitung, Schelling plunges into a critique of the primacy ofthe Wissenschaftslehre. He admonishes the idea that nature’s ground is something otherthan nature itself. Rather, the goal is to think nature “as independent and real” (HKA 1/8,30). As such, instead of attempting to derive nature from mind, or the real from the ideal,as he had done in his previous works, Schelling proclaims that “the ideal must arise out ofthe real and admit of explanation from it” (HKA 1/8, 31). For this reason, he continues,“there is no place in this science for idealistic methods of explanation, such as transcen-dental philosophy is fitted to supply […]” (ibid.). Naturphilosophie will proceed by follow-ing “the first maxim of all true natural science, to explain everything by the forces of na-ture […]” (ibid.).

As is clear, Schelling’s methods and goals in the Einleitung reveal a radical shift in histhinking about both the ontological reality of nature as well as the way in which to knownature. Nature is no longer imagined as an inert matter, void of any interiority and self-movement. Rather, nature has its own forces, out of which natural products arise. In turn,nature need no longer be known by means of transcendental philosophy – i.e., as the prod-uct of the duality of spirit. We are no longer seeking the cause of nature in something out-side of nature – in a self that can grant nature activity and interiority – but in nature itself,in nature as self-production. Thus, Schelling introduces the distinction between nature asproductivity, natura naturans, and nature’s products, natura naturata.19

The implication of Schelling’s statements is not only that there must be methods otherthan the idealistic ones, but also that self-consciousness is itself a product or an outcomeof nature’s activity. Thus, Schelling writes,

there is nothing impossible in the thought that the same activity by which nature repro-duces itself anew in each successive phase, is reproductive in thought through themedium of the organism […] in which case it is natural that what forms the limit[Gränze] of our intuitive faculty [Anschauungsvermögens] no longer falls within thesphere of our intuition [Anschauung] itself. (HKA 1/8, 31)

In other words, what was understood to be absolutely self-producing – the intuition of theself – is no longer absolute. In fact, it falls within the domain of nature’s activities, andis therefore one manifestation of the forces of nature. Or, as Schelling puts it in one of hisletters to Fichte, the I is nothing other than the “highest potency” of nature’s activity(SFB, 178).

In essence, it is Schelling’s introduction of a philosophy of nature which he claims to beon par with transcendental philosophy that gives way to a conception of the self as pro-duced by something other than itself. This is not to say that Schelling entirely forgoes the

19 Jacobs writes in the “Editorischer Bericht (Editorial Report)” to the Einleitungthat the investigations of Paul Ziche have shown that the word “productivity [Produk-tivität]” does not appear in the first published version of the Entwurf, though it doesappear in Schelling’s handwritten notes of the Entwurf. In the earlier works onthe philosophy of nature, this word does not appear at all. However, it is present inlater editions of the Entwurf (HKA 1/8, 10). This is not the case with the Einleitung, inwhich the term is used already in the first edition. Remarkably, it is precisely the Ein-leitung which Goethe had Schelling read and re-read, and, which he supposedlyhelped Schelling edit. See TAG 2, 318–320, and HKA 3/1, 244.

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independence of the self, and the conception of intellectual intuition as productive – asevidenced in the System des transcendentalen Idealismus written one year later (1800) aswell as in his 1801 and 1802 essays in which he renames intuition as reason and provides adeduction of nature out of reason. Nevertheless, Schelling does ultimately grant primacyto nature, writing in the “Allgemeine Deduction” (1800), “[…] the true direction for thatwhich is valid for knowledge everywhere, is the direction which nature itself has taken [diewahre Richtung für den, dem Wissen über alles gilt, ist die, welche die Natur selbst ge-nommen hat]” (HKA 1/8, 366).20

The most significant difference in Schelling’s conception of nature in the Einleitung isthat nature is a self-productive organic whole. This means that nature has within itself acapacity which Schelling had previously only identified with the self. Radically, thisimplies that self-production is not limited to a self-conscious being – self-production is nolonger identified with the act of reflection in which the self brings itself forth and in sodoing becomes aware of itself as a self. Thus Schelling rethinks the meaning of original orself-productivity such that a non-conscious being, nature, can be understood as self-pro-ductive. How does he do this?

The key to thinking of nature as self-productive is to recognize that what nature is can-not be reduced to the products of nature. In other words, nature as a whole is greater thanthe sum of its parts. Thus, nature is not a composite of its parts, but that which underliesand constitutes these parts. Nature is what brings these parts forth in the first place. Thus,the first step toward an adequate conception of nature requires an understanding of na-ture not merely as product, but as productivity, i.e., as that which underlies and producesthe products.

However, to speak of nature as both products and productivity implies that nature con-tains within itself an original duplicity or opposition. Nature as productivity is opposed tonature as product.

Yet, it is not clear how the transition from productivity to product (and back) can takeplace. In other words, how can productivity be limited in such a way that it can produce aparticular product, without, however, transforming completely into product. Or, how canthe product – as a finite particular thing – be maintained within infinite productivity? Es-sentially, how does nature maintain the necessary equilibrium, the necessary duality, be-tween productivity and product?

20 In the “Allgemeine Deduction” Schelling explains that the idealistic method of ex-plaining nature is not ultimately incorrect, insofar as it seeks to understand reason asthe intention of nature, i.e., as originally grounded within and thus continuous withnature. He writes: “the idealist is right, when he makes reason into the self-creator ofeverything, for reason is grounded in nature itself. His intention is to make nature forthe human being. But because this is in fact nature’s intention (if one were allowed tosay, because nature knows that the human being would separate himself form her inthis way!), such idealism becomes illusion. It becomes something explainable, andthus the theoretical reality of idealism comes together [Der Idealist hat Recht, wenn erdie Vernunft zum Selbstschöpfer von allem macht, denn dieß ist in der Natur selbst ge-gründet – er hat die eigne Intention der Natur mit dem Menschen für sich, aber ebenweil es die Intention der Natur ist – (wenn man nur sagen dürfte, weil die Natur darumweiß, daß der Mensch auf solche Art sich von ihr losreißt!) – wird jener Idealismusselbst wieder zum Schein; er wird selbst etwas Erklärbares – und damit fällt die the-oretische Realität des Idealismus zusammen]” (HKA 1/8, 365).

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Indeed, the question concerning to the possibility of a finite product within infinite na-ture is, according to Schelling, the chief problem of Naturphilosophie.21 A product, Schel-ling begins his explanation, is a point of limitation (Hemmung) to the infinite productivityof nature. As such, it emerges out of the encounter between infinite productivity and itsopposition, namely, infinite limitation. However, insofar as this encounter is between twoinfinite oppositions, it would seem that the result of the encounter is always necessarilynull or zero. The only way that this meeting does not result in zero, Schelling explains, isthrough the infinite reproduction of the product – i. e., of the encounter. He writes, “Ab-solutely no subsistence of a product is thinkable without a continual process of being re-produced. The product must be thought as annihilated at every step, and at every step re-produced anew” (HKA 1/8, 45). In other words, the product of nature is the infinitelyreproduced point of contact between productivity and limitation, and, as such containswithin itself both infinite productivity and infinite limitation.

It is for this reason, Schelling continues, that the product of nature is only “apparentlyfinite”. After all, the “infinite productivity of nature concentrates itself in it”, such thatthe product is not simply an empirical presentation of nature’s infinite productivity, butcontains productivity within itself (HKA 1/8, 46). In turn, the productivity within theproduct is precisely what enables the product to grow, sustain itself and ultimately regen-erate. Or, as Schelling puts it, “this product is a finite one, but as the infinite productivityof nature concentrates itself in it, it must have a drive toward infinite development” (ibid.).

This capacity for self-production and reproduction, the drive toward infinite develop-ment, is, according to Schelling, nothing other than metamorphosis (HKA 1/8, 56). How-ever, unlike his earlier conception of metamorphosis in the Weltseele, in the EntwurfSchelling describes metamorphosis as an “interior relation [eine innere Verwandtschaft] ofthe forms [Gestalten] that is unthinkable without an archetype [Grundtypus], whichunderlies everything” (HKA 1/8, 55). Metamorphosis in other words, is an essential char-acteristic of nature, an “archetype” that underlies and constitutes the relations of nature’sparts or forms. Metamorphosis, then, is nothing less that the “inner construction” of na-ture (HKA 1/8, 33 and 71).

Metamorphosis, Schelling goes on, takes place on two levels. The first concerns therelations of the parts of the organism to one another, i.e., the growth and sustainability ofthe particular organism. The second involves the organism’s capacity to reproduce itself,and as such, concerns the organism’s relation to its species. In both cases, the organism isparticipating in a process of development and progression (Steigerung).22 The two levelsof metamorphosis brought together reveal a unity in nature: on the one hand, the organ-ism is an integral unified being, whose parts are manifestations of the underlying whole;on the other, the organism relates to other organisms through reproduction and evol-ution, and thus represents a different stage of development or further expression of thearchetype which underlies all of nature’s products.23

21 Schelling writes that the chief problem of Naturphilosophie is not to explain produc-tivity and movement, but the stable or the permanent (HKA 1/8, 47).

22 Schelling describes this process in detail in the Entwurf. See for example, his descrip-tion of the growth and reproduction processes of plants, butterflies and bees, HKA1/7, 43ff.

23 For Schelling, as it was for Goethe, there was no difference between the ideas of meta-morphosis and evolution. The terms meant for them the capacities for growth andgeneration – production and reproduction – of the particular organism and the

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The question now is, how does Schelling’s conception of metamorphosis in the Entwurfnot only differ from his previous understanding of metamorphosis in the Weltseele, butalso – and more significantly – how does it enable him to put forth the view that nature isindependent of the mind. In the Weltseele, Schelling describes the development of nature;however, he does not locate the origin of this development, i.e., the ground or source of thedevelopment, within nature itself. Rather, as noted above, the original duality necessaryfor the productivity of nature is located in the duality of our spirit (Geist). In the Entwurf,in contrast, Schelling understands metamorphosis in the same way that Goethe under-stood it – as the very ground or the archetype (Grundtypus) of nature, as nature itself. This,in turn, enables Schelling to make the claim that duality is original to nature. For it is onlythrough the “infinite development” of the “apparently finite” product, that the opposi-tion between productivity and limitation – i.e., the original duality in nature – can be ad-equately explained and justified. In other words, the duality of nature is possible if andonly if the products of nature are also productivity. Nature can uphold and balance its op-posing tendencies only because the products of nature are themselves in a state of infinitedevelopment, or metamorphosis.

This in turn enables Schelling to think of nature as an organic whole. As noted above,Schelling had already seen that a mechanistic conception of nature was inadequate; how-ever, insofar as he denied nature the capacity to self-produce, he could not explain how na-ture was a self-causing (as opposed to mechanical) cause. By introducing the idea of meta-morphosis, he makes it possible to conceive of nature as a self-producing whole, whichinforms all the parts such that they “mutually bear and support each other” (HKA 1/8,36).

As independent organic whole, nature is not reducible to any one (or all) of its parts.When speaking of nature as a whole, Schelling is not speaking of an empirical reality, anyone part or all the parts of nature brought together to make up “the whole of nature”.Rather, the whole of nature is an idea or archetype that precedes and constitutes the parts.As idea, however, nature is neither a concept of the understanding imposed upon nature,nor an ethical ideal that is ultimately unrealizable.24 Rather, it is the constitutive ground of

species with the implication that the organism is simultaneously participating in alarger natural evolution. See Richards 2002, 299–306, 485f. For an opposing view, seeEngelhardt 1984.

24 Given Schelling’s immanent ontology – in which nature as ideal or idea and the prod-uct are absolutely unified – it is highly unlikely that Schelling’s philosophy of natureworks out of the paradigm of practical philosophy, as Rudolphi argues. Rudolphi’sthesis is that Schelling’s understanding of nature as “subject” implies that the philos-ophy of nature is no longer part of theoretical philosophy, in which the concern is withdetermined, conditioned objects, but is part of practical philosophy, wherein the sub-ject is absolute and unconditioned. There are several difficulties with this thesis. Forone, it does not account for the fact that Schelling is concerned with the knowledge ofnature, and thus with theoretical philosophy. Furthermore, the unrealizable natureof the ideal of reason in the practical sense and the absolutely immanent sense of na-ture as productivity are irreconcilable ideas. In fact, Rudolphi often contradicts him-self on precisely this point. On the one hand, he does not think that Schelling meansidea heuristically, writing, for example, “should the unity of nature not be merelyregulative of reflective judgment, but relates constitutively to nature, then it must pre-cede the particular objects and determine them a priori. Speculative physics thereforeundertakes the task of grounding the order of nature, such that it posits [setzt] the pro-ductive acts [Akte] of the nature-subject as the principles which found the organiz-

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nature, through which the parts of nature “mutually bear and support” one another. Inother words, it is only insofar as nature is an original idea, an idea that precedes and is notthe outcome of its parts, that the parts of nature can relate to one another organically.25

Although the idea of nature must be distinguished from the parts, as the very productivitythat brings the natural products forth, it is neither outside of nor unrealizable in its prod-ucts. For there are no products without productivity, and productivity is productivity ofproducts. In light of this, Schelling contrasts the work of art with nature, explaining thatin art “the concept [Begriff] precedes the act or execution, [while] in nature idea and actare simultaneous and one, the concept passes immediately into the product and cannot beseparated from it” (HKA 1/8, 41). Nature as a whole, as idea, is then in each of its partsand in their relation to one another.

As idea, the unconditioned of nature is not heuristic – it is not a creation of the mind forthe sake of ordering and understanding nature. Rather, as nature’s productivity, it is in-separable from nature’s products. It is ideal and not empirical because it is what underliesempirical phenomena, and thus cannot be equivocated with them (HKA 1/8, 51). There-fore, when Schelling calls the principles of nature a priori, he distinguishes his use of the

ation of nature” (Rudolphi 2001, 141). On the other hand, he understands by the“idea” of the totality of nature as an idea of reason (practical reason), explaining thatthe unity of nature “is given through the construction of reason” (140). That this unity“is given [gegeben]” through reason makes it seem as though it is not ineherent to na-ture, but brought to it through the work of construction which reason undertakes inorder to order and understand nature. While I don’t think Rudolphi wants to makethis latter claim, his thesis that the philosophy of nature is a practical philosophy,working within the premises of practical reason, undercuts Schelling’s conception ofthe “idea” of nature as wholly immanent to nature. For as soon as the idea of nature isplaced in reason, without further explanation (as Rudolphi does not provide it), thenit seems that the idea of nature as a whole is something that is contructed for the sakeof human understanding, which is exactly what he says on the next page: “For one, it[speculative physics] strives to construct the idea of nature, such that we can grasp it asa rational order [daß wir sie als vernünftige Ordnung begreifen können]” (141). Themost striking aspect of Rudophi’s interpretation, however, is that he does not take intoconsideration the letter exchange between Fichte and Schelling, in which Schellingclearly distinguishes his philosophy from what he sees as Fichte’s practical philosophy.In a letter from the 19th of November 1800, Schelling draws a distinction between the-oretical and practical philosophy on the basis of their respective relation to the I.While theoretical philosophy is concerned with “the pure (merely objective) subject-object […]” practical philosophy is concerned with the I, i.e., “the subject-object ofconsciousness”, which, Schelling continues, is “the highest potency” of the former. “Itis the principle of idealitic (until now called practical) part of philosophy, which re-ceives its foundations only through the theoretical part” (SFB, 179).

25 For this reason, I disagree with the so-called “materialist” readings of Schelling. Hisemphasis on nature or the material of nature does not imply that there is no reason orideal that is underlying and constructing nature. As is clear from the passages I havequoted and explicated, for Schelling the material form of nature (i.e., nature as prod-uct) is not separable from its ideal form (nature as productivity). One of the mainreaders of Schelling as a materialist is M. Frank, who argues that it was only in hislater philosophy that Schelling came to develop a non-idealist materialism, which inturn provided Feuerbach with his critique of Hegel. See Frank 1975. There are, how-ever, Marxist-materialist readings of Schelling’s early philosophy, including his philos-ophy of nature. See, for example, Cerny 1984.

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term from Kant’s. By a priori, he does not mean what is prior to experience, since every-thing, according to Schelling, is only given to us in experience (HKA 1/8, 35). Rather, na-ture itself is a priori; thus a priority implies what is inherent to nature – the regularity andnecessity of its own constitutive principles.

4. Conclusion

Though Schelling’s influences are numerous, Goethe’s role in the development of Schel-ling’s conception of nature, and in his understanding of nature as independent of the self,is possibly one of the more significant. Although Schelling was familiar with Goethe’sconception of metamorphosis and had employed it already in his 1798 work, Weltseele, itwas not until 1799, following his meeting and collaboration with Goethe, that he devel-oped an understanding of nature as metamorphosis. In the Einleitung to the Entwurf, thetext in which Schelling’s break with his earlier philosophy is most clear, Goethe’s influencecannot be overlooked. For one, Schelling, like Goethe, argues that metamorphosis is notsimply a description of nature’s development, but the very source or ground of nature, thearchetype that underlies and constitutes nature’s parts and their relations. In addition, heunderstands metamorphosis to be an ideal that is nevertheless within the real, the unitywithin the multiplicity, as Goethe puts it. Furthermore, Schelling sees metamorphosis astaking place on two planes – in the particular organisms, and within nature as a whole. Inother words, not only are the parts of each organism different manifestations of the ideaof the whole of the organism (like the Urpflanze), but each organism also partakes of thedevelopment of nature as a whole (evolution). To use Goethe’s terminology: metamor-phosis is growth and production as well as reproduction and Steigerung.

For Schelling, metamorphosis in Goethe’s sense was the key to explaining and justify-ing the original duality of nature, and, as such nature’s self-productivity. Nature couldonly be self-productive, Schelling surmised, if there is an original opposition in nature.Such an opposition, however, is only possible if and only if the products of nature are in astate of infinite development – i.e., metamorphosis. For it is only through “infinite devel-opment” that infinite productivity and infinite limitation can exist alongside and with oneanother. Thus, what had until then appeared to Schelling to be impossible – i.e., a dualitywithin a non-reflective, non-conscious being – became, through the idea of metamorpho-sis, possible. In this way, Schelling overcomes his earlier understanding of duality and pro-ductivity as born out of self-reflection, and, as such, grants to nature precisely that whichhe had previously only granted to the self – independence.

As I have tried to show, Goethe’s influence on Schelling’s Naturphilosophie is im-mense.26 In light of this, I think it is necessary that we rethink the history of German ideal-ism, and recognize the role that Goethe’s natural-scientific work played in its develop-ment.27 It is also in light of this that we can fully appreciate Schelling’s letter to Goethefrom the 26th of January 1801. It is thus with this letter that I conclude:

26 I thus disagree with E. Förster’s claim that “Goethe’s influence on Schelling’s philo-sophical development is rather negligible” (Förster 2002, 189).

27 The major accounts of the development of German idealism have paid no attention toGoethe. See for example, Henrich 1992 and Beiser 2002.

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Your presentation of the metamorphosis of plants has proven indispensable to me forunderstanding the emergence of all organic beings, and the inner identity of all organicforms amongst themselves and with the earth […] thus the organic was never createdbut has always existed.28

Works by F. W. J. SchellingAll citations to Schelling’s works are made in the body of the text as follows:HKA Historisch-Kritische Ausgabe. Eds. H. M. Baumgartner et al. Stuttgart-Bad

Cannstatt 1976ff.SFB Schelling-Fichte Briefwechsel. Ed. H Traub. Neuried 2001.SW Schelling Werke. Ed. K. F. A. Schelling. Stuttgart 1856–1861.I cite SW only in the case where the HKA is not available. In both cases, I cite the division(Abteilung) number, followed by “/” and then the volume and the page numbers.

Works by J. W. GoetheAll citations to Goethe’s works are made in the body of the text as follows:GSW Sämtliche Werke. Briefe, Tagebücher und Gespräche. Eds. Hendrik Birus et al.

40 vols. Frankfurt a. M. 1985.HA Werke (Hamburger Ausgabe). Eds. E. Trunz et al. 14 vols. Hamburg/München

1949–1971/1971–1976.LA Die Schriften zur Naturwissenschaft. Hg. im Auftrag der deutschen Akademie

der Naturforscher Leopoldina. Eds. D. Kuhn et al. Weimar 1947ff.MA Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines Schaffens (Münchner Ausgabe). Eds.

K. Richter et al. Munich 1985–1998.TAG Tagebücher. Eds. W. Albrecht/E. Zehm. Stuttgart 2000.

All citations contain volume and page numbers. Division (Abteilung) numbers are onlygiven when appropriate, followed by a “/” and then the volume number. In cases wherethere are separate parts to a volume, the volume number will be followed by a “.” and thenthe part number.

Adler, J. 1998. “The Aesthetics of Magnetism: Science, Philosophy and Poetry in the Dia-logue between Goethe and Schelling”. In The Third Culture: Literature and Science.Ed. E. S. Shaffer. Berlin, 66–102.

Baum, M. 2000. “Die Anfänge der Schellingschen Naturphilosophie”. In Schelling: Be-tween Fichte and Hegel. Eds. C. Asmuth/A. Denker/M. Vater. Amsterdam, 95–112.

Beiser, F. 2002. German Idealism: the Struggle against Subjectivism 1781–1801. Cam-bridge, MA.

Breidbach, O. 2001. “Transformation statt Reihung – Naturdetail und Naturganzes inGoethes Metamorphosenlehre”. In Naturwissenschaft um 1800. Eds. O. Breidbach/P. Ziche. Weimar, 46–65.

–. 2006. Goethes Metamorphosenlehre. Munich.Cerny, J. 1984. “Von der natura naturans zum ‘unvordenklichen Seyn’. Eine Linie des

Materialismus bei Schelling?” In Natur und geschichtlicher Prozeß. Studien zur Natur-philosophie F. W. J. Schellings. Ed. H. J. Sandkühler. Frankfurt a. M., 127–144.

28 Fuhrmans 1962, 243.

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