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González Gómez, Alberto Elías. Nietzsche and Landauer. Infuence and Critique. Gustav Landauer was one of the leading voices of 20th -century anarcho-syndicalism. His thinking drew on sources such as mysticism and German philosophy from earlier centuries, particularly the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. This article looks at Nietzschean infuences in Landauer's work, concentrating primarily on overall diferences and similarities, the notion of the anti-political, the critique of language, the call to the free creativity of values and the social proposals that arise from their philosophies. The objective of this text is to contribute to the reception of Landauer's thinking in the Spanish-speaking world, as it has not been widely translated or studied in our language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complementary and adverse relations between philosophy and religion mark a long historical period and include several thinkers. Ludwig Feuerbach stands out as one of the most important authors of this theme and his critique of religion includes both a methodological analytic, pointing to the material prerogative of human history, and turns to the cognitive constitution of the human being, to be subjectively filled by a high anthropomorphic humanism. The main objective of this paper was to present some theoretical elements about this, focusing on the relationship between Ludwig Feuerbach's thought and the German Enlightenment philosophy of his day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The German philosophy has an international presence since the 17th century until the 20th century. Thanks to German philosophy, multiple critical movements have emerged that have encouraged the use of human reason to change the actual reality. It was also established to build a scientific, moral and educational movement that was the basis for changing traditional methods of education and replacing them with analytical and critical approaches looking for the remote reasons of the educational problems. By means of the modern German philosophy of the philosophers of modern philosophy of Germany, the researcher additionally explained the influence of the meta- thinking approach on the learning process which is derived through the critical analysis of these philosophies. Findings The study concluded the importance of Meta- thinking of modern German philosophy in the field of education. And its importance in enlarging the perception of the students, and its importance in increasing the learners’ abilities of creativity and respecting the cultural diversity through the meta-thinking, Also the importance of thinking about the future through new methods of seeing the future and prediction, Moreover the necessary of rooting the past experiences, the educational thoughts and utilizing the educational and philosophical trends. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corneliu Dan Georgescu is an outstanding representative of the late 20th century Romanian composition school, whose entire musical endeavour has been centred on his original style of archetypal minimalism. His creation is a mixture of static no-evolving musical forms and archetypal features of authentic folkloric discourse. Under the influence of Eastern philosophy and the writings of German psychologist Jung, the composer has set a new direction in Romanian musicology that he himself would subsequently promote with his own musicology research. This has built into a solid fundament due to rich data and convincing argumentation, both of which underlie his studies in a remarkably cohesive manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cheyne mentions in particular the plagiarism accusations and the assessment that Coleridge was no more than an unoriginal mediator between German philosophy and his English readers (pp. 38-40). Peter Cheyne's Coleridge's Contemplative Philosophy is a remarkable gathering together of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's (1772-1834) philosophy of the imagination, symbols, ideas, and reason. Chapters 6 to 11 explicate Coleridge's theory of mind, his modified Platonism, philosophy of ideas, his pentadic and triadic logic of ideas, and how these are poetically demonstrated in his middle period "Limbo" sequence, written in 1811. [Extracted from the article]

While it does contain some introductory essays on Eriugena's thought, most of the essays are best suited for those who are at least moderately familiar with Eriugena's works and the debates surrounding their interpretation. This volume of collected essays is the most recent contribution to the thin but burgeoning scholarship on John Scottus Eriugena. A Companion to John Scottus Eriugena: edited by Adrian Guiu, Leiden, Brill, 2020, xii+504 pp., $283, €236.00 (hardback), ISBN 978-90- 04-38267-1, $283, €236.00 (ebook), ISBN 978-90-04-39907-5. [Extracted from the article]

Domenico Losurdo was convinced of the intrinsically political nature of philosophy: political judgment is the test that verifies or falsifies even the most complex metaphysics, which have no meaning if they are not related to the real world. Losurdo often had to defend himself against the accusation of political partisanship. Therefore, he was obliged to demonstrate constantly that he had mastered the history of modern and contemporary philosophy, together with its main theoretical nodes, better than anyone else. Over some 40 years of work, he showed a keen interest in classical German philosophy, studying its relationship with the French Revolution and altering our conceptions of it forever. He turned subsequently to examining liberalism, showing that it is not a theory of individual liberties but represents first and foremost the self-awareness of the "free" community who perceive themselves as "well-born," that is, as aristocrats. Finally, he dedicated himself to the reconstruction of Marxism and historical materialism, starting from a redefinition of the concept of class struggle and undertaking a revaluation of "Eastern Marxism," linked to the anti-colonial struggle, in relation to "Western Marxism." His death leaves us poorer but the conceptual tools he forged will help us to continue his work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article approaches the moralist side of Titu Maiorescu and Nicolae Iorga. Maiorescu is the first Romanian moralist in the true sense of the word. Familiar with the ancient thinkers, the French moralists and the German moral philosophy, especially Schopenhauer, Maiorescu is an observer and a harsh judge of the mores of his society. Iorga, the most productive Romanian moralist, thinks of man, in full Romanian modernity, in terms of tradition (the honest man, with his purpose and respect for old rules, "ashamed" in his nature by the shamelessness of life). In his Musings, Iorga is always thinking of the traditional man, whom he wants to rescue from the shamelessness of modernity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that modern European philosophy was significantly shaped by the transposition of eschatology from a theological into a philosophical register. By 'eschatology', I here mean thought about the 'last things' as they relate to present systems of life and action; and about those systems as determined, at least in part, by their end. I take as my starting point the claim that the scepticism regarding revelation that was such a central characteristic of the Enlightenment did not eradicate the importance of eschatology as a structuring frame of historical and moral thought, but merely changed it. Modern theologians and philosophers tended to shift the ground of eschatology from revelation to the inner logic of a system; eschatology was seen as legitimated by, and in turn legitimating, the shape of a given philosophical account of history. The questions and challenges arising from this shift were important drivers of early twentieth‐century European philosophy. This article works out this claim through indicative accounts of several large debates of early twentieth‐century philosophies of history and of politics as contestations about the meaning of eschatology: the crisis of historicism, the rise of existentialism, and the surge of political religions. It concludes with a discussion of Martin Heidegger's eschatological thought of the 1930s, illuminated by the recent publication of his Black Notebooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the early thought of Romano Guardini (1886‐1968). It focuses on his magisterial book The Spirit of the Liturgy and discusses its genesis, its historical, biographical, and intellectual context, and its theological and philosophical significance. In so doing, it shows how Guardini reacted to World War I and the cataclysm of his time in turning to the church and its liturgical life in order to provide a source of meaning to a disoriented generation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on numerous archival findings together with close comparative analyses to account for a number of German philosophical and literary intertexts that have hitherto gone unnoticed by Wallace scholars. It shows how the work of numerous German writers--including Georg Buchner, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Peter Weiss, Siegfried Kracauer, Max Nordau, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Herman Hesse, among others--influenced Wallace's fiction, as well as exploring Wallace's fraught relationship to German language and culture more broadly. Ultimately, the essay uses such intertextual connections to bring Wallace's work into dialogue with a radically expanded set of literary and intellectual traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nietzsche's writings on the Old Testament have been the subject of in-depth research in various academic disciplines. This article's original contribution to the ongoing discussion lies in its exclusive focus on Nietzsche's philosophical reception of Genesis 2:4b–3:24 in particular. The objective is to provide an extensive overview of the related data by way of thematically correlated representative samples in the philosopher's German writings. As background, the relevant aspects of Schopenhauer's reception of Genesis 2:4b–3:24 are noted before identifying two types of philosophical criticism discernible in Nietzsche's consistent and frequent recourse to the text's memorable mythological motifs. Based on the sheer quantity and quality of associated content involved, the study concludes that Nietzsche's critical and creative interactions with Genesis 2:4b–3:24 represent a combined critique and revitalisation of the tradition of allegorical interpretations in philosophical approaches to religious mythology. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The research is located at the intersection of biblical studies and philosophy. More specifically, the history of the Old Testament's reception within 19th-century German atheist philosophy of religion is enriched with the first overview exclusively devoted to the nature and extent of motifs from Genesis 2:4b–3:24 in the writings of Nietzsche. Keywords: Nietzsche; Schopenhauer; Old Testament; Genesis 2–3; reception history; philosophical interpretation; allegory; hermeneutics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this text, I argue that what we call the relationship between Kant and Fichte is actually Fichte's reception of Kant's philosophy. There are three main concepts for defi ning this reception: radicalisation, continuity and rupture. I fi rstly explain these concepts in the context of Fichte's reception of Kant's philosophy in general. Then I analyse them in the case of the categories' deduction of both German philosophers. Finally, I present the content of the present issue according to the three mentioned concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Husserl himself took to the task in delivering patriotic lectures for war participants on "Fichte's Ideal of Humanity", Max Scheler became one of the most important authors associated with the so called Kriegsphilosophie, writing and lecturing extensively on the "Genius of War." Thus, in order to tackle the fundamental task of phenomenology, namely of accounting for sense-formation, one has to peek in, gain a "constructive intuition" (Schnell quotes Fink's term of konstruktive Anschauung), or a depiction (Bild) of the workings of anonymity itself. In another place in the book, Schnell emphasizes the necessity of clearly separating Reduktion from Induktion, leading-in, since the former opens up the field of transcendental subjectivity, whereas the latter leads into the domain of pre-subjective sense-formation (122). [Extracted from the article]

This paper attempts to rethink the philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) and challenge the still prevailing tendency in Iqbal scholarship to view it merely as an outcome of the influence of the ideas of various Western/European philosophers. I present Iqbal's arguments in their particular historical and intellectual context to show that they developed in response to a specific philosophical problem and that Iqbal looked for a solution to that problem in Islamic tradition. I suggest that Iqbal's philosophy is best understood in the context of, and as a response to, the problem of nihilism as it was debated in modern German philosophy during 'the pantheism controversy' in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To demonstrate this, I analyse Iqbal's article on ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Jīlī to show his concern with the problem of nihilism, and his solution to it based on al-Jīlī's Sufism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Can there be a legal or a moral right to resist the government? Scholarly interest in the right of resistance has rarely focused on German philosophy, which has often been considered unusually committed to authority. Yet, during the Enlightenment German philosophers regularly attempted to justify not just conscientious refusal but also revolution. This essay explores the two dominant justifications, which were based in Wolffian perfectionism and Kantian relational theory. It argues that we can best understand the complexity of these theories of resistance by exploring their contrasting views on the state’s purpose: providing material and spiritual welfare, or establishing freedom as independence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores use of the concept of egotism in the work of philosopher Jorge Santayana. Topics discussed include work of philosopher Santayana titled "Egotism in German Philosophy;" Santayana's representation of the egotism/aggression connection as a disease peculiar to Germans; and philosophical activities that the concept of egotism affords.

In 19th century Germany, the number of publications in the history of philosophy increased dramatically. According to Ulrich Schneider's calculations, from 1810 through 1899, 148 original textbooks by 114 authors were published in German. The aim of this article is to analyse how the documented in these publications canonic vision of 19th century German philosophy evolved. An analysis of 66 treatises published from 1802 through 1918 allows dividing 19th century philosophers into groups based on the frequency of their names across the tables of contents, describing the changes in the leading group composition and in the share of attention received by a given philosopher over time (the patterns of attention for Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Herbart, Schleiermacher, Schopenhauer, Jacobi and Fries are discussed in detail). The paper presents thus a formal analysis of how historical reputations of philosophers were made, how they stabilised, or faded. The authors claim that the current understanding of the history of 19th century philosophy differs significantly from the one recorded in the German textbooks of the era (e.g. Herbart's key position within the 19th century philosophical Canon; Schopenhauer's recognition by university philosophers during his own lifetime). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article informs on the origin of ontology. It mentions about the works of Jacob Lorhard in which he used the word ontologia even earlier, and it appeared in the title of his philosophical treatise. It also mentions metaphysics in Johannes Clauberg's conception, studies not the being but the intelligible, as in the most general object of the intellect.

Ştefan Augustin Doinaş is not only a great poet but also a theorist of the poetic act, a theorist of poetry. In his endeavor to build a poetic concept, he starts from the ancient philosophy, particularly Plato and reaches, through German philosophy and French poetics to defining poetry as an act of language. In a first stage corresponding to ballad, genre that he uses, he relates to the canon of the classicism of Greek Magna. Starting from Plato's philosophy, the poet posits the structure of the poem, starting from a logos asimilated to universe as cosmos. The poet also stops to the equation logosmelos, commenting on the relationship between the two acts in the terms of the French poet H. Meschonnic. In defining poetry, the poet performs a synchrony in diachronie. They are discussed Heidegger's famous theories about language as the house of Being. In his poetry of Doinaş there are at least three masks: the first would be marked by the poems of his youth when the vision ballad-expressionist is passed through the filter of poetics / poietics of classicism, followed by a second stage in which the self is related to the Universe in a romantic projection (cf.Holderling-Valery so.) and the third stage, that of a creative modern- post-modern self, an I anguished revealed in the texts of Psalms meditating on the fractal dimension of life, in its flow compared to divinity where it is built in poetic language, in its dual continuity daimonică-panteistă and christian in a biblical way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores how Charles Darwin's concept ›struggle for existence‹ was received in German philosophy and literature. It starts from the idea that the struggle for existence is a cause for dynamic change. According to Ernst Haeckel and others it propels progress (Fortschritt). Exploring the various ways in which the struggle for existence is metaphorically used, the essay argues that the Darwinian formula can be separated from other concepts of struggle (e.g. the Schopenhauerian) by a specific ambivalence. As the struggle for existence causes progress and defeat at the same time, observers and narrators of such a struggle can be repelled or fascinated, or both at the same time. Nietzsche's early aesthetics and Max Kretzer's naturalistic novel Meister Timpe (1888) are examples for such an ambivalently conceived struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The following article highlights some features of the German Pessimism in the 19th Century. It shows that Schopenhauer associated pessimism with the question of value, giving thus a theoretical framework to what, until then, was more like an emotional dissatisfaction with life. The second part of the article presents a series of German thinkers who tried to answer the Schopenhauerian challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the work of poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his contribution to aesthetics is his formula "multeity in unity" and revolutions in poetry and criticism in Romantic Britain, or an abstruse plagiarist of German philosophy. It mentions he never did produce a systematic philosophy of the arts and presents fascinating and at times novel aesthetic theories. It also mentions universal principle that serves originality, imagination and judgment of art.

The article analyzes the terminological coordinates of theory transfer and its implications. It explores the methodological challenges concerning theory transfer and the empirical dimension of defining theory transfer. Also discussed are the idea of stability of theory and its unchangeability and the issue of transatlantic theory transfer to the U.S. from Germany.

Horkheimer and Adorno make claims that imply a complete rejection of the idea of a universal history developed in classical German philosophy. Using Kant’s account of universal history, I argue that some features of the idea of a universal history can nevertheless be detected in the Dialectic of Enlightenment and some of Adorno’s remarks on freedom and history. This is done in connection with the kind of rational self-mastery that they associate with the story of Odysseus. Some claims made by Adorno in particular will be shown to imply that this self-mastery is a necessary condition of a better, freer society, especially in relation to this society’s material conditions. On the other hand, certain essential features of the idea of a universal history are clearly absent in virtue of the ultimate contingency of events and states of affairs that Adorno seeks to preserve. I show that the absence of these features and the preservation of contingency are, in fact, the means of saving the notion of the possibility of progress which informs the idea of a universal history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article outlines the views of professors of philosophy Paul Deussen and Max Hecker on interpretative issues regarding German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer's doctrine of the will. Topics include the reason for the growing interest in the relationship between Schopenhauer's philosophy and Indian thought, a discussion on Indian monk Swami Vivekananda's critical remarks on this doctrine of the will by Schopenhauer, and the controversy on Schopenhauer's ontological status of the will.

Hermeneutics is widely celebrated as a call for "conversation"--that is, a manner of inquiry characterized by humility and openness to the other that eschews the pretenses of calculative rationality and resists all finality of conclusions. In this, conversation takes shape in efforts to understand and interpret that always unfold in the transmission of meaning historically in language. Yet, the celebration of hermeneutics for humility and openness appears, at least, to risk embarrassment in light of claims found in Heidegger and Gadamer that conversation is always contingent on "prior accord." Critics of hermeneutics have, for some decades, interpreted this claim of prior accord to refer to a common tradition, so that the understanding achieved in conversation is restricted to those who belong to the same heritage. In this essay, the author argues that although Heidegger and Gadamer often suggest this prior accord is a matter of common tradition, crucial threads of Gadamer's thought, in particular, recommend a different view. Gadamer, in these threads, offers that "prior accord" concerns not a common tradition, but, on the contrary, the call to participate in hermeneutic transmission as such, even--and no doubt especially--when those in conversation are not familiar with the tradition or language of the other. With this, we are called to converse not first by what the other says, but by the fact that we do not yet understand, that we have already misunderstood, and that we perhaps cannot understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a detailed analysis of the function of the notion of Volk in Martin Heidegger's philosophy. At first glance, this term is an appeal to the revolutionary masses of the National Socialist revolution in a way that demarcates a distinction between the rootedness of the German People (capital "P") and the rootlessness of the modern rabble (or people). But this distinction is not a sufficient explanation of Heidegger's position, because Heidegger simultaneously seems to hold that even the Germans are characterized by a lack of identity. What is required is a further appropriation of the proper. My suggestion is that this logic of the Volk is not only useful for understanding Heidegger's thought during the war, but also an indication of what happened after he lost faith in the National Socialist movement and thus had to make the lack of the People the basis of his thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent work, Amie Thomasson has sought to develop a new approach to the philosophy of the categories which is metaphysically neutral between traditional realist and conceptualist approaches, and which has its roots in the 'correlationalist' approach to categories put forward in Husserl's writings in the 1900s--1910s and systematically charted over the past few decades by David Woodruff Smith in his studies of Husserl's philosophy. Here the author aims to provide a recontextualization and critical assessment of correlationalism in a Husserlian vein. To this end, the author presents, first, the reasons why, later in his life, Husserl himself found his earlier treatment of categories philosophically naive, and why he increasingly advocated for a more genetic-teleological account. The author then draws upon arguments made a century earlier by Schelling and Hegel, in criticism of Fichte, to point up what might remain philosophically unsatisfying about even the post-correlationalist genetic position of the later Husserl, in light of the pronounced trend in Husserl's own development, on the questions of reason and spirit, toward absolute idealism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I produce a critique of Marx Horkheimer's book Critique of Instrumental Reason as a way to introduce the concept of pragmatic critical theory. I start by mentioning that C. Wright Mills's concept of 'The Sociological Imagination' has many of the qualities of critical theory while emphasizing its potential for pragmatic solutions to social problems. I discuss some of the qualities of German social theory including its tendency toward over-philosophizing, before going on to discussing this book as well as the work of such scholars as W. I. Thomas and Emile Durkheim who produced morally-relevant social analysis, and especially the work of Max Weber whose exposition on the nature of rationality is used to provide background information that puts the work of Max Horkheimer in broader sociological context. I discuss how fantasies and substitute satisfactions are substitutes for a well-balanced life. I emphasize why Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School in general did not appreciate the American concern for pragmatism, but I nevertheless show the importance of a pragmatic approach to social reform. His critique of nationalism that runs as a theme throughout this book as offering a poor substitute for a sense of community is also pertinent. I end by emphasizing that Horkheimer's emphasis on authoritarianism as a reaction to modernization, and Christopher Lasch's emphasis on narcissism as a reaction to modernization, both emphasize negative aspects of their own societies, and learning how to avoid both extremes is a useful lesson to take away from both of their writings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the reformulation of German philosopher Gottlob Frege's theory of thoughts. Topics mentioned include the shareability and communicability of thoughts as deemed by Frege, argumentations on Frege's claim that thoughts are not the products of thinking, but only grasped by thinking, and interpretation of his theory of thoughts as a Platonist doctrine or realism.

Angela Carter's reception of German Romantic philosophy is one important aspect of her commitment to deconstructing and revising Western literary tradition. In The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972), Carter suggests that the Romantic ideals of harmony and transcendence limit personal freedom, and that the Romantic imagination is not as liberating as its champions claim. This is illustrated through the protagonist Desiderio, whose fragmented sense of self arises from his liminal position as a mixed-race inhabitant of a postcolonial nation. His yearning for a clear identity is characteristic of the Romantic desire for a lost harmony, but Carter criticizes this European philosophy for its potential to mythologize a dangerous form of self-sacrifice. The postcolonial context of the novel illustrates the very real dangers that arise when any particular ideology gains the upper hand, and the Romantic desire to unite the world is warped into a vision of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Magical realism is known with its oxymoronic characteristic, magic plus realism. It became known with the boom of the magical realist novel in the 1960s in Latin America and became globally recognized from 1980 onwards. However, it is mostly forgotten that it had started its journey from Europe. The term "magic realism" first appeared in German philosophy in 1798 in Novalis' notebook. Then, it entered art criticism in 1925 through Roh's essay and developed in Italy through by Bontempelli. Later, after transformation and formation, magical realism appeared in the novels as a popular mode first in Latin America and then worldwide. The present study charts the path and discusses the development of magical realism from its commencement in Europe. In addition to presenting the views of Novalis, Roh and Bontempelli on initiating the term, it compares their views to show what characteristic in their views inspires today's magic realism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laurence Sterne has been read and enjoyed in the German-speaking world since his own lifetime, in excellent German translations by Johann Joachim Christoph Bode and others. His importance to the development of the German novel has been the focus of a number of studies, but his attractiveness to German-language philosophers has been much less noted. In a chronological survey from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth centuries, this article begins with the role Sterne reception plays in the German cult of sensibility (Empfindsamkeit) before focusing in turn on Hegel, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Lukács and Luhmann. Superior philosophical stylists such as Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche and the early Lukács succumbed to the temptation to imitate surface features of Sterne’s style, but the most interesting cases arise when philosophers have spent time reflecting on Sterne’s thematic concerns as well as his formal innovations. There have been three main areas of interest: Sterne’s characterisations and the question of peculiar individuality, Sterne as a sentimentalist and moralist, and ‘Shandyan humour’. An attempt is made to distinguish between philosophers (such as Wittgenstein) who merely enjoyed reading Sterne, and those (such as Marx, Nietzsche and Luhmann) who can be described as more properly ‘Sternean’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The present paper emphasizes the difficulties in translating philosophical texts in general, with a special interest in Romanian translations of German philosophical writings. The focus was set on one of the late works of Arthur Schopenhauer, [Aphorisms on] The Wisdom of Life, and on its Romanian translation, with the purpose of contrastively and diachronically analysing the various existent versions of the translation and their influence on the development of the target-language (Romanian). The types of analysis which have been used in our research are description and contrastive typology. Various versions of the Romanian translation of the Aphorisms have been compared with the original text and with one another, in order to diachronically analyse the translation methods and strategies that were used in the process of transposing the German original text into an adequate Romanian one. The analysis in the present study concentrated on the word class of verbs and had the purpose of understanding the way various elements of this word class correspond with their Romanian equivalents and of drawing conclusions regarding a possible typology of translation strategies used for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Schelling's 1809 Freiheitsschrift (Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom), perhaps his most widely read work, presents considerable difficulties of understanding. In this paper, I offer an interpretation of the work in relation to Kant. My focus is on the relation in each case of their theory of human freedom to their general metaphysics, a relation which both regard as essential. The argument of the paper is in sum that Schelling may be viewed as addressing and resolving a problem which faces Kant's theory of freedom and transcendental idealism, deriving from the challenge posed by Spinozism. One major innovation in Schelling's theory of human freedom is his claim that it presupposes the reality of evil. I argue that Schelling's thesis concerning evil also provides a key to the new and highly original metaphysics of the Freiheitsschrift. The relation of Schelling's theory of freedom to his general metaphysics is therefore complex, for it goes in two directions: the metaphysics are not simply presupposed by the theory of freedom but are also in part derived from it. These new metaphysics also, I argue, allow Schelling to resolve a problem which his own earlier Spinozistic system had left unresolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]