Schelling-Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801

Benjamin Berger is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Kent State University. He is editor of a special issue of Pli, on Schelling: Powers of the Idea, 2014. Daniel Whistler is Professor of Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London. He is author and editor of numerous volumes on eighteenth and nineteenth-century philosophy, including the three-volume Edinburgh Edition of the Complete Philosophical Works of François Hemsterhuis, The Schelling-Eschenmayer Controversy, 1801: Nature and Identity (EUP, 2020), The Edinburgh Critical History of Nineteenth-Century Christian Theology, The Schelling Reader (Bloomsbury, 2020) and the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Modern French Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2022).

This excellent book focuses on a decisive moment in Schelling’s philosophical development [...] Berger and Whistler show how much the two philosophers learn from each other despite their fundamental disagreements, and one senses their friendship and mutual respect. This volume makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the development of German Idealism—but it also provides a model for dialogue and philosophical collaboration.

• Preface; AbbreviationsTranslators’ NoteIntroduction: Schelling and Eschenmayer in 1801Part I: TextsA. K. A. Eschenmayer, Spontaneity = World Soul, or the Highest Principle of Philosophy of NatureF.W.J. Schelling, On the True Concept of Philosophy of Nature and the Correct Way of Solving its ProblemsPart II: Commentaries1. Quality2. Potency3. Identity4. Drive5. AbstractionPart III: Appendices1. A. K. A. Eschenmayer and F.W.J. Schelling, Correspondence, 1799-18012. A. K. A. Eschenmayer, Principles of Nature-Metaphysics Applied to Chemical and Medical Subjects [Extracts]3. A. K. A. Eschenmayer, Deduction of the Living Organism [Extracts]4. A. K. A. Eschenmayer, Review of Schelling’s First Outline and Introduction to the Outline