Idealism and Education: Continuities and Transformations in Schelling's Philosophy and Its Implications for a Philosophy of Education Kristian Simcox
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University of New Mexico UNM Digital Repository Philosophy ETDs Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2-14-2014 Idealism and Education: Continuities and Transformations in Schelling's Philosophy and Its Implications for a Philosophy of Education Kristian Simcox Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/phil_etds Recommended Citation Simcox, Kristian. "Idealism and Education: Continuities and Transformations in Schelling's Philosophy and Its Implications for a Philosophy of Education." (2014). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/phil_etds/4 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Electronic Theses and Dissertations at UNM Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy ETDs by an authorized administrator of UNM Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. i ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I thank Dr. Adrian Johnston, my advisor and dissertation chair, for his dedication to my success and his refusal to let me surrender to the occasional temptation to abandon this project. His commitment, expressed in years of collaborative textual research, in demonstrated interest in both my academic progress and personal wellbeing, and in countless other ways cannot be overstated. I also thank my committee members, Dr. Brent Kalar, Dr. Iain Thomson, and Dr. John Lysaker. Without their help, at many important stages along the way, I could not have achieved the success I have enjoyed as a student and a teacher. I am infinitely indebted to my mother, Elizabeth Shea, for her endless love and support. The knowledge that you are always on my side has sustained me through the darkest moments of self-doubt. I am profoundly grateful for the patient understanding and loving encouragement of my friend and partner, Carolyn Kuchera, and I aim to show my gratitude daily. I am thankful for the wonderful friends who have supported and encouraged me. I am fortunate to say that there are too many to mention here, but a special thanks to those of you who have engaged in thoughtful conversation about my project: Ryan Bartlett, Kelly Becker, Mary Domski, Christian Wood, and Brian Wunsch. I am also deeply grateful to my loving and supportive family. Barrie, Cordelia, Donna, Jack, and Tracie, your care and help over the years has been incredible. Finally, I dedicate this in loving remembrance of my brother, Travis Eberhart, and father, Charles Sundin. You are in my heart always. iii IDEALISM AND EDUCATION by Kristian Shea Simcox B.A., PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF OREGON M.A., PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO Ph.D., PHILOSOPHY, UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO ABSTRACT This project is centrally concerned with the connection of Schelling’s philosophy of education to his broader philosophical commitments, from his identity-philosophy period to his middle period philosophy of freedom. I argue that, while there are some essential threads of continuity from Schelling’s earlier views to his middle period philosophy that should not be ignored, there are some basic problems inhering in the identity-philosophy system that motivate some radical transformations in his views by 1809. I argue that these transformations must result in a rethinking of his earlier views on university education, as expressed in his 1802-1803 lectures On University Studies. I begin with an exposition of Schelling’s absolute idealism, specifically as it is presented in his 1802 Bruno dialogue. This lays the ground for the discussion of Schelling’s philosophy of education in his 1802 Lectures on the Method of University Studies. In an analysis of those Lectures, I show the direct implications of his identity-philosophy for his plan for a reformation of the university. I then trace the developments and transformations of his idealism in his 1809 essay Of Human Freedom. In my explication of this later text, I show that certain basic features of Schelling’s earlier educational iv program would have to be abandoned in light of these later developments in his philosophical project. This project is one of historical scholarship. I aim to bring into clearer light the nature of Schelling’s philosophy of education in particular, and his philosophy in general as it developed over the course of the early 1800’s. The research presented here, while valuable in its own right, also lays the groundwork for future studies of Schelling’s relationship to other major historical figures of philosophy, such as Heidegger, enriching our understanding of each through the other. v Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1 Chapter 1: The Task of the System of Absolute Identity............................................. 17 1.1: The Possibility of Knowledge....................................................................................... 17 1.2: Art and the Absolute in the System of Transcendental Idealism .................................. 19 1.3: The Descent of Art: Bruno ........................................................................................... 29 Chapter 2: Tarrying with the Absolute ....................................................................... 36 2.1: The Concept of Absolute Identity ................................................................................ 36 2.2: Identity of Thought and Intuition ................................................................................ 39 2.3: Individuality and Absolute Identity ............................................................................. 41 2.4: The Doctrine of the Soul.............................................................................................. 44 2.5: The Problem of Knowledge: Thought and Being .......................................................... 53 2.6: The Infinite In-Forms the Finite ................................................................................... 64 2.7: Fractured Identity ....................................................................................................... 68 Chapter 3: The Idea of the University ........................................................................ 73 3.1: Historical Setting: The Need for Education .................................................................. 73 3.2: What Is a University For? ............................................................................................ 85 3.3: Identity Crisis in the University.................................................................................... 95 3.4: The Unraveling Absolute and the Fracturing University ............................................... 99 Chapter 4: Human Freedom and the Communication of Philosophical Knowledge... 112 4.1: Human Freedom: A New Beginning? ......................................................................... 112 4.2: The Genesis of Knowledge (and Knowing of Genesis) ................................................ 123 4.3: Ground and Existence ............................................................................................... 128 4.4: The Un-Grounding of Education ................................................................................ 150 Chapter 5: Conclusion.............................................................................................. 158 5.1: Significance of the Preceding for Understanding Heidegger on Education.................. 158 5.2: Final Remarks............................................................................................................ 169 vi Introduction The announcement of the project of critical philosophy by Immanuel Kant, with the publication of Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, quickly inspired critics and critical admirers. Among the critics who argued for the abandonment of Kantianism was Friedrich Schiller, who saw reason as a “torch in a dungeon,” suggesting, as Joseph Esposito observes in his Schelling’s Idealism and Philosophy of Nature, that the critical philosophy “had sown the seeds of its own destruction, for it had not critically established the conditions for its own possibility” (19). Many of Kant’s admirers shared this latter concern—that the critical philosophy of Kant had failed to establish its own justificatory ground—but responded with an attempt to supply “a transcendental deduction of the possibility of critical philosophy itself,” rather than dispose of the project altogether (Esposito 19). This path, initiated by figures such as Karl Reinhold and J. G. Fichte, would form an approach that would eventually take the name of “German Idealism.”1 This project would later be inherited and cultivated by, among others, Georg W. F. Hegel and Friedrich W. J. Schelling, the latter of whom is the focus of the following study. In his 2005 book, All or Nothing, Paul Franks notes that Reinhold, who would become the first of the German idealists, introduced Kant to widespread interest by presenting the Kantian critical philosophy as an answer to the “Spinozism controversy” of the mid-1780’s (10). This controversy arises from Friedrich Jacobi’s argument, in 1785, that Spinoza’s philosophical system is the one that escapes the “Agrippan trilemma” of justification. The Agrippan trilemma is offered by the skeptic who aims to show that any answer to a “why-question” lacks satisfactory justification, for “it is either 1 As many commentators note, this term encompasses such a way variety of concerns and methodologies that it is a risky designation. There are, though, some basic features