RICE UNIVERSITY The Creativity of Nature: The Genesis of Schelling's Naturphilosophie, 1775-1799 by Ryan J. Foster A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE Doctor of Philosophy APPROVED, THESIS COMMITTEE Peter C. Caldwell, Professor of History and German & Slavic Studies Marlf Kulstad, Professor "of Philosophy Robert J. Richards,- Morris Fishbein Professor of the History of Science and Medicine, The University of Chicago HOUSTON, TEXAS DECEMBER 2008 UMI Number: 3362224 Copyright 2009 by Foster, Ryan J. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform 3362224 Copyright 2009 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT The Creativity of Nature: The Genesis of Schelling's Naturphilosophie 1115-1199 by Ryan J. Foster The Naturphilosophie of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854) has been neglected in the Anglophone world for over 200 years, but his detractors are wrong in insisting that his system represented a disguised mysticism and a rejection of empirical science. Although Schelling studied theology at the famous Tubingen seminary, he dedicated his life to philosophy by 1794, eventually turning to an intensive study of the natural sciences. By 1799, he had developed a systematic Naturphilosophie which harvested the discoveries of eighteenth century science in order to solve the philosophical problems left behind by Immanuel Kant and Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Schelling relentlessly fought against the notion that nature is inert. Instead, he stressed its vibrancy, its activity, and ultimately its creativity. By reconstructing Schelling's intellectual development, we not only gain a new appreciation for his thought, but we also see aspects of his Naturphilosophie which are deeply sympathetic, and perhaps even useful in the twenty-first century. Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii Introduction: The Revival of the Young Schelling 1 Chapter 1: Schelling's Swabian Education 12 Contextualizing German Idealism ". 12 Wurttemberg in the Eighteenth Century: Tradition and Conflict 15 Pietism, Eschatology, and Naturmystik in Eighteenth Century Wurttemberg 24 Schelling's Early Life: from Leonberg to Tubingen 30 Life at the Stiff, 1790-1794 33 Chapter 2: Schelling's Philosophical Beginnings 44 Schelling and Classical German Philosophy 44 Kant's New Metaphysics and its Context 47 Reinhold, Fichte, and Grundsatzphilosophie 57 Schelling's Discovery of Reinhold and Fichte 68 On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy 70 "I Live and Breathe Philosophy" 74 On the I As Principle of Philosophy 77 Graduation and Beyond 85 Chapter 3: Schelling's Exodus from Tubingen: from Stuttgart to Leipzig 87 Idealism in Transition: from Subject to Nature 87 Schelling as Hofineister 89 Holderlin, Schelling, and the Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism 92 Philosophical Letters, Part I 100 Philosophical Letters, Part II .. 109 The Oldest System-Program...... '. 119 Schelling as Ideologue: the Road to Leipzig 122 The Turn to Naturphilosophie in Leipzig..... 125 Chapter 4: Schelling and Eighteenth Century Natural Science 132 Newton and Newtonianisms 132 From "Newtonian Medicine" to Vitalism....... 137 Albrecht von Haller's Subversive Orthodoxy 139 Boerhaave's Other Trajectory: French Vital Materialism 145 Buffon and the Histoire Naturelle 153 Diderot and Lucretian Vital Materialism 161 Herder and German Vital Materialism 168 Kant, Blumenbach, and Kielmeyer: Regulative or Constitutive Teleology? 171 Schellingian Beginnings 177 Chapter 5: The Leipzig Naturphilosophie 179 The Turn to Nature 179 The General Overview as Turning Point 183 The Genesis of the General Overview 186 The General Overview and the Rejection of the Mechanistic paradigm 190 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature 199 Ideas, Book I ...200 Ideas, Book II.. 207 ii The "Introduction" to the Ideas 219 Evidence for Schelling's Acquaintance with Leibniz. 221 Theldeas and Schelling's Revival of Leibniz 225 Schelling's Scientific Training in Leipzig ..231 Chapter 6: From Leipzig to Jena .. 240 Into Jena's Orbit 240 The Ambitious Hofmeister 242 The Genesis of On the World Soul 246 On the World Soul - The Universal Organism 249 Schelling, Goethe, and Naturphilosophie 265 The First Outline: the System Established.... 272 Conclusion: Schelling in the Twenty-First Century 293 Works Cited 303 iii Acknowledgments I have incurred a number of debts during the writing of this dissertation, none of which can be fully repaid. A sincere expression of my gratitude is the best I can do. First, I must thank my parents for instilling in me a love of learning at an early age. Without them, I would never have dreamed of taking on a project like this. They also deserve thanks, along with the rest of my family and my friends, for supporting me emotionally during this process. Furthermore, I must thank my grandfather, George Czarnecki, whose death occurred the day before I completed this dissertation. My grandfather was by no means an intellectual, and I am certain that he never imagined his grandson would earn a Ph.D. Yet he supported me unconditionally at all times, and his easygoing personality was always refreshing. A kinder, gentler, more caring man will never be found, and I loved him as much as he loved me. I owe the greatest debt to my Doktorvater, John Zammito, for his intellectual guidance and emotional support. Every time I felt hopeless about my project, my meetings with him renewed my confidence. I also thank the other members of my committee, as well as the staff of the history department at Rice University, who often tolerated my inability to deal efficiently with bureaucracy. In addition, I must acknowledge the support of the Forschungszentrum Europaische Aujklarung in Potsdam, whose affiliation with Rice allowed me to conduct research at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin. Finally, I thank Rice University itself for a Presidential Fellowship, the Wagoner iv committee for awarding me a fellowship for research abroad, and the Humanities Research Center at Rice, which provided me with a fellowship during the 2007-2008 Academic year. 1 Introduction: The Revival of the Young Schelling Any contemporary study of the philosophy of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775- 1854) must answer an obvious question: why should anyone in the twenty-first century care about the often impenetrable and seemingly wildly metaphysical texts of the German Idealists?1 This question is especially difficult to answer in the English-speaking world, where metaphysical thinking itself has been thoroughly discredited.2 There is a general sense that the Idealists have very little to offer us today.3 For that reason, defenders of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel often present them in sanitized forms, attempting either to isolate a helpful "non-metaphysical" kernel in their thought or to present their philosophies as sober advancements on Kant's transcendental philosophy. This is especially true in the cases of Hegel and Fichte, both of whom have received increasingly favorable treatment in English.4 Schelling's situation is somewhat more difficult than Kant's reputation, on the other hand, has not suffered nearly as much. Analytic philosophers are happy to see the sage from Konigsberg as a safe, healthy alternative to the descent into philosophical madness of the Idealists, who nevertheless, often with good reason, claimed to be following the "spirit" if not the "letter" of the Critical Philosophy. Fichte's invocation of the letter/spirit distinction was the most forceful. See Daniel Brazeale's "The Spirit of the Wissenschaftslehre" in The Reception of Kant's Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schellingand Hegel, ed. Sally Sedgwick (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 171-198. 2 Frederick Beiser, German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781-1801 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 466. 3 Wayne M. Martin, Idealism and Objectivity: Understanding Fichte's Jena Project (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), 142. 4 Klaus Hartmann is the father of today's "non-metaphysical" interpretations of Hegel. See his "Taking the Transcendental Turn," The Review of Metaphysics (20) 1966: 223-249. Both Terry Pinkard and Tom Rockmore have contributed to this reading. See Rockmore's Hegel, Idealism, and Analytic Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), Pinkard, Hegel's Phenomenology: The Sociality of Reason (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of 2 that of his two contemporaries; his metaphysical commitments, especially after 1809, seem impossible to downplay, and his Naturphilosophie continues to be an object of ridicule for modern science.5 Nonetheless, there has been something of a "Schelling Revival" in the English-speaking world.6 This dissertation is intended as a contribution to that revival, particularly with respect to his early Naturphilosophie between