their own right but rather as aspects of the absolute, it becomes nonsensical to speak of any finite being having freedom, or in fact to speak of finite beings at all. The latter has implications not for the freedom of individual beings, but for the nature of the system as a whole: the claim that all content arises from the absolute through rational necessity entails that the open future which was ensured by the Naturphilosophie drops out of the system. If the progression of things from the absolute follows a rationally determined necessary course, then there are no alternative possibilities, and therefore no open future. These considerations therefore contribute to the change outlined above in Schelling’s conception of freedom. This transition is made explicit when we consider Schelling’s account of the freedom of the absolute outlined above: the absolute is free as it is the only being which is fully causally active and is determined only through its own necessary nature rather than by anything external. This conception is remarkably close to Spinoza’s in its claim that freedom does not consist in the ability to actualise any of a number of possibilities, but rather in the ability to be self-determining to the greatest degree possible given the absence of these possibilities. Arguably these changes to Schelling’s conception of freedom are necessitated by his claims in the Ideas and Outline: the Naturphilosophie claims that subjects are part of nature, and that all of nature is an expression of the absolute; which entails that subjects are similarly expressions of the absolute and therefore cannot enact their own wills but rather are appearances of the will of the absolute. This conclusion, which informs the conception of freedom based on pre-established harmony in the System of Transcendental Idealism, and which then gives way to the Spinozist account of freedom in the Identitӓtssystem, is therefore the logical consequence of the compatibilism that we find in the Naturphilosophie. As Kosch argues: Schelling’s achievement, in contrast with Hegel and the later Fichte, is to have recognised that this [compatibilist] position becomes absurd when taken to its logical conclusion – to have realised that the Kantian conception of freedom is not preserved in this form of absolute idealism, and to have shown that this view is no different, in its moral consequences, from Spinoza’s. Transition to the Freiheitsschrift: Bruno and Philosophy and Religion
their own right but rather as aspects of the absolute, it becomes nonsensical to speak of any finite being having freedom, or in fact to speak of finite beings at all. The latter has implications not for the freedom of individual beings, but for the nature of the system as a whole: the claim that all content arises from the absolute through rational necessity entails that the open future which was ensured by the Naturphilosophie drops out of the system. If the progression of things from the absolute follows a rationally determined necessary course, then there are no alternative possibilities, and therefore no open future. These considerations therefore contribute to the change outlined above in Schelling’s conception of freedom. This transition is made explicit when we consider Schelling’s account of the freedom of the absolute outlined above: the absolute is free as it is the only being which is fully causally active and is determined only through its own necessary nature rather than by anything external. This conception is remarkably close to Spinoza’s in its claim that freedom does not consist in the ability to actualise any of a number of possibilities, but rather in the ability to be self-determining to the greatest degree possible given the absence of these possibilities. Arguably these changes to Schelling’s conception of freedom are necessitated by his claims in the Ideas and Outline: the Naturphilosophie claims that subjects are part of nature, and that all of nature is an expression of the absolute; which entails that subjects are similarly expressions of the absolute and therefore cannot enact their own wills but rather are appearances of the will of the absolute. This conclusion, which informs the conception of freedom based on pre-established harmony in the System of Transcendental Idealism, and which then gives way to the Spinozist account of freedom in the Identitӓtssystem, is therefore the logical consequence of the compatibilism that we find in the Naturphilosophie. As Kosch argues: Schelling’s achievement, in contrast with Hegel and the later Fichte, is to have recognised that this [compatibilist] position becomes absurd when taken to its logical conclusion – to have realised that the Kantian conception of freedom is not preserved in this form of absolute idealism, and to have shown that this view is no different, in its moral consequences, from Spinoza’s. Transition to the Freiheitsschrift: Bruno and Philosophy and Religion
Freedom%20and%20Powers%20in%20Schelling%27s%20Metaphysics.docx