Episode 23: Schelling's Early Philosophy of Nature

In this episode, Anatarah, Bile, and Crane discuss the introduction to Schelling’s 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature and the introduction to Schelling’s 1799 First Outline. Working up to Schelling’s ambitious declaration that philosophy is a “natural history of our mind,” the hosts discuss some of the fundamental concepts—like force, equilibrium, and organism—in Schelling’s philosophy of nature, the difference between Schelling’s earlier philosophy of nature and his “identity system,” and the relationship between Schelling’s project and those of his contemporaries in philosophy and natural science. In conclusion, we debate whether and, if so, how Schelling’s early philosophy of nature might provide us with a basis for a critical theory of nature and natural science.Recommend readings:Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature as Introduction to the Study of This Science, 1797. Cambridge University Press, 2001.First Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature. State University of New York Press, 2004.The Schelling Reader. 1st ed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.The Palgrave Schelling Handbook. Palgrave Handbooks in German Idealism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2026.