Kingston Philosophy Café

Please Note: To attend this event, please register with Barrie Selwyn using the contact details below, to comply with the venue.

3 Birchin Lane, London EC3V 9BW

We are very pleased to welcome as our guest speaker, Peter Dews, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Essex. He is the author of numerous books and articles on German and French thought, most recently Schelling’s Late Philosophy in Confrontation with Hegel (OUP 2023).

SCHELLING’S PATH TO THE IDENTITY PHILOSOPHY

F. W. J. Schelling (1775 – 1854) was one of the leading thinkers of the movement known as ‘German Idealism’, which emerged largely in response to Kant. His philosophy is marked by an inclination towards dualism (between nature and consciousness, between the theoretical and the practical) and an equally strong need to unify such oppositions in a ‘system’. In this talk I will explore how these contrary impulses play themselves out in his early work. I will discuss a series of texts by Schelling, such as ‘Of the I as Principle of Philosophy’, ‘Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature’, ‘System of Transcendental Idealism’ and ‘Presentation of my System of Philosophy’. I will seek to show how, by 1801, Schelling had found his way towards an ‘identity philosophy’, which views mind and nature as simply two aspects or dimensions of a unitary ‘absolute’. 
Peter Dews.

Please enter via the main door at 3 Birchin Lane. If you are likely to be late or the front door is not opened for you, please text nwp@fimc-ltd.com to be admitted.