FWJ Schelling: Of the I as Principle of Philosophy, or the Unconditional in Human Knowledge

58 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [p 11-21]

The true essence of the "newest" Kant-Fichtean philosophy is the identity of subject and ob-ject (as Hegel and Schelling came to call it) and the consequent objection to dualism.11. Christian August Crusius (1715-1775), professor of philosophy and theology in Leipzig.Critic of Wolff. Fundamental axiom: What cannot be thought is false; what cannot bethought as false is true. Three principles: (1) principium contradictionis: nothing can at oncebe and not be; (2) principium inseparabilium: whatever entities cannot be thought withouteach other cannot exist without each other; (3) principium inconiungibilium: what cannot bethought as joint or as juxtaposed cannot exist jointly or in juxtaposition. (Willy Moog; DiePhilosophie der Neuzeit bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. [Berlin, Mittler: 1924], p. 460).12. After "the axiom of contradiction" Schelling put "(das Unbedingte)." This remark inparentheses seems to belong elsewhere (perhaps half dozen lines earlier, after "the originalform of all knowledge"), since it is the philosophical method that must reach the uncondi-tional, while the axiom of contradiction alone falls short of it.13. It is significant that Schelling sees in Kant the thinker who turned away from the rem-nant of formalism in Leibniz toward a philosophy founded on the reciprocal determination ofform and content, which is the mark of the I.14. The merely analytical form cannot constitute objective reality, which requires a"transcendental synthesis." Transcendental idealism is realism, in contrast to any philosophyrestricted to formal analysis.15. Schelling may have in mind the crucial passage at the end of section 2 of the introduc-tion to CrJ: "There must be a ground of unity of that supersensuous which is at the base ofnature with the supersensuous which the concept of freedom contains practically. Though theconcept of that unity neither theoretically nor practically attains definite knowledge, andtherefore has no domain of its own, still it makes possible the transition of the manner ofthinking according to the principles of the one [freedom] to that according to the principles ofthe other [nature]" (Cass. 5:244; cf. Bernard 12).16. Schelling means the deduction of the categories from the table of judgments. He himselfholds that the three forms of relation furnish a proper deduction of the other nine categories(Poss. 107). In the System of Transcendental Idealism [1800] 3: 517) he says that "the entiremechanism of the categories must be deduceable from the relation of time to the pure con-cepts on the one hand and, on the other, to pure intuition (Anschauung) or to space."17. This §11 was not in the first edition (1781), but was added in the second (1787, pp.109 13). On pages 110-11 Kant says the table of categories "contains the form of a system ofall elemental concepts and therefore gives a hint of all joint traits (alle Momente) of anavailable speculative science" (cf. Smith 110). He emphasizes that in each group "the thirdcategory is not a mere derivative but a genuine concept of pure understanding."18. PuR 95; Smith 105.19. F'uR 131,8 16; Smith 152. See n. 7 above.20. 1 Cor. 13:1.21. Matt. 6:33.

Translator's Introduction toOf the I as Principle of Philosophy, or

On the Unconditional inHuman Knowledge

Schelling's son, K. F. A. Schelling, who edited the Works, (1856-61), ap-pended to the essay Of the I a critique that Schelling had written in 1796of a review of the essay. My translation of it also follows the essay itself, butit could equally well serve as Schelling's own introduction to the essay.

Another introductory statement by Schelling may be found in his letterto Hegel dated February 4, 1795, written while he was at work on the essay.He implies that Hegel can soon learn from the essay why Schelling calledhimself a Spinozist. Parts of this letter are translated in notes 25 and 55.The reader may also consult note 101. As I have mentioned earlier hewould do well to keep at hand both Spinoza's Ethics, which Schelling surelyhad before him, and Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.

The title of this essay no longer speaks hypothetically about the merepossibility of a form of all philosophy but comes right out with the thesisthat the I is the principle of philosophy. To be sure, this is not the em-pirical I which each one of us finds in his consciousness. If it were, thatwould mean the subjective idealism of Berkeley, where to be is to beperceived, and where mental contents would be inexplicable illusionsunless certainty came with our ideas because they themselves came to usfrom the mind of God, who is not a deceiver. But in that case the existenceof that God would be a postulate, which begs the question. We cannot lookfor any unconditionality of truth in a sheerly transcendent and thereforeentirely hidden God. And if that hidden God should deign to revealhimself to man, it would still be a conditional truth depending on the twoconditions that the Devil had no hand in the revelation and that God feltlike bestowing it.

Now, even the empirical I has the unconditional form of being identicalwith itself, nor is this particular identity merely formal. For, if you expressyour awareness of your self in the sentence / am 1 and then rashly transpose

60 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE

that sentence into the formula I = I, you have a mere formal identity as inA = A. Everybody grants that, given an A, A cannot be anything but A.Yet nothing is really given in the formula I = I. It had better be written x= x. What are we talking about when we talk in terms of such letters as Aor x or even I? In mathematical tradition, x means any unspecifiedamount. And the letter I may mean anything at all, not excluding any it.The mistake of those who cannot understand Kant and Fichte and Schell-ing is precisely their notion that the I probably means some mysterious itcalled a mind or a soul or a spirit. Now, when these three writers use theword I, they take it strictly as a pronoun which, even in ordinary speech,cannot mean anything but the speaker or writer or reader himself whorefers to himself when he says I. The pronoun I means the act by which twoevents are established simultaneously, the awareness of myself, and thedistinction between my I and any not-I. The self-awareness can be describ-ed in words as the identity of thinking-form and thought-content. Kant'sphrasing is clearer; he says "the subject is at the same time its own object"(PuR 429). Adopting Fichte's words, Schelling says of the I, "it is because itthinks itself, and it [can] think itself because it is. It produces itself by itsown thinking—by absolute causality" (Of I, 167), Of course none of thesewords and sentences can force you to grasp that you are an I. The I is a freeact. "I am because I anal— that [insight] grabs each one suddenly" (Of I,168). Augustine says it happens by that mental "slap" by which the mindunderstands the word yourself. (De trinitate 10, ix, 12: eo ictu quo in-telligit quod dictum est to ipsam.)

As an empirical I, I find myself not only as absolutely self-positing butalso as the specific physical and historical person I am. For when I realizethat I am I for myself alone, as Fichte puts it (1:98), I simultaneouslydistinguish my I from whatever is not I, for instance, from my own mentalconstitution with its historical setting and from my body with its physicalenvironment. The empirical I is never without some object, as Kantpointed out (PuR 276).

Now, there is a distinction (not a separation) between the unconditionalcertainty that I am I, and the unconditional as such. The former, beingsubjective, is never without an object. Therefore the empirical person isconditioned by objects. And there is a conditioning bond between objects.No such conditioning can pertain to the unconditional. Therefore the un-conditional can be neither subject nor object. It is "no thing at all" (Of I,177) and therefore fittingly named "absolute I," whose essence is freedom.(To absolve means to detach. Absolute means without ties.)

Schelling distinguishes it from the empirical I. The latter is subject:though it is unconditionally I, it is also conditioned as a specific person.Yet, if its form were not the form of unconditionality, there could be no Iat all. The "absolute I" is the ground of possibility of every empirical I.

OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 61

Schelling says that the absolute I cannot occur in consciousness (180)because of the condlnality inherent in all consciousness: no subjectwithout an object. Yet the absolute I, oi,e could say, furnishes the form ofunconditionality without which no consciousness would be possible.

You may feel that this kind of argumentation endeavors to hold fastwhat is utterly elusive. And this is what Schelling seems to do when, in thatFebruary 4 letter to Hegel, he writes, "God is nothing but the absolute I"(Plitt 1:77). He does not mean that God is a person, for in the same letterhe had already said that we can (and ought to) "reach farther [meaning

/deeper] than the personal being" (ibid. 76). Why then use the word I to God and the unconditional? Because the I has the form of self-

positing, that is, of absolute independence, absolute freedom. (See also n./25, the entirety of which could serve as a short introduction to the essay OfI.)

In 1811 Schelling wrote: "God in his highest Self is not revealed [once '7and for all], he is [continuously] revealing himself; he is not real, hebecomes real, precisely in order to be manifest as the very freest being"(The Ages of the World; 8:308; cf. Bolman 196-97). Around 1836 Schell-ing said of God, "he is entirely outside of himself, free of himself, and isthus the being that sets everything else free" (see the entire passage quotedin n. 70).

Freedom cannot be imparted by coercion, only by invitation. No"power" of God can make man free, only "love." Terms like power andlove may help some readers who do not entirely lack a religiousbackground. To be sure, they can help only a reader who, like Schelling, isbeyond what Schelling calls "orthodox concepts of God." On February 4,1795, he wrote to Hegel: "Here is my answer to your question whether Ibelieve that, with the moral proof, we cannot reach a person Being. ... Myanswer is: We reach farther than a personal being. For by now I have

./ become a Spinozist" (Plitt 1:76).Kant warned against objectifying and more especially personifying God

(PuR 611 n.), a warning that, unfortunately, is not heeded to this day. Themain reason may be the dependence of "modern" thinking and schoolingon the objective sciences. Thus, when Nietzsche exorcised "the old God,"and when William James damned "the Absolute," they were both thinkingof objective entities, and they let their objectivistic thinking overrule thatkeen sense for the symbolic which they both possessed. The other reasonfor objectivism is the kind of ecclesiastic teaching which, for the sake of be-ing "modern," ignores Kant and his warning and therefore neglects to tellthe yourw the deepest truths religion has voiced.

God is not one of the gods. He is "not in a genus" (Aquinas, SummaTheologica 1.Q 3. Art 5), the genus gods. The gods come and go; their ex-istence is not identical with their essence. But in God essence and existence


are identical (ibid., Art 4). God has no essence apart from his existence orpresence. "I shall be who shall be" (Exodus 3:14). A reader who has beentaught and has really grasped these truths will find no insurmountable dif-ficulty in Schelling's notion of the "absolute I."

On page 200 Of I Schelling says the finite I strives to become identicalwith the absolute I. Religion teaches that man should strive to live in God.And the mystic strives to lose himself in God. 2

Of the I as the Principle ofPhilosophy

orOn the Unconditional in

Human Knowledge

(1795; second printing, 1809)

Say first, of God above, or Man below,What can we reason, but from what we know?Of Man, what see we but his station here,From which to reason, or to which refer?Through worlds unnumber'd though the God be known,Tis ours, to trace him only in our own.

Pope: Essay on Man(Epigraph of the first edition)

[151] Preface to the First Edition

Instead of all the pleas with which a writer can meet his readers and critics,there in only one plea here to the readers and critics of this essay; either notto read it at all or to read it in its entire contexi, and either to refrain fromjudgment altogether or to judge the author by the whole work and not byseparate passages taken out of context. There are readers who look at ahook flret ingly, in order to grasp quickly something that they can throw atthe author as a criticism, or to find a passage that has been rendered in-comprehensible by being taken out of context. By such means they can

63

64

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [152,153]

prove to anyone who has not read the work that the author has writtennonsense. Thus, for instance, readers of that kind could say that in thisessay Spinoza is spoken of very often, not (to use Lessing's expression) "as adead dog,” and then— the logic of such people is all too well known — theycould (jump to the conclusion that the author is trying to repeat Spinoza'serrors, even though they have been refuted long ago. For such readers (ifthat term may be applied to them) I want to say, on the one hand, that thisessay is meant to annul explicitly the very foundations of Spinoza's system,which has not yet been refuted by any means, or more aptly, to topple it bymeans of its own principles; on the other hand I want to say that (in spite ofall its errors) Spinoza's system seems to me more worthy of high esteem,because of its bold consequences, than the popular,coalition-systems of ourintellectual world, which [152] through a patchwork of all possible systemsSpell death to all true philosophy. At the same time I am ready to admit to

'J such readers that these systems, which constantly hover between heavenand earth and are not litalreetiough to penetrate to the core of allknowledge, are much more secure against the most dangerous errors thanis the system of a great thinker whose speculations take great flights, andwho risks_ everything, either to achieve complete truth in all its greatness,or no truth at all. And please let me remind you that whosoever is not 1

brave enough to follow the truth to its fullest height will never possess it 1

v , ,

even though he touch the hem of its garment, and that, in spite of Itolerable errors, posterity will judge more justly the man who dares to meet Ithe truth freely, than it will those who are afraid of shipwreck on the rocksor sandbars and prefer to drop anchor permanently in some safe cove. ,(

I would like to remind the other kind of readers, those who prove by 1

means of passages taken out of context that the author had writtennonsense, that I do not care for the praise bestowed on writers whose everyword, in and out of context, conveys the same meaning. In all modesty, Iam conscious of the fact that all ideas in this writing are my own, andtherefore I deem it a not immodest demand that I be judged only by.,--

- readers who think for themselves.Elesides, the whole investigation dealswith principles and hence can be tested only by principles. I have tried todepict the results of critical philosophy in its regression to the last prin-.

ciples of all knowledge. The only question, then, which the reader of thisessay has to answer is the following: Whether these principles are true orfalse, and (be they true or false) whether the results of critical philosophyare really based on them. What I hope for my essay is precisely such a testof the principles here elaborated. I cannot expect this testing from anyreaders who are indifferent to all truth, nor from those who presume thatno new investigation of principles can be possible after Kant 1153J andthink that the highest principles of his philosophy have already been estab-lished by him4very other reader - regardless of his system must be in-

[154]


terested in the question of the highest principle of all knowledge becausehis own system, even if it is the system of skepticism, can be true only through 'its principles. One cannot do anything with people who have lost all interest _ r-

in truth, for one could persuade them only with the truth4Th the other -

hand, I believe that I may say to those followers of Kant who presume thathe himself has established the principles of all knowledge, that they havecomprehended the letter but not the spirit of their teacher if they did notdiscover that the way of the Critique of Pure Reason cannot possibly be theway of phitosophy las a science.' )As m, philosophy takes its startfrom the exiiigee. of original conceptions (urspriingliche Vorstellungen)not made possible by experience but explainable only through stlperiorprinciples_. For instance, the necessity and universal validity, which Kantstated as their outstanding character, cannot be based on mere feeling forit (which necessarily would have to be the case if it were not determined bysuperior principles, principles that must be presupposed even by skep-ticism, for skepticism cannot be overturned by a mere feeling of necessity).Furthermore, space and time, which are supposed to be only forms of in-tuition, cannot possibly precede all synthesis and therefore mustthemselves depend on a higher form of synthesis.* Similarly, the derivativesubordinate synthesis by means of categories (Verstandesbegriffe) cannotpossibly be thought of without an original form and an original content,which must be the basis of every synthesis if it is to be a synthesis at all. Thisis all the more obvious, since Kant's deductions tell us at first glance [154]that they presuppose superior principles. Thus Kant names the only possi-ble forms of sense perception, space and time, without having examinedthem according to a principle (as for instance the categories according tothe principle of logical functions of judgment). The categories are set upaccording to the table of functions of judgment, but the latter are not setup according to any principle [see n.49]. If we look at this matter more ,

,closely, we find that the synthesis contained in the judgment as well as thesynthesis expressed in the categories is only a derivative synthesis; both canbe understood only through a more basic synthesis shared by both—thesynthesis of multiplicity in the unity of consciousness as such—and this syn-thesis itself can be understood only through a superior absolute unity.Therefore the unity of consciousness is determinable not through the formsof judgments, but on the contrary, the judgments together with thecategories are determinable only through the principle of that unity [see n.49]. By the same token, the many apparent contradictions in Kant'swritings pointed out by his opponents should have been admitted long agofor they cannot be corrected at all except under those higher principles

.1 find that Beck' expresses a similar thought in the preface to the second part of his commen-tary on Kant. But I cannot judge how close or how far the thoughts of this commentator, whohas so visibly entered into Kant's spirit, are related to mine.

„t

,

66 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [155,156]

i which, in the Critique of Pure Reason, its author only presupposed. Final-

ly, even if it could be said that Kant's theoretical philosophy maintainedthe most conclusive concatenation among all its parts, still his theoretical —)*philosophy is not connected with the practical by a common prinicple". 3 His

practical philosophy does not seem to be one-and-the-same structure withthe theoretical; instead it seems to be a mere annex to his philosophy as awhole and, what is more, an annex wide open to attacks from the mainbuilding. Yet, inasmuch as the first principle of philosophy is also the last,since all philosophy, the theoretical in particular, starts from the finalresult of the practical in which all knowledge ends, the whole science mustbe possible, in its highest perfection and unity.

I think the mere mention of all this will suffice to justify the need of anexposition of Kant's philosophy based on superior principles. Indeed Ibelieve that, [155] in the case of such an author, one must explain him ac-cording to thetp inciples which he must have presupposed, and only accor-

../ ding to them.' ven in the face of the original sense of his words, one mustassert the still-more original sense of his thoughts. Thik essay proposes toestablish the principles [on which Kant's thoughts rest]) I could promisemyself nothing more fortunate in this venture than to find examiners of theprinciples here established. I would be grateful for the most severe ex-amination, provided only that it merit the name of examination. Mygratitude would be proportionate to the importance of the subject discuss-ed. The estimable critic of my treatise On the Possibility of a Form of All

Philosophy has made a remark in the Tiibinger Gelehrten Anzeigen (1795,

12th issue) concerning the principle I stated. He has questioned the mainpoint of this whole investigation. I believe that my present essay willalleviate his doubts. To be sure, if what I stated were an objective principlethen one would not be able to understand why it should not depend on asuperior one. The distinguishing feature of my new principle lies in thefact that it ought not to be an objective principle. There my critic and Iagree; an objective principle could not be an ultimate one because it wouldhave to be determined by an ulterior one. The only unresolved questionbetween us is whether there is any principle which is not objective at alland which nevertheless furnishes the basis for all philosophy. To be sure, ifwe had to look at the ultimate in our knowledge as if it were a mute pain-ting outside of us (as Spinoza put it) 5 then we would never know that we

know. However, if that ultimate itself is a condition of all knowledge, in-deed a condition of its own being known, if it is the only immediacy in ourknowledge, then we know precisely through it that we know; we havefound the principle of which Spinoza could say that it is the light which il-luminat •. itself and the darkness.'

1156, It does not behoove philosophy to ingratiate itself by an an-

ticipatory enumeration of its results and thus to suborn the unbiased judg-

[157] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 67

ment regarding its principles, nor can it allow an evaluation of its prin-ciples by the material interests ofleyeacky life, yet, if a well-meaning manshould ask where these ostensibly new principles should lead, whether theyshould remain merely a tenet of some specific school or go on to benefitlift, one may well answer him, provided one does not thereby sway hisjudgment of the principles themselves. In this regard only, and only to ac-commodate the reader who asks that question, may I be permitted thefollowing remark regarding the principles on which this treatise rests. _A.7philosophy which is based on the nature of man himself could not aim Atdead formulae, which would function as just so many prisons of man'smind, nor could it aim at being a philosophical artifice which, by deduc-ing current concepts from apparently superior ones, would bury the livingwork of the human mind in • - d u - • . • ties. If I may say it in thewords of Jacobi, philosophy seeks to unveil and revealtthat which is [Da-"sein], 6 so that the nature or spirit of phirosP-PEy—Cinnot lie in any formulaiar letter; its highest topic must be what is immediate in man and presnetonly to itself,' and cannot be what is mediated by concepts and laboriouslyrecapitulated in concept aim of philosophy is no mere reform of itsdiscipline but a complete l ictiAal'OE its principles, that is a revolutionwhich one can view as the second possible revolution in its field. The firsttook place when the recognition of objects was set up as the principle of allknowledge. Up to the second revolution every advance made was not achange of principles but a progression from one object to another. Andthough it is not an indifferent matter for the schoolman as to what par-ticular object is being served, [157] but is all the same for mankind, theprogression of philosophy from one object to another cannot be the pro-gression of the human mind as such. d_Usefaire, if one may expect any in-fluence on human life itself from any kind of philosophy, one must expectit only fromtlie new philosophy made possible by a complete reversal ofthe principles)

It is a daring step of reason to liberate mankind to remove it from theterrors of the objective world, but this darin• venture cannot fail, becauseman grows in the measure in which he learns to know himself and hispower. Give man the awareness of what he is and he will soon learn to be ✓what he ought to be. Give him the theoretical self-respect and the practicalwill soon follow. One would hope in vain for any great progress of mankindas a result of the mere goodwill of man, because in order to become betterhe would have had to be good already. For that very reasor(lie revolution

✓

in man must come from the awareness of his essence; he must be goodtheoretic" in order to become so practically. The surest preparatory ex-ercise for harmonious action within oneself is the knowledge that the veryessence of man consists of unity and is due to it alone. Once a man hasrealized that, he will also understand that the unity of volition and action

68 [160]THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [158,159] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 69

•

must become as natural and necessary for him as the preservation of his ex-1( istence. It is the very goal of man that the unity of volition and action

I vshould become as natal to him as the mechanism of his body and the uni-1 ' ty of his consciousness.)

✓ In a. languid age one cannot expect much progress from a philosophy

which asserts as itsi lh_gitsl_pslipiici e that the essence of man consists of

freedom and _ only of freedom_ that man is not a thine, not a chattel, and inhis very nature no object at algEtur—spiritless age trembles before everyauthentic force which stirs in man. Therefore the representatives of the agepromptly tried to tone down the first great product of this philosophy.They could do so without too much difficulty, because its language stillseems to indulge the mood of the time. Consequently they saw [in the Criti-que of Pure Reason] nothing but the old established obsequiousness [158]under the yoke of objective truth, and/they tried at least to reduce its doc-trine to the humiliating tenet that _the limitk,of objective truth are not setby absolute freedom but are the mere consequence of the well-knownweakness of man's mind and are due to the limitation of his power oferception. But it would be faintheartedness unworthy of philosophy not

to follow the great new lead which philosophy is beginning to take; not tomap a new course for the human mind, not to give strength to the tired,courage and energy to the crushed and beaten minds, not to shake up duislaves of objective truth by giving them an inkling of freedom, and not toeach man, who is consistent only in his inconsistency, that._LaiA3-i saveimself only by the unity of his action and by strict observance of grin-

iples. , , 1It is difficult not to be, enthusiastic about the great thought that, while

all sciences, the empirical ones not excluded, rush more and more towardthe point of perfect unity, mankind itself will finally realize, as thensitutive law, the principle of unity which from the beginning was the

( regulating,basis of the history of mankind. As the rays of man's knowledgeand the experiences of many centuries will finally converge in one focus oftruth and will transform into reality the idea which has been in many greatmen's minds,the idea that the different sciences must become one in theend just so the different ways and by-ways which humans have followedtill now will converge in one point wherein mankind will find itself againand, as one complete person, will abey_thelawu_f freedom. No matter howfar in the future this point may be, no matter how long it may be possiblefor some to indulge in a genteel laughter at the daring hopes for the pro-gress of mankind, those for whom the hopes are not folly still have thegreat task of working jointly toward the completion of the sciences andthereby at least preparing the way for that great period of mankind.11591 For all ideas must first be realized in the domain of knowledge beforethey find their realization in history, and mankind will never become onebefore its knowledge has matured to unity.

Nature has wisely provided for human eyes the device of dawn as a tran-sition to broad daylight. Small wonder then that wisps of fog remain in thelower regions while the mountain peaks already shimmer in the radiance ofthe sun. But once the first blush of morning appears, the sun cannot fail.To bring about the beautiful day of knowledge is reserved to few—perhapsto one alone—but may it be granted to anyone who senses the coming ofthat day to take pleasure in it in advance.

What I have said in this essay and am saying in this preface is, formany, too much, as I know only too well; for myself it is too little. But allthe greater is the subject, which concerns us all. Whether is was too daringto join in the discussion of such a topic, of that only the essay itself canrender an account. No matter what the verdict may be, any anticipatoryanswer would be futile. It is natural that any reader who likes to twistthings and is victimized by misunderstandings can find fault enough, )But I ✓on my part will not call every adverse criticism unjust, every correction ir-relevant; I hope that I have made that clear through my modest plea forstrict examinjation. What I wanted was truth, and I know it just as well asI know that more can be done in this matter, which does not require merefragmentary work. I hope that some happy time may be granted to me inwhich it will be possible to bring to realization the idea of writing a

) counterpart to Spinoza's Ethics.* ' ) y

Tubingen, March 29th, 1795.

*NOTE OF THE EDITOR OF THE COMPLETE WORKS, (1856), K. F. A. SCHELLING In Schelling'spreface to the first volume of his philosophical writings, 1809, hecharacterizes the essay "Of the I" with the following words. "It showsidealism in its freshest form, in a sense which it may have lost later. At leastthe I is still taken everywhere as an absolute, or strictly as identity of thesubjective and the objective as such [see n.8], and not as a subjective I."

[160]

Synopsis

1. Deduction of a last ground of reality of our knowledge as such, § 1.2. Determination of it through the concept of the unconditioned. The

unconditioned as such can be founda* neither in an absolute object,b. nor in an object conditioned by the subject, nor in a subject

conditioned by the object,c. nor in the sphere of objects at all, § 2,d. therefore only in the absolute I. Reality of the absolute I as such,

§ 3.

70 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [161]

3. Deduction of all possible a priori views of the unconditioned.a. Principle of perfect dogmatism, § 4.b. Principle of imperfect dogmatism and criticism, § 5.c. Principle of perfect criticism, § 6.

4. Deduction of the original form [Urform] of the I, which is identity,and of the supreme principle [Grundsatz], § 7.5. Deduction of the form of its being posited by absolute freedom, inintellectual intuition, § 8.6. Deduction of the subordinate forms of the 1.

a. According to quantity, — Unity, specifically absolute unity, incontrastaa. to multiplicity,bb. to empirical unity, § 9.

b. According to qualityaa. absolute reality as such in contrast

a. to the ostensible reality of things in themselves, or13. to an objective conception of all reality, § 10.

bb. as absolute reality also absolute nonfiniteness [Unendlich-keit]

cc. as absolute reality also absolute indivisibilitydd. as absolute reality also absolute immutability, § 11.

c. According to relationaa. absolute substantiality, in contrast to derivative, empirical

substantiality, § 12.bb. absolute causality, specifically immanent causality, § 13, in

contrast [161]a. to the causality of the moral being [Wesen] and

of the rational and sensuous being insofar as it strivesfor happiness. Deduction of the concepts of moralityand happiness, § 14.

d. According to modality—pure absolute being [Sein] in contrast toempirical being as such, and specifically in contrastaa. to empirical eternity,bb. to merely logical reality,cc. to dialectical reality,dd. to all empirical determination of being, possibility, actu-

ality, necessity (existence as such),ee. to the ostensible absolute being of things in themselves—(in

passing: determination of the concepts of idealism andrealism),

ff. to the existence of the empirical world as such, § 15.7. Deduction of the forms of all modes of being posited [Setzbarkeit]

from their ground in the

[162]


a. Form of thetical propositions as such.b. Determination of them through the subordinate forms.

aa. According to quantity— unity.bb. According to quality— affirmation.cc. According to modality—pure being [Sein]. Specifically this

determination separates the original concepts [Urbegriffe]of being [Sein], not-being [Nicht-Sein], and existence[Dasein] from the derivative concepts of possibility, actu-ality, and necessity, and it considers the latter as such in re-lation to the finite I, as follows:a. in regard to the moral I and, in that respect,

aa. discussing the concept of practical possibility,actuality, and necessity, and

1313. deducting from these concepts the concept oftranscendental freedom, and discussing the prob-lems based on it,

in regard to the theoretical subject [and its interest in]purposiveness [Zweckverknupfung] in the world.'

[162] §1

He who wants to know something, wants to know at the same time that%what he knows is real. Knowledge without reality is not knowledge. Whatfollows from that?

Either our know wled e has no reality at all and must be an eternal roundof propositions, each dissolving in its opposite, a chaos in which no elementcan crystallize—or else there_niust.be an ultimate point of reality on whicheverything depends, from which all firmness and all form of our knowledgesprings, a point which sunders the elements, and which circumscribes foreach of them the circle of its continuous effect in the universe ofknowledge.

There must be something in which and through which everything that isreaches existence, everything that is being thought reaches reality, andthought itself reaches the form of unity and immutability. This something(as we can problematically call it for the time being) should be what com-pletes all insights within the whole system of human knowledge, and itshould reign—in the entire cosmos of our knowledge—as original ground(Urgritnd) of all reality.'°

If there is any genuine knowledge at all, there must be knowledge whichI do not reach by way of some other knowledge, but through which aloneall other knowledge is knowledge. In order to reach this last statement I donot have to presuppose some special kind of knowledge. If we knowanything at all, we must be sure of at least one item of knowledge which we

[165] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 7372 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [163,164]

cannot reach through some other [163] knowledge and which contains thereal ground of all our knowledge.

This ultimate in human knowledge must therefore not search for its ownreal ground in something other. Not only is it itself independent ofanything superior but, since our knowledge rises from any consequence tothe reason thereof and in reverse descends from that reason to the conse-quence, that which is the ultimate and for us the principle of all knowledgecannot be known in turn through another principle. That is, the principleof its being and the principle of its being known* must coincide, must beone, since it can be thought only because it itself is, not because there issomething else. Therefore it must be thought simply because it is, and itmust be because it itself is being thought, not because something else isthought." Its assertion must be contained in its thought; it must createitself through its being thought." If we had to think something else inorder to reach its thought, then that other entity would be superior to theultimate, which is a contradiction. In order to reach the ultimate I neednothing but the ultimate itself. The absolute can be given only by the ab-solute.

Now the investigation is becoming more definite. Originally I positedforl 0nothing but annia.te ground of any real knowledge. Now this criterion

, that it must be the last absolute ground of knowledge permits us at theOP `OP same time to establish its existence (Sein). The last ground for all reality is

something that is thinkable only through itself, that is, it is thinkable onlythrough its being (Sein); it is thought only inasmuch as it is. In short,_ thepriuciPie of being and thinking is one and the ..same [see n.11]. The ques-tion can now be expressed quite clearly and the investigation has a cluewhich can never fail.

II 1

§2

Knowledge which I can reach only through other knowledge is condi-tional. The chain of our knowledge [164] goes from one conditional [pieceof] knowledge to another. Either the whole has no stability, or one must beable to believe that this can go on ad infinitum, or else that there must be asome ultimate point on which the whole depends. The latter, however, inregard to the principle of its being, must be the direct opposite of all thatfalls in the sphere of the con 1tLWy1 hat is, it must be not only uncondi-tional but altogethe unconditionable.

All possible theories of the Unconditional must be determinable a priori,once the only correct one has been found. As long as it has not beenestablished, one must follow the empirical progress of philosophy.

•11.1)01M/1E or"rnF. FIRS l' FM I ION' I May t his expression be taken here in its broadest sense, aslong as the something we are looking for is deter ::: i :: rcl only problematically.

Whether that progress contains all possible theories will be seen only at theend.

As soon as philosophy begins to be a science, it must at least assume anultimate principle and, with it, something unconditional.

To look for the unconditional in an object, in a thing, cannot mean tolook for it in the generic character of things, since it is evident that a genuscannot be something that is unconditional. Therefore it must mean to lookfor the unconditional in an absolute object which is neither genus norspecies nor individual. ' 3 (Principle of consummate dogmatism.)

Yet, whatever is a thing is at the same time an object of knowing, Nitherefore a link in the chain of our knowledge. It falls into the sphere of the ,knowable. Consequently it cannot contain the basis for the reality(Realgrund) of all knowledge and knowing." In order to reach an objectas object I must already have another object with which it can be con-trasted, and if the principle of all knowledge were lying in an object Iwould in turn have to have a new principle in order to find that ostensiblyultimate principle.

Moreover, the unconditional (by § 1) should realize itself, create itselfthrough its own thought; the principle of its being and its thinking shouldcoincide. But no object ever realizes itself. In order to reach the existenceof an object I must go beyond the [165] mere concept of the object. Its ex-istence is not a part of its reality. I can think its reality without positing it asexisting. Suppose, for instance, that God, insofar as some define Him as anobject, were the ground of the reality of our knowledge; then, insofar as Heis an object, He would fall into the sphere of our knowledge; therefore Hecould not be for us the ultimate point on which the whole spheredepends." Also the question is not what God is for Himself, but what He isfor us in regard to our knowledge. Even if we let God be the ground of thereality of His own knowledge, He is still not the ground of ours, because forus He is an object, which presupposes some reason in the chain of ourknowledge that could determine His necessity for our knowledge.

The object as such never determines its own necessity, simply becauseand insofar as it is an object. For it is object only inasmuch as it is deter-mined by something else. Indeed, inasmuch as it is an object it presupposessomething in regard to which it is an object, that is, a subject.

For the time being, I call subject that which is determinable only by con-trast with but also in relation to a previously posited object. Object is thatwhich is determinable only in contrast with but also in relation to a sub-ject. Ihus, in the first place, the object as such cannot be the uncondi-tional at all, because it necessarily presupposes a subject which determinesthe object's existence by going beyond the sphere of merely thinking theobject. The next thought is to look for the unconditional in the object in-sofar as it is determined by the subject and is conceivable only in regard to


the latter. Or, in the third place, since object necessarily presupposes sub-ject, and subject object, the unconditional could be lookedior in the sub-ject, which is conditioned by the object and can be conceived only in rela-tioect." Still, this kind of endeavor to realize the unconditionalcarries a contradiction within itself, which is obvious at first glance. Sincethe subject is thinkable only in regard to an object, and the object only inregard to a subject, neither of them can contain the unconditional becauseboth are conditioned reciprocally, both are equally unserviceable. [166]Furthermore, in order to determine the relationship of the two, an ulteriorreason for the determination must be presupposed, owing to which bothare determined. For one cannot say that the subject alone determines theobject because the subject is conceiveable only in relationship to the object,and vice versa, and it would amount to the same if I were to treat as uncon-ditional a subject determined bobjectan or an object determined by asubject. What is more, this kind of a subject as such is also determinable asanoBject," and for this reason the endeavor to turn the subject into an un-conditional fails, as does the endeavor with an absolute object. _

The question as to where the unconditional must be looked for becomesslowly clearer, owing to its inherent logic. At the outset I asked only inwhich specific object we could look for the unconditional, within the wholesphere of objects. Now it becomes clear that we must not look for it in thesphere of objects at all, nor even within the sphere of that subject which isalso determinable as an object."

§ 3

The philosophically revealing formation of the languages, especiallymanifest in languages still well aware of their roots," is a veritable miracleworked by the mechanism of the human mind. Thus the word I have usedcasually thus far, the word bedingen, is an eminently striking term ofwhich one can say that it contains almost the entire treasure ofphilosophical truth. Bedingen means. the action by which anything

becomes a thing (Ding). Bedingt_(determined) is what has been turned intoa tiling. Thus it is clear at once that nothing can posit itself as a thing, andthat an unconditional thing is a contradiction in terms. Unbedin t_funcon-ditional) is what has not been turned into a thing, and what cannot at all

becoine_a_thing.The problem, therefore, which we must solve now changes into

something more precise: to find something that cannot be thought of as a

thing at all.Consequently, the unconditional can lie neither in a thing as such, nor

in anything that can become a thing, that is, not in the subject. It can lieonly in that 11671 which cannot become a thing at all; that is, if there is an

absolute I, it can lie only in the absolute I. Thus, for the time being, theabsolute I is ascertained as that which can never become an object at all.For the moment no further determination is being made.

That there is an absolute I can never be proved objectively, that is, itcannot be proved with regard to that I which can exist as an object,because we are supposed to prove precisely that the absolute I can neverbecome an object. The I, if it is to be unconditional, must be outside thesphere of objective proof. To prove objectively that the I is unconditional 4

would mean to prove that it was conditional. In the case of the uncondi-tional the principle of its being and the principle of its being thought mustcoincide. It is_onlyliesause it is it is thounly because it is thought.The absolute can be given only by the absolute!•‘ indeed, if it is to be ab-solute, it must precede all thinking and imagining. Therefore it must berealized through itself ( § 1), not through objective proofs, which go beyondthe mere concept of the entity to be proved. 20 If the I were not realizedthrough itself, then the sentence which expresses its existence would be, "ifI am, then I am." But in the case of the I, the condition "if I am" alreadycontains the conditioned "then I." The condition is not thinkable withoutthe conditioned. I cannot think of myself as a merely conditional existencewithout knowing myself as already existing. Therefore, in that conditionalsentence, the condition does not condition the conditioned but, vice versa,the conditioned conditons the condition, that is, as a conditional sentenceit cancels itself and becomes unconditional: "I am because I am." e

I amt My I contains a being which precedes all thinking and imagining.It is by being thought, and it is being thought because it is; and all for onlyone reason—that is is only and is being thought only inasmuch as its think-ing is its own. Thus it is because it alone is what does the thinking, and itthinks only itself because it is. It produces itself by its own thinking—out ofabsolute causality.'[168] "I am, because I amt" That takes possession of everyone instantane-ously. Say to him: "the I is because it is;" he will not grasp it quite so quicklybecause the I is only by itself and unconditioned inasmuch as it is at thesame time unconditionable, that is, it can never become a thing, anobject." An object receives its existence from something outside the sphereof its mere conceivability. In contrast, the I is not even conceivable unless itfirst exists as an I. If it does not so exist it is nothing at all. And it is not atall thinkable except insofar as it thinks itself, that is, insofar as it is.Therefore we must not even say: Everything that thinks is, because thatkind of statement talks .about the thinking as if it were an object. We canonly say: I think, I amL2Y,Therefore it is clear that, as soon as we turn that

, It) r ?4;,C, 0 'C.."

e AIM!' I ION Al. SENTENCE. IN I IIE FIRST EDF! ION: "1 am!" is the unique form by which it an- 44nounces itself with unconditional authority (Selbstmacht). Jo.


.fr


[170, 171] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 77

which can never become an object into a logical object to be investigated,such investigations would labor under a peculiar incomprehensibility. Wecannot at all confine it as an object, and we could not even talk about itnor understand each other with regard to it, if it were not for theassistance of the [intellectual]intuition [we have of our selves]. However,insofar as our knowledge is tied to an object, that intuition is as alien to usas the I which never can become an object.)

Thus the I is determined as unconditional only through itself. *[169] Yet, if it is determined at the same time as that which furnishesvalidity in the entire system of my knowledge, then a regress must bepossible; that is, I must be able to ascend from the lowest conditionedproposition to the unconditional, just as I can descend from theunconditional principle to thelowest proposition in the conditionalsequence.

You may therefore pick from any series of conditional propositionswhichever one you want and, in the regress, it must lead back to the ab-

,,k solute I. Hence, to come back to a previous example, the concept of sub-ject must lead to the absolute I. For if there were no absolute I, then theconcept of that is, the concept of the I which is conditioned by anOka, would be the ultimate. But since the concept of an object containsan antithesis, the basic determination of this concept cannot stop at a merecontrast with a subject which in turn is conceivable only in relation to anobject. The determination is possible only in contrast to something whichflatly excludes the concept of an object as such. Therefore both the con-cept of an object and the concept of a subject which is conceivable only incontrast to some object must lead to an absolute which excludes every ob-

. I jest arksl thus isin absolute contrast to_any object. For if you suppose that

the original position is that of an object which would not require theantecedent position of an absolute I as basis for all• positing, then thatoriginal object cannot be determined as object, that is, as opposed to the I

•Perhaps I can make this matter clearer if I return to the above-mentioned example. For me,God cannot be the ground of the reality of knowledge if He is determined as an objectbecause, if so determined, He would fall into the sphere of conditional knowledge. However,If I should determine God not as an object at all but as = I, then indeed He would be the realground of my knowledge. Still, that determination is impossible in the theoretical [i.e.,objectivistic' philosophy. Nevertheless, even in theoretical philosophy, which determines Godas an object, a determination of God's essence as = I is necessary and then I must indeedassume that for Himself God is the absolute and real ground of His own knowledge, but notfor me. For me, in theoretical philosophy, He is determined not only as I but also as object.Yet if He is an I, then, for Himself, he is not object at all but only I. Incidentally, it followsthat one falsely depicts the ontological proof of God's existence as deceptive artifice; thedeception is quite natural. For, whatever can say / to itself, also says / aml The pity is that, intheoretical philosophy. God is not determined as identical with my I but, in relation to my I,Is determined an an object, and an ontological proof for the existence of an object is acunt rad fenny

since, as long as the latter is not posited, nothing can be in opposition to it.Therefore any object posited as antecedent to any I would be no object atall; the very supposition cancels itself. Or again, suppose that there is an I,but only an I conceptually contrasted (aufgehoben) by the object, that is,an origianl subject; then this supposition likewise cancels itself for, whereno absolute I is posited, none can be set aside (aufgehoben) by contrast. Ifthere is no I antecedent to any object, neither [170] can there be an objectwhose concept would set aside the I by contrast. ( I have in mind a chain ofknowledge that is conditioned throughout and attains stability only in onesupreme, unconditional point. Now, whatever is conditional in that chaincan be conceived only by presupposing the absolute condition, that is, theunconditional. Thus the conditional cannot be posited as conditionalantecedent to the unconditional and unconditionable, but oxilLowing_to

-the latter by contrast to it. Therefore, whatever is posited as only a condi-tional thing is conceivable only through that [logically antecedent entity]which is no thing at all but is unconditional." The object itself then isoriginally determinable only in contrast to the absolute I, that is, only asthe antithesis to the I or as non-I. Thus the very concepts of subject and ob-ject are guarantors of the absolute, unconditionable 1. 25

§4

Once the I is determined as the unconditional in human knowledge,then the whole content of all knowledge must be determinable through thciI itself and through its antithesis, and thus one must also be able to sketcha priori every possible theory regarding the unconditional.

Inasmuch as the I is the absolute I, that which is not = I can be deter-Imined only in contrast to the I and by presupposing the I. Any not-Iposited absolutely, as if it were in no contrast to anything, is a contradic-tion in terms. If, on the other hand, the I is not presupposed as the ab-solute I, then the not-I can be posited either as antecedent to any I or as ona par with the I. A third alternative is not possible.

The two extremes are dogmatism and criticism. The principle ofdogmatism is a not-I posited as antecedent to any I; the principle ofcriticism, an I posited as antecedent to all [that is] not-I and as exclusive ofany not-I. Halfway between the two lies the principle of an I conditionedby a not-I or, what amounts to the same, of a not-I conditioned by an I.

(1) The principle of dogmatism contradicts itself ( §2), [171] because itpresupposes an unconditional thing (ein unbedingtes Ding)" that is, athing that is not a thing. In dogmatism therefore, consistency (which is thefirst requirement for any true philosophy) attains nothing other than thatwhich is not-I should become I, and that that which is I should becomenot-I, as is the case with Spinoza." But as yet no dogmatist has proved that

-7


a not-I could give itself reality and that it could have any meaning except

1 that of standing in contrast to an absolute I. Even Spinoza has not provedanywhere that the unconditional could and should lie in the not-I. Rather,led only by his concept of the absolute, he straightway posits it in an ab-solute object, and he does so as if he presupposed that everybody who con-ceded him his concept of the unconditional would follow him automatical-ly in believing that, of necessity, it had to be posited in a not-I. Once hav-ing assumed though not proved it, he fulfills the duty of consistency morestrictly than any single one of his enemies. For it suddenly becomes clearthat—as if against his own will— through the sheer force of his consistency,which did not shun any conclusion based on his supposition, he elevatedthe not-I to the I, and demeaned the Ito a not-I. For him, the world is nolonger world, the absolute object _ no longer object. No sense perception, no----..concept reaches his One Substance whose nonfinitude is present only to theintellectual intuition. As everywhere, so also in this present investigation,his system can take the place of perfect dogmatism. No philosopher was soworthy as he to recognize his own great misunderstanding; to do so and toarrive at his goal would have been one and the same for him. Norecrimination is more unbearable than the one made against him so often,that he arbitrarily presupposed the idea of absolute substance, or even thatthe idea sprang from an arbitrary explanation of words. To be sure, itseems easier to overthrow a whole system by means of a small grammaticalremark, rather than to insist on the discovery of its final fundamentalswhich, no matter how erroneous, must be detectable somewhere in thehuman mind. The first one [172] to see that Spinoza's error was not in theidea [of the unconditional] but in the fact that Spinoza posited it outsidethe I, had understood him and thus had found the way to [philosophy as a'science."

§5

(2) Any system that takes its start from the subject, that is, from the Iwhich is thinkable only in respect to an object, and that is supposed to beneither dogmatism nor criticism," is like dogmatism in that it contradictsitself in its own principle, insofar as the latter is supposed to be thesupreme principle. However, it is worth while to trace the origin of thisprinciple.

It was customary to presuppose— to be sure, rashly— that the supremeprinciple of all philosophy must express a fact. If, in line with linguisticusage, one understood fact to mean something that was outside the sphereof the pure, absolute I (and therefore inside the sphere of the conditional)then, of necessity, the question had to arise: What could be the condition-


ing]principle of this fact? A phenomenon, or else a thing in itself? That wasthe next question, once one found oneself in the world of objects. Aphenomenon? And what could the principle of this phenomenon be?(Especially if, for instance, imagination [Vorstellung], which is itself aphenomenon, was postulated as principle of all philosophy." Is it in turn aphenomenon, and so on, ad infinitum? Or was it the intention that thatphenomenon which was to furnish the principle of fact should not presup-pose any other phenomenon? Or was the principle to be a thing in itself?Let us examine this matter more closely.

The thinginitiathe_not-I 4:?osited as_antecedent to any I. (Specula-tion demands the unconditional. Once the question as to where the uncon-ditional lies is settled, by some in favor of the I, by others of the not-I, thenboth systems must proceed in the same manner. What the one assertsabout the I, the other must assert about the not-I, and vice versa. In short,we must be able to use their theorems interchangeably, simply bysubstituting in one system a not-I for the I, in the other an I for the not-I.If one could not do that without damage to the system, one of the twowould have to be inconsistent.) The phenomenon is the not-I conditionedby the I."

[173] If the principle of all philosophy is to be a fact, and if the principleof the fact is to be a thing in itself, then every I is done away with, there isno longer any pure I, any freedom, and there is no reality in any I but in-stead only negation. For the I is cancelled in its very origin when a not-I isposited absolutely. In reverse, when the I is posited absolutely, all not-I is*canceled as original and posited as a mere negation. (A system which takesits start from the subject, that is, from the conditioned I, must necessarilypresuppose a thing in itself which, however, can occur in the imagination(Vorstellung), that is, as an object, only in relation to the subject, that is,only as phenomenon (Erscheinung). In short, this system turns out to bethe kind of realism that is most incomprehensible and most inconsistent.)

If the last principle of that ultimate fact is to be a phenomenon, itcancels itself immediately as the supreme principle, because an uncondi-tional phenomenon is a contradiction. This is why all philosophers whotook a not-I for the principle of their philosophy, at the same time elevatedit to an absolute not-I, posited as independent of every I, that is, to a thingin itself.

The consequence is that it would be odd indeed to hear from the mouthsof philosophers who affirm the freedom of the I any simultaneous assertionthat the principle of all philosophy must be a fact, provided that one couldreally assume that they were aware of the consequence of that latter asser-tion, which is that the principle of all philosophy must be a not-I.

(This consequellte follows necessarily for, in that case, the I is positedonly as subject, that is, as conditional, and therefore cannot be the

[172] [173]


ultimate principle. Thus, either all philosophy is nullified as an uncondi-tional science, since its merely conditional principle cannot be the highestpossible one, or else the object must be taken as original and therefore asindependent of every I, and the I itself must be determined as somethingthat can be posited only in contrast to an absolute something, that is,determined as an absolute nothing.)

Nevertheless those philosophers really wanted the I, and not the not-I, asprinciple of philosophy, but they did not want to abandon the concept offact .1174' In order to extricate themselves from the dilemma which con-fronted them, they had to choose the I, though not the absolute I, but theempirically conditioned I as the principle of all philosophy. And whatcould have been closer at hand than that? Now they had an I as principleof philosophy. [It looked as if] their philosophy could not be dubbeddogmatism. At the same time they had a fact, since nobody could denythat the empirical I is the principle of a fact.

True, this was satisfactory only for a time. For, when the matter was in-spected more closely, it turned out that either nothing at all was gained, oronly this much, that again one had a not-I as principle of philosophy. It isevident that it makes no difference whether I start from the I conditionedby the not-I, or from the not-I conditioned by the I. Also, the I condition-ed by the not-I is precisely the point at which dogmatism must arrive,though belatedly; in fact, all philosophy must arrive at it. 3 ' Furthermore,all philosophers would necessarily have to explain in the same mannerwhat the I conditioned by the not-I is, if they did not tacitly assumesomething superior to this fact (this conditionality of the I) about whichthey are secretly in disagreement—that is, assume some superior entity asground of explanation of the conditioned I and not-I. That ground can benothing other than either an absolute not-I, not conditioned by the I, orelse an absolute I, not conditioned by a not-I. But the latter was alreadynullified by the establishment of the subject as principle of philosophy.From there on consistency would demand either that one refrain from anyfurther determination of that principle, that is, from all philosophy, or elsethat one assume an absolute not-I, that is, the principle of dogmatismwhich, in turn, is a principle that contradicts itself (§4). In short, the sub-ject as ultimate principle would lead into contradictions no matter whichway it might turn, and these contradictions could be hidden, after afashion, only behind inconsistencies and precarious proofs. True enough,if the philosophers had agreed that the subject was the ultimate principle,peace could have been established [175] in the philosophical world,because they could readily have agreed on the mere analysis of that princi-ple, and as soon as anyone had gone beyond the mere analysis of it and(seeing that analysis could lead no farther) had tried by synthesis to explainthe analytical fact of the detemination of the I by the not-I and of the not-Iby the I. he would have broken the agreement and presupposed a superiorpt


ANNOTATION. As is well-known, it was Reinhold who tried to elevate theempirically conditioned I (which exists in consciousness) to the principle ofphilosophy. One would show very little insight into the necessity found inthe progress of science if one were to mention Reinhold's attempt withoutdue deference. He deserves the highest esteem, though meanwhilephilosophy progressed farther. It *s not his destiny to solve the intrinsicproblem of philosophy, but to bring it into the clearest focus. Who is notaware of the great impact such a decisive presentation of the problem willhave, precisely in philosophy where, as a rule, an intrinsic presentation ispossible only owing to a fortuitous glimpse of the truth which is yet to bediscovered? Even the author of the Critique of Pure Reason, in his attemptnot only to arbitrate the dispute among philosophers but to resolve the an-tinomy in philosophy itself, did not know what else to do than to state thepoint at issue in an all-encompassing question, which he expressed asfollows: How are synthetic judgements a priori possible? As will be shownin the course of this investigation, this question in its highest abstraction isnone other than: How is it possible for the absolute I to step out of itselfand oppose to itself a not-I? It was quite natural that this question (as longas it was not introduced in its highest abstraction) be misunderstood, alongwith its answer. The next merit, then, that a thinking man could earn wasobviously to present the question in a higher abstraction and thus [176] securelyprepare the way for an answer. This merit was earned by the author of theTheory of the Faculty of Imagination", by stating his principle of con-sciousness. In it he reached the last point of abstraction, where one had tostand before one could reach that which is higher than all abstraction.

§6

The perfect system of [philosophical] science proceeds from the ab-solute I, excluding everything that stands in contrast to it. This, as the OneUnconditionable, conditions the whole chain of knowledge, circumscribesthe sphere of all that is thinkable and, as the absolute all-comprehendingreality, rules the whole system of our knowledge. Only through an absoluteI, only through the fact that it is posited absolutely (schlechthin gesetzt)does it become possible that a not-I appears in contrast to it, indeed thatphilosophy itself becomes possible. For the whole task of theoretical andpractical philosophy is nothing else than the solution of the contradictionbetween the pure and the empirically conditioned I.

*The word empirical is usually taken in a much too narrow sense. Empirical is everything thatis in contrast to the pure I, everything essentially related to a not-I, even the original positingof any contrast (Entgegensetzen) as posited in some not-I, a positing which is an act that hasits source in the I itself, the very act by which any contrasting becomes possible. Pure is whatexists without relation to objects. Experienced is what is possible only through objects. Apriori is what is possible only in relation to objects but not through them. Empirical is thatwhich makes objects possible.


Theoretical philosophy, in order to solve the contradiction, proceeds fromsynthesis to synthesis, to the highest possible one in which I and not-I areideutgled_(glei.cli—gesent..), where, because theoretical reasoning ends incontradictions, practical reason enters in order to cut the knot by meansof absolute demands.

If, therefore, the principle of all philosophy were to lie in the empiricallyconditioned I (about which dogmatism and the unfinished ciriticismbasically agree), then all szontaaeity of the I, theoretical as well as prac-tical, would be quite unexplainable.) For thelosoreticali [177] strives to positthe I and the not-I as identical and, therefore, to elevate the not-I itself tothe form of the I; thegracticalstrives for pure unity by exclusion of all thatis not-I. Both of them can do what they do only inasmuch as the absolute Ihas absolute causality and pure identity, Thus the ultimate principle ofphilosophy cannot be anything that lies outside the absolute I; it can beneither a phenomenon nor a thing in itself.

The absolute I is not a phenomenon. Even the very concept of ab-soluteness forbids it. It is neither a phenomenon nor a thing in itself,because it is no thing at all, but simply and purely I, which excludes allthat is not-I.

The last point on which all our knowledge and the entire series of the con-ditional depend, cannot be conditioned by anything ulterior at all. Theentirety of our knowledge has no stability if it has nothing to stabilize it, if

..., 1 it does not rest on that which is carried by its own strength. And that isnothing else than that which is real through freedom. The beginning andthe end of all philosophy is freedom! 32

§ 7

So far we have determined the I as only that which can in no way be anobject for itself, and which, for anything outside of it, can be neither ob-ject nor not-object, that is, cannot be anything at all. Therefore it does notreceive its own reality, as objects do, through something lying outside itssphere, but exclusively through itself alone. This concept of the I is the on-ly one by which the I is designated as absolute and my whole furhter in-vestigation is now nothing but a plain development of this.

If the I werensiddentical with itself, if its original form were not theform (Apure identity then all we seem to have won so far would be lostagain. For the I is only because it is." If it were not pure identity, thatis,only that which it is then it could not be posited by itself, that is, it couldalso be like that which it is not. But the I is either not at all, or else onlythrough itself. Therefore the original form '(Urform), of the I must be pureidentity.

[178,179] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 83

[178] Only that which is through itself gives itself the form of identity,because only that which is because it is, is determined in its own being bynothing but identitykhat is, is determined by itself. The existence ofeverything else that exists is determined not only by its own identity butalso by something outside of it. 34 But if there were not something that isthrough itself, whose identity is the sole condition of its being, then therewoud be nothing at all identical with itself, because only that which isthrough its own identity can bestow identity on everything else that is. Onlyin -an absolute, posited by its own being as identical, can everything that isachieve the unity of its own essence (Wesen). How could anything beposited at all if everything that can be posited were mutable, and ifnothing unconditional, nothing immutable, could be acknowledged, inwhich and through which everything that can be posited would receivestability and immutability? What would it mean to posit something if allpositing, all existence[Dasein], all reality were dispersed constantly, lostceaselessly, and if there were no common point of unity and stability thatreceives absolute identity, not through something else, but through itself,by its own being, in order to gather all rays of existence in the center of itsidentity, and to keep together in the sphere of its power all that isposited? 35

Thus it is the I alone that bestows unity and stability on everything thatis. All identity pertains only to that which is posited in the I, and pertainsto it only insofar as it is posited in the I.

Therefore it is the absolute I that furnishes the basis for all form of iden-tity (A = A). If this form (A = A) preceded the I, then A could not ex-press what is posited in the I but only that which is outside the I; thereforethat form would become the form of objects as such, and even the I wouldbe subordinated to it, as just another object determined by it. The I wouldnot be absolute but conditional and, as a specific subform, would besubordinated to the generic concept of objects, that is, it would be one ofthe modifications of the absolute not-I, which alone would be self-identical.

Since the I, in its very nature (Wesen) is posited by its sheer being [179]as absolute identity, there is no difference between the two expressions ofit, either / am I, or I am!

§8

The I can be determined in no way except by being unconditional, for itis I owing to its sheer unconditionality, since it cannot become a thing atall. Thus it is exhaustively expressed when its unconditionality is expressed.Since it is only through its unconditionality, it would be nullified if anyconceivable predicate of could he conceived in any way other than t"



tY)

through its unconditionality; a different way would either contradict itsunconditionality or else presuppose something even higher in which couldbe found a unity of both the unconditional and the presumed predicate.

i The essence (Wesen) of the I is freedom, that is, it is not thinkable ex-cept inasmuch as it posits itself by its own absolute power (Selbstmacht),not, indeed, as any kind of something, but as sheer I. This freedom can be determined positively, because we want to attribute freedom not to a thingin itself but to the pure I as posited by itself, present to itself alone, and ex-cluding all that is not-I. No objective freedom belongs to the I because it isnot an object at all. As soon as we try to determine the I as an object, ittvididraws into the most confined sphere, under the conditions of the in-terdependence of objects—its freedom and independence disappear. Anobject is possible only through some other object, and only inasmuch as itis bound to conditions. Freedom is only through itself and it encompassesthe nonfinite.

1 With regard to objective freedom we are not less knowledgeable thanwith regard to any other concept which contradicts itself. And our inabilityto think a contradiction is not ignorance. The freedom of the I, however,Can_be determined positively. For the I, its freedom is neither more nor lessthan unconditional positing of reality in itself through its own absolute

. power (Selbstmacht). It can be determined negatively as complete in-dependence, even as complete incompatibility with all that is not-I.

[180]You insist that you should be conscious of this freedom? But areyou bearing in mind that all your consciousness is possible only throughthis freedom, and that the condition cannot be contained in the condition-ed?'6 Are you considering in any way that the I is no longer the pure, ab-solute I once it occurs in consciousness; that there can be no object at allfor the absolute I; and, moreover, that the absolute I never can become anobject e awareness implies t e anger of the- 11 [See quotation._, ,12:120 in n. 25Tit is not a free act of the immutable but an unfreeL.ng- e_that induces the mutable I, conditioned by the not-I, togrive to maintainits identity and to reassert itself in the undertow of endless change.* (Or doyou really [181] feel free in your self-awareness?) But thatstriving of theempirical I, and the consciousness stemming from it, would itself not bepossible without the freedom of the absolute I, and absolute freedom isequally necessary as a condition for both imagination and action. For yourempirical I would never strive to save its identity if the absolute I were notoriginally posited by itself, as pure identity, and out of its absolute power."

•Ilt is the character of finiteness to be unable to posit anything without at the same timepositing something in contrast. The form of this contrast is originally determined by the con-trast of the not-I. For, while absolutely positing itself as identical with itself, the finite I mustneceuarilyposit itself in contrast to every not-I. And that is not possible without positing the

not-I itself. fl'he nonfinite I would exlude all contrasting entities but without letting the exclu-

If you want to attain this freedom as something objective, whether you ✓

want to comprehend it or deny it, you will always fail, because freedomconsists in the very fact that it excludes all that is not-I absolutely.

The I cannot be given by a mere corms.esit_ Concepts are possible only inthe sphere of the conditional; concepts of objects only are possible. If the I ,)were a concept then there would have to be something higher in which itcould find its unity, and something lower which would furnish its hmultiplicit} In

6,short_thc I would_then be conditioned throughout.

(Therefore the I can be determined onlyin_anintuition (Anschauun4. Butsince the I is I only because it can never become an object, it cannot occurin an intuition of sense, but only in an intuition which grasps no object at. . all and is in no way a sensation, in short, in fan intellectual intuitionWhere there is an object there is sensuous intuition, and vice versa. Wherethere is no object, that is, in the absolute I, there is no sense intuition,therefore either no intuition at all or else intellectual intuition:-Thereforethe I is determined for itself as mere I in intellectual intuition. 40

I know very well that Kant denied all intellectual intuition, but I alsoknow the context in which he denied it.'"It was in an investigation whichonly presupposes the absolute I at every step and which, on the basis ofpresupposed higher principles, determines only the empirically condition-ed I and the not-I in its synthesis with that I. I also know that the intellec-tual intuition must be completely incomprehensible as soon as one tries toliken it to sensuous intuition. Furthermore, it can occur in consciousnessjust as little as can absolute freedom, since consciousness presupposes anobject, and since intellectual intuition 1 182 1 is possible only inasmuch as ithas no object. The attempt to refute it from the standpoint of con-sciousness must fail just as surely as the attempt to give it objective realitythrough consciousness, which would mean to do away with it altogether.

The I is determined only by its freedom, hence everything we say of thepure I must be determined by its freedom.

sion set them up in contrast to itself. It would simply equate everything with itself and,therefore, wherever it posits anything it would posit it as its own reality. It could not strive tosave its own identity . and, therefore, could not contain any snthesis of a Manifold, any unityo-rcOTisciousness etc. The empirical I, however, is determined by the original contrast is_nothing at all without it. Therefore it owes its reality, as empirical I, not to itself but only tothe restriction by the not-I. It manifests itself not by a mere I am, but by I think, which meansthat it is, not by its own sheer being, but by thinking something, thinking objects. In order tosave the original identity of the I, the image (Vorstellung) of the identical I must accompanyall other images so that their manifoldness can be thought at all, in its inherent relation tounity." Therefore the empirical I exists only through and in relation to the unity of imagesand, outside of that unity, has no reality in itself at all but disappears as soon as oneeliminates objects altogether along with the unity of its synthesis. Thus its reality as empircal Iis determined for it by something posited outside of it, by objects. Its being is not determinedabsolutely, but by objective forms, and it is determined as an existence (Dasein). Yet it is onlyin the nonfinite I, and through it for mere objects could never bring about the image if I as aprinciple of their unity. '"

•

86 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [183] [184] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 87

§ 9

The I is simply unity. For if it were multiplicity it would not be throughits own being but through the reality of its parts. It would not be condition-ed by itself alone, by its sheer being (that is, it would not be at all) butwould be conditioned by all single parts of the multiplicity for, if any onepart were canceled, the completeness of the I itself would be canceled. Butthat would contradict the concept of its freedom, therefore (§8) the I can-not contain any multiplicity; it must be simply unity—nothing but simplyI. J.-+, A .r

Wherever there is unconditionality determined_ by freedom, there is I.Therefore the I is absolutely one. If there were to be several I's, if therewere to be an I beside the I, these different I's would have to be differen-tiated by something. But since the I is conditioned only by itself and isdeterminable only in intellectual intuition, it must be identical with itself(not at all determinable -by number). Accordingly, the I and the I-outside-thelyzoski_catacide and would be indistinguishable. Thus the I can benaught but one. 42(If the I were not one, the reason why there should beseveral I's would not lie in the I itself, in the nature (Wesen) of it, for the Iis not determinable as an object (§7); it would lie outside the I and thushave no meaning other than the canceling of the I.) The pure I is the sameeverywhere, I is everywhere = I. Wherever there is an attribute of I, there isI. The attributes of the I cannot differ from each other, since they are alldetermined by the same unconditionality (all are nonfinite).They would bedetermined as different from each other either by their mere concept,I1831which is impossible since the I is an absolute oneness, or by somethingoutside of them, whereby they would lose their unconditionality, whichagain makes no sense. The I is I everywhere; it fills, as it were, the entireinfinity, if it would make sense to use such an expression:13

Those who know no other I than the empirical one (which, however, isquite incomprehensible without the presupposition of the pure I), thosewho have never elevated themselves to the intellectual intuition of theirown selves, can find only nonsense in the theorem that the I is only one. Foronly the completed science itself can prove that the empirical I ismultiplicity. (Imagine an infinite sphere—of which by necessity there isonly one — and inside this sphere imagine as many finite spheres as youwish. These, however, are possible only inside the one which is infinite.Thus, even if you do away with the finite ones, you still have [their locusor conditionj the infinite sphere.) Those who have the habit of thinkingonly of the empirical I find it necessary to assume a plurality of I's, each ofwhich is I for itself and not-I for the others, and they do not consider that apure I is thinkable only through the unity of its being.

These adherents of the empirical I will be equally unable to think the

concept of pure, absolute unity (unitas) because, whenever the absoluteunity is mentioned, they can think only of an empircial, derivative unity(which is a concept symbolized by the number scheme).

The [pure] I has as little unity in the empirical sense (unicitas) as it hasmultiplicity. It is completely outside the sphere of determination by thisconcept; it is neither one nor many in the empirical sense, for both alter-natives contradict its concept. The concept of a pure I not only lies outsidethe domain of whatever can be determined by the two concepts of em-pirical unity and multiplicy, but lies in an entirely opposite sphere.Whenever the talk is about a numerical unity, something is presupposed inregard to which one can speak of numerical oneness as such. What ispresupposed is a generic concept under which the numerical one is com-prehended as the unique member of its kind. However the (real andlogical) [184] possibility still remains that it might not be the only one; thatis, it is one only in regard to its existence, not in regard to its essence. Incontrast, the I is one precisely in regard to its simple, pure being, and notin regard to its existence (Dasein), which is no essential attribute of it at all.Also, it cannot be thought of at all in regard to something higher; it cannotfall under a generic concept. Concept as such is something that com-prehends multiplicity in oneness. Thei_therefore cannot be a concept, \neither a pure nor an abstracted one, because it is neither a comprehen-ding nor a comprehended, but an al 3scity. It is neither genus norspecies nor individual, because genus, species, and individual arethinkable only in regard to multiplicity. Whoever can take the I for a con-cept or can predicate numerical unity or multiplicity of it, knows nothingof the I. Whoever wants to turn it into a demonstrable concept, can nolonger take it as unconditioned. For the absolute cannot be mediated atall, hence it can never fall into the domain of demonstrable concepts.Everything demonstrable presupposes either something alreadydemonstrated, or else the ultimate, which cannot be furtherdemonstrated. The very desire to demonstrate the absolute does away withit, and also with all freedom, all absolute identity, etcetera.

Annotation. Someone might reverse this matter: "Just because the I isnot something general, it cannot become the principle of philosophy."

If, as we shall now presuppose, philosophy must start from the uncondi-tional, then it cannot start from something general. For the general is con-ditioned by the singular. and is possible only in regard to conditional (em-pirical) knowledge. Therefore the most consistent system of dogmatism,the Spinozistic, declares itself most emphatically against the opinion thatconceives of the one absolute substance as of an ens rationis, an abstractconcept. Spinoza sees the unconditional in the absolute not-I, but not in anabstract concept nor in the idea of the world, nor of course in any single

(\41


existing thing. On the contrary he inveighs vehemently[185] —if one mayuse this word in speaking of a Spinoza— against it* and declares that hewho calls God one, in an empirical sense, or thinks of Him as a mereabstraction, has not even an inkling of the nature (Wesen) of God. To besure, one cannot understand how the not-I is supposed to lie outside of allnumerical determination, but one must realize that Spinoza did not trulyposit the unconditional in the not-I; rather he turned the not-I into the Iby elevating it to the absolute [see no. 25].

Leibniz supposedly started from the generic concept of things as such.That would be a matter to investigate more closely, but this is not the placefor it. It is certain, however, that his disciples started from that conceptand thus founded one of the systems of incomplete dogmatism.

[186] (Question: How, in that system, can one explain the monads andthe preestablished harmony? As, in criticism, theoretical reason ends withthe result that the I becomes not-I, so, in dogmatism, it must end with theopposite, that the not-I becomes I. In criticism, practical reason must

*See several passages in Jacobi's book about the doctrine of Spinoza, pp. 179 ff. [Ober dieLehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses Mendelssohn. (Breslau, 1785); now Werke,vol. 4, pt 1 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968)]. See other passages also,especially Eth. 2. prop. XL, schol. 1. Furthermore, in one of his letters he says Cum multa&int, quae nequaquam in imaginatione, sed solo intellectu assequi possumus, qualia suntSubstantia, Aeternitas el al. si quis talia eiusmodi notionibus, quae duntaxat auxilia imagina-tionis sunt, explicare conatur, nihilo plus agit, quam si det operam, ut sua imaginatione in-saniat. [Since there are many things that we can grasp by no kind of imagination but only bythe intellect, such as substance, eternity, and others, if anyone tries to explain them by meansof the kind of notions which are mere auxiliaries to the imagination, then, although it seemsexpedient to such a one, he attains nothing but unsoundness of mind, owing to his imagina-tion Letter of April 20, 1663, to Ludovicus Meyer. Cf. the translation by A. Wolf in hisThe Correspondence of Spinoza (New York: Russell and Russell, 1966), letter 12, p. 1663] Inorder to understand this passage, one must know that Spinoza thought that abstract conceptswere pure products of the power of imagination. He says that the transcendental expressions(which is what he calls expressions like ens, res, etc. [schol. 1]) arise from the fact that thebody is capable of absorbing only a limited quantity of impressions, and when it is over-saturated the soul cannot imagine them except in a confused manner, without any differen-tiation, all under one attribute. He explains the general concepts in the same manner, e.g.,man, animal, etc. Compare the passage in the Ethics referred to above, and especially histreatise De Intellect us Emendatione For Spinoza the lowest level of knowledge is the imagin-ing of single things; the highest is pure intellectual intuition of the infinite attributes of theabsolute substance, and the resulting adequte knowledge of the essence of things. This is thehighest point of his system. For him, mere confused imagination is the source of all error, butthe intellectual intuition of God is the source of all truth and perfection in the broadest senseof the word. In the second part of his Ethics, in the scholion to proposition XLIII, he sayswith regard to the idea of mind of which the scholion to proposition XXI said: the idea of the

mind and the mind itself are one-and-the-same thing, which is considered under one-and-the-same-attribute, that of thought. For indeed the idea of the mind, that is to say, the idea ofthe idea, is nothing but the form of the idea insofar as this is considered as mode of thoughtwithout relation to any object!: "What can be more clear and certain than this idea, as anorm of truth? Indeed, as light makes manifest both itself and darkness, so is truth the normof itself and of falsehood." What can surpass the quiet bliss of these words, the One and All('C/ xai nay) of our better life?"


reestablish the absolute I; in dogmatism it must end with the reestablish-ment of the absolute not-I. It would be interesting to devise a consistentsystem of dogmatism. Maybe that will yet be done).

"The greatest merit of the philosophical scholar is not to establishabstract concepts nor to spin systems of them. His ultimate aim is pure ab-solute being; his greatest merit is to unveil and reveal that which can neverbe conceptualized, explained, deduced, in short, to reveal the undissec-table, the immediate, the simple.""

§1 0

The I contains" all being, all reality. If there were a reality outside ofthe I, either it would coincide with the reality posited in the I or it wouldnot. Now, all reality of the I is determined by its unconditionality; it has noreality except by being posited unconditionally. If there were a realityoutside of the I that would correspond to the reality of the I, then thatoutside reality would have to be unconditional also. Yet, it is only throughunconditionality that the I receives all its reality, therefore any one realityof the I, if posited outside of it, would also have to contain all its reality,that is, there would be an I outside of the I, whichAtles_nat—makesense(§9). On the other hand, if that reality outside the I differed from thereality of the I [instead of corresponding to it], then, owing to the absoluteunity of the I, the positing of the outside reality would at the same timecancel the I itself, which makes no sense. (We are talking about theabsolute I, whose function is to be the generic concept of all reality. Allreality must [187] coincide with it, that is, must be its reality. The absoluteI must contain the data, the absolute content (Materie) that determines allbeing, all possible reality.) If we want to anticipate objections, then we ' stmust also anticipate answers. Of course my theorem [that the I contains allbeing, all reality] could be readily refuted if either a not-I postulated asantecedent to all that is I were conceivable, or else if that not-I which isoriginally and absolutely opposed to the I were conceivable as an absolutenot-I in short, the reality of the things in themselves could beprovedin the philosophy hitherto prevailing, for then all original reality would befound in the absolute not-I.

[We face an alternative.] Either the thing in itself is the not-I posited asantecendent to all that is I. But I have already proved that a not-I positedas antecendent to all that is I has no reality at all and is not even thinkablebecause, unlike the I, it does not realize itself and is therefore conceivableonly in contrast to the I, that is, to the absolute I, not the conditioned I(since the latter is only a correlate of the object).

Or else the thing in itself would be the not-I merely as absolutelyopposed to the I as finite I. Now, it is true enough that the not-I stands in



original opposition to the I as I.* For that reason, the original not-I cannotbe a mere empirical, abstract [188] concept since, in order to find such aconcept in experience, experience itself would have to be presupposed,that is, the existence of a not-I. Nor can it be a general concept a priori,because it is not simply posited but absolutely counterposited and,therefore, as antithesisAand, true to its quality as antithesis, it must beposited just as absolutely as the I, and in opposition to it. It is this originalcounterpositing of the not-I as such that may have led to imagining an

ti,absolute not-I antecendent to an I. For, though dogmatism pretends it canconceive of a not-I antecedent to e I, not as merely opposed to the I, butas simply posited, the mere thought of an absolutely posited not-I wouldhave been impossible had the absolute antithesis not hovered in the mindand, what is more, had that antithetical not-I not been endowed with thatreality which belongs not just to the antithesis but to the not-I as posited inthe I.

That absolutely counterposited not-I, in fact, is not absolutely unthink-able, as is the not-I presupposed absolutely (i.e., as antecedent to all that is1). But by itself it has no reality, not even a thinkable one. Just because it iscounterposited to the I, it is posited as sheer negation, as an absolutenothing about which one can say nothing, nothing at all, except that it ismere antithesis to all reality. As soon as we try to give it reality, we transferit from the sphere of mere antithesis to the sphere of the conditional, thesphere of what is posited in the I. Eiher it stands in Abs. te opposition tothe I, as absolute not-I, that is, [absolute not ne , or it becomessomething, a thing—that is, it is no 1189] longer posited absolutely butconditionally, posited in the I, that is, it ceases to be a thing in itself.

If one wants to call the not-I as originally posited in opposition to the I athing in itself, it can easily be done, as long as one means by "thin initself" the absolute negation of all reality. But if one wants to attributereality to this absolutely oppositional not-I, that can be done only through

'Inasmuch as the not-I is originally opposed to the I, it necessarily presupposes the I. Butthe opposition itself occurs absolutely, just as does the position of the I [see n.31], and on thatvery account that which is absolutely posited in contrast to reality is absolute negation. The I'malts a not-I in opposition to the I, and for this one cannot give any ulterior reason, just asorw can give none for the I positing itself absolutely; in fact, the one immediately implies theother. The positing of the I is the placing in absolute opposition, that is, the negation, of whatIs mit I. But originally nothing at all can be put in opposition unless something antecedent isabsolutely posited; much less can there be any absolute opposition without an antecedentposition. Yet opposition occurs. The second theorem see n. 31] of any science which [by111111111of that theorem] absolutely opposes the not-I to the I, receives its content (the opposite)Implicitly. Its form (the opposing as such) is determinable only by the first theorem. Thesecond theorem, however, is not to be derived from the first analytically, because no not-I cancome forth from the absolute I. Instead, there is a progression from thesis to antithesis andI rum there to synt ' Of course it would br incomprehensible how the whole science couldbe based on one I hottellt, if one were to suppose that Mr science is, as it were, clicapallled inthat theorem. But as fat as I know no philosopher has supposed that.

an illusion of the empirical power of imagination that lends it that realitywhich belongs to the not-I only owing to its quality of being posited inopposition to the I." , Since no reality belongs to the originallycounterposited not-I but only negation, and neither pure nor empiricalbeing but no being at all (absolute nonbeing), therefore, if it is to attainIsalit,y, it must not be posited in absolute opposition to the I but/mile I 4itself, Inasmuch as the I originally counterposits to itself a not-I (and doesnot simply exclude it as does the absolute I), it posits itself as canceled. Butsince, at the same time, it ought to posit itself absolutely, it will in tur

tosit the not-I as absolutely canceled, = 0. If, therefore, it posits the not-I

not I. Yet both of themnoabsolutely, it cancels itself; and if it posits itself absolutely, it cancels th

ought to be posited. This contradiction cannot be .-

resolved Uniess-IF-51pOiiis the not-I as equal to the I. However, the form ofthe not-I forbids that. Therefore the I can only in-t_part reality to the not-I;it can posit the not-I as reality only if combined with negation. The not-Itherefore has no reality as long as it is only counterposited to the I, that is,as long as it is pure, absolute not-I. As soon as reality is imparted to thenot-I, it must be posited as contained in the very concept of all reality, thatis, in the I; it must cease to be pure not-I, In order to posit the not-I in the I(which is necessary because the not-I ought to be posited although it iscounter to the I), the I is absolutely compelled to impart to the not-I itsown form of I, the form of being and reality, of unconditionality andoneness. This form, however, is incompatible with the form of [190] theoriginally counterposited not-I. (Therefore the transfer of the form of I to fy.,...the not-I is possible only by a synthesis of the two Out of this transferredform of I, the original form of not-I, and the synthesis of the two originate,the categoriee 9 through which alone the original not-I receives reality(beComes imaginable) but for this very reason ceases to be absolute not-I.

Therefore the idea of a thing in itself cannot be realized at all, eitherthrough a not-I posited as antecedent to any I, or through the not-Ioriginally counterposited to the I. However, the theorem that the Icontains all reality could easily be invalidated if the theoretical idea of asum total of objective reality outside of the I could be realized. I admit thatthe ultiMate synthesis through which theoretical reason tries to solve theconfict between I and not-I is some x which, as a connotation of all reality,should unite the two realities, the I and the not-I posited in the I. So itseems that this x is determined as something outside the I, and thus = not-I, but, by the same token, as something outside the not-I, thus = I. 5°Therefore theoretical reason appears to take refuge in an absoluteconnotation of all reality = I = not-I, and thus to annul the absolute I asconnotation of all reality.

Neverthelet, the ultimate synthesis of theoretical reason, which isnothing else than the last attempt to compose the contrast between I and

92 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [191, 192]

not-I, becomes for us the most perfect guarantor , of the absolute reality ofj the absolute I, even though it seems to dissolve it.)The I could never be inneed of composing that contrast through the idea of an objective conceptof all reality had this contrast not first become possible owing to a positingof the I as the all-embracing concept of reality, an original positingantecedent to all not-I." If this were not the case, the not-I could have areality independent of the I, a reality which could be posited simultane-ously with the reality of the I. In that case there would be no [191]opposition between the two of them, but also no synthesis of them would beneeded and no objective concept of conflicting reality.* Likewise, withoutthe premise that the absolute I is the concept of all reality, 51 , no practicalphilosophy can be thought of whose aim must be the end of all not-I andthe recovery of the absolute I in its ultimate identity, that is, as theconnotative concept of all reality. * *

[192] §1 1

If the I contains all reality, it is nonfinite. For by what should it belimited if not either by a reality outside of it, which is impossible (§10), orby a negation outside of it? The latter is also impossible since negation assuch is determinable only in contrast to an absolute, and therefore the I

•ADDITION TO THE FIRST EDITION: no boxerov [no receptacle].

** FOOTNOTE OF THE FIRST EDITION: (In terms of sense one can think of it in the followingmanner, The absolute I describes an infinite sphere which includes all reality. Counter to thatanother infinite sphere is set up (not only excluded) which includes all negation (absolute not-1). This sphere is therefore absolutely = 0; yet it is possible only when the absolute sphere ofreality has already been described, and only by contrast to it. For absolute negation does notcreate itself but is determinable only in contrast to absolute reality. An infinite sphere outsideanother and previously posited infinite sphere is already a contradiction, and its being posited.Dutside that first sphere already indicates that it must be absoluteegation. For if it were notso it would not be outside the other but would coincide with it. ffhe absolute sphere of thenot•I, if it were simply posited absolutely, would have to cancel the I altogether, because oneinfinite sphere does not tolerate another. On the other hand, the sphere of the I would cancelthe sphere of the not-I, insofar as the latter is posited as infinite. And yet both are supposed tobe posited. There is no remedy but the striving of the Ito draw into its own sphere the sphereof the not-I, for the latter is to be posited, and positing is possible only in the I." But thispossibility is denied by the negation which is the nature of the sphere of the not-I.Consequently, this latter negation can be posited only in contrast to the sphere of the I. If it isto be posited inside the sphere of reality, the infinite sphere of negation turns into a finitesphere of reality, i.e., it can be posited only as reality necessarily connected with negation.And by that the I becomes restricted. Though the sphere of the I is not entirely canceled, itbecomes necessary to posit in it a negation, i.e., a limitation [Schranke]. Now, the finitesphere can strive to absorb the infinite, and to make itself the center of the entire sphere, acenter from which issue both the rays of infinity and the limitations of finitude, which is acontradiction. If the struggle between the I and the not-I is expressed in the highest possiblesynthesis (I not I) then, in order to resolve it, nothing remains but complete destruction ofthe finite sphere, i.e., an expansion of it until it coincides with the infinite sphere (practicalreason)."


would have to be posited antecedently as absolutely without limitation.The third alternative would be a limitation of the I by itself, and then itcould not be posited absolutely but only under the condition of a givenlimitation, which in turn is impossible. The I must be absolutelynonfinite." If one of its attributes were finite, then, owing to thatattribute, the I itself would be finite; thus it would be nonfinite and finiteat the same time. Accordingly, all attributes of the I must also benonfinite. S 5 For the I is nonfinite only owing to what it is, that is, owing toits attributes. If one could dissect the reality of the I into several parts,these parts either would retain the nonfiniteness of that reality or wouldnot. In the first case there would be an I outside the I (because whereverthere is nonfiniteness there is I), a nonfiniteness outside the nonfiniteness,which makes no sense. In the other case, the I could cease to be, owing todivision, that is it would not be nonfinite, it would not be absolute reality.

(Therefor; the I is indivisible." If it is indivisible it is also immutable. Forsince it cannot be changed by anything outside itself (§ 8) the I would haveto be changed by itself, and one of its parts would determine the other,that is, it would be divisible. But the I ought always to be equal to itself, anabsolute unity posited outside of all change.

§ 12

If substpte is the same as the unconditional, then the I is the onlysubstance. 57 If there were several substances there would be an I outsidethe I, which makes no sense. Therefore everything that is is in the I, andoutside the I is nothing." For the I contains all reality (§ 8), andeverything that is, is through reality. Therefore everything is in the I.Without reality there is nothing. Now, there is no reality except in the[193] I, therefore there is nothing outside the I. If the I is the onlysubstance, then everything that is, is merely ai.Lialitylilscidensfeth

We are standing at the boundary of all knowledge, beyond which all*reality, all thinking and imagining, vanish. EverythinLis only in the Landfor the I. [See n. 52.] The I itself is only for itself. In order to findsomething else, we have to find something before; we arrive at objectivetruth only through another truth. But we come to the I only_through the I,because it is at all only inasmuch as it is only for itself, and for anythingoutside the I, the I is nothing, that is, it is no object at all. For it is onlyinasmuch as it thinks itself, not insofar as it is being thought [by another].

In order to find truth, you must have a principle of all truth. Place it ashigh as you wish, it still must lie in the land of truth, in the land that youare as yet seeking. But if you produce all truth by yourself, if the last pointon which reality hinges is the I, and if this is only through itself and foritself, then all truth and all reality are immediately present to you. By

94 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [194] rrI


positing yourself as the I, you simultaneously circumscribe the wholesphere of truth, of the truth which is truth only through you and for you.Everything is only in the I and for the I. In the I philosophy has found itsone-and-all (:Ev xai navy, for which it has contended as the highest priceof victory until now.*

Annotation. You want to measure the highest substantiality of the ab-solute I with your derivative concept of the substantiality of the not-I. Doyou really believe that you have found the archconcept [Urbegriff] ofsubstantiality in the not-I?

To be sure, philosophy set up a concept of the substantiality of the not-Ia long time ago. In order to save the immutable identity of your I, youmust necessarily also elevate the not-I to the level of identity. Its [194]original form [Urform] is multiplicity, and in some way you mustassimilate it to the I. Yet, in order that this not-I, that is, this multiplicitywill not coincide with the I, your power of imagination sets it in space. Butyour synthesis of I and not-I would make the I absorb the multiplicity ofthe not-I and thus would totally scatter the I. In order to prevent that, youpresent multiplicity itself as a matter of change or succession, and for eachpoint of this change you posit one and the same subject, as determined byits quest for identity. Thus, by means of your synthesis and of the forms ofspace and time produced by your synthesis, you obtain an object thatperseveres in space and time during all changes. That is, you obtain atransferred (as it were, a borrowed) substantiality which, however, on thatvery account, is not comprehensible without the presupposition of anoriginal and not-transferred substantiality in the absolute I. Incidentally,it is the concept of the latter substantiality that made it possible for theCritical Philosophy to clear up the origin of the category of substance."

It was Spinoza who had already conceived of that archconcept ofsubstantiality in its utmost purity. He recognized that originally somethinghad to be the basis for all existence, a pure, immutable archbeing [Ursein] ,a basis for everything that comes about and passes away, something thathad to exist by itself, in which and through which everything in existencehad to attain the unity of existence. Nobody proved to him that this uncon-ditional, immutable archform [Urform] could be found only in the I. Aslong as the archconcept was not discovered, the derivative and transferredconcept of a substantiality of appearances was merely an abstract concept,though antecedent to all possible experience, yet possible only in relationto experience. And it was this abstract concept, that everybody used as anobjection to Spinoza, as if he had not been quite familiar with that concept

• ADDIFION TO THE MST FroTioN• All existence IDaseini rests on my I see n. 521; my I iseverything: in it and tending toward it lzu ihmln" is everything that is. Take away my I, andeverything that is is nothing.

and had not explained innumerable times that he was not concerned withthe persistent element [das Beharrende] in time and change, but with whatstands outside of time, under the archform of immutability, and as if hehad not explained that the derivative concept has no meaning and noreality without the archconcept. His opponents tried to refute noncondi-tionality with conditionality. The outcome is familiar.

[195] § 13

If there is nothing outside the I, then the I must posit everything in itself,that is, posit it as equal to the I. Everything it posits must be nothing elsethan its own reality in its entire infinity. The absolute I cannot determineitself to be anything but that which posits infinite reality, that is, positsitself.

If, for lack of another word, we call the positing the original cause, andif we call a cause which posits nothing outside of itself but everything initself an immanent cause, then the I is the immanent cause of everything ?,-that is." Whatever is, is only because it has reality. Its essence [Wesen][gssentia] is reality, for it owes its beinglSein, Esse] only to the nonfinitereality;. it is only inasmuch as the original source [Urquelle] of all realityimparted reality to it. Thus the I is not only the cause of being but also thecause of the essence of everything that is. For everything that is, is onlythrough what it is, that is, through its essence, its reality; and reality is onlyin the I. (Whoever wants to refute these theorems with other theoremswhich we shall encounter later may do so. But he will find that he couldhave saved himself that trouble, and that the opposition that meets thesetheorems stated here is precisely the problem of philosophy as a whole.Yet, he will have to grant that thesis precedes antithesis, and that bothprecede synthesis.)

§ 14

The highest idea which expresses the causality of absolute substance (ofthe I) is the idea of absolute power [Macht] [see n. 39].

Can one measure the pure with empirical measure? If you cannot freeyourself from all the empirical determinations which your imaginationfeeds you in regard to that idea, do not put the blame for yourmisunderstanding on the idea but on yourself. This idea is so far fromeverything empirical that it not only stands above it but even annihilates it.

For Spinoza, too, it was the only designation for the causality of the11961 absolute substance. The absolute power of the one substance was theultimate for him in fact, the only reality. In it, according to Spinoza,there is no wisdom, for its action itself is law; no will, for it acts by the in-



trinsic power of its essence (Wesen), by the necessity of its being (Sein). Itdoes not act owing to any determination by any reality outside of itself (anyvalue, any truth)." It acts owing to its essence, owing to the nonfiniteperfection of its being and from unconditional power. Its very natureI Wesen] is only this power.*

This most sublime idea in Spinoza's system was deemed not onlytheoretically wrong but also refutable by practical arguments. Spinoza'sopponents said that this idea eliminates all notions of a free though law-determined wisdom. For they had not elevated themselves to the pure viewof an absolute power which acts not according to any laws outside of it butonly according to the laws of its own being, through its own being as such.On the other hand they did not consider the fact that their concept ofwisdom is thinkable only under the assumption of some limitation andtherefore is an absurdity unless they themselves presuppose as theirultimate aim an absolute power that simply acts out of an inner necessity ofits own nature (Wesen) which is no longer will, nor virtue, nor wisdom, norbliss, but power as such.

Annotation. True enough, Kant spoke of morality and proportionatebliss as the highest good and ultimate goal." Yet he himself knew very wellthat morality without an ultimate goal has no reality and that it presup-poses limitation and finiteness and is not thinkable as an ultimate goal initself but only as [197] an approximation thereof." Kant also avoided a

\definite declaration concerning the relationship of bliss to morality,although he well knew that bliss, as a mere ideal of the imagination, isnothing but a schema" fit only to convey the practical presentation(praktische Vorstellbarkeit)" of the not-I,** and therefore could not per-tain to the ultimate purpose (Endzweck)." The latter aims at the identifica-tion of the not-I with the I, that is, at a complete annihilation of it as not-I.For that reason the search for empirical happiness (as an agreement of theobjects with the I, brought into unison by nature) would be unreasonablewithout the presupposition that [198] the ultimate goal of all.striving is not

*Ether+ bk.10, prop. XXXI. Prop. XXXII: Deus non ago ex ratione boni, sed ex naturae

Juar perfect:one. Qui ilud statuunt, videntur aliquid extra Deum ponere, quod a Deo nondependet, ad quo Deus tanquam ad exemplar in operando attendat, vel ad quod tanquam adcerium scopum collimat, quod profecto nihil aliud est, quam Deum fato subjicere. Prop.X XXIII; Dei potentia est ipsius essentia. ISchelling quotes from a Spinoza edition whose pro-position numbers differ from the critical edition by Bruder (1843; Tauchnitz) and there is aslight change in the first two sentences of his quotation. John Wild translates the end of schol.2 of prop. kxxiii (Schelling's XXXII): "I confess that this opinion, which subjects all thingsto a certain indifferent God's will, and affirms that all things depend upon God's goodpleasure, is at a less distance from the truth than the opinion of those who affirm that Goddors everything for the sake of the Good. For these seem to place something outside of Godwhich is independent of Him, to which he looks while He is at work as to a model, or at whichlie aims as if at a certain mark. This is indeed nothing else than to subject God to fate. . . .Prop. X X XIV: The power of God is I Iis essence itself." (Wild 133).1

happiness but utter elevation over its very sphere.* Therefore we must&LILT endlessly not to become happy, but no longer to need happiness, in-deed to become incapable of needing it, and to elevate our very being to aform that is repugnant to the form of happiness (Gluckseligkeit) as well asto [the form of] its opposite.

For, the absolute I demands that the finite I should become equal to it,that is, that it should destroy in itself all multiplicity and all mutability.What is moral law for the finite I, limited by a not-I, is natural law for thenonfinite I — that is, is given simultaneously with and in its mere being(Sein). The none, finite I is only insmuch as it is equal to itself, determinedby its sheer identity; it has no task at all whereby it still ought to determineits being by sheer identity. For the nonfinite I there is moral law, and inrespect to its causality it is determined only as absolute power, equal toitself." Moral law, however, although it exists only in relation to finiteness,has in itself no sense or meaning if it does not set up, as the ultimate goal ofall striving, the nonfiniteness of the I and its own transformation into a

**Since the not-I should become the object of alsitying determined by freedom, it must beraised from the form of conditionality to the form of unconditionality. Yet, since the not-I asnot-I is to become the object of this striving, only a sensuous, i.e., an imaginable uncondi-tionality can be attained, i.e., the raising of the not-I itself can produce only a form whichcannot be reached by any form of the intellect (Verstand) or sensibility ISinnlichkeit!.

Such a mediation between conditionality and unconditionality is possible only for thepower of imagination !Einbildungskraft The idea of bliss therefore arises originally onlythrough a theoretical operation. Represented practically, it is nothing other than a necessaryharmony of the not-I with the I, and since the attainment of this harmony is an infinite taskfor the I, it remains even in its practical meaning a mere idea which can be realized only in aninfinite progress. However, in its practical significance it is also completely identical with theultimate goal of the I. In that respect, since morality is the gradual approach to that ultimategoal, it can indeed be imagined as something that can be realized only by morality and isalways in proportion to it. And only in this sense could Kant have conceived of bliss as insteady proportion to morality. One can take empirical happiness Gliickseligkeit! as a con-tingent harmony of objects with our I. So taken, empirical happiness cannot possibly bethought of as being connected with morality. For the latter does not aim at any contingentbut at a necessary agreement of the not-I with the I. Pure bliss or beatitude! therefore con-sists exactly in rising above empirical happiness; the pure necessarily excludes the empirical.Still, it is quite understandable why, whenever Kant mentions bliss, some of his readers wouldthink of mere empirical happiness. The German word Gliickseligkeit can mean both. I But itis astonishing that nobody has yet denounced the moral perniciousness of a system which im-agines empirical happiness as connected with morality, not through any inner connection,but only by external causality.

*If the ultimate goal of all striving of the I were not identification with the not-I, the con-tingent harmony of objects with our I, brought about by nature, would have no charm for us.Only when we think about such a harmony in its relation to our entire activity (which, from itslowest to its highest degree, aims at nothing else but the harmony of the not-I with the I) canwe regard a contingent harmony as ajayor (not a reward), as a voluntary accomodation onthe par t of !ramie, as an 0ex/weird assistance which nature bestows on the whole of our ac-tivity (not merely our 11101.11ac ts).


mere natural law* of the I. The moral law in the finite being is first of all aschema of natural law whereby [199] the being of the nonfinite is deter-mined. What the natural law presents as being, the moral law must pre-sent as an ought. Since the supreme law by which the being of the nonfiniteI is determined is the law of its identity (§ 7), the moral law in the finite be-ing must present the identity not as existing but as demanded. Thereforethe supreme law for the finite being is: Be absolutely identical with

yourself.**Yet, inasmuch as this law must apply to a moral subject, that is, to an I

conditioned by mutability and multiplicity, this conditioned I stands in op-position to the form of identity as such, and the moral law can apply to itonly by means of a new—scilematism.' For the basic moral law (Urgesetz) ofthe finite I, "be identical," is confronted by the natural law of the samefinite I, according to which it is multiplicity and therefore not identical,and its multiplicity is no mere ought. This contradiction between themoral and the natural law of finiteness can be mediated only through anew schema, that of production in time, so that the law which aims at a de-mand of being becomes a law of becoming. The basic moral law, expressedin its fullest sensuous form, says: become identical, elevate (in time) thesubjective forms of your being to the form of the absolute. The basic morallaw in its purity already excludes all subjective forms (all forms whichbelong only to the object-conditioned I) and demands directly: be iden-tical! However, those very forms are in opposition to that law, therefore asynthesis is needed by which they themselves are absorbed, yet no longer as[200] forms of the subject (of the finite) but as forms of the absolute. * * *

•Therefore one could also say that the ultimate goal of the I is to turn the laws of freedom into

laws of nature, and the laws of nature into laws of freedom, to bring about nature in the I,

and / in nature.

•*This law can be traced through all forms subordinate to the archform [Urform] of identity.

Expressed in line with the category of quantity it says: be absolutely one. In line with quality:posit all reality in yourself, i.e., equate all reality to yourself. In line with relation: be free of

all relation, i.e., of all conditionality. In line with modality: posit yourself outside the entire

sphere of existence I Dasein I , posit yourself in the sphere of pure, absolute being (independent

of all forms of time, etc.).

•••If we again trace this schematized law through its subordinate forms, we receive the follow-

ing laws. According to quantity: become absolutely one. (Whatever becomes unity presup-

poses multiplicity, by whose elevation alone it can become unity. Thus the expression of the

law is identical with the challenge: elevate the multiplicity in yourself to unity, i.e., become a

totality contained in yourself). According to quality: simply become reality. (Whatever

brcomesreality does so in struggle with negation. Therefore the law can also be expressed assaying: elevate the negation in yourself to reality, i.e., give yourself a reality which ad in-

finit um (in time) can never be cancelled.) According to relation: become absolutely uncondi-

tional, strive for absolute causality again an expression of an original struggle, equivalentto:make the passive causality in yourself identical with the active (create a reciprocal effect,make t hat which is passive causality in you active, and what is active passive). According to

modality: strive to posit yourself in the sphere of absolute being, independent of the change of

time, Stliving is possible only in time, therefore striving for liberation from all change of time

means striving in all time. Thus the law can also br expressed as: lircome a tiecet +a ry bring, a

bring which endures in all time.

[201]


Through this schematism of the moral law, the idea of moral progress,of progress in infinity, becomes possible. The absolute I is the only Eternal;therefore the finite I, as it strives to become identical with it, must strivefor pure eternity. Since it expresses in itself as merely becoming that which,in the nonfinite I is posited as being, it must also posit in itself a becoming,that is, an empirical eternity, an infinite duration." The ultimate goal ofthe finite I is therefore an expansion toward identity with the nonfinite. Inthe finite I there is unity of consciousness, that is, personality. The non-finite I, however, knows no object at all and therefore no consciousness andno unity of consciousness, no pers9„nality." Consequently, the ultimategoal of all striving can also be represented as an expansion of personality toinfinity, that is, as its own destruction. The last goal of the finite I as wellas that of the not-I, that is, the last goal of the world [201] is its destructionas a world, that is, as an embodiment of finiteness (of the finite I and thenot-I). In order to approach this ultimate goal, an infinite approximationtakes place, therefore an infinite continuance of the I, immortality."

In the theoretical sense God is I = Not-I; in the practical sense He is ab-solute I, which annihilates all not-I. Insofar as the nonfinite I isrepresented schematically as the ultimate goal of the finite and thus out-side of the latter, in practical philosophy God can indeed be represented asoutside the finite I (schematically) however only as identical with the non-

\ finite.

From these deductions it becomes clear that the causality of the non-finite I cannot be represented at all as morality, wisdom, and the like, butonly as absolute power which fills the entire infinity and, in its sphere,tolerates nothing that is in opposition, not even the not-I imagined as in-finite. Therefore the moral law, even in its entire bearing on the world ofsense [Versinnlichung], can have meaning and significance only in its rela-tion to a higher law of being which, in contrast to the law of freedom, canbe called law of nature. True enough, those who are trying to place thegoal of our moral striving as near and as low as possible will not be satisfiedwith these deductions, nor will those who hastily appended a multitude ofpostulates of happiness to the letter of Kant and to the one and only pointof their empirical system which Kant seemed to leave them. For if hap-piness (Gluckseligkeit) is not conceived as identical with the ultimate goal,that is, as total elevation above the whole sphere of empirical happiness,then it cannot even belong to the demands of moral reason, which alone isentitled to make demands. Also dissatisfied with our deductions are thosewho can believe that Kant could deem any knowledge which he thoughtimpossible in theoretical philosophy possible in practical and thus, in prac-tical philosophy, could again place the supersensuous world (God, etc.) as


However, this empirical eternity (which can be represented graphically byan endlessly extended line) is not thinkable without the original concept(Url2wiff) of pure eternity, and therefore it is impossible to transfer it tothe absolute I, which the original form of all being. The finite en-dures: the substance simply is, owing to its own nonfinite power to be.

Annotation 1. Spinoza, too, had to fight this concept of duration as a [analleged] form of the absolute being. For him eternity is a form of pure in-tellectual intuition. However, he does not mean relative or empirical butabsolute, pure eternity. For him duration, even duration during all time, isnothing but a form of the (empirically conditioned) subject, and that formitself becomes possible only through the higher form of eternal being. Ifeternity is taken to mean empirical eternity, then, for him, absolutesubstance was not eternal, that is, not at all determinable through this [em-pirical]form, since substance exists neither in determined nor in all time,but in no time at all.*

[204] Annotation 2. Now it is time to determine the I completely and toforestall all possible confusion with other concepts. Thus far we have deter-mined the I only as that which can never become an object. Therefore, if wewanted to say something about the I as an object we would indeed becaught in a dialectical illusion." For since it would be the object of a mereidea, it would indeed have no reality, " and if it were an object at all, then,in order to substantiate its reality, we would have to look for an objective

*Ethics 5. prop. XXIII, schol.: aeternitas nec tempore definiri, nec ullam ad tempus rekz-tionem habere potest. At nihilominus sentimus experimurque, nos aeternos esse. Nam mensnon minus res illas sentit, quas intelligendo concipit, quam quas in memoria habet. Mentisenim oculi, quibus res videt observatque, sun[ ipsae demonstrationes. Quamvis igitur nonrecordemur, nos ante corpus extitisse, sentimus tamen, mentem nostram, quatenus corporisessentiam sub aeternitatis specie involvit, aeternam esse, et hanc eius existentiam temporedefiniri sive per durationem explicari non posse. Mens igitur nostra eatenus tantum dicipotest durare, eiusque existentia certo tempore definiri, quatenus actualem corporis existen-tiam involvit, et eatenus tantum potentiam habet, rerum existentiam tempore determinandieasque sub duratione concipiendi. ISchelling's emphasis. John Wild translates: "eternity can-not be defined by time, or have any relationship to it. Nevertheless we feel and know by ex-perience that we are eternal. For the mind is no less sensible of those things which it conceivesthrough intelligence than of those which it remembers, for demonstrations are the eyes of themind by which it sees and observes things. Although, therefore, we do not recollect that weexisted before the body, we feel that our mind, in so far as it involves the essence of the bodyunder the form of eternity, is eternal, and that this existence of the mind cannot be limited bytime nor manifested through duration. Only in so far, therefore, as it involves the actual ex-istence of the body can the mind be said to possess duration, and its existence be limited by afixed time, and so far only has it the power of determining the existence of things in time, andof conceiving them under the form of duration." (Spinoza Selections New York: Scribner's,19301, p. 385).1

With equal emphasis Spinoza, in his let ters, takes a stand against all confusion of the pure,original concepts (Urbegriffe) of being with the del ivative hums of empirical existence, Seeespecially his ()pp pudh , p. 167


something outside the I, as [202] an object; as if an object, no matter bywhat means it became an object, would not have to become an object fortheoretical philosophy, that is, become objectively discernible. (Whateveris object must also be discernible [erkennbar] in the Kantian sense of theword, that is, perceptible to the senses and thinkable through categories.See below.) To be sure, according to Kant, the supersensuous leads to con-tradictions because theoretical philosophy [objectifies and thus] an-nihilates every absolute (all I). On the other hand, again according toKant, practical philosophy leads into the supersensuous domain because,in its turn, it annihilates everything that is theoretical [i.e., object] andreestablishes what is intuited intellectually (the pure I). But since we enterthe supersensuous world only through the reestablishment of the absoluteI, what can we expect to find there other than the I? therefore, no God as

an object, no not-I at all, no empirical happiness, etcetera, but only pure,absolute I!

§15

The I is because it is, without any condition and without any restriction.Its original form (Urform) is that of the pure eternal being (Sein). We can-

not say of it, it was, it will be, but simply, it is. He who wants to determineit in any way other than its being must pull it down into the empiricalworld. It is posited absolutely, therefore outside of time; the form of its in-tellectual intuition is eternity." It is nonfinite by itself; it is not a vague in-finity such as the power of imagination fancies, which is itself tied to time.Instead, it is the most certain nonfiniteness, contained in its own natureWesen ; its own eternity is the condition of its being [Sein]. Inasmuch as

the I is eternal, it has no duration at all. Duration is thinkable only withregard to objects. We may speak of eternity of duration (aeviternitas), that

„is, of an existence in all time, but eternity_in the pute_sense of the word(aeternitas) is being in no time. The pure, original form [Urform] of eter-

,.*. nity lies in the I. This form is at variance with [the form of] the existence ofthe not-I, which is in some specific time. The transcendental [203] im-agination I Einbildungskraft] reunites the variance by a notion of existence

in all time, that is, by the image [Vorstellung] of empirical eternity.*

*All synthesis proceeds by taking that which is absolutely posited and by positing it anew butconditionally (with qualifications). Thus, in its original opposition to the I) the not-I isposited absolutely but, on that very account, also posited as simply zero, because an uncondi-tional not-I is a contradiction in terms, i.e., simply nothing. To be sure, in the synthesis thenot I receives reality but thereby also loses its 'apparent' unconditionality, i.e., it becomesreality connected with negation, conditional (limited) reality. Thus the not-1 is originallyposited outside of all time, just as the I is, but it therefore also equals zero; as it receives realityIt loses its bring posited outside of all time and is posited in a .specific time. Finally a new syn-thesis posits it in all time, i.e., the absolute eternity of the I becomes empirical eternity in thenot I inasmuch as the latter receives its reality through the I.

102 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [205,206] [207] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 103

•I

A

intuition (Anschauung)," which would necessarily lead to contradictions.As yet we have determined the I only be stressing the impossibility of its

ever becoming an object. We have also shown that it cannot be a mere ideaand that therefore what we have here is the only intellectual intuition thatis possible. I should like to see the impossible, a deduction of the absolute Ifrom concepts! For that very reason Kant asserted that no philosophy ispossible on the basis of concepts, because he knew that the only possiblephilosophy, the critical, rests on an ultimate ground which cannot bereached through any objective concept. Kant had already intimated that adeduction of the I from mere concepts isittipossible when he said that theoriginal proposition I am is antecedent to all concepts and merely accom-panies them, as it were, as a vegae. For that proposition is not a conse-quence of the proposition I think but is contained in it.* [205]' Now, if anyonewishes that there were no absolute I at all, then according to all the above,he would have to deny not only all freedom but also all philosophy itself.For even the least degree of spontaneity in theoretical philosophy revealsthe original freedom of the absolute I as much as does the greatest possiblespontaneity in practical philosophy. Furthermore, dogmatism is formallyestablished by the denial of the absolute I. For if the existence of an em-pirically conditioned I cannot be explained from the position of an ab-solute I, then there remains no other explanation than the one from theabsolute not-I, that is, from the principle of all dogmatism, which con-tradicts itself. Therefore the annulment of an absolute I nullifies not only aspecific philosophy but all philosophy. The assertion of an ...absolute I is

(1) least of all a transcendent assertion. It is as little transcendent as isthe practical transition into the supersensuous domain." Eve assertionwhich tries to bypass (uberfliegen) the I is transcendent. Consequently, theassertion of an absoluin'ras to be the most immanent of all assertions: in-deed, it must be the condition of all immanent philosophy. To be sure, theassertion of an absolute I would be transcendent if it were to go fartherthan the I, that is, if it tried at the same time to determine its existence asan object. Yet the sense of this assertion is precisely this that the I is not anobject at all, and therefore, being independent of all that is not-I, indeed,in its origin excluding all that is not-I, that it has its being in itself, that itcreates itself. In the Transcendental Dialectic," the paralogism exposed byKant does not stop with the pure I; rather it tries, on the one hand, to con-ceive the I as conditioned by the not-I, therefore as having become an ob-jxct, and yet, on the other hand, as I, that is, as.absolute substance. Theabsolute I, however, [206] realizes itself. I must not overstep its sphere if I

••I'lle absolute I is, without relating itself to any objects. Therefore it is, not because it thinks

at all, but becatue it thinks only itself. For that reason Descartes could not get very far with his

togffirrgo ono, because he postulated thinking at all as a condition of the I, i.e., he had not

risen to the absolute I. ''

want to reach its being, and the proposition I am differs from all other ex-istential propositions in that it is the very one which cannot even be com-pared with them. The entire paralogism of transcendental psychology spr-ings from the very attempt to conceive as an object that which really per-tains only to the absolute I. (The whole [Kantian] Dialectic aims at thedestruction of the absolute I and the realization of the absolute not-I as an[ostensible] I, that is, as a thing in itself.)

"I think; I am!" — these are purely analytical propositions. But theTranscendental Dialectic turns the I into an object and argues thatwhatever thinks is; and that whatever is thought as [if it were] an I is an I.This is a synthetic proposition, by which something which thinks is positedas a not-I. Yet a not-I does not create itself through its thinking, as an Idoes!

(2) The absolute I is not synonymous with the logical I. In merely em-pirical thinking I encounter the I only as a logical subject, and my ex-istence as determinable in time. In contrast, in intellectual intuition the Iproduces itself as absolute reality outside of all time." Therefore, when wespeak of the absolute I we least of all mean to designate the logical subjectcontained in consciousness. After all, this logical subject itself is possibleonly owing to the unity of the absolute I." (My empirical I is subject tochange, but in order to retain its identity in that change it strives to elevatethe objects which change it, to a unity [by categories] and thus, throughthe identity of its striving, it establishes the identity of its existence as alasting principle of image production [Princip der Vorstellungen] in thechange of time.) Therefore the unity of consciousness determines only ob-jects but cannot in turn determine the I as object. For, as pure I, it doesnot occur at all in consciousness [ see n.31] and even if it did occur there, itcould never, as a pure I, become a not-I. As an empirical I it has no realityat all except [207] in the unity of apperception, and only in relation to ob-jects. I thinkLis merely an expression of the unity of apperception whichaccompanies all concepts [see n.37]. Thus it is not determinable in in-tellectual intuition, as is the proposition I am! but can be determined onlyin relation to objects, that is, only empirically. It does not express an ab-solute unity but only a form of unity conceivable in regard to multiplicity.The latter unity determines the I neither as phenomenon nor as a thing initself (therefore not as a thing at all) yet just as little as an absolute I, butonly as a principle of something determined in the mere unity of thinking,something that loses all reality if imagined as outside the thinking.However, this merely thinkable I contained in the unity of consciousness iscomprehensible only through an original and absolutely present unity ofan absolute I. For if there were no absolute I, one could not comprehendhow a not-I could produce a logical I, a unity of thinking, nor could onecomprehend at all how any not-I would be possible."' It naturally follows

104

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [208] [209,210] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

105

that anyone who is trying to do away with the absolute I in his thoughtsfeels compelled to elevate the not-I itself to the I. (This was the case withSpinoza.) There is nothing at all thinkable for me without the I, at leastwithout the logaical I, and the logical I cannot possibly be produced by anot-I, but only by an absolute I.

Thus if we speak of an absolute I we speak, in the first place,A (1) not of the logical I, because that can be thought of only in regard to

an object, and the phrase logical I is merely an expression of the striving ofthe I to maintain its identity within the change of objects. For that reason,since it can be conceived only in terms of that striving, it is itself guarantorof the absolute I and its absolute identity.

(2) In the second place, when speaking of the absolute I, we do not speakof the absolute subject in the Transcendental Dialectic [see n. 81]. The lat-ter takes the logical subject, which is originally nothing but the formalprinciple of the unity of thinking and a mere correlate of apperception,and presents it as if it were an object, which is a direct contradiction. Thedialectical subject [208] is created by mere abstraction and by theparalogistic assumption that the I of consciousness could be thought of asan object determinable as independent of consciousness. That marks , thedifference between the dialectical I and the logical I, on the one hand; aswell as the pure I, on the other. Neither of these two was created byabstraction. The logical I is nothing other than the formal principle of theunity of thinking (and therefore of abstraction itself); the pure I is higherthan all abstraction and can be posited only by itself.

Thus the absolute I is neither a merely formal principle, nor an idea,nor an object, but pure I determined by intellectual intuition as absolutereality. He who demands proof "that something else besides our ideashould match it," does not know what he is demanding, because (1) it isnot given by any idea, (2) it realizes itself, it creates itself, and thereforedoes not need to be realized beforehand. Even if it were realizable in ad-vance, the very action by which it became realizable would already presup-pose it. In other words, to make it real as something posited outside of itselfwould mean to annul it. It is either nothing, or else realized by itself and initself not as an object but as I.

Philosophy, by the fact that the absolute I is posited as its principle, issecure from all illusory semblance (Schein). For, as has been shown, the Ias an object is possible only through dialectical semblance, and the I in thelogical sense has no meaning except inasmuch as it is the principle of theunity of thinking, and thus it disappears with thinking itself and has noother than thinkable reality.* - However, if the principle of all philosophy*Accordingly I Reinhold's' theorem of consciousness automatically vanishes as principle ofphilosophy. For it is clear that through it neither subject nor object is determined, exceptlogically, so that the theorem has no real meaning, at least as long as it is supposed to be theultimate pc int iplr No philosopher has pointed out more emphatic ally this lac k of irality inthe theca cm of I MINI liolioffirw. than SAIIIIIII/II M.11111011 "

were a not-I, then one would have to renounce philosophy altogether. [209]For the not-I itself is originally determinable only in contrast to the I [seen.34] and has no reality if the absolute I has no reality.

Annotation 3. It is remarkable that most languages have the advantage ofbeing able to differentiate between absolute being and every kind of condi-tioned existence. Such a differentiation, which runs through all originallanguages," points to an originally existing reason which, without anyone'sbeing aware of it, determined the differentiation at the time whenlanguage was first created. It is equally remarkable that the majority ofphilosophers did not make use of the advantage offered by their language.Almost all of them use the words being (Sein), presence (Dasein), ex-istence, and reality (Wirklichkeit) as if they were synonyms. Obviously theword being expresses pure, absolute being-posited (Gesetztsein), whereaspresence even etymologically signifies a conditioned and limited being-posited. Nevertheless one speaks commonly of the existence (Dasein) ofGod, * as if God could really exist, that is, could be posited conditionallyand empirically. (That, of course, is what is desired by most people and, asit seems, even by many philosophers of all times and factions.) Anyone whocan say that the absolute I exists (ist wirklich) knows nothing about it.**The word being [Sein] expresses an absolute [210] being-posited, whereasexistence (Dasein) always signifies a conditioned, and reality (Wirklichkeit)a specifically conditioned being-posited, determined by specific condi-tions. The individual phenomenon in the total context of the world hasreality; the world of phenomena as such has existence; but the absolutelyposited, the I, simply is. I am! is all that the I can say about itself.

The usual assumption was that pure being pertained to things inthemselves. However, I believe that what Kant says about things inthemselves cannot be explained at all except as a result of his persistentlymaintained system of condescension (Herablassun_gssystem)." Accordingto Kant's own deductions the idea of a thing in itself must be contradic-tory. Thing in itself means neither more nor less than a thing which is no

*Theoretical philosophy seeks to establish God as a not-I, and in that context the expressionexistence has its proper place. However, it cannot be used in practical philosophy except in apolemical way, against those who want to turn God into an object."

**Even the striving of the moral I cannot be represented as a striving for reality, because themoral I strives to posit all reality in itself. More precisely, it strives to elevate all reality to thelevel of pure being and, since its being conditioned by the not-I has dragged it down into thesphere of existence, it strives to raise itself again from that sphere. But pure being, as the goalof striving on the part of a moral subject, i.e., of a conditioned I, can be represented onlyschematically, i.e., as existence in all time. Precisely in this lies the infinite task of practicalreason, to make absolute being and empirical existence identical in us. Since even in anendless time empirical existence cannot be elevated to absolute being, and since absolute be-ing can never be presented in the domain of reality as being real in us, reason demands in-finite existence for the empirical I. For the absolute I contains eternity in itself and can neverbe teachrd by the concept of duration, tern of infinite dictation."


[212,213]


thing. Wherever there is sense perception there is not-I, and where there isnot-I there is sense perception (sinnliche Anschauung). What is seen(angeschaut) intellectually is no not-I at all but sheer I. Therefore, for in-stance, one cannot say that God sees the things in themselves. To be sure,God sees no phenomena, but just as little does he behold things inthemselves. He beholds no thing at all but only himself and all reality asposited equal to himself. (From that it is clear that God is what we can onlystrive to realize in infinity.) If (according to Spinoza) God is determinableas an object, though under the form of nonfiniteness, then all objects mustbe contained in him, and Spinozism can be refuted only by representingGod as identical with the absolute I (which excludes all objects). To besure, owing to his system of accomodation [see n.89], Kant has spoken ofthe forms of sense perception (Anschauung) as mere forms of humanperception. However, the forms of sense perception and of the synthesis ofits manifoldness are forms of finiteness as such, that is, they must bededuced from the mere concept of the I as conditioned by the not-I.Therefore, where there is an object there must also be sense perception.Consequently any not-I outside of all sense perception (a thing in itself)12111 annuls itself, that is, is no thing at all but is mere not-I and thus ab-solutely nothing. It has been said that our inability to know things inthemselves is due to the weakness of human reason (a phrase which hasbeen overtaxed endlessly). More properly, one might say that the weaknesslies in the fact that we perceive objects at all.

The concepts of idealism and realism can be given their proper meaningonly now, when the concept of the not-I has been determined in contrast tothe absolute I. Their empirical meaning and their pure meaning are oftenconfused. Pure idealism and realism have nothing to do with the deter-mination of the relationship between the imagined object and the em-pirical subject. Both are concerned only with the answer to the one ques-tion of how it is possible that something could at all stand in opposition tothe I, that is, how the I could be at all empirical. The idealist could answeronly that the I is not empirical at all, in which case one could deny that ithas any need to set anything in opposition to itself, and thus deny the claimof every theoretical philosophy.*This idealism is thinkable only as an idea (of the ultimate goal) in a prac-tical sense (as a practical regulative) because as theoretical idealism it an-nuls itself. Therefore there is no pure theoretical idealism, and since theempirical-one is no idealism,' there can be no idealism at all in theoreticalphilosophy.

*Ttanscendent and immanent idealism coincide, because immanent idealism could onlydrily the existence of the objects represented in imagination, which transcendent idealismmust also deny. just because the latter is idealism and does not admit an objective world, itwould have to look in the I alone for the reasons for its assertions, and basically it would heimmanent idealism.

Pure realism posits the existence of the not-I as such. Either the not-I isposited as identical with the absolute I (as one could perhaps interpretBerkeley's idealism) and thus is self-annulling realism.

[212] Or else the not-I is posited as quite independent of the I (as is thecase with Leibniz and also with Berkeley, who is mistakenly countedamong the idealists), and that is transcendent realism.

Or again, the not-I is dependent on the I, owing to the assertion thatnothing exists but what the I posits, and that the not-I is thinkable onlyunder the presupposition of an absolute I not yet conditioned by any not-I,so that the latter can be posited only by the I. (In the first place, in order toposit the not-I at all, the absolute I must be previously posited, because thenot-I can be determined only in contrast to the I. For that reason the not-Iis originally posited only in opposition [to the I], with absolute negation. Inthe second place, in order to posit it at all and to give it reality, it must beposited in the absolute I, through which alone everything that is can beposited, that is, can be raised to reality. Yet it can receive reality onlythrough an absolutely comprehensive concept of all reality. And this is im-manent Kantian realism.)*

Or last, the not-I, even though originally independent of the I, yet isposited as existing in the imagination only through and for the I(transcendent-immanent and incomprehensible realism of many Kantiansand [213] particularly of Reinhold** who, by the way, resented the sec-tarian name of a Kantian.)

Empirical idealism either is a meaningless expression or makes sense on-ly in contrast to pure transcendent realism. Thus Leibniz (like Descartes)was an empirical idealist, owing to his denial of the existence of exteriorobjects as bodies, yet a pure objective realist when assuming the existenceof a not-I completely independent of the I.

*This realism designates at the same time the proper domain of natural science [Natur-forschune which cannot at all seek "to penetrate into the inside of objects," i.e., to assumephenomena determinable as independent of the I. Instead, natural science must regard theentire reality which pertains to phenomena merely in the sense of a reality whose foundationdoes not lie in the objects themselves, but is a reality thinkable only in terms of relation (to theI). Therefore science must not attribute to objects any reality independent of their borrowedreality, and must not assume that they exist outside the latter reality. For, if one abstractsfrom their transferred reality, they are simply nothing (=--- 0). Therefore their laws can bedetermined only with regard to their phenomenal reality, and one cannot presuppose that thereality of the phenomenon is further determinable by the causality of any other reality notcontained in the phenomenon, i.e., by some real substrate to the object (real outside thephenomenon). If one were to search, as it were behind the phenomenal (transferred) reality,for some other reality originally pertaining to the object, one would meet with nothing butnegation:"

**In no other way can I explain the statement that the things in themselves furnish thematerial for the imagination. (The things in themselves furnish nothing but the limitations ofabsolute reality in the imagination.) Instead of anything else, see §29 of the Theory of thePower of Imagtnatton, even though this f3, according to a later explanation of the author, wassupposed to be a torte philosophical exi onion.


[214]

[215,216] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

109

Transcendent realism is necessarily empirical idealism, and vice versa.Since transcendent realism views objects altogether as things in themselves,it can view what is changeable and conditional in them only as a product ofthe empirical I, and can see them as things in themselves only insofar asthey have the form of identity and immutability. Thus, in order to save theidentity and immutability of things, Leibniz had to resort to preestablishedharmony. In short, dogmatism (which holds that the not-I is the absolute)must imagine things in themselves under forms which, according tocriticism, are inherent in the I (as the only absolute) and which (by the syn-thesis) are transferred from the I to the not-I (identical substantiality, purebeing, unity, etc.). On the other hand, dogmatism must view those otherforms which the object receives in the synthesis from the original not-I(mutability, multiplicity, conditionality, negation, etc.) as pertaining onlyto the appearance of the thing in itself.* Therefore the monads of Leibnizhave the original form of the [214] I (unity and reality, identical substan-tiality and pure being, as beings with awareness), whereas all those formswhich are transferred from the not-I to the object (negation, multiplicity,accidentality, causality in the passive sense, i.e., conditionality) must beexplained in an empirically idealistic way, as existing only in the sense im-age of the object. Thus, in a consistent dogmatism, empirical idealismmakes sense and has tenable meaning, because it is the necessary conse-

•The not-I is determinable only in absolute contrast to the I. For that very reason it is ab-solute negation with regard to [the categorical form of] relation, and in that original contrastit is determined as absolute conditionality. It is in contrast with the absolute, therefore condi-tioned by it, yet, since this contrast is absolute, the not-I is in that respect also unconditional.Whatever is in absolute contrast to the absolute is on that account conditioned and uncondi-tioned at the same time, that is, it is simply zero ( 0). According to quantity it is determinedas absolute multiplicity, but absolute multiplicity is a contradiction, because multiplicity isconditioned by unity. According to modality the not-I is a being whose absolute contrast toabsolute being makes it an absolute not-being. And according to quality it is a quality in ab-solute contrast to absolute reality, therefore it is an absolute negation. If, therefore, the ab-solute not-I is to have any reality at all, that is possible only if it is posited in no absolute con-trast to the absolute, that is, posited within the comprehensive concept of all reality. Now, theprocess of all synthesis is such that whatever is absolutely posited in both thesis and antithesisis posited in the synthesis with qualifications, that is, merely conditionally. Therefore, in thesynthesis, the absolute unity of the I becomes empirical unity, thinkable only as unity in rela-tion to multiplicity (category of unity); the absolute multiplicity of the not-I becomes em-pirical multiplicity thinkable only in relation to unity (category of multiplicity); the absolutereality of the I becomes conditional reality thinkable only in relation to qualifying negation;the absolute negation of the not-I becomes a negation thinkable only in relation to reality(category of negation); the absolute unconditionality of the I becomes empirical uncondi-actuality thinkable only in relation to conditionality (category of substance); the absolute be-ing of the I becomes a being determinable only in relation to not-being (category of possibili-ty), and the absolute not-being of the not-I becomes a not-being determinable only in relationto being (category of existence)."

Note ol the editor, Schelling'A .ton: This footnote was omitted in the second edition, perhapsonly by mistake since, in the first edition, it was not in the text but only in a list of emenda•buns and additions,

quence of transcendent realism. Yet, if it is taken for an explanation of thenot-I as such, it annuls itself. For it is a ridiculous endeavor to make the ex-istence of the not-I comprehensible as a mere product of an empiricalpotency (Vermogen), for instance the power of imagination. [215] Thequestion was how the not-I is possible at all, and consequently how any em-pirical potency is possible at all.

Leibniz or, more precisely, consistent dogmatism views phenomena asjust so many limitations of the infinite reality of the not-I. According to thecritical system, they are that many limitations of the nonfinite reality of theI. (For Leibniz, phenomena differ from the I not in kind or reality but onlyin quantity. Leibniz was right enough when he said that the preservation ofthe world of phenomena is the same act of the absolute object as the crea-tion. For, according to dogmatism, the world of phenomena is created andperseveres only through the limitation of the absolute not-I. According tothe critical system, which allows only immanent assertions, creation isnothing but exhibition of the nonfinite reality of the I within the limits ofthe finite. Any determination of creation by a causality assumed to be realoutside of the absolute I—by some infinite outside of the nonfinite, [durchein Unendliches ausser dem Unendlichen] — would mean going beyond[Uberfliegen] the I.) For Leibniz everything that exists is not-I, even God,in whom all reality is united, though outside the domain of negation. Forthe critical system (which starts with a critique of the subjective powers,i.e., proceeds from the I), I is everything; it contains one infinite sphere inwhich (limited by the not-I) finite spheres form, as is still possible onlywithin and through the infinite sphere," and also they receive all realityonly from and through that sphere.* (Theoretical philosophy.) Withinthat infinite sphere everything is intellectual, all is absolute being, absoluteunity, absolute reality; in the finite spheres everything is conditionality, ac-tuality (Wirklichkeit), limitation. If we break through these spheres (prac-tical [216] philosophy), then we are in the sphere of the absolute being, inthe supersensuous world where all I outside the I is nothing, and this I isonly One.

I wish I had Plato's gift of language or that of his kindred spirit,Jacobi, 95in order to be able to differentiate between the absolute, im-mutable being and every kind of conditional, changeable existence. Yet Isee that even these men had to struggle with their own language when theyattempted to speak of the immutable and supersensuous—and I believethat this absolute in us cannot be captured by a mere word of human

•The expression of many fantasizing visionaries (vieler Schwirmer) that the sensuous is con-tained in the supersensuous, the natural in the supernatural, the terrestrial in the celestial,permits, therefore, a quite meaningful interpretation. At all events, their expressions veryoften contain a treasure of truth, though only felt and guessed at. In Leibniz's simile, such ex-pressions are like the golden vessels of the Egyptians, which the philosopher must purloin for amore sat-red use. I Exod. 3:22; 11:2; 12:35.1


language, and that only the self-attained insight into the intellectual in uscan come to the rescue of the patchwork of our language.

Self-attained insight. For the unconditional within us is clouded by theconditional, the immutalbe by the changing. And how can you hope thatthe conditional will ever make clear for you what is unconditional, andthat the form of mutability and of change can represent the original formof your being, the form of eternity and immutability?

Since your perception ties you to objects, and since your intellectual in-tuition is dimmed and your existence is determined for you by time, eventhat to which you owe your existence, that in which you live and act, think,and know, becomes in the end (and for your will) only an object of faith — asomething which seems different from yourself and which you are forevertrying to realize in yourself as a finite creature and still never find as real inyourself. The beginning and the end of your knowledge is the same — thereintuition, here faith]

§16

The I posits itself absolutely, and posits all reality within itself. It positsetsulhin,g_as pure identity, that is, equal to itself. Thereby the material

original form (Urform) of the I is the unity of its [217] positing, inasmuchas it posits everything as equal to itself. The absolute I never steps outsideof itself."

Through this original material form, however, a formal form, the formof positing in the I, is necessarily determined in the I as such. For the I isdetermined as the substrate of positability of all reality as such [see n.46].Inasmuch as the I in its material form is the sum-total of all reality (§8), itis also at the same time a formal condition of all positing, and thus I obtaina sheer form of the possibility of positing entities in the I at all. This latterform, however, is necessarily determined by the original material form ofthe identity of the I (by virtue of which it identifies all reality with itself,i.e., posits all reality in itself). If the I did not originally identify everythingwith its own reality, that is, posit it as identical with itself, and did not posititself as the purest identity, then nothing in the I could be posited as iden-tical, and it would be possible to posit A = not-A. Let the I be whatever itmay be (but it is nothing if it is not absolutely equal to itself, because it isposited only by itself), then, if it is posited at all as identical with itself, thegeneral expression of positing in the I is A = A. If the I is posited as iden-tical with itself then, no matter what the I is, everything that is posited inthe 1 is posited [as identical with itself and] not as different from itself, andtherefore is posited in the [self-identical] 1. Any positing in the I is possible


at all only through the pure identity of the I itself or, in other words, )4-through the being of the I alone, since the I is only owing to its identity. If ithe I were not identical with itself, then everything that is posited in the Iwould be simultaneously posited and not posited, that is, nothing at allcould be posited and there would be no form of positing at all.

Yet, since the I posits everything which it posits as identical with itsrespective reality, then, inasmuch as the form of positing anything in the Iis determined only by the I itself, that which is posited is being consideredonly in the quality of its being posited in the I, and is not considered assomething in contrast to the I. Through its original form (Urform) of iden-tity, the I determines nothing as reality as such, and it determines no ob-ject at all as such [218] insofar as an object is in contrast with the LccaThus the proposition I = I is the basis of all positing. For the I can be said

ito be posited only inasmuch as it is posited for alone and by itself.Everything else, however, that is posited is so posited only inasmuch as theI is posited in the first place. Furthermore, what is posited is posited ab-solutely only insofar as it is posited as identical with the absolutely positedI. And since the I can be posited only as identical with itself, everythingelse is posited only insofar as it is identical with itself." in that respect, A =A is the general formula of absolute positing, because by it nothing else ispredicated except that whatever is posited is posited.

Now, by arbitrary freedom I can posit in the I whatever I wish; the onlything I cannot posit is what I do not posit. Thus I posit A, and since I positit in the I, I posit it as equal to some reality = B, and necessarily assomething equal to itself. That is, I posit it either as B or as not-B = C. If itwere posited both as B and as not-B = C then the I itself would be cancelled.Therefore the proposition A = A, as a general formula (for positing asequal or self-identical) precedes all other formal axioms. Insofar as it oc-curs as a special theorem ' (of special content) it belongs to the general speciesof theorems conditioned by the axiomatic form, theorems absolutelyposited by it inasmuch as it is a mere formula, A = A.

All unconditionally posited theorems, that is, all those whose positing isconditioned only by the identity of the I, can be called analytical, becausetheir being posited can be deduced from themselves. Therefore, better yet,they can be called thetical." Thetical theorems are all those which areconditioned only by being posited in the I, that is, since everything isposited in the I, all those which are unconditionally posited. (I say, areposited, because only the being-posited belongs to the formal form.)

Among thetical theorems, one kind is that of identical theorems. For in-stance, A = A can be taken as a special theorem (among those in whichsubject and predicate are the same, i.e., whose subject has only itself aspredicate. Thus I is only I, God only God, but everything that lies withinthe sphere of existence has predicates which lie outside its essence). The

[217] [218]

[221] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 113112 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [219,220]

fact that they are thetical theorems belongs to the formal form, that they areidentical to the material form. Identical [219] theorems are thetical bynecessity, because in them A is posited simply as such and because it is A.But thetical theorems are not necessarily identical ones, since theticaltheorems are all those whose being posited is not conditioned by anythingelse's being posited. Thus A = B can be a thetical yet not an identicaltheorem if the mere positing of A also posits Bbut not vice versa, so thatpositing B does not also posit A. 17,-, #;(1

The form of thetical theorems is conetioned only by the pure identity ofthe I. Consequently, what they e2sprq§ is in every case only the materialform of unconditionalitLwhich is determined by the I, and they express itformally. There-Tore the formal form of unconditionality must be strictlyparallel to the material form of the I.'°°

The I is only because it is, that is, because it is equal to itself, therefore itis only through the mere unity of its self-intuition (Einheit seinerAnschauung). 101 Now, thetical theorems are conditioned only as beingposited in the I. The I, however, is only owing to the unity of its self-intuition. Therefore what is posited in a thetical theorem must be condi-tioned only by the unity of its intuition determined in the I. If I am judgingA = B, then I am not making a judgment regarding A insofar as it is deter-mined by something outside itself but only insofar as it is determined byitself, by the unity of being posited in the I, not as a determined object butas reality as such, as at all positable in the I. Thus I do not judge this or thatA in this or that particular point of space or time, but A as such inasmuchas it is A through that very determination by which it is A, that is, thatwhich makes it equal to itself and = B. Owing to this, all numerical deter-mination is excluded, be it numerical determination of unity or ofmultiplicity. Numerical determination can occur in a thetical theorem,but not as belonging to its form. Thus, for instance, one can judge: body Ais extended. If this theorem is to be a thetical one, the body A must bethought of only in the unity of its being posited in the I, and nost as a par-ticular object in a particular space; or rather, inasmuch as the theorem is athetical one, [220] A is really thought of only in the unit of its being posited.What makes it a thetical theorem is not the particualr body A, but thethingking of it in its unity. The A in the thetical theorem as such, accor-ding to its mere being posited, is determined neither as genus nor as speciesnor as individual. Multiplicity is posited because one item is posited severaltimes and not because it is simply posited. Therefore a theorem which ex-presses multiplicity in an antithetical theorem, not only according to itscontent but also according to the mere form of its being posited. Onlythrough the fact that something is originally posited in contrast with the I,and that the I itself is posited as multiplicity (posited in time), is it possiblethat the I can go beyond the mere unity of something's being posited in it,

and that, for instance, it can posit the posited entity several times, or thatit can simultaneously posit two concepts which have nothing in commonand which are not thinkable under any unity, for example, body andweight. 102

Generality is empirical unity, that is, unity produced by multiplicity.Therefore it is the form of a synthesis. Thus general theorems are neitherthetical nor antithetical but synthetical theorems.

There is an I only by its act of positing all reality If thetical propositions(i.e., propositions determined by their sheer positing in the I) are possibleat all, they must absolutely posit (affirm) something. Negative propositionsare not determined by the sheer I, which contains no negation, but bysomething outside the I (in contrast to the I). The affirmative propositionas such simply posits something into some sphere of reality; the thetical-affirmative proposition posits something only into the sphere of reality assuch. The negative proposition merely posits,'" and does not posit into anyspecific sphere; but since it does not posit that which it takes away fromone sphere into any other, it exludes it from the sphere of reality as such.The thetical-negative (so-called infinite) judgment not only removes Afrom a specific sphere but at the same time posits it into another, oppositeto the first. For instance, the proposition "God is not real" takes God out ofthe sphere of reality without placing him into another; [221] but the pro-position "God is unreal (nicht-worklich)" puts him at 'the same time intoanother sphere in contrast to the sphere of reality. However, in order toproduce a thetical-negative judgment, a merely arbitrary connection be-tween the negation and the predicate does not suffice; the sheer positing ofthe subject in the I must already posit it in a sphere opposite to the predi-cate. For instance, I cannot turn the negative proposition "a circle is notsquare" into a thetical-negative judgment, because the sheer positing ofthe subject, "circle," does not yet posit it in a sphere which as such is incontrast with four-sidedness. The circle could just as well be five-sided ormany-sided. However, the proposition "a circle is not sweet" is necessarilyan infinite judgment, because the subject, "circle," through its mere beingposited, is already outside of the sphere of the sweet, therefore alreadyposited in a sphere exactly contrary to the sphere of "sweet." For thatreason, the negation in the thetical-negative judgment does not lie in thecopula but in the predicate, that is, the subject is not merely beingremoved from the sphere of the predicate but is placed in a sphere thatcontrasts with the sphere of the predicate. As far as I know, Maimon wasup to now the one who put the greatest emphasis on this differentiationbetween the infinite judgment and the affirmative and negative. [see n.

The I is only through itself. Its original form (Urform) is that of pure be-ing. If anything is to be posited in the I, merely because it is posited, itmust be conditioned by nothing other than the 1; for it is conditioned only



by its being posited in the I, and the I contains nothing that lies outside thesphere of its own essence. Thetical theorems therefore posit only a beingwhich is conditioned by itself alone (they do not posit possibility, reality, ornecessity, but sheer being). 104

Up to the present, the determination of the forms of modality has not yetbeen made quite clear. True, the original forms of being and not-being arebasic to all other forms They contain thesis and antithesis (the contrast be-tween I and not-I), but in an entirely general formal way. [222] If this contrastis to be mediated by a synthesis, then these general forms must express thatsynthesis in a likewise entirely general and formal manner. For that veryreason, material (objective) possibility, reality, and necessity do not belongamong the original forms which precede all synthesis. For they expressmaterially what the original forms express only formally, that is, they ex-press it in relation to an already accomplished synthesis. Therefore thesethree forms are no categories at all, since categories really are the formsthrough which the synthesis of the I and the not-I is determined. But thethree together are the syllepsis of all categories. Since they themselves ex-press only positing, and since the [nine real] categories (of relation, ofquantity, and of quality) furnish the positability of the not-I in the I, the[other] three [of possibility, or reality, and of necessity] themselves can nolonger be conditions of this positability, they can only be the result of syn-thesis, or sylleptical concepts of all synthesis. 1 ° 5

Originally, pure being is only in the I, and nothing can be posited in thisform [of pure being] that is not posited as equal to the I. For that reason,pure being is expressed only in thetical propositions, because in them theposited is not expressed as something opposed to the I, as object, but isdetermined only as the reality of the I as such.

The characteristic formula for thetical theorems is "A is," which meansthat it has an identical sphere of being of its own, into which everythingcan be posited that is conditioned only by the being of A, and by its beingposited in the I. However, since A expresses being as such, there must be ageneral formula for the antithesis as well, which must be A > -A [A is notnot-A]. By virtue of that, since A is posited in the I, -A is necessarilyposited outside the I, independent of the I, in the form of not-being. In themanner in which the first formula makes possible an original thesis, the se-cond furnishes the possiblitity of an original antithesis.

Yet just this original thesis and antithesis is the problem of all synthesisin philosophy* and just as the [223] pure forms of modality express the

•Amont the categories of each individual form, the first one is always the expression of theoriginal form of the I, the second is the originasl form of the not-I, and the third and last one

is the synthesis in which the two first ones are united and only now obtain sense and meaningin referring to the object. Note that the form of quality relates to the form of modality, the

form of quantity to the form of relation, therefore the mathematical categories are determin-ed by the dynamic categories and not vice versa.

form of thesis and antithesis originally and universally, they also must con-tain the form of a possible synthesis, originally and before all synthesis.This form is the determination of not-being by being, and it is the originalbasis of determination of all possible synthesis.

Pure being is thinkable only in the I. The I is posited purely and simply[schlechthin]. The not-I, however, is in contrast with the I, and therefore,according to its original form, it is pure impossibility, that is, it cannot beposited in the I at all. Still, it ought to be posited in the I, and the synthesisbrings about this positing of the not-I in the I by means of identifying theform of the not-I itself with the form of the I, that is, it strives to determinethe not-being of the not-I through the being of the I.'"

Since pure being is the original form of all positability in the I, and sincethe positability of the not-I in the I can be accomplished only by synthesis,the form of pure being, if transferable to the not-I, can be thought only interms of strict conformity with the synthesis as such. (In Kant's language:objective possibility, i.e., possibility pertaining to an object as such, iscontained only in conformity with a synthesis. And that means positabilityin the I.) For originally the not-I is a logical impossibility for the I. For theI there are only thetical theorems, but the not-I can never become thecontent of a thetical theorem and it directly contradicts the form of the I.Only inasmuch as the not-being of the not-I is determined by the being ofthe I, that is, inasmuch as there occurs a synthesis of being and not-being,the not-I becomes positable in the I. [See n. 106.] Therefore the possibilityof so positing it can be thought only as conformity with [224] synthesis assuch. Consequently, the logical possibility of the not-I is conditioned by theobjective, the formal by the material possibility.

It follows that problematical propositions are those whose logicalpossibility is conditioned by their objective possibility. In logic itself theystand under the pure form of being, which precedes all synthesis, and theycannot possibly count as a genus by itself. Since they are only an expressionof a logical possibility dependent on objective possibility, and since logicalpossibility is the same everywhere, they belong to logic only with regard tothat quality which makes them problematic propositions. I call theobjective possibility, inasmuch as it furnishes the logical possibility (or is aschema of the logical) the objective-logical possibility. Prepositions thatexpress only pure being and pure possibility* I call problematicpropositions. These, therefore, occur in logic only insofar as they are at thesame time essential propositions.

•The expression logical, pure possibility should be abolished, since it necessarily causes

misunderstanding. Properly speaking, there is only a real objective possibility. The so-calledlogical possibility is nothing else but pure being as expressed in the form of a thetical

proposition. For instance, when we say that the theorem I -- I has the form of purepossibility. this can be easily misunderstood, but not if we say that its form is the form of purebeing (in contrast to existence (Dwain), or to logical possibility, which is conditioned only by

objective possibility). I See Poss. 108- I 0. I

1.Thesis

Absolute being absolute posit-ability originally determined only inand by the I.

2.Antithesis

Absolute not-being, absoluteindependence from the I, and abso-lute nonpositablity determinable onlyin contrast to the I.


k _Existential propositions are determined by the original opposition of thenot-I, and th-eceive their possibility only through synthesis. They aretherefore conditioned bytlieajeCliieTogTalpOssitiiiity, although they donot express mere possibility. The objective-logical possibility posits the not-I merely into synthesis as such but an existential_proposition posits it_intosome particular synthesis. Yet the not-I, in order to be elevated to the formof the I, needs to be posited only by means of the schema of pure being, byits mere possibility, that is, by [225] synthesis as such, just as the I is positedby the thesis as such. (Where there is thesis there is I, and where there is Ithere is thesis.) But the original form of the object is conditionality. Byvirtue of that form, inasmuch as it can be represented by the schema oftime, the objects attain existence only by reciprocally determining theirposition in time, that is, by their existence in some particular synthesis.Here, therefore, a new synthesis must occur, just as, originally, being andnot-being could be brought together only owing to the determination ofnot-being by being. So the result of that synthesis, which is objectivepossibility, can be brought together with reality in the new synthesis, owingto the determination of the latter by the former. Now, objective-logicalpossibility means being posited in synthesis as such, and reality meansbeing posited in a particular synthesis. Therefore the not-I can be positedin a particular synthesis only because it is simultaneously posited insynthesis as such. That means it is posited in all synthesis, because all

synthesis is synthesis itself as well as particular synthesis.I believe that the whole progression of this synthesis will become clearer

to the reader by being presented in the following table.

[226] Table of All Forms of Modality

3.Synthesis

Conditional positability, by means of absorption (Aufnahme) into the I, i.e.,possibility of the not-I.* (This possibility is called objective-logical possibility

• Owing to its original contraposition (antithesis), the not-I is an absoluteimpossibility. Inthe synthesis it receives possibility, but only unconditional possibility. Thus it exchangesconditional possibility for unconditional possibility. "Either no possibility, butunconditionality instead, or else no unconditionality but possibility instead! If the not-I werethe unconditional in human knowledge, it could br that only in an original contrast, i.e.,Inasmuch as it is simply nothing." (Addition to the first edition.)


because the not-I becomes object only by absorption into the I, and because thisabsorption into the I becomes possible only by a preceding synthesis itself [throughcategories]; conformity with synthesis as such [with the categories]; temporalexistence itself.)

[227]

II1. 2.

Thesis AntithesisConditioning through synthesis as Objective conditioning, not deter-

such, i.e., through objective mined by the I alone; existence in aabsorption in the I. Objective-logical particular synthesis (in time), i.e.,possibility; existence in time as such. reality.

3.Synthesis

Conditioning of being-posited (determined by the object) in a specificsynthesis, by being posited (determined by the I) in the synthesis as such;existence (Dasein)* in all synthesis. Determination of reality by the objective-logical possibility— necessity. (Therefore the whole progression of synthesisgoes 1. from being and not-being to possibility, 2. from possibility and realityto necessity.)

[228] Since time is the condition of all synthesis and, on that account, ✓

is produced by the transcendental power of imagination through and inthe synthesis, one can present the whole issue in the following manner. Theschema'°' of the pure bei_ngAthe latterbeing posited outside of all time) istemporal existence it (owing to the action of synthesis itself). Thereforeo jective possibility _paeans simply being positecl in time. Since existence intime is subject to change, the object, though posited in time as such, ispositable and yet also not positable. In order to posit an object I must positit in a specific time, which is possible only because some other objectdetermines its position in time and, in turn, allows its own position to bedetermined by it.'" Yet the not-I is to be posited only by its own possibility,only by the schema of pure being.

But the schema of its own particular form resists such positing throughmere possibility because this schema makes it conceivable only as posited ina specific time. Now, just as time as such is the schema of complete time-lessness, all time (i.e., the actual, infinitely progressing synthesis) is in turna presentation (image)" of time as such (i.e., of the action of synthesis as

'Existence is the joint form under which possibility, reality, and necessity stand. Thedifference between them lies only in the determination of time itself, not in the positing ornot-positing in time as such. Existence (Dasein) as such is therefore the result of the firstsynthesis. In the second it is determined as possibility in the thesis, as reality in the antithesis,and as necessity in the synthesis.

• 'That which meditates the schema with the object is always an image (Bild). Schema is thatwhich hovers in time as such, image is that which is posited in a specific time and yet positablelot time, whetratt the object is posited lot me only in a specific time.



such) owing to which existence in time as such becomes existence in aspecific time. All time therefore is nothing else than an image of time assuch, yet it is also a specific time because all time is as specific as any singlepart of time. Thus, insofar as the not-I is posited in a specific time, itreceives its original form (of change, multiplicity, negability) and insofaras it is posited in time as such it expresses the schematic original form ofthe I, substantiality, unity, reality. However, it is posited in a specific timeonly inasmuch as it is simultaneously set in time as such, and vice versa. Itssubstantiality can be conceived only in regard to change, its unity only[229] in regard to multiplicity, its reality only in regard to negation (i.e.,with negation—but in infinite progression).*

ANNOTATIONS. 1. The I originally posits, and posits everything as equalto itself, and since it is the purest unity it posits nothing in mere contrast toitself. The thetical theorem then has really no other content than the I,because that which is posited in the I is posited only inasmuch as it is realityat all and thus equal to the I, in the form of its identity with the I. Intheoretical as well as in practical respect, reason aims at nothing butabsolutely thetical theorems, equal to the theorem I = I. In theoreticalregard it strives to elevate the not-I to the highest unity and thus todetermine its existence in a thetical theorem equal to the theorem I = I. Inthis theorem the question is not: is the I posited at all? But rather, it isposited because it is posited [see n. 7]. Likewise the_I strives to posit thenot-I because it is posited, that is, it strives to elevate it to unconditionality.

The result of these deductions is that only the forms of being, of not-being, and of not-being determined by being can belong to logic, since they precede all synthesis and are thebasis of all synthesis, and since they contain the original form according to which alone anysynthesis can be performed. It also follows that the schematized forms of possibility, reality,and necessity, made possible only by an antecedent synthesis, -belong to logic only becausethey themselves are determined by those original forms. Thus, for instance, problematicaltheorems do not belong to logic insofar as they express objective possibility but only inasmuchas they express objective-logical possibility; not insofar as they express a being-posited in thesynthesis as such, but only inasmuch as their logical thinkability has been transmitted at allthrough this synthesis. In short, the three forms of the problematical, assertorical, andapodictical theorems belong to logic only inasmuch as they are simultaneously the sheerlyformal forms of the original synthesis (which is the determination of the not-being by being;existence as such), and not insofar as they express the material form— the existence in thesynthesis as such, in the specific synthesis, and in all synthesis.**

*•Atiortiont -to Tut: FIRST EorrioN. For that reason I reminded you above thatexistence is the result of the first synthesis as such, and forms only the formal basisof the second. Only in that second synthesis is existence materially determined,relative to the synthesis furnished by the categories. Therefore, the forms of thesecond synthesis do not occur in logic insofar as they are materially determined, butonly formally, that is, inasmuch as they express the original form of the firstsynthesis, existence as such, be it in time as such or in a specific time or in all time.

n. 109.1

[230] This material form of the striving of reason determines the formalone in the syllogistical regresses; both are strivingjiigz2. for thetical theorems.Theoretical reason in its material use necessarily strives for a materiallythetical theorem such as is possible only in the theorem I = I and never inanother, which would already declare something about the not-I. And forthat reason even that striving must lead to contradictions. In its formaluse, though, reason strives for formally thetical theorems, whoseconsequence is a whole series of episyllogisms. What was impossible fortheoretical reason, being restricted by a not-I, can now be done bypractical reason; it obtains the only absolutely (i.e., formally andmaterially) thetical theorem: I = I.

2. The form of identity does not at all determine any object as such.*However, the fact that Leibniz and all the men who thought like him sawthe principle of identity as the very principle of objective reality is far moreeasily comprehensible than many would-be experts in philosophy seemedto find it. One is used to their finding nothing more comprehensible thanthe sheer words of their respective masters and nothing moreincomprehensible than the words to which they have not sworn allegiance.For critical philosophy, that is, for the philosophy which posits all reality inthe I, the form of iclentityis the principle of all reality of the I, but on thatvery account it is not a principle of objective reality, that is, of reality notcontained in the I.** However, for [231] dogmatism, that very form, inreverse must be the principle of objective but not of subjective reality. Bymeans of the form of identity, Leibniz determines the thing in itselfwithout regard to an opposite (the I), whereas Kant determines the realityof the I without regard to an opposite, that is, a not-I."' Leibniz declaredstrongly and strikingly that the form of identity determines the thing initself as such, its objective reality, but not the subjective reality, that is, theperception (Erkenntnis) of the thing in itself (its issuing forth from thesphere of the thing in itself as such). Kant declared the opposite, that even

*The principle of identity is A = A. Now, it is possible that A is not real. Consequently theform of identity presents A not with regard to its being posited outside the I, but onlyinasmuch as it is posited by the I, i.e., not posited as an object at all. [Compare Schelling'santicritique, of f 242-44.1

**It can also become the principle of objective reality, but only inasmuch as the positingthereof in the I is not immediate but already mediated, though even then it determines it notas objective reality but only as to the quality of its being determined in the I. The theorem ofsufficient reason, says Kant, cannot be used at all in the supersensuous world, in which it candetermine no object at all, because in that world everything is absolute, and that theoremexpresses only the form of conditionality.'" If the supersensuous world really contained anyobjects and more than only an absolute I, then this theorem would be applicable in that worldas well as in the world of phenomena. Therefore Kant used this theorem in the supersensuousdomain only in a polcmic"" mariner or else only whenever, in line with his system ofaccommodation, he does in fact speak of objects of the supersensuous world. See n. 89.1


[232] [233,234]


though the subjective reality is determined by the form of identity, that is,the reality posited solely in the I, the objective reality is determinable onlyby moving out of the sphere of the I. 112 For dogmatism, thetical theoremsbecome possible only through the not-I but antithetical and syntheticalones only through the I; for criticism, in reverse, thetical theorems onlythrough the I, antithetical and synthetical ones only through the not-I.Leibniz determines the absolute sphere by the absolute not-I, yet he does

\ not cancel every form of synthetical theorem but uses them in order to getout of his absolute sphere, just as Kant does. Both of them need the samebridge in order to move from the domain of the unconditional into that ofthe conditional. In order to leave the sphere of the thing in itself, of thebeing-posited absolutely, and to enter the sphere of the determined(imaginable) thing, Leibniz used the theorem of sufficient reason, exactlythe same (i.e., an original form of conditionality as such) as Kant did inorder to leave the sphere of the I and enter the sphere of the not-I. ThusLeibniz understood the theorem of identity as well as Kant, and he knewhow to use it for his own system as well as Kant did for his. Where theydiffer is not [232] about its employment, but about its higherdetermination by the absolute in the system of our knowledge.*

3. For the absolute I there is no possibility, actuality, 113 or necessity,since whatever the absolute I posits is determined by the mere form of purebeing. For the finite I, however, in theoretical and practical use, there arepossibility, actuality, and necessity. And since the highest synthesis oftheoretical and practical philosophy is the combination of posibility withactuality, that is, necessity, this combination can be termed the genuinetask of all St ivj , though not its ultimate goal. If there were anypossi ay and actuality at all for the nonfinite I, all possibility would beactuality, and all actuality possibility. For the finite I, however, there ispossibility and actuality. Therefore, in regard to the two, its striving mustbe determined in the way in which the being of the nonfinite I would bedetermined if it had anything to do with possibility and actuality. Thus thefinite I ought to strive to make actual everything that is possible in it, andto make possible whatever is actual. There is an imperative (Sollen) onlyI'm the finite I, meaning that there are practical possibility, actuality, and

•AimiTioN To THE FIRST FIDITION: Kant was the first to establish the absolute I as theultimate substratum of all being and of all identity (though he established it nowhere directlybut at least everywhere indirectly), and the first to fix the real problem of the possibility of acertain something determinable even beyond mere identity - in a manner that (how shall onedescribe it? Whoever has read his deduction of the categories and his critique of theteleological power of judgment in the spirit in which everything he ever wrote must be read,sees the dept h of his meaning and insight, which seems almost unfathomable) in a mannerI WI appears possible only in a genius who, rushing ahead of himself, as it were, can descendthe steps from the highest point, whereas others can ascend only step by step.

necessity because the action of the finite I is not conditioned only by merethesis (law of absolute being), but also by antithesis (natural law offiniteness) and by synthesis (moral ought). Thus practical possibility isconformity of action with practical synthesis as such; [233] practicalactuality is conformity of action with a specific moral synthesis; andfinally, practical necessity (the highest level a finite being can attain) isconformity with all synthesis (in a system of action in which everything thatis practically possible is actual, and everything that is actual must at thesame time also be possible).* On the other hand, no imperative (Sollen) atall occurs in the absolute I, [234] because whatever is practical commandfor the finite I must be constitutive law in the nonfinite, a law whichexpresses neither possibility, nor actuality, nor necessity, but onlyabsolute being, and the expression is not imperative but categorical.

The concept of ought (des Sollens), however, and of practical possibility, ✓

presupposes another concept, one that has furnished the matter for themost difficult problems of all philosophy. Here these problems must betouched upon at least briefly.

If there is a practical possibility for the finite I, that is, an ought, then it ,is not thinkable at all without the concept of freedom of the empirical I. 116

Previously (§ 8) I predicated absolute freedom of the absolute I, that is, a'The concept of right [and rights] as such is based upon the concept of practical possibility

(conformity with synthesis as such) and so is the whole system of natural right. But theconcept of duty and the whole system of ethics is based upon the concept of practicalactuality. Since for the finite being everything actual is also possible, the right to act mustexist wherever duty occurs, i.e., whatever conforms to a specific (moral) synthesis must alsoconform to'synthesis as such, but not vice versa/In the absolute I, however, there is nosynthesis at all, therefore the concepts of duty and right are unthinkable. Nevertheless, thefinite I must act as i f" right and duty existed for the absolute I; therefore it must determineits own action in the manner in which the being of the nonfinite would be determined if dutyand right did exist for it)And in the absolute I, duty and right would be identical, because init all that is possible would be actual, and all that is actual would be possible. Therefore thegoal (Gegenstand) of all moral strife can also be represented as identification of duty andright. For, if every action to which a free being had a right were at the same time his duty,then his free actions would not presuppose any other norm than that of the moral law. Forthat reason in particular, the highest goal toward which the constitutions of states (which arebased on the concept of duty and right) must work can be only that identification of the rightsand duties of each single individual. If every individual were governed only by laws of reason,then in the state there would be no rights at all that would not at the same time be duties, fornobody would claim the right to any action not possible except by a universally valid maxim,and no individual would have in mind any but his own duty if all individuals were to followonly universally valid maxims. If all individuals fulfilled their duties, no one individual coulddemand more than what would already be realized by the general fulfillment of duty, notwould he have any right to more. Right ceases as soon as its corresponding duty is fulfilled, forpossibility is valid only as long as it is not set aside by actuality, and he who is in possession ofactuality (the fulfilled duty) worries no more about possibility (his right). This idea was alsothe basis of Plato's republic since in it also everything that was practically possible was tobecome actual, and everything that was practically actual was to be possible. For that reasonall coercion was to cease, because coercion of a being is needed only if that being has deprivedhimself of practical possibility. Suppression of the practical possibility in a subject is force,since practical possibility is conceivable only through ItertIoni.'"


[236,237]


freedom which is based only on its own being and which it has onlyinasmuch as it is simply I, excluding in its very origin all not-I. Thisabsolute freedom of the I is comprehensible\ only through itself. Anabsolute I that excludes all not-I has absolute freedom in that very respect,and that freedom ceases to be incomprehensible as soon as the I is removedfrom the sphere of all objects, and thus also from the sphere of all objectivecausality. But to transfer the I into the sphere of objectivity, and yet toattribute to it causality through freedom seems a risky enterprise.

The question here is not about the absolute freedom of the absolute I (§8), for that freedom is realized simply by itself, since it is the very causalityof the I by which it simply posits itself as I. For the I is I only inasmuch as itis posited by itself, that is, by absolute causality. Thus the I, ,by positingitself, simultaneously posits its absolute, unconditional causality. Incontrast, the freedom of the empirical I cannot possibly realize itself,because the empirical I as such does not exist through itself, [235] throughits own free causality.(Neither could this freedom of the empirical I beabsolute, as is the freedom of the absolute I, because the latter simplyposits the mere reality of the I, whereas the causality of the freedom of theempirical I ought first to produce the absolute reality of the I\;, Thefreedom of the absolute I is by itself and is absolutely nonfinite, but thefreedom of the empirical I is empirically infinite, because to produce anabsolute reality is an empirically infinite task. The freedom of the absoluteI is absolutely immanent, for it is only inasmuch as the I is pure I and isunder no necessity to step out of itself. The freedom of the empirical I isdeterminable only as transcendental freedom, that is, as a freedom whichis actual only in relation to objects, although not through them.

The problem of transcendental freedom has continually had the sad fateof being always misunderstood and always brought up again. Indeed, evenafter the Critique of Pure Reason has shed so much light on it, the realpoint in dispute does not yet seem to be fixed sharply enough. The realissue was never the possibility of absolute freedom, for the very concept ofan absolute excludes any determination by an extraneous causality.Absolute freedom is nothing other than the absolute determination of theunconditional by the sheer (natural) laws of its own being; it is theunconditional's independence of all laws that do not spring from its ownessence, of all (moral) laws that would posit something in it which had notalready been posited by virtue of its own being, through its being posited assuch. Philosophy had either to deny the absolute altogether or, havingconceded it, had also to grant it absolute freedom. The real issue never wasthe absolute but only transcendental freedom, that is, the freedom of anempirical I conditioned by objects. It is not incomprehensible that anabsolute I should have freedom. The problem is how an empirical I could

have. freedom. It was not how an intellectual I* could be intellectual, thatis, could be absolutely free, but rather how it is [236] possible that anempirical I could at the same time be intellectual, that is, could havecausality through freedom.

The empirical I exists only with and through objects. But objects alonecould never produce an I. The empirical I owes the fact that it is empiricalto objects, but it owes the fact that it is an I at all to a higher causality. In asystem which asserts the reality of things in themselves, even the empirical Iis incomprehensible; for the positing of an absolute not-I as antecedent toany I does away with every meaning of absolute I. Consequently, one canno longer understand how even an empirical I can be produced by thoseobjects. Nor can such a system even speak of the transcendental freedom ofan empirical I. But if the I is posited as absolute, excluding all [absolute]not-I, then not only does an absolute causality belong to it, but also itbecomes comprehensible how an empirical I can be real, and how therecan be a real transcendental freedom in it.

The empirical I is I owing to the same causality through which theabsolute I is I. It owes nothing to the objects except its limitations and thefiniteness of its own causality. Thus the causality of the empirical I differsfrom the causality of the absolute I not at all in principle (in quality) butonly in quantity. That its causality is causality by freedom it owes to itscausality's identity with the absolute causality; that [237] it istranscendental (empirical**) freedom its owes only to its causality'sfiniteness. Thus, in the principle from which it proceeds, it is absolutefreedom, and only when it meets its own limitations does it becometranscendental, that is, freedom of an empirical I.

Consequently, this freedom of the empirical I is comprehensible onlyowing to its identity with absolute freedom. Therefore no objective proofs'can reach it, for this freedom does indeed pertain to the I in regard toobjects, but only inasmuch as it is contained in the absolute causality of the

'Kant remarks very correctly that the expression intellectual pertains only to insights(Erkenntnisse) and that the mere content (Gegenstand) of such insights should be calledintelligible."' This remark is directed against dogmatism and its opinion that it can knowintelligible objects (Objekte) which, therefore, it should not call intellectual. Criticism (atleast consistent criticism) does not need that differentiation because it does not admitintelligible objects at all, and because it attributes intellectuality only to that which cannotbecome object at all, to the absolute I. In the absolute I, which can never become an object,the princtpium essendi and cognoscendi [the principle of being and of being known] coincide.For that reason one must apply the expression intellectual to the I as well as to the intuitionthereof. In contrast, the empirical I can be called intelligible, inasmuch as its causality iscontained in the causality of the absolute. It is intelligible because it must be regarded, on theone hand, as an object, on the other as determinable by absolute causality.

**As has been pointed out before, in the footnote to §6, the word empirical is ordinarilyused in a much narrower sense.

124

THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [238]

[239,240]


absolute I. Nevertheless, it does not create its own reality since, astranscendental freedom, it is actual only in the empirical I, and nothingempirical realizes itself.ESince it is possible only through absolute causality,it is realizable in the empirical I only throughsorule fact, any fact by whichit is posited as identical with the absolute freedom.; However, the empiricalI is actual only through the limitation of the absolute, that is, through the

_ y suspension (Aufhebung) of it as an absolute. Therefore, insofar as theempirical I is considered only in relation to objects as limits of the absolute(theoretical philosophy), its causality cannot at all be conceived asidentical with the absolute( If the latter is to happen, then the causality ofthe empirical I must be conceived not in relation to objects but in relation

,je to the_ragaiion of all objects. For the negation of objects is precisely thepoint of agreement between absolute and transcendental freedom). For,although empirical freedom can aim only at empirical negation (anempirically produced negation) of objects, and not at the absolutenegation of objects which the causality of the absolute I demands, still bothcoincide in the negation. Yet if this kind of causation on the part of theempirical I can be shown, then also shown is the fact that it does not differfrom the absolute causality in its form or its principle but only in quantity(through its limitations). Absolute causality cannot be posited.categorically in the empirical I, else it would cease [238] to be empirical,therefore it can be posited in it only impratively, by a law which demandsthe negation of all objects, that is, demands absolute freedom. And

K i Absolute causality can be demanded only by a causality which itself is notabsolute freedom yet does not differ from the absolute in quality, only inquantity.

trhus transcendental freedom is realized not only through the form ofmoral law,'" but also through its matter or the moral law, which is 3'possible only in the finite I (because the finite I alone can be aware that itought to seek identity with the nonfinite), does not aim at absolute

negation of all objects, constitutively. But imperatively it aims at aconditional negation of objects, which is to be brought about empirically,progressively)Tflus it aims at the absolute causality of the I, though not assomething categorically posited, yet still as something that ought to be

attained. But such demands can be made only of a causality which differsfrom absolute causality merely by its limitations. By negation of theselimitations, this limited causalityught to attain in itself what absolute(5causality as such posits absolutely.*)

• 'Anybody who so far as been following the trend of this investigation can readily see itsdifference from Reinhold's theory of freedom. The latter has great merits, but in his system(which starts frirthe merely empirical 1) that theory remains incomprehensible. And it wouldlir hard, even for as keen an author as lie is, to give unity to his system, and adequately toconnect it with his theory of freedom, by Means of the highest principle (which should not

[239] Even though a transcendental causality of the empirical I is quitecomprehensible if it is the nonfinite itself conceived under the conditions offiniteness, yet, since the empirical I has only phenomenal reality andstands under the same law of conditionality as do all phenomena, a newquestion arises: how can the transcendental causality of the empirical I (asdetermined by absolute causality) agree with the natural causality of the

(me I?In a system which asserts the reality of things in themselves, this question

cannot be answered at all; it cannot even be asked.

For the system that posits an absolute not-I antecedent to all I therewithnegates the absolute I* and cannot know anything about an absolutefreedom of the I, let alone a transcendental freedom. When a system isinconsistent enough to declare, on the one hand, that- ere are things inthemselves and, on the other, thattere is a transcendental freedom of theI, then it can never make comprehensible the agreement of the causality ofnature with the causality through freedom, not even by means of apreestablished harmony„_;Such a harmony cannot unite two absolutelycontrary absolutes, [240] which would be necessary since two items areasserted—an absolute not-I on the one hand and, on the other, anempirical I which is incomprehensible without an absolute.

However, if the objects themselves receive reality only through theabsolute I (as the essence of all reality) and therefore exist only in and with 'the empirical I (whose causality as such is possible only through thecausality of the nonfinite and differs from it not in quality but only inquantity) then every causality of the empirical I is at the same time a

only form its basis but also rule in every one of its parts). A completed science shuns allphilosophical artifices by which the I itself, so to speak, is taken apart and split into facultieswhich are not thinkable under any common principle of unity. The completed science doesnot aim at dead faculties that have no reality and exist only in artificial abstractions. It aims/.;rather at the living unity of the I, which is the same in all manifestations of its action. In thatscience all the different faculties and actions that philosophy has ever named become onefaculty only, one action of the one and the same identifical I. Even theoretical philosophy ispossible only in regard to the same causality of the I that is realized in practical philosophy,because its serves only to prepare the practical philosophy, and [adequately] to secure theobjects proper to that causality of the I which practical philosophy determines. Finitecreatures must exist in order that the nonfinite may manifest its reality in the actual world[Wirklichkeit]. All finite action aims at this manifestation of the nonfinite reality in actuality.And the only purpose of theoretical philosophy is to designate this domain of actuality for thepractical causality and, in a way, to survey its boundaries. Theoretical philosophy isconcerned with actuality 1Wirklichkeiti only in order that practical causality may have adomain in which that manifestation of nonfinite reality and a solution of its infinite task arepossible.'"

'It is impossible that two absolutes should stand side by side. If the not-I is posited asabsolutely antecedent to t he I, the I can be contrasted with it only as absolute negation. Twoabsolutes cannot possibly be contained (ii such in any synthesis, whether it precedes orsupplements them, Fot t hat reason also, if t he I is posited as antecedent to all not I, the lattercannot be posited in any synthesis as absolute (as thing in itself).""


causality of objects which likewise owe their reality only to the essence of allreality, to the I. Thus we [too] arrive at a principle of preestablishedharmony which, however, is only immanent, and is.sletermined only in theabsolute I. Because a causality of the empirical I is possible only within thecausality of the absolute I, and because the objects likewise receive theirreality only through the absolute reality of the I, the absolute I is thecommon center in which lies the principle of their harmony. The causalityof objects harmonizes with the causality of the empirical I for the singlereason that they exist only in and with the empirical I. But that they existonly in and with the empirical I stems from the one fact that both theobjects and the empirical I owe their reality solely to the nonfinite reality ofthe absolute I.

Through just that preestablished harmony we are now able tounderstand the necessary harmony between morality and bliss(Gluckseligkeit). Since pure bliss, which is the only thing in question here,aims at the identification of the not-I and the I, and since objects as suchare actual only as modifications of the absolute reality of the I, everyincrease in the reality of the I (every moral progress) is a reduction of theempirical limitations and an approach to identity with absolute reality,that is, to the total dissolution of the limitations. Since there is noimperative for the absolute I, no practical possibility, then, if the finitecould ever fulfill its entire task, the law of freedom (of the imperative)would attain the form of a law of nature (of being). And vice versa, sincethen the law [241] of the finite's being would have become constitutive onlythrough freedom, and this law itself would inherently be a law offreedom. * Therefore, the ultimate to which philosophy leads is not anobjective but an immanent principle of preestablished harmony, in whichfreedom and nature are identical,"° and this principle is nothing but theabsolute I, from which all philosophy has emanated.

Just as there are no possibility, no necessity, and no contingency for thenonfinite I, so likewise it does not know of any purposes to be attained(Zweckverknupfung) in the world. If, for the nonfinite I, there were anymechanism or any technique of nature, then, for that I, technique wouldbe* mechanism and mechanism would be technique, that is, both wouldcoincide in its absolute being. Accordingly, even the theoretical inquiry

•Through this we can answer the question as to which is the I that ought to progress in

infinity. The answer is: the empirical I, which, however, does not progress in the intelligible

world since, if it were in the intelligible world, it would cease to be the empirical I. In thatworld everything is absolute unity, and no progress, no finiteness is conceivable in it. Though

the finite I is t only through intelligible causality,'" yet, as a finite being and as long as it is

finite, it is determinable as to its existence only in the empirical world. To be sure, the finitebeing, whose causality is in line with the nonfinite. can always expand the limits of its finitudemore and more but since this progression faces infinity, an unending expansion is possible,for if it were to stop anywhere, infinity itself would have to have limits.


must regard the teleological as mechanical, and the mechanical asteleological, and both as comprehended in one principle of unity,although nowhere realizable (as an object). 122 Yet the inquiry mustpresuppose that unity, in order to comprehend the unity of the twocontrasting principles (the mechanical and the teleological) — which isimpossible in the objects themselves—in one principle that is sublimelyabove all objects. Just as practical reason is compelled to unify the contrastbetween laws of freedom and laws of nature in a higher principle in whichfreedom itself is nature and nature freedom,* so must theoretical [242]reason in its teleological use come upon a higher principle in which finalityand mechanism coincide,** but which, on that very account, cannot bedeterminable as an object at all.

What is absolute harmony for the absolute I is for the finite I elicitedharmony, and the principle of unity is for the former the constitutiveprinciple of immanent unity but for the latter only a regulative principle ofobjective unity which ought to become immanent. Therefore the finite Iought to strive to elicit in the world that which is actuality in the nonfinite,and which is man's highest vocation — to turn the unity of aims in the worldinto mechanism, and to turn mechanism into a unity of aims.

[In an anticritique in the Intelligenzblatt zur Allgemeinen Literatur-Zeitung of the year 1796, Schelling speaks of the aim of the treatise VomIch as follows:]

The purpose of the author was none other than the following: to liberate

philosophy from that stagnation into which it had unavoidably to lapseowing to ill-fated inquiries into a first principle of philosophy. He wantedto prove that true philosophy can start only from free actions, and thatabstract principles as the mainstay of this science could lead only to thedeath of all philosophy. The question as to which (abstract) principlecould furnish the starting point for philosophy seemed to him unworthy of

*Thus it becomes clear how and why teleology can be the connecting link betweentheoretical and practical reason.'"

**Spinoza, too, wanted mechanism and finality of causes to be thought of, in the absoluteprinciple, as contained in the same unity. But since he determined the absolute as an absoluteobject, he could never make comprehensible why it is that teleological unity in the finiteintelligence can be determined only by the ontological unity in the nonfinite thinking of theabsolute substance. And Kant is quite right when he says that Spinozism does not accomplishwhat Spinoza wants. Perhaps there have never been so many deep thoughts compressed intoso few pages as in the critique of teleological judgment, 76. I Read the entire 76 (Cass.5:479401; Bernard 219 53).1

[241]

[242]

, r


a free man who knows his own self. Since the author considers philosophyas a pure product of a free man, or as an act of freedom [243] he believesthat he has higher conceptions of it than many a tearful philosopher whothought he had found the lack of unanimity among professors to be thecause of the atrocities of the French Revolution and of all unhappiness ofmankind, and who wanted to remedy this unhappiness with an empty andfutile principle in which he imagined philosophy to be contained as thoughin a box. The author believes that man was born to act, not to speculate,and that therefore his first step into philosophy must manifest the arrivalof a free human being. Therefore he thought very little of writtenphilosophy and even less of a speculative principle as a mainstay of thescience. Still less does he think of a universally valid philosophy, aphilosophy of which only a wiseacre should boast who, like Lessing'swindmill, lives in friendship with all 32 winds. However, since thephilosophical public seemed to have ears only for first principles, his ownfirst principle in regard to his readers had to be a mere postulate. Itdemands the same free action as that with which, as he is convinced, allphilosophizing must begin. The first postulate of all Izhilosoplly, to actfree' seemed to him as necessary as the first postulate of geometry, to

raw a straight line. just as little_ as the master of geometry_ proves thestraight line should the_philosophex try to prove freedom.

Philosophy itself is only an idea whose realization the philosopher canexpect alone from practical reason. Therefore, philosophy must remainincomprehensible and even ridiculous as long as the student remainsincapable of rising to ideas and also fails to learn from Kant that ideas aregoals (Gegenstande) not of idle speculation but of free action, that theentire realm of ideas has reality only for the moral activity of man, andthat man may not find any further objects where he himself begins tocreate and to make real. No wonder, then, that in the hands of a man whowants to determine ideas theoretically [i.e., as objects] anything that goesbeyond the table of categories, and especially the idea of the absolute, isthe same to him as some story of ]244] No-one-at-all. And at the spotwhere others first feel really free, he is confronted with a big void which hedoes not know how to fill, and which leaves him with no consciousnessother than of his own vacancy of mind— proof only that his mind has neverlearned to act freely nor to reflect on itself, and that he can maintain hisown place among minds only by means of a mechanical kind of thinking.

Translator's Notes

1. Schelling is referring to the full title of Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future MetaphysicsWhich Will Be Able to Come Forth as Science. See Beck, p. vii.

2. Jakob Sigismund Beck (1761-1840) studied under Kant. The first part of hisExplanatory Summary of Kant's Critical Writings (Erlduternder Auszug aus Kants kritischenSchrzften) was printed 1793 in Riga, by Kant's own publisher, Hartknoch, to whom Kanthimself had recommended Beck as a commentator. See Kant's letter of September 27, 1791, toBeck (Cass. 10:97).

3. Kant himself was well aware of the "obligation to proceed systematically," as he says onthe last page of the PuR (884; Smith 668 f.), and he cited "the celebrated Wolff as arepresentative" of the dogmatic procedure, and Hume of the skeptical. He said "the criticalpath alone is still open. If the reader has had the courtesy to accompany me along this path,he may now judge for himself. . .whether it may not be possible to achieve before the end ofthe present century what many centuries have not been able to accomplish." In 1790 herestated the task in that crucial sentence at the end of section 2 of the Introduction to Cr]:"There must be a ground of the unity of the supersensible which lies at the basis of nature,with that which the concept of freedom practically contains" (Cass. 5:244; Bernard 12). In1787 he said of it in the preface to the first Critique: "It is a treatise on the method, not asystem of the science itself' (xxii; Smith 25). And in its Introduction he called the book "thepropaedeutic to the system of pure reason" (25; Smith 59). In a letter of September 21, 1798,to his friend Christian Garve he lamented that, "though being physically fairly well," he wasas if "paralyzed for intellectual work. It is a Tantalic torture, though not without hope, toknow the feasibility of the task, and to see before me the plenary conclusion of my account inmatters which concern the whole of philosophy (in regard to both purpose and means) and yetnever to see it completed" (Cass. 10:351).

4. On October 6, 1793, while still in Zurich, Fichte wrote to his friend Niethammer: 'It ismy most fervent conviction that Kant merely intimated the truth but neither presented norproved it. This marvelous, unique man either has the gift of divination by which he knows thetruth without knowing its grounds, or else he did not think well enough of this age andtherefore did not want to communicate what he knew, or perhaps he did not want to attract,while still alive, the superhuman veneration which sooner or later must be bestowed onhim. . . .There is only one original fact in the human mind; it will furnish the ground for acomprehensive philosophy and for its two branches, theoretical and practical. Kant surelyknows it but he has nowhere expressed it. He who finds it will present philosophy as a science"(Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Lehen and literarischer Briclivechsel, edited by his son ImmanuelHermann Fichte jLeipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1862j, 2:431 1.).

Of course Schelling did not know this letter. On September 26, 1794, he sent Fichte hisessay On the Pas.sibtlity of a Form of All Philosophy (ibid. 296 f.). And on January 6(Epiphany), 1795, he wrtar I fee that Fichte had seat him the fascicles of Fichte's Grundlagezur Gesammten Wissenst haltslehre, whic h was it) come out in book Ito in by Easter 1795 (Plitt

130 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [i 4-12]

[i 1 2- 19] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 131

1:73 f.). In the Grundage (1:119) Fichte wrote: "The essence of critical philosophy consists inthis, that an absolute I is set forth as wholly unconditioned and not determinable by anyhigher entity; and when this philosophy unfolds this principle consistently it becomesWissenschaftslehre. In contrast, a philosophy is dogmatic when it equates or opposes aythingto the I as such; and this occurs owing to the ostensibly higher concept of a thing (Ens) whichis set up, quite arbitrarily, as the highest conception. Insofar as dogmatism can be consistent,Spinozism is its most consistent product" (cf. Heath 117). Meanwhile Schelling had discoveredthat independently.

In 1797 Fichte wrote: "I know very well that Kant did not set up such a [criticall

system. . .But I believe I know with equal certainty that Kant conceived such a

system. . .There are hints that he did not want to present it" (1:478; cf. Heath 51).

5. Ethics 2, proposition XLIII, scholion. (See n. 44 below; cf. Wild 189.) Cf. Augustine(de vera rel. 39.72): Illuc ergo tende unde ipsum lumen rationis accenditur.

6. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Uber die Lehre des Spinoza, in Briefen an Herrn Moses

Mendelssohn (Werke 4:72): "In my opinion it is the greatest merit of the scholar to unveil and

reveal what is" (Dasein zu enthiillen and offenbaren). "For him an explanation is a means, away to the goal, but never the ultimate goal. His final goal is what cannot be explained, theindissoluble, the immediate, the simple."

7. As the title of Schelling's essay indicates, this is the I of which Fichte said: As I, "I am

only for myself. Said about the I and by the I, to posit oneself and to be are identically the

same." As I, "I am absolutely because I am, and I am absolutely what I am, both for myself'(1:98; cf. Heath 99). Schelling's expression "das unmittelbare nur sich selbst Gegenwartige imMenschen" may remind the reader of Augustine's summons to the mind or the self not to seek

itself as if absent but to discern itself as present. De trinitate 10.ix.12: Non itaque velutabsentem se quaerat cernere, sed praesentem se curet discernere. . . .Sed cum dicitur menti:Cognosce te ipsam, eo ictu quo intellegit quod dictum est te zpsam cognoscit se ipsam, nec ob

aliud quam eo quod sibi praesens est. (Cf. n. 21.)8. PuR said: "The proposition 'I think,' insofar as it amounts to the assertion, 'I exist as

thinking,' is no mere logical function, but determines the subject (which is then at the sametime object) in respect to its existence" (429; Smith 382. Also see n. 76 below).

9. Obviously referring to the problem of teleology in Crf (Cass. 5:435 ff.; Bernard 205

ff.).10. This paragraph sounds as if Schelling had transcribed what he says from the first

pages of Augustine's Soliloquies (1.i.2 and 3), whose sentences I here arrange in the order ofSchelling's clauses: Deus per quem omnia quae per se non essent tendunt esse. Te invoco,Deus Veritas, in quo et a quo et per quem vera sunt quae vera sunt omnia. Deus Sapientia, inquo et a quo et per quem sapiunt quae sapiunt omnia. Deus intelligibilis Lux, in quo et a quoet per quem intelligibiliter lucent quae intelligibiliter lucent omnia. Deus cuius regnum estlotus mundus. . .Deus de cuius regno lex etiam in ista regna describitur. . . .Deus,

universitatis conditor. I have no evidence that Schelling knew the Soliloquies.I I. This sounds exactly like Parmenides: -td yap aim!) vosiv to-utv Ti xai avat (Diels,

fragment 5; Plotinus 5.i.8) Or, in Parmenides' didactic poem yvatryOv vosi'v TE

cAsxsv vifelaa (Diels, fr. 8, 34; Hegel 13:296). Hegel's German formulation, translatedinto English, reads: "Thinking, and that for the sake of which thought is, are the same. Foryou will not find thinking without the being in which it expresses itself (manifests itself, is Wsstoyecia•lvov 'Ea-y(0." Hegel comments: "Genuine philosophizing started with Parmenides"

(13:296 f.).12. I legel continues: "Thinking produces itself; what is produced is a thought. Therefore

thinking is identical with its being, for there is nothing outside of being, this greataffirmation. Plotinus, in expounding this, says 'that Parmenides took this view insofar as he

did not posit being in the sensuous things' " (Ennead 5.i.8; Brehier ed. 5.26.14 f.): lac •cturyb

auvfly-ev 5v Rai voCiv, xa 8v °six iv Toffy a cerrrok t-cfeeTo Brehier says for ouvrIrxv "ilreduisait a ]'unite." I should prefer to say: "he posited in one and the same act being andthought." Schelling's reminder that "this ultimate must not search for its own real ground insomething other" calls to mind Augustine's de vera religione 39.72: cum ad seipsam veritasnon utique ratiocinando perveniat, sed quod ratiocinantes appetunt, iposa sit. "Truth doesnot come to itself by ratiocination but is what argufiers seek." Cf. also Dante: Paradiso, xi:1-3.

13. Cf. Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica Pt 1. Q.3. art. 5.14. For this reason every empiricist epistemology must dispute the reality of knowledge

and eventually lead to skepticism.15. This is the valid reason for the objectivistic declaration that God is unknowable, a

declaration that leads either to skepticism or to the postulate of revelation.16. The second is the idealism, the third the realism of the textbooks.17. Textbook idealism hypothetically assumes an entity called mind and, as does any

other hypothesis, this one too induces the student's question What kind of thing is this mind?—sed qualis res? (Descartes Meditatio II). Res means a real entity. But the Duc de Luynestranslated res as une chose, and English translators followed suit, writing thing. ThenDescartes' distinction between modes of reality falls flat. Mind is not a thing but an act.

18. In the self insofar as it is at all accessible as an object of psychology.19. Schelling's sentence speaks of "original languages," urspriingliche Spraechen, a term

current in German Romanticism. I refer to Fichte's entire fourth Address to the GermanNation (1808). He says, "the words of such a language, in all its parts, are life and create life"(7:319). Originally, "language is no mediate product of arbitrary will but, as an immediatenatural power, it breaks forth from intelligent life" (7:318). In 1813 he spoke of a "languageready made from being and intelligible from being" (4;485), not artificially affixed toextraneous entities by arbitrary will and intelligible only by schoolish explanations to bememorized by rote.

This may not be readily understood by an English-speaking reader who does not share thebelief of those German Romantics, who held that to know the German language means also tohave an alive awareness of the meaning of its roots. Of course this is not so. The averageGerman, like any human being, uses his language without giving a thought to the originaland indeed revealing meanings of the roots of words. Only the educated person remindshimself of those meanings. The average writer of English spells by rote and does not say it isobvious that I must spell r-i-g-h-t because it is the same root as German Recht, and r-i-t-ebecause it was the Latin ritus. Nevertheless, those Romantics rightly sensed a differencebetween specific languages for, as my two examples show, even the educated English speakerand writer is less close to the root meanings of his words than a linguistically sensitive Germanwho, without schooling, has a kind of innate feeling for Germanic roots. Fichte explains thisby historic continuity without such breaks as that caused by the Norman conquest.

But to go back to Schelling's paragraph, which furnishes an illustration of this matter ofroots. In my translation I have used the verb to determine for bedingen, and the adjectiveconditional for bedingt. Now, when we speak of the reciprocal determination of subject andobject, how readily do we think of the root word terminus? It means the end, e.g., of the road,like the main railroad terminal of Rome, Roma Termini, end of all lines. Yet we do use theword term in exactly that sense, end of the investigation, stop at some technical term. Onceyou have determined what a thing is, you have a term for it, e.g., atom, that which cannot becut, or anatomy, the cutting into (a corpse).

Now for Schelling's example. Ding is a thing, as even a non-German ear can tell us. And todetermine, in scholarly language, means to set the limits of the thing which is underconsideration, to delimit it, even to define it. Limes means boundary. Finis means end, as inland's end, lints terme, e.g., at Cap Finisterre. No thing determines or conditions itself; itrequires surrounding things for that. Cutoff/1w tomes from du up, W1111'11 111e41111 11111111111011,


sovereignty, authority, control, rule. And it is the surrounding things which control the swayof any given thing. Each has its own jurisdiction, one might say. The unconditional is whatdoes not depend on anything outside of it and is absolutely authoritative. Cf. n. 86.

20. In this respect Schelling, as does every true philosopher, agrees with the empiricist'sobjection to the kind of rationalist who will take essence for existence. Only in the case of Godare essence and existence identical. See Thomas Aquinas, Contra Gentiles 1.22 and Summa

Theologica 1. q3. a4. Kant could agree; see Fritz Marti, "Aquinas and Kant on the Identity ofEssence and Existence," in Proceedings of the Lewis and Clark Philosophy Conference onAquinas and Kant, May 1974.

21. The word causality, of course, does not mean Kant's category of cause, which"constitutes" objects. Rather it recalls Spinoza's causa sut on the first line of his Ethics, withwhich Schelling was very familiar. The entire paragraph is a rewording of sentences inFichte's Grundlage of the summer of 1794, whose first fascicles gave Schelling courage to jointhe discussion. (See n. 7 above). What is objectionable is the fact that both of them use thepronoun it when they refer to the self or I. Perhaps one should not even try to present the casein writing, but should merely challenge the reader with the question: "Just exactly what doyou mean when you say I?" A clearly thinking reader could reply: "I mean myself as thisthinking I which in no way can be turned into an it." And, instead of saying with Augustinethat he is sibi praesens (present to himself), he should say sum mihi praesens (I am nothing butpresent to myself). He certainly must not look for an objective mind in himself. In 1798Schelling wrote that "for most people the greatest obstacle to a vivid understanding ofphilosophy is their insuperable opinion that one must look for the object of philosophy atsome infinite distance; thus it happens that when they are supposed to look at what is presentthey spend every effort of their mind on creating some object with which the philosophicalinvestigation is not at all concerned" (2:377). Augustine said: Noli foras ire, in te ipsum redi;in interiore homine habitat veritas (Do not go outside, go back into yourself; in the inner mandwells truth). (De vera religione 39.72.)

22. In German, condition is Bedingung. Given the proper conditions, the respective thing

(Ding) will exist. Taking liberties with English, let us say that a thing is a thing because it is

"thingified" (bedingt) by the conditions or "thingifiers." In contrast, the I is

"unconditionable" (unbedingbar), since it does not depend on outward conditions but posits

itself. The word itself, of course, is quite improper, because I am no it at all, though

objectifying talk will turn the first-person pronoun I into a noun, the I.

23. Schelling may have in mind the emphatic formulation of Descartes on the secondpage of the Second Meditation: statuendum sit hoc pronuntiatum: ego sum, ego existo,quoties a me profertur vel mente concipitur, necessario esse verum. I am trying to retain theemphasis by translating that we must "establish this axiom that the proposition /am, I exist isnecessarily true each time I mean my own self when I pronounce it, or know that I mean myown self when I have the proposition in mind." The Duc de Luynes translated "il fautconclure," and Ralph M. Eaton (Descartes. Selections [New York: Scribner's, 1927), p. 97)wrote "we must come to the definite conclusion." These translations are not wrong, but theirword conciusUm, which refers to what preceded, could induce the careless reader to think of

the misleading ergo so often quoted. It is true that later, in the Response to the SecondObjections, Descartes did write cogito ergo sum, but he did so while warning the reader that

/IT "whosoever says I think, therefore I am or exist, does not deduce existence from cogitation bya syllogism, but rather acknowledges the existence as a reality known by itself, by a simplemental intuition." Descartes' own words are: neque cum quis dicit, ego cogito, ergo sum, sive

exists, existentiam ex cogitatione per syllogismum deducit, sed tanquam rem per se notamsimplici mentis intuitu agnoscit. Later, in the Second Meditation, Descartes wrote: "That it is1 who doubt, understand, will, is so manifest that nothing could occur by which it could beunfolded more evidently." (See his Latin in n.76 below.) Long before this Augustine had


pointed out the reason: "When the mind is told 'know yourself,' it knows itself by the verystroke by which it understands, what is meant by "yourself," and for no other reason than thatthe mind is present to itself' (De trinitate 10.ix,12: Cum dicitur menti "Cognosce te ipsam,"eo ictu quo intellegit quod dictum est "te ipsam" cognoscit se ipsam, nec ob aliud quam eoquod sibi praesens est). As I, I am present to myself, and nothing is more evident than theawareness of this fact, which strikes me the moment the meaning of you yourself strikes me. InFichte's pithy formulation of 1794, "the I is for the I" (Grundlage der Wissenschaftslehre,1:97 f. Heath used a noun, p. 99: "The self exists for the self. . . .I exist only for myself."Meaning, of course, I as I, not the empirirical individual.)

24. Adopting the artifice of n. 22 and saying "to thingify" for bedingen, I could translate:"Therefore whatever is posited only as thingified is conceivable only through that which is nothing at all but is unthingifiable."

25. The date of the preface indicated that the treatise Of the I was finished March 29,1795. In the letter of February 4 that Schelling wrote to Hegel he said: "It seems to me thatthe essential difference between critical and dogmatic philosophy lies in this, that the criticalstarts from the absolute I (not yet conditioned by any object) and the dogmatic from theabsolute object or not-I. (In its highest consistency, the latter leads to the system of Spinoza,the former to that of Kant) Philosophy must take its start from the unconditional. Thequestion is simply where this unconditional lies, in the I or in the not-I. If this question isanswered, everything is decided. For me the highest principle of all philosophy is the pure,absolute I, that is, the I insofar as it is nothing but I, not yet conditioned by any objects, butposited by freedom. The A and 0 of all philosophy is freedom." And, using the phrasetheoretical reason in the Kantian sense of reason concerned with objects, Schelling adds:"What was impossible for theoretical reason (as it is weakened by the object) is accomplishedby practical reason. However in the latter we can find nothing but our absolute I, for this ."alone circumscribes the nonfinite sphere. For us there is no supersensuous world except thatof the absolute I. God is nothing but the absolute I, the I insofar as it annihilates everythingtheoretical." (Schelling writes "das Ich insofern es Alles theoretisch zernichtet hat." This lookslike a slip of his pen, or a simple mistake of the printer. It is my conjecture that Schellingmeant "alles Theoretische," that is, every mere object.) Schelling continues: "Therefore intheoretical philosophy the absolute I is nothing." Every consistent "theoretical," i.e.,objectivistic, philosophy must discover that there is no such object as an absolute I, or God. InDogm Schelling will declare that the discovery (made by Kant) is shared by dogmatist andcriticist alike. In his letter to Hegel he continues: "Personality springs from the unity ofconsciousness. But consciousness is not possible without an object. However, for God, that is,for the absolute I there exists no object at all, for with an object it would cease to be absolute.Consequently there is no personal God" (Plitt 1:76f). In January 1795 Hegel had referred toSchelling's letter, written at Epiphany, in which Schelling had sarcastically said of theKantians in Tilbingen: "It is a joy to see how they pull at the moral proof as at a string; in thetwinkling of an eye the deus ex machina jumps forth, that personal, individual being whichsits up there, in heaven!" Hegel wrote that he did not quite understand that passage andasked: "Do you believe we cannot reach that far?" (Werke [Leipzig, 18871 19:13). AndSchelling replied: "My answer is that we reach farther than the personal being" (Plitt 1:76). j

Since to be conscious means to distinguish the I from some not-I, the clause "not yetconditioned by any object" means "before consciousness." Between 1828 and 1842 Schellingwrote: "One cannot ask how consciousness comes to God. Its very first movement is not amovement which seeks the God, but a movement which withdraws from Him. Therefore theGod inheres in it a priori, that is, before its actual motion, or it inheres in its essence"(12:120). Cf. n.74 to Dogm.

Schelling seldom uses the phrase "the God." Here it may he an abbreviation for "the trueGod" whom the aged Schelling distinguishes from "the real God," (For instance, 11:176 and

[I 23-25]


212.) The latter has historical reality, occurring in the minds of believers and therefore takingas many shapes as there are believers. In the mind of the believer his own "real God" stands

for "the true God" as, obviously, it does for Paul in 1 Cor. 8:5.

26. Once God is defined as substance (Eth. 1. def. vi ) and shown as not acting freely (1.prop. XXXII, cor. ii), that is, as absolute object, then to say that God loves Himself with aninfinite intellectual love (5. XXXV) must mean that the love with which God loves Himself isthe intellectual love for God harbored by the mind (5. XXXVI), which is res cogitans (2. def.

iii), that is, self-aware I. Vice versa, this I is maximally occupied by its love for the not-I (5.XVI) and knows itself to be in that objectified God and to be known by God (5. XXX). To besure, at that moment, God proves to be the absolute I, that is, the substance which is definedas "what is in itself and is perceived by itself' (1. def. iii). Hegel would call this a dialecticaltransition into the opposite.

27. Schelling's words den Weg zur Wissenschaft presumably refer to two literary facts,

first to the full title of Kant's Prolegomena "to every future metaphysics which can stand up as

a science" and, second, to Fichte's term Wissenschaftslehre, coined 1794 as a substitute for

the too-vague word philosophy (1:44 f.). Fichte's term meant the systematic and critical study

of what a science is, as science. Philosophy could mean the same, but it could also include anuncritical dogmatism. Our twentieth-century dogmatists still seek the unconditional in someobjective entity and thus "elevate the not-I" to the dignity of the absolute I, and demean thelatter to a psychological entity, that is, to a not-I.

28. This is the system of those Kantians who believe that Kant was no more than a merecontinuator of empiricism.

29. Schelling is referring to Karl Leonhard Reinhold's Versuch einer neuen Theorie des

menschlichen Vorstellungsvermdgens Uena, 1789).

30. This, in Fichtean language, is Kant's doctrine taken in its narrowest sense; thecategories of reason constitute the objectivity of things.

31. For instance, Fichte's second theorem, that there is no awareness of I without the

simultaneous distinction from some not-I (Grundlage, 1:104, item 10; Heath 104,10).

32. In his letter of February 4, 1795, to Hegel, Schelling wrote: "The A and 0 of allphilosophy is freedom." (See n. 25.)-

33. As earlyas 1792, in the Recension des A enesidemus, Fichte wrote!' "The I is what it is,

and because it is, for the I" (1:16). In the essay of 1794, Ober den Begriff der

Wissenschaftslehre, he said: "I am, because I am" (1:69). In the same year, in the Grundlage,

he wrote: "The I posits itself, and it is owing to this sheer positing by ifself. . . .As soon as it

posits itself, it is; and because it is, it posits itself' (1:96 f.). Fichte enjoyed a lifelongreputation as an effective orator, and he well knew the principle of effective teaching. In hisldeen fur die innere Organisation der Universitdt Erlangen, 1805/6, he wrote: "The entirepresentation in the classroom must be changed from the form of an unbroken argumentwhich it has in a book and be transformed into back and forth discussion" (11:278). But sincehe seldom had fewer than 200 students in his class, it required Fichte's imperious presence tobring about in the student mind that silent discussion with the lecturer which alone canproduce understanding, particularly the understanding of the nature of I. Heinrich Steffensattended a class of Fichte's in 1798, and he relates that Fichte started by saying: "Gentlemen,get hold of yourselves; observe yourself, for we speak of nothing outward but only of yourselves." Steffens reports that the students would either sit up alertly, or bend in contempation.Then Fichte said: "Gentlemen, think the wall- Have you thought the wall? - Now think theone who has thought the wall!" (Fritz Medicus, Fichtes Leben 'Leipzig, 1922], p. 78). Even inprint the summons may help the reader realize what the concern is. For many, the physicalpresence of the teacher and the challenge of his voice seem indispensable and may count morethan the mere choice of words. As for Fichte's words quoted above, the semantic purist oughtto object, on more than mere grammatical grounds. "The 1 is" is not only had grammar but

[i 33-36] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 135

can be pedagogically misleading. Fichte himself knew it. Maybe he should have blamedhimself rather than lampooning readers who did not understand him and of whom he said, in1801: "They may have believed that such a pure I, identical with itself and collapsing intoitself, somewhat like a switchblade, must be looked for and found in the mind, somehow likethe waffle iron of the categories of the Kantians. They busily looked for this switchblade,found none, and concluded that those who claim to have found it must have been mistaken"(2:365). (Cf. nn. 7 and 21.)

34. This is also the case of the empirical I. As the person I am, I am determined by myphysical and historical circumstances. Hence the question: What is the ground of possibilityof my autonomous self-determination? It is that question which leads to the "absolute I" - orGod, as Schelling said in his letter to Hegel of February 4, 1795. (See n. 25.) It must beremembered, however, that Schelling, as a disciple of Kant, heeded Kant's warning againstreifying the ens realissimum (PuR 633-36) which must not be "realisiert d.i. zum Objectgemacht"(PuR 611 n.; not be made "real," i.e., not turned into an object) or personified. In1802 Schelling wrote: "Owing to the relation of the absolute form to the essence, it is easy tosee what alone can be the only true method of philosophy, that is, the method according towhich everything is absolute, yet there is no Absolute" (4:406). We need not forbid ourselvesthe use of the word God, but we must know that "God is not Somebody" (Gott ist nichtJemand) as my teacher Fritz Medicus used to say. See also page 118 of his book On BeingHuman (New York: Ungar, 1973). Later Gabriel Marcel wrote "Dieu nest pas quelqu'unqui. . ." tire et Avoir, p. 118 (Paris: Aubier, 1935).

35. The reader will rightly ask whether this long paragraph could not also have beenwritten by a dogmatist who seeks the unconditional in an absolute object; like Spinoza'ssubstance, or the average churchgoer's God. As the paragraph is worded, its author could bea dogmatist. But as the two subsequent paragaphs show, Schelling does not write as a theist,but as a philosopher who makes clear that the form of unconditionality is I. There is nounconditional it. Such an it would be nothing but an irresistable power. This is why Aristotle'sGod moves nothing by force but is efficacious only as lovable (Metaphysics 1072b4: coccocoaEvov). In the opening prayer of the Soliloquies, Augustine addresses his God as the one"whom every being loves that can love, whether knowingly or unwittingly" (quem amat omnequod potest amare, sive sciens sive nesciens; Solil. 1.i.2). And Nietzsche's last Pope says toZarathustra, "you are more pious than you believe. Some God converted you to yourgodlessness. Is it not your piety which no longer lets you believe in God?;; (Zarathustra, pt. 4,"Out of Service"). Referring to Nietzsche, Paul Tillich speaks of "an atheism which is justifiedas the reaction against theological theism and its disturbing implications" (The Courage ToBe [New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952]), p. 185. Tillich says of theism:" 'Personal God' does not mean that God is a person. It means that God is the ground ofeverything personal. 'Personal God' is a confusing symbol" (Systematic Theology [Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1951] 1:245).

36. This is quite true in the abstract, in objectivistic thinking. But has not Schellingstressed all along that, as far as the I is concerned, it is both conditioner and conditioned?Here, theologically speaking, he is right in stressing the hiddenness of God which, however,does not annihilate His omnipresence, manifest in the human mind. The mind experiencesthe challenge to seek its own ground. Augustine speaks of God "whom no one seeks unlessreminded, whom no one finds unless purified" (Sold. 1.i.3)- obviously, purified of thenatural trend to seek outside: "Do not want to go outside, go back into yourself; in the innerman dwells truth" (De vera religione xxxix.72). "As I hope, God will surely grant that I maybe able to answer you or, rather, that He Himself will answer you through that inwardlyteaching truth which is the highest teacher of all" (De !Mem arhitrio 2.ii.4); "Oh eternaltruth. . . you are my Godl" (Con/eimott., 7. x.16); "God toward whom to reach means to love,whom to see means to have" (Soh/ I.i .3); "Father of the security whereby we are reminded togo back to Thee" (ibid. I.i.2).

[i 43-47]

OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 137136 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [i 37-43]

37. This is what Kant called "the original synthetic unity of apperception" (PuR 131,

16). He said: "The I think must potentially accompany all my images [Vorstellungen],otherwise something would be imagined, in me, that could not be thought at all, whichmeans that the image would either be impossible, or else be nothing at all for me."

38. Religion says we live in God. For Augustine, God is the "true life," and in Him "live

all who truly live" (Sold. 1.i . 3). We may not know this because, as Schelling says, the very firstmovement of our consciousness is a movement away from God (12:120). Yet life is life, and itdesires to find its ground and home. On the first page of the Confessions Augustine says in

prayerful meditation: "It is You who stir us (excitas, rouse us from our numbness) so that wedelight in praising You, because you made us for You (ad te, directed toward you) and ourheart is restless until it rests in You." Since we love life, we love God, "whom every being lovesthat can love, knowingly or unwittingly" (Solil.1.i.2).

When it dawns on us that we do love God unwittingly, we want to "know Him." Yet to knowmeans to posit an object. And God is no object at all. Therefore we speak of the hidden God.And then we declare that He reveals Himself, which is what, by definition, the thing in itselfcannot do. So we define God as Love.

The mystic desires to lose himself in God, by a kind of blessed death. But the ordinary mandoes not want to die. Therefore he worships. Prayer comes close yet keeps a distance. Itidentifies the empirical I with the absolute and, at the same time, retains the distinction. "It isthe character of finiteness to be unable to posit anything without at the same time positingsomething in contrast."

39. My word power may mislead the reader. It derives from the Latin posse, to be able.

All ability has a measure and is conditional. Unconditional power is a contradiction in terms.Scholastics will tell us that there is no potency in God. Schelling says Macht which, like

English might, has a root in Gothic magan and German mogen or yermiigen which, in turn,

mean to be able. "Gott vermag alles": God can do anything-not by exorbitant power, butunconditionally. All power is limited. (See my 1946 paper, "The Power of the Gods and theFreedom of God," in Faith and Freedom [Liverpool, 1953]. The German original,"GOttermacht and Gottesfreiheit," appeared in Natur and Geist [Zurich: Rentsch, 19461.)

The so-called power of God is his freedom. In 1811 Schelling wrote: "With respect to hishighest self, God is not revealed [since the revelatory visions present a God already past, nothis face but his "back parts" (Exodus 33:23)1, he is revealing himself; he is not real, hebecomes real, for the very purpose of being manifest as the most free" (Die Weltalter, 8: 308).

(Cf. Frederick Bolman's translation, The Ages of the World [New York: Columbia University

Press, 19421, p. 196).40. The English term intuition is here less misleading than the German word

Anschauung Schauen does not mean to show, as the same root has come to mean in English,but to look, and anschauen means to look at. Since there is here no object, there is nothing tolook at. Instead we are required to look into ourselves. This is why Augustine says "go back

into yourself' (n. 21).41. PuR 152-59. Cf. pp. 68, 135, and 308. In contrast, and close to Schelling's assertion,

ire pp. 429 and 157n.42. Spinoza argued that there can be only one substance, God. (Ethics, pt. 1, prop. XIV:

Praeter Drum nulla dari neque concipi potest substantia.)43. It makes no sense. In fact, spatial infinity can accommodate an infinite number of

points. A point is the better symbol for the I. But Parmenides had already fallen into thetemptation of visualizing when he blew up his Being into a sphere which looks the same fromall sides and thus seemed to symbolize identity. In 1827, in the Logic of the second edition of

the Encyclopedia (I3 94) Hegel wrote: "This infinity is the bad or negative infinity, being onlythe negation of the finite which, however, reoccurs as soon as it is canceled. In short, this

infinite says only that the finite ought to he set aside. The infinite progression stops at

expressing the contradiction which everything finite contains" (6:184). Language has themeans to distinguish the negative infinite from the positive nonfinite. Fichte, Hegel, andSchelling, by failing to distinguish between u r_...t4LAcllih and nichttndlich, all gave license to theRomantic confusion which the word infinite still causes in many minds. The presenttranslation calls the I nonfinite rather than infinite. Cf. the whole page of Zusatz 2 to § 104 ofthe Encylopedia (6:209), where Hegel says that, in order to reach the truly nonfinite, "wemust renounce the progressus in infinitum" (6:210).44. In the copy of the essay Poss. which Schelling sent to his friend Pfister, he wrote as adedication the same words of Spinoza that he quotes here, and he added the sameexclamation in German that he adds here (Plitt 1: 55n):

Quid idea vera clarius et certius dari potest, quod norma sit veritatis! Sane sicut lux seipsam et tenebras manifestat, sic veritas norma sui et falsi est.

Was geht Ober die stille Wonne dieser Worte, das EY sat nay of a better life.Tubingen, at the end of the year 94.

45. This is Schelling's satirical paraphrase of Jacobi's passage quoted in n.6 above.46. Schelling does say entlitilt, i.e., contains by its strict form of mat, and not as a

container like that "infinite sphere" of page 183 of Of I, which accommodates any number offinite spheres (but also gives each of them its spherical form, owing to which all are"contained" in sphericity). Parmenides discovered the formal identity of thinking and being(Diels, fr.5; Plotinus Enn. 5.i.8). (See n. 47.) Spinoza says whatever is, is in God. (Ethics, pt.1, prop. XV: Quicquid est in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo concipi potest.)

47. Compare Schelling's footnote to his page 214 of Of I: "Now, the process of allsynthesis is such that whatever is absolutely posited in both thesis and antithesis is posited inthe synthesis with qualifications, that is, merely conditionally." When Schelling wrote Of theI he had at hand the second fascicle of Fichte's Grundlage (see bottom line of Plitt 1:73) towhich he may be referring here. Fichte wrote (1:115; cf. Heath 113): "7. Just as antithesis isnot possible without synthesis, nor synthesis without antithesis, so are both impossible withoutthesis, that is, without an absolute positing by which an A (the I) is simply posited withoutpositing it as identical with another nor as opposed to another." It was Kant who had referredto this logic of triplicity, in the second of his "pretty observations" (artige Betrachtungen;Smith [115] quite aptly says "nice points") regarding the interrelation between any threecategories among the four groups of them. Kant wrote: "It is my second remark that there isthe same number of categories in each gr.oup, namely three. This is a challenge to reflect on,because otherwise all a priori subdivision of concepts must proceed by dichotomy. Add to thisthat in each group the third category springs from the connection of the second with the first"(Pur 110).

Dichotomy is indeed the procedure of abstract logic and of popular thinking: either A ornot-A; either for us or against us; either God or the Devil. As a child of the Enlightenment,Kant was inured to this mode of thinking. But as a genuine, responsible thinker he senses thechallenge of this "nice point," although he does not yet fully accept it, not quite aware of thedanger that the triplicity could be abused and turned into a dead rote such as the textbooksfalsely attribute to Hegel: thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

Gustav E. Muller reminded us that Hegel "refers to 'thesis, antithesis, and synthesis' in thePreface of the Phaenomenology of Mind, where he considers the possibility of this 'triplicity'as a method or logic of philosophy. According to the Hegel-legend one would expect Hegel torecommend this 'triplicity'. But, after saying that it was derived from Kant, he calls it a'lifeless schema', 'mere shadow' and concludes: 'The trick of wisdom of that sort is as quicklyacquired as it is easy to practice. Its repetition, when once it is familiar, becomes as boring asthe repetition of any hit of sleight of hand once we see through it. The instrument forproducing t his monotonous formalism is no more difficult to handle that the palette of a


painter, on which lie only two colors...' " (2:39 f.; Lasson ed. 2:41-43). (See "The Hegel

Legend of 'Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis,' "Journal of the History of Ideas [January 1958].

Muller calls the legend a Marxistic smear and shows how Marx got his twisted idea (ibid. 414).

In the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel spoke of the "mindless schema of

triplicity." "Thus Kant prescribed a rhythm of knowledge, of scientific movement, as a

universal schema, and set up everywhere thesis, antithesis and synthesis" (15:551). "In a

historical manner, Kant listed the moments of the whole and determined and distinguished

them correctly; it is a good introduction to philosophy. But the defect of the Kantian

philosophy lies in the disintegration (Auseinanderfallen) of the moments of absolute form"

(15:552). See the entire passage, 15:550-53.

48. Parmenides speaks of the "deceitful world of words" (Diets fr. 8:52) which would lead

to the "unthinkable" declaration "that Not-Being necessarily is" (Diets fr. 4:6 and 5), as the

"opinions of mortals" (fr. 8:51) would hold. I know that Kirk and Raven endeavor to tone

down the Hegelian reading of Parmenides (The Pr-esocratic Philosophers,[ Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1962]. I side with Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy,

13:296 et passim)./ 49. This is the principle of the deduction of the categories to which Schelling referred in

the preface (154 of Of I).

50. This leads to the thesis of Dogm. that, on the basis of Kant's Critique, dogmatism is as

possible as criticism, theoretically speaking.

51. The reader may by now be well beyond the need of being reminded of the

Parmenidean discovery that the form of isness is I, i.e., vostv

52. Of course, not in the empirical I, where idealists like Berkeley try to posit it.

53.0n the first page of his Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation, written in 1791 and

published in 1792, Fichte wrote that the concept of revelation ought to be investigated and,

since it is a religious concept, "the investigation must be made from a priori principles of

practical reason" (5:15), because we must "attribute to practical reason a dominant power

over theoretical reason, though only in line with the laws of the former" (5:49). On January 6,

1795, Schelling wrote to Hegel that Fichte himself had sent him the first part of the

Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Plitt 1:73). There (1:126) Fichte wrote "that it is

not in fact the theoretical faculty which makes possible the practical, but on the contrary, the

practical which first makes possible the theoretical (that reason in itself is purely practical,

and only becomes theoretical on application of its laws to a not-self that restricts it)" (Heath

123).

54. Spinoza defines God as "Being absolutely infinite" (ibid., def. vi.) Per Deum intelligo

ens absolute infinitum. This definition does away with any objective God, if we will but

replace the word infinite by nonfinite. I am not saying that John Wild, in his 1930 translation

(Spinoza. Selections 'New York: Scribner's], p. 94) should have replaced it and thereby

should have obscured the fact that, in form, Spinoza was what Schelling calls a dogmatist. I

do suggest that the student make the replacement and, in that way, be able to find a tenable

sense of Spinoza's definition vi and its explanation.

In the essay of 1794 (Poss. 102) Schelling said that Spinoza "transposed the original form

I Uriorm of knowledge from his own Ito a very different concept, quite independent of the I,

the conception of a connotation of all possibility." And in a footnote to the preceding page

( Puri. 101 11.) Schelling said that our awareness of this kind of transposition will stop "the idle

talk about objective proofs for the existence of God," and "then there will also be an end to

the persistent question as to whether a thing in itself exists (in other words, whether something

that does not appear can be an appearance)."

55. Spinoza said: "Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself, For an

attribute is that which the intellect perceives of substance as if constituting its substance by

definition iv), and therefore (by definition iii) it must be conceived through itself' (Ethics, pt.


1, prop. X). He defined substance as "that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in

other words, that, the conception of which does not need the conception of any other things[res, i.e., reality] from which it must be formed." This, of course, correspondes precisely to

Schelling's definition of the I. In his February 4, 1795, letter to Hegel he said: "Meanwhile I

have become a Spinozist! Don't be amazed. You will soon hear in what way. For Spinoza the

world (the object in simple contrast to the subject) was everything, for me it is the I" (Plitt1:76; what then follows in the letter is quoted in n.25). Schelling's is a Spinozism in reverse,replacing it by I. The word God stands for either of the two. If it stands for it (in"dogmatism") then, Paul Tillich would say, "atheism is justified as the reaction against" a

theism in which "God appears as the invincible tyrant." (The Courage to Be [New Haven,Conn.: Yale University Press, 1952], p. 185. Cf. Systematic Theology [Chicago: University ofChicago Press, 1951], 1:237 and 245.)

56. Spinoza says: "No attribute of a substance can be truly conceived from which it would

follow that substance can be divided" (ibid. prop. XII). The reader may wish to compareSpinoza's demonstration with Schelling's argument.

57. Spinoza says: "Besides God, no substance can be nor can be conceived." (ibid., prop.

XIV.) In a long letter dated 'Tschugg near Erlach, via Bern, August 30, 1795" the lonelyHegel thanked Schelling profusely for the gift of Of I. However, he says: "You cannot expectcritical remarks on your essay. Here I am only an apprentice. I am trying to study Fichte'sGrundlage. But permit me one remark to show my good will to satisfy your desire for such

remarks. In § 12 you give the I the attribute of being the only substance. It seems to me that,

insofar as substance and accident are interdependent concepts, the concept of substance

could not pertain to the absolute I but only to the empirical I as it occurs in self-consciousness.

Yet the preceding § [11] makes me believe that you are not speaking of the latter I (which

unites the highest thesis and antithesis), for in that § you attribute indivisibility to the I, a

predicate which would pertain only to the absolute I, not to the I that occurs in self-conscious-

ness. In the latter the predicate could posit only a part of the reality [of the empirical I]"(Briefe von and an Hegel, ed. Karl Hegel [Leipzig, 1887], 1921). Schelling's delayed answer

of January 1796 ignored Hegel's query but mentioned the second installment of Dogm. soonto appear in issue 5 of Niethammer's Philosophical journal. (Plitt 1:93 and Hegel 19:22 n. 3.)

58. Spinoza says: "Whatever is is in God and nothing can either be or be conceivedwithout God" (Ethics 1. prop. XV).

59. Spinoza defines modes as "the affections of substance" (def. v) and he says they "can

be only in the divine nature, and through it alone can they be conceived" (prop. XV,demonstr.).

60. Augustine says of God "fecisti nos ad te" (Confessions 1.1.1).61. It is obvious that Schelling is addressing the Kantians in their predicament of trying to

synthesize the not-I as such with the I as such.

62. Spinoza says: "God is the immanent and not the transitive cause of all things" (Ethics1 prop. XVIII). John Wild (117) adds a footnote: "Transiens, passing over and into from theoutside." Popular theism turns God into an outside cause. But before they act, outside causes

are mere potentialities. Popular imagination locates God outside in space and thus, perhaps

unintentionally, conceives of Him as a body (called "a spirit"). Aquinas says "to be pure actproperly belongs to God" (S. Th. Ia. IIae. Q. 50, art. 6: esse actum purum est proprium dei).

63. This could explain the standpoint of a purely voluntaristic and antirational theology,perhaps starting with Tertullian.

64. PuR 842: Gliickseligkeit, bliss or (as Norman Kemp Smith translates) "happiness, inexact proportion with the morality of rational beings who are thereby rendered worthy of it,

alone constitutes the supreme good of that world wherein, in accordance with the commands

of a pure but practical reason, we are under obligation to place ourselves." Cf. 883 f., 837,839.

140 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 65-72]

65. PuR 837-38, e.g. (Smith 638 f.): "a system of self-rewarding morality is only an idea,the carrying out of which rests on the condition that everyone does what he ought, that is, thatall the actions of rational beings take place just as if they had proceeded from a supreme willthat comprehends in itself, or under itself, all private wills. . . .The alleged necessaryconnection of the hope of happiness with the incessant endeavor to render the self worthy ofhappiness cannot therefore be known through reason. It can be counted upon only if aSupreme Reason [eine h8chste Vernunft] that governs according to moral rules [Gesetzen] belikewise posited as underlying nature as its cause."

66. PuR 597 (Smith 486): "As the idea gives the rule [Regel], so the ideal. . .serves as the

archetype [Urbild] for the complete determination of the copy [Nachbild]."67. PuR 581 (Smith 476:) "In respect of the intelligible character. . .the empirical

character is the sensible schema."68. In the later part of his Grundlage (1:286) Fichte wrote: "If Wissenschaftslehre were

confronted with the question How are the things in themselves really structured Ebeschaffenl,it could not answer except by saying, the way we ought to structure [machen] them" (Cf.Heath 252; see below, N.R. , n. 32). Fichte may have taken his cue from the Critique of

judgment (§ 84, Cass. 5: 515; Bernard 285 f.), where Kant says that the existence [Dasein] of

man contains in itself "the highest purpose to which, as far as is in his power, he can subject

the whole of nature." Schelling may have known the passage in Fichte, though it is not likely

since the Grundlage appeared in book form only at Easter 1795 and Schelling's preface is

dated March 29. On January 6 he had written to Hegel that he had just received "from Fichte

himself the beginning [emphasis added] of Fichte's exposition, the Grundlage. . .which is not

yet available as a book but only as manuscript [in printed fascicles] for Fichte's students" (Plitt

1:73 f.).

69. PuR 425 (Smith 379): "man alone can contain in himself the final end of all this

order" of nature. PuR 868 (Smith 658): "the ultimate end. . .is no other than the wholevocation of man." The latter phrase may have furnished the title of Fichte's book of 1800, Die

Bestimmung des Menschen. (Cf. PuR 492. However also cf. Fichte 6:289.)70. The.old Schelling (but before 1836) says Lord (Herr) instead of power (Macht). "One

could say: God is really nothing in itself; he is nothing but relation, and pure relation, for heis only the Lord. Everything else that we might add would turn him into a sheer substance. Heis, as it were, really good for nothing but for being Lord of all being. For he is the only naturenot concerned with itself, rid of itself, and therefore absolutely free. Everything substantial isconcerned with itself, confined within itself, afflicted by itself. God alone has nothing to dowith himself, he is sui securus (sure of himself and therefore rid of himself) and therefore isconcerned only with other entities— he is, one might say, entirely outside of himself, free ofhimself, and is thus the being that sets everything else free" (Darstellung des phdosophischen

Empirtlintu.s, Munich lectures, first given 1836, 10:260). Still later (see 11:v-vi) Schellingwrote that God "manifests his reality, which is independent of the idea and subsists even alongwith an annulment of the idea; he reveals himself as the real Lord of being" (11:571).

71. Schelling sees a parallel to Kant's schematism which treats "of the sensible condition

under which alone pure concepts of understanding can be employed" with regard toappearances. "Pure concepts of understanding, being quite heterogeneous from empirical

Intuitions I Anschauungen, imagery] and indeed from all sensible intuitions, can never be metwith in any intuition I image'. For no one will say that a category, such as that of causality,can be intuited through sense and is itself contained in appearance. . . .Obviously there mustbe some third form, which is homogeneous on the one hand with the category, and on theother hand with the appearance, and which thus makes the application of the former to thelatter possible." This is "the transcendental schema" (PuR 175.77; Smith 179-81). The readermay wish to consult the entire chapter on schematism, pp. 176-87 (Smith 180-87).

72. Kant declared: "We arc necessarily constrained by 'practical] reason to conceive of


ourselves as belonging to a moral world. Yet the senses present us nothing but a world ofappearances [Erscheinungen]. Therefore we must assume that moral world to be aconsequence of our conduct in the world of sense and (since the latter exhibits no suchconnection) to be for us a future world" (PuR 839; cf. Smith 639). In 1792, in the Critique ofAll Revelation (5:118) Fichte wrote: "That we are immortal follows immediately from thechallenge to turn the highest good into a reality. Yet our natures, insofar as they are finite,cannot fully meet that challenge. However, they ought to become more and more capable tofulfill it. Therefore they must be able to do so." Kant had said: "To put everything else afterthe holiness of duty and to know that we can do it because our own reason acknowledges it asits law and says that we ought to do it—that is, as it were, to lift ourselves altogether out of theworld of sense" (PuR, Cass. 5:171; Beck 163). What follows is that "pure eternity" is herealready, but young Schelling still wants to save the "empirical eternity" which Kant andFichte assume.

73. From this can be drawn Spinoza's inference that "the intellectual love of the mindtowards God is the very love with which He loves Himself." However, Spinoza adds: "not in sofar as He is nonfinite but in so far as He can be manifested through the essence of the humanmind considered under the form of eternity" (Ethics 5.xxxvi; John Wild's translation exceptfor the word nonfinite in lieu of infinite.)

74. One of the inconsistencies of PuR is that Kant replaces his "System of TranscendentalIdeas" (390), whose "advance from the knowledge of oneself (the soul) to the knowledge of theworld, and by means of this to the original being, is so natural that it seems to resemble thelogical advance of reason from premisses to conclusion" (394), with a new trinity ofmetaphysical ideas, added in the second edition: "God, freedom, and immortality" (395 n.).Even so, he says about immortality that its "merely speculative proof has never been able toexercise any influence upon the common reason of men. It so stands upon the point of a hair,that even the schools preserve it from falling only so long as they keep it unceasingly spinninground like a top; even in their own eyes it yields no abiding foundation upon which anythingcould be built" (424). "Yet nothing is thereby lost as regards the right, nay, the necessity, ofpostulating a future life in accordance with the principles of the practical employment ofreason" (ibid.). Man "feels an inner call to fit himself, by his conduct in this world. . .forcitizenship in a better world upon which he lays hold in idea" (426; Smith 322, 325, 379, 380).The argument based on morality leads only to a postulate. PrRsays that "complete fitness ofthe will to the moral law is holiness, which is a perfection of which no rational being in theworld of sense is at any time capable. But since it is required as practically necessary, it can befound only in an endless progress to that complete fitness" (Cass. 5.132; Beck 126). In hissupplementary volume on Kants Le ben and Lehre (11:282), Ernst Cassirer wrote: "More thanin any other passage, Kant here stands in the continuity of the philosophical world view of theeighteenth century" (see n. 119 below). "This infinite progress is possible, however, onlyunder the presupposition of an infinitely enduring existence and personality of the samerational being; this is called the immortality of the soul. . .and the latter, as inseparablybound to the moral law, is a postulate of pure practical reason" (PrR 127; Cass. 5:132 f.).Kant is wholly consistent when he speaks of the "impossibility of dogmatically determining, inregard to an object of,experience, anything that lies beyond the limits of experience" (PuR424; Smith 378). Reading "objectivisitic" for "dogmatic," one can say that it is Kant'sunresolved objectivism which makes him write that "our concept of an incorporeal nature ismerely negative" (827; Smith 631). This assertion, however, is not consistent with his truerinsight that "in the consciousness of myself in sheer thought I am the being itself' (das Wesenselbst) (429; Smith 382). It is the latter insight which led to Fichte's unconditional certainty ofself and to Schelling's I as principle of philosophy. True enough, Kant adds to the sentencejust quoted the proviso "although nothing in myself is thereby given for thought." Of course,he means objectivistic thought. Fichte and Schelling could ask what more could be givenwhen the I, the being itself, is given.


[i 78-80] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

143

In this context, Schelling's next sentence is significant. I paraphrase: "In the theoreticalsense," that is, objectivistically, God appears in two ways. First, as the omnipresent Being ofbeings, the Self of all selves, the supreme I which, however, transcends every understandingand, as the hidden God, is absolutely not-I, thus "I = not-I." Second, for the strict objectivist,who thinks only in conditional terms ., this unconditional God is not only incomprehensiblebut nonexistent. "In the practical sense," however, that is, for the moral being who is aware ofstanding under an irrefutable authority, God is "absolute I," holy, not fallible and failing aswe are. For each one of us is an empirical I who still clings to many a not-I in spite of thedivine summons to annihilate in ourselves worldly desires. Even -so, without the form ofabsoluteness none of us could be his own I. In "schematic" form, sermonizing presents "thenonfinite I as the ultimate goal of the finite."

75. Perhaps some Augustinian insights lingered in the theological instruction atTubingen. Around 390 Augustine wrote: Aeterna enim vita vitam temporalem vivacitate ipsasuperat, nec quid sit aeternitas nisi intelligendo conspicio. . . .Nihil autem praeterit inaeterno et nihil futurum est. . . .Aeternitas autem tantummodo est. "By its own vivacity theeternal life surpasses the temporal life, nor can I see what eternity is except by understandingIn intellectual intuition]. . . .For in the eternal nothing is past and nothing future. . . .But

eternity merely is" (De vera religione 49,97. Cf. Confession 9.x.24; De trinitate 4, proem 1;De civitate Dei 11.vi).

76. Kant uses this term in the first edition (A) of PuR (396), where he says that all illusion(Schein) springs from mistaking "the subjective condition of thinking for a knowledge of anobject ." He also points out that "der dialektische Schein" cannot be a mere empirical illusion.In the second edition (B) he says that "every human reason, as it progresses, must necessarilycome upon" some "dialectical doctrine" (449f.).

Like the Duc de Luynes, who unhesitatingly translated Descartes's reality of awareness (rescogitans) as "une chose qui pense," many a beginner in philosophy is tempted to ask whatkind of thing the I is. Decartes himself asked in the Second Meditation: Sed quid igitur sumIemphasis added!? Res cogitansl Quid est hoc? He does not ask: quid est haec [res]. Theneuter hoc cannot mean the feminine res. It points at "reality of awareness," and Descartesimmediately replaces the phrase res cogitans by present participles, that is by the acts of"doubting, understanding, affirming, denying, willing, not willing, even imagining andfeeling." And to make his case still stronger he adds: Nam quod ego sim qui dubitem, quiIntelligam, qui velim, tam manifestum est, ut nihil occurrat per quod evidentius explicetur.(See n. 23.)

Augustine had already made the same point in De trinitate 10.ix.12: "When the mind istold, 'Know thyself,' at the very flash of understanding what is meant by 'thyself,' it knowsitself, and for no other reason than that it is present to itself." (See the Latin in n. 23.)Augustine's sentence should be quoted in every introduction to philosophy, especially since heindulges In the academic mannerism of talking of the mind in the third person instead of thefirst. Mint stands strictly on the Augustinian—Cartesian line when he dissolves the dialecticalIllusion in those two core sentences of PuR, which I here quote (without Kant's own uncriticalanti decidely pre-Kantian provisos): "In the awareness of myself in sheer thought I am theessence itself Idas Wesen selbstk . . .The proposition I exist as thinking is no mere logicalfunction but determines the subject (which then is at the same time object) with regard to itsexistence" (B 429). Kant himself furnishes the favorite phrase of his successors, subject-object.(See n. 8.)

77. NH (672) says that "transcendental ideas never allow of any constitutiveemployment. When regarded in that mistaken manner, and therefore as supplying conceptsof certain objects, they are but pseudorational, merely dialectical concepts" (Smith 533). AndInasmuch as they "contain the unconditioned, they are concerned with something to which allexperience is subordinate, but which is never itself an object of experience, . . .which is neverItself a member of the empirical synthesis" (367 f.; Smith 308 f.).

78. Anschauung is defined as "that representation [Vorstellung; or image] which can begiven prior to all thought [Denken]" (PuR 132; Smith 153). It is implied that thought finds itsobject, because objects are constituted by the forms of objectivity which Kant calls categories.As potentially antecedent to and independent of thought, intuition need not have an object.This is the case of dream images— the most obvious illustration. In Kant's mind, an objectiveintuition is a contradiction in terms, and for the moment Schelling adopts this Kantiandoctrine. But his next paragraph shows that he, like Fichte, affirms the intellectual intuitionwhich Kant denies. Kant wrote (PuR 68): "The consciousness of self is the simple representa-tion [Vorstellung; better: presentation] of the 'I', and if all that is manifold in the subjectwere given by the activity of the self, the inner intuition would be intellectual" (Smith 88).Fichte and Schelling hold that the sheer activity of the self by which the I posits itself isintellectual intuition, although the empirical I cannot be aware of itself except bydistinguishing itself from some not-I. For Fichte the not-I is posited by the I. If that makesFichte an "idealist," then Schelling takes his stand with the "realist" Kant, who gives the nameof sensibility (Sinnlichkeit) to the mode in which any manifold [of not-I] is "given in the mindwithout spontaneity" (ohne Spontaneitat im Gemiite gegeben). But whereas Kant speaks ofthe mind as being affected, presumably by things-in-themselves, in a very pre-Kantianmanner, Schelling sees in all knowledge an identity of subject and object. The form of thatidentity is "I am I." In truly critical manner, Kant himself emphasized it in his § 16: "All themanifold of intuition I Anschauungl has a necessary relation to the 'I think' in the samesubject in which this manifold is found. But this representation [Vorstellung] is an act ofspontaneity, that is, it cannot be regarded as belonging to sensibility" (132; Smith 153). Asearly as the first edition of 1781 he had written: "I must have ground for assuming anotherkind of intuition, different from the sensible" (A 252; Smith 270). And in both editions weread that distinctly post-Kantian statement quoted in n. 8 aboye. This statement could becalled the very definition of intellectual intuition. It also furnishes the formula subject-object.(See n. 76.)

79. "Thinking at all" includes thinking of objects, that is, conditional thinking.Unconditionality is found only in the identity of "I am I." Hence Schelling's definition of the"absolute I" as not relating itself to objects. Perhaps Descartes's cogito should not betranslated as "I think" but "I am aware," as is clear from Descartes's own illustrations of rescogitans. (See n. 76.)

The absolute I thinking only itself, when coupled with Schelling's declaration in his letter toHegel of February 4, 1795, that "God is nothing but the absolute I," sounds like Aristotle'sstatement that God thinks only himself.

See the long quotation from 10:260 in n. 70. "The being that sets everything else free" is nota personage and empirically exists only in its revelation. And that would be fully in line withSpinoza's proposition XXXVI in the fifth part of the Ethics: "The mind's intellectual lovefor God is God's own love wherewith God loves himself."

80. PuR said: "We shall entitle the principles whose application is confined entirelywithin the limits of possible experience, immanent; and those, on the other hand, whichprofess to pass beyond these limits, transcendent" (352; Smith 298 f.). Using the wordobjective in the sense of valid, PrR says: "The objective reality of the moral law can be provedthrough no deduction." The law proves its reality "in beings who acknowledge it as bindingupon them. The moral law is, in fact, a law of causality [not in the sense of the category ofcoercive cause! through freedom and, thus, a law of the possibility of a supersensuousnature. . . . Thus reason, which with its ideas always became transcendent (Ober-schwenglich I when proceeding in a speculative i.e.,' objectivistic[ manner, can be givenfor the first time an objective I i.e., undeniably valid!, all hough still only practical, reality; itstranscendent use is changed into an iinnuinrnt use" (Cass 5. 53 f ; Beck 48 f.). Kant's wordpractical strictly retains the meaning of its Greek runt, prattrin, to act, and in no waypa them, to be anent upon Responsibility c arom Inc given or enforced; it roust be f !rely


[i 88-941


taken. And as long as we are not saints we can always renege. But even then we are still in thesupersensuous domain.

81. PuR 399-428 (Smith 328-80).82. When you really ask yourself, "just exactly what do I mean when I say I?" you are

setting aside whatever pertains to you as a temporal being, your being male or female, old oryoung, and when you answer, "I am I for myself alone," you realize that this is true in exactlythe same sense in which it was true when, as a young child, you first discovered your ownidentity. Of course, you are now more articulate.

83. If you prefer the jargon of Kant to that of Schelling, you can fall back on n. 37 above.84. The dogmatist seems incapable of realizing that it is he who quite dogmatically posits

the very not-I which is supposed to furnish the objectivistic basis of his specific system ofdogmatism, be it materialistic or spiritualistic, be he a Hobbes or a Berkeley. In the thirdfascicle of the Grundlage of 1794 (surely known to Schelling; see n. 68) Fichte wrote that"critical philosophy is immanent, since it posits everything in the self; dogmatism istranscendent, since it goes on beyond the self," though perforce starting from the self as allthinking must. Fichte adds: "So far as dogmatism can be consistent, Spinozism is its mostlogical outcome." And since every system has the right to be evaluated by its own principles,we ought to inquire of dogmatism "why it now assumes its thing-in-itself, without any higherground, when it demanded such a ground in the case of the self, . . .and we are thus quitejustified in demanding, on its own principle of assuming nothing without a ground, that itwhould again furnish a higher genus for the concept of thing-in-itself, and another higher onefor that, and so on without end" (1:120; Heath 117). This open-endedness leads to skepticism.

Dogmatism (objectivism) is the natural because unreflective way of human thinking. Wecannot do without it, just as we cannot do without our childhood. Dogm stresses that there aretwo ways of philosophizing-dogmatism and criticism. To be sure, consistently persueddogmatism results in skepticism. Short of that, natural thinking must assert the absolutetranscendence of the supersensuous and must reject the findings of criticism as heresies. Quitenaturally, for dogmatistic theology any philosophy is suspect which yields an insight into thepredicament of dogmatism. Accordingly, as Schelling says on his next page, "if the principleof all philosophy were a not-I, one would have to renounce philosophy altogether."

85. Salomon Maimon, Versuch fiber die Transzendentalphilosophie (Berlin, 1790);Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens (Berlin, 1794). (See the page 611 byWilly Moog in Die Philosophie der Neuzeit bis zum Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts [Berlin:Milder, 1924] and the book by F. Kuntze, Die Philosophie Salomon Maimons [Heidelberg,1912].)

86. In the Addresses to the German Nation of 1807-08 Fichte has half a dozen pages (7:317.23) which explain that the words of an original language offer sense images functioningas Immediately explanatory symbols (Sinnbilder) of supersensuous concepts. Borrowed byanother, and in that respect no longer original, language, such words lose the vividness of theImage. For instance, when we borrow the word idea from the Greek, we no longer are awareof the connection between the root verb idein, to see, and its derivative, sight or view, which isthe precise translation of idea and thus furnishes a vivid symbol for any supersensuous insight.

Fichte gives examples from the Latin. In the mind of a Roman, the word, popular wouldImmediately evoke the "clear and vivid sense image" of the "fawning complaisance displayeddally by ambitious candidates" for office, or the word liberality would evoke the image of itsopposite, servility, shown by cringing or by peevish slaves (serve). When we borrow the wordspopularity and liberality, they do not immediately supply us with those vivid images; theyarise in our mind only through schoolish instruction. Cf. n. 19.

87. In the narrow and really pre-Kantian sense, theoretical philosophy is concerned onlywith objects, i.e., phenomena, whereas practical philosophy discovers the noumenon in thetruly critical sense, as self.positing, in contrast to the precritical sense of the word as asynonym of thing in itself.

88. Here Schelling still speaks as the disciple of Kant. In 1802 he wrote, "time does notexclude eternity; and science, though it manifests itself at the phenomenal level as a productof time, introduces an element of eternity. The true, like the good and the beautiful, is bynature eternal, and in the midst of time is independent of time" (5:224; On UniversityStudies, trans. Norbert Guterman [Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1966], p. 18).And in aphorism CCXVIII of 1805 he said: "True eternity is not eternity in contrast to time,but eternity which comprehends time itself and posits it as eternity in itself -not being incontrast to becoming, but being in eternal unity with eternal becoming" (7:238 f.).

89. The precritical remnants in Kant can hardly be explained by a cavalier condescensionwhich ill agrees with the honesty of Kant, who surely would not want to accommodate theuncritical believers in things in themselves. On page 231 n. of Of I, Schelling speaks of a"system of accommodation."

90. Because "the I is not empirical at all," as Schelling said in this very paragraph.According to Kant, theoretical philosophy deals only with objects.

91. About "the inner" Kant says: "As objects of pure understanding every substance musthave inner determinations and powers which [affect] its inner reality. But what inneraccidents can I [think] save only those which my inner sense presents to me? They must besomething which is either itself a thinking or analogous to thinking. For this reason Leibniz,regarding substances as noumena, took away from them. . .whatever might signify outerrelation. . .and so made them all, even the constituents of matter, simple subjects withpowers of representation [Vorstellungskrdften], in a word, MONADS." (PuR 321 f.; Smith279 f.).

92. This footnote clearly presents Kant's phenomenalism, which is opposed toBerkeleyan idealism (see its refutation 274 f. Smith 244) and is, as Schelling rightly says,"immanent Kantian realism."

93. The reader may want to consult the exposition of the categories in PuR (106 ff.;Smith 113 ff.).

94. Every imaginable sphere, no matter how large, is finite, but by mathematicalextrapolation one can speak of an infinite sphere. However, that expression obscures ratherthan explains why the finite receives its reality from the nonfinite. On the other hand, totranslate unendliche Sphdre as nonfinite sphere is nonsense, unless the word sphere means nosphere at all but indicates the domain of the nonfinite. Cf. n. 43.

95. See Hegel's presentation of lacobian Philosophy" in G. W. F. Hegel. Faith andKnowledge, trans. Walter Cerf and H. S. Harris (Albany: State University of New York Press,1977), pp. 97-152.

96. Outside is absolute nothingness. (See n. 58.) Augustine says: Deus per quem omniaquae per se non essent tendunt esse. "God, through whom all things, which on their ownwould not be, tend to be" (Solit 1.i.2. See the entire § 2, and especially § 3, which is acounterpart to Schelling's stress on the life of reality in us.)

97. In 1796 Schelling wrote: "Kant started from this that the first in our knowledge is the 4intuition [Anschauung]. Very soon this gave rise to the proposition that intuition is the lowestgrade of knowledge. Yet it is the highest in the human mind [Geist], it is that from which allother knowledge borrows its worth and its reality" (1:355). The differentiation between objectand subject is secondary, not primary. In 1800, on one of the last pages of his System ofTranscendental Idealism, Schelling wrote: "If the aesthetic intuition is only the intellectualintuition turned objective, it is obvious that art is the only true and eternal organon ofphilosophy and at the same time the document of philosophy, furnishing again and again newdocumentary proof of what philosophy cannot represent outwardly, to wit, the unconscious inaction and production, and its original identity with the conscious" (3: 627 f.).

98. The form of being is t he same as the form of thinking. See nn. 46 and 47.99. Fichte coined the term thetical, In the Grundlage or 1794 he wrote: "A thetical

judgment would be one whit n posits motorthiog unit bet as equal to mallet !ling rime e.g., a Hid

146 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE 99-101]

[i 101-1111 OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY 147

is an animal] nor as unequal [a plant is not an animal] but simply as equal to itself. . . .Theoriginal and highest judgment of this kind is 'I am' in which. . .the place of the predicate isleft empty. If the reader of the proposition "I am" takes it to refer to somebody else he willask, "how do I know that he or she is a self?" And indeed only his or her action will furnish aground for the affirmation of selfhood in him or her. But if the reader says of himself "I am"(as the two words challenge him to do) then he discovers that, in this challenge, he has (asFichte says) "a task for a ground" (Cf. the entire passage in Heath 114-15. Instead of task,Heath translates Aufgabe as requirement, which is misleading.) Fichte derives his term fromthe word thesis. The "absolute thesis is that there ought to be a system at all" (the passageshere quoted are in 1:115-16; cf. n. 23 and n. 63 to the Letters).

100. The formal form of the self is I = I which, taken thus abstractly, reduces to thepurely logical principle that any A = A. Consequently, as Kant says, the mere "logical unityof the subject (simplicity)" can not yet let me "know the real [wirkliche] simplicity" of myself.(A 356; also see n. 101.) My real self is the act by which I grasp that "I am I." And it is this actwhich amounts to the material form Qf nnconclitionathy, To put it in different words, thepurely logical form of unconditionality can be expressed by "this x cannot not be so," or intwo words "x is." Parmenides pointed out that this form of isness is also the form of strictthinking or real knowing, in distinction from mere guessing and surmising. Now, whileParmenides, bent upon what strictly is, does not reflect explicitly on the thinking I as I, wecan, with Plotinus and Augustine, and with Fichte and Schelling, so reflect and, admittingwith Kant (see n. 101) that the I is not a substance, we can stress that what is "real," andtherefore is "material," is our autonomous act.

101. The core term of PuR is "transcendental unity of apperception" (139, § 18; Smith157). On page 232 n. of Of I. Schelling says, "Kant was the first one who established theabsolute 1 as the ultimate substrate of all being and all identity, though nowhereimmediately," but everywhere by implication. (I would agree with Hegel, 13:296, andPlotinus, 5.v.4, that the very first one was Parmenides, although, like Kant, also byimplication. See n. 100.) In the first edition of Pur Kant says: "The proposition 1 am simple'must be regarded as an immediate expression of apperception, just as what is referred to asthe Cartesian inference, cogito, ergo sum, is really a tautology, since the cogito [sum cogitans]asserts my existence immediately" (A 354 f.; Smith 337). "This much, then, is certain, thatthrough the 'I,' I always conceive an absolute, but logical unity of the subject [simplicity" (A356; Smith 337 f.). Kant then goes on to say it does not follow that I am a simple substance. Inso saying he substitutes the concept of a substance for what, more critically, he had just called"the actual I wirklichel simplicity" (ibid.) of my self. The category of substance pertains toobjects which are manifest in observable facts. But I, as I, am an act, not an objective fact.

Fichte, in his early critical publication, the Review of Aenesidemus (1794), stressed thepi Imcay of practical reason even in the theoretical field. In 1792 Gottlob Ernst Schulze,professor at Ghttingen, had published his attack against Kant and Reinhold anonymously,and Fichte refers to him only by the book's title, Aenesidemus, the name of the Alexandrianskeptic of the later part of the first century a c Fichte says the basic mistake of Aenesidemus ishis assumption that philosophy must start from a fact. "To be sure, we must have afundamental principle which is real, not merely formal. But such a first axiom need not be a/act ITatmachel, it can be the expression of an act I Tathandlune (1:8). And, in line with

statement that "in the consciousness of myself, in sheer thought, I am the essenceItself' (Pun 429; cf. Smith 382), Fichte recognizes the noumenal dignity of the self. Byintellectual intuition 1 know that "I am simply because I am. All objections of Aenesidemusare based on his desire to prove an absolute existence and autonomy of the 1 nobody knowshow and fur whom while this existence and autonomy are valid only for the I. The 1 is whatit is and because it is, for the I" (1:16). In short, it is not an object. And it is the I asouterror us act which alone can furnish what Kant calls the transcendental unity of

apperception. "The synthetic unity of apperception is therefore the highest point to which wemust ascribe all employment of the understanding, even the whole of logic" and of metalogicor "transcendental philosophy. Indeed, this faculty is the understanding itself" (PuR 134 n.;Smith 154 n.).

102. This, of course, is pre-Newtonian speech. A Platonic body is not necessarily subjectto gravity. Nor, perhaps, is every Cartesian res extensa heavy.

103. Schelling's German sentence makes no sense without a comma. It is my conjecture toplace it here and add the words and does.

104. PuR (106; Smith 113) counts possibility, reality, and necessity as the three categoriesof modality. Schelling's next paragraph says they are no categories at all.

105. Thus Schelling disposes of the artifice by which Kant derived the table of categoriesfrom the table of judgments. (PuR 95 and 106; Smith 107 and 113.)

106. Plato, in the Sophist, discusses at length the thinkability of not-being. Jowetttranslates: "He who says that falsehood exists has the audacity to assert the being ofnot-being" (237a). And, against Parmenides' denial of any being of not-being, Plato'sStranger says, "we have not only proved that things which are not are, but we have shownwhat form of being not-being is" (258d). And in the Republic Glaucon asks: "how can thatwhich is not ever be known?" (477a).

107. Kant says, "an application of the category [i.e., of categories] to appearancesbecomes possible by means of the transcendental determination of time (Zeitbestimmung),which, as the schema of the concepts of understanding, mediates the subsumption of theappearances under the category" (PuR 178; Smith 181. See that entire chapter "TheSchematism of the Pure Concepts of Understanding," PuR 176-87; Smith 180-87).

108. In the first edition of the PuR Kant declared: "Both space and time can be foundonly in us" (A 373; cf. Smith 348). He taught that the categories are what constitutes theobjectivity of objects. Schelling here makes time a constitutive element of objects, becauseobjects determine each other's position in time. This seems to sound like Einstein, but I mustleave that to the physicists, having missed their boat in 1917.

109. Kant says "the principle of sufficient reason is [only] the ground of possibleexperience, that is, of objective knowledge or appearances in respect to their relation in theorder of time" (PuR 246; Smith 226). and of the alleged supersensuous "objects" he says: "Ifwe are pleased to name this object noumenon for the reason that its representation is notsensible, we are free to do so. But since we can apply to it none of the concepts of ourunderstanding, the representation remains empty for us" (PuR 345; Smith 293 f.). Thisemptiness is particularly obvious in the category of possibility. The I = I is always actual andnecessary. However cf. Of I 232 nn. 3. and 234. Kant considers the categories of modality ona level with quantity, quality, and relation. Schelling derives the three others from relation.See nn. 16 and 17 to Poss. Also page 222 of OF I and n. 105. Compare Schelling's longfootnote to page 229 of Of I.

110. "The discipline of pure reason in respect of its polemical employment" (PuR 766;Smith 593).

111. This does not tally with the emphatic statement of Kant that "only insofar as I canunite a manifold of given representations [Vorstellungen[ in one consciousness, is it possiblefor me to represent to myself the identity of the consciousness in these representations" (PuR133; Smith 153). Of the Leibnizian monads Kant says that they "have no other active powersave only that which consists in representations, the efficacy of which is confined, strictlyspeaking, to the selves. For this very reason his principle of the possible reciprocal communityof substances had to be a preestablished harmony and could not be a physical influence. Forsince everything is merely inward, i.e., concerned with its own representations, the state of therepresentations of (inc substance could not stand in any effective connection whatever withthat of another" (PIM 330 I.; Smit h 285). The monads have no windows and therefore haveno regard for art opposite, another I

148 THE UNCONDITIONAL IN HUMAN KNOWLEDGE [i 112-120] [i 120-123] OF THE I AS PRINCIPLE OF PHILOSOPHY

149

112. This tallies with Kant's statement that "the consciousness is at the same time animmediate consciousness of the existence of other things outside me" (PuR 276 f.; Smith 245.)It may also clear tip the discrepancy pointed out in n. 111.

113. I translate Realitöt as reality, Wirklichkeit as actuality. Schelling uses the two wordsindiscriminately. See pp. 209 f. of Of I.

114. PuR says, "when reason itself is regarded as the determining cause, as in the sphereof freedom, that is to say, in the case of practical principles, we have to proceed as if [Kant'sown emphasis, omitted by Smith] we had before us an object, not of the senses, but of thepure understanding" (713; Smith 559).

115. This footnote amounts to a preview of N.R.116. In 1809, at a decisive turn of his road, Schelling wrote his Philosophical Inquiries

into the Essence of Human Freedom and into Matters Connected Therewith. He said: "Thethought of making freedom the sum and substance of philosophy has emancipated the humanspirit in all its relationships, and not only with respect to itself, and it has given to science inall its parts a more powerful reorientation than any earlier revolution. . .Whoever does notapproach philosophy in this way merely follows others and copies what they do without feelingwhy they do it" (7:351; see James Gutmann's translation, Of Human Freedom (New York:Open Court, 1936), pp. xvii, 24-25, and 105).

117. A footnote added in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason says: "Wemust not, in place of the expression mundus intelligibilis, use the expression 'an intellectualworld,' as is commonly done in German exposition. For only modes of knowledge[ Erkenntnisse] are either intellectual or sensuous. What can only be an object [Gegenstand] ofthe one or the other kind of intuition [Anschauungsart] must be termed (however harshsounding) either intelligible or sensible" (312 n.; Smith 273 n.).

118. As Kant would have it. For instance, in PrR (Cass. 5:90-91; Beck 84-85) he stressesthat, in order to be moral, an action must be done "from duty and from respect for the law,and not from love for or leaning toward that which the action is to produce." And he adds:"No other subjective principle must be assumed as incentive, for though it might happen thatthe action occurs as the law prescribes, and thus is in accord with duty but not from duty, theintention to do the action would not be moral. . . .Respect for the moral law is therefore thesole and undoubted moral incentive" (Cass. 5:86; Beck 80).

119. The preface to the second edition of PuR speaks of "that notable characteristic ofour nature, never to be capable of being satisfied by what is temporal (as insufficient for thecapacities of its whole destination)" (xxxii; Smith 31). And PrR says that "complete fitness ofthe will to the moral law is holiness, which is a perfection of which no rational being in theworld of sense is at any time capable. But since it is required as practically necessary, it can befound only in an endless progress to that complete fitness." (Cass. 5:132 f.; Beck 126 f.; alsowe n. 74 above.) Fichte's stress on this infinite task is well known. As late as 1812 he speaks ofthe "task for the whole" of humanity. Though this task is never finished, yet we believe that,"at some time or other, the goal must be reached" (11:73).

120. Schelling's footnote refers to the core problem of Kant's third Critique. Cr] must bekept In mind in order to understand the paragraph on pages 241 and 242. For here is thepoint where Schelling goes beyond Kant's mere as i f In the third Critique, Kant pointed out aparallelism between the moral "ought" and the purposiveness we find in nature. "Just asreason in the theoretical consideration of nature must assume the idea of an unconditionednecessity of its original ground, so also it presupposes in the practical sphere its own (inrespect of nature) unconditioned causality, or freedom, in that it is conscious of its own moral I" (Cass. 5:482; Bernard 251). The command is "a universal regulative principle.

This principle does not objectively determine the constitution of freedom, as a form ofcausality, but it makes the rule of actions according to that idea a command for everyone,with no less validity than if it did so determine it" (5:483; 252). A parallel case is found in our

teleological judgments regarding what faces the mechanist as contingent in nature. "Theparticular, as such, contains something contingent in respect of the universal, while yetreason requires unity and conformity to law in the combination of particular laws of nature.This conformity of the contingent to law is called purposiveness; and the derivation ofparticular laws from the universal, as regards their contingent element, is impossible a priorithrough a determination of the concept of the object. Hence, the concept of the purposivenessof nature. . .is a subjective principle of reason for the judgment, which as regulative (notconstitutive) is just as necessarily valid for our human judgment as if it were an objectiveprinciple" (5:483; 252-53).

121. Here of course the word causality does not stand for the category which is one of thea priori forms that constitute objectivity in the world of sense. It is moral autonomy that ismanifest in "intelligible causality." The "intelligible world" is the moral world, the world as itought to be. In the "absolute 1" —popularly speaking, in heaven or for God—there is noought. But in the world of sense we ought to progress in justice and truth. Now, there can beno I at all without the autonomous act by which an I posits itself. And that act alone canproduce the "I think" without which mental images "would be impossible, or at least benothing to me" (PuR 132; Smith 153). The world of sense, that is, the world of objects, existsfor us owing to the a priori forms of "the original synthetic unity of apperception" (ibid.) andthe "I think" contains "the form of every rational judgment" and "accompanies all categoriesas their vehicle"). Only responsible thinking can lead to an objective world. Therefore Kantstresses "the primacy of pure practical reason" in the twofold aspect of reason—practical and"speculative," i.d., theoretical (PrR, Cass. 5:130; Beck 124).

122. This was the very problem of Cr]. It was one of the incentives that led Schelling to hisNaturphilosophie.

123. PuR says: "Thus, in the end, it is always pure reason alone, though only in itspractical use, that has the merit of tying to our highest interest a knowledge which for merespeculation is nothing but an empty guess lacking validity, and of having thereby shown thisknowledge to be not, indeed, a demonstrated dogma, but an absolutely necessarypresupposition when dealing with reason's most essential ends" (846; cf. Smith 643, whoobscures the issue by translating blosse Spekulation kann nur wiihnen as "reason can thinkonly" instead of "speculation can only make an empty guess").

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FWJ Schelling: Of the I as Principle of Philosophy, or the Unconditional in Human Knowledge

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