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GENERAL INTRODUCTION
- State University of New York Press
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GENERAL INTRODUCTION FIONA STEINKAMP Clara is unique in the philosophical literature. It is a discussion told as a story, its very structure reflects its content, and it has a woman as one of its central characters . Unfortunately, the work remains as only a fragment, but it is imbued with many Romantic themes and can be read on a variety of levels. This lends the discussion a certain beauty. Clara is possibly Schelling’s only work that aims to make his thought more accessible and that actually succeeds in doing so, even if, ironically , Schelling never told anyone about the text. I will attempt throughout my introduction to keep to the spirit of Clara; I will leave more technical treatments for scholarly journals. In order to help readers orient themselves more easily when first reading the text, I will begin by outlining the general arguments and structure of Clara. Schelling’s introduction is not included in this overview as it is so different in character from the rest of the discussions. CLARA—INTRODUCING THE TEXT Clara has three main characters—the priest, the doctor, and Clara. Each takes its turn at being the persuasive or leading element and each can be understood metaphorically. The priest represents arguments in favor of the mind or spirit, the doctor speaks in favor of nature and the corporeal, and Clara is personality or the soul. Appropriately, she is also the only main character with a name. The first section begins in the autumn on All Souls’ Day with the priest and the doctor coming into town to pick up Clara. Its purpose is to introduce the topic of the discussions that follow. This is also reflected by the scene—the festival in celebration of the dead; the autumnal, natural transition into winter. As indicated in Schelling’s introduction, the work starts with the assumption that there is a spirit world. Schelling is not speaking to those who are not prepared to start out from this presupposition. Another assumption that runs throughout is that man is not a purely physical being—man also has a nonphysical aspect to his nature. From these two assumptions Schelling argues that a link from the physical to the spiritual can be found—the arguments in the first section are based on these two suppositions. vii The priest argues that the spiritual plays too small a role in this life. He maintains that this life is too one-sided and that the spirit life needs to be made a part of it, a reminder that there is a spirit life and that the deceased are part of our larger family. The clergyman, a minor character who appears only in this section and who represents Kant (Grau 1997), argues that death should be seen as a complete separation from this life and that the deceased are dead in regard to this world. The clergyman maintains that the two worlds are completely separate and this life cannot act on the other. Moreover, he claims that we cannot properly conceive of the other (spirit) world because the spiritual aspect of man is tainted by the physical. Man can only follow his conscience, which comes from the Divine and is a proof of immortality. This is his duty in life. Clara argues that there is a link, communication, between this world and the next one. The doctor offers the view that man needs to start out from this world if he is to gain knowledge of the next one. If he proceeds in any other fashion, he will only be speculating. It is the doctor who remarks on the likenesses between the generations in the pictures at the cloister and who works from this natural similarity to the idea of the transmigration of souls. Thus, the characters in this section provide four arguments about a spirit world and its relation to this life: the spirit world enters this life; the two worlds are kept completely separate; there is interaction between this life and the next; man can learn about the next life from looking carefully at this one. Only the clergyman argues against trying to find any connection between the two and, predictably, given that Clara is about nature’s connection to the spirit world, the three main characters disagree with the clergyman. This first section, therefore, sets the scene for the rest of the discussions. Notably, in this introductory piece these characters have been separated and are getting together to return home. Likewise, later...