Reason and Existence: Schelling's Philosophy of History (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 471 The sources suggested by Bergraan for Maimon's positive philosophy arc many, though he admits that Maimon may not have been explicitly aware of all of them (e.g., Nicholas of Cusa). Chapters X and XI examine in detail Maimon's indebtedness to two of his predecessors, Moses Maimonides and Baruch Spinoza. The final three chapters argue for certain influences of Maimon on Fichte, possible influences of Maimon on Hegel and similarities between Maimon and Hermann Cohen. In these chapters, Bergman is both following and extending the comments of Dilthey on the importance of Maimon on the course of nineteenth-century German philosophy (cf. Gesammelte Schriften, IV, 319). In the first appendix, Bergman argues that Maimon was not an "atheist," although he was apparently denied religious burial for that reason; here it seems to me that Bergman is arguing ex parte, for I should see no necessary contradiction between a philosophical theism and a religious atheism. The second appendix expounds the logical calculus developed by Maimon in accordance with his principle of determinahility, a useful contribution to symbolic logic. Finally, Bergman, in an appendix entitled "Maimon and the Beginnings of Scientific Parapsychology ," presents Maimon as a pioneer in the effort to introduce scientific procedures into the study of reported cases of precognition, prevision, dreams, prophecy, and other such phenomena. Here Bergman does not claim too much for Maimon--or for the "science" to which he contributed. JOSEP~ L. BLAU Columbia University Reason and Existence: Schelling's Philosophy of History. By Paul C. Hayner. (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1967. Pp. vii+ 176. $7.25) In this introduction to ScheUing's "evolutionary ontology" there is an attempt to trace the development of Schelling's thought in the direction of an emerging historical consciousness which turned against the ideals of the Aufkldrung. Closely following the footsteps of A. O. Lovejoy, Mr. Hayner has endeavored to place Schelling's soidisant philosophy of history in the context of the history of ideas. In doing so he has provided a derivative but fair exposition of Schelling's conception of historical transcendentalism and what can only be called his philosophical theogony. With the exception of Vico the conception of process or dynamic evolution in history was foreign to the world-orientation of the Aufkliirer. Generally speaking, they were concerned with establishing fixed laws, determining the universal nature of man, and extracting moral truths from historical events. With Herder's Auch eine Philosophic der Geschichte zur Bildung der Menschheit (1774) there was a change in orientation toward history, a recognition of the uniqueness and value of each culturai-historical epoch, an attempt to discern the telos of Humanitiit. ScheUing learned a great deal from Lessing's conception of the evolution of religious consciousness, from Kant's conception of history as originating from the Fall, from the Romanticist's selfconsciousness about temporality, diversity, multiplicity, the shift of emphasis from Being to Becoming, from the determinate to the indeterminate. Under the influence of Fichte, Schelling postulated the unconditioned ego as the first principle of thought and emphasized the importance of man's striving for freedom, unlimited activity, and selfrealiTstion . With the German idealists generally ScheUing held that an Absolute Spirit (Geist) strives in and through its temporal manifestations to attain complete realization. His early panpsychism tended to denigrate the realm of finite being insofar as it is "essence-less" or imperfect by virtue of being merely phenomenal, subject to the flux of temporality (p. 51). Although he had intended to provide a metaphysics 472 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY which would account for movement, change, process, and becoming, his absolute idealism led him, malgrd lui, to an a-historical position. If, as Schel!ing claimed in his Darstellung meines Systems tier Philosophie, all potencies are simultaneous, then historical process is illusory or nonexistent and the teleology of history is a myth. Throughout his writings, as Hayner shows, Schelling struggled to reconcile his absolute or transcendental idealism with actuality and human freedom, necessity with freedom, temporal teleology with a supratemporal, eternal reality. In his attempt to deal with these difficulties he provided the groundwork for Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy o/History and offered insights which Hegel would...