Schelling's Positive Philosophy

324 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY was published in 1657. This one-page note, signed "a" and printed in the typographical style of the rest of the volume, is inserted between A8 and B1. The catchword "THE" appears both at the bottom of As verso and at the bottom of the verso of the advertisement itself, indicating that both the A and B signatures were printed before the need for insertion of the advertisement arose. ~4 The note reveals that when Coke was "in the low Countreys, he borrowed the manuscript of one nearly related to the Said Mr. Ainsworth and (changing a few words, but not the sence) printed it as his own." The existence of manuscripts in Ainsworth's estate is noted in the Dictionary of National Biography (s.v. "Ainsworth, Henry"), and Axon and Axon cite evidence which suggests that "Ainsworth left behind him a large quantity of Mss. which appear to have been dispersed. ''~s Since so few libraries hold the second edition and since the first edition has been virtually ignored, it is not surprising that the question of authorship has not been raised earlier. J. S. MEASELL Wayne State University SCHELLING'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY Since the publication of Walter Schulz's celebrated work, Die Vollendung des deutschen Idealismus in der Spi~tphilosophie Schellings, in 1955,1 the interrelation of the "positive" and the "negative" philosophies has been a central issue for all Schelling scholars. Many works have been published either supporting or opposing Schulz's basic hypothesis, that the negative philosophy was Schelling's chief interest in his "late" period. 2 At the same time, largely through the indefatigable efforts of Horst Fuhrmans, considerable new manuscript evidence has been published indicating that the positive philosophy rather than the negative philosophy was Schelling 's principal concern in this period of his life. This note focuses on one of these new manuscripts, Grundlegung der positiven Philosophie, containing Schelling's lectures at the University of Munich in the winter semester of 1832/33 and in the summer semester of 1833, as recorded by one of his students (J. G. C. Helmes). 3 As a review of the contents of these lectures will ~4My discussion here is based upon the copy in the WilliamAndrews Clark Memorial Library(UCLA). The single-page "Advertisement to the Reader" is not present in the other extant copies of the second edition ; perhaps as the leaf was inserted during the gathering or binding some copies were overlookedin the process. ~sAxon and Axon, p. 51. At least one other manuscript of Ainsworth's was published posthumously; see Samuel White, The Orthodox Foundationof Religion (London: R. C. for M. Sparke, 1641). Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. 2See esp. Xavier Tilliette, Schelling:unephilosophieen devenir, 2 vols. (Paris: Vrin, 1972). Tilliette's work is perhaps the most comprehensive thus far on the interrelation between the positive and the negative philosophies. 3 Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph yon Schelling, Grundlegungtierpositiven Philosophie,ed. Horst Fuhrmans (Turin: Botega d'Erasmo, 1972). Subsequent references to the Grundlegungare to this edition and appear parenthetically in the text. Since Schelling's own manuscripts from this period of his life have been lost or destroyed, student notebooks such as these, however imperfect they may be, are nevertheless invaluable for an understanding of the progression of Schelling's thought through the years. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 325 make abundantly clear, Schelling's attention was focused on the positive philosophy . On the other hand, there is very little said in the lectures themselves about the actual contents of the positive philosophy. Rather, Schelling spent the greater part of both semesters analyzing the historical antecedents of the positive philosophy, viz., Rationalism and Empiricism. This is, of course, in line with the general purpose of these lectures as an introduction to the positive philosophy. Yet it might also betray the fact that Schelling, like many other philosophers, was more insightful about what he opposed than he was about his own positive contribution to the history of philosophy. I will return to this point at the end of the paper when offering a few words of criticism about the concept of the positive philosophy. First, however, a summary of the Grosse Einleitung, as Schelling termed this series...