The Later Philosophy of Schelling: The Influence of Boehme on the Works of 1809-1815 (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 483 It is true, as Yovel argues, that a Vtstonof the totahzanon of the ob3ects of the will fulfills a metaphysical need of reason. But ~t~swrong to impute to th~sV~SlOnor representanon a moral worth, since the formal moral law has nothing to do with this or any other end but only with what is supulated by the categorical ~mperatlve (P. 176) Clearly Michalson has gone wrong at this point, and the essential reason IS that he has misconstrued moral action. He tells us: "It is true, by Kantian standards, that every act of the will must have an object. But such an object---or material content--is present only in a non-moral capacity, since only the formal aspect, embodied in the categorical imperative, defines morality" (p. 176). Here he fails to recognize that a moral action never has a given (phenomenal) state of affairs as ~ts object, but rather a transformation of the given into a new form which fulfills moral purposes. Thus, the real object of a moral act is a hypothetical moral state of affmrs which it is possible to impose on the given order of phenomena. And this "'object" is as much a postulate as is Yovel's ultimate 1deal world order--the highest good as the regulative idea of history In effect, then, to maintain that Yovel's interpretation of the highest good is illegitimate for the reasons given would be to resist that no moral action is possible at all within the Kantian framework. This will indicate the extent to which Michalson has gone astray. Had he kept in mind Kant's comment about the necessity "'to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith" (B xxx), Michalson's conclusions might have been more sound. For this faith IS not merely rehgious froth but a confidence in the whole moral endeavor of man. In fact, Kant" s epistemological limitations are "'tailored to" the needs of morality, in a sense: and one of the important achievements of the first Critique ISthe assurance that an impasse of the kind suggested by Michalson cannot arise. There are portions of Chapter 3 on the schematlsm, and of Chapter 4 on teleology, which might have been developed into a positive contribution to the understanding of Kant's project. But the work as a whole is much longer than it needs to be, and the attempt at neganve criticism undermines the possibility of any construcnve conclusions. Thus the uninitiated reader is more likely to be led astray than enlightened by Michalson's efforts. FREDERICK P. VAN DE PITTE University of Alberta Robert F. Brown. The Later Philosophy of Schelhng. The hlfiuence of Boehme on the Works ol 180%1815. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1977. Pp 295. $16.50. Brown's study is sigmficant since it IS the first sustained exposition of Schelhng's philosophical development to appear in English. Its particular focus is on the middle of Schelhng's career, the attempt in the years 1809-15 to appropriate Boehme's heterodox and poetic philosophy of God and with it to refashion the concept of philosophy as a "system of Reason." Brown contends that this cognitive reworking of Boehme's theosophy (1) is responsible for freeing Schelling from the arid pantheism of the so-called System of Identity ( 1801-6) and (2) decisively puts him on the path toward the theism of the Later Philosophy (1821-54) with its peculiar double methodology of a speculative and a historical approach toward the self-existent Actuality. The first part of the claim IS not credibly argued, whereas the second is. Brown's title is rather misleading; the book is largely exegesis of the 1809 Essay on Human Freedom, the 1810 Stuttgart Lecture~. and the 1815 draft of Ages of the World--works commonly called the "Middle Philosophy" or the "Philosophy of Freedom." While Brown does not actually enter into the exposition of the Later Philosophy, his most novel and Insightful points concern the origin of the Later Philosophy in the phase of Schelling's enchantment with the concepts and visions of Jacob Boehme. The study falls into two parts, a brief exposition of Boehme (heavily...