ARS Buvrs 2011INGRTD Bsso

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ScHEnnc's MEoNtoLocY

AND THE CONCEPT OF POSSIBILITY

m KTEmEGAARD

INGRID BASSOSsren Kierkegaard Research Centre

CoPenhagen UniversitY

ABSTRACT In Kierkegaard's treatment of the concept of reality, possibility.

freedom (fhe not-necessity of the history) both in the Concept of Anxiety and

in Philosophicol Frogments is possible to make out Schellingt meontology,

that is the philosophical discourse concerning the negation of the octuol

being of something, but not its possibility. The article makes first a survey

of the latest philosophy of Schelling, the so-called "positive philosophy"

and explain its methodological meaning for the development of philosophy

of Mythology and philosophy of Revelation. lts shows why Kierkegaard's

thought could have been attracted by Schelling's Spdtphílosophie and ils

way of treating the concepts of possibility and reality in opposition to

Hegel's "negatìve philosophy", but in the end it shows why Kierkegaard

could not accept even Schelling's speculation.

KEY-WORDS: empiricism; freedom; ldealism; Kierkegaard; meontology;

negative philosophy; positive philosophy; possibility; reality; revelation;

Schel l ing.

La meontología de Schelling Y

el concepto de posibilidad en Kierkegaard

RESUMEN: En el tratamiento de Kierkegaard del concepto de realidad,

posibilidad, libertad (la no necesidod de la historia), tanlo en El concepto de'la

ongustío como en sus Migoios filosóficos, se puede a preciar la meontologío

de Schelling, es decir, el discurso filosófico relativo a la negación del ser

reol de alguna cosa, pero no de su posibilidad. El artículo realiza un primer

estudio sobre la última filosofía de Schelling, la llamada "filosofía positiva"

y explica su significado metodológico para el desarrollo de la filosofía de Ia

Mitología y la filosofía de la Revelación. Muestra por qué el pensamiento

de Kierkegaard podría haberse sentido atraído por la Spdtphílosophie de

Schelling y su manera de tratar los conceptos de posibilidad y realidad en

oposición a la "filosofía negativa" de Hegel, pero al finalizar muestra por

qué Kierkegaard no pudo aceptar incluso la especulación de Schelling'

PALABRAS CLAVE: emp i r i smo ; l i be r t ad ; l dea l i smo ; K ie r kegaa rd ;

meontología; filosofía negativa; filosofía positìva; posibilidad; realidad;

revelación; Schelling'

ARs llRr\as 201 1 Sculr.r rxt;'s Mroltorocy Ah\D Tnt CoNcLrr or Possnu.nr tu KltR(tcAAxD

In making a survey of Kierkegaard's relationship to Schell ing inparticular moving on from The Concept of Anxiety,I would like takeboth this concept (anxiety) and the work dedicated to it as a pointof departure - better said an "occasion" - in order to investigate theway in which Kierkegaard drew some philosophical intuitions, ideasand concepts from the latest philosophy of Schell ing. This wil l bedone by means of establishing a kind of route along the Schell ing"river": a conceptual river that Kierkegaard seems to have carefullyfollowed and from which he also drank several times.

I will show in special how in Kierkegaard's treatment of the con-cept of possibil i ty (as well as in the treatment of freedom, thus inthe not-necessity of the history) both in the Concept of Anxiefl, and inthe contemp orary Philosophical Fragments,l for instance, there seemsto be possible to make out Schelling's meontology. I refer with thisconcept to the distinction Schelling regained from Plato's Sophisfbetween the Greek "subjective" and "objective" negation, mt/+ Onand oÙk Ón in order to found Good's freedom in the creation. Letme recall that while the Greek negation oUk totally denies the realityof something both in thought and in actualilt , the negation m3/t lustdenies t}:re actuol being of something, but not its possibility, thusdefining something as "not existing", but sti l l possible.

The root of Schell ing's latest speculation - the "positive philoso-phy" - has its origin in the attempt of reaching philosophically theso-called "positive", that is the true, historical, free reality, withoutfalling into the logical pantheism. And this was exactly what Kierkeg-aard was interested in. As it is well known, the whole discussionconcerning the possibil i ty of elaborating a philosophical perspec-tive able to come out of the "negative philosophy" (this is the wayin which Schell ing indicates a merely logical perspective) in orderto grasp the reality without giving up to a scientifrc approach, con-cerned others besides Schell ing and Kierkegaard.

Just before Hegel's death, a great number of voices (even withinHegel's followers) had raised in order to criticize some points of the

I Phitosophical Frastnents came out the 13iì,ofJune 1844, but it had been probablycomposed before March and the end of May 1844. The Concapt of Anxielt came outthe 17rr'ofJune 1844, but it had been written before. On the question of dating seethe commentaly lKl to S6ren Kierkegaards Skrifter IS.KSI, ed. by Soren Kierkegaard For-skningscenteret, Gads Forlag, Copenhagen 7997ff., vol. 4: K4: Pttitosopttical Fragtnentsbv Jette Knudsen and Johnny I(ondrup, pp.l7l-196, and on The Conccpt of anxiety,bv Soren Bruun, pp. 305-339. They were origlnally both signed with the name of Ki-erkegaard himself then the name was replaced with the actual ones. On that, see alsoIon Stewart, Kierkegaard's Relatíons to Hegel Reconsidered, Cambùd,ge 2003, pp. 40ff.

2 Plato, Sophist 237 a ss.,256 d ss., 258 a ss.

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System, in particular the interpretation of the first category of Logic,that is the category of Being, and its identity with Nothing, fromwhich the Becoming should have followed. I will not go over thecomplex and long discussion about this point now,3 but I will lustemphasize some very important theoretical ioints in order to under-stand Kierkegaard's interest for Schelling's so-called Sptitphilosophie,since Schelling's position has had the peculiarity of presenting alsoa pars construens and not only the elaboration of tlne destruens one.

The most incisive ob jection to Hegel's f,rst Section of Logic hadfocused on the identity between Being and Nothing, because thisidentity would be only a sterile tautology from which Movementand Becoming cannot result, unless Being was already somethingdeterminate. It means that in the Hegelian pure and indeterminateBeing it is not true that the Nothing is thought, but instead, thatsimply the Nothing is not a thought. This was precisely what KarlWerder said in 1841,4 and already Schelling during his second stayin Munich since 1827s had actually formulated the same objection.Even Feuerbach in 18396 had raised a similar argument, saying withAristotle that the Nothing cannot be thought, because when it isthought, it is already determined, this meaning that it is somethingexisting and no longer "Nothing". The thought can only think some-thing that ls. Moreover the Thought itself is an existing activity, itis something real.

What Hegel seemed to have forgotten, in a sense, was also the realand subjective definiteness of the acf of thinking opposite to theabstractness without any contents of the pure Being.

But following this direction, we could also mention in the sameperiod of time the so-called Sptitidealísten Immanuel Hermann Fichteand Christian Hermann Weisse with their periodical <Zeitschrift fúrPhilosophie und spekulative Theologie>, to which Kierkegaard was a

3 Otr this topic I would like to refer to the monograph I have published in 2OO7and to the bibliography it contains: Kierkegaard uditore di Schelling: le lezíoni berlinesisulla "Filosofia della Rrivelazione", 1841-1842. Tracce della filosofia schellinghiana nell,o-pera di SÚren Kierkegaard, Mimesis, Milano 2007, pp. 17 -39.

4 Karl Werder, Logik. AIs Commentar und Ergiinzung zu Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik.1. Abteilung, Berlin 1841, pp. 35 ss.

5 Zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie, iî SW,I, X, pp. l-20O, in particular pp.727 ss.

6 L. Feuerbach, Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Philosophie, in <Hallische Jahrbùcher fúrdeutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst", 1839, nn. 208-216 (30th August to 9th Septem-ber), col1. 7657-7725, then in Stimtliche Werke, ed. by W. Bolin and F. Jodl, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1959, vol. II, in particular pp.195-2O2.

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lTn'J',HfiXf#:...usation of formal truth and material ralsitvTIn shor t , a l l th is i r i t ic ism accused Heget of having pushed Logicbeyond i ts inrr insic t j - : r : , ql f rauing-f iassed i t of ias somethingthat it wasn,t, that is, in Schelling, ,"irir, a,,,positive,, philosophy.According to its critics, Hege's r.gi.;t i"deed unabre to come tothe "positive" unress by^intloduciifrt r"rr.ptitiousry from outside.This was exactly what Schelring *io,-ir, 1834 in its famous prefaceto the German translation of Vicór Corrìrr,a text which also Kierkegaard had ,";r:rw"::!ir;:?r::r:;

the meanwhile become a kind of manifesto against Hegel,s Logic:The logical self_movement of the Concept held only aslong as it remained within the limits of a purely logicdimension; t I Th: first presupporition of this philoso_phy that pretended to bófree ià_ u,ry presupposition

was- that the pure logic concept, in itself, has as itsquality or its nature to pass in oiher, to go beyond itself(the subjectivity. of thé philosopher shourd be indeedtotaily negrecteo towatd its .o.rirury, and then comingback to itself again: something thaí coutd be thoughtof a real and living entiry but tiat concerning the pureconcept neither can be thought nor imagineO, Uut àntysaid. [...] the passage [fromlhe Idea] tó the nature i,snot a dialectical one, but its is something Omerent foiwhich does not exist any category *itt i., a purely ra_tional system, and for which ,rótfr". its inventor is ableto find a category wjthin his own system. fhis attempt[...]-is just an episode in the history of philosophy, [...]useful in order to show thet it is impossible to rectch theconcrete reality through a purely ratioial way.a

And we can also f,nd the same argument in the first series of lecturesl: *rO

in Bertin, especially i" r..i".. ,o. é loeginning of December1841),_something that we can also read in Kìerkegaard,s notes:When the demands of the negative o., ,fr. positive arenot satisfied, it [the negative] itr.rf i, transformed intothe positive.

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' C.H. Weisse, Griindzuge tier Metaphysik, Hamburg 1835, p. IV.8úber franzósische und ,ie:t::h:!hil?s(yhie. Aus dem Franzósischen von Dr. Hubert

:::ií:.Tfi Í{:;i:;;t7"Ii#ui*'i,í'ia#"àJí'ii*,n,otn,vonschering,Stutt-

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INGruD BAsso ARS Brovrs 2011

Hegel did this; he made the philosophy of identity intopositive philosophy, the only philosophy.e

Now the task of philosophy had become exactly the recovering ofthe non-inferable becoming, but without renouncing to the scien-tific discourse, the philosophical discourse. And this was preciselySchelling's concern, as we can read in his inaugural address in Berlinof November, 15th 1841, when he quoted the Hegelian Eduard Gansand his objection according to which "a System can be confutedonly by another System>. Therefore the point of departure of sucha project could just be the individuation of the real nature of theExperience, and consequently in the light of this answer, the recon-sideration of which relationship between Being and Thought couldbe the right one. And with "Thought", what is here meant is notthe pure Thought without any conditions, only able to give birthto "stillborn products',10 but a Thought which is itself a concretereality connected to a thinking real subject.

This was actually a need that Schelling had already pointed outalso in h-is Erlangen Vortrtige two decades before, in 1821, when hetalked about the nature of Philosophy as a science and when heasked himself how it would be possible to conceive and realize aSystem that included living beings. One thing is indeed a science likeGeometry, but definitely another thing is the Subject of philosophy,which is simply indefinable, because it is in incessant movement,since its essence is freedom. Tàlking about the subject of Philosophy,Schelling quotes here emphatically the evocative formula of Gospels:

"Who will keep it, he will loose it, while who will abandon it, hewill regain it".

To this "epistemological" concern, Kierkegaard also dedicates thefirst lines of llris Introduction to The Concept of Anxiety, a work where- together with Philosophical Fragmenfs - the echoes of Schelling'sphilosophy are more evident than elsewhere, even if the Danes willfollow later another way. Here Kierkegaard tries first of all to cali-brate, so to speak, his scientific instruments, right in order to avoica philosophical launching that goes beyond its limits, running thirway the risk to lose the object it wants to grasp:

9 Not1l:9, in SKS 19, p. 313; Engl. trans. by Vanessa Rumb\e,Notebook 17, inKierkeaard's loumals and Notebooks, Ed. by Niels Jargen Cappelorn, Alastair Hanay, DavKangas, Bruce H. Kirmmse, George Pattison, Vanessa Rumble and Brian Sóderquirpublished in cooperation with the Soren Kierkegaard Research Centre, CopenhagePrinceton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2007,vol.3: Notebooks 1-15, p.3l

10 Adolf Trendelenburg, Die togische Frage in Hegel's System, Leipzig f 843, p. 13.

Ars Bnr:vrs 2011 ScntLLrNc's Mtotrolocy AND THE CoNctF oF possIBILIy IN KTERIGGAARD

"By failing to proceed in a scientific manner and bynot taking care to see that the individual issues do notoutrun one another, as if it were a matter of arrivingflrst at the masquerade, a person occasionally achieveia bri l l iance and amazes others by giving the impres_sion that he has already comprehended that which isstill very remote. At times he makes a vague agreementwith things that differ. The gain is always avenged, asis every unlawful acquisition, which cannot be ownedlegally or scientifically. Thus when an author entitlesthe last section of the Logic ,,Actuality,, he therebygains the advantage of making it appear that in logicthe highest has already been achieved, or if one pie_fers, the lowest. In the meantime, the loss is obviòus,for neither logic nor actuality is served by placing ac_tuality in the Logic. Actuality is not served thereby, forcontingency, which is an essential part of the actual.cannot be admitted within the realm of logic. [...] Inlogic, the negative is used as the impell ing power tobring movement into all things. One must nave move-ment in logic no matter how it is brought about, andno matter by what means. The negative lends a hand,and what the negative cannot accomplish, play onwords and platitudes can, just as when the negativei tse l f becomes a p lay on words. In log ic , no move_ment must come about, for logic ls, and whatever lslogical only is. This impotence of the logical consistsin the transition of logic into becoming, where exis_tence and actuality come forth. So when logic becomesdeeply absorbed in the concretion of thJcategories,that which was from the beginning is ever the same.Every movement, if for the moment one wishes to usethis expression, is an immanent movement, whichin a profound sense is no movement at all. One caneasily convince oneself of this by considering that theconcept of movement is itself a transcendence thatirrasno place in logic. The negative, then, is immanent inthe movement, is something vanishing, is that whichis annulled. If everything comes about in this manner,nothing comes about at all, and the negative becomesan il lusion. Nevertheless, precisely in order to makesomething come about in logic, the negative becomes

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INGRTD BAsso ARs BRrvrs 201 I

something more; it becomes that which brings forththe opposition, not a negation but a contraposition.rl

In this work, Psychology wil l be Kierkegaard's epistemologicalinstrument in order to make possible a discourse on reality - andin this case the reality is the fact of Sin, that is, actually the fact offreedom itself. Psychology is in a sense the instrument thanks towhich Kierkegaard thinks it is possible to talk about the negative.Through psychology the negative will be not grasped in its essence(that would be impossible), but it can be truly analyzed by a "phe-nomenological" - we would say - point of view. In fact, Kierkegaardanalyzes the only possible human understanding of the negative, notas an abstract concept, but in its existential reality: the idea of pos-sibility, an idea that causes anxiety. We read in The Concept of Anxiety:

"[...] no science can explain. Psychology comes closestand explains the last approximation, which is freedom'sshowing-itself-for-itself in the anxiety of possibil i ty,or in the nothing of possibil i ty, or in the nothing ofanxiety).12

n [. . .] what effect does Nothing have? It begets anxi-ety. [...] The actuality of the spirit constantly showsitself as a form that tempts its possibility but disappearsas soon as it seeks to grasp for it, and it is a nothing thatcan only bring anxiety. [...] Anxiety is freedom's actual-ity as the possibility of possibility. [...] The possibilityis to be able. In a logical system, it is convenient to saythat possibility passes over into actuality. However, inactuality it is not so convenient, and an intermediateterm is required. The intermediate term is anxiety, [...].Anxiety is neither a category of necessity nor a categoryof freedom; it is entangled freedom, where freedom isnot free in itself but entangled, not by necessity, butin itself".13

Now, I want first to make clear that I will stop at this first stepof Kierkegaard's discourse, in order to make possible a comparison

77 The Concept of Anxiety, Engl. trans. by Reidar Thomte in collaboration withAlbert B. Anderson, Princeton University Press, Princeton 1997, pp.9, 12-23; in SKS4, pp .28r -82 ,28s-86.

72 tni, l . , p. 76; SKS 4,pp.41-42.73 tt id. pp. 47-42; SKS 4, p.347.

Ans Bnrvrs 2O1l ScHILLING's MEomor.ocv erp lsl Corctn o[ PosstBILIry N KIrKic{sD

between Kierkegaard and Schelling on this point. I mean, I willnot enter into Kierkegaard's discourse about Dogmatic, that is thebulwark against which Kierkegaard thinks it is necessary to stop,and this is exactly why he refused Schelling's latest Philosophy ofRevelation. Among other examples, we can read in this context thatemblematic passage in a note of the Concept of Anxiety in whichKierkegaard rightly quoting Schelling's lectures in Berlin, says <<howstrange everything becomes when metaphysics and dogmatics are distortedby treating dogmatics metaphy sically and metaphysics dogmatically,,.l a

So, I will stop now at the first stage of Kierkegaard's discourse, inorder to show why Kierkegaard could have been so interested intoSchelling's latest speculation, and which elements he seems to haveused in his own thought.

We were talking about Possibility: possibility is indeed not an ab-solute nothing, but according to the Platonic distinction (rn3/a On),it is a relative one, and Kierkegaard will not investigate it through ametaphysical discourse, but through the "phenomenology" of theanxiety, that can be considered the human resonance of the onlyconceivable Nothing: not the inconsistent pure Nothing, but therelative and unpredictable one, at the root the human freedom. lnPhilosophical Fragmentsls Kierkegaard actually talks about the Becom-ing as a change that does not concern the essence, but being: it isa change from the not-existing to the existing. Still, this not-beingthat the becoming abandons, has to exist, otherwise one could nottalk about a change, but about something else. So, such a being thatnevertheless is a non-beíng is possibility.l6

It is precisely thanks to the concept of not-being as possibility (thatis something real, not the pure nothing) that Schelling could elabo-rate - escaping from Hegel's panlogism - his "positive philosophy",a philosophy that according to his intent was founded on the his-torical reality, whose essence is freedom... and indeed - as we readin Kierkegaard's notes of Schelling's lectures at the lecture no. 18:nOne can never know what freedom will bring to light".17 Schellinghad also presented during his lectures the distinction between m3lcÒn e oÙt Ón, in particular during the lecture that Kierkegaard in

14 tUid. p.59; SI(S 4 pp. 363-364, in the footnote.

15 Engl. transl. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton University Press,Pr inceton 1985, p. 73; SKS 4, p.273.

16 ta id. , p.74; SKS 4, p.274.

17 sr<s tg, p. 327; Eng. transl., cit., p. 325.

I

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his notes numbers with no. 7, dating from the end of November.lsBut in order to see how Kierkegaard made use of Schelling's con-

cepts, I believe one should analyze Schelling's foundation of thepositive philosophy and understand what exactly it is.

Schelling's positive philosophy was founded on the basis of theso-called "philosophical empiricism," a method that he started toelaborate in Erlangen and then developed later in the Darstellungdes phílosophischen Empirismus in 1836 and in tleber den nationelleGegensatz in der Philosophie of the same year. Schelling realized thathe could have organized his speculation in a system that shouldhave been articulated in five sections:

1. History and critics of the modern philosophy.2. Exposition of the philosophical empiricism.3. Theory of the Absolute.4. Philosophy of Mythology.5. Philosophy of Revelation.

The turning point in his speculation had been Hegel's decisivedevelopment of the Idealism in the direction of the Logic (after thepublication of works like the Science of Logic, 1872-16, and the TheEncyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline, 1817). Thus hefelt the necessity to elaborate a science that was, as we said, rationalbut at the same time positive, real, and historical.

Schell ing stated that there were two different possible ways ofconsidering Empiricism: the traditional one, which according toKant rejects everything that goes beyond the limits of the sensibleexperience, and a higher one, that does not necessary negate thesupernatural. "There exists, accordingly, an empiricism that, thoughtsupersensible, is still empiricism - a metaphysical and not merelysensual empiricism", we also read in Kierkegaard's notes of SchelÌing'sIecture 171e. But which is the nature of the obiect that the positivephilosophy investigates? It is an object supernatural, but still know-able only empirically. We read in the lectures 17 and 1B:

"...a freely acting intelligence, for example, does notfall within the world of sense; nevertheless, it can beknown only empirically. Likewise, a free intelligencebeyond the world will only be knowable through That-sachen [facts]. [...] Positive philosophy is based neitheron what is given in experience, nor on what is givenexclusively for thought. Its principle is neither in ex-

78 nia., pp. 310-11; Eng. transl. , ci t . , pp. 308-30979 tnid., p. 326; Eng. transl., cit., p. 324.

INGRTD BAsso Ars Buvrs 2011

his notes numbers with no. 7, dating from the end of November.lsBut in order to see how Kierkegaard made use of Schelling's con-

cepts, I believe one should analyze Schelling's foundation of thepositive philosophy and understand what exactly it is.

Schelling's positive philosophy was founded on the basis of theso-called "philosophical empiricism," a method that he started toelaborate in Erlangen and then developed later in the Darstellungdes phílosophischen Empirismus in 1836 and in tleber den nationelleGegensatz in der Philosophie of the same year. Schelling realized thathe could have organized his speculation in a system that shouldhave been articulated in five sections:

1. History and critics of the modern philosophy.2. Exposition of the philosophical empiricism.3. Theory of the Absolute.4. Philosophy of Mythology.5. Philosophy of Revelation.

The turning point in his speculation had been Hegel's decisivedevelopment of the Idealism in the direction of the Logic (after thepublication of works like the Science of Logic, 1872-16, and the TheEncyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline, 1817). Thus hefelt the necessity to elaborate a science that was, as we said, rationalbut at the same time positive, real, and historical.

Schell ing stated that there were two different possible ways ofconsidering Empiricism: the traditional one, which according toKant rejects everything that goes beyond the limits of the sensibleexperience, and a higher one, that does not necessary negate thesupernatural. "There exists, accordingly, an empiricism that, thoughtsupersensible, is still empiricism - a metaphysical and not merelysensual empiricism", we also read in Kierkegaard's notes of SchelÌing'sIecture 171e. But which is the nature of the obiect that the positivephilosophy investigates? It is an object supernatural, but still know-able only empirically. We read in the lectures 17 and 1B:

"...a freely acting intelligence, for example, does notfall within the world of sense; nevertheless, it can beknown only empirically. Likewise, a free intelligencebeyond the world will only be knowable through That-sachen [facts]. [...] Positive philosophy is based neitheron what is given in experience, nor on what is givenexclusively for thought. Its principle is neither in ex-

78 nia., pp. 310-11; Eng. transl. , ci t . , pp. 308-30979 tnid., p. 326; Eng. transl., cit., p. 324.

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perience nor in pure thought. Its principle is absolute

transcendence, which comes zuvor before] thought as

well as experience.>

Now, Schelling introduces a new element, the Prius. What is the

nature of this Prius? ln order to explain that, we have to come back

to the first lectures of Schelling's course, when he makes a survey on

the meaning of the rational knowledge in the different stages of the

thought. He had in fact divided his first course in Berlin in two parts:

1 - Introduction to the Philosophy of Revelation or Foundation

of Positive PhilosoPhY.2 - Philosophy of Revelation.2oAccording to Schell ing's survey, Philosophy had historically

reached the point when it divided itself in a negative and a positive

one. Because everything that is real can be considered from two

points of view:a) QUID SIT - WAS (the essence), that is "thing in its concept"'

b) QUOD SIT - DAfi (the real existence, the fact that the thing is)'

we can have the concept of something without its real existence,

but never the contrary, therefore a real "knowing" is always a "recog-

nizing" , even if in this way we grasp only the QUID SIT of something,

not its real existence. The Reason can only recognize the concept of

something, not its real existence. Nevertheless, one cannot recognize

a concept unless it is embodied in something existing. It means that

.otr.epi and the existing object are one... but DAB, thefact of the

existence of an object does not have any influence on the concept

we have of that object, because the existence is something accidental

that we grasp onlY with senses.

But sometimes it happens that the relation between reason and

experience is missing, because experience is lacking. This is the case

of ìupernatural objects. We can think back, in this case, to Kant's

critique to the ontological proof of the existence of God, where it is

said that the concept of God does not prove his real existence. Kant

actually recognized to the "positive" iust the value of an exigency,

but he does not accept its scientifrc value.

But Kant's exclusion of the positive from philosophy, according

to Schelling, cleared the way to Idealism, whereas philosophy will

not only be Critique, but it becomes Science of the Reason' For the

20 But Kierkegaard actually abandoned the course before Schelllng started to ex-

plain the philosóphy or Revelatìon, as we know, exactly because he could not accept

its foundation.

INGRTD BAsso As BRrvrs 201 1

first time with Fichte and his "transcendental Act" that posits "Ichbin", we have a science which is completely a priori, where the onlyprius is the human Reason. In order words, reason becomes at thesame time the subject who knows and the object which is known.

Thus, Reason as the object of itself is:. 1) ínfinite power of knowing,whose content a priori is 2) the infinite power of being, that is the im-mediate concept of being. A concept that, for its nature, passes intobeing, since every thought when it is thought becomes being (inthought). When I think something, I give to my thought the realityof a concept. The thought, because it is thought, necessarily passesinto being (even if it is only the being of a concept). But this passageis not a real movement, it is only a rational one. (See Kierkegaard'sReferat, Iecture no. 321). This is actually the necessity that rules therealm of thought, where nothing can be thought without being inthis way necessary.

But how in this way one can think something which is totally freeof being, but also free of not being? Because, as Schelling states <The

authentic freedom means not just being, but also the possible deci-sion of not being, (that is actually God's decision to create the worldand manifesting himself in it) [SW, II, 3, p. 2O9l.In other words, howwe can think something real without making this really necessaryby having thought it? How can we grasp the eternal mobility of theBecoming without turning it into stone with that glance of Medusathat Reason possesses? How to preserve that portion of relative not-being that is the infinite power of being (the possibility)? How canthe human being grasp and understand in its reality t l:re Infrnitepower of being that is "das Seyende selbst" or the Prius? To arrive tothe concept of "das Seyende selbst" as infinite power of being is thetask of negative philosophy: but if we can grasp it as a concepf, howto grasp the reality of something that because totally free of beingand not being (a reality that comes before every possibility) is alsooutside of thinking? Schelling calls it unvordenkliche Seyn, which issomething "immemorial", it means not thinkable. This is actuallytlrre Prius from which the positive philosophy starts. But if we cannotthink it, how will the positive philosophy start? It will start fromsomething that is, and this being is "das Seyende selbst" as power,that is God, who has decided to reveal himself through Creation,which is something empirical, thus someth.ing that human beingcan grasp. We read in lecture no.22 in Berlin that the absolute Prlashas not the necessity of moving into being, so if i t does it, i t does

2I SxS tg, pp. 305-307; Engl. transl. , ci t . , pp. 303-305.

ARS BRrvrs 2011

just through a frempirical, that is

We can find Sc

<Positir-esense thaton an immthrough [aexperience,difference fbut is i t noNegative Ptas the objecwhich it disraccords withits constructtPhi losophy,posteriori is Ithe absoluteit by free thothought), asble. It is not t

[ought to be It . . .1

<We wili saycan freely prcNow, this seqrThus this factus that even t,understood it.,

But we have to nolthe facts, Schell ing rtory, which is sometlabout Philo-sophy andcontext to quote ScheAristotle's Metaphy sic s

22 taia., p. 327; Engt. rran23 See SW, 11,3, p. t29.

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philosophiae est admiratio,2a a famous passage that even Kierkegaardalso quotes inhis lournal in these years, when he writes that <It is apositive point of departure for philosophy when Aristotle believesthat philosophy begins with wonder and not, as in our times, withdoubt. The world will certainly come to learn that it doesn't do tobegin with the negative [...]"."

It means that the real object of the positive philosophy cannot bethe object of a definite and concluded proof, like it was God of theoÌd metaphysics, whose existence was demonstrated through theexistence of his creatures. We cannot demonstrate him, because itsessence is freedom, and one can never know what freedom will bringforth: the most difficult thing for philosophy is indeed to understandthe possibility.In a sense we can say with Schelling that the wholephilosophy (the positive philosophy) is a never ended proof of theexistence of God.

ln}ris Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen,z6 Schelling said that "The crossfor every philosophy is the investigation of the essence of the not-being [that is the possibility]. We always try to grasp it, but in vaino.The same wrote Kierkegaard in its lournal, when he stated that <Free-dom is the cross that philosophy is unable to bear'.27

Coming back to our initial problem: we have seen that bothSchelling and Kierkegaard emphasize the same difficulty for philoso-phy, that is the difficulty of a scientific discourse which pretends toinclude reality in a system, that is something constantly "possible"and never completed. To include something in a system means - aswe saw - to transform it, through rational comprehension, in some-thing that is necessary, it means to misrepresent it. Nevertheless,Schelling had even been able to include the not-being in its system,taking it as something existing, but in the way of possibility.

This is the same problematic point that Kierkegaard emphasizesin the Interlude of the Philosophical Fragments, when he talks abouth istorical comprehension :

"Everything that comes into existence demonstratesthat it is not necessary, for the only thing that can-not come into existence is the necessary, because thenecessary is. [...] The change of coming into existence

24 SxS tg, p. 335; Engl. transl. cit., p. 333.25 Not 7,21, in SI(S 19, p. 211; Engl. transl. by Bruce H. Kirmmse, in Kierkegaard,s

loumals and Notebooks, op. cit., p. 2O7.26 sw, t , v I I , p .436.27 Toumalen FF:149 (1838), in SKS 18, p. 103.

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is actuality; the transition takes place in freedom. Nocoming into existence is necessary."ru f...]

But if through the understanding we transform something whichhas become (the past) in something necessary, we lose the oblect wewanted to grasp: <If what is apprehended is changed in the apprehen-sion, then the apprehension is changed into a misunderstanding,ze.

In a sense Kierkegaard uses the conceptuality of Schelling, but inorder to reach the opposite result. The intent was at the beginningthe same, Kierkegaard put all his confidence in Schelling as he statesin a famous passage of his notebooks3o, and therefore also tries toimprove Schelling's instruments; however, he cannot follow the oldphilosopher exactly in that crucial point of his philosophy that isthe point of contact between positive and negative philosophy, apoint on which Shelling himself got stuck during the long years ofelaboration of his System.

As Kierkegaard writes still in the Philosophical Fragmenfs, nthe dif-ficulty is to grasp factual being (factual experience) and to bringGod's ideality into factual being".31

The human being can thus think the Being, but he cannot under-stand it, determine it, because being is something from which heis transcended: nevertheless by thinking it, the human being canattest its presence, even if ,rThere is no Here and no There, but only anttbique et nusquam [every-where and nowhere]'.32

Schelling explained that the negative philosophy gave to the posi-tive the "true being" as its latest result, tlire purus actus, the unvorden-kliche Seyn, an absolute being that only if it really exists, it is. And itreally exists, because our senses testify that, and they testify exactlyrvhat we had conceived. But the point for Kierkegaard is that not

28 SXS +, pp.274-275; Eng. t ransl . , c i t . , pp.72,75.29 bid., p.279; Engl. trans. cit., pp. 79-80.': NotesbogS:33 (1841), in SKS 19, p. 235; Engi. transl. by Alastair Hannay, in

lt,::rkegaard's loumals andNotebooks, cit., p.229: "I'm so glad to have heard Schell'ing,s

l" lecfure - indescribable. I have been sighing and the thoughts within me have:n:.,n groaning long enough; when he mentioned the word ,actuality,,concerning

;closophy's relation to the actual, the child of thought leaped for ioy within me asrn !ìzabeth. After that I remember almost every word he said. perhaps here there canh: .-aritv. This one word, it reminded me of all my philosophical pains and agonies.i \orv I have put all my hope in Schelling [...]."

I ^ sfs +, p.247; Etgl. transt. cit., p. 42.31 Pia. , p.22I ; Engl . t ransl . c i t . , p. 13.

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only does not the conceptual knowledge of this pure Being (that isthe knowledge of its possibility) mean that this Being exists neces-sarily, but the contrary is also true; the fact that this Being ls does notnecessarily mean that it is the "necessary Being".33 In this space, thepossibility of a passage is not given, but it is just possible to leapwith fear and trembling by virtue of faith.

According to Kierkegaard, faith is indeed the only organ thanks towhich is it possible to understand historical reality:

" The organ for the historical must be formed inlikeness to this, must have within itself the correspond-ing something by which in its certitude it continuallyannuls the incertitude that corresponds to the uncer-tainty of coming into existence - a double uncertainty:the nothingness of non-being and the annihilated pos-sibility, which is also the annihilation of every otherpossibility. This is precisely the nature of belief - forcontinually present as the nullified in the certitude ofbelief is the incertitude that in every way correspondsto the uncertainty of coming into existence. Thus, beliefbelieves what it does not see,r.34

The position of the human being within the existence is welldescribed by a famous passage of the Postscript, where Kierkegaardsays that:

"For the existing person, existing is for him hishighest interest, and his interestedness in existing ishis actuality. What actuality is cannot be rendered inthe language of abstraction. Actuality is an inter-esse

fbetween-being] between thinking and being in the hy-pothetical unity of abstraction. Abstraction deals withpossibility and actuality, but its conception of actualityis a false rendition, since the medium is not actualitybut possibility." fPostscripf, Hongs' p. 3ial

Only a reason able to be praeter se, an ecstatic Reason, so tospeak could arrive to conceive the unvordenkliche Sein, that is the

Prius, able to be or not to be if it wants: that is a Reason, which ina sense is itself divine. According to Schelling, indeed, a theory ofRevelation, in order that the Revelation is understandable, presup-

33 tnia., pp.245-248; Engl. transl. cit., pp. 40-43.

34 taia., pp. 280-81; Engl. transl. cit., p. 81.

ARS BRrvrs 201 1 ScnlllrNc's Muollolocy AN*D THE CoNCEtr oF PossrBlllrY IN KITRKEG.{IP

poses an already existing original relationship between God and

human consciousness, that precedes the Revelation itself and that

develops itself through the different degrees of Mythology.This is something that Kierkegaard absolutely refuses, and he to

Schelling's position opposes his subiective existing thinker in its "abys-mal qualitative difference" from God.

And against the speculation he recalled the Socratic ignorance,

"... which guards faith against speculation, keepingwatch so that the gulf of qualitative difference betweenGod and man may be maintained as it is in the paradox

and faith, so that God and man do not, even more

dreadfully than ever in paganism, do not merge in someway, philosophice, poetice, etc., into one-in the system."3s

Ingrid BassoSoren Kierkegaard Research CentreCopenhagen Universityingridbasso@tiscal i . i t

[Article aprovat per a la seva publicació el febrer de2OI2]

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35 Slckresr unto Dedth, in SKS 11, pH. Hong, Princeton University Press,

. 21 1: Engl. transl. by Howard V Hong and EdnaPdnceton 1980, p. 99.