Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
1775-1854 · German Idealism · Known
Schelling was a German idealist who began with a philosophy of nature and ended with one of freedom, evil and a personal God. He put the root of evil inside God himself: a dark ground that God's existence rises out of and holds in check. In a human being the two come apart, and that is what makes our freedom weighty enough to choose evil. He argued this in his 1809 essay on freedom.
Signature
The position Schelling is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Beauty
- leans Objective
- Perception
- Idealism / Non-Dual Awareness
Positions on the 12 axes the sources answer
- Natural Processes
- leans Purposeful (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mechanistic to Purposeful)
- Society
- mildly leans Collectivism (37 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- The Divine
- mildly between Describable and Indescribable (42 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Universals
- leans Realism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)
- Identity
- mildly leans Unchanging (31 on a 0–100 scale from Unchanging to Changing)
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Unity (25 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Ground of Being
- mildly between Immanence and Transcendence (54 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Opposition
- leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Nature
- leans Harmony (75 on a 0–100 scale from Mastery to Harmony)
- Ethics
- mildly between Ends and Means (54 on a 0–100 scale from Ends to Means)
8 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Schelling refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Panentheism / Non-Trinitarian Monotheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Other
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Harmony
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Cosmic Dualism
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Idealism / Non-Dual Awareness
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Receptive Intellect / Intuition
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Libertarian Free Will
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Beginning of Things
- Emanation / Creation ex Nihilo
What is the origin of reality? - Time
- Linear Progressive / Spiral
What is the fundamental shape of time? - Law
- Natural Law
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Death
- Union with the One / Ascent of the Soul
What happens at death? - Role of Emotion
- Path to the Divine / Cognitive Theory of Emotion
What is the proper role of emotion? - Human Nature
- Redeemably Corrupted
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- The Divine
What is your primary bond and loyalty?