Schelling – Philosophy of Art

Presentation pp33-60 (chapter 2)

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Chapter 1 and 2 explore what is art’s place in the world and the content of art.
Compared to his philosophy of mythology lectures, I consider his philosophy of art to be a
mystical text (at least the first two chapters), very different from what we have seen in class
already. This being one of his earlier lectures, he is young and passionate about the topics he
is discussing. He manages to present the core of his philosophy in a coherent way, make
assumptions, think profoundly and draw conclusions in such a way that I believe this book
to be a helpful instrument in order to really understand what he was trying to say and where
he wanted to go with his work in later years.
Schelling’s style is easy to read and follow. He has divided the lectures into chapters and
every chapter into large paragraphs. Each paragraph is numbered and headed by a statement
or proposition (based on the translation), which then is elaborated upon by what Schelling
calls ‘proof’ or ‘elucidation’, depending on the message he wishes to convey to the
audience/reader.
Furthermore, his writing style reveals that he must have been an accomplished class teacher,
finding pleasure in causing his students or audience to think and reflect on these topics for
themselves. However I have found his style too instructive, as if it was written for purely
educational purposes, as if he is trying to force the audience to think ‘outside of the box’, in
an original way, eg let’s look at mythology in another way, let’s look at the Universe as
God, let’s investigate holy scriptures to see whether there is something that has been hidden
from us.
He is on a mission to educate people and wants everyone to embrace his theory.
As far as translation and language are concerned, we have already discussed in class how
the translators choose to translate words literally in order to remain faithful to the original
text and how this can affect our understanding. I also believe that Schelling uses the word
God in an ambiguous manner, sometimes as the Abrahamic god and other times as a word
for Universe but this may have to do with his effort to do his job without raising suspicion
and attracting the attention of the monarchy or the Church.

THE TEXT
Chapter 1:
Schelling uses Chapter 1 as his foundation for the rest of these lectures. He believes that it is
important to address the most fundamental existential question, which is the nature of the
Universe (I mean, in philosophical terms) before tackling anything else. He provides a very
detailed account of his theory, however he tends to become very repetitive, although I
believe this has to do with his intention to educate his audience.
He also introduces a lot of terms that he will be using throughout this book such as: infinite,
finite, absolute, law of identity, unity, potence, beauty, indifference, negative, positive etc
The absolute or God
He sets the stage by attempting a definition of God by borrowing notions from existing
philosophies.
 ‘God is the absolute All… We know this because there is nothing outside of it !’ (para
3) > the All operates and exists as a totality, not as a multiplicity, however it is not
singular in a numerical sense (ie the One). Rather the All, in its essence, is a unity,
an allness, which is the real meaning of the word ‘one’ in this case. It is the unity of
many finite ‘particulars’, which share in its infinite essence and although one can
take them out of the universal unity to examine them more closely, one needs to
remember that positioning a particular out of the universe, limits its nature, so one
must ALWAYS carry out investigations keeping in mind that the universal essence
of the All emanates from it, permeates the particulars, makes them complete in
themselves, as stand-alone individuals, but still enables them to remain connected to
that All, from which they have originated.

 ‘The All is utterly eternal’ (para 5) > the Universe / God is infinite time just like in a
circle, where there is no beginning or end (positive intuition of eternity). Schelling
states that one cannot claim that the All is independent of time, because this would
mean that it is still connected to time in some way. Additionally, any attempt to
define the All in terms of time could mean that the universe has pre-existed and that
its existence can increase or decrease, ie be measurable, which is impossible. That
type of duration and longevity cannot be applied onto the essence of things, because
their essence is eternal. Notions such as longevity, endurance etc can only be used in
terms of the material world only, when a particular has been taken out of the
universal and has been manifested into our reality. One still needs to be aware of how
limiting this is for the particular, as we disrupt its flowing connection to the All.
Schelling ensures we understand this point very well by repeating this argument quite
a few times.

 Being/our existence/reality emanates from God/the All/the Universe, based on the

simple law of identity (para 1) > Schelling describes the All/God/the universe as
being in a state of infinite self-affirming. This state contains 3 interrelated
principles/consequences (para 2):
1. the absolute All as infinitely affirming itself - the ‘ideal All’
2. the absolute All as infinitely affirmed – the ‘real All’
3. the absolute All as the indifference of both the above – here I believe that the
translator kept the German word out of respect for the original text. Nowadays we
could potentially use the phrase ‘above and beyond and encompassing both self-
affirming or affirmed’ so as to comprehend what Schelling was referring to.

Schelling continues this thought by saying that the All will always be the infinite
affirmation, illustrating his statement by the example of space: space as a universal infinite
three-dimensional notion, can be viewed as length, and/or height and/or width, however it
needs to consist of the total essence of these three elements combined in order to be
complete. Moreover, space is all three and NONE of them. Equally, the absolute All is all
three unities and NONE of them.

What follows is that Being/our existence/reality emanates from the All. Reality, humans
and all particulars follow from God and it cannot be otherwise exactly because the All is
absolute infinite and cannot be conditioned or limited or divided into several parts. This
would go against its nature and essence. A human, as a particular, is conditioned and
 dependent on the universal and cannot be considered as true reality. True reality is only the
All and the All as true universe is eternal (as I have already pointed out Schelling loves
repeating this).

 (para 8, 9, 10, 11) God’s infinite affirmed state within the All = infinite ideality, as
informed into reality (the manifested material world) = eternal nature = God >
eternal nature encompasses all unities (mentioned above) and each unity carries the
imprint of the All.
Schelling attempts a definition of nature (manifested/reflected world) as matter, as
light and a combination of both plus above and beyond this combination (the 3
potences).
He also discusses the real All and the ideal All within the absolute All:

The real All:

particular nature
finite
incomplete revelation of God
God as infinite affirmed
matter
being (manifested forms)
in continuous communion to the absolute All/eternal nature/universal essence, so it
carries within the 3 aforementioned unities and the 3 potences

The ideal All:

eternal nature
infinite
ideality
‘light’
complete revelation of God
God as infinite affirming
acting
in continuous communion to the absolute All/eternal nature/universal essence, so it
carries within the 3 aforementioned unities and the 3 potences

Schelling states that when we talk about nature, the affirmed (material) equals the affirming
(spiritual, ideal), which we can only comprehend via reason.
For him reason does not belong to matter or light. Reason is found within the absolute All,
represents the full reflected image of God into the real and enables us to perceive and
understand how God’s complete revelation is realised via the law of identity.

The place of the Art in the absolute All:

In reference to the ideal All, Schelling expands the notion a bit further by discussing the 3
potences within (para 12, 13, 14):
1. the real:
knowledge
subjective
predominance of the ideal within
2. the ideal:
Action
Objective
Predominance of the real within
3. the indifference of the above
It is in the third potence, the highest potence, where we find Art. Being creative means
expressing the indifference: a combination of knowledge and activity and above and
beyond, once we have established communion with the absolute All in the way that
Schelling has described it with the various unities and potences.

Speaking more specifically about art, Schelling introduces (Para 16) the principles of truth,
goodness and beauty which correspond to the three potences as described above. Beauty
relates to the third potency and consequently to art.

When we talk about the beauty of various works of art, eg poems, we are also talking about
how freedom and necessity play a role in creative expression. However, we are not talking
about freedom and necessity as they manifest in the material world, where we encounter
them as opposites, ie limited and finite. We need to perceive them in their archetypal state,
intertwined in the absolute All, which per se cannot be free or unfree, conscious or
unconscious, necessary or unnecessary (para 16).

Evaluation of art: This can affect artistic expression in that the degree of perfection of a
poem increases or decreases depending on how it represents the blending of the
opposites/the indifference of the Universe (para 19).

The Universe is the ultimate absolute work of Art and is formed in God and in eternal
beauty (para 21)

Philosophy and Art

 (Para 15) the objective of philosophy (the science of reason) is to study the
interconnectedness among truth, goodness and beauty as well as the full
expression of the absolute identity (archetypes) / of the divine in the material
world.
In order to achieve this, philosophy works very closely with art by utilising
reason and imagination, imagination being the power that turns the ideal into
real and vice versa, connecting the soul with the body (para22).

Chapter 2
In Chapter 2 Schelling explores how creative inspiration works and where it comes from.
He embraces Plato’s ‘doctrine of Ideas’ and elaborates further by implying that there is
method in Greek mythology in that, in reality, the gods-protagonists in mythology are
universal Ideas of eternal essence which originate from the absolute All, operating as
symbols, coming to life in the poems, ie manifesting in the material world, and connecting
the universal with the material through art.
He introduces vocabulary such as symbol, schematism, allegory, nature, deification, the
collective etc
The Content of Art
Schelling finishes Chapter 1 by stating that the Universe is formed in beauty as the absolute
work of art, which renders God the sole cause and final possibility of artistic creation by
means of the law of identity (para 23, 24). God is the source of Ideas, and since the ideas are
archetypes, art is really the representation of these archetypes.
Art, being an archetype (universal Idea) herself, becomes the vehicle that enables the
representation of the archetypes into the material world, creating the forms of things (the
particular forms).
 (para 25) the particular forms, despite being pure forms, are connected to the
Universe by sharing in the eternal essence and have no particular essence of
themselves. Participating in the eternal essence completes them and makes them
possible and actual. This gives the impression that the Universe contains many
smaller individual universes, which are in communion with the same essence (eg
many trees make up a forest), constructing what we know as the One.
Plato’s doctrine of Ideas
 (para 27) these particular forms, the mini universes, are called the Ideas. One idea =
one mini universe in the form of a particular, because it shares in the eternal essence.
 (para 28) Idea = a particular god. Schelling uses the word ‘god’ as ‘archetype’,
putting the emphasis on the higher level origin of the Ideas and how meaningful and
impactful they are when they manifest in the material world (particular god), because
they carry the essence of the Universe/absolute All.

At this point Schelling becomes very strict with his audience and warns them: if you
fail to understand this, then you should not to be called a poet or a philosopher (para
29).
This is Schelling’s core argument, which explains the meaning and role of Greek mythology
for the ancient Greeks.
He continues by stating very clearly and passionately that Greeks, contrary to how humans
think and how we value the reality of physical objects, did not consider the gods of their
mythology to be real physical entities. However, in a higher sense, as archetypes, they were
real.
 These gods/Ideas/archetypes are limited (para 30): by being used as symbols in
mythology, the gods reveal their limitations, while maintaining their absoluteness
(since they are still in communion with the absolute All), eg Minerva is the goddess
of wisdom and strength, despite lacking in feminine tenderness.
However from our perspective, as humans, we can relate to this, ie being divine but limited,
which Schelling calls the ‘mystery of life’. The weaving of the universal and the particular,
this mystery of life, can only be perceived by fantasy/imagination.
Creative imagination accepts the Universe as limitless, pure, dominant, free, so any
limitation seen as a manifested particular form, is accepted only because the artist can still
see the bigger picture.
The gods/Ideas emerge out of darkness and chaos, and through a process of theogony and
battle, well-defined characters (the 12 gods of Mount Olympus) replace the initial formless
deities (the titans and giants).
Beauty and morality in Greek mythology
Schelling devotes a few pages in explaining morality and beauty in Greek mythology and
how we should not take everything literally, since this feeds into division and loss of the
bigger picture (division and study of the particular is negative, while the bigger picture is
positive).
 In terms of morality, he states that the gods are not moral or immoral, they are freed
by the constraint of the opposites and are absolutely blessed (para 32). Since they are
beings of a higher nature, they act with freedom, making their lives the perpetual
antithesis of human life (illness and death), as demonstrated by the tragedies of
Sophocles for instance.
 In terms of beauty, the gods as universal Ideas, have emerged out of eternal essence
so they are created in beauty and abide to the laws of beauty (para 33), despite their
limitation in terms of symbolism as we have seen above. If one removed beauty from
the gods, that would nullify mythology.
 Limitations serve only to allow the essentials to be seen (page 42).
 Ugliness: ugliness, since there are many ugly forms of things in Greek mythology,
should not be discounted and can be viewed as a reverse ideal, which is also included
in the realm of beauty. Schelling reminds us that eternal essence unites the pairs of
opposites within the absolute All.

The gods as a totality or world in Greek mythology

(para 34, 35) the gods have been created in mythology as a total world of their own. In this
way they have acquired independent existence as beings of their own and separate from
material reality and only as such, can exist in our world, although they are dependent on
their own world, since outside their environment they may not mean a lot.
This allows their higher nature and eternal essence to shine despite their limitations in their
symbolic roles. In their world, all philosophical topics are possible and have been
exhausted, leading Schelling to state that these gods are the embodiment indeed of our
philosophical concerns.
Mythology is philosophy. The gods become the muses of the artists and the philosophers.
Here Schelling discusses the archetypes of Zeus, Pluto and Apollo (page 43) to illustrate his
statement.
Theogony and procreation (para 36) is a pictorial representation of how thoughts and ideas
derive from other thoughts and ideas as life progresses. The lives of gods by extending into
human relationships, sanctify and enable us to comprehend our own lives from a higher
point of view, the absolute All.

Methodology/representation in poetry
Schelling discusses three methods that we can employ in order for the particular forms of
things to represent the universal Ideas in art:
Schematism (page 46): the particular is intuited through the universal > based on Kant’s
theory, Schelling says that a concept schematises itself when an artist creates an object in
definite form according to the object’s concept. This is possible via the artist’s inner
intuition.
Allegory (page 46): the universal is intuited through the particular. The particular means or
signifies the universal.
Symbolic (page 46, 47, 48, 49): the synthesis of schematism and allegory - In terms of the
Greek mythology, Schelling believes that individual elements can be constructed as
schemas, although overall the poetry of mythology is symbolic. He states that Greek
mythology can also provide examples of using allegory, although the myths did not intend
to be seen as allegorical per se. He concludes that the poetry of Homer is above and beyond
schematism and allegory, although these two methods provide possibilities to construct
individual forms of things. Overall Homeric poetry is an example of the indifference of the
two, ie symbolic, compared to other types of poetry which are clearly identifiable as
allegorical (eg Dante, Voltaire).
Philosophy is symbolic science.

The uniqueness of Greek mythology

Schelling wonders if one can comprehend mythology historically, since it appears that
within the stories we can see traces of great natural revolutions of the primordial world and
of gods potentially being kings of the old (para 39, 40, 41, 42).
Schelling believes that the excellent interweaving of different divine and natural elements
into the poetry of the mythology gives the illusion of having historical significance. The
poet’s skill could be mistaken for scientific evidence that humanity derives from the realm
of the gods, which pre-existed in the beginning of the world.
However, nothing in the philosophy of the Greek mythology and the Greek mythology itself
provides such evidence. Quite the contrary: mythology is about representing the infinite
archetypal universal All and such mistaken views can annihilate its uniqueness as a distinct
work of art of the highest level.
Schelling makes it clear that he will not use the sciences of history and psychology to
explain Greek mythology. One should respect the fact that poetry can be meaningful or not,
but what matters is that it represents the universal.

Greek mythology as the product of one or many poets

(Para 42) Schelling does not want to engage in such a discussion, which he considers to be
irrelevant to the significance of the work of Greek mythology itself. Does it matter, he
implicitly asks. Too many poets would have wasted time in disagreements, and, at the same
time, constructing the magical world of the gods may have been impossible for one person
to achieve.
He answers that it could be the result of a collective effort or individual inspiration, however
what is important is that the poet has managed to capture the nature of the eternal essence
and produce an amazing piece of work which speaks on behalf of the collective. I believe he
leans towards an individual poet, Homer, who must have collected the myths and legends
from the community and weaved them into these two epic poems.
Nature in Greek mythology
Schelling observes how nature acquires a divine character herself which permits the
metamorphosis of the gods into animal forms for periods of times (page 44). This extends to
their total world which exists within a natural ecosystem, whereby forests, rivers and other
habitats are inhabited by various spirits with specific duties and functions.
Schelling claims that this deification of nature causes the human form to be pulled down,
only to ascent to the divine at a later stage, a technique that satisfies our imagination by
utilising opposites. The use of animals, the appearance of gods into human cities and their
involvement in human events seems to add to that deification and sanctification of the
material world.

***

Questions for class discussion:

Gods in animal form (page 44): discuss Schelling’s statement that ‘by pulling the human
form down to that of the animal, the antithetical effect emerges from that attained by the
elevation of the same figure to the divine’.

How do you understand Schelling’s claim that language is perpetual schematisation? (for
instance, in linguistics, scholars ask the question what comes first, the chicken or the egg)

Can we find similarities between Schelling’s propositions about the universe and the
doctrine of Ideas as gods in other philosophies and religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism,
Taoism, Animism etc?

Can the Nativity scene from the New Testament be explained according to Schelling’s
theory as presented in Chapter 2?

Schelling refuses to discuss psychology or history and the origins of humanity in his
philosophy of art. Discuss whether this has changed in his philosophy of mythology as we
have studied it so far.