Filozofija prirode i genealogija vremena u Schellingovim Dobima svijeta
Authors:   , Gradečak Kristijan 
Published: December 2022

Schelling's philosophical writings Ages of the World belong to the middle period of his intellectual work. The main subject of these writings is the idea of time, brought forward using a particular method of historical philosophy. This method is essentially different from all the previous deductions of the idea of time Schelling worked through in his systematical writings of philosophy of nature. The idea of time, as described in historical philosophy, appears as the idea of inner organisation of a divine being, and to describe philosophically that organization, means to reveal inner occurrences in the life of emerging God. In contrast to the pure rationalistic philosophy, which describes distinguishing moments in the historical life of the divine only negatively, Ages of the World represents Schelling's attempt to share positive description of that same history. Therefore, Ages of the World is inevitable for understanding the difference between negative and positive philosophy in the late period of Schelling's philosophical work. Among all writings that discuss the topic of Ages of the world, three versions of the writing describe the age of „Past“. The fragments on the „Present“ mostly contain only preparation and transition into the next book. The third book, which Schelling envisioned to describe the age of the „Future“, remains preserved only as one short draft. The first chapter of this doctoral thesis aims to illuminate Schelling's biographical path, up until the point where his Weltalter-project is mentioned no more, particularly in his correspondence with the publisher. The second chapter briefly reports on the current state in the publishing history of important Schelling's handwritings periodically discovered after his death. The third chapter describes Schelling's understanding of his own position and role in the history of philosophy. He explained this position in various ways, but the most significant understanding that he developed later refers to the distinction between negative and positive philosophy. These two philosophies he called pure rational and historical philosophy. The basic distinction between the two resides in Schelling's understanding of history of philosophy from Aristotle onwards predominantly as a history of negative philosophy. In Schelling's earlier work (for ex. Propaedeutics of Philosophy, 1804.), it is depicted as a history of advancement of reflection, while at the same time positive philosophy followed its course unto tradition of mystics and theosophy. Therefore, Schelling saw into history of philosophy as history of negative philosophy not overcomed, and unrealized positive philosophy, and his role would be to bring forth that very transition from negative to positive. His mature review of his earlier works shows that the tool needed to perform that transition lies in his systematic philosophy of nature. The fourth chapter aims to describe the main characteristics of the English empirical natural science as of late 18th century, and how it completely contrasts the fundaments of Schelling's and Goethe's natural philosophy. Schelling remarks that the main and the most fatal characteristic of english empirical view of nature is its tendency to exclude ideas out of natural research. That stance he shares with Goethe's teaching on metamorphosis. Goethe insisted on developing a faculty that is capable to see the idea using intuition. The latter should be applied on cognition of particular phenomena. Schelling however, aimed to translate Goethe's thought of metamoprhosis on the entire universe. The fifth chapter describes Schellings unique philosophy of nature and its position in the system of the entire philosophy. Particular concepts of space and time as two factors of illusory life of things are depicted as different types of falling out of original identity. The concept of time is defined deductively from the idea of absolute identity which is the principle of Schelling's systematical philosophy, but unlike the space which is a breakdown of identity into totality, time is a phenomenon of imagination (Einbildung) of original identity into physicality, so producing every durance. Chapter six derives Schellings understanding of science in itself. He concieved science as a dynamical system and he applied this viewpoint onto logical structure of science and drew the consequences into the field of ontology. Application of dynamic thinking on science results in a different understanding of logic of judgements: judgements have local, not absolute and generally applicable meaning/value. Therefore, science as a system of knowledge is essentially understood as a movement, as opposed to a static system of generally applicable prepositions. The concept of science as a movement places the soul into the centre of philosophical interest, interpreting it as the principle of inner movement and as a real bond. Therefore Schelling identifies science and soul in his so-called „anthropological scheme“. The seventh chapter gathers the results of „anthropological scheme“ and presents the significant role of the soul for the research in historical philosophy. This role and identity of the soul and science Schelling applied as the main introductional standpoint in the Ages of the World. To the soul as a bond (Band) itself, Schelling attributed so called „conscientia creationis“ (Mittwissenschaft der Schöpfung). It is the potential knowledge of everything that participates in the time of God and the world. This secret knowledge guarantees the entire path of the scientific movement – the beggining, the middle, and the end. Chapter eight extensively presents the main part of all three versions of the Ages of the World, with respect to the construction of idea of God. The construction of the three principals in the divine being rounds itself into the concept of primal nature, perceived as being captured in rotational movement. This unorderly movement is being stopped only by the decision of free spiritual act. The free decision therefore makes the beginning of time, so that the time is completely being determined as succesion of potencies in God. This succesion as the concept of nature is also the content of the „Past“. This past is the time of initial primeval nature, out of which two foundations arise: one of which is the world of visible nature, the other of the so called world of spirits. Chapter nine presents the content of the other two remaining versions of the „Past“, stressing out the difference in Schellings descriptions of the inner life of the divine being. The oldest version contains also the so-called „genealogy of time“ with its main subject – the idea of time. The time is organised in three eternal ages. In opposition to the mechanistic time-concept, Schelling`s idea of eternal time-ages enables us to consider time in physical as well as in spiritual aspect. Considering that, according to Schelling, homogenous and abstract time does not exist. Measurement of time as a form of reality is possible only through the power that counts changes that a thing had beard or experienced in its life. That being said, Schelling's understanding of time explicates Aristotle's notion of time as a number of movement which could not exist without soul as a cause of movement and a mind in soul which counts those movements. On the other hand, time could be understood as a power of measuring through which spirit encompasses all changes of a certain gender of being that fall into his domain. Therefore, the spirit is the ruler of time that divides everything that is, in three main moments. Chapter ten presents Schelling's fragments regarding the book of „Present“ and a short contentdraft on „Future“. These fragments instructively show Schellings intentions regarding both remaining books: in the book of „Present“ he intended to describe the genesis of visible nature and the world of spirits, and the book of „Future“ was supposed to demonstrate the reunion of those two worlds in the last age of the world. Time constitution of history takes human existence as a position of being-expelled from the centre of creation, which caused nature to become his present, and the world of spirits to become his future towards which he aspires. But, according to the idea of creation, the man is that kind of a being to whom nature should have been his past – likewise primaeval nature to God – and the world of spirits true present. Therefore, man's original fall is the preposition of Schelling's philosophy, and it results with the need to restore his spiritual-historical essence. That restorance could only be accomplished if a cognition becomes spiritualised, and that remains the primary task of the positive philosophy. Chapter eleven concludes with pointing out the main marks on the subject with rounded description of the entire movement from negative to positive philosophy. Knowledge of this movement is recognised in this PhD thesis as a philosophy of absolute spirit. The latter corresponds to the spirit as the form of thinking in the age of future.