We need to have a serious talk about Schelling, /lit/. For too many people Schelling is the man who broke out of the crude subjectivism of Kant and Fichte and made philosophy take nature seriously for the first time as nature, not merely a product of divine activity or an arena for human acting, a genuine subject-object of which consciousness is only the highest expression - a living nature, not a great big determino-mechanistic system like in Spinoza.

This is the story Schelling tells about himself but it is false. Fichte had already unified nature and consciousness - as early as 1796 he is writing about the distinction being nothing but 'appearance'. And even in his (in)famous 1795 Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre the second and third foundational principles are expressions of this unity, while his first principle is, not a mere abstraction of the empirical I, the task of thinking oneself from the Introductions, but God (as he affirms in a 1795 letter to Jacobi as well as in his 1799 lectures), prior to both nature and consciousness. People think of Fichte as a crude subjectivist because they get filtered by his transcendental stance - he puts consciousness first and derives nature from it in order to save freedom and morality and show that they can coexist, not because consciousness actually is first. Only God is first, and the pure will itself is a synthesis of activity and limitation, not mere subjective activity. So nature is spoken of as a 'negative magnitude', as something we 'produce' in response to primitive limitation (the Anstoß), and so on, because of his particular stance. But if you follow him through his Jena system you will find him, in the Sittenlehre and the 1799 lectures especially, affirming the unity of the will, the intellect and the body, and of the body and nature as a whole.

Schelling did not understand Fichte, as Fichte himself always maintained. He thinks Fichte's first principle is simply a reflection on the empirical self - this is understandable if you only read Part 1 of the Foundation, it's impossible if you've thought through the whole. So, for Schelling, with Fichte nature and consciousness are still split in two - Fichte's shown how nature can follow from consciousness, but there needs to be another synthesis in which consciousness follows from nature, and then an even higher identity that synthesizes both. For Schelling, Fichtean idealism is hopelessly one-sided. This is also how Hegel reads Fichte, i.e. through Schelling's eyes, even in relatively late works like his lectures on the history of philosophy. So Schelling starts out with two opposites, nature and consciousness, and then tries to "smoosh" them together. But this is impossible, because he has begun with their opposition. This is why his identity principle is not really an identity at all, as anyone can see for themselves if they care to read his Presentation of My System, and he cannot explain why this identity-principle emanates into multiplicity. It also leads to a lot of schizo speculation about the laws of nature following from a priori principles, "the reduction of form to essence" and so on - as Fichte points out in Characteristics of the Present Age, Schelling never made an original discovery in natural science this way. He just took findings of real scientists and came up with schizo explanations for them. Fichte, on the other hand, begins with unity and then explains the appearance of duality from this unity. Fichte also leaves natural science to actual scientists.

Let's look at a few passages from Schelling's 1800 System of Transcendental Idealism together. I want to show that Schelling didn't understand Fichte because Schelling's retarded misreading has become almost canonical insofar as it is parrotted by Hegel. Exploding this misinterpretation is essential for revivifying the study of Fichte, which will lead to a new epoch of Reason, Socialism with Autistic Characteristics.

"We call unconditioned, that which absolutely cannot become a thing or a matter of fact. Hence the first problem of philosophy can also be formulated as that of finding something which absolutely cannot be thought of as a thing. But the only candidate here is the self, and conversely, the self is that which is intrinsically non-objective."

Schelling thinks he is here faithfully conveying Fichte's system, which he will then show to be incomplete on its own, and crudely "smoosh" together which his naturphilosophie. But the 'self' is not unconditioned and Fichte would never say something so foolish. It is conditioned, on the one hand, by nature/limitation (the body, natural desires, the external world); and on the other, as a will, it is conditioned by a moral 'ought', the culmination of which is God. Who would claim that their own empirical sense of selfhood was unconditioned? Schelling is describing not Fichte's first principle (as he thinks) but only one pole of the third. (Again, because of Fichte's assumed stance, limitation by the body/nature is expressed negatively, not because it is negative in fact, but because it is negative within the context of a transcendental deduction).

"There is no possibility of our principle forming the basis of both theoretical and practical philosophy if it be not itself at once theoretical and practical. Now since a theoretical principle is a theorem, while a practical one is a command, there must lie something in the middle between the two - and this is the postulate, which borders on practical philosophy, since it is simply a demand, and on theoretical, since its demand is for a purely theoretical construction. Where the postulate gets its coercive power from, is at once explained by the fact that it is used for practical demands. Intellectual intuition is something that one can demand and expect."

So Schelling thinks that, because to think of oneself and form a concept of the empirical self is a free act, practical and theoretical philosophy are united in his (retarded misinterpretation) of Fichte's first principle. But this is obviously nugatory, because any system of philosophy or science depends on your doing or thinking of something (i.e. something practical). This is not sufficient to unify the practical and the theoretical, and this is such a blunder that you have to wonder if he read Fichte at all. For Fichte, the union of the practical and the theoretical follows on the fact that, for something to become an object of (theoretical) consciousness to us, it has to stand in relation to us as willing subjects. (Not in the sense that we are actually 'desiring' the object for fuck's sake). Without independent, real, willing activity, there is no self-consciousness and no consciousness of an object - we would be like plants or inanimate objects. I can't run through his proofs in this short post, but this is enough to at least indicate that what Fichte was saying made some sense, and what Schelling says makes none.

"In matters of philosophy the common understanding has no claims whatever, save that to which every object of enquiry is entitled, namely to be completely accounted for. Thus it is no concern of ours to prove the truth of what it takes to be true; we merely have to lay bare the inevitability of its delusions."

If the 'common understanding' is delusive then so is transcendental philosophy, which is nothing but a meditation on common understanding. Transcendental philosophy does not contradict common understanding, it defends it. Fichte writes about this at length in his Sun-Clear Account. Imagine the arrogance of someone who thinks the reality of the external world is a delusion of brainlets.

"The progression, so far deduced, from an absolute antithesis to an absolute synthesis, can now be presented also in an entirely formal fashion. If we conceive the objective self (the thesis) as absolute reality, its opposite will have to be absolute negation. But absolute reality, just because it is absolute, is no reality, and both opposites are thus in their opposition merely ideal. If the self is to be real, that is, to become an object to itself, reality must be blotted out in it, that is, it must cease to be absolute reality. But by the same token, if the opposite is to become real, it must cease to be absolute negation. If both are to become real, they must, as it were, share out reality between them. But this division of reality between the two, the subjective and the objective, is possible no otherwise than through a third activity of the self, that wavers between them, and this third activity is not possible unless both opposites are themselves activities of the self."

There's so much going on here it's hard to know where to start. Schelling is trying to say that what is an object for the self cannot be an absolute object, or else we would no longer be free, but neither can it fail to exist entirely, or else we would have no object and hence could not reflect on ourselves (because here the self becomes an object, and he retardedly thinks this act of self-intution is the first principle of transcendental idealism), hence there must be an oscillation between the self and the object which extends into infinity. I misread Fichte the same way like the first couple of times I read the Foundation. First - Schelling thinks the mere act of self-intuition is an absolute, when it is in fact a freely chosen act. The object *on which you reflect*, the I (not the "self" you narcissist Schelling) of which you form a concept, is relatively, but not absolutely absolute. Schelling thinks actively thinking of yourself is the first principle of the one half of his philosophy, let that sink in for a moment. This activity which he thinks is absolutely first is not something that ordinarily occurs *at all* unless you choose to think of your I. And this activity, which is certainly necessary as a propaedeutic to philosophizing, does not in itself explain anything, it is simply mean to lead you to a consciousness of yourself and ultimately of your will and its relation to thinking. It is *an* intellectual intuition, but it is not *the* intellectual intuition (the subject-objectivity of the pure will, of which we are never directly conscious), and it is certainly not the subject-objectivity of God, which is completely incomprehensible.

Schelling thinks the 'objective self' is a thesis because he still, even now, five years after his "On the I", does not understand what Fichte means by a thetic proposition. A thetic proposition can never be an object, nor even an activity, but is a task - hence "Man is free" is a thetic proposition because freedom is a task and a goal. Likewise aesthetic judgments, because "beauty" is not any particular thing but an unattainable goal. Even "I am" is a thetic proposition because my being is a task for me. Etc. Schelling thinks a thetic proposition is a riff on Kant's analytic - I almost feel embarrassed for him, I would feel bad if he hadn't ended up treating Fichte like such a cunt. This is a *symptomatic* misunderstanding, he has not elevated himself to the genuinely transcendental stance even in the case of logic. Remember what I said above - for Fichte the first principle is a goal=God, for Schelling it is a mere "necessary entity/activity", the "objective self". Any of you anons who are into Aristotle/scholasticism should appreciate why a first principle needs to be teleological.


Schellings 'hovering' activity is Fichte's imagination, though here as frequently Schelling avoids using Fichte's terminology because he wants to feign originality. But of course he doesn't understand this, either. The imagination does synthesize a manifold, but only in conjunction with the understanding and the power of judgment does any limitation and hence any objectivity occur. Again this is the kind of misreading you have the first couple of times you read the Foundation.

Schelling also consistently thinks, here and elsewhere, that the object is something being brought into unity with the I by the deduction. In fact, for transcendental philosophy, there is no object, only the I and its subjective limitations. This is a gross error which destroys his entire system. You can't have a transcendental philosophy which contains an independent object.

I'll also point out, in conclusion, that Fichte himself abandons the purely transcendental stance in his late lectures and refers to himself as what he always really was, an absolute idealist. But by that point he was already relatively obscure. Why did Schelling succeed where Fichte failed? 1) his works are relatively easy to read; 2) he played into the trends of the time (romanticism), whereas Fichte viciously attacked almost everybody around him as pseuds and morons (which they were). He thought the romantics were degenerate hippies.

Hopefully this will help some people see what a nigger Schelling was and give them a hint of the superiority of Fichte. I will ignore any of the standard idiot replies from the Schopenhauer-pseuds, who can't even gloss a sentence of the CPR; from "transcendental solipsists"; from mystick schizos; from anti-intellectuals who think studying philosophers is a waste of time ("I can think all this up myself bro! Why you need to read them books for?"); etc.

>>24503577 (OP)
Schelling was the justified reaction to Spinozas enclosed system.

>Friedrich Harms (1819 – 1880) was a German realist philosopher, much influenced by Fichte.

>>24503644
Well yeah, all of the idealists advanced on Spinoza. Fichte also saw his system as keeping what was good in Spinoza (everything being unified in one first principle, which Kant is not really successful in doing, even though transcendental apperception is supposed to function as such a principle; and unifying thought and being). Here again though the difference between Fichte and Schelling is illustrative - Fichte thinks you have to go beyond substance, where Schelling just wants a sort of super-substance that avoids dogmatism. For Fichte, within the context of transcendental philosophy, every individual I is like Spinoza's substance, while the first principle transcends all individual I's. So Fichte the "atheist" and "modernist" is actually much closer to classical philosophy than Schelling the "Platonist".

>>24503649
Lay it on me, what did he say? I was reading Feuerbach at work, who was also heavily influenced by Fichte. I could see the influence but he was still a dogmatist in the end. His argument that religion is false because it's "just" a reflection on man is completely dogmatic. It's disturbing because you can see Fichte on every page but interpreted in a way directly contrary to his intentions.

>>24503652
To be fair there wasn't much good in Spinoza. His negation of causality led to totalitarian politics 500 years later. Theres a reason communism can be traced backwards from Marx to Hegel to him.

>>24503675
I don't like Spinoza very much either. If you've read a decent amount of premodern philosophy Spinoza is not so impressive - he's using scholastic concepts to argue for modernism and it just doesn't work. Something as simple as there being only one substance is exploded by Aristotle's Meta 4, but he ignores all of the counterarguments someone schooled in those traditions would raise. His use of the word 'infinity' is also equivocal. Etc.

To be fair there is also a direct line from Kant's 'On Perpetual Peace' -> Fichte's 'Foundation of Natural Right' (Socialism with Autistic Characteristics) -> Marx. Fichte thought you could only be really free within a strong state that would make crime impossible and control every aspect of the economy; and that eventually this would evolve into a stateless society where people did what was right without coercion. Sound familiar? Within idealism (not Marxism) the key premise is ought->is, i.e. to be a moral person is to believe a perfect society is possible and will eventually arise.

Middle and Late Schelling are better. He was only 25 when he wrote the System of Transcendental Idealism. What were you doing when you were 25?

>>24503714
Still living with my parents.

>>24503714
Drinking beer and pacing around in my apartment.

>reading Fichte at work
>the black ladies ask what I'm reading
>tell them it's "faith-based philosophy"
>they smile approvingly, if I'm lucky I get an "MMM!"
Fichte, unlike Schelling and Hegel, recognized the weight of Jacobi's criticisms of Kant. All philosophy begins with faith.

Nice post anon. From another anon's synopsis of Fitch and your posts above of Shelling - and understanding that the turn of events - for accomplished scientists, as well - at that time were the question of where does God really belong in science.
My thought - because we're living in the age where we have "methodological naturalism" from "metaphysical naturalism" as an asset - God is a mystery, however far, high, deep, etc. is not enough to reach and unfathomable. So that means one can make it a constant, put on the side, or exclude completely.
>my chived thread >>24494877 I know I'm simple headed.
Either way, it seems the two are battling it out from under Socrate's forms and watdoism >>24503593
>"The progression, so far deduced, from an absolute antithesis to an absolute synthesis, can now be presented also in an entirely formal fashion. If we conceive the objective self (the thesis) as absolute reality, its opposite will have to be absolute negation."

>>24503793
>My thought - because we're living in the age where we have "methodological naturalism" from "metaphysical naturalism" as an asset - God is a mystery, however far, high, deep, etc. is not enough to reach and unfathomable. So that means one can make it a constant, put on the side, or exclude completely.
I'm definitely no expert in 18th century science but my impression from reading idealist philosophers is that most scientists had already completely excluded God from science, and this is something that goes back to the Galileo/Bacon and even into the middle ages. Whether the scientist personally believed in God or not wasn't relevant (and ofc all would say that they did), you tried to explain nature by nature. You still have religious people like Hamann trying to say science didn't make sense without God but they were more fringe. So for example Hamann thought the origin of language could not be explained without God.

Kant would say that there is an ideal of reason that leads us to seek total coherence of nature, but it was not logical to go from this ideal to saying that there is a God. God, freedom, and immortality could only be known practically. This was not meant to be deflationary. But a proof of God would not begin from nature, it would be rooted in your own sense of freedom and being subject to a moral law.

This is also what Fichte means when he talks about God. His argument would be something like "I can only understand how I can exist as a conscious being in nature if nature stands in my relation to my will; this means it stands in relation to morality; but morality depends on God; so nature depends on God too, not as some sort of creator, the relationship would be something we could not understand. If God is posited as a creator then he's simply another being, but he's supposed to transcend nature". Something like that.
>Either way, it seems the two are battling it out from under Socrate's forms and watdoism
They were both well beyond Socrates and Plato, a lot had happened in philosophy since then. They both took inspiration from Plato, though for Fichte this only becomes really pronounced when he's already gotten in trouble and is no longer so famous or influential.

You might enjoy picrel because it addresses your questions directly. These were lectures for first-year philosophy students so they're pretty accessible. A comfy, easy and enlightening read. Fichte's actual arguments are much cooler than my basic summaries of them.

>>24503865
>"I can only understand how I can exist as a conscious being in nature if nature stands in my relation to my will; this means it stands in relation to morality; but morality depends on God; so nature depends on God too, not as some sort of creator, the relationship would be something we could not understand. If God is posited as a creator then he's simply another being, but he's supposed to transcend nature
I somewhat regret posting these short summaries because they are always misleading.

>>24503865
appreciated. thx.
>>24503882
haha, lol, I personally can't write worth a dime, love me my copy-pasta.

more meaningless german garbage

>>24503610
Schelling was more interested in current material and his revivals also do this as well. The critical part of Schelling was his entertaining of plurality, without the underlying currents there is an outcome where all parties can essentially agree that different times produce different material. This makes it easier for integration whereas Fichte was more formal and subjectively abstract. Hegel on the other hand derives philosophical authority of sorts directly from challenges and from some of his complex to simple and reverse notions which historically granted him the legacy as the last German Idealist. Even modern work influenced by Hegel still has elements of Schelling for some topics. Schelling's real issue was that he basically stumbled on the unconscious but left it as a sort of experiential component and it was only after that it took popularity. Hegel basically didn't care, if you're conscious you're doing dialectic. In this respect there is an interconnectedness, and Hegel despite his claims did make this conjecture in his reconciliation of them.

>>24504010
>Schelling was more interested in current material and his revivals also do this as well.
I'm really not trying to be rude or troll you but are you ESL? This sentence is meaningless. What 'current material'? What 'revivals'?
>Schelling was more interested in current material and his revivals also do this as well.
I can't speak to his later work but early Schelling is all about identity. He thinks all plurality can be reduced to one principle in which the subjective and objective are unified. So did Fichte, of course. And yet they both 'entertain plurality' in the sense that they acknowledge a manifold universe, both physical and spiritual, and derive this manifold from their unitary principles.
>without the underlying currents there is an outcome where all parties can essentially agree that different times produce different material.
Another ESL sentence. Are you using google translate to write your posts? Again not trolling, serious question. What 'underlying currents'? What do you mean 'different times produce different material'? This phrase could be interpreted three or four different ways. Are you talking about the evolution of the cosmos, which Schelling certainly writes about? The expression of Reason in human history, which both Schelling and Fichte write about? The history of philosophy itself, which again they both write about?
> This makes it easier for integration
What integration? Integration of what into what? Are you using terminology from a philosopher I haven't read, or what?
>Fichte was more formal and subjectively abstract.
Formalism has a very specific meaning within the context of German idealism. Fichte attacks Kant's formalism in his System of Ethics; I gotta push back on the 'subjective' charge too, I'm arguing against this interpretation of Fichte throughout the original posts. It's something you hear because it's what Schelling said, and then what Hegel said, but I don't think it's fair/accurate.
>Hegel on the other hand derives philosophical authority of sorts directly from challenges and from some of his complex to simple and reverse notions which historically granted him the legacy as the last German Idealist.
Again, ESL b/w extremely vague (sorry).
>Schelling's real issue was that he basically stumbled on the unconscious but left it as a sort of experiential component and it was only after that it took popularity.
Yes, the unconscious is one of the few ideas in this book that I am interested in. Maybe Schelling is best when he's just being Schelling rather than trying to emulate Fichte.
>Hegel basically didn't care, if you're conscious you're doing dialectic. In this respect there is an interconnectedness, and Hegel despite his claims did make this conjecture in his reconciliation of them.
Maybe write your next post in your original language and then we can run it through google translate, might work better.

>>24503714
jerking off to anime ass

>tfw Sophia

>>24504101
I wouldn't say it was rude or trolling. Anytime someone wants to claim epistemology is over or that it has produced hyper-rational players where no win scenarios are all that are left Schelling usually resurfaces, this also applies for when inquiries about the nature of systemization occur, if no one wants to remain in finitude then Schelling will inevitably resurface. If Fichte starts having issues with external world acknowledgement then Schelling can show up, Hegel conjectured he can do this when Fichte remains in his natural state for too long. Schelling can also remind Kant that phenomena/noumena divide was an insurmountable of his system. Schelling's letters on criticism and dogmatism and parts of his natural philosophy contain most of this. To Hegel this is all normative, you continue until death, dialectic is constant warfare and includes all the chaos of the natural state in a perpetual process of establishing order.

>>24503610
>Any of you anons who are into Aristotle/scholasticism should appreciate why a first principle needs to be teleological.
I am into Aristotle and I don't understand the appeal of this mode of philosophizing. You're going to the ends of the earth to prove things that are self-evident and you can't demonstrate what is actually first without introducing falsehood into your system. As far as I can understand from your posts Fichte and Schelling are trying to prove that we are free and that the external world exists, but these are (to use one of your cant words) presuppositional.

Why did it take until 2016 to complete the system of German Idealism?

>>24503675
>led to totalitarian politics 500 years later
LLM-tier arithmetic

>>24504236
>LLM-tier arithmetic
lol I don't know where I got 500 years later from. I was overexcited and in general very typo-prone. I have never used LLM to write about idealism, it isn't up to the job even if I wanted to do something like that. If you think ChatGPT could write these posts (not that they're brilliant), you're kidding yourself.
>>24504223
>I am into Aristotle and I don't understand the appeal of this mode of philosophizing. You're going to the ends of the earth to prove things that are self-evident and you can't demonstrate what is actually first without introducing falsehood into your system. As far as I can understand from your posts Fichte and Schelling are trying to prove that we are free and that the external world exists, but these are (to use one of your cant words) presuppositional.
Freedom and the external world are not self-evident, if they were, people wouldn't doubt them. And freedom actually is presuppositional anyway, you have to believe in freedom even to enter into transcendental idealism. None of these guys thought you could actually prove freedom by means of something else, Kant had shut the door on that. Aristotle was generally hostile to speculation because the only speculation he knew was Pythagoreo-Academic wankery. If you want to understand its value, you will just have to study a speculative system and see for yourself.

>>24504249
>Freedom and the external world are not self-evident, if they were, people wouldn't doubt them. And freedom actually is presuppositional anyway, you have to believe in freedom even to enter into transcendental idealism.
Someone will claim this is a contradiction but it isn't. I'll add that Fichte's system assumes the external world (facticity) as well, where Schelling thinks he can deduce it from the nature of the "self" because, again, Schelling did not know what he was talking about. Schelling seems to think that Fichte was deducing the external world in his Wissenschaftslehre when he actually assumes it in his second and third principles, and there's an important portion in part 3 where he demonstrates that the external world could not be demonstrated, and we can't understand why there are limits, i.e. why anything besides God exists.

>>24503714
crying about leaving the life of my life out of concupiscence

>>24504249
> And freedom actually is presuppositional anyway, you have to believe in freedom even to enter into transcendental idealism.
It's real and actualized by following the moral law in spite of natural necessity. Theoretical reason can not prove it--but practical reason does.

>>24504396
Exactly, and if someone does not believe in freedom/morality, if someone insists consciousness is an illusion and we’re actually determined, there is no way to directly refute them. Their worldview is logically coherent, it’s just abhorrent.

>>24503577 (OP)
Why do you guys love German Idealism so much. It's a bad system that never got completed for a reason.

>>24504429
It's fun desu

>>24504429
German Idealism is just mediterranean mysticism. Start with the Greeks.

>>24504455
Greeks AND Germans are good. Not an XOR.

>>24504433
This is actually a good answer. Fair enough

>>24504159
saving this post OP.
>>24504429
I don't believe it was all designed to have closure. To me, it all comes together and makes a bold dogmatic statement that as the practical moves forward, the theoretical steps up, as well, vise versa.
Was this considered the "dark ages" of philosophy or anything? It reminds me of the scientific theory that , after major bas advancements studying the Sun, everyone believed the solar system was surrounded by ether, and we're all like shitfuckdamnit.jpg

>>24504473
>bas
*base*

>>24504473
No it was. That was a central problem within it. The system couldn't be completed. It was the main thing they were all trying to do.

>>24504429
If you want a complete system then Schopenhauer is the way to go but he's going to try to steer you clear of all this philosophastery.

I've worked myself into a situation where if I opt for a synthesis I'm becoming in the eternal now or if I opt for the paradox route I'm paradoxically in the eternal now. I assure you I don't know anything. I'm just an enthusiast. Put off laboratory formation as long as you can, once it happens it can't be reversed. Heidegger was right about that one, don't think if you don't want one. If he had been born earlier he would have been a German Idealist.

>>24504479
I differ - the "I" problem with these guys was how to keep thing in the hetero sense to move forward. Guys like Schopenhauer and Headgear was dealing with "I" in the homo sense which didn't seem to make very much advancement quickly.

>>24504529
this "body" of idealists form a governance of a system (hetero), which when impacted by a disturbance react very little but is aware that it is there. The other is self-governance (homo), when impacted by even a little disturbance (i.e. a glint of the imagination) reacts like it is ungoverned entirely. The choices both face are 1) accept the thing 2) dispose the thing. The transcendent idealist difference is it has a predisposition setup already to react quicker - and will continue to do so given enough practice (time, space, etc.) Any thoughts?

>>24504429
It’s just really fun and enlightening. It makes my world a little bigger. If philosophy was music, post-Kantian idealism would be jazz. These niggies did some wild shit, even if it doesn’t always work. It is also generally *not* schizo, even if the prose makes it sound like it is. (Schelling tends to go schizo, he had more of an artist’s mind than a philosopher’s and this is why he’s the weakest of the 3).

More pseud-Schelling: “This contradiction (between infinite and finite activity) cannot be got rid of, nor again can it persist. Hence it can be unified only by means of a third activity. This third activity is essentially intuitant, for it is the ideal self that is here thought of as becoming limited. But this intuition is an intuiting of intuition, for it is an intuiting of sensation. Sensing is already itself an intuiting, but an intuiting of the first order (hence the simplicity of all sensations, the impossibility of defining them, for all definition is synthetic). The intuiting now derived is thus an intuiting of the second order, a productive intuition.”

Un fucking believable. There’s no real striving for Schelling, instead the I cancels its own infinite activity. Why? To resolve a contradiction! This is based on a misunderstanding of the “decree of Reason” in part 2 of Fichte’s Grundlage and his failure to appreciate the reciprocity of imagination and understanding, Note, too, the phony dialectical method. With Schelling it’s “hmm here’s a tension… PLONK this activity will do the trick :)” This phony, retarded version of Fichte is shilled to this day by scholars of idealism (not Breazeale, Zoller, Nini or Gottlieb, probably some others too, but most still repeat Schelling/Hegel). Fichte is not a subjective idealist, this is Schelling’s misreading of Fichte.

Why, pray, if the ideal self is becoming limited, is this activity magically ideal? “Because that resolves the contradiction and gets the conclusion I want :)” Fichte saw himself as a scientist, his work is rigorous. This, on the other hand…

>>24504690
>Schelling tends to go schizo
I believe if anyone wants to find closure in these idealists, is to understand that there is always the constant of "a challenger always appears" - meaning even if the "I" goes full meta, elucidated, etc.a disturbance will occur to idk the term "make it aware again" because of the natural occurrence of the constant.
Schelling being an irate brat towards Fichte seems like enjoyable reading, too.

>>24504748
Bro check out their correspondence if you want to see Schelling acting like a brat. Fichte manages to keep a level head which is remarkable in its own right.

I agree with the romantics that philosophy is infinite. No system can adequately account for the whole because the absolute is (in a sense) negative, a cipher. Plato has hints in a similar direction especially in Republic. Or think of the famous owl metaphor in meta 2. I get what Schelling is trying to do here, what’s faulty is trying to do it as a Fichtean, within Fichte’s thought world. He just ends up distorting Fichte and making arguments that don’t make sense.

>>24504779
that same feel - and my hesitation before getting into Plato.

>>24504779
here's my original content thread, I experienced this stuff already. >>24503657

>>24504830
Experience is one thing, science is another. Science is not opposed to experience, it doesn’t rob experience of its immediacy and vitality, but it helps you make some sense of these things, and seeking science is an experience in itself. I highly recommend picrel as a light and readable introduction to speculative philosophy.

>>24504840
it's on the backburner, going to look it up on the internet archive.
Also, best I could come up with regarding speculative philosophy. About my multiple heart failure experiences, the void and coming back etc.
>>24496090

>>24504840
something just clicked together when reading through the thread the last hour - band next door was playing "Comfortably Numb" and the wind was cooling and scooting along at a nice clip. This stuff made my day.

>>24503577 (OP)
>the man who broke out of the crude subjectivism of Kant and Fichte and made philosophy take nature seriously
So a historical materialist?

>>24504881
Historical idealism is more scientific and is equally communistic. Right now we’re still in what Fichte called the “so-called enlightenment”. Soon, Socialism with Autistic Characteristics.

>>24504491
>If you want a complete system then Schopenhauer is the way to go but he's going to try to steer you clear of all this philosophastery.
This. Actual obsessed German Idealists hate Schopenhauer because he actually tries to solve problems and understandings, but what German Idealists love, is the "freedom" of pontification the system allows them

>>24504953
We both know no one gets out. You're not supposed to run out of thoughts but they can't be philosophastery.

>>24504236
Approximately. Just noticing patterns of thought

>>24505840
'led' is past tense

>>24504953
Fichte’s system is “closed” too. Its openness lies in his being able to reformulate it in such varied forms. “This…this is all just pontificating!” I’m breaking my promise in the OP not to engage with Schop-pseuds. Fichte is very practical, he’s all about ethics and living well. Come home, schoppiefag. You’re used to your training wheels, it’s time for the real deal.

>>24504881
>Schelling to Fichte "Just make the "subject" ambiguous and lucid. The mantle is just extra steps and epistemological - I wanna go fast, nigger!"

>>24505888
>OP calling anybody else a pseud lmao
Make a single criticism of SchopGod that isnt namecalling with "fag" or implying that "DAE THINK SIMPLE = BAD? I AM ACTUALLY VERY SMART BTW AND THINK ALBERT EINSTEIN WAS STUPID FOR READING AND TAKING FROM SCHOPENHAEUR INSTEAD OF HEGEGOD" Wittgeinstein already completely destroyed boring conceited philosophers like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. And Schopenhaeur's will is the one post kantian concept actually referenced in Philosophical Investigations.
Give me one good fucking reason you stupid fucks self aggrandizing yourselves by disrespecting schopgod, are actually right in any remote way.
Bonus points for actually being coherent.

>>24506592
cope

>>24506592
This entire thread is full of reasons to read the greats. Their thoughts are interesting, they approach things scientifically, they're politically subversive, and so on. Fichte in particular can help you see that you're not an individual ("the individual does not exist" as he says in FNR) but part of a much broader collective and that your task in life is to advance humanity by living a decent life. Ofc if you put it like that it's boring, it's the arguments that make it interesting.

I've been posting about these guys for months and I've never seen a comment from you Schoppie folks that's above shitpost level. Not one single effortpost, ever, in months of interacting with you people. The idealistanons write multi-paragraph essays, you guys just post memes, "Look Schopenhauer was a bitter misogynist just like me baseddddd!"

>>24504881
>Be Fichte "To become le spongey, I must become ze sponge."

>>24506608
Isn't the problem of suffering the only problem? Does Fichte have anything to say about suffering, especially animal suffering? Or is it all implied in his ethics?

>>24506615
We suffer because we're animals, we have natural desires that can be thwarted, and we can feel pain. A good person is supposed to rise above suffering as far as she can, you're supposed to care about duty above all else. Fichte doesn't give any sort of 'metaphysical' account of suffering because he was a Kantian and he didn't think such explanations were possible. We are limited, we're limited in this way - why? We can't answer that, this is what facticity is all about. You couldn't give an ultimate explanation of suffering any more than you could give an ultimate explanation for our having five senses. All that matters for Fichte is that we find ourselves in this situation, in this world which includes suffering, and what are we going to do about it? Alleviating the suffering of others is a duty; taking care of yourself is also at least an indirect duty.

To me this is a weakness in Fichte because at the end of the day his answer to life's greatest problems is: "Use your brain to ask your conscience what the right thing is to do. Clear your mind, don't let any enthusiasm or fanaticism or selfishness cloud your judgments now. Once your conscience tells your brain what the right thing is, use your brain to tell your body to go and do that thing. Keep doing this into infinity." His theory that we always have immediate certain knowledge of what is right to do at any moment is maybe the most problematic thing he says. He's at his best when he's speculating high in the sky but the closer he gets to earth, the more problems he has. Similarly in his theory of natural right - his account of property rights and the summons is gold, but that's all abstract. Next thing you know he's saying monetary inflation doesn't actually matter and we need to bring back guilds lol.

>>24506635
Fair enough.

>>24506615
He would say that suffering in and of itself is not the biggest problem, it's a sensation. The central question is 'what are we going to do?' 'can we do anything at all?' 'how should we change the world?' 'if there's something we ought to do, where does it come from?' and suffering is handled under this ethical rubric, i.e. we need to help other people and create a society where people can thrive, which means economic reforms, advancing science, and so on.

>>24506642
>i.e. we need to help other people and create a society where people can thrive, which means economic reforms, advancing science, and so on.
Political, social, economic, etc. reforms can't cure an ontological problem. I think this is the issue Schopenhauer posters have with his contemporaries. The rigor of a Kant or Hegel betrays a kind of naivete about life. I know Cioran said as much about Kant. At least you didn't handwave it away as something that lies outside the purview of philosophy, or as a non-issue to a speculative German wizard such as yourself. What Schopenhauer as an "anti-philosopher" lacks in systematic rigor I think he makes up for in temperament. Would Fichte ever recommend voluntary starvation to starve the will to life? No. It's all too cloistered, too much dawdling on the surface.

>>24506655
At the end of the day this comes down to what you're looking for in a philosopher, but I can't help thinking that people who are turned off by the heavier, more autistic thinkers don't really enjoy philosophy qua philosophy at all, they're in it for something else (feels, worldly wisdom, etc.). Without autism (analysis into atomic propositions), you make mistakes in thinking, as Aristotle counsels in the Posterior Analytics. And if you forget about autism you can string together some lovely plausible yarn that reflects your own neurosis and personality, which is more or less what Schopenhauer did. The conclusions of really autistic philosophers like Fichte and Aristotle do tend to be boring, but it's not about the conclusions it's about the arguments. I know this is incomprehensible to many people and these people do not actually love philosophy. You're not going to get an exciting 'wacky' conclusion from careful and scientific thinking but you might have some interesting thoughts anyway.

>>24505888
Systematising at all is just the sign of a weak mind with a shallow understanding of truth. Read Nietzsche as a serious metaphysician.
captcha: DAOMY

I like the way this Fichte guy looks. More pleasant physiognomy and hairdo than any of the other German idealists.

>>24507096
You're too hard on yourself Fichte anon. Fichte can use the Belzung and Chevally paradox, an undecidable arithmetic sequence with fewer inputs than outputs. At the time Fichte was deemed to lack mathematical rigor but it took a long time for people to test and vindicate him. I suspect this was likely due to Descartes making I = I and everyone just going with it. Fichte can opt for I = -I which allows for the sequence. In his time this was basically a way of saying you have different reactions to the same objects at different times. It's been observed in non humans as well so Nietzsche can still show up and want to know what he is.

>>24507096
yeah, what this anon said
>>24507275
keep rooting for the underdog, since every dog has it's day in the sun. The ingredients are already there - he had a beloved predecessor, a strong intellectual challenger at his disposal, and the advantage of history repeating itself.

>>24507096
Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. 12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet, ”so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

>>24507496
AI Sloppa
Examples of "Tathandlung" in the context of German criminal law:
Theft: Even minor thefts can be considered criminal offenses with significant societal impact.
Forgery of documents: This is also punished as a criminal offense.
Fraud or tax evasion: These are common white-collar offenses that, in many cases, are classified as misdemeanors.
Violating an arms embargo: Under specific sections of German law, this is considered a felony.
Insider dealing: If a natural person intentionally engages in insider dealing, it is a criminal offense under specific sections of German law.