Friedrich Schelling, Vom Ich als Princip der Philosophie [Of the I as Principle of Philosophy]

Dale E. Snow (Loyola University Maryland)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah, Jennifer Marston William, Purdue University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.4.1: German-language Writing and Culture: Germany, 500-present.
Vol. editors: Gerhard P. Knapp (University of Utah), Jennifer Marston William (Purdue University), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jill E. Twark (East Carolina University)

Domains

Philosophy (any)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1795

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Treatise

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

“Of the I as the Principle of Philosophy, or On the Unconditional in Human Knowledge” was Schelling’s second independent publication. It appeared in 1795, and can be read as an extension of Schelling’s briefer 1794 essay “On the Possibility of a Form of All Philosophy.” The first essay had spoken hypothetically of the possibility of such a form – in “Of the I” it is specified: the self is the form of all philosophy. This turn to the self as explanatory principle is the hallmark of post-Kantian idealism and it is intriguing to see how, even in this early essay, so many of the themes that would distinguish Schelling from Fichte and Hegel are already evident.

Written by Schelling in 1795 when he was twenty years old, it contains, together with the “Philosophical Letters on

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1312 words

Citation: Snow, Dale E.. "Vom Ich als Princip der Philosophie". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 13 June 2015 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16465, accessed 25 November 2024.]