Friedrich Schelling, Von der Weltseele, einer Hypothese der höheren Physik zur Erklärung des allgemeinen Organismus

Dale E. Snow (Loyola University Maryland)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
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 1789

Places

Germany (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Treatise

Resources

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Von der Weltseele

[

On the World Soul

] was Schelling’s second major publication on the philosophy of nature, appearing one year after his first, the

Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature

of 1797. It begins with a deceptively simple-sounding observation. On the one hand, the world of nature as it is described by science appears to be nothing more than a highly complex mechanism; yet this is simply not true to our lived experience of nature, especially where living and organic phenomena are concerned. As indicated by the title, Schelling seeks the underlying unity of all natural phenomena:

As soon as our observation has elevated itself to the idea of nature as a whole, the contradiction between mechanism and organism disappears, which has held up the progress of natural science long enough

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1449 words

Citation: Snow, Dale E.. "Von der Weltseele, einer Hypothese der höheren Physik zur Erklärung des allgemeinen Organismus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 June 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=34644, accessed 23 November 2024.]