WEBVTT 1 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:12.119 Welcome listeners. We have another episode for you today, a 2 00:00:12.119 --> 00:00:16.000 special episode in our Freedom series, a bit of a 3 00:00:16.039 --> 00:00:21.399 skeleton crew. Today, I'm here with my co host Victor 4 00:00:22.000 --> 00:00:26.600 and we have a guest today, Christopher Setur, our resident 5 00:00:27.000 --> 00:00:31.800 Schellingian and German idealism expert. So we have brought him 6 00:00:31.800 --> 00:00:39.320 on today to have a discussion about Shelling's Freedom essay. Right, 7 00:00:39.439 --> 00:00:42.759 so we're gonna delve into that. We're gonna get to 8 00:00:42.840 --> 00:00:44.880 the bottom of it, or as close as we can 9 00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.960 to the to the heart of darkness. Yeah, if there 10 00:00:49.039 --> 00:00:51.359 is a bottom, it's it's a bit of an abyss, 11 00:00:51.399 --> 00:00:55.439 but we'll well, we'll work our way into it, nevertheless, 12 00:00:56.240 --> 00:00:59.920 and we'll try to sort out exactly what shealling be 13 00:01:00.039 --> 00:01:03.679 means by freedom and then why he pivots into a 14 00:01:03.719 --> 00:01:06.680 discussion of good and evil for the seeming rest of 15 00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:07.439 the essay. 16 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:10.200 Yeah, but it's. 17 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.400 Relevant, you know, the problem of good and evil. But anyway, 18 00:01:14.159 --> 00:01:16.840 let's check in with our guest here. Hi, Chris, how 19 00:01:16.840 --> 00:01:17.400 are you doing. 20 00:01:17.760 --> 00:01:20.599 I'm doing well, and I'm excited to be here. Actually, 21 00:01:20.680 --> 00:01:23.799 I'm a big fan of the podcast and I listen 22 00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:27.000 all the time, so it's pretty awesome to be here. 23 00:01:27.280 --> 00:01:30.640 Happy to have you, Yes, thanks for coming. Okay, So 24 00:01:31.319 --> 00:01:38.000 where to begin? Well, I guess we've discussed freedom mostly 25 00:01:38.840 --> 00:01:43.120 in existentialist terms with sorry or political and yeah, we 26 00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:47.200 did sort of swerve into the political conception of freedom 27 00:01:47.319 --> 00:01:51.640 as positive negative liberty with Isaiah Berlin, but we have 28 00:01:51.799 --> 00:01:56.319 not touched the German idealist kind of conception of freedom. 29 00:01:56.840 --> 00:01:59.640 So there's a bit of background there that's that's a 30 00:02:00.120 --> 00:02:02.359 be a bit lacking. We're not going to be looking 31 00:02:02.400 --> 00:02:09.039 too much at, say Kant and is practical reason, but 32 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:13.280 that's an important element in the background. We're just gonna 33 00:02:13.280 --> 00:02:17.240 have to deal with that. That's there. And Shelling is 34 00:02:18.520 --> 00:02:21.960 sort of engaging with Kant but also doing his own 35 00:02:22.039 --> 00:02:27.719 thing from the perspective of nature philosophy. Not to put 36 00:02:27.719 --> 00:02:31.960 you on the spot there, Chris, but I guess it 37 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:35.000 would be helpful if you could say a little bit 38 00:02:36.080 --> 00:02:43.000 by way of introduction about Shelling and freedom, getting to 39 00:02:43.039 --> 00:02:46.479 that idea of freedom and Shelling sort of as quickly 40 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:49.319 as possible. I guess is that a big ask or 41 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:50.360 can you do something with that? 42 00:02:50.639 --> 00:02:52.840 Maybe I want to make the ask even bigger because, 43 00:02:53.840 --> 00:02:56.039 like I'm also curious if you could say something about 44 00:02:56.080 --> 00:02:58.479 German idealism, because I also think, I mean, I don't know, 45 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:00.199 maybe we don't need to get that deep into it, 46 00:03:00.240 --> 00:03:03.520 but I think that could be useful and important to 47 00:03:03.560 --> 00:03:04.879 just like get on the table. I mean, I think 48 00:03:04.919 --> 00:03:07.280 a lot of listeners will know, like Kant is sort 49 00:03:07.280 --> 00:03:09.240 of the beginning, and then Hegel is sort of considered 50 00:03:09.319 --> 00:03:12.080 like at least common sense, sort of like the end. Well, 51 00:03:12.159 --> 00:03:13.800 in so far as there's an end, it's still going on, 52 00:03:13.919 --> 00:03:15.319 I guess, but you know what I mean, it's kind 53 00:03:15.319 --> 00:03:17.280 of like the major figures. So maybe you could just 54 00:03:17.280 --> 00:03:20.000 tell us a little bit about the movement and chat 55 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:22.479 and where Shelling fits into it, if that's not too 56 00:03:22.479 --> 00:03:23.039 big of an ask. 57 00:03:23.879 --> 00:03:26.159 I don't think it's too big of an ast at all. 58 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:31.919 Right now, Actually, there's huge debate that Kant isn't actually 59 00:03:32.039 --> 00:03:35.439 not really part of German idealism. He's still a part 60 00:03:35.479 --> 00:03:39.000 of what's called classical German philosophy. The true father of 61 00:03:39.039 --> 00:03:44.039 German idealism is Ficta. Actually, right, Dikta sort of separates 62 00:03:44.120 --> 00:03:49.319 himself from Kant, but it does, You're right, It does 63 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.599 start with this, This entire movement starts with Kant's critique 64 00:03:52.599 --> 00:03:55.159 of pure reason. Now, when the critique of pure reason 65 00:03:55.240 --> 00:03:58.479 comes out, it's not read and it's not well liked, 66 00:03:58.599 --> 00:04:04.280 and it takes someone like someone named Carl Reinhold to 67 00:04:05.360 --> 00:04:08.719 write a kind of a letter series like it was. 68 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:12.400 It was in a journal where he was writing for 69 00:04:12.479 --> 00:04:16.439 a popular audience. So he was writing, you know, little 70 00:04:16.439 --> 00:04:20.000 bits and pieces about reason, about God, about freedom, et cetera, 71 00:04:20.079 --> 00:04:22.839 et cetera, and then all of a sudden, this entire 72 00:04:22.959 --> 00:04:27.759 movement happened with cons critique. Now what is this? What 73 00:04:27.879 --> 00:04:31.720 is this movement of German idealism and everything? It's kind 74 00:04:31.720 --> 00:04:34.800 of it was. Philosophy was almost in a sense at 75 00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:39.199 a at a stalemate between rationalism and empiricism. There were 76 00:04:39.600 --> 00:04:42.720 the empiricist dogmas that were believing that, you know, all 77 00:04:42.759 --> 00:04:46.519 knowledge is grounded, you know, through experience. And then there's, 78 00:04:46.560 --> 00:04:49.920 of course, the great rationalist schools that believe that all 79 00:04:49.959 --> 00:04:52.680 knowledge is kind of innate and we need to kind 80 00:04:52.680 --> 00:04:56.360 of harness reason like a flashlight, even you know, the 81 00:04:56.480 --> 00:05:01.639 light of reason shine on concepts and takes a look 82 00:05:01.680 --> 00:05:07.920 at the you know, the very essence of metaphysics. Now, 83 00:05:08.399 --> 00:05:11.639 his terminology for metaphysics is not the Aristotelian not you know, 84 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:14.279 next to metaphor next to the physics, but for him, 85 00:05:14.279 --> 00:05:19.199 it's beyond nature, beyond the sensible. So he really wants 86 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:23.120 to take a look at reason and and take a 87 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:27.480 magnifying glass to go through the elements of how we 88 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:31.560 know the world, how we know knowledge. And for Kant, 89 00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:35.839 he does something that a lot of people, especially twenty 90 00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:41.519 first century thinkers, are kind of don't really know why yeah, 91 00:05:41.560 --> 00:05:43.720 and he kind of he kind of states that you 92 00:05:43.720 --> 00:05:46.160 know the world how we see it and how we 93 00:05:46.839 --> 00:05:49.480 how we apprehend it, and how it appears to us 94 00:05:50.040 --> 00:05:53.079 kind of conforms to our senses. I'm sorry, it conforms 95 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:56.920 to our categories of the understanding. And so he breaks 96 00:05:56.959 --> 00:05:59.759 down all of these so called categories of the understanding. 97 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:03.680 And then after that we get all of this abundant 98 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:09.279 debates from people like Schultze and of course Rhyinhold and 99 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:13.879 Ficta and many other people writing about what is Kant doing? 100 00:06:13.920 --> 00:06:16.920 Solomon Maimon as well, And so we get these die 101 00:06:17.040 --> 00:06:23.800 we get these very interesting arguments about what philosophy can do. 102 00:06:24.680 --> 00:06:26.800 And maybe that's the maybe that's the best way to 103 00:06:26.879 --> 00:06:31.199 start it off, that really this this period starts off 104 00:06:31.199 --> 00:06:34.439 with three questions, what can I know? What ought I 105 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:37.600 to do? And what may I hope? And of course 106 00:06:37.639 --> 00:06:41.600 what can I know relates to cons epistemology, So what 107 00:06:42.160 --> 00:06:45.480 we can know from from philosophy what ought I to 108 00:06:45.519 --> 00:06:49.160 do is of course the ethical imperative that's in CONT's philosophy, 109 00:06:49.519 --> 00:06:51.920 and the what may I hope is the you know, 110 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:57.079 the next generations, you know, blending the torch after that, 111 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:00.600 you know who comes next after Kant, right, And of 112 00:07:00.600 --> 00:07:03.399 course the next person that comes is Ficta. And it's 113 00:07:03.399 --> 00:07:06.079 really funny because when Ficta comes, he kind of goes 114 00:07:06.120 --> 00:07:08.879 all the way to Kernigsberg, where Kant is born, and 115 00:07:08.920 --> 00:07:12.759 he asked, he asked Kant for a loan. Con says no, 116 00:07:12.879 --> 00:07:16.439 because he's very frugal with his money, and he, you know, 117 00:07:16.519 --> 00:07:18.759 Con says, I'll put you in touch with my publisher, 118 00:07:18.879 --> 00:07:21.839 and you know, we'll get you a piece published. And 119 00:07:21.879 --> 00:07:26.639 so Ficta's first publication that comes out, everyone thinks it's 120 00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:29.759 the fourth Critique, and then Icta kind of gets really 121 00:07:29.879 --> 00:07:37.519 really huge overnight, and so Ficta kind of takes German 122 00:07:37.600 --> 00:07:41.600 idealism to the four. He moved to Yana, which is 123 00:07:41.639 --> 00:07:46.439 the kind of biggest area in Europe right now, for philosophy. 124 00:07:46.879 --> 00:07:50.319 Ryan Hold, who I brought up previously in our discussion, 125 00:07:50.759 --> 00:07:56.639 was the chair of philosophy, and after Reinhold left, Ficta 126 00:07:56.720 --> 00:07:59.000 picked that up, and then Shelling would take it, and 127 00:07:59.000 --> 00:08:02.639 then of course later on Hegel would come there as well. 128 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:05.879 So you can see already that this this one little 129 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:09.879 city where all these people are merging around, are are 130 00:08:10.040 --> 00:08:14.639 just enveloped in trying to understand epistemology, ethics and everything. 131 00:08:14.759 --> 00:08:17.920 I should just say on one other thing before that, 132 00:08:18.120 --> 00:08:22.480 every single major university after Kant had a chair that 133 00:08:22.639 --> 00:08:26.800 was a Kantian chair, so someone in Kantian philosophy. So 134 00:08:26.879 --> 00:08:30.560 of course Reinhold, who wrote these letters on the Kantian philosophy, 135 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:33.639 would take Jena, and there were other thinkers as well 136 00:08:33.679 --> 00:08:37.799 and Halla that were taking a you know, going through 137 00:08:37.919 --> 00:08:43.039 kant scholarship and teaching it. So that's how massive this 138 00:08:43.120 --> 00:08:48.960 movement was sweeping through the continent. And of course they 139 00:08:48.960 --> 00:08:52.600 all had their own their own versions of Kant, right, 140 00:08:52.639 --> 00:08:56.240 So Reinhold's reading of Kant, you know, is a little 141 00:08:56.240 --> 00:08:59.919 different than Kant himself, and of course Ficta, you know, 142 00:09:00.279 --> 00:09:04.039 is a little more is he focuses more on the 143 00:09:04.120 --> 00:09:06.519 subjective element of consciousness. 144 00:09:07.480 --> 00:09:10.080 So did Ficta. I'm curious, did Ficcta sort of start 145 00:09:10.120 --> 00:09:12.559 off self identifying as a Kantient? And then is he 146 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:15.039 because you said that, really and I've heard this too, 147 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:18.679 Idealism starts with Ficta in a way where you know, 148 00:09:18.720 --> 00:09:21.240 hegel you know, he obviously kind of sets the groundwork 149 00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:22.919 or like clears the ground in a way maybe you 150 00:09:22.919 --> 00:09:25.960 could say for idealism to be possible, but really it's 151 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:28.240 like fictus, is Ficta kind of start off as a Kantian? 152 00:09:28.279 --> 00:09:30.519 Then does he go like is he the first to 153 00:09:30.600 --> 00:09:31.960 kind of be like, you know, I'm a different thing. 154 00:09:32.000 --> 00:09:35.639 I'm like this idealist that's like kind of separate and 155 00:09:35.679 --> 00:09:38.120 apart from Kantianism. 156 00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:41.679 Yes, that's a really great question. Actually, yes, So Ficta 157 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:45.639 is in a lot of dialogue and discussion with Kant 158 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:48.600 until seventeen ninety nine, believe it, and then Kant actually 159 00:09:48.679 --> 00:09:51.639 end the discussion because he was just so appalled with 160 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:56.399 how Fikta was taking with his philosophy generally speaking Ficto 161 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.279 when he got to when he was in Yana and 162 00:09:59.679 --> 00:10:02.440 meeting the Romantics at the time, the Schlegel Brothers and 163 00:10:03.320 --> 00:10:07.919 the poets like Tika Tik and Novllles. He was kind 164 00:10:07.919 --> 00:10:13.159 of in charge of like culminating this group of philosophers 165 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:16.360 and kind of like what Mersenne and Gsendi were doing 166 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:19.440 for Descartes at the time. But yeah, no, he saw 167 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:23.519 himself as a cantyon, as someone that would take transcendental 168 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:27.360 philosophy right, this new logic, that comp right, this new 169 00:10:27.480 --> 00:10:34.440 critique of pure reason, this forward. And so however, what 170 00:10:34.519 --> 00:10:39.879 Ficta ended up doing was there was a debate going 171 00:10:39.960 --> 00:10:44.759 around about that conc just you know, takes Aristotle's categories 172 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:47.559 and just kind of moves forward with it and kind 173 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:51.399 of defends his own system. But the great question in 174 00:10:51.559 --> 00:10:55.639 philosophy now was how can we ground philosophy on transcendental logic. 175 00:10:55.960 --> 00:10:58.360 So what Ficta and Ryan will do is talk about 176 00:10:58.360 --> 00:11:02.279 a ground for philosophy. That term ground will be huge 177 00:11:02.320 --> 00:11:06.440 in German philosophy. D grunt is used in Shelling and 178 00:11:06.440 --> 00:11:09.720 in Hegel and of course Heidegger. So this terminology, so 179 00:11:09.799 --> 00:11:12.679 this debate about does philosophy have a ground, does it 180 00:11:12.759 --> 00:11:17.200 have a formation? Oh? Sorry, a foundation is where the 181 00:11:17.720 --> 00:11:20.960 new kind of movement of German idealism starts. So it 182 00:11:21.000 --> 00:11:26.639 starts with Reindwolden Ficta. And there's a letter between Shelling 183 00:11:26.840 --> 00:11:30.399 and Hegel when they're really young, saying, you know, CONT's 184 00:11:30.440 --> 00:11:33.399 got at all, but the premises are missing. They mean 185 00:11:33.440 --> 00:11:37.480 the premises for a foundation of transcendental philosophy. So you 186 00:11:37.519 --> 00:11:40.559 know they need more. We need to start from the 187 00:11:40.600 --> 00:11:45.080 foundation and build up. So to your question, yeah, so 188 00:11:45.240 --> 00:11:49.320 Victo starts off as a as a canteen, but then 189 00:11:49.440 --> 00:11:52.559 realizes that what's needed is a kind of rigorous foundation 190 00:11:53.000 --> 00:11:56.960 that he calls his Vissenschaffle or his science of knowledge. 191 00:11:56.960 --> 00:11:59.120 So it's a science of science basically. 192 00:11:59.440 --> 00:12:03.039 Well that that's awesome. That gives you the sort of 193 00:12:03.720 --> 00:12:09.000 broad melia in which now we're gonna see Shelling kind 194 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:12.960 of comes up. Okay, but we can't do everything about 195 00:12:13.200 --> 00:12:17.720 Shelling's you know, different systems and where that all comes from, 196 00:12:17.799 --> 00:12:22.080 and what this this this essay itself though, this this 197 00:12:22.159 --> 00:12:27.799 philosophy of freedom essay has been identified as as a 198 00:12:27.919 --> 00:12:33.240 very key document in the in the Shelling overra and 199 00:12:33.559 --> 00:12:42.399 this question of freedom that he's investigating, well, Shelling has well, 200 00:12:42.440 --> 00:12:48.080 he is something called a nature philosopher, like natural philosophy, 201 00:12:48.200 --> 00:12:53.200 nature philosophy of nature, and this this is one of 202 00:12:53.200 --> 00:12:58.519 the angles he's coming at this question from is the 203 00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:02.200 philosophy of nature kind of angle, right, because he sees 204 00:13:02.399 --> 00:13:07.480 the idealist conception of freedom as I mean this almost 205 00:13:07.480 --> 00:13:12.159 connects to positive and negative freedom in a very distant way. 206 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:16.399 Is that he almost sees the idealist concept of freedom 207 00:13:16.879 --> 00:13:22.039 as lacking substance, as negative, as almost just formal as 208 00:13:22.159 --> 00:13:30.240 negative freedom in a way, not in Isaiah Berlin's sense, maybe, 209 00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:33.399 but it does seem a little bit similar. And what 210 00:13:33.440 --> 00:13:37.919 he wants to do is describe the sort of positive 211 00:13:38.480 --> 00:13:41.799 content of freedom, I guess you could call it, or 212 00:13:42.039 --> 00:13:47.679 something more real and substantial that freedom is, rather than 213 00:13:47.759 --> 00:13:51.720 defining freedom as something you know in a negative way 214 00:13:52.039 --> 00:13:55.759 or as opposed to determinacy. Right, you have that old 215 00:13:55.799 --> 00:14:01.360 debate of determination versus freedom or necessity freedom necessity kind 216 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:06.679 of debate. So he's picking up here in this this question, 217 00:14:07.159 --> 00:14:11.919 in this atmosphere, with this nature philosophy kind of approach 218 00:14:12.559 --> 00:14:15.840 as a part of it. Does that Does that capture it? 219 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:19.279 Do you think, Chris? Or did I make a mess 220 00:14:19.279 --> 00:14:19.519 of that? 221 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:23.480 No? No, The freedom essay is kind of what we 222 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:26.240 call the middle term of Shelling's thought. He kind of 223 00:14:26.639 --> 00:14:32.039 is moving away from many of his previous maybe earlier thinking. 224 00:14:32.639 --> 00:14:40.000 He starts, he starts rereading the Latin tradition, so people 225 00:14:40.039 --> 00:14:43.679 like meister Eckhart, you know, in the Catholic tradition, I 226 00:14:43.720 --> 00:14:46.600 mean at least but Catholic Germans. He's kind of led 227 00:14:46.639 --> 00:14:50.759 by this Catholic philosopher area named fran von Batter who's 228 00:14:50.799 --> 00:14:56.120 steering him more in a kind of neo Platonic theosophy, 229 00:14:56.159 --> 00:15:02.600 theosophicals side of pilosophy. You are right. Nature does play 230 00:15:02.639 --> 00:15:06.000 a huge part in the in the actual treatise one 231 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:09.639 hundred percent, and he's got a little bit of his 232 00:15:10.399 --> 00:15:12.679 law of identity that he gets from Victa in it 233 00:15:12.720 --> 00:15:18.600 as well. It's a really really compact, seventy page treatise 234 00:15:18.799 --> 00:15:22.639 with so much going on. So it's his last work 235 00:15:22.840 --> 00:15:29.000 number one, and in the Freedom Essay it deals with 236 00:15:29.120 --> 00:15:33.679 many things. So he right off the bat says, everyone's 237 00:15:33.720 --> 00:15:37.159 got a notion of freedom. Everyone has, you know, a 238 00:15:37.240 --> 00:15:40.759 kind of first idea of what freedom is. And he says, 239 00:15:40.840 --> 00:15:45.480 what we're looking for is the concealed essence of freedom, 240 00:15:45.879 --> 00:15:48.799 you know, not the surface level of freedom, but the 241 00:15:48.840 --> 00:15:53.000 most deepest root of freedom, which we find out is 242 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:56.759 actually onto logical. So this is the key point. This 243 00:15:56.840 --> 00:16:01.720 is why people like Paul Tillic, Martin Heidegger, Luigi Parrison, 244 00:16:04.200 --> 00:16:07.200 even Habermats, you know, after his kind of Marxist period, 245 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:11.879 are looking at Shelling because he's one of these idealists 246 00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:15.440 that even to get back to your question, Eric is 247 00:16:15.480 --> 00:16:19.159 not really an idealist anymore. He's an idealist realist. He'll 248 00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:23.240 even say in the treatise that idealism is the soul 249 00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:28.240 of philosophy, but realism is its body. Only the two 250 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:31.000 together can form a whole. So he has this kind 251 00:16:31.000 --> 00:16:36.440 of idealist realist project. And now he's moving away from 252 00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:41.759 let's say the maybe the subjective understanding of consciousness from 253 00:16:41.840 --> 00:16:47.159 ficta or you know, the categories with Kant, and now 254 00:16:47.200 --> 00:16:51.279 he's really kind of looking for all, right, what grounds 255 00:16:51.320 --> 00:16:55.799 the human being in personality? And what is how can 256 00:16:55.840 --> 00:17:00.440 we understand freedom and being free within the con text 257 00:17:00.519 --> 00:17:02.480 of the world that we live in. And this is 258 00:17:02.519 --> 00:17:05.079 the first thing he does. He says that philosophy can 259 00:17:05.119 --> 00:17:08.960 never be separated from its world. That's the first part 260 00:17:08.960 --> 00:17:12.160 of the first page. You know, philosophical investigations into the 261 00:17:12.279 --> 00:17:15.880 essence of freedom right can lead you, in part to 262 00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:19.279 the right conception of freedom, but what is that? It 263 00:17:19.279 --> 00:17:22.440 can't be separated from world, and it can't be separated 264 00:17:22.440 --> 00:17:26.519 from system. Now, his idea of system is not is 265 00:17:26.599 --> 00:17:29.720 not supposed to be understood as how we understand system. 266 00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:33.640 He's kind of, as you said, from nature is nature philosophy. 267 00:17:33.960 --> 00:17:38.000 He's got an organic understanding of system. That means he's 268 00:17:38.079 --> 00:17:43.319 bringing in everything you know, nature and mind, right, you know, 269 00:17:43.480 --> 00:17:46.720 human being and nature. He's bringing in all of these 270 00:17:46.759 --> 00:17:49.440 things together to form what he calls a system in 271 00:17:49.559 --> 00:17:54.079 order to find this concealed essence of freedom. Sorry, am 272 00:17:54.079 --> 00:17:55.279 I going too much over? 273 00:17:56.400 --> 00:17:58.759 Let's just let me actually just kind of ask now, 274 00:17:58.799 --> 00:18:00.880 I mean, I think that was good, but let's let's 275 00:18:00.880 --> 00:18:04.839 try to get maybe concrete about like what Shelling is 276 00:18:04.880 --> 00:18:07.240 saying about freedom, and maybe like one way of doing 277 00:18:07.279 --> 00:18:11.240 that would be to distinguish it from CONTs, which I 278 00:18:11.400 --> 00:18:13.759 see more of our listeners will be familiar with, right, 279 00:18:13.839 --> 00:18:16.640 like CONT's account of freedom, because I think, you know, 280 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:19.519 if kN has this account of autonomy right, and I 281 00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:21.640 know he spends a lot of time and you know, 282 00:18:21.799 --> 00:18:24.400 I'm more familiar with his ethical work being a political theorist, 283 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:26.680 but you know, you know, the idea that you can 284 00:18:26.759 --> 00:18:28.920 have like pure practical reason, that you can have kind 285 00:18:28.920 --> 00:18:31.720 of reason that is, like, you know, somehow separated from 286 00:18:32.880 --> 00:18:36.519 like conditions, somehow which you know I don't find plausible. 287 00:18:36.519 --> 00:18:39.960 But whatever. Setting that aside, you know what's Shelling doing 288 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:40.559 that's different? 289 00:18:41.359 --> 00:18:45.839 Well, first off, you know, Kan doesn't have a theoretical 290 00:18:45.880 --> 00:18:49.599 concept of freedom. Right. He has a practical concept of freedom, 291 00:18:50.119 --> 00:18:55.400 freedom that demands activity. Praxis right, you have a duty 292 00:18:55.440 --> 00:19:00.680 and obligation steontological right. You your demand in a sense 293 00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:05.240 to recognize the other, or to grasp the other without 294 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:09.680 being in heteronomy or without you know, without making yourself, 295 00:19:10.480 --> 00:19:16.240 without subordinating the other to yourself. Shelling takes that and 296 00:19:16.319 --> 00:19:19.680 really and that becomes part of his freedom. He actually 297 00:19:19.720 --> 00:19:23.839 states that freedom is the capacity to choose the good 298 00:19:24.000 --> 00:19:28.000 or the evil. Now what does that mean for Shelling? 299 00:19:28.519 --> 00:19:33.039 He's very particular about the words. So the word he 300 00:19:33.160 --> 00:19:36.759 uses for decision is end chidong in German. Now, if 301 00:19:36.759 --> 00:19:39.920 you remove the end. I was telling this to Eric yesterday, 302 00:19:40.599 --> 00:19:45.680 Hidong means decision, a cut between two two particular things. 303 00:19:46.359 --> 00:19:50.680 And so for him, goodness is and it's going to 304 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:55.079 sound a little bit mystical, but goodness is when we 305 00:19:55.240 --> 00:20:00.880 put the others. We put others themselves before our before us, 306 00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:04.519 so we we think of, you know, the other in 307 00:20:04.559 --> 00:20:10.440 this sense, we're not subordinating them to our own demands 308 00:20:10.440 --> 00:20:15.640 and desires. So originally, what Shelling does is he gives 309 00:20:15.720 --> 00:20:21.359 us a cosmological uh a kind of really fantastic cosmological 310 00:20:21.400 --> 00:20:24.160 reading of it sounds like the time as it's kind 311 00:20:24.200 --> 00:20:29.279 of Christian time Timeeus where he talks about this dark 312 00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:33.960 ground in God, which is him trying to kind of 313 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:37.039 spiritualize Spinoza's ethics. Now I'm getting back to your question, 314 00:20:37.079 --> 00:20:37.799 but I just need. 315 00:20:37.680 --> 00:20:39.680 To No, No, that's it's all good. 316 00:20:41.160 --> 00:20:45.640 So this dark ground is in God. So if we 317 00:20:45.799 --> 00:20:47.640 if we, if we think about this for a second, 318 00:20:47.960 --> 00:20:52.519 this ground that I'm talking about is an empty receptacle. 319 00:20:53.160 --> 00:20:57.720 So it's this empty space that is yearning and desiring 320 00:20:57.799 --> 00:21:02.680 to get back to God in this sense. Now, that 321 00:21:02.839 --> 00:21:08.160 is nature, that is the that's the implicit brute facticity 322 00:21:08.200 --> 00:21:11.960 of nature. It's this darkness at first. Now the reason 323 00:21:12.039 --> 00:21:14.559 why it's dark. Now we have to remember that Shelling 324 00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:18.200 is writing, I guess in a kind of Christian context. 325 00:21:18.359 --> 00:21:21.359 It doesn't have the locals. It doesn't have reason, so 326 00:21:21.440 --> 00:21:27.240 it's nature without reason, nature without freedom. And so we 327 00:21:27.319 --> 00:21:32.440 get this blind drive yearning. The word is zain zouped 328 00:21:32.559 --> 00:21:35.279 in German, which means yearning, So it's yearning to get 329 00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:37.559 back to the one. This is the root of evil. 330 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:42.640 So essentially God's not the cause of evil. The root 331 00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:46.400 of evil is this excess in nature, this excess in 332 00:21:46.480 --> 00:21:49.839 all of us. It becomes this dark kind of I 333 00:21:49.880 --> 00:21:52.480 was about to say taint, and it was this. It's 334 00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:56.480 this dark kind of spot in all of us that 335 00:21:57.119 --> 00:22:00.920 is this urging desiring. So when we put our own 336 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:05.200 desires are craving, and we put that for other people, 337 00:22:05.759 --> 00:22:08.519 that is evil for him. It is in a sense 338 00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:13.279 it's just we get so consumed with ourselves, we actually 339 00:22:13.319 --> 00:22:18.680 remove individuality, personality, We become so put into this blind 340 00:22:19.519 --> 00:22:23.440 viral of drives. Now you can see why a Jijak 341 00:22:23.640 --> 00:22:28.559 likes this and b where Schopenhauer gets this cycle of 342 00:22:28.680 --> 00:22:30.799 drives and will zone theory. 343 00:22:31.559 --> 00:22:35.640 I also saw some sort of a compatibility with some existentialism, which, 344 00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:37.359 of course I mean you can see the line the 345 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:38.759 figures that you just mentioned there too. 346 00:22:38.799 --> 00:22:38.880 Well. 347 00:22:38.920 --> 00:22:41.079 At least Schopenhauer right is clearly like a line that 348 00:22:41.160 --> 00:22:44.119 leads towards existentialism by a Nietzsche and all these other people, 349 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:46.160 you know, to kind of return to the question of 350 00:22:46.240 --> 00:22:47.759 cont a little bit, like because I think that in 351 00:22:47.839 --> 00:22:50.519 a way, like some people could read, con is just freedom, 352 00:22:50.599 --> 00:22:53.799 is just deciding between two arbitrary decisions and you just 353 00:22:53.799 --> 00:22:56.640 like decide one, Whereas it seems like what Shelling is doing, 354 00:22:56.640 --> 00:22:59.440 which again is sort of compatible with existentialism, It's like no, no, 355 00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:03.799 it's actually like about aligning yourself with something that is 356 00:23:03.880 --> 00:23:06.519 like deeper, right, It's like you rather than just making 357 00:23:06.559 --> 00:23:09.200 a choice, it's like you align with something truer. I mean, 358 00:23:09.240 --> 00:23:12.039 for the existentialists, it's going to be like, you know, 359 00:23:12.160 --> 00:23:14.440 some kind of authenticity or something like, you know, I'm 360 00:23:14.480 --> 00:23:17.200 the owner of my choices. I'm aligned with myself. It's like, 361 00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:20.359 but with Shelling, you know, there's obviously a theological aspect, 362 00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:22.559 which maybe we can talk more about, but it does 363 00:23:22.599 --> 00:23:24.880 seem like at the root of it, it's like, you know, 364 00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:27.519 the way analytic philosophers talk about like our higher order 365 00:23:27.599 --> 00:23:32.240 interests in like being a fulfilled person versus our base interests, 366 00:23:32.279 --> 00:23:35.039 which is like you know, desire, pleasure, And it's like 367 00:23:35.079 --> 00:23:37.440 if you're just following your desire, your base desires all 368 00:23:37.440 --> 00:23:39.559 the time, then you're somehow going to be a slave 369 00:23:39.720 --> 00:23:42.559 or like an existentialist. It's like, if you're just following 370 00:23:42.880 --> 00:23:45.200 the they self, you know, to use Hidegerian language, you're 371 00:23:45.240 --> 00:23:47.000 just like, you know, going with the flow. Well, you're 372 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:49.799 not really an owner of yourself. So somehow it seems 373 00:23:49.799 --> 00:23:52.240 like there's something in showing that. It's like, no, no, freedom 374 00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:56.279 is about aligning yourself with this like more truer, deeper yearning, 375 00:23:56.319 --> 00:23:59.519 which I guess he uses, you know, theological language to 376 00:23:59.559 --> 00:24:01.880 talk about. But it does seem like, you know, being 377 00:24:01.880 --> 00:24:05.000 a better version of yourself. I don't know, does that 378 00:24:05.039 --> 00:24:05.480 sound right? 379 00:24:05.559 --> 00:24:08.519 The kind of outline Now here's the thing. You're right 380 00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:13.039 on the money. But Shelling takes this this image that 381 00:24:13.119 --> 00:24:18.559 Kant brings up about having our character or creating ourselves 382 00:24:18.720 --> 00:24:23.720 kind of in eternity in this moment, which sounds very abstract, 383 00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:27.920 but essentially what Shelling says is that we already know 384 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:31.039 ahead of time, like in a kind of presupposed moment, 385 00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:33.599 we know how we're going to choose things. We know 386 00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:37.079 what we essentially want at the very root of our being. 387 00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:40.279 And he takes this you know, this essence from content 388 00:24:40.359 --> 00:24:42.440 he's and he makes this great example. He says that 389 00:24:44.119 --> 00:24:49.240 Judas is not a sinner or doesn't create evil because 390 00:24:49.279 --> 00:24:53.160 of giving thirty pieces of silver or thirty pieces of yeah, 391 00:24:53.400 --> 00:24:57.160 thirty shekels to the Sanhedrin to you know, have Christ, 392 00:24:57.759 --> 00:25:00.839 to give away Christ. He is a sinner and he 393 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:06.119 creates he chooses evil because he puts his own desire 394 00:25:07.160 --> 00:25:11.720 right above the other. In this sense, Jesus, so you 395 00:25:11.759 --> 00:25:15.799 can see the you know, it's not just a choice 396 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:19.559 for showing. It's also kind of onto logical. It's a 397 00:25:19.640 --> 00:25:21.480 kind of ground in a sense, you know, like that 398 00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:25.039 this inner depth of your personality, like you become the 399 00:25:25.160 --> 00:25:30.279 choices that you that you in sense in a sense act. 400 00:25:30.759 --> 00:25:34.559 That's helpful actually, you know, And just to go back 401 00:25:34.599 --> 00:25:40.559