Friedrich Schelling 1775 – 1854

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was a 19th-century German philosopher and a leading figure of German Idealism alongside Fichte and Hegel. His early Naturphilosophie sought to integrate the natural sciences into a comprehensive idealist system in which nature and spirit are two aspects of one absolute reality. The System of Transcendental Idealism, published in 1800 when he was 25, set out his identity philosophy. His later work turned toward the philosophy of mythology and revelation, and a distinction between negative and positive philosophy that anticipated existentialist concerns. He was an early collaborator and later opponent of Hegel and held the chair of philosophy at Berlin in his old age. His influence on continental thought, including on Heidegger, the German theological schools, and process philosophy, has been substantial.