Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Kurt Vonnegut, Friedrich Schelling and Michael Novak

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4 ideas

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
Schelling always affirmed the absolute status of freedom [Schelling, by Courtine]
     Full Idea: Throughout Schelling's work we find the affirmation of absolute freedom or of the absolute as freedom.
     From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Philosophy of Revelation [1843], Vol.13 p.359) by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.83
     A reaction: Of all of the German idealists, Schelling may be the closest to modern existentialism.
For Schelling the Absolute spirit manifests as nature in which self-consciousness evolves [Schelling, by Lewis,PB]
     Full Idea: (Like Schopenhauer) Schelling understood the Absolute - spirit rather than will - to manifest itself as nature in which man evolves with self-consciousness.
     From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Peter B. Lewis - Schopenhauer 4
     A reaction: The influence of Spinoza seems strong here. Is his Absolute just Spinoza's 'God'?
Metaphysics aims at the Absolute, which goes beyond subjective and objective viewpoints [Schelling, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Schelling never lost his youthful conviction that any metaphysics had to be an explication of the 'absolute' as something that went beyond both subjective and objective points of view.
     From: report of Friedrich Schelling (Outline of a System of the Philosophy of Nature [1799]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 12
     A reaction: Even for a scientific and analytic modern philosopher there must be a target of an ideal account that includes human subjectivity within an objective view of the world. Even Mysterians like McGinn would like that.
We must show that the whole of nature, because it is effective, is grounded in freedom [Schelling]
     Full Idea: What is required is to show that everything that is effective (nature, the world of things) is grounded in activity, life, freedom.
     From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.351), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling
     A reaction: I take the ancestor of this view of nature to be the monads of Leibniz, as the active principle in nature. Because this is an idealist view, it starts with the absolute freedom of the Self, and presumably sees nature in its own image.