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Full Idea
Nobody has chosen their character; and yet this does not stop anybody attributing the action which follows from his character to themself as a free action.
Gist of Idea
We don't choose our characters, yet we still claim credit for the actions our characters perform
Source
Friedrich Schelling (The Ages of the World [1810], I.93)
Book Ref
Bowie,Andrew: 'Introduction to German Philosophy' [Polity 2003], p.106
A Reaction
This pinpoints a very nice ambivalence about our attitudes to our own characters. We all have some pride and shame about who we are, without having chosed who we are. At least when we are young. But we make the bed we lie in.
| 20957 | We don't choose our characters, yet we still claim credit for the actions our characters perform [Schelling] |
| 20956 | Ultimately, all being is willing. The nature of primal being is the same as the nature of willing [Schelling] |
| 22075 | Only idealism has given us the genuine concept of freedom [Schelling] |
| 22074 | We must show that the whole of nature, because it is effective, is grounded in freedom [Schelling] |
| 22076 | Being is only perceptible to itself as becoming [Schelling] |
| 21925 | For Schelling the Absolute spirit manifests as nature in which self-consciousness evolves [Schelling, by Lewis,PB] |
| 22045 | Metaphysics aims at the Absolute, which goes beyond subjective and objective viewpoints [Schelling, by Pinkard] |
| 22057 | Schelling sought a union between the productivities of nature and of the mind [Schelling, by Bowie] |
| 22031 | Schelling made organisms central to nature, because mere mechanism could never produce them [Schelling, by Pinkard] |
| 22072 | Schelling always affirmed the absolute status of freedom [Schelling, by Courtine] |
| 22073 | The basis of philosophy is the Self prior to experience, where it is the essence of freedom [Schelling] |