Priority Monism in Schelling’s 1801–1802 Writings

Abstract This chapter articulates the features of Schelling’s monism as presented in 1801–1802, arguing that it is a priority monism inspired by a certain strand of Platonism. Schelling’s monism is a priority monism, rather than a Spinozistic or substance monism, in that it allows finite things to have a measure of independence and self-determination. Yet it is a monism insofar as things exist in and through a certain kind of relative identity with the absolute. This chapter defends Schelling’s identity philosophy against the charge that the unity it achieves is merely stipulative and vacuous by detailing the ways in which unity is operative in the structure of Schelling’s theoretical systems. One example of this is Schelling’s 1802 dialogue Bruno, which crucially invokes the metaphysics of Plato’s Philebus. This chapter concludes with a summary of how Schelling, in drawing on Platonism, advances the post-Kantian tradition in a distinctive way.