THE DISRUPTION OF SEYENDE - BODY, EVIL, AND FREEDOM IN SCHELLING’S STUTTGART PRIVATE LECTURESABSTRACT
The aim of this article entitled “The disruption of Seyende” is twofold. On the one hand, we intend to present to the reader for the first time Schelling’s complete conception of the body in his Stuttgart Private Lectures as an outstanding moment of his middle metaphysics dominated by the metaphysical formulation of a “higher realism” which revindicates the role of the body in human life and experience. On the other hand, we will attempt to highlight the textual and theoretical interrelationships between this Schellingian theory of the body and the broader metaphysical discussion on dualism, pluralism, and epiphenomenalism when thinking about corporeity and its relation to spirit - a discussion that for Schelling takes place under the label of the role of the real and ideal elements in the development of the system of philosophy. We will develop thus the theories of the neutral or innocent status of the body with regards to the spirit, on one hand, and of the centrality of the human spirit, in connection with the body and the soul, clarifying Schelling’s famous assertion according to which “the spirit is not the highest”, on the other. Our main anthropological thesis is that Schelling’s humanism and anthropocentrism do not entail a position of privilege and a right to domination, but, on the contrary, a supreme moral and metaphysical responsibility in the face of all created beings.
Keywords
Schelling; Body; Evil; Freedom; Stuttgart; Seyende