Title:

“Schelling’s Method of Construction in His Identity Philosophy in General and the Philosophy of Art” in Particular"

Abstract:

In his Philosophy of Art, Schelling argues that viewing art philosophically, from the standpoint of reason, is even more necessary in the present age, “the age of literary peasant wars, wars conducted against all that is sublime, great, or ideal, indeed against beauty itself in poesy and art, an age in which the frivolous, the sensually provocative, or nobly base are the idols to which the greatest reverence is paid.” Following his method of construction in his System of Identity, particular works of art that philosophy constructs are no longer finite things, but Ideas, or particulars that are also universals, organized in a system.  To undertake such a construction would be to approach the study of art methodically and scientifically, so that it can serve as an “instrument” of philosophy because it is the study of the Absolute, the condition of philosophical practice, in its objective form. But this construction is also meant to serve artists and art critics, insofar as they need philosophers to cultivate their taste.