The course will focus on two thinkers, and two texts which form a natural pair, for each was written with the other in mind: Hegel's Science of Logic (1816), and Schelling's The Grounding of Positive Philosophy (1842-43). Historically and systematically, the intertwined opposition of Schelling and Hegel dominated the nineteenth century, extended into the twentieth, and endures to the present day. Among those whose philosophical writings cannot be understood fully without reference to the argument of Schelling and Hegel are Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Heidegger, Sartre, and Adorno.

            These works of Schelling's and Hegel's belong to what may be called late German Idealism.  The early phase, which is centred on Fichte's transformation of Kant, and Schelling's early challenge to Fichte in the 1790s and early 1800s, is covered in another course, Topics in German Idealism (PHIL0057), taught this year by Rory Phillips. The early material lies in the background to the later opposition of Schelling and Hegel, which can however be picked up directly for reasons explain below, and the course does not presuppose acquaintance with Fichte, nor even with Kant.

            Early German Idealism is concerned, in rough characterization, with fixing the problems bequeathed by Kant's philosophy, largely by exploiting themes and concepts that he had himself introduced. The project consisted, as it is often put, in getting beyond Kant by means of Kant. Its dominant themes were the metaphysics of human freedom, the systematic unity of theoretical and practical philosophy (that is, epistemology & metaphysics on the one hand, and moral & political philosophy on the other), and the issue of what to conserve of the legacy of Christian belief. These issues had been run through and brought to a conclusion by about 1804. Which is not to say that they had been resolved, or that a consensus had been reached; what had been clarified was simply the existence of two possible standpoints. On the one side, a broadly subjectivist approach, originating with Kant and pursued by Fichte, which sets out to solve philosophical problems on the basis that the difficulties we encounter in thinking about ourselves and the world are functions of our mode of cognition and volition; and on the other, a so-called 'absolute' standpoint, defined and defended by Schelling, that purports to transcend the distinction of subjectivity and objectivity.

            In this course, we take the latter as our starting point. 'Transcending the distinction of subjectivity and objectivity' may sound technical and opaque, there is nothing arcane to it: it is simply the default assumption of common sense and all philosophy up until Kant, viz. that metaphysics is in the business of saying 'How Things Are', and not merely 'How We May Take Things To Be For The Limited Purposes of Finite Human Reason'.

            At issue in the argument of Hegel and Schelling is a new, single, all-decisive, bewildering, but in a sense quite simple question, which is the one and only systematic topic of the course: Is reality constituted by reason? Hegel answers Yes, Schelling answers No. To repeat: Both take for granted the standpoint of non-subjectivist, non-Fichtean, 'absolute' idealism, but each thinks that, when we occupy this God's-eye standpoint, what we see is quite different.

            What you may conclude from the course is that the question is empty, or that it can be deflated and replaced by some more tractable question in philosophical logic, and that, to the extent that it defines the axis of the opposition of Hegel and Schelling, their disagreement is unreal – they might as well be disputing the anatomy of unicorns. But if the course succeeds in doing justice to Schelling and Hegel, it will become clear, I hope, that if 'Is reality constituted by reason?' is indeed a non-question, then this result is no less extraordinary – wacky and nebulous – than Hegel's claim that 'the rational is the real' and Schelling's claim that 'reason is grounded in madness'.

            The course will also seek to persuade you that the argument of Schelling and Hegel can be resolved in favour of one of the disputants, though in the interest of giving each a fair hearing, I will keep my own view under wraps.

            I should point out that this is not a survey course, that it involves close reading of challenging but penetrable primary texts, and that it does not aim to encompass the vast territory covered in the writings of Schelling and Hegel – though it will make contact with numerous more familiar and concrete topics, including human freedom, ethics, religion, and the philosophy of nature. The themes that occupied early German Idealism – themselves perennial problems of philosophy – received in Schelling and Hegel a fresh treatment, on a new plane, free from the constraints of Kantian subjectivism, which in their view, led to a brief holiday from wholehearted metaphysics, to which absolute idealism now returns. Such at any rate is their intention: namely to rejoin the great Western tradition and set themselves in a direct line of descent from the ancients.

            Hegel's Science of Logic is a big book, and we won't need to read it in full. Schelling's, which comes from lectures and much less technical, is short enough to read in its entirety, though again the weekly seminars will focus on selections. And – to say it again – the course focusses on one single, albeit infinitely subtle, question. So the narrative will not be convoluted.

The texts are:

Hegel, The Science of Logic (1816), trans. G. di Giovanni (Cambridge: CUP, 2010). (There is an earlier translation, Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press International, 1989), still in print, not as good but adequate.)
	Schelling, The Grounding of Positive Philosophy: The Berlin Lectures (1842-43), trans. and ed. B. Matthews (Albany, NY: SUNY, 2007).
 