Thesis abstract:

This thesis sets out to explore the evolution of Schelling’s theory of intellectual intuition, not only for the sake of understanding the theory itself, but also as a way of providing coherence and unity to a body of work that has traditionally been described as “protean” and fragmentary. Schelling first invoked intellectual intuition in his 1795 Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosphie and continued to develop its meaning over the next decade. Despite the fact the term is absent from many of his later works, its influence can still be detected by what Xavier Tilliette describes as a “trained eye.” This thesis is, in some respects, an exercise in training the eye to follow the red thread that is intellectual intuition as it weaves through the warp of Schelling’s vast philosophical oeuvre.

There have been several obstacles preventing scholars from appreciating the significance intellectual intuition possessed for Schelling. The first and most damaging has been its presence in the works of both Kant and Fichte which has created the illusion that the term possessed the same meaning for each philosopher. Schelling’s use and interpretation of intellectual intuition has thus often been treated as though still bound by the definitions given to it by Kant and Fichte. Secondly, Schelling himself, likely for the reason just mentioned, experimented with employing different terms (such as “Ekstasis” and “absolute cognition”) to describe what he once called “intellectual intuition.” This has given some scholars cause to assume that intellectual intuition simply “disappeared” from his philosophy as though it had suddenly been made redundant and abandoned in search for other concepts. There is a sense, however, that Schelling’s tendency to pluralise the terminology of intellectual intuition does more to illuminate its meaning than it does to occlude it.

In response to these two aforementioned obstacles this thesis attempts to both (1) distinguish Schelling’s early account of intellectual intuition from Kant’s and Fichte’s while still appreciating their commonalities, and (2) trace the development of Schelling’s underlying theory of intellectual intuition. The result, which is spelled out in chapter 5, is an interpretation of intellectual intuition that is predicated on the idea of participation. While this is not a term Schelling frequently uses himself, it finds justification in its capacity to express a tension that runs throughout many of his accounts of intellectual intuition, between the knowing subject and that which is known. Schelling often oscillates, especially in his early works, between emphasising either the knower or the known while simultaneously maintaining their identity in intellectual intuition. In order to avoid simply collapsing one into the other—which is the logical conclusion whenever intellectual intuition intuition is conceived as either a personal capacity or an ontological event—the concept of participation is introduced. My contention is that the knower can establish an identity with the known without abolishing their differences and forsaking his independence by transforming his knowing into an act of participation. This way the knower attains knowledge only insofar as he participates in the known. Intellectual intuition is, on this account, best understood not as a personal capacity nor an ontological event, but as the result of a genuine encounter between the knower and the known, the self and the world.

Key words: Schelling; intellectual intuition; German Idealism; participatory knowing; positive philosophy.