The Ages of the World

F. W. J. Schelling, Jason M. Wirth

Description

A new translation of the third and most sustained version of Schelling's magnum opus, this great heroic poem is a genealogy of time. Anticipating Heidegger, as well as contemporary debates about post-modernity and the limits of dialectical thinking, Schelling struggles with the question of time as the relationship between poetry and philosophy. Thinking in the wake of Hegel, although trying to think beyond his grasp, this extraordinary work is a poetic and philosophical address of difference, of thinking's relationship to its inscrutable ground.
Translator's Introduction

Synoptic Table of Contents from Schelling

First Book: The Past

A. The Eternal Life of the Godhead as the Whole or the Construction of the Complete Idea of God

B. The Life of the Individual Potency

C. The Actual Assumption of Being (= Revelation = Birth) by God

German-English Lexicon

English-German Lexicon

Appendix: Schelling Editions

Notes

Index

Sujets

• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 27 janvier 2000
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780791493328
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 21 Mo

Extrait

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T HE A GES OF THE W ORLD

i

SUNY series in

Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Dennis J. Schmidt, Editor

ii

T A W HE GES OF THE ORLD

(Fragment)

from the handwritten remains

Third Version (c. 1815)

by

F W J S RIEDRICH ILHELM OSEPH CHELLING

Translated, with an Introduction, by

JASON M. WIRTH

S TATE U NIVERSITY OF N EW Y ORK P RESS

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Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

© 2000 State University of New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

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For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2384

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von, 1775–1854. [Weltalter. English] The ages of the world / by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling ; translated, with an introduction, by Jason M. Wirth p. cm — (SUNY series in contemporary continental philosophy) Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0–7914–4417–1 (acid free) — ISBN 0–7914–4418–X (pbk. : acid free) 1. Ontology. 2. God. I. Wirth, Jason M., 1963– II. Title. III. Series.

B2894.W4 2000 193—dc21 99-057334

P

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Translator’s Introduction

C ONTENTS

Synoptic Table of Contents from Schelling

A

.

B.

C.

F B : P IRST OOK THE AST

The eternal life of the Godhead as the whole or the construction of the complete idea of God

The life of the individual potency

The actual assumption of Being (revelationbirth) by God

German-English Lexicon

English-German Lexicon

Appendix: Schelling Editions

Notes

Index

v

3

55

75

vii

xxxiii

109

121

131

133

149

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T RANSLATOR ’ S

I NTRODUCTION

I

An entry in Schelling’s diary, dated September 15, 1810, reads: “Die 3 1 Weltalterin d. Nacht [The 3 Ages of the Worldin the night].” And so on that night Schelling embarked on what was perhaps his most ambitious philosoph- ical project. Another entry, dated from the end of that year (December 27), and following shortly after lightening and thunder storms and a “violent hurricane in the night,” proclaims thatThe 3 Ages of the Worldwas “begun in earnest” (SP, 216). Schelling was to work on thismagnum opusover the next two decades of his life, announcing its pending publication several times, but never submitting a completed version. Schelling’s failure to complete this book does not seem to have stemmed from a lack of effort on his part. Schelling composed multitudinous versions of Die Weltalter, including numerous versions of the first book (The Past). In 1939 Horst Fuhrmans discovered in the cellar of the Library of the University of Munich a large chest, filled with a disorganized mass of many thousands of fo- lio pages, each crammed with writing in Schelling’s own hand. Among the sheets were not only the lectures for his late philosophy (The Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation, etc.), but also two corrected versions, set but not printed, of the first book ofDie Weltalter, as well as more than twelve quite dif- ferent handwritten versions of the first book. Fuhrmans first discussed this ma- terial in his 1940 bookSchellings letzte Philosophie: Die negative und positive Philosophie im Einsatz des Spätidealismus. Unfortunately, however, these manu- scripts were all lost in July 1944 when the library burned after three consecutive 2 days of Allied bombing. However, the 1811 and 1813 versions had been saved from the trunk and were published by Manfred Schröter in 1946. Schelling’s son, Karl Friedrich

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August, had published a later and much longer version, dating from around 1815, in the eighth volume ofSchellings Sämtliche Werkein 1861, claiming that it was “the most complete” of the versions found among his father’s literary re- mains. Although all three versions are quite extraordinary in their own ways, I have chosen to translate the third and longest version. It is, in my judgment, the most sustained and developed of the three versions. The second or 1813 version has recently appeared in a good translation by Judith Norman with a thought- ful essay by Slavoj Zizek, in which he argues that it is the strongest of the three 3 versions. I myself do not think that it would be appropriate here to argue for the superiority of one version over another. They all merit a careful reading. The first version is the most dramatic in tone and it is my hope that it too will soon appear in translation. Frederick de Wolfe Bolman Jr, first translated the third or 1815 version 4 into English in 1942. This edition is not without its virtues and it might be of some benefit to consult it alongside the present translation.Die Weltalteris a very difficult text and I have tried to ameliorate these difficulties wherever possible. I have followed Bolman’s practice of inserting the page numbers of the original German edition (using the standard pagination) to greater facilitate the possi- 5 bility of using the German alongside my translation. Not wanting to make the reader an utter prisoner of my reading of Schelling—and all translations are readings—I have attempted to make my translation choices as transparent as possible. I have included an extensive German/English and English/German lexicon at the conclusion of the translation, in part to aid in alerting the curious reader as much as possible as to my plan of reading. As to the further details of my own reading of Schelling, I shall have to defer to a future book.Die Weltlal- teris Schelling’s work and, in respecting that, I do not want to co-opt it entirely to my own purposes. I will resist the temptation to pontificate at length as to why I believe that this is a text fully present to the concerns of contemporary 6 philosophical debates and as to why I think that Schelling was unduly over- shadowed by his former roommate Hegel. (This text is, after all, in part Schelling’ is first attempt at a response to Hegel’s monumental 1807Phenome- nology of Spirit.) I will attempt to refrain from suchhubrisfor the time being. Such restraint was not typical either of Schelling’s early career or, as we have seen, of the numerous reworkings ofDie Weltalter. In the winter semester of 1827, Schelling, who had not offered a lecture course for two decades, of- fered a course entitledDas System der Weltalter, a course he repeated in the sum- mer semester of 1833. Yet, with the exception of a minor work defending himself from a hasty and virulent attack by F. H. Jacobi published in January of 1812, Schelling did not publish anything of significance after the May 1809 publication of his most famous work,Philosophische Untersuchungen über das We- sen der menschlichen Freiheit/Philosophical Investigations of the Being of Human Freedom.

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