Publication Details

Abstract

On occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of F. W. J. Schilling's birth the author of the paper does a bit of thinking about the importance of this philosopher for the German classical philosophy and for the rise of Marx’s and Engels’ world outlook. „The young Schelling“ was the first philosopher to try to explain dialectically the origin of life from nature itself on the basis of its immanent creativity, vivacity. He detested both mechanicism and vitalism, removed the sharp barriers b tween the inorganic and the organic; he could see unity everywhere, but split inside into polar contradictions. Schelling was an objective idealist, matter was to him only a form of existence of spirit, though it was no longer only his imagination. Schelling influenced Hegel with his views and through Hegel’s materialistically elaborated dialectics also Marx and Engels. Although both these thinkers’ relation to him was very negative, they had in mind „the old Schelling”, who hired himself openly to the German reaction in the early forties.