Schelling and the origin of the metaphysics of the will from his philosophy of nature at the birth of German idealism

Abstract

This article aims to analyse the philosophical origin of one of the key points that changed the foundations of modern metaphysics from the contribution of Schelling’s natural philosophy notion, which implies to open from German idealism an alternative conception of the relations between the finitude and the Absolute different from Fichte’s and Hegel’s. His natural philosophy will begin a whole new way of thought that will includes both much of Spinoza’s philosophy and the German aesthetics of Sturm und Drang. Later, and after enormous reflection of the unavoidable totem of Kant’s critical philosophy and his rupture with Fichte, the importance of his philosophical legacy will do nothing but grow, and will influence, more or less obviously, thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud or Heidegger, and will even reach the so called postmodern era in XXI Century, with Deleuze and Zizek and others.