Explicit concerns of Schelling in the book are: the existence of evil and the emergence into reason. Schelling offers a solution to the first, an old theological chestnut, in brief that “evil makes arbitrary choice possible”. On the other hand, by no means all interpretations of the work come from the direction of theology and the
problem of evil. The second idea, requiring a rationale of
emergence, was more innovative, because of the place it gave to
irrationalism and
anthropomorphism, within the "cosmic" setting (which need not be taken literally). The work stands also in relation to a decade of previous publications, formulations, and rivalries. A view from the nineteenth century is that of
Harald Høffding (who sets the book in the context of a supposed personal crisis and philosophical block): Modern readings of Schelling's intentions can differ quite widely from this interpretation (and each other). This writing of Schelling is also seen as the beginning of his critique of
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and an announcement of a transitional moment in philosophy; part of the purpose was self-justification, verging on polemic in defence of Schelling's
pantheism. It is therefore a signpost marking a fork in the road for what is now called "classical German philosophy": even if it had its time of dominance,
absolute idealism in Hegel's sense is (after the "freedom essay") just one branch of the discussion of the
Absolute in
German idealism. Hegel became a system-builder while Schelling produced no systematic or finished philosophy in three decades after the
Freiheitsschrift.
Evil as radical The conception of evil is set against both the
Neoplatonic privatio boni and the
Manichaean division into two disconnected and contending powers. Evil must be seen as active, in both God and natural creatures. There is a distinction: in God evil can never stray out of its place (at the base), while in man it certainly may exceed its role of basing self-hood.
Slavoj Žižek writes that the central tenet is that John W. Cooper writes
Spinoza and pantheism At the time of writing the
Freiheitschrift, Schelling had on his mind an accusation of
pantheism, levelled at him by
Friedrich Schlegel in
Über Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808). The German
Pantheism controversy of the 1780s continued to cast a long shadow.
F. H. Jacobi, who had launched it, was someone with whom Schelling was in contact in
Munich, where the book was written. In his book, Schelling takes up the issue of pantheism, concerned to refute the idea that it necessarily leads to
fatalism, so negating human freedom. Here he is closer to Spinoza, erasing the distinction between nature and God. On the other hand, Schelling is trying to overcome the distinction made in Spinoza's system, between
natura naturans (dynamic) and
natura naturata (passive). Schelling wanted to locate the fatalism in Spinoza, not in the pantheism or monism, but in his formulation.
Synthesis claimed According to Andrew Bowie: Schelling considered that the idealist conception of freedom, in
Immanuel Kant and
Johann Gottlieb Fichte, had remained undeveloped, absent a cleaner break with the rationalist systems of Spinoza and
Gottfried Leibniz, and a distinctive theory of its human element. In another view of the book's main theme, leading onto the further development of the philosophy of the
Weltalter (Ages of the World), Schelling In this approach, the Absolute takes on a darker side, and shows therefore the connection to the theme of the problem of evil. This aspect then pervades all life: ==Summary==