Okay, this is Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling's "System des transzendentalen Idealismus" (System

of Transcendental Idealism), a foundational text of German Idealism. It's a dense and complex work.
Here's a very detailed, thorough, and unambiguous summary based on the provided text:
Overall Goal and Method:
Schelling aims to expand transcendental idealism into a complete "system of all knowledge." He
intends to prove the system not just through abstract principles but by demonstrating its application to
all major objects of knowledge. His method is to present philosophy as a "continuous history of self-
consciousness," where empirical reality serves as a monument or document of this history. The work
seeks to delineate the distinct epochs and moments of this development of self-consciousness, ensuring
no necessary link is skipped, thus creating an unshakeable framework. A key driver is the perceived
"parallelism of nature with the intelligent," which he believes can only be fully represented by both
Transcendental Philosophy and Nature Philosophy, two eternally opposed but complementary sciences.
Vorrede (Preface):
Schelling acknowledges that a system radically altering prevailing views will face persistent
contradiction, even if rigorously proven. This is due to the difficulty of abstracting from numerous
specific problems that experience presents. He argues that his system's principles, if grasped in their
highest generality, contain the solutions to all possible problems.
The current work aims to:
1. Expand transcendental idealism into a system of all knowledge.
2. Prove this system by applying its principles to all major objects of knowledge, including
problems previously unsolved or newly arising from the system itself.
3. Trace philosophy as a "continuous history of self-consciousness," meticulously distinguishing
its epochs and moments.
4. Demonstrate the "parallelism of nature with the intelligent," which requires both Transcendental
Philosophy (TI) and Nature Philosophy (NP) as complementary opposites. TI provides the
foundation that NP alone cannot.
5. Show that deductions concerning nature (matter, organism) within TI are "idealistic" but not
merely "ideological" (i.e., based on wishful thinking for practical ends). They must be based on
the "original mechanism of intuition" through a real construction of objects.
6. Integrate practical philosophy, where its objective aspect, history, is transcendentally deduced.
The ultimate ground of harmony between subjective and objective action is an "absolute
Identity," not a personal being or mere abstraction.
7. Establish principles of teleology to explain the coexistence of mechanism and purposefulness in
nature.
8. Conclude with the philosophy of art, which is integral to the system.
Schelling hopes for a generally readable presentation and expects interest from those working
on similar problems, while discouraging those not genuinely seeking understanding.
Einleitung (Introduction):
• § 1. Concept of Transcendental Philosophy:
1. All knowledge rests on the correspondence of an objective with a subjective. Truth is the
agreement of representations with their objects.
2. Objective = Nature; Subjective = Ich (I) or Intelligence. These are opposites (conscious
vs. unconscious, representing vs. representable). The task is to explain their necessary
co-presence in knowledge.
3. In knowledge, subjective and objective are unified and simultaneous. To explain this
identity, one must start by positing one as prior to the other.
4. Two possible paths:
• A. Objective First (Nature): How does a corresponding subjective element
(intelligence) arise? This is the task of Nature Science, which strives to
"spiritualize" nature's laws into laws of intuition and thought. The highest
perfection of nature science would be the complete dissolution of nature into
intelligence. This leads to Nature Philosophy.
• B. Subjective First (Intelligence): How does a corresponding objective element
arise? This is the task of Transcendental Philosophy. It is the other necessary
fundamental science of philosophy.
• § 2. Corollaries:
1. TI begins with radical skepticism about the reality of the objective world, as it posits the
subjective as primary.
2. The only immediately certain proposition is "I am." The certainty of "things exist
outside me" is derivative, resting on its identity with "I am." TI aims to demonstrate this
identity.
3. TI makes the subjective (the act of knowing) its immediate object, while the objective
becomes an indirect object. It is knowledge of knowledge as purely subjective. This
requires a constant "self-objectification of the subjective."
• § 3. Preliminary Division of Transcendental Philosophy:
TI explains how knowledge is possible, assuming the subjective is primary. It examines original
convictions:
1. A. Theoretical Philosophy: Conviction: A world of things exists independently, and our
representations correspond to them. Task: Explain how representations can agree with
independent objects (i.e., explain the possibility of experience).
2. B. Practical Philosophy: Conviction: Ideas arising freely in us can transition into the
real world and gain objective reality (i.e., objects can be changed by our ideas). Task:
Explain how the objective can be changed by a mere thought.
 3. C. Contradiction & Resolution: (A) implies Vorstellung (representation) is a slave to
the objective; (B) implies the objective is slave to Vorstellung. Resolution: A pre-
established harmony between the ideal and real worlds. This harmony is possible if the
activity producing the objective world (unconsciously) is identical with the activity
expressed in willing (consciously). Nature will then appear as a product of both
conscious and unconscious activity – purposeful without being explainably purposeful.
This leads to Teleology, the philosophy of nature's purposes, uniting theoretical and
practical philosophy.
4. D. Return to Principle: The system is complete if this identity of unconscious and
conscious activity can be shown within the principle (the Ich) itself. This occurs in
aesthetic activity. The artwork is a product of such unified activity. The objective world
is "unconscious poetry of the spirit." The Philosophy of Art is the keystone of the entire
philosophical edifice.
• § 4. Organ of Transcendental Philosophy:
1. Its immediate object is the subjective; its organ is the inner sense. Its objects, unlike
mathematical ones, cannot be externally intuited.
2. Objects of TI exist only as freely produced. This production requires constant inner
activity and constant reflection on this producing – being simultaneously the intuited
(producer) and the intuiting.
3. This becoming-object of the usually non-objective occurs through an aesthetic act of
imagination. Philosophy, like art, is productive. The sense for philosophy is the aesthetic
sense.
4. Common sense has no claims on philosophy beyond demanding full explanation of its
own (often illusory) convictions. TI must show why common sense must perceive the
world as it does (e.g., as external things).
Erster Hauptabschnitt: Vom Prinzip des transzendentalen Idealismus (On the Principle of TI)
• Erster Abschnitt: Von der Notwendigkeit und Beschaffenheit eines höchsten Prinzips des
Wissens (On the Necessity and Nature of a Highest Principle of Knowledge):
1. If knowledge has reality, it must have conditions. It consists of propositions not
immediately true but deriving reality from something else. There must be a universal
mediator of knowledge.
2. If knowledge is a system, its principle must lie within knowledge.
3. This principle must be singular, as truth is absolute and uniform.
4. This principle is directly the principle of TI (the science of all knowledge). It's not a
principle of Being, but of Knowing. The "last thing" in our knowledge, beyond which
we cannot go, is self-consciousness ("Wissen von uns selbst"). For TI, self-
 consciousness is not a mode of being but the highest mode of knowing. Even if objective
is posited first (as in NP), one never gets beyond self-consciousness.
5. The principle must determine both the content and the form (systematic) of TI. This
form cannot be presupposed. Form and content must be mutually conditioning. This
leads to the search for a point where content and form arise from one indivisible act.
Logical principles (like A=A) themselves presuppose a material content (A) and an act
of synthesis. The highest principles must be such that form and content condition each
other, making the science of knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre) autonomous.
• Zweiter Abschnitt: Deduktion des Prinzips selbst (Deduction of the Principle Itself):
1. All knowledge is either conditioned or unconditioned. If conditioned, it depends on
something unconditioned. So, there's unconditioned knowledge.
2. Unconditioned knowledge is determined solely by the subjective (e.g., A=A, true
regardless of A's reality).
3. But A=A is not real knowledge. Real knowledge is synthetic, where subject and
predicate are mediated by something external to thought.
4. Synthetic propositions are not unconditioned. They must be traced back to an
unconditioned certainty, which seems to be the identity of thought (a contradiction).
5. Resolution: Find a point where the identical and synthetic are one; a proposition that is
simultaneously identical and synthetic.
6. This means finding a point where the object and its concept, the thing and its
representation, are originally and immediately one.
7. This is the point where Subject and Object are immediately one.
8. This occurs only in self-consciousness, where the represented is the representer, the
intuited is the intuiter.
9. Erläuterungen (Elucidations):
• a) A=A presupposes a thinking that makes itself its object – self-consciousness.
• b) In self-consciousness, subject and object of thought are one. This requires
performing the act and reflecting on it. It's an absolutely free act.
• c) The act of self-consciousness produces the concept of "Ich" (I). The Ich is this
act of self-objectification.
• d) The Ich has no reality apart from this act. The concept of Ich and the Ich itself
(the object) are absolutely one. This is the original identity of thought and object.
• e) The Ich is not a thing, but "non-objective" in the sense that it's only an object
for itself. Matter is selfless, an object for another.
 • f) The Ich has no predicate other than self-consciousness. The unconditioned
cannot be a thing. It must be that which cannot become a thing – the Ich.
• g) Knowledge of the Ich (as pure act) must be: absolutely free, an intuition, and a
producing of its object. This is intellectual intuition. The Ich is intellectual
intuition, producing itself by knowing itself.
• h) Intellectual intuition is the organ of transcendental thinking. It's not
mysterious. The Ich, as principle, is a postulate – a demand for this free act of
self-production. TI deals with its own free constructions.
• i) The principle expressed: Ich = Ich. This is synthetic because it equates
opposites (Ich as producer, Ich as produced). It's where identical and synthetic
knowledge spring from each other. It grounds A=A, not vice-versa.
Zweiter Hauptabschnitt: Allgemeine Deduktion des transzendentalen Idealismus (General
Deduction of TI)
• The Ich is object only for itself, not for anything external. The Ich becomes an object, so it's not
originally an object.
• a) If not originally object, it's originally pure, infinite activity. It's the ground of all
reality.
• b) For self-consciousness, this infinite activity must limit itself, become finite.
• c) This self-limitation requires positing an opposite to itself (a Non-Ich). This Non-Ich
arises only through the Ich's act of self-positing.
• d) The Ich cannot just be limited; it must intuit itself as limited, while remaining
unlimited. This is possible only if it sets itself as limited, produces the limitation itself.
This is a contradiction: the Ich posits itself as limited (finite) and simultaneously posits
itself as limiting (infinite).
• e) This is resolved if the Ich can be unlimited only insofar as it is limited, and limited
only insofar as it is unlimited.
• f) This leads to two propositions:
• A. The Ich is unlimited only by being limited: It's infinite for itself (self-
intuition). Self-intuition makes it finite. So, it becomes infinite in this finitude,
i.e., as an infinite becoming. Becoming requires a limit. For infinite becoming,
the limit must be infinitely expanded (posited and overcome).
• B. The Ich is limited only by being unlimited: A limit C exists for the Ich only if
its activity strives beyond C towards infinity. Its unlimit-edness is the condition
of its limit-edness.
• g) From A and B:
• aa) The limit is real only through the Ich's striving against it.
 • bb) This infinite (real) activity explains the limit's reality, but not its ideality
(knowledge of the limit).
• cc) The limit must be real (independent of the Ich for it to be truly limited) and
ideal (dependent on the Ich for it to know itself as limited). This contradiction
implies an opposition within self-consciousness itself.
• dd) There must be an ideal (subjective, intuiting, unlimitable) activity in the Ich,
distinct from the real (objective, limitable) activity. For the ideal activity, being
intuited and being limited are one and the same.
• ee) Ideal and real activities mutually presuppose each other for self-
consciousness.
• ff) Reflecting on ideal activity yields Idealism (limit is posited by Ich).
Reflecting on real activity yields Realism (limit is independent of Ich).
Reflecting on both yields Ideal-Realism (TI).
• gg) Theoretical philosophy explains the ideality of the limit. Practical philosophy
explains its reality. Both are needed for the complete system.
Dritter Hauptabschnitt: System der theoretischen Philosophie (System of Theoretical Philosophy)
This section details the "history of self-consciousness" by deducing the successive acts through which
the Ich (as subject-object) comes to be. The process starts from the Ich as subject-object (for the
philosopher) and continues until the Ich itself reaches this point.
• I. Deduktion der absoluten im Akt des Selbstbewußtseins enthaltenen Synthesis
(Deduction of the Absolute Synthesis in the Act of Self-Consciousness):
1. The limit must be both ideal and real, set by an act that is both ideal and real.
2. This act is self-consciousness. All limitation is given with and through self-
consciousness. The limiting activity (subjective) is outside consciousness; the limited
activity (objective) comes to consciousness.
3. The Ich of self-consciousness is neither purely limiting nor purely limited, but a third,
composite activity arising from their conflict. This "Ich" is a synthesis of the outward-
striving (centrifugal, objective, infinite) tendency and the inward-returning (centripetal,
subjective, self-intuiting) tendency.
4. This conflict of opposed directions is necessary for self-consciousness and is maintained
by the Ich itself. The identity in self-consciousness is a produced, mediated one.
5. This synthesis involves an infinity of acts compressed into one absolute act, positing
everything that is for the Ich.
• II. Deduktion der Mittelglieder der absoluten Synthesis (Deduction of the Intermediary
Links of the Absolute Synthesis):
This explains how the Ich successively posits the conditions of its own consciousness.
The progressive principle is the ideal activity (assumed unlimitable).
1. Erste Epoche: Von der ursprünglichen Empfindung bis zur produktiven
Anschauung (From Original Sensation to Productive Intuition):
• A. How the Ich comes to intuit itself as limited:
1. The opposed activities (real/objective and ideal/subjective) interpenetrate,
producing a finite commonality (initial "stuff" or substrate, a balance of
forces).
2. This commonality cannot persist, as the ideal activity (intuiting) is itself
involved and unlimitable, striving beyond.
3. Only the real activity remains limited; the ideal activity remains
unlimited.
4. Task: How does the real Ich become limited for the ideal Ich?
• The ideal Ich (purely intuiting) intuits the real activity. It finds the
limit in the real activity as something alien, not posited by itself as
intuiting. This is sensation (Empfindung). The limit appears as an
affection from a Non-Ich.
• However, this Non-Ich is found within the Ich. The Ich only
senses its own inhibited/negated activity.
• B. How the Ich intuits itself as sensing:
1. The original sensation is the Ich intuiting itself as limited, but not
conscious of this intuiting act itself. The Ich is lost in the sensed.
2. To intuit itself as sensing, the ideal Ich must actively incorporate the
passivity of sensation. This activity must go beyond the limit of the
sensation.
3. This leads to a contradiction: the limit must fall into the ideal activity, but
ideal activity is defined as beyond the limit.
4. Resolved: The ideal activity determines the limit (not creates or abolishes
it). It posits a sphere for the passivity. This is an act of production, a
synthesis of activity and passivity.
5. In this act, the ideal Ich is active in limiting, but limited in doing so. The
limit of this sphere of production appears as from a "thing-in-itself" (Ding
an sich).
6. The ideal activity that went beyond the limit (the sensing activity)
becomes objectified as the "thing-in-itself." The real, inhibited activity
becomes the "Ich-in-itself." The Ich and its opposite are now separated
for the Ich itself.
 7. The "thing-in-itself" and "Ich-in-itself" are factors for the next stage:
productive intuition.
• C. Theory of Productive Intuition:
1. The Ich (now intelligence) confronts the opposition of "Ich-in-itself" and
"thing-in-itself."
2. These opposites are held together and related by an act of the Ich. The
"thing-in-itself" (originally ideal activity) and the "Ich-in-itself"
(originally real activity) reduce each other to a common product, which is
the appearance of the thing, not the thing-in-itself. This product is the
object of sensible intuition.
3. This product must show traces of both activities:
• The Ich's activity: Positive, expansive.
• The "thing's" activity: Negative, limiting.
4. Deduction of Matter:
• The product (matter) exhibits balanced forces: an infinite
expansive force (Repulsion) and a limiting force (Attraction).
• Expansive force is directionless (all directions); attractive force is
directed to a single point (center).
• Expansive force acts continuously; attractive force acts
immediately at a distance.
• A third, synthetic force (Gravity) unites these, making matter
impenetrable and giving it three dimensions:
• 1st Dimension (Length): Arises from the initial union of
opposed forces in a point (Magnetism, with its poles and
neutral point).
• 2nd Dimension (Breadth): Arises when these forces are
separated and act from different points, allowing expansion
in multiple planar directions (Electricity, spreading over
surfaces).
• 3rd Dimension (Depth/Thickness): Arises from the mutual
interpenetration of these forces via a third, making the
product indifferent throughout (Chemical
Process/Galvanism).
5. This three-stage construction of matter parallels the three acts of the Ich
in this epoch. Matter is "congealed spirit" or the "slumbering state of
monads."
2. Zweite Epoche: Von der produktiven Anschauung bis zur Reflexion (From
Productive Intuition to Reflection):
The Ich, having produced the object (matter), is now intelligence, but unconsciously so.
• D. How the Ich comes to intuit itself as productive:
1. It must distinguish its productive activity from its simple (non-
productive) intuiting activity.
2. Productive intuition involves both inner and outer sense. Simple intuition
is purely inner.
3. The common limit of inner/outer intuition is the limit of the Ich and
thing-in-itself. Outer sense is limited inner sense.
4. The Ich cannot recognize its productive (outer) intuition as such without
relating it to its inner intuition. This act of relating results in the sensible
object (separated from the act of intuition) on one side, and the inner
sense (the consciously sensing) on the other.
5. Task becomes: How does the Ich become object to itself as inner sense
(consciously sensing)?
• This requires recognizing the object as unconscious and itself as
conscious. This involves acknowledging the limit between them as
accidental (to both Ich and thing).
• This "accidentality" implies a ground beyond the present moment,
driving the Ich back to a past it cannot reach – the feeling of
presence and self-feeling.
• In self-feeling, time (as pure intensity, the Ich's one-dimensional
expansion) arises as the form of inner sense becoming object. The
object appears as pure extensity, space.
6. Object, for the Ich, is now inner sense (time) and outer sense (space)
simultaneously and interpenetratingly limited. Space fixes time; time
fulfills space.
• In the object, what corresponds to inner sense (time-bound) is
accident; what corresponds to outer sense (space-bound) is
substance.
7. Task becomes: How do space and time (and thus substance and accident)
become distinguishable for the Ich itself?
• This happens through a new (second) production, where the Ich is
forced into a succession of representations. The first object (B)
becomes the cause of the accidental in the second (C).
 • This establishes causality. Substance persists, accidents change.
• But for B and C to be related as cause/effect, they must be co-
present for the Ich. This requires reciprocity or interaction
(Wechselwirkung). C must also determine B.
• Interaction fixes succession into co-existence. Space becomes
form of co-existence. Categories of relation (substance/accident,
cause/effect, community/interaction) are fully deduced for the
philosopher.
• This leads to the idea of Nature as an absolute totality, an
organism of interacting substances. This totality cannot be grasped
by the mechanism of successive representation but requires a free
act.
• The Ich finds itself in a pre-determined succession due to a
"second limitation" (individuality), distinct from the first
(becoming intelligence). Absolute intelligence is timeless
synthesis; finite intelligence enters at a specific point.
8. The intelligence must intuit this succession as returning into itself, which
means representing it as organization. The organic is the fixed, self-
returning succession.
• This leads to a hierarchy of organization, paralleling the
development of the universe as intuited by the intelligence.
• The intelligence must intuit itself not just as organization, but as
living organization (having an inner principle of motion/change).
• It eventually recognizes one organization as identical with itself
(the human organism), which becomes the condition for
consciousness of its own representations.
3. Dritte Epoche: Von der Reflexion bis zum absoluten Willensakt (From Reflection to
the Absolute Act of Will):
The circle of (unconscious) production is closed. The Ich must now become conscious of
its activity. This requires abstraction – separating the act of producing from the product.
• Abstraction & Judgment:
1. The act separated from product is concept. Concept and object are
originally one.
2. Their separation for consciousness occurs via judgment, which compares
concept (predicate) with intuition (subject).
 3. This requires schematism (sensible intuition of the rule of production) to
mediate. Schema is not image, not concept, but intuited rule (e.g., artist's
inner rule).
• Transcendental Abstraction:
1. Empirical abstraction (above) presupposes a higher, transcendental
abstraction: separating the mode of acting in general (whereby any object
arises) from the object.
2. If all concept is removed from intuition, pure intuition remains: Space.
3. If all intuition is removed from concept, pure determinateness remains:
logical concept/category. (Categories of quantity and quality arise at this
stage of reflection).
• Transcendental Schematism:
1. The now separated pure concept and pure intuition must be re-mediated.
This occurs via transcendental schematism, which is Time (as the form
mediating inner and outer sense, concept and space).
2. The categories are originally time-determinations.
• Absolute Abstraction & Self-Consciousness as Intelligence:
1. The Ich becomes conscious of transcendental abstraction itself. This is an
absolute act, not deducible from prior theoretical acts. It elevates the Ich
above all objectivity.
2. The intelligence now knows itself as intelligence, distinct from, yet
related to, the objective world.
3. This highest reflection yields the categories of modality (possibility,
actuality, necessity), bridging to practical philosophy.
• A Priori vs. A Posteriori Concepts:
1. All knowledge is originally empirical (concept and object arise together,
undifferentiated).
2. All knowledge is also originally a priori (because the Ich produces
everything from itself).
3. The distinction arises only for philosophical consciousness. "A priori
concepts" (for us) are the formal aspects remaining after abstraction from
intuition; they are not innate, but arise from the free act of transcendental
abstraction. The Ich's nature and its mechanism are "innate."
Vierter Hauptabschnitt: System der praktischen Philosophie (System of Practical Philosophy):
• First Proposition: Absolute abstraction (the beginning of consciousness) is only explainable by
an act of self-determination of the intelligence upon itself. This self-determination is Willing
(transcendental sense). The Ich becomes object to itself as Ich (subject-object) through willing.
This is a higher "potency" of self-consciousness than the original unconscious act.
• Second Proposition: This act of self-determination (free action) is only explainable by the
determinate action of an intelligence outside it.
• This is because:
1. The free act occurs at a specific moment in time, thus requiring explanation.
2. It's not explainable from prior productions of the intelligence.
3. It must be explainable by something that is a production of intelligence, yet
whose negative condition lies outside it (i.e., in the non-action of the intelligence
regarding that specific external input).
4. This implies a pre-established harmony: an external action and an internal
representation of it can coexist as if causally linked, though they are not directly.
This is only possible between subjects of equal reality, i.e., other intelligences.
• Resolution of Problems:
1. How can external action be an indirect ground for self-determination? The
external intelligence must present the concept of willing to the Ich, specifically as
a demand (Sollen) to realize a possible object that can only be realized by the
Ich's action. This demand makes the Ich object to itself as both ideal (conceiving)
and real (potentially realizing).
2. How can intelligences interact at all? Via a pre-established harmony regarding
the common world they represent (due to shared primary, secondary, and general
tertiary limitations). Also, a "negative" pre-established harmony: through my
individual (tertiary) limitation, certain activities are negated in me, and these are
then posited for me as activities of other intelligences. My determinate willing is
possible because other intelligences make it impossible for me to will everything.
3. How can freedom be limited before consciousness/freedom arises? This initial
limitation (negation of some free acts) is part of one's talent/character, a
necessary condition for interaction and consciousness (e.g., through education as
continuous interaction).
• Third Proposition: Willing is originally and necessarily directed towards an external object.
• The act of will must become objective to the Ich for the Ich to be conscious of it. This
happens when an object of intuition becomes the visible expression of its will.
• This requires a mediating activity between the infinite (freedom) and finite (object):
imagination, which produces ideas (objects of reason). The specific link between idea
and object is the ideal.
 • The opposition between ideal and object creates a drive (Trieb) to transform the object.
• This drive has causality in time. Change occurs in accidental determinations, not
substance.
• The change (objectively an intuition) appears as action because the concept of the
change precedes its realization (for the ideal Ich). This makes the objective world appear
as independent.
• The objective in willing (acting on an external object) is blind natural drive (self-
interest/happiness). The subjective (ideational activity directed at pure self-
determination) becomes object to the Ich through the moral law (categorical imperative:
will only what all intelligences can will).
• The conflict between natural drive and moral law creates a consciousness of equally
possible actions, which is Willkür (choice/arbitrariness) – the phenomenon of absolute
will/freedom. Absolute will itself is beyond freedom/unfreedom; it is self-determination.
• History: emerges as the field where freedom (Willkür) and lawfulness (objective
predetermination by the Absolute Identity) interact. The goal is a universal juridical
constitution. History is the progressive revelation of the Absolute. Three periods:
1. Tragic (Absolute as blind Fate).
2. Nature (Absolute as natural law, e.g., Roman empire).
3. Providence (Absolute as unfolding Providence).
Fünfter Hauptabschnitt: Hauptsätze der Teleologie (Main Theses of Teleology):
• The appearance of freedom is comprehensible only through an identical activity that separates
into conscious and unconscious for the sake of appearance.
• Nature, as produced without freedom, must appear as a product that is purposeful without being
produced according to a purpose. It's a product of blind mechanism that looks as if consciously
produced.
• This resolves the contradiction of mechanism and purposefulness in nature (especially organic
nature). The organic product unites what free action separates.
• This identity of conscious/unconscious activity, however, is not recognized by the Ich as having
its ultimate ground in the Ich itself.
Sechster Hauptabschnitt: Deduktion eines allgemeinen Organs der Philosophie, oder Hauptsätze
der Philosophie der Kunst (Deduction of a General Organ of Philosophy, or Main Theses of the
Philosophy of Art):
• § 1. Deduction of the Artwork in General:
 • An intuition is needed that unites what is separate in freedom's appearance and in
nature's intuition: identity of conscious and unconscious in the Ich, and consciousness of
this identity.
• This product will be consciously produced (like a freedom-product) and unconsciously
produced (like a nature-product).
• Artistic production starts consciously (subjectively) but must end unconsciously
(objectively). The artist is conscious of the production, unconscious regarding the (full
depth of the) product.
• Contradiction: Conscious and unconscious activity must be one in the product (like in an
organism), but this unity must be for the Ich. This requires consciousness of production,
which means the activities are separate.
• Resolution: The activities are separate for the sake of appearance (consciousness of
production) but are not infinitely separate (as in free action where the ideal is never fully
realized). There's a point where they coincide, and production ceases to appear free,
ending in unconsciousness.
• This results in a feeling of infinite satisfaction for the artist. The objective aspect seems
to come from a "higher nature," a "Genius," beyond freedom. This unknown is the
Absolute, the ground of pre-established harmony.
• The artwork is the product of Genius. Aesthetic production arises from a contradiction in
the artist's deepest nature (conscious vs. unconscious in free action). It resolves this
contradiction. The artist feels driven, yet the objective aspect comes "without his doing."
• Art has two components:
• Conscious activity: "Art" in the sense of skill, technique, learnable.
• Unconscious activity: "Poetry" in the art, inborn, from nature's favor.
• Neither alone is sufficient. Their original identity, unachievable by freedom, is Genius.
• § 2. Character of the Artwork:
• a) Conscious Infinity: Reflects the identity of conscious/unconscious. Seems to represent
an infinity beyond the artist's explicit intention.
• b) Repose/Quiet Grandeur: Expresses the satisfaction of resolved infinite contradiction.
• c) Beauty: Represents an infinite finitely. (Erhabenheit/Sublimity is a mode where the
contradiction is resolved in the intuiting subject rather than the object itself).
• Distinction from organic nature: Organic production doesn't start from consciousness of
infinite contradiction. Its beauty appears accidental. Art is the norm for judging nature's
beauty, not vice-versa.
 • Distinction from common craft: Art is free from external purposes (utility, pleasure, even
morality and science in their direct aims).
• § 3. Corollaries (Relation of Philosophy of Art to the Whole System):
• Philosophy starts from the absolutely non-objective (Absolute Identity), graspable only
by intellectual intuition. Art is this intellectual intuition made objective and universally
recognized. The artwork reflects the Absolute Identity.
• The entire mechanism of philosophy (infinite diremption of opposed activities, resolved
in production) is made objective by aesthetic production. The productive power in
philosophy (imagination producing via intellectual intuition) is the same as the poetic
power in art (imagination producing via aesthetic intuition). The real world (product of
unconscious intuition) and the ideal/art world (product of conscious intuition) are
products of the same activity, differing only by their origin being beyond or within
consciousness.
• Aesthetic intuition is transcendental intuition become objective. Art is the "only true and
eternal organon and document of philosophy," revealing the unconscious in action and
its identity with the conscious. Nature is a "poem in secret, wondrous script." Art lifts
the veil.
• The system is complete as it returns to its starting point: the original ground of harmony
(Absolute Identity), initially grasped subjectively by intellectual intuition, is now made
fully objective through the artwork.
• Philosophy, born from poetry, will, after perfecting sciences, see them flow back into the
"general ocean of Poetry." The mediating link for this return is a new Mythology, not an
individual invention but of a "new generation representing, as it were, only one poet."
Allgemeine Anmerkung zu dem ganzen System (General Note to the Whole System):
The system falls between two extremes: intellectual intuition (philosopher's tool) and aesthetic intuition
(its objective form in art). Philosophy as philosophy cannot be universally valid; art is. Philosophy
grasps the highest but brings only a "fragment of man" there; art brings the whole man to this
knowledge.
The system is a continuous "potentiation of self-intuition":
1. Act of Self-Consciousness: The Absolute Identity separates; Ich becomes Subject-Object (for
the philosopher).
2. Sensation: Ich as limited object to itself.
3. Productive Intuition: Subjective in Ich becomes objective; Ich is wholly objective (as S-O),
producing the external world.
4. Organization: Ich intuits itself as (unconsciously) purposive activity (Intelligence is complete as
nature).
Up to this point, Nature parallels the Ich. Freedom must be natura prior.
 5. A new series begins with interaction with other rational beings, leading to:
• The Will: The absolute objective (lawfulness of intuition) becomes object for the Ich.
• The Absolute Act of Will: Ideational activity directed at pure self-determination (the
objective in willing).
• Willkür (Choice): The absolute will becomes object to the Ich via the opposition of
natural drive (objective in willing directed outward) and pure will (subjective in willing,
as categorical imperative). This is consciously free activity.
6. Highest Potency of Self-Intuition (Genius/Art): The consciously free activity is intuited in its
original identity with the objective. This is beyond ordinary consciousness, appearing
accidental.
This outlines the moments in the history of self-consciousness, from matter to organization,
then reason and choice, to the highest union of freedom and necessity in Art.
This detailed summary captures the main argumentative thrust and structural organization of
Schelling's complex work as presented in the text.