From a Philosophy of Self to a Philosophy of Nature:

Goethe and the Development

of Schelling’s Naturphilosophie
by Dalia Nassar (Villanova)

Abstract: One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism is
Schelling’s break from his mentor Fichte. On account of its significance, there have been
numerous studies examining the origin and meaning of this transition in Schelling’s
thought. Not one study, however, considers Goethe’s influence on Schelling’s develop-
ment. This is surprising given the fact that in the fall of 1799 Goethe and Schelling meet
every day for a week, to go through and edit what came to be Schelling’s most path-break-
ing work. This paper considers Goethe’s influence on the development of Schelling’s
thought, and argues that it was by appropriating Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis that
Schelling was able to put forth a conception of nature as independent from the mind.

One of the most significant moments in the development of German idealism is the move
from a philosophy of self to a philosophy of nature. Rather than beginning with the act of
self-positing, namely self-consciousness, and from there deducing the not-self, the philos-
ophy of nature begins with the not-self (nature) and from there derives the self. Therefore,
while the philosophy of self takes the activity of self-intuition to be primary, both onto-
logically and epistemologically, the philosophy of nature accords such primacy to nature.1
The heart and culmination of this debate is Schelling’s break with his mentor Fichte.
The break can be understood as nothing less than a fundamental disagreement on the
meaning and methodology of idealism. While Fichte repeatedly emphasized that philos-
ophy can only be transcendental, i.e., its goal is to examine the conditions that make ex-
perience possible, Schelling came to argue that a transcendental procedure fails to ac-
count for its own possibility. In other words, Fichte claimed that philosophy must begin
with the I’s self-positing, and Schelling maintained that the act of self-positing presup-
poses a not-I, and thus cannot serve as the foundation of philosophy.
Because these questions reveal the complexity of idealism and extend beyond idealism
to encompass fundamental philosophical concerns, much attention has been devoted to-
ward understanding the nature of this break and the origin of Schelling’s understanding

1 In the case of Schelling, the primacy of nature does not undermine the primacy of the
self. Rather, as he sees it, within the philosophy of nature, i.e., the study of nature as
absolute, nature must be conceived of as primary. In turn, from within transcendental
philosophy, the self must be perceived as absolute. From the perspective of the abso-
lute, however, both self and nature are expressions of (or two sides of) the absolute.
The radical claim therefore concerns the equality Schelling grants to nature and the
self, and, in turn, his inauguration of a philosophy of nature which posits nature as
primary.

Archiv f. Gesch. d. Philosophie 92. Bd., S. 304–321 DOI 10.1515/AGPH.2010.014

© Walter de Gruyter 2010
ISSN 0003-9101
 Zur Diskussion 305

of and interest in nature. Schelling’s interest in nature has been traced back to his Tüb-
ingen student years.2 Furthermore, his early works Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie
(1795) and Philosophische Briefe über Dogmatismus und Kriticismus (1795–1796) already
suggest a non-Fichtean approach to philosophy.3 However, his first two publications on
the philosophy of nature, the Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur (1797) and the Weltseele
(1798) remain squarely within the paradigm of transcendental philosophy. In contrast, his
Erster Entwurf einer Philosophie der Natur – and especially the Einleitung to the Entwurf –
both composed and published just one year after the Weltseele, reveal a radical shift in
Schelling’s understanding of the essence of idealism.4

2 The “origin” of Schelling’s philosophy of nature, or more accurately, the seeds of what
later came to be his philosophy of nature, remains a disputed topic. Many scholars
trace his work in Naturphilosophie back to his Timaeus fragment from his time in Tüb-
ingen in 1794, prior to his encounter with Fichte’s work. See Schmied-Kowarzik 1996,
67; Baum 2000. H. Fuhrmans argues that Schelling’s “turn to the philosophy of nature
was in no way sudden”. Its roots go back to his time in Tübingen and reveal the “true
Schelling” (Fuhrmans 1962, 75). For A. Denker, it is “the pietistic belief in the con-
nection of everything [which] was the origin of Schelling’s pantheism, and thus one
can claim, that he had been working out this problem throughout his life” (Denker
1997, 37).
3 The absolute I, as elaborated in Vom Ich, has little in common with Fichte’s concep-
tion of the pure I – something which Reinhold points to Fichte in a letter from De-
cember 1795, writing that “I had until now believed that the pure I […] arises from out
of moral laws – not that the moral laws must be deduced from it. I remain afraid that
the true sense of the moral law can be in danger, if one derives it from the absolutely
posited absolute I […] in Mr. Schelling’s writing [Vom Ich] there are expressions on this
point […]” (J. G. Fichte Gesamtausgabe 3/2, Nr. 330). The Philosophische Briefe grant
equal status to criticism and dogmatism, idealism and realism, thereby moving in a di-
rection that Fichte, later on, would find problematic. Thus in his May 23, 1801 letter
(sent on the 7th of August of that year), Fichte writes, “your claim in the Philoso-
phische Journal concerning two philosophies, one idealistic, one realistic, both of
which are true, and could stand next to one another, which I immediately opposed
[i.e., in the Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre] because I saw it to be wrong,
lead me to think that you had not penetrated the Wissenschaftslehre” (Traub 2001,
194). See also Beiser 2002, 477.
4 It was not until about a year later, however, following Schelling’s publication of the
System des transcendentalen Idealismus (1800), that Fichte became aware of Schel-
ling’s move. This has to do with the fact that Fichte did not read Schelling’s work on
the philosophy of nature, and was himself embroiled in the atheism controversy, which
lead to his dismissal at the University of Jena. The disagreement is most clear in their
letters from that year. Schulz argues that it was only after 1800 that their letters came
to have the philosophically rich content in which a difference of opinion can be
gleamed. See Schulz 1968. Jacobs writes, “The letters written in the year 1799 reveal
no difference at all” (Jacobs 1984, 24). Fuhrmans similarly claims that the letters from
1794 till 1800 suggest a “unity of thought between Fichte and Schelling”, and that it
was only after 1800 that the correspondences begin to reveal a “break”, and gain
“substance” (Fuhrmans 1962, 201–209). More recently, H. Traub argues that 1) the
letters pre-1800 were philosophically rich and 2) that already there you can see implicit
differences (Traub 2001, 55, note 79, and 23). What Traub sees as the fundamental dif-
ference between the two is Schelling’s insistence on idealism and Fichte’s transcenden-
tal-philosophical or critical idealism, which puts him on the side of Kant.
306 Zur Diskussion

The question is, what inspired this shift, and why did it come about at exactly that time?
There have been a plethora of responses to this question: Spinzoa’s influence on Schel-
ling’s philosophy of nature, Hölderlin’s critique of Fichtean philosophy, with which Schel-
ling was familiar already in 1795, and Schelling’s early interest in Plato as well as Leibniz’
monadology have all been identified as sources of inspiration.5 Though the presence of
these various influences is evident in Schelling’s philosophy of nature, it is Spinoza’s pres-
ence, most especially in Schelling’s claim in the Einleitung, that the philosophy of nature is
a “Spinozism of physics”, that is most evident and that has therefore been most elaborated
(HKA 1/8, 30). Yet, Schelling is never entirely sympathetic to Spinoza’s position. In the
Briefe, the text in which he places dogmatism and criticism on almost equal levels, Schel-
ling identifies Spinoza with dogmatism and argues that dogmatism is ultimately self-
contradictory in that it wishes to eliminate the self, yet retain a way by which to know the
non-self.6 In the Ideen, he critiques Spinoza on similar grounds: “I myself was only one of
the Infinite’s thoughts, or rather just a constant succession of presentations. But Spinoza
was unable to make it intelligible how I myself in turn became aware of this succession”
(HKA 1/5, 90). In later writings from the time in which he is considered to have been most
sympathetic to Spinoza, Schelling retains this critique of Spinoza, writing in the essay
“Ueber das Verhältnis der Naturphilosophie zur Philosophie überhaupt”, “Spinoza made
a mistake in that he did not go back far enough in construction [daß er nicht weit genug zu-
rück construirt]”, and thus did not fully consider the fact that philosophy “is not only a
knowledge [ein Wissen], but always and necessarily also again a knowledge of this knowl-
edge [ein Wissen dieses Wissens]” (SW 1/5, 127). Spinoza, according to Schelling, could
not explain self-conscious knowledge. Schelling’s concern with knowledge does not disap-
pear in the Entwurf. Thus, although the primary aim of the text is to ground a philosophy
of nature, the possibility of knowing nature remains a key question. In fact, the first part
of the Einleitung is dedicated to explaining precisely this possibility.
This is not, however, the only difficulty with such an interpretation of the trans-
formation in Schelling’s thought. What Schelling was unable to accomplish in his early
writings on Naturphilosophie and what he does accomplish in the Einleitung to the Ent-
wurf is establishing the independence of nature from the mind. He does this by showing
that nature is self-producing. In his earlier writings, Schelling had struggled with the prob-
lem of the productivity of nature. On the one hand, he argued that nature, as a mere ob-
ject, could not produce itself. Only a subject, i.e., a self-intuiting being, could produce
itself. On the other hand, he saw that natural relations could not be reduced to mechan-
ical, external relations. Thus nature appeared to necessitate a notion of self-productivity.
However, given his basic assumption that only a subject can produce itself, Schelling was
unwilling to grant self-productivity to nature, concluding that nature is a product of our
intuition (HKA 1/1, 386). The question then is, how does Schelling’s thought shift, such

5 In light of his early work on Plato’s Timaeus, some interpreters see Schelling’s shift as
in some way related to his Platonist inheritance, see for example Holz 1977. See also
note 1 above. Others consider Hölderlin to be the most formative influence on Schel-
ling. See Frank 1985, 108 f. and more recently Beiser 2002, 476–478. The influence of
Spinoza has been traced in detail by Grun 1993. That Schelling developed a concep-
tion of nature comparable to Leibniz’s monadology has been argued by Rudolphi
2001, 145–154.
6 See HKA 1/3, 88 f. This critique may have been posed against Hölderlin, who had al-
ready been developing his anti-Fichtean position in 1795.
 Zur Diskussion 307

that he is able to grant to nature self-productivity, and, thus independence from the mind?
The answer to this question is the key to understanding the transformation in Schelling’s
conception of nature, and his break from Fichtean idealism. As I will show in the follow-
ing, however, this transformation had little to do with Spinoza, and much to do with
Schelling’s appropriation of Goethe’s understanding of nature as metamorphosis.
Beginning in 1798, Goethe came to play a significant role in the development of Schel-
ling’s thought. Not only was Schelling deeply impressed by Goethe’s optics and his theory
of colors, undertaking experiments with Goethe during his first visit to Weimar in May
1798, but he also found in Goethe’s conception of plant metamorphosis the key to under-
standing nature as a self-producing, organic whole. Thus, in a letter to Goethe from the
26th of January 1801, Schelling writes,
Your presentation of the metamorphosis of plants has proven indispensable to me for
understanding the emergence of all organic beings, and the inner identity of all organic
forms amongst themselves and with the earth […] thus the organic was never created
but has always existed.7
The question then is, in what sense did Goethe’s idea of metamorphosis become so central
to Schelling’s own conception of nature, and how did it prove to Schelling that the organic
was never “created”, but always “existed”. It is the goal of this paper to answer precisely
this question, and in this way illustrate the role that Goethe’s natural-scientific work
played in the development of Schelling’s philosophy in particular, and in the development
of German idealism in general.
Although there has been a tremendous amount of scholarship dedicated to understand-
ing the shift in Schelling’s conception of nature, and his break with Fichtean idealism, no
one has taken into consideration Goethe’s role in this development.8 In turn, while there
have been several studies which consider the influence of Schelling on Goethe, Goethe’s
influence on Schelling has not been accorded the same degree of attention.9 By demon-
strating the significance of Goethe’s thought on Schelling, and explicating the way in
which the idea of metamorphosis enables Schelling to put forth a theory of nature as self-
productive and independent of the mind, this paper hopes to remedy the lacuna in the
present literature.
The paper will proceed as follows. First, I briefly outline Goethe’s understanding of
plant metamorphosis which he began to develop on his Italian journey, and which he elab-
orates in his Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790). I then provide an over-
view of Schelling’s relationship to Goethe, as witnessed in their correspondences as well as

7 Fuhrmans 1962, 243.

8 See notes 2, 4 and 5 above. See also Jacobs’s Introduction to the Historisch-Kritische
Ausgabe, in which he mentions Goethe only in passing (HKA 1/8, 8 ff.).
9 While there have been studies of Schelling’s influence on Goethe, these works have
only cursorily attended to the significance of Goethe for Schelling. See Richards 2002,
463–471; Jäckle 1937; Schmidt 1984, 111 f.; Breidbach 2006, 214–225, esp. 225. J.
Adler, in an article on Goethe and Schelling, takes a more promising approach, writ-
ing that he wishes to understand the “dialogue” between the two thinkers. Thus, he is
careful to note the influence of Goethe’s theory of metamorphosis on Schelling’s de-
velopment; he does not, however, detail the significance of this theory, nor does he ex-
plicate its importance in relation to Schelling’s break with Fichte. Adler’s primary in-
terest lies in a historical investigation of Schelling’s poetic works, and Goethe’s
influence on those in particular. See Adler 1998.
308 Zur Diskussion

in their collaboration. I go on to consider Schelling’s understanding of nature in his early

writings, up to the 1798 Weltseele, and explicate Schelling’s reasoning as to why nature
could not be independent of the mind. Finally, I provide an analysis of Schelling’s concep-
tion of nature in the Einleitung to the Entwurf, the text in which Goethe’s influence is most
palatable. Not only did Schelling seek Goethe’s advice in editing this text, but he and
Goethe also met for a week in November of 1799 to go through it together. It is in this
work that Schelling grants to nature an independence from the self, and justifies this con-
ception through a theory of metamorphosis. I elaborate what Schelling means by meta-
morphosis and show how, through metamorphosis, Schelling was able to put forth a phi-
losophy of nature as self-productive, and, as such, independent.10

1. Goethe

It was on his first Italian journey (1786–1787) that Goethe began to clearly formulate his
idea of an archetypal plant or Urpflanze. In the garden in Palermo, he was “confronted
with so many kinds of fresh, new forms, I was taken again by my old fanciful idea: might I
not discover the Urpflanze amid this multitude? Such a thing must exist after all! How else
would I recognize this or that form as being a plant, if they were not all constructed ac-
cording to one model” (HA 11, 266).11 What Goethe seeks in the garden is that which
makes it possible for him to recognize all these varieties of plants as plant – the unifying
principle of plants. Importantly, he does not seek it outside of the multiplicity, but “amid
this multitude”.
In a letter to Herder, dated exactly one month following his visit to the garden, Goethe
writes that he has come to comprehend “the secret of plant generation and structure” (HA
11, 323). He has realized that the unity he is after is integrally connected to plant growth
and development. Given this insight, Goethe claims that he can now imagine an infinite
variety of plants, which, although non-existent, could exist.
It is not until July of that year, however, that Goethe arrives at a deeper understanding
of the plant. In a report in which he includes the two passages quoted above, he adds the
important conclusion: “it has become apparent to me that in the plant organ we ordi-
narily call the leaf a true Proteus is concealed, who can hide and reveal himself in all
formations. From top to bottom, a plant is all leaf, united so inseparably with the future
bud that one cannot be imagined with the other” (HA 11, 375). By this Goethe does not
mean that the plant is reducible to the leaf, but that the parts of the plant are various
manifestations of what he saw as the archetype of all plant life, namely the leaf.
In the first four paragraphs of his Versuch über die Metamorphose der Pflanzen (1790)
Goethe elaborates on the way in which the plant parts are manifestations of the plant
whole. An observation of the plant, he begins in the first paragraph, reveals “that certain

10 The influence of Goethe on Schelling need not – indeed should not – be limited to his
theory of plant metamorphosis. In fact, Schelling’s theory of knowledge in the Einlei-
tung reveals an incredible proximity to Goethe’s own theory of knowledge. Richards,
for example, sees Schelling’s emphasis on “experience and experimentation” to be the
outcome of Goethe’s influence (Richards 2002, 141 f.). Though I agree with Richards,
I think it is only the tip of the iceberg. At this time, however, I limit my considerations
to the theory of metamorphosis.
11 The letter is dated April 17, 1787.