The Diremption of Identity into Difference: Intellectualism and Voluntarism in Schelling’s Philosophie und Religion (1804)

The shift from Schelling’s Identity Philosophy to the philosophy of his middle period, beginning with the Freiheitsschrift (1809), is from a static, Neoplatonic conception of the Absolute to a conception of God as dynamic and evolving personality. This transition is marked by the diremption of identity into difference, ontologically, and a turn from an abstract, top-down intellectualism, in which intellect is conceived as theologically and anthropologically primary, to a radical, bottom-up voluntarism in which the will is conceived as primary. This article argues that as the hinge between these periods of Schelling’s thought, Philosophie und Religion holds two senses of identity in tension: one intellectualist and one voluntarist. These are reflected in its intellectualist account of the emergence of materiality from the absolute, and its voluntarist account of the predicament of fallenness. These assumptions generate a two-part remedy in the notion of intellectual intuition and the implicit demand for moral purification. Whereas the Neoplatonic Philosophie und Religion prioritizes intellect over will, Schelling’s desire to address the fallenness of the material world without equating evil with privation incites a radical inversion of the Neoplatonic, top-down ontological conception of Philosophie und Religion (1804), soliciting the bottom-up, voluntarist ontological conception of the Freiheitsschrift (1809).