On the exit from (of) philosophy

The famous lectures of 1841–54 that Schelling delivers at the University of Berlin, on what he comes to call ‘positive philosophy’ in distinction from ‘negative philosophy’, have as their premise the following: if one undertakes a history of the concept of being from the inception of metaphysics till its fulfilment in Hegel, then one can see from the instance of its epochal closure what that history represses, namely, the unthought of that history. The task of thinking the unthought of metaphysics presents itself as an exigency only at the instance when the history of metaphysics has reached its epochal closure. The unthought of the history of the concept of being, by not belonging to that history, marks a fissure or an excess of that history. Now visible more than ever before, the manifestation of this excess destitutes that fundamental principle on which the immense edifice of the given metaphysics has built itself. The edifice of that history, looking more fragile than ever and in such undeniable visibility for the first time, must now open itself to a new inauguration of thinking. In the later period of Schelling's philosophical career such a new inauguration would be thought in terms of an opening to a new philosophical investigation that he comes to call ‘positive philosophy’. If the historical juncture can be said to be predicated upon freedom, then this juncture is also the instance of the fundamental disjointure or discordance out of which the event of history itself erupts.

All throughout his long career, Schelling tirelessly insists on the indemonstrable actuality of freedom. This indemonstrability of freedom is the subject of history that introduces into the realm of history the possibility of the otherwise of what it has been. Because the realm of the historical itself is opened by the abyss of freedom, the historical juncture may also be disjoined.