German idealist whose philosophy of nature and identity linked Fichte and Hegel, and who lectured against Hegelianism in old age
Born in 1775 at Leonberg in Württemberg, a pastor's son, he studied at the Tübingen Stift with Hölderlin and Hegel. His Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature (1797) and later works treated nature as the reality from which spirit arises, and in 1798, at twenty-three, he became extraordinary professor at Jena. From 1801 he drifted away from Fichte; with Hegel he edited the Critical Journal of Philosophy (1802–1803) and built a philosophy of identity that saw the absolute as the indifference of subject and object. After Würzburg he served in Munich as an official of the Bavarian Academy and professor at the university. In 1841 he took Hegel's vacant chair in Berlin, the capital of Hegelianism, lecturing to an audience that included Engels, come to defend Hegel, as well as Bakunin and Kierkegaard. He died at Ragaz in Switzerland in 1854.
Also known as: Friedrich von Schelling
Activities and affiliations
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1798–1803
Germany state institutionsExtraordinary professor of philosophy, University of JenaMain
Scholarship and theory -
1803–1806
Germany state institutionsProfessor at the University of Würzburg
Scholarship and theory -
1806–1842
Germany state institutionsBavarian Academy of Sciences: associate, secretary, president
Scholarship and theory -
1827–1841
Germany state institutionsProfessor at the University of Munich
Scholarship and theory -
1841–
Germany state institutionsHegel’s former chair at the University of Berlin
Scholarship and theory
Career Timeline
- 1790Entered the Tübingen Stift; studied with Hölderlin and Hegel
- 1797Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature
- 1798–1803Extraordinary professor at Jena
- 1802–1803Co-edited the Critical Journal of Philosophy with Hegel
- 1803–1806Professor at Würzburg
- 1806Munich: state official of the Bavarian Academy
- 1820–1827Lectured at Erlangen
- 1827–1841Professor at the University of Munich
- 1827–1842President of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences
- 1841Berlin: took Hegel’s vacant chair