Who is F.W.J. Schelling and should we care?

Who is Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, someone on Quora asked.

I answered:

Schelling was part of the group of post-Kant German philosophers, who in effect worked to continue metaphysics while acknowledging the force of the Kantian argument that metaphysics is impossible.

Think of it as a search for loopholes in a somewhat convoluted prohibition.

The key post-Kantian metaphysicians are distinguished by the different loopholes they found or claimed to have found in Kant’s reasoning.

In Schelling’s case this involved going back to the “deities of Samothrace”. The ancient Greeks to whom we’ve been paying attention all these centuries weren’t the right ones —we have to go back and look to other ancient Greeks! the mystical ones! Nietzsche made a very similar move in his BIRTH OF TRAGEDY.

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Quite a superficial response. Not quite as wise-arsed as some of my contributions there, but not as well thought through as others. Why, you might ask. would a new view of what is valuable within ancient Greek thought constitute a loophole in Kant's prohibition? I have an answer in mind but I left it implicit here, because it is so likely to be ignorant and wrong.

The demise of Marxist-Leninism as a form of political organization has changed the whole look of 19th century German philosophy. A view of the subject that seemed all-encompassing when I received some important philosophical education seems a tad parochial now. I am glad I have lived to see it.

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