How to Think Actuality? Schelling, Aristotle and the Problem of the Pure Daß

In this paper, I address a problem of Schelling’s late philosophy: the relation between negative and positive philosophy, and the role of the “pure Daß” in the transition from one to the other. While the so-called transition is a well-known and much discussed issue, recent Schelling scholarship has underlined the difficulties involved in the mere notion of pure Daß. I propose that we can avoid some of these difficulties by taking into account Schelling’s particular and original interpretation of Aristotle’s notion of actuality (energeia) and the way he applies this notion in his late negative philosophy.

I would like to begin by stating the philosophical problem of which the late Schelling becomes aware and which will provide the context for his reading of Aristotle. The late Schelling considers most of modern philosophy (including his own earlier work) to be a merely logical philosophy that ignores existence. In order to express this deficiency, he takes up Leibniz’s question: “Why is there something? Why not nothing?” (SW XIII: 7).

It seems that there is no necessity of thought that can give an answer to this question. We cannot explain the fact that something exists at all. Actuality [Wirklichkeit], the actual existence of the world, cannot be explained by thought. Besides, whenever we try to think of what is actual, we cannot avoid turning it into a content of thought, that is, into a mere possible. Pure thought cannot grasp actuality as such. But what is it that we lack, then? If the actuality of the actual does not consist in an intelligible content (it’s not a “real predicate” in Kant’s words), how can we even express actuality through concepts? Can we think actuality at all?