 DALIA NASSAR (SYDNEY) Intellectual Intuition and the Philosophy of Nature An Examination of the Problem In Chapter 10 of The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy, Eckart Förster offers one of the most thorough explications of Schelling’s under- standing of the philosophy of nature. 1 Schelling’s complicated and obscure ideas about the construction of nature – ideas which most interpreters shy away from – are the focus of Förster’s systematic account. Förster shows how, on the basis of an original schema, Schelling constructs both anorganic and organic natural phenom- ena and illustrates their continuity. Although Förster goes on to explain the ways in which Schel- ling develops the schema in various natural manifestations, what interests him above all are the foundations of this schema. “Where,” he asks, “could Schelling have gotten the schema that underlies his system of Naturphilosophie and what are we to make of it?” (p. 238). 2 This question implicitly contains two sub- questions, both of which concern the relationship between Natur- philosophie and transcendental philosophy. First it asks whether Schelling’s philosophy of nature is in fact independent of transcen- dental philosophy. Second it poses the more fundamental ques- tion as whether it is at all possible for Naturphilosophie (as practiced by Schelling) to achieve independence from transcendental phi- losophy. Förster’s answer to the two questions is negative. Both the schema that underlies Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and its evidence 1 The research and writing of this chapter were made possible through the generous support of the Australian Research Council. 2 All references to Eckart Förster’s The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy will indicate the page number in parentheses from the English edition: The Twenty-Five Years of Philosophy. A Systematic Reconstruction (trans. Brady Bowman), Cambridge/Mass., 2012. https://doi.org/10.5771/9783465141761-235 Generiert durch IP '207.241.231.108', am 06.02.2022, 08:02:03. Das Erstellen und Weitergeben von Kopien dieses PDFs ist nicht zulässig.