Problem of Identity in Schelling’s "Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Cristicism"
The aim of this article is to analyse the problematic concept of identity in Schelling’s early treatise "Philosophical letters on Dogmatism and Criticism". In this programmatic text Schelling reflects upon the nature of critical and dogmatic philosophy from a distance and this leads him to take a stand from the early influences. The concept of identity becomes more problematic in various contexts because treating the absolute, the subject, the object or any other concept as an identical category involves certain contradictions which cannot be done away with when operating within the context of rational transcendental idealism. Both critical philosophy and dogmatism suffer these consequences. In this early stage Schelling takes the route of subject-oriented critical philosophy (which will culminate in his system of Transcendental idealism), but at the same time he opens up the programmatic possibility to engage himself in more speculative object-oriented modes of thought (in his project of the philosophy of nature).
