Vater, Michael

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Marquette Universitye-Publications@MarquettePhilosophy Faculty Research and Publications Philosophy, Department of7-1-1997Review of The Potencies of God(s): Schelling’sPhilosophy of Mythology by Edward Allen BeachMichael VaterMarquette University, michael.vater@marquette.eduPublished Version. Journal of the History of Philosophy Vol. 35, No. 3 (1997): 474-476. DOI© 1997Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc. Reprinted with permission by The Johns HopkinsUniversity Press. <.474 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3 5 : 3  JULY 199  7   Edward Allen Beach. The Potengies of God(s): Schelling's Philosophy of Mythology. Albany: State University of  New York Press, 1994. Pp xii + 317 . Board, $18.95. An interesting theme of this book is the necessary ambivalence of  human consciousness toward the object of  religion. Parallel to this psychological ambivalence, objective ambi- guities turn up in the history of  religions: whether religion's object is one or plural, natural or spiritual, a completed entity or a developing one. Schelling devoted the last half of  his life (in the lecture hall if not in print) to a two-sided attempt to revive theistic metaphysics and to "demonstrate" the reality of  God in the history of  religions. Beach's tide, with its ambiguity about the number  of  deity, reflects Schelling's bold at tempt to validate the sky-monism of  hunter-gatherers and the polytheism of  early agricultural peoples as genuine religious experience. He made them phases of  the development  of  true, revealed (i.e., Christian) religion by making their objects necessary components  (or potencies) of  the divine essence, displayed in mock independence in the history of  mythology, but once properly developed and subordinated, the support  for the experi- ential revelation of  the actual, personal God. Schelling's p rog ramme in the late or Positive Philosophy is complicated both by its subject and its presentation in discrete lecture courses. Other scholars have treated the complexity of  Schelling's attitude toward philosophy after the 182os, his repudiation of the static conceptualism of  his own Identity-Philosophy and of Hegel's system as merely "negative" philosophy, and his demand that will, decision (freedom) and actual- ity be taken as the supports and starting-points of  a second or "positive" philosophy. The  classic study here is Walter Schulz's Die VoUendung des Deutschen ldealismus in der Spiitphilosophie ScheUings (end ed., Pftitlingen: Neske, 1975). Beach focusses instead on the complexity of  the vehicle Schelling chose to convey this positive philosophy: the history of  religions, or  in Scheiling's terms the philosophies of  mythology and revela- tion. Though  Schelling turned to theistic metaphysics late in life, he always regarded myth and symbol as the point where aesthetics, metaphysics, and religion converged. He developed an eye for the nuanced phenomena of  religious experience, resisting the tendency of  the nineteenth-century academy to reduce religious representations either to a flat mirroring of  historical events or  to an externalization of  internal psychic conflicts. Beach shows how Schelling incorporated the historical and especially the psychological dimensions of  religious experience into a nonreductive account of  the unfolding of  the divine reality in human cultures, inside a history generated not accidentally by the mere  accumulation of  unrelated events, but one driven by the logic BOOK REVIEWS 475  of  the unfolding of  the divine essence. The genius of  Schelling's view of  religion is to argue that "screens" placed by linguistic, cultural, and temporal differences do not divide the worshipper/intuiter from the "true God" but are preparatory vehicles neces- sary for the lived encounter with God. Comparing Schelling's method to the "hermeneutics of  suspicion" practiced by Feuerbach, Nietzsche, and Freud which resulted in purely reductive theories---e.g., Feuerbach's thesis that the gods are simultaneous projections of  human capacity and incapacity--Beach argues that Schelling's theory offers a "sublimated projection theory" of  religion. Rooted in the conviction that human consciousness is "God- positing" but confronted with the facts that there are inconsistent paradigms of  reli- gion and its object(s), this theory first works deconstructively upon these ambiguities, then opens itself up for an "ecstatic," intuitive or experiential moment of  spiritual illumination, but finally returns to rational discourse for a moment of  "theodicy" or "confirmation." Beach abstracts this picture from Schelling's actual speculation, which is more technical and often pedantic, but all three elements are Schelling's novel contributions: (1) ambiguity--acceptance and rejection, fear and love--is central to religious experience and to the situation of  the human vis-a-vis the divine; (2) the absolute is only in intellectual intuition; God is touched only in ec-stasy, i.e., departure from reason; (3) there can nonetheless be a historical-critical philosophical reconstruc- tion of  the revelatory event. Beach is evidently convinced these elements are necessary, if not sufficient, conditions of  an authentic faith. Beach grounds his argument  in solid textual scholarship. He lucidly presents the background of  nineteenth-century views on religion, and tellingly argues for Schel- ling's significance. Most importantly, he always conducts his discussion philosophically, with a critical eye for what is true (or plausible, or salvageable) in Schelling's theory. Since he takes the empirical criterion of  verifiability as the touchstone of  truth, he must reject much of  Schelling's speculation as lacking logical ground. But since Beach tends to accept the irrational, the unconscious, and the volitional as positive features whose home is religion, his heart is often ready to accept teachings from Schelling which his head has decreed undecidable. The  book's flaw is that it presents Schelling's late, unpublished philosophy as his whole philosophy. Beach turns the shortcoming into a virtue, for a Schelling who always and only champions the volitional, the unconscious, and the irrational seems to present a clear alternative to Hegel's monolithic conceptualism. This makes for a tidy story, but it ignores the fact that Schelling invented idealistic conceptualism along with Hegel when they worked on the Critical Journal. Schelling had reason and unreason, the conscious and the unconscious, intertwined from the start. His later moves against conceptual idealism are in the main a preference for actuality over possibility, for existence over essence. Beach is right to see willing or need, the dynamic of  the ground, as central to Schelling's later thought, and also the free choice of  reason over unreason as the logic of  the process of  creation. But for Schelling these processes result in a world in which reason has secure purchase, even if it is derived from a su- perrational actuality. Though  Schopenhauer was troubled by Schelling's anticipations of  his voluntarism, no one confused the two. 476 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3 5 : 3  JULY 1 9 9 7  Lucid and argumentat ive  as this book is, it is somewhat premature .  None o f  the texts Beach works upon  are yet available in translation. This book may in time secure them a welcome. MICHAEL G. VATER Marquette University John  Richardson. Nietzsche's System. New York: Oxford  University Press, 1996. Pp. xii + 316. Cloth, $35.oo. John  Richardson's  Nietzsche is very di f ferent  indeed from the various French Nietz- sches and their  Anglo-American cousins who were all the rage not so very long ago. His Nietzsche is closer in some ways to their  analytical rivals, and in others (as his title invites one to surmise) to their  more historically-attuned and systematically-minded p redecesso r s - -He idegge r  among them. He concludes his book with the assertion that Nietzsche "remains deeply continuous with the tradition before him," making much of  his affinities as well as his disagreements  with Plato (yes, Plato!) and Aristotle in particu- lar. Richardson makes a major contribution to the argument  that "Nietzsche retains the 'cognitive'  values of  philosophy's tradit ion---only re interpret ing them, not rejecting them" (290) . Tha t  makes the book both refreshing and well worth reading, not only by those interested in Nietzsche but  also by anyone interested in the possibility and pros- pects o f  a post-tradit ional approach to truth and knowledge. T h e r e  is much else that is surpris ing about Richardson's book - - s om e  o f  it wel- come, and some o f  it worrisome. He nicely takes it for granted that Nietzsche is a phi losopher  o f  major  importance,  to be taken seriously and dealt  with as such. There  also is much to be said for his conviction that Nietzsche's thinking on a good many matters developed in the direction of  coherence. It is a stretch, however, to proclaim that it amounts  to a " sys tem"- -and  one which features a "metaphysics" at that. That  overstates the case needlessly, and creates an artificial issue that is all too likely to distract attention from the real substance of  Richardson's interpretation.  Fur ther :  even if one countenances the use of  Nietzsche's unpublished Nachlass as well as his published writings early and late (as I do), one would expect at least a little more  sensitivity at this late date than Richardson shows to the questions this sometimes raises. But that  is less t roubl ing than his deceptively authoritative manner  o f  presenta-  tion. All too often he sets out an account o f  what is purpor ted  to be Nietzsche's position on some topic as though he were jus t  giving the news, without giving any indication that there  is anything problematic about i t - - a s  there often is. Indeed,  some of  Richard- son's accounts are not only greatly oversimplified but highly questionable at best. For example,  he asserts that for Nietzsche there are "three basic types of  pe r sons" - -  namely, "master,  slave, and overman" (52). This t runcated list would do  Procrustes proud.  One who does not already know better  will come away with a very impoverished picture o f  Nietzsche's rich inventory o f  human possibilities. As if to make up for its shortness, Richardson goes on at considerable length about each "type," ascribing all sorts o f  traits to them that go well beyond what Nietzsche actually says about them. One 

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Review of \u3cem\u3eThe Potencies of God(s): Schelling’s Philosophy of Mythology\u3c/em\u3e by Edward Allen Beach

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