By re-evaluating all available sources this paper shows that Hegel’s Preface
to the Phänomenologie des Geistes, despite his protestations to the contrary, is directed
against Schelling’s programme Darlegung des wahren Verhältnisses der Naturphilosophie
zu der verbesserten Fichteschen Lehre (1806). The hints that Schelling
took from Hegel’s Preface are followed up to the System der Weltalter (1827). This
paper shows, firstly, how Schelling’s conception of a system changes from the Freiheitsschrift
onwards on the basis of suggestions from Hegel’s Phänomenologie; and
secondly, how Schelling criticises Hegel at this time. Schelling appropriated fundamental
ideas from Hegel to such an extent that he even uses the expression ‚Phänomenologie
des Geistes‘ to characterise his own systematic development after his
natural philosophy