Philosophies of Nature After Schelling

Grant (philosophy, U. of the West, UK) points out that approaches to "naturephilosophy" range from the 1830s to the present and that rather than dying out this inquiry seems to actually be growing. Part of this phenomenon may be the increasing attention to the relationship of science and philosophy and therefore the increasing attention to Schiller's work, especially his famous contention that metaphysics cannot be separated from physics. Grant takes the rather opaque thought of Schiller into new depths, starting with the relations between Platonism and anti-physics, Schilling's reconstruction of dynamic physics after Kant and Fichte as well as Oken and Carus, the workings of transcendentalism in naturephilosophy, and the meanings of "nature" and "intelligence." Grant closes with lively comparisons of the naturephilosophy of Schilling and Deleuze. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Iain Hamilton Grant is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England. He has written widely on post-Kantian European philosophy and is translator of Lyotard's Libidinal Economy and Baudrillard's Symbolic Exchange and Death.