Customer Reviews

Philosophical Investigations into the Essence of Human Freedom (Suny Series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a valuable contribution to the newest literature and foretold renaissance in Schelling research. Although there are three existing translations, all suffer from the defects familiar to the difficult exercise of translation. Among those, the Love/Schmid version suffers from these same problems, unfortunately.

I mention only one serious error (the others largely being unavoidable) in that Selbstständigkeit is translated as 'independence.' While this word does grasp one of the meanings of Selbstständigkeit, it fails to grasp the richness of the word, especially in its assymetrical opposition to Abhängigkeit (translated as dependence). My only complaint is that the translators did not note this particular locution. However, at almost all other places where there is doubt, they are careful to provide the German text.

The advantage of this edition, which over all existing is significant, is the historical apparatus attached to this edition, including translations of several other timely works that influenced Schelling's thinking (Boehme, Lessing, Baader, Jacobi). Although there is a lot of fascinating contemporary commentary done on the text (and Schelling's work at large) in different venues, little of it actually addresses the context in which the Freiheitsschrift was written. The apparatus attached to this edition fills this lacuna.

This new translation, including the up-to-date editorial remarks and footnotes, is important. However, the numerous footnotes are not optimized at all (you have find them yourself), and the index is unusable. You might be better off with the print edition. Hence the three stars. Otherwise it would have been five stars.

Schelling's difficult idealism attempts to provide a positive account of radical evil as well as an account of human will. This is an immensely brilliant and mysterious text, which requires multiple readings. Schelling's philosophy has emerged as a major force in the history of German idealism, and is often the source of new work in Spinozan circles as well. The supplementary texts in this addition are an excellent point of entry to Schelling's work as well. However, the translator's introduction is pretentious and historically suspect.