After reviewing my old Chapter IV,
Chapter III needs:
- To present rational science as a movement in general from being (and God) as a total reality towards being as individual actuality, that is, from potentiality/materiality towards actuality.
1) We have already seen (in Chapter II) how the rational science is supposed to depart from the true principle of reason, so first this principle must be found. Then the rational science will be that science of pure autonomous reason. The paradox is that the pure rational science searches for what truly exists.
2) - This movement is inspired on Plato in respect to the search for a principle of reason [Potencies of being as possible principles]
3) -but also and especially on Aristotle. The Metaphysics of Aristotle is namely the science that investigates principles but also substance, that which truly is [what is being?]. This is the difference with Plato, and the reason that Aristotle is Schelling's main partner here: the focus on substance and actuality. [This influence appears even at the stage of pure thought, with Schelling's interpretation of the principle of non-contradiction out of which he obtains simple elements that are necessarily thought in a sequence and are related as contraries to each other, implying a subject to which they are attributes.]
4) The search for substance is emphasized by Schelling in relation to the critique of the Dialecticians that only talk about subjects and predicates in a logical sense without going further towards what truly exists [Haplâ].
5) as a movement towards that which truly exists and is at the same time principle, the rational science can be described as a search, as an experience, as experiment or attempt, and as a progressive awakening:
6) brief presentation of the 3 stages: pure thought, rational science, crisis/transition.
7) in each of these stages, "actuality" is understood in a different way and plays a different role.
8) each of its stages means a clearer conscience of what is merely potential or material and what is actual; the movement of reason progresses through an elimination of material elements, because what truly is must be actual, individual and separable, unlike matter which is indeterminate, universal, potential and non-separable.
9) "matter" is applied by Schelling not only to sensible matter but also to all concepts and predicates which are universal, indeterminate, potential and cannot exist on their own. So he establishes a parallel between Aristotle's concept of matter and these rational contents. Both must be overcome towards pure individual actuality that is not a concept anymore. This kind of movement is based by Schelling on the Metaphysics of Aristotle understood as a search for what is truly substance, progressively leaving matter and potentiality behind. The concepts that he takes from Aristotle and the way he interprets them will be discussed in the following Chapter.
Now I have to run, see you tomorrow!lots of love,
m
