Abstract

Philosophies after Kant maybe more than ever, were confronted with a particular epistemic problem: how can representations correspond with the objects they refer to, that is, how is knowledge possible? Against Kant’s negative solution of the problem, proponents of German idealisms sought to establish a philosophical method that would close the gulf between what our concepts and the world they try to grasp. In his writings on a philosophy of nature, the young Schelling put forward methodological solution, which in interesting ways relates to Kant’s statements on philosophical and mathematical methods of knowledge-acquisition. Far away from being a relapse into pre-critical philosophy, Schelling’s Naturphilosophie offers a solution to the epistemic aporia through the concept of Darstellung [presentation]. Taking up on Kant’s theory of mathematical presentation, Schelling devises a philosophical method capable of ‘presenting its concepts’. I take ‘presentation’ to denote a reflective performance, which describes the genesis of its object while simultaneously bringing it into existence. By means of his conception of scientific experiments, Schelling introduces a way of mediating the ideal realm of philosophical construction with real realm of material nature; it is the role of the experiment to make nature present itself.