We are very glad to give notice of the opening of a Call for Papers for the issue of Implications philosophiques on Schelling’s Naturphilosophie: A legacy. 

Editors: Caroline Angleraux (Inserm), Circé Furtwängler (Paris 1), Louis Morelle (Paris 1).

Deadline for the submission: May 15th, 2024.

Below you can find the text of the call.

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”Mr. Schelling again returned to nature its legitimate rights; he strove for a reconciliation of spirit and nature; he wanted to join both again in the eternal world-soul. He restored that great Naturphilosophie which we find in the ancient Greek philosophers […]”, so writes Heinrich Heine attempting in 1834 to provide a history of then-recent German philosophy. While the name of Schelling is inextricably linked with Naturphilosophie, this association is not an unpolemic or unproblematic one. From the start, his project of a Philosophy of Nature has faced its share of criticisms, stemming from philosophy as well as the sciences: as a purely speculative thought aspiring to rival empirical physics on its own terms, Naturphilosophie could readily be described as the most accomplished form of philosophical Schwärmerei. And to be sure, its grandiose ambitions, its stepping beyond the bounds of human understanding (as set in kantian terms) to recreate through purely conceptual concatenation the stages leading to the worldly emergence of consciousness, were easily seen as yielding little more than an artful metaphysical tale wherein the natural sciences figured, at best, in an ancillary role with regards to a vast (if somewhat confusing) story about spirit conquering its own freedom through its journey in the material realm. A strange mixture of mythological ambition, empirical appropriation, and wild formalism, Naturphilosophie was (and long remained) seen as the adolescent phase of german idealism, a perhaps creative moment that fortunately gave way to more mature developments, ones able to provide proper accounts of idealism, empiricism, and history, as found in the latter Schelling.

The preceding account, popularized by hegelian historiography as well as the general disgrace of so-called ‘romantic science’ after the advent of positivism, has faced a growing series of scholarly challenges in the light of recent historical research, which has worked to bring light Schelling’s own implication within the scientific debates of his time, as well the broader relevance of Naturphilosophie, not only as a speculative concern but also an epistemological one, involved in active scientific conceptual stakes. More recently, contemporary metaphysics has found in Schelling’s naturphilosophischen writings some fruitful use, be it for a revival of the idealism-realism controversy, or an account of the ontological status of nonhuman beings.

This call for contributions is aimed at researchers working on Schelling’s Naturphilosophie and its reception, at the meeting point of metaphysics, history of philosophy, and history of science. It will pay special attention to contributions aiming at highlighting how concepts and problems specific to schellingian Naturphilosophie might have historically influenced or found resonance in later philosophies, or, at a more conceptual level, can bring light on contemporary debates.

Timetable for the call

March 2024: call opens
May 15, 2024: Deadline for submission of abstracts (750 words, 5 keywords)
June 30, 2024: Replies to authors
September 1, 2024: Deadline for submission of articles
November 1, 2024: Deadline for replies to authors
December 2024: publication of the articles

Proposals for contributions should be sent to the following addresses:
caroline@angleraux.com
circe.furtwangler@gmail.com
louis.morelle@gmail.com
before May 15th, 2024.
Proposals should not exceed 750 words, and should specify the title, the focus and five keywords. They should be sent in an anonymized PDF document, for double-blind evaluation. Please indicate (in the body of the e-mail only): the author’s first and last name, the title of the proposal, his/her institutional affiliation and a contact e-mail address.

For further information, please visit the website of the Journal.