Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom () is an 1809 work by Friedrich Schelling. It was the last book he finished in his lifetime, running to some 90 pages of a single long essay. It is commonly referred to as his "Freiheitsschrift" (freedom text) or "freedom essay".
Described by Hans Urs von Balthasar as "the most titanic work of German idealism", it is also seen as anticipating much of the collection of basic existentialist motifs. Its ambitions were high: to tackle the problem of radical evil, and to innovate at a metaphysical level, in particular to correct dualism. As its title suggests, it intends to give an account of human freedom, and the requirements on the philosophical side to protect this idea from particular formulations, at issue during the period, of determinism.
Influences on Schelling
The literature on the history of philosophy contains many assertions about the general influences on Schelling. There are also more specific comments about other thinkers and traditions that had a definite effect on this transitional work. The opening pages make it clear that Schelling is engaged in arguing against Spinozism, a position which (often simply called "dogmatism") had been a target for both philosophical and religious thinkers in Germany for decades. Schelling was not concerned about rejecting all that Baruch Spinoza's thought implied, in the terms of that debate, but to salvage something from the unification of view (monism) that came with it, while allowing room for freedom.
At this time Schelling was influenced also by Franz Xaver von Baader and the writings of Jakob Böhme. In fact Of Human Freedom contains explicit references to Baader's doctrine of evil, and Böhme's schematic creation myths, and uses the term theosophy; a detailed mapping of Böhme's thought onto Schelling's argument in the Freiheitsschrift has been carried out by Paola Mayer. On the other hand Robert Schneider and Ernst Benz have argued for the more direct influence of the pietist Johann Albrecht Bengel and theosophist Friedrich Christoph Oetinger.
Themes
Explicit concerns of Schelling in the book are: the existence of evil and the emergence into reason. Schelling offers a solution to the first, an old theological chestnut, in brief that “evil makes arbitrary choice possible”. On the other hand, by no means all interpretations of the work come from the direction of theology and the problem of evil. The second idea, requiring a rationale of emergence, was more innovative, because of the place it gave to irrationalism and anthropomorphism, within the "cosmic" setting (which need not be taken literally). The work stands also in relation to a decade of previous publications, formulations, and rivalries.
A view from the nineteenth century is that of Harald Høffding (who sets the book in the context of a supposed personal crisis and philosophical block):
Modern readings of Schelling's intentions can differ quite widely from this interpretation (and each other). This writing of Schelling is also seen as the beginning of his critique of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and an announcement of a transitional moment in philosophy; part of the purpose was self-justification, verging on polemic in defence of Schelling's panentheism. It is therefore a signpost marking a fork in the road for what is now called "classical German philosophy": even if it had its time of dominance, absolute idealism in Hegel's sense is (after the "freedom essay") just one branch of the discussion of the Absolute in German idealism. Hegel became a system-builder while Schelling produced no systematic or finished philosophy in three decades after the Freiheitsschrift.
Evil as radical
The conception of evil is set against both the Neoplatonic privatio boni and the Manichaean division into two disconnected and contending powers. Evil must be seen as active, in both God and natural creatures. There is a distinction: in God evil can never stray out of its place (at the base), while in man it certainly may exceed its role of basing self-hood.
Slavoj Žižek writes that the central tenet is that
John W. Cooper writes
Spinoza and pantheism
At the time of writing the Freiheitschrift, Schelling had on his mind an accusation of pantheism, levelled at him by Friedrich Schlegel in Über Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808). The German Pantheism controversy of the 1780s continued to cast a long shadow. F. H. Jacobi, who had launched it, was someone with whom Schelling was in contact in Munich, where the book was written.