In my research I am working on Schelling's philosophy of nature in general, focusing on the concept of drive [Treib]. I'm particularly interested in the use of the concept between 1774 and 1815.
The research is part of Dr Manja Kisner's DFG-funded project "Between Biology and Ethics: The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy', funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG), which aims to examine the role of drive and drives as a concept that has played an important interdisciplinary role in the modern history of ideas since the 17th century.
My personal approach here is less to trace the specific biological meaning of the concept of drive than to discern a certain conceptual thread in Schelling’s philosophy and to show that the concept of drive, adopted from the natural sciences, explains one of the German Idealist's most ambiguous claims, namely that there is a unity of nature and mind.
In Schelling, the concept of drive bridges the gap between nature and freedom as it appears in Kantian critical philosophy. In Schelling's own words: “For this union of freedom and lawfulness we have no other concept than the concept of drive. Instead of saying, therefore, that nature in its formations acts both lawfully and freely, we could say that in organic matter an original formative drive is at play, by virtue of which it assumes a certain form, maintains it, and continually restores it [...]” (“On the World Soul” (1798))
Given the interdisciplinary role of drive, I will therefore offer a reading of Schelling that takes into account (1) his engagement with the problem of the unity of nature and freedom in Kantian philosophy, (2) his approach to the concept of an organism, a living being, and an organisation, (3) the context of early eighteenth-century biology and natural science, (4) the influence of Schelling's philosophy of nature, as it developed under the former factors, on his concept of freedom.