philpapers .org/archive/PENOVR .pdf : p.26: "special thanks to William Randolph Carter ("Randy"), 1940-2010. for helpful discussions of this and other work.", Realism: True-/False-determinant, Reference to "largely mind-independent world". I assume mind-independent except the minds.,

Objectivism: coherence, mostly able for speakers to grasp, biased towards the topic-subject and the philosophy only, Output Requirement: having a robust primary standard with secondary standards, Grounding requirement: thoughtful, reflective, careful, independent topic-engagers independently agreeing 100%. (2026.04.07/archive .org/details/full-text-internet-archive/page/n12/mode/1up : p.13: "map, drawn and computed out of two orders, is as near the truth as it could be done in this place either by care or diligence." kinda contradicts thoughtfulness by cafe or diligence by grounding requirement in the year 1750 borrowed as book by 2026.04.07/borrowing.stir .ac .uk/search/p-1/pubplaces|London/0/simple/bdate|1750BC-05-01_1750-07-30 in highest genius-significance London according to Charles Murray directly and Jonathan Israel indirectly by pointing out the the most extreme enlightenment-fraction are the Spinozists, rationalists across 3 enlightened other fractions, the Leibnizian-Wolffian as more rationalist, the Cartesian/rationalist-Malebranchian/Skeptic & the Newtonian-Lockian/more empiricist. Epistemology in nature and with empiricism and rationalism together are questioning as moderate, infinite regress in nature by making reason looks provisional. The Londoners arguably were the only candidate that could with their empiricism pulls their average position away from enlightened reason-rationalism and intellectual skepticism in nature in intellectualism according to philosophyball but also in Parisian culture according to Jonathan Israel's separation of philosophical fractions and description of Malebranche. Question lies in how empirical Jonathan Israel saws London/British culture, since an Anoox-forum says that Britain always has neben against foreign rationalism and since the British aren't so rational to begin with, that makes them effectively less rational. That balance between empirical fundamentalism, rational circularism, and infinite regressing questioning/skepticism with objective realism being seen as moderate skeptic and from Michael Pendlebury as minimally reasonable and from the philosophy-forum which Michael Pendlebury was in, as provisionally reasonable which constantly begging the question as minimal-reason described by Michael Pendlebury made higher significance-score of geniuses in physics meaning that the geniuses manipulates physical reality easier and more efficient and also the balance between common sense realism and objectivity more likely in London than in Paris or non-HRE, non-holy-city, non-Catholic, western half of Germany, German city. Some article being called efficient with fewer inventions and proto-world-city between common Sense realism in early modernity in 1500-1750 and objectivism in late modern 1750-1900.); 2025.03.05: DebateArena: late 17th to early 18th was peak enlightenment empiricism with David Hume and peak enlightenment rationalism was mid to late 18th century. So mentioned Kant synthesizing those two at late 18th century as rational empiricism. Empiricism practically leads to elite influence axed on experience. Pragmatism can sometimes to a rule by the strong if those in power prioritize effectiveness over fairness.; 2025.03.11/en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy) : "This stronger formulation of naturalism is commonly referred to as metaphysical naturalism.[3] On the other hand, the more moderate view that naturalism should be assumed in one's working methods as the current paradigm, without any further consideration of whether naturalism is true in the robust metaphysical sense, is called methodological naturalism."; 2023-2024: called constitutivism? ; 2024.03.11/philarchive .org/archive/SHASRE-3 : p.22: "This is especially important for those of us who abide by the tenets of naturalism. Naturalists, in particular, must be careful not to speculate about the relevant science that may or may not support broadly philosophical views."; 2024: Constitutionalism?; 2024: Analogical realism; 2025.05.05/shs.hal.science/halshs-00686827/document : p.2: "systematically analyze the uses of “analog” and its cognates (analogies, analogous, etc.) in the Philo- sophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the period 1665– 1780.", "uses of analogy are ancient. It can even be argued that analogical thinking is the most basic cognitive tool humans have to move from the unknown to the known (Gentner et al. 2001)."..."“analogies are useful when it is desired to compare an unfamiliar system with one that is better known” (Olson 1943, p. i).", p.3: "Many studies have looked at particular uses of analogies among the ma- jor actors in the emergence of modern science at the beginning of the 17th century (see for example Daston 1984; Galison 1984; Shea 2000; Simon 2000). The object of this paper is not to add another name to that list but to describe more generally the various uses that have been made of analo- gies in 17th and 18th century science (before the emergence of distinct scientific disciplines) among general scientiac practitioners who published their results in the journal of the Royal Society of London. By looking at the presence of the word “analogy” and its cognates “analogical,” “analo- gous,” “analogue,” in all the papers published in the Philosophical Transac- tions of the Royal Society of London (hereafter PT) from its beginnings in 1665 to 1780, we can assess the spread of analogical thinking among the “rank and file” of the scientiac field during the period covered", p.4: "We stop our analysis around 1780 because we think that by that time the different types of uses have been identified."... progressive rise in the use of analogies observed after 1780 suggests a change of regime in scientific argumentation. Figure 1 shoes that, for the period 1665-1780, the words "analog*" were present in about 6% of the papers and reviews. however, after 1780 there is a rapid increase in frequency through no new type of use emerges at least before the middle of the 19th century when mathematical analogies will become frequent in physics. ... By 1780 occult sciences are no longer a legitimate refeeence and one could probably use analogies without the danger of being attacked for invoking occult qualities or making ontological connections between different orders of things. By comparison, for the decade 1991–2000, around 36% of papers in PT contain at least once the word analog*, a proportion similar to that obtained during the 19th century. Note that during the period 1665-1780 only about half of the papers contain illustrations like images of natural objects or geometrical figures.

p.6: were not yet well-defined disciplines, and where the actors (natural philosophers) were not yet “scientists” trained in a more homogenous and spe- cialized manner.

p.7: 4% of the documents containing analog are explicit comments about the unreliability of reasoning by analogy. Physician Caspari Bartholini is approvingly reported: anatomists of te past have neglected "to consult Nature herself, and acquiesce in nothing but Experiment" (Anonymous 1676, p. 768) They relies too much on analogies based on "light observation of a few circumstances" (p. 769). Analogy, even if it can be used, is in general a bad alternative to direct observation and experimentation. (Empiricism being more used in Early modern period.) The use and abuse of analogy should not surprise us. according to Tubercilo Needham (1748), we have a propensity to infer by analogy. He argues that: The Method of Reasoning by Analogy is but too apt to lead us into Mistakes, and therefore we ought to be very different of conse-

p.8: "Between 1665 and 1780, 358 documents (articles, review, letters) con- taining at least one word of the analog* family appeared in the PT.5 If we use actual deanitions of disciplines, the discipline most represented in our corpus is by far the duo biology-medicine, followed by astronomy-physics, and then by mathematics. Other research aelds, like geology and chemis- try, are represented only to a limited extent.", "Practical uses are divided into six categories. An analogy can refer to (1) a general scientiac principle or (2) to a concrete model; it can (3) illustrate or clarify an argument, (4) ref- er to a proportionality relation or (5) serve as a basis for a classiacation. Finally, an analogy can (6) be used to propose and justify a prediction.", "In the chosen corpus the use of speciac analogies is the norm.", The singularity of the unknown is thus diminished by the use of an analogy, but without a careful investigation this satisfaction read, Needham argues, on a self-deception., p.30: "23 of the 358 corpus documents, most of them written in Latin, were omitted from the analysis because we could not obtain reliable translations. Though Latin texts are thus excluded we see no reason to expect new types of analogies to emerge only in Latin texts.",

p.9: "It could seem paradoxical that their mistrust of the reasoning by anal- ogy did not stop Needham or Bartholini from using them. Indeed we do not and in the chosen corpus a general critique of the uses of analogy. In other words, the problem cannot be the use of reasoning by analogy in general, but its use as a means of demonstration above its heuristic value. Limited heuristic uses are perfectly acceptable. In order to establish a causal relation between a state of the intestine and a speciac disease, St. André (1717) asserts that the symptoms should be compared to symptoms of other diseases “by Analogy of the Parts, Reason and repeated Experi- ence” (p. 581). In a aeld where causal relations are difacult to demon- strate, analogy can be used in a complementary way with Reason and Ex- periment." (Unifying rationalism and empiricism.), "Horsley implicitly refers to a sort of principle of analogy, which asserts that a hypothesis is more probable if you present one or more similar cases.6 The fact that Horsley insists that the analogy needs to be “plausi- ble” implies that not all analogies will do. One that is at least compatible with the “physical theory” is probably required, though the author is not speciac on that point."

p.10:"As argued by Vickers (1984), the occult and the scientiac mentalities did not disagree about the usefulness of analogy. The contested point was that the occult tradition collapses analogy to identity thus making analogy a metaphysical principle. Most natural philosophers were against that position. One thing is clear though: most uses of anal- ogy are found at the practical level where it is taken for granted as a valid way of thinking which does not have to be explicitly justiaed.", "4.2 Analogy as a General Scientiac Principle

A arst type of practical use found in our corpus of texts is one that has now become obsolete and foreign to the modern way of scientiac thinking. In contemporary scientiac discourse scientists do not use the word “analogy” to refer to a general principle of uniformity of nature. Until at least the second half of the 18th century however, we and references to a principle of “analogy of nature.” It is worth noting however that the number of oc- currences in the corpus where the word “analogy” seems to refer to a uniacation principle is very small (around 3% of documents containing analog*).", "By his use of “Analogy,” Cassini refers to a principle of cosmic order or harmony. This order can be understood on the basis of two principles: (1) a nomological principle: the same physical laws are equally valid in every parts of the universe. In particular, satellites of different planets are subject to the same laws. (2) A similarity principle: the different parts of the universe are furnished in an equivalent or at least structurally similar way.7 Based on these two principles we are justiaed in applying what we know about “here” to what we do not know about “over there.” It is useful to distinguish the two principles rather than to amal- gamate them in a single principle of uniformity of nature’s action. The other planets could be ontologically similar to Earth but not obey exactly the same laws. On the other hand, other planetary systems could be fur- nished in a different way, because of their origins, but obey the same phys-

7. In a deterministic world if the arst principle holds the second principle implies a similarity of initial conditions in the different parts of the universe.",

p.11: "Cassini is not reasoning by analogy to explain or predict something. Rather, he is asserting the uniformity and uniacation of nature in the celestial realm.",

p.12: "here Newton uses the expression “analogy of nature” to refer to an ontological uniacation principle. It allows Newton to assert that from observable phenomena we can legitimately infer prop- erties of unobservable entities like atoms. Where Cassini was unifying parts of the celestial realms, Newton is relating different scales in the chain of beings.

All these principles, which are conarmed by observations and experi- ments, are used to justify general conclusions based on a limited set of data. Here analogy plays on two levels. (1) Analogous, or more precisely similar, observations and experiments are invoked to justify a general the- oretical framework, like the mechanical framework (this is, in part, what Cassini and Molyneux are arguing). (2) Once the framework is assumed, the included scientiac principles allow the natural philosophers to inter- pret the newly encountered phenomenon as part of an analogous class (this is, in part, what Halley, Stuart and Mendez Da Costa are doing).9 In our corpus, we mostly see cases where analogies are expression of a commit- ment to the given framework (level 2).

4.3 Analogies as Concrete Models

In order to represent a phenomenon it is not uncommon to resort to a con- crete object (a model). The cases discussed here are all examples where the model is said to be analogous to the phenomenon under study. In fact, it is because they are analogous that they represent.",

p.14: "epistemolog- ical strategy of Gooch can be reconstructed using the steps developed by Hughes (1997): (a) Denotation: the phenomenon (human aneurysm) is"

p.15: "represented by a model (induced aneurysms in animal thigh); (b) Demon- stration: a surgical procedure is developed by working on the model; (c) Interpretation: what has been learned about the model is transposed to the phenomenon under study. The conadence in the developed surgical procedure comes from the belief that the animal aneurysms are identical in most relevant ways to human aneurysms.", "Analogies as Illustrations",

p.25: "current scientiac literature, analogies are often part of what can be called arguments from analogy. In such arguments, the analogy is used to support a conclusion, where some properties of a target object are inferred on the basis of analogous properties present in the source object. As is well known, this form of inference is not generally valid in the deductive sense. Nevertheless, it seems that a principle of analogy, like the one mentioned above (see footnote 7), is often assumed in our corpus. It seems generally believed that a hypothesis is more probable when one ands one or more similar cases. Unfortunately, we did not and in the corpus an explicit dis- cussion relating argument from analogy and probability theory. Therefore reasoning from analogy was in practice considered by natural philosophers of the time an acceptable kind of inductive reasoning.",

p.30: "seven types of analogy are not used in the same propor- tions. Reoexive uses, analogy as principle and analogy as model, account for only 3% each. As much interest as been recently accorded to models in science (Morgan and Morrisson 1999; de Chadarevian and Hopwook 2004), this relative scarcity of explicit modelling during the period stud- ied here (1665–1780), compared to other uses of analogy suggests that such modelling maybe relatively recent. 91% of the uses of analogy are distributed evenly between illustration (18%), proportion (17%), and pre- diction (22%), with classiacatory uses being the most frequent with 32% of the identiaed uses.12

Let us look in more detail at the four uses for which we have the best statistics. Illustrative uses can be found in all research aelds, though they are clearly underrepresented in astronomy, mathematics, and geology, and overrepresented in chemistry. This distribution can be expected since il- lustrative analogies are obviously an appropriate communication device to describe new discoveries, of chemical products for example, for which we do not yet possess a shared descriptive vocabulary. Inversely the deacit of illustrative analogies in the case of geology, astronomy, and mathematics is probably due to the more systematic use in these aelds of a shared de- scriptive vocabulary. Geology predominantly uses analogical models while the two other aelds, being more quantitative, use primarily proportional",

p.31: Normalized relative frequencies of uses of each type of analogy by research field: Math with 42 analogies uses 4.2 proportional as the most., Physics with 52 analogies uses 2 Model the most., Geology with 3x 0 value & 15 analogies uses Model: 3.4.

p.32: "analogies, a type negligible in other aelds. Prediction analogies are re- markably well distributed among the different aelds, except in mathemat- ics where it is not really useful and where the proportional analogies per- form essentially the same function. Its value is also low in physics where models are the dominant type of analogy followed by proportion, since physics tends to be quantitative. Classiacatory analogies are most preva- lent in descriptive sciences like biology and geology and nearly absent in mathematics, as could be expected. One would expect that it would be dominant in more descriptive disciplines like biology or medicine but it is not the case except marginally for geology. The difference between astron- omy and physics can be understood by noting that the necessity to classify new phenomena is relatively less frequent in astronomy than in physics, where a large number of phenomena are not yet mathematized during the period covered here."

; 2023-2024: Hegel, Nietzsche or other 18th-19th-century philosopher: Sciences has maximize empirical data for and minimize reason (in logic).; 2024/philarchive .org/archive/DUNRAO :

p.3: "While many find the reduction hard to believe owing to its associated ontology, it is nonetheless natural to read Lewis as a realist about modality",

p.4:"Mackie’s error theory is an extreme version of irrealism; more modest versions that are compatible with Existence are possible." (I thought error theory is in contention with Michael Pendlebury.),

p.11: Part of objectivism-chapter: "This line of reasoning suggests that even paradigmatic non-objective domains will satisfy Cognitive Command, and the No Triviality feature is violated. But it is only suggestive, since one crucial assumption is that facts in non-objective domains can be known. We could of course reject this, and endorse Moderate Skepticism for non-objective domains:

Moderate Skepticism Not all of the facts in D are such that someone could know them."..."Whether it is a structural feature of objectivity that Moderate Skepticism is not true of non-objective domains is not a question I will try to answer here. But it is a substantial and non-trivial consequence of Cognitive Command that, if it can satisfy the No Triviality condition, non-objectivity must be accompanied by a degree of skepticism.",

p.14: "Connections: magnetism

We have so far considered some various candidates for the natural kinds that might underly talk of realism and objectivity.", "Many writers, starting with David Lewis (1983), have held that highly fundamental properties have an additional feature: they are easy to refer to."

Personal end-note: Relative Fundamentalism including moderate skepticism with relativism being a mode of "Agrippa's ten modes." "Lewis" is mentioned 5 times.;

Objective realism-note:a

Objective realism side-note:v

Curlie 2026.04.25/pioneer.netserv.chula.ac .th/~hsoraj/web/CT.html : "Hatcher urges us to embrace the realist epistemology and found teaching strategies on it. That is to say, the intellectual standard constitutive of critical thinking is predicated on the belief that truth is objectively 'out there' and is largely accessible (save occasions for fallibility, as Hatcher's 'fallibilistic' realism indicates). We can, conditions permitting, grasp the truth and, as the Greeks say, become one with reality. Hatcher contends that our goals in conducting epistemic activities is first and foremost to find that truth. The teacher's duty, in short, is to help students learn how to seek and grasp truth, how to come ultimately to know the truth which transcends boundaries of language, culture, or locality."

Objective realism side-note:a

Connection between infinite regress and objective realism:v

2025.12.27/philpapers .org/archive/PENOVR.pdf : p.10: "Leibniz on ultimate metaphysical reality; Kant on everyday judgements about nature, Meinongian realists on nonexistent objects, commonsense realist, like Thomas Reid, John McDowell", "Kant is a realist antiobjectivist about judgements of transcendent metaphysics inasmuch he understands them as attempts to describe features of reality about which he thinks human knowledge is impossible." 2025.12.25?-forum: Kant believed in indefinite regress. (Point of contention between relative fundamentalist VS "consideration of however slightly" as competent, unbiased, epistemically possible to reach mostly, self-reflective, thoughtful, distantly opinion-diverse, coherent, consistent, relying on primary standard that has secondary standard used, true/false-deterministic, largely-mind-independent-mind-having-world-believing judges. ->) "With some misgivings, I am inclined to count error theorists as realist antiobjectivists on the subject matter with which they are concerned. Think of"

f.42:"Kant can be difficult to pigeonhole. My phase “everyday judgements about nature” is meant to exclude both synthetic a priori judgements and transcendent judgements about nature (e.g. the judgement that the world has a beginning in time—or its denial)."

p.11: “Hume on "bodies,” Sellers on “manifest image.”"

"Antirealist objectivists include Kant on synthetic a priori judgements"..."so-called “Humeans” on laws of nature, such as David Lewis",

p.14: "As I see it, realistic truth conditions need only be independent of possible evidence in the sense that they do not directly involve, or need not to be formulated as, evidentiary conditions.78 This permits evidence-transcendent truth but does not require it.79 More specifically, it leaves open three different possibilities: first, that all assertions about the subject matter about the relevant subject matter have evidence-transcendent truth conditions; second, that some but not all do; and, third, that none do. Dummett's challenge is greatest in case of first type. The challenge does not arise in cases of the third type. But given the demands of the Determinacy Requirement, it could be difficult to establish that a rich and interesting subject natter actually belong to this type. Cases of the second type always involve a class of assertions that are taken to be verifiable in the sense that their truth conditions do not transcend all possible evidence. In favorable instances, the core of verifiable assertions could provide the basis for an adequate response to Dummett's challenge."

f.74:"I don't know whether Dummett himself uses the phase “evidence-transcendent” or any of his cognates, but they are persuasive in discussions of his work (see e.g., Wright [1992]: 4 and Hale [1997]: 275) and are warranted by Dummett's ([1976]: 52) observation that “the truth of many sentences of our languages appears to transcend our powers of recognition.”

f.77:"This qualification is necessary because Dummett ([1993]: 472-73) has claimed that although he has been seen as a global antirealist, he has never committed to this position.

f.78: "Thus, verificationists, who reject evidence-independent truth, are antirealist objectivists, but not all antirealist objectivists are verificationists."

f.79: "In this paragraph and the next, I draw significantly on Pendlebury (2000): 31–32.";

2025.12.27/philpapers .org/rec/PENPAO : "sophisticated commonsense realism, proposes an account in terms of which perceptions acquire the status of perceptual judgments to the extent that they are imbedded in and engaged with the high-level patterns of consciousness and reasoning characteristic of judgments."..."explains how the contents of perceptual judgments which are to be understood as refinements of contents of the relevant perceptions apply to a world that is largely independent of the perceiver and knower";

2025.12.27/bu .edu/wcp/IntroV5.htm : "He contends, however, that on any account the epistemology of experience requires at least one conscious state that is genuinely relational and to which we have unproblematic access."..."We do however enjoy unproblematic access to sense data. Hence our direct awareness of sense experience is the only genuinely relational awareness that "includes within itself one of its relata." This awareness eliminates the specter of an infinite regress in the process of justification. To this argument one might object that the notion of sense data seems to a hybrid concept that conflates descriptive and explanatory motifs. If we limit ourselves to description of our experience, it seems that we are in fact simply not aware of sense data. We are aware of pained bodily parts and red things but not of pain or red tout court. Michael Pendlebury contends that the development of a sophisticated common sense realism requires an account of how perceptions become perceptual judgments "to the extent that they are imbedded in and engaged with the high level patterns of consciousness and reasoning characteristic of judgments." He rightly points out that whatever may be the relations between concepts in a conceptual system the applicability of concepts must be "anchored" in the nonconceptual aspects of perceptual experience. Human perceptions always blend conceptual and nonconceptual aspects. To the extent that they include conceptual aspects perceptions are raised into what Wilfred Sellars called "the space of reasons" and thus become perceptual judgments. Pendlebury develops a convincing account of how perceptual discriminations both found and merge with conceptual articulations.",

"There is no neat set of criteria according to which common sense divides the matter in the world into objects. Hirsch concludes that we ought to give up on the absolutist project of a general semantic applicable to any language whatsoever. Indeed, we must accept the doctrine of conceptual relativism if we are "to accept our common sense ontological judgments at face value-to accept them for the humble, vague, messy, but strictly and objectively true judgments they are . . . ." Peter Klein takes his point of departure from a Pyrrhonian text which suggests that there are typically three forms of reasoning employed to justify beliefs: foundationalism, coherentism and infinitism. He then develops the thesis that only infinitism ("the view that adequate reasons for our beliefs are infinite and non-repeating") avoids the circular reasoning characteristic of coherentism and the arbitrariness characteristic of foundationalism. Infinitism holds that all of our justifications are provisional. There are always further questions that could be asked. As Klein puts it wryly: "The fun of reasoning is never exhausted." This does not mean that there can be no progress in truth. In fact, scientific practice thrives on the new questions generated by provisional answers. Paul Moser takes a different but related approach to the challenge of Pyrrhoniam skepticism. He considers the skeptical claim that non-skeptics invariably introduce question-begging warrants for their beliefs. Philosophers have traditionally called upon some epistemological warrant "such as science, common sense, intuition, explanatory coherence, social consensus, or utility of some sort." In every case, however, skeptics are able to discern some way in which the appeal to an authoritative warrant relies on a circular argument. After rejecting the standard response that the skeptical challenge is itself question-begging, Moser develops the thesis that "the best we can do is to invoke a kind of instrumental epistemic rationality that doesn't pretend to escape evidential circularity." He adds that skepticism cannot show that its "risk-averse strategy" provides a more effective way or avoiding error and it certainly cannot provide a way of advancing in truth. The modest tone of many of these essays reminds me of William James' hopeful but similarly modest remarks about the possibility of progress in truth. According to James, there is always a certain arbitrariness about an individual's decision about when to cease questioning" (Common sense being against non-arbitrary standard of correctness and infinite regress.) ", but we must eventually stop somewhere and take our rest in some reasonable conviction." (Michael Pendlebury's consideration in favor of assertions with minimal reasons being overthrown anytime as however slightly.) "The philosopher is committed, however, to the view that such moments are provisional resting places." (Assertions based on minimal reasons.) "Philosophy's role is ever to seek alternatives and to criticize comfortable conclusions. The pleasure of reasoning is never exhausted." (End of this website, which Michael Pendlebury contributed in with his common sense realism, which I guess can't see infinite regress, yet others might do. At least one of Michael Pendlebury's somewhere where I can't find it right now or in another of his pdf claims that maybe of his "Objectivism versus Realism".pdf in 2025.12.27/philpapers .org/archive/PENOVR .pdf or somewhere is that we should be careful about reasoning, which resonates with Peter Klein's statements about his Infinitism. Yet Michael Pendlebury's unclearly explained grounding requirement and him pointing out that despite advances in epistemology and similar ilk, we still didn't reached an adequate general account of sufficiently justifications nor necessitated requirements of reasons in Pendlebury's sense implies that there's no end in sight. My interpretation is that contemporary classical physics might be satisfy common sense realism closer to realist camp, scientific realism closer to objectivism camp, and provisional from bu .edu's Infinitism being temporary.

p.25: "Theoretical reasons are veritistic considerations in favor of beliefs—in other words, considerations that count in favor of those beliefs being true" relates to p.14: f.48 about the value of verification. );

2025.12.27/chass.ncsu .edu/people/mjpendle/ : Pendlebury's increased interest in the transcendental idealist Immanuel Kant and the transcendence : "Imaginative Synthesis and the Basic Function of the Second Part of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction in B,” forthcoming in European Journal of Philosophy. “Kant’s Account of Our Representation of Space: The Form of Intuition, Synthesis, and the Formal Intuition,” forthcoming in Kant Yearbook 17 (2025): Kant’s Philosophy of Mind Making Sense of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: A Philosophical Introduction, London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2022."

Connection between infinite regress and objective realism:a

Response to Michael Pendlebury to Infinitism being semi-valid:v

2025.12.21/plato.stanford .edu/archives/win2025/entries/infinite-regress/ : Infinitely indivisible: "Since classical mereology guarantees that there is a biggest thing—the thing that has all else as proper parts—but it does not guarantee that there are any smallest things—things that have no proper parts",

2025.12.21/philosophy.stackexchange .com/questions/130748/why-do-some-reject-infinite-regresses : "And in our day, it appears to be roughly acceptable to the community of analytic philosophers to consider the notion of ever-divisible "gunk" (in mereology)."",

Pendlebury's objective realist Leibniz and relativism in foundational relativism supports infinitely regress of descending chain of ontological dependence from top to bottom: 2025.12.21/plato.stanford .edu/archives/win2025/entries/infinite-regress/ : "things that have no proper parts—it guarantees that if parts are dependent on the wholes of which they are parts then there will be a first, ontologically fundamental, element, whereas if wholes are dependent on their parts then there is the possibility of an infinite regress in which each thing is dependent on some further thing(s), with nothing being fundamental: a possibility in which, Schaffer (2010, 62) says (agreeing with Leibniz), “Being would be infinitely deferred, never achieved”. Leibniz and Schaffer advocate Metaphysical Foundationalism: the view that there have to be some things that are absolutely fundamental—dependent on nothing—on which all else ultimately depends.",",

2025.12.21/philosophy.stackexchange .com/questions/130748/why-do-some-reject-infinite-regresses : "Contra Leibniz and Schaffer, then, Bliss rejects the idea that in an infinitely descending chain of ontological dependence, being would never be achieved.",

maybe 2025.12.22/storage.googleapis .com/production-ipage-v1-0-2/032/498032/zDYqEAjc/d1cb4766e1654f21b565dffb7c7f20fc?fileName=Infinitism-Korosh%20Erfani .pdf because contradicting claims about Kant and infinite regress :

p.332: "saw how a causal chain that is deemed to go until the annihilation of life on earth could also lead to other better outcomes if we change the equation and implement new links in this chain of events.",

Leibniz and infinitism: 2025.12.22/etools .ch: 2025.12.22/jstor .org/stable/45410601 : "idea of biological infinitism is linked to three central prob- lems related to Leibniz's understanding of natural world: (1) t…"

Pendlebury's sophisticated common sense realism doesn't accept infinite regress: ""infinite regress logical argument is naturally rejected when applied to ontology, used to make ontological claims, because we have no empirical experience and observations of infinity."",

""Kant held that the causal regress is neither finite nor infinite (in some sense of those terms) but is rather "indefinite."",

Pendlebury's Objectivism and Infinitism: 2025.12.21/plato.stanford .edu/archives/win2025/entries/infinite-regress/ : ""From a purely mathematical standpoint, infinite series or regresses are not inherently paradoxical or illogical. They are features of well-defined formal systems, suggesting that any philosophical objection to them must be based on grounds other than pure logical incoherence."",

Pendlebury's objective realism and Infinitism: ""physical sense, it seems perfectly logical to accept an infinite casual chain."", ""mathematicians have worked out both bi-infinite and cyclical logical systems (non-well-founded set theory, for example) and these do work.", "mathematical view of infinite: the integers ...,-2-1,0,1,2... han no "beginning", and the "rational" view about proof/argument: an argument must have a starting point."",

Hume and Infinitism: 2025.12.22/iep.utm .edu/inf-epis/ : ""Setting aside an evaluation of the steps in Hume‘s argument for foundationalism, notice that he too simply discards infinitism with the stroke of a pen: “But as you cannot proceed in this manner in infinitum …”. To Hume, infinitism seemed so obviously mistaken that no argument against it was needed.";

2025.12.22/academia .edu/93497004/The_Resilience_of_Formal_Infinitism_Through_Puzzles_and_Paradoxes : "Is infinity possible, or inescapably problematic? The advancement of commerce, agriculture, engineering, physics, and the life sciences all rely on classical continuous mathematics that incontrovertibly assumes the possibility of the infinite, and yet infinity leads to paradoxes.,

Enlightened Philosophers and Infinitism: 2025.12.22/degruyterbrill .com/document/doi/10.1515/kant-2020-0040/html : "Wolff’s relation to Leibniz and Kant’s relation to both are notoriously vexed questions. First, this paper argues that Wolff’s most serious departure from Leibniz consists in his (so far overlooked) rejection of the latter’s infinitism. Second, it contends that the controversies that surrounded Wolff’s early acceptance of infinite causal regress and prompted his conversion to finitism played a prominent role in shaping the theses of Kant’s Antinomies. Whereas Leibniz and the early Wolff considered infinite regress to provide support for the contingency of the world and the existence of God, Wolff’s enemies condemned it as Spinozistic. After Wolff, the claim that an infinite chain of causes is impossible became the standard view among both Wolffian and anti-Wolffian metaphysicians."

Transcendence and related to enlightened philosophers: 2025.12.22/philosophy.stackexchange .com/questions/12761/deleuzian-finitism-and-spinozian-infinitism : "transcendental, seems here to be that beyond the universe, and having no connection with it; whereas making the world immanent in a neccessary substance, as Spinoza did, appears to be here Deluzes reason to regard his theory anti-transcendetal.", (Spinoza as transcendental its is closer to being infinitist.) "He equates this infinite substance with God - all extension is the extension of God, thus the equation signaled by the phrase, “God, or nature.”", "I don't know Deleuze well but I get the sense that he would have condoned a conception of the infinite as (potentially) infinite differentiation.", (Rejecting Infinitism in regards to perceptual discrimination.)

"suggesting that infinite modes could represent a kind of transcendence. It would not be the sort of transcendence which Deleuze is separating himself from here, however. (Even the appealingly finitist Deluze accepts infinite regress as one kind of transcendence.) Many things, according to Spinoza, are beyond the capacities of a finite creature like the individual human.;

2025.12.22/iep.utm .edu/gilles-deleuze/#SH3d : "key word throughout Deleuze’s writings, as we have seen, to be found in almost all of his main texts without fail, is immanence. This term refers to a philosophy based around the empirical real, the flux of existence which has no transcendental level or inherent seperation." (Deluze appealing to empiricism/simple common sense realism to deny transcendent.), "all thought, in order to have any real force, must not work by setting up trancendentals, but by creating movement and consequences"",

2025.12.22/theologyphilosophycentre .co .uk/papers/Milbank_StantonLecture4.pdf : p.1: "Finitism or infinitism; Kant or Spinoza. However, a finitistic perspective is often divided between the insistence that the finite is all that we can know and an abyssal respect for an infinite that we do not know. This unknown infinite may even assume priority within the overall organisation of a theoretically finitistic philosophy. It tends to be construed as transcendent rather than immanent in part because it is projected as ‘beyond’ all understanding of phenomena by an epistemological perspective, and partly because it is seen as impinging, in excess of theoretical understanding, upon the inner core of our individual being from a ‘height’ that prevents any subordination of the individual to a pantheistic totality. Nevertheless, this mode of transcendence can often seem quite equivocal, and indistinguishable from an alternative mode of immanence, as we shall see." (Theoretical finitist's transcendence in perspective of phenomena as in Pendlebury's perceptual discrimination and assuming that Pendlebury's non-arbitrary standard of correctness/objectivism also is included in "excess of theoretical understanding, upon the inner core of our individual being from a ‘height’ that prevents any subordination of the individual to a pantheistic totality" is seemingly indistinguishable and equivocal from alternative infinite regress.),

p.2: "It follows then that the modern idiom of transcendence involves an unmediated dualistic split between the finite and the infinite, rendering it at once finitistic and infinitistic. This duality traces back once more to Duns Scotus, though clearly we need to understand here that Scotus was only consummating certain tendencies that preceded him. Scotus’s linked ideas of univocity of being and knowledge as representation tended to ensure that our theoretical knowledge is complete when it is merely of known finite things taken without reference to their infinite creative source. Hence in knowing finite existence or finite truth I fully know being and truth as such. On the other hand, univocity of being was also taken by Scotus to imply the priority of the infinite. It is infinite and not finite being which is self-sufficient and he deploys this conclusion to shape a proof for God’s existence. Accordingly, infinity is for Scotus the primary property of the divine, whereas for Aquinas it was simplicity."..."Scotus ‘infinity’ is primary not just ontologically, but also logically and semantically, given that the thesis of the univocity of being is a ‘transcendental’ affirmation that hovers between the semantic and the ontological.",

p.4: "In different ways both Descartes and Kant inherited this unmediated Scotist duality. For Descartes our theoretical knowledge is, on the one hand, finitely confined to the cogito , or immediacy of self-awareness in all we feel and think and do, and we must doubt all else. On the other hand it also includes a certainty of the infinite as positively ‘clear and distinct’ and in the light of this uncertainty we are able to remove our doubts about the existence and nature of the world outside us."..."For Kant, by contrast, our theoretical knowledge is wholly confined to appearances and yet one has an ethical access to the infinite that effectively cancels his metaphysical agnosticism, because the divine and the religious are so absolutely identified with the ethical imperative that we can comprehend. Moreover, in complex ways that were taken yet further by Fichte and some of the neo-Kantians, Kant effectively derives theoretical understanding and phenomenal reality from ethical understanding and noumenal reality. The analytic philosopher John Hare rightly recognises a Scotist substructure as present in all this and even claims, with daring counter-intuition, that Kant, apparently the inventor of an autonomous human morality, in fact perpetuates Scotist divine command theory in the ethical realm. One can argue this because, Kant stresses that, on account of",

p.5: "a lurking sensory schematisation which even moral reflection can never escape -- the aesthetic experience of the ‘sublime’ -- we need ‘faith’ that the categorical imperative is real in the infinite God, such that every pure and autonomous human ethical will is only a kind of aspiration"

Response to Michael Pendlebury about Infinitism being semi-valid:a

Difference between skepticism and infinite regress:v

2025.12.27/dl.libcats .org/genesis/774000/d1dc9de552052f624b3ab501aa7ea91b/_as/%5BJonathan_Dancy%2C_Ernest_Sosa%2C_Matthias_Steup_%28Edit%28libcats .org%29.pdf : p.48: "epistemic regress problem": "There are four epistemological theo- ries, corresponding to these possibilities:

(i) Foundationalism holds that, when one has a justified belief, this belief either is itself non-inferentially justified or is based, directly or indirectly, on one or more non-inferentially justified beliefs. A belief is non-inferentially justified if it is justified to some degree in some way that does not depend on one’s having reasons for the belief.3

(ii) Coherentism holds that all justified beliefs are justified by virtue of the way they fit together with (“cohere with”) the rest of one’s belief system. This view is commonly interpreted as embracing the legitimacy of circular series of reasons.4

(iii) Infinitism holds that, when one has a justified belief, there is an infinite series of reasons supporting it.5

(iv) Skepticism holds that there are no justified beliefs.6"

Difference between skepticism and infinite regress:a

Infinitism to classical physics-note:v

2026.01.13/ Edward McKinnon: Interpreting Physics: p.84: "Postulate I. Grant that two quantities, whose difference is an infinitely small quantity, may be indifferently used for each other: or (which is the same thing) that a quantity which is increased or decreased only by an infinitely small quantity, may be considered as remaining the same.

Marquise d l’Hospital, Analyse (1696)"

Infinitism to classical physics-note:a

Objective realism related-note:v

2026.01.01/cambridge .org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/9EE2044CDA598BD815349912E61189D8/S104909652300063Xa.pdf/measuring-democratic-backsliding.pdf : p.1: "survey objective indicators of democ- racy. For theoretical and pragmatic reasons, we adopt a “quasi- minimalist” conception of democracy that centers on the presence of free and fair elections in which losers accept the results, and we focus our empirical analysis on indicators of electoral competitive- ness."

Objective realism related-note:a

Realism-note:v

2025.08.03/jstor. org/stable/2107233 : Anti-realism was mostly ignored. Dummert focused on partial anti-realism. "Realism is the thesis that reality determines the truth values of sentences. It does so, moreover, independently of speaker and possible knowledge. According to realists, sentences have "objective truth conditions.";

2026.02.08/baijiahao.baidu .com/s?id=1664189081110998553&wfr=spider&for=pc&searchword=%22開明的反現實主義%22 : Google Translate: "According to the principles of realism, the relationship between the writer and life is one of reflection and being reflected, not an equal "dialogue" between two opposing sides."..."So, is realism "outdated" and "obsolete"? If we examine the history of Chinese and foreign literature, we will conclude that realism is timeless and possesses eternal vitality.", "Realism emerged as a literary movement in France in 1826, and Balzac's novel *The Chouans* in 1829 marked the first step in realist writing. However, its origins can be traced back to ancient Greece and Rome. For example, the "representation theory" proposed by ancient Greek philosophers such as Heraclitus, Plato, and Aristotle is the earliest blueprint for realism. In the development of European literature, realism reached its most conscious and mature stage in the mid-19th century, producing great realist writers such as Flaubert and Tolstoy. Although realism lost its mainstream status in the 20th century, being replaced by modernism and postmodernism, it still exists.", "While numerous modernist and postmodernist movements exist, many are as short-lived as realism. In China, from the *Classic of Poetry* to *Dream of the Red Chamber*, to Lu Xun, and then to the "Red Classics," the tradition of realism has been consistently present. Other creative methods, while having their own social contexts and conditions of existence, are only suitable for specific historical periods, while realism is applicable to any era, nation, and country in human society."..."

Secondly, realist literature helps people correctly understand and comprehend social life. Realism adheres to Marxist epistemology, believing that objective existence determines subjective consciousness and emphasizing that subjective consciousness must conform to objective reality. It stresses the importance of grasping the mainstream and essence of problems, discovering the hidden internal connections of things, and avoiding being misled or deceived by chaotic surface phenomena, thereby achieving essential truth rather than superficial truth, and holistic truth rather than partial truth. The core of realist literature is "typification." Engels, in a letter to Harkners, pointed out: "Realism means, in addition to the truthfulness of details, the truthfulness of typical characters in typical environments."", "Therefore, essence is a dialectical unity of "one" and "many." Because the same essence can be manifested in countless phenomena, typical characters are also diverse; there is not only one type in a given era. Therefore, realism does not lead to conceptualization, simplification, or oversimplification.", "Looking at modernism and postmodernism, due to limitations and one-sidedness in their understanding, they led to agnosticism and historical nihilism, believing the world to be nihilistic, absurd, irrational, and fragmented, thus requiring deconstruction. This resulted in contradictory statements in their writing, advocating a complete rejection of tradition, and focusing on describing human alienation, suffering, hopelessness, helplessness, fear, and insignificance under the oppression of technological rationality. Postmodernism is even more one-sided and extreme than modernism.", "Thirdly, the vitality of realism also lies in its dynamic and open characteristics. The essence of realism is to focus on reality, which is not static but dynamic and evolving." Source: Hebei Daily, Author: Feng Qiuchang;

2026.02.12/d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront .net/56081277/Latest_Review_by_Michael_Tavuzzi__Journal_of_Ecclesiastical_History_691__January_2018_p._156-157-libre.pdf?1521242107=&response-content-disposition=attachment%3B+filename%3DBook_Review_Michael_Tavuzzi_in_Journal_o.pdf&Expires=1770909593&Signature=ZMxsvGqalLsYkP80UpvllVthEWVq~sHwmjndBK262y88xDfbQHjRzbqO40lnJ9AML2wNRdSbGlQJivAbUUQD3aLz~kPjiGBuNhBWBh9CikhMbHmzJ9Wy3sjErSWnwLD4c95hCaNESTvyTSjYCwkrZgvIoo2fiJv98nGao89eRutZGKGV2BzqOXy9aHh6lfK27ZXTiMxctLI8zcy9LeAWhYl4m74mlSC9RUNerhsc3CKOXXUEURc3vL2TE5uIaAzA5hw7oRBx0cioQeR4GDsgrXGysvbH1aJxpT~vsRjTEAOm~PUdL4utUNMtIqGrMHrru9Lm1eczZaQ46VSGq3FwDw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA : p.1: "popular imagination of Renaissance Italy"..."reality was probably far more prosaic and even dismal"

Realism-note:a

Agnosticism-note:v

2026.02.10/baike.baidu .com/item/不可知论/512326 : "Agnosticism, as opposed to cognitivism, is a philosophical epistemology that holds that the world itself cannot be known beyond sensation or phenomena. It was first proposed by the British biologist T.H. Huxley in 1869.", "In modern Western philosophy, many schools of thought use agnosticism to deny the objectivity of scientific truth. It is a philosophical theory that denies the possibility of knowing the world or the possibility of completely knowing the world.", "elements of agnostic thought existed as early as ancient skepticism, but it emerged as a systematic philosophical theory in 18th-century Europe. The exploration and research of the opposing relationships between substance and accident, essence and phenomenon, necessity and contingency—which have existed in European philosophy since ancient times—remained unresolved within the realm of metaphysics for a long time.", "In the 18th century, natural science was underdeveloped, and knowledge about natural phenomena was fragmented. Scientific answers to the essence and causes of many things and phenomena could not be provided, prompting some philosophers to hypothesize the existence of an unknowable thing-in-itself behind things.

D. Hume was one of the main representatives of modern European agnosticism. He pointed out that knowledge is entirely limited to the realm of experience; humans cannot perceive or prove the existence of material entities, nor can they perceive or prove the existence of spiritual entities (including religion).

Another important representative of modern European agnosticism was Kant. He affirmed the existence of the thing-in-itself, but pointed out that the original appearance of the thing-in-itself, which stimulates people's senses and causes sensations, is unknowable; the soul as the most complete unity of all spiritual phenomena, the world as the most complete unity of all physical phenomena, and religion as the highest unity are not objects of knowledge, but belong to the realm of faith."..."

Some natural scientists who philosophically adhered to the agnosticism of Hume and Kant, such as Huxley and H.L.F. von Helmholtz, acknowledged that nature is governed by objective laws and did not accept any external interference. Therefore, Engels pointed out that their agnosticism was "realistic" materialism." (Agnosticism might be realistic materialism.)..."

In modern Western philosophy, many agnostic schools deny the objective significance of scientific truth, upholding agnosticism. Positivists such as H. Spencer and A. Comte were Humees. Neo-Kantianism strongly advocates Kant's agnosticism. Machism, pragmatism, neo-positivism, existentialism, and other schools all uphold agnosticism as a means of criticizing materialism.", "Agnosticism argues that sensation is a barrier separating consciousness from the external world, using the relativity of the limits of human cognition to demonstrate the absolute limits of human cognitive abilities, and therefore contradicts dialectical materialism."..."Dialectical materialism points out that the development of natural science and social practice constantly proves that human cognitive abilities are infinite, that human cognition can correspond to objective reality, and that there are only things yet to be known in the world, not unknowable realms." (Infinitism fitting to objective realism.) , "in France and other Protestant countries, philosophy gained dominance in the 18th century. In Marx's view, Deism was very similar to agnosticism; both were convenient ways to discard old dogmas. The French Revolution, which brought about significant but superficial changes, shocked the upper classes, who formed open alliances with the various denominations revived in the turmoil of 1848", "According to Engels, educated foreigners who immigrated to England in the mid-19th century were astonished by the religious fascination they witnessed among the middle class; the influence of various countries had arrived, producing what he called an effect of “enlightenment.”", "In 1892, Engels wrote that agnosticism was almost as revered as the Church of England, and far superior to the Messiah; in a succinct Langkashire term, agnosticism was “shy” materialism (see *Selected Works of Marx and Engels*, Vol. 3, p. 386). Engels went on to discuss the philosophical significance of agnosticism’s uncertainty about the reality of things or causal relationships.", "**Strong Agnosticism:** The question of whether God exists is inherently unknowable, and humanity lacks the ability to draw conclusions based on so-called evidence.

**Weak Agnosticism:** The question of whether God exists has no answer, but it is not entirely impossible to reach a conclusion. People should not make hasty judgments before more evidence is available."..."**Modern Agnosticism:** Philosophical and metaphysical questions cannot be proven or disproven. Rational thinking can model meaningful assumptions within them. This school of agnosticism does not focus on discussing the existence of God.", "Although the basic tenets of agnosticism are as old as skepticism, Huxley coined the terms "agnostic" and "agnosticism" specifically to summarize his views on contemporary metaphysics, particularly the new developments of unconditionalism (Hamilton) and unknowability (Herbert Spencer).", "More than three hundred years ago, scientific progress, especially in physics, seemed to suggest to humanity that there are no unknowable things, only things that have not been known. Of course, at that time, a truly complete scientific research system was only just beginning to take shape, and drawing such a conclusion was obviously premature.

"..."Numerous scientific facts clearly point to: "The world is unknowable."

"..."Firstly, the uncertainty principle. This theory states that we cannot simultaneously and precisely measure the position and momentum of a particle. Don't forget, the world is only "knowable" if it is completely knowable."...

"Secondly, Gödel's theorem. This theorem states that in any formal system containing natural numbers, there must be undecidable propositions. This should at least demonstrate that, theoretically, the world is unknowable, and therefore the entire world is unknowable."...

"Thirdly, regarding the relationship between observation and existence. This is essentially the same as the first point. Schrödinger's quantum cat, if not observed, is in a state of neither life nor death. This is a description of the microscopic world by quantum mechanics (the quantum cat's observation object is uranium atoms, not the cat itself, so it's considered microscopic). Extending this to macroscopic objects, this effect is very small, not zero. This echoes the view of the ancient Chinese philosopher Wang Shouren: "Before you see this flower, it and you are both in a state of stillness; when you see it, its color suddenly becomes clear, and you know that this flower is not outside your mind."", "Related to Agnosticism: There is a famous "delayed-delay experiment" in physics, where a photon is allowed to take two possible paths, and the specific path it takes is decided afterward.", "Therefore, the objectivity of the world's existence is indeed questionable."..."

This is somewhat of an attack on materialism. Materialism itself claims that science must be combined with experimentation; if experimental results contradict it, it cannot be ruled out that it will be contradicting itself. Of course, this viewpoint has significant flaws:"..."

First, quantum mechanics must be correct. It hasn't been applied macroscopically, only experimentally verified microscopically. If quantum effects were applied to macroscopic objects, the deviation from acknowledging the objective existence of the world would be extremely small. Such a small spacetime would be practically meaningless."..."

Second, quantum mechanics arrives at this result because it uses a different way of describing the world. Which is correct: describing the world using conventional methods and then adding a "quantum parameter" to correct it? It's simply a matter of which is more convenient; a simpler mathematical process and a more perfect physical explanation are chosen."..."

Fourth, the problem of "why." "In the process of understanding nature, we raise many 'whys,' and when you try to answer one 'why,' you haven't completely answered it, but merely reduced the question to another 'why,' usually the latter being more credible or more difficult to answer. And this process can continue, forming a chain of 'whys.'" (Confirming Infinitism.) "..."

This inevitably means that at least one 'why' is unexplainable."...

"Fifth, physics is not absolute." (Against fundamentalism.) "Our understanding of physical theories is more of a conjecture than a knowledge. Besides propositions in mathematical logic that can be both proven and disproven, there are three other types of propositions: those that can be proven and disproven, such as "a disaster will occur here"; those that cannot be proven but can be disproven, such as "no one can climb this mountain"; and those that cannot be proven or disproven, such as "pi has an infinite number of zero decimal places." Unfortunately, all physical laws are propositions that cannot be absolute but can be disproven. (Physical laws are uncertain and confirms agnosticism.) "We can never be certain that they are always true; they can be overturned by counterexamples at any time." (Confirms Infinitism.) "Instead of saying "practice confirms theory," we should say "practice disproves theory." Such theories are more of hypotheses than knowledge. Idealism might avoid this problem, but it still cannot escape unknowability or detachment from objective facts."..."

In fact, there are propositions that can be proven but not disproven." (Reverse agnosticism/Cognitivism.) "For example, the disease cerebral thrombosis exists. It's meaningless to find thousands of healthy people without cerebral thrombosis to disprove it, but finding one patient with cerebral thrombosis proves it is indeed possible. This is called a particular argument. Regarding physical laws, Du Heng-Quinn argues that, quite the opposite, because the boundary conditions are completely unknown, they are impossible to falsify." (Physical laws seems to confirm modern agnosticism.),

"there is also a Bayesian approach, which holds that hypotheses with more proofs are more credible, and hypotheses with fewer proofs are less credible, but it's possible for hypotheses to have a degree of neither 100% nor 0% credibility. Under this line of thinking, all physical laws are those with relatively high numbers and strength of proofs, and it's impossible for a single falsification to overturn their perceived credibility. Therefore, the world is probabilistically reliable and relatively knowable, but this probability may never reach 100%..."..."

Sixth, we can never be certain that the information we receive from the outside world is true, which is essentially the same as point five.",

"You can never be certain that what you see is real; it's merely guesswork based on experience."..."

Seventh, we lack the informational foundation to fully understand the world. The process of understanding something (knowledge-based understanding) is merely storing information about that thing in the brain, which is impossible for the entire universe. Because the total number of particles in the entire universe is likely greater than the number in our brains, and our memory information cannot possibly exceed the information in our brains, it is impossible to store all the information of the entire universe into the brain, and therefore impossible to understand the entire universe."..."

In conclusion, "the world is unknowable."",

"People often understand ontology as the structural and genetic origin of the world." (Widespread belief.) "This interpretation fails to recognize the significance of Aristotle's change in the formulation of the ontological question.

"..."Aristotle was not asking what the form of things is in a genetic sense. As he pointed out, the so-called substance (form) is the fundamental characteristic that makes a thing what it is. Therefore, when Aristotle inquired about the "origin," he was not considering "what are the ultimate elements constituting things," but rather another question: Why is a thing or a class of things the way it is? For example, why is a table or a tree a table or a tree, and not something else?", Aristotle knew this distinction before. "This approach to questioning reveals that ancient Greek philosophers recognized a significant difference between the world perceived by people and the world grasped by reason: the former is unpredictable and ever-changing, while the latter is knowable and comprehensible; the former is unreal and unreliable, while the latter is real and reliable. In everyday language, the phenomenal world we see is not the original, essential world.", "This awareness of the ancient Greeks",

"this task is human reason (i.e., intellect); the capacity of reason is absolutely infinite, with nothing it cannot know, not even "God" (Virtuous Infinite progress and early modern philosophers's confidence of reason.) "; reason best embodies the essential power of humanity, therefore, intellectual activity (i.e., scientific cognitive activity) represents the entire meaning of human existence. Modern philosophers, whether empiricists or rationalists, did not differ substantially in these basic postulates.",

"People often view the epistemological questions raised by modern philosophers from the perspective of empirical science, understanding their discussions on the origin of knowledge, the nature of ideas, the role of universal categories, the classification of knowledge, and the limitations of knowledge as descriptive statements about the characteristics and essence of actual cognitive activities and existing scientific knowledge." (Widespread belief) ..."

This leads to misunderstandings about the significance of philosophers' thinking.",

""For example, people criticize rationalism for acknowledging "innate ideas" as advocating that humans possess empirical knowledge not derived from experience. This is precisely a misunderstanding."..."

Because, in fact, rationalists are not raising the question of whether humans can acquire knowledge about the external world apart from "sensory activity," but rather another, deeper, and more acute philosophical question: what is the significance of "innate ideas" (universal, general cognitive categories) in constructing knowledge? Besides sensory activity, what conditions are needed to construct universally necessary, truthful knowledge?"..."

Therefore, we can propose a new research perspective as a horizon for analyzing the value of agnosticism. In other words, philosophical epistemology is not concerned with questions such as "how actual cognitive activities are carried out," which belong to the sciences of thinking, such as psychology. Philosophical epistemology is concerned with the theoretical foundations of how knowledge is possible; its analysis is an analysis of the logical preconditions necessary for constructing knowledge. Only by examining the logical meaning of the modern philosophical concept of "entity" from this perspective can we escape the predicament caused by empirically scientific questioning of "entity"" (Escaping agnosticism?) "and establish a better entry point for evaluating agnosticism.", "In modern philosophical epistemology, the problem of agnosticism does not involve the empirical world or the world of lived experience, but only objects beyond sensory experience, objects that can only be grasped or believed through reason or intellect. Philosophers represent this object with the concept of "substance."", "Substance is the carrier or support of the attributes of things; it is a support assumed for the purpose of explaining simple ideas, the reason for which is unknown." ("However slightly" as Michael Pendlebury puts it in his "minimal reason" by Dummett or so.), "Substance is the main attribute (i.e., essence) of things, and this attribute becomes the basis for the other attributes of those things. Substance refers to an active subject; relative to the existence of "things," its activities are proactive and conscious. Substance not only refers to the cognitive subject, but also to the moral (more accurately, ethical) subject capable of creating its own real existence. Substance refers to the absolute unity of phenomenon, empirical self, and truth; it is not an empirical existence, but a priori existence.", "However, whether affirming or denying the existence of an entity, affirming or denying its knowability, its philosophical significance requires specific analysis and cannot be generalized. Furthermore, it needs to be emphasized again that an entity does not refer to the "existence of things" in the empirical world; therefore, it is not an existence of "thing-or-thing (material) nature." Therefore, we cannot use empirical (or natural science) concepts to refer to or understand the concept of entity, such as using empirical concepts of space and time to define an entity, saying how much space it occupies or how long it exists. Failure to pay attention to these two principles will lead to many misunderstandings in research.", "people often fully affirm and praise the philosophical concept of "denying the existence of spiritual entities while affirming the existence of material entities," rarely considering the question: why can't we simultaneously acknowledge or deny the existence of both types of entities? If we understand entities in the sense of carriers or supports, then neither material nor spiritual entities exist; if we understand these two concepts of entities in their essential sense, then we can only correctly explain a series of problems in philosophical epistemology by acknowledging their objective reality; "(Philosophical epistemological objective realism denies both materialism and spiritualism with carriers/supporters of attributes of things.) "if we analyze this problem in a subjective sense, then we emphasize human initiative and creativity. In this case, matter, as a passive existence, is placed in a relatively secondary position in philosophical epistemological research." (Materialism is secondary in a time of most philosophical accomplishments till 1950 being measured in Western Europe in year 1750 according to Charles Murray. Another philosopher in philarchive described 18th century in terms of philosophical physics and Lagrange's formulation.)..."

It can be said that the meaningful question is not whether entities actually exist, or whether spiritual entities exist; the valuable question for epistemological research is: what is the significance of acknowledging the existence of entities, and how to define the connotation of entities is meaningful for explaining the possibility of constructing knowledge and for promoting the development of human knowledge. It is precisely because the concept of entity occupies such an important position in philosophical epistemology that modern agnostic philosophers Hume and Kant"(Hume and Kant are categorized as modern agnostics.) "used this as a gap to challenge traditional philosophical concepts.",

"Hume's agnosticism reveals the limitations of human knowledge, and also exposes the limitations of the empiricist method."..."

The core ideas of Hume's agnosticism, or skepticism, can be summarized in three propositions:"..."

(1) There is no a priori synthetic truth about the external world;"..."

(2) All our true knowledge about the external world ultimately comes from perceptual experience;"..."

(3) Only knowledge derived through experimental deduction is correct."..."

These three propositions are supported by two fundamental theories."..."

First, the theory of sensory impressions. Hume believed that the basic object of "knowledge," that is, the object of thought when constructing knowledge, is sensory impressions. All other ideas, such as simple ideas, complex ideas, etc., are based on sensory impressions. An impression refers to the perception of something heard, seen, capable of, loved, hated, desired, or intended. An idea is the perception that the mind becomes aware of when reflecting on the aforementioned sensations or movements." (Hume's idea based on sensory impressions in baidu is common sense/perception in Michael Pendlebury's writings in Objectivism VS Realism and others as my knowledge goes before 2026.) "Based on this, Hume questioned the existence of the material entity, the spiritual entity, and the entity of God as traditionally understood in philosophy." (Hume delegitimizes materialism, spiritualism and traditional religion.) "Furthermore, he argued that since humans cannot acquire sensory impressions of these entities, they cannot acquire knowledge about them." (Sounds like strong agnosticism.) ..."

Secondly, there was the theory of causality. Hume did not entirely agree with his empiricist predecessors. He acknowledged that direct sensory impressions cannot provide universally necessary knowledge, and he also agreed with the rationality of rationalism's approach of using mathematics as a model to seek a path to necessary knowledge. Therefore, he proposed that true knowledge should be acquired by the mind based on impressions and through universal principles. One of the most important principles is causality. When Hume further analyzed our conceptions of causality using the methodological principles of empiricism, he encountered a dilemma: he found that we cannot understand how we acquire concepts of causality through experience. So, how are concepts of causality acquired? Hume attributed it to habitual association.", "According to Hume, the reliability and formation of our knowledge stem from our ability to perceive what can be visualized in our minds; what cannot be visualized can never become our object of cognition." (Strong agnosticism based on extreme empiricism.), "purpose of science is to provide knowledge about the essence and laws of things, helping people understand and master nature. Thus, the conclusions of extreme empiricism conflict greatly with the purpose of natural science: the ultimate conclusion of empiricist argument is that the purpose of science is unattainable. This conflict demonstrates that if one is to uphold the banner of the modern Enlightenment—science and democracy—then continuing to adhere to a thoroughly empiricist stance is neither necessary nor possible.",

"value of Hume's philosophy lies in its conclusion—agnosticism—through a method of skepticism, which awakened people to question metaphysical dogmatism and the concept of God. Hume also limited human knowledge to the realm of empirical activity by defining "unknowable existence," opposing the erroneous view of traditional philosophy, especially rationalism, of infinitely expanding human intellectual capacity." (So rationalism believes in cognitivism, in infinite progress of knowledge. Leibniz and early Wolff argued for vicious infinite regress about the universe continuously and therefore infinitely existing. Leibniz is described by Stanford encyclopedia as the textbook-example of a rationalist. Kant about indefinite regress, supposingky uniting rationalism and empiricism with his late-18th-century works.) "Hume further called for the use of experimental reasoning to study problems in the human sciences and to analyze human nature in a normative manner. Hume also implied that explanations of human morality are superior to reasoned explanations of nature. These ideas of Hume not only played a positive role in the development of natural science but also had a profound influence on the rise of German classical philosophy." (Connection between according to Jonathan Israel moderate enlightened Hume and according to me more romantized and therefore less enlightened late Kant, since enlightenment-ness decreased in late 18th century.),

"Kant, through agnosticism, comprehensively refuted the errors of old metaphysics, propelling modern philosophy's thinking about humanity to a new stage. This involved replacing mechanism with subjectivism, blind rationalism with sober rationalism, and theories of humanity that unified science and ethics with theories that separated the two.

A distinctive feature of Kant's epistemological research is his question about the possibility of knowledge. Kant did not deny that humanity possesses scientific cognitive abilities and can construct objectively valid knowledge. For Kant, this was entirely an empirical fact.

Kant's purpose in proposing agnosticism was to criticize the various fallacies caused by metaphysical dogmatism in philosophical epistemological research, to dispel the transcendental illusions created by old metaphysics, and to study the prerequisites for humanity's ability to construct scientific knowledge from a new perspective. As many philosophical texts have pointed out, a correct understanding of Kant's phenomenal and thing-in-itself doctrines is a prerequisite for a correct understanding of the meaning of Kant's agnosticism.

In Kant's philosophy, the concept of the thing-in-itself has a very rich meaning. This led Kant to a surprising achievement in his philosophical thought that "agnosticism limits the arbitrary use of the concept of the thing-in-itself in philosophical epistemology.""..."

1. The thing-in-itself as the external basis for the possibility of the object of knowledge."..."

In Kant's philosophy, the object of knowledge has three meanings:"..."

First, it refers to the object of understanding, that is, the manifold phenomena provided to the intellect by sensible intuition.",

"Second, it refers to the object of sensible intuition, that is, what the senses obtain under external stimulation.",

"Third, it refers to the object of the senses."..."

Of these three meanings, the first two refer to "the object of thought within consciousness," while the last refers to an independent existence outside of consciousness (the thing-in-itself).",

"The thing-in-itself is unknowable when it does not relate to the senses; however, once it relates to the senses, it is no longer independent and immediately transforms into the second meaning of the object of knowledge, that is, what people usually call "phenomena" (also translated as appearance or manifestation).

Kant considered the forms of sensible intuition and the categories of understanding as the objects of knowledge and the subjective conditions that make knowledge possible, emphasizing that beings that do not or cannot present their own existence in consciousness (intuition) cannot become objects of knowledge. However, limited to these analyses, Kant's argument did not go beyond the scope of "subjective consciousness." This inevitably raises the question of how knowledge can possess objectivity.

To distinguish itself from Berkeleyan subjectivism, Kant further proposed that human cognitive consciousness is limited by external objects. He posited the thing-in-itself, external to the senses, as the external condition that makes "sensation" possible, and thus, the external condition that makes the object of knowledge possible. Kant called the thing-in-itself X, which exists but whose nature is unknown."..."

2. The thing-in-itself as absolute unity."..."

Kant believed that there are only three such things-in-itself, namely the three entities discussed in traditional metaphysics: the soul, the universe, and God."..."

In Kant's view, these three entities are not objects of knowledge; they are unknowable. This is not only because the categories of understanding cannot be applied to them, but more importantly because they cannot present their own nature to people in intuition. As the sum of conditions, they transcend the limitations of any individual experience.",

"However, metaphysical discussion of these three entities is not entirely meaningless. Because, as the sum of conditions making the empirical world (i.e., the worldview in knowledge) possible, they are also the total prerequisites for constructing knowledge."..."

Kant called this activity of reason the activity of constructing rules of rules. In other words, the study of absolute "entities" is the prerequisite for rationalizing scientific cognitive activities and the driving force for science to continuously explore new research areas."..."

Thus, the "logical function" of the thing-in-itself as "absolute unity" is both negative—it opposes people transcending the limitations of experience to understand an absolute unity that is not a cognitive object" (Recognizes limits as negative.) "—and constructive—it encourages people not to stagnate within the existing scope of knowledge but to continuously construct new cognitive objects, thus constantly expanding the realm of knowledge." (Infinite regress of questioning at least in the beginning as positive.),

"In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself (transcendental ego) as the subject is the intrinsic condition making empirical activity possible. Unlike traditional empiricism, which views the cognitive subject as a passive being, Kant emphasizes the transcendence of the subject."..."

Within the realm of theoretical philosophy, this transcendence manifests in three aspects:"..."

First, it transcends the one-sidedness of "immediate, direct experience" to obtain knowledge of universal necessity",

"Secondly, it is about transcending the limitations of currently acquired scientific knowledge to pursue a higher and more complete unity."..."

Thirdly, it is about transcending the inherent limitations of cognitive activity, which are inevitably subject to external things, and pursuing true freedom of one's own existence."..."

Kant's so-called third transcendence essentially declares that only by transcending the limitations of scientific cognitive activity can humanity achieve true freedom in the practical activity of creating ethical relationships."..."

Thus, Kant's true intention in emphasizing the unknowability of the thing-in-itself becomes clear: the thinking about scientific problems cannot replace the reflection on value problems; the ultimate concern of philosophy should be the question of the value of life, not the question of the realization of human freedom. And the question of human freedom is not a cognitive problem, but a question of belief, and also a question of pursuit."..."

Kant's analysis and argumentation of the unknowable thing-in-itself, on the one hand, affirms the rationality of empirical scientific cognitive activity and criticizes the error of old metaphysics in pursuing transcendental knowledge; on the other hand, it reveals a more worthy area for philosophical reflection: the question of the degree of freedom of human existence."..."

Therefore, "not replacing scientific cognitive activity, but focusing on the rationality of all human behavior" is the limit established by Kant's metaphysical research. This limitation is both negative and positive."..."

Kant's Copernican philosophical revolution in the realms of theory and practice",

"The spirit embodied in agnostic philosophy is a spirit of skepticism. In the history of philosophy, skepticism represents a critical spirit and fearless courage—a spirit that is unafraid of power, refusing to submit to authority, and daring to challenge traditional theories, especially those with dogmatic and authoritarian tendencies. It seeks out the internal conflicts of existing philosophical theories through criticism, examination, and challenge, proposing alternative solutions, thus providing the preconditions for the development of subsequent philosophical theories.

In this critical activity, it also exhibits a strong relativistic tendency, thus opposing the dogmatism and absolutism of traditional philosophy. It can be said that modern agnostic (or skeptical) philosophy did not win the respect of later generations because of its skeptical methods; fundamentally, it was its agnostic philosophical conclusions that prevented philosophy from returning to old metaphysics, thereby attracting the attention of later generations. In this sense, the historical role of agnosticism is both positive and negative."..."

On the positive side, agnosticism's critique of religious entities, its denial of material entities, and its skepticism towards spiritual entities strongly impacted the foundations upon which old metaphysics relied. Agnosticism, by promoting the spirit of modern experimental science" (Agnosticism is modern experimental scientific.) ", criticized mechanistic materialism and causality, as well as dogmatic thought." (Delegitimized Newtonian's mechanical materialism and pre-modern traditionalism as outdated traditional metaphysics.) "This shockwave of agnosticism even reached the foundations of religious theology, igniting a desire and enthusiasm for reflection on traditional moral and value systems."..."

Another positive outcome of agnosticism's critique of traditional metaphysics was its promotion of a shift in modern philosophical epistemology. Traditional philosophy demanded that metaphysics become "science" in the sense of "empirical natural science." This led old metaphysics to replace experimentation with speculation and experience with transcendence, attempting to provide humanity with a system of knowledge possessing absolute truth."..."

While "limiting" the boundaries of human knowledge, agnosticism pointed out the irrationality of this demand. Thus, it prompted a shift in modern philosophical epistemology from the study of "scientific epistemology" to "philosophical epistemology.""..."

This transformation has two direct consequences:"..."

First, it necessitates a demarcation between science and philosophy, allowing each to fulfill its own inherent purpose." (Modern Agnosticism separates science and philosophy.) ..."

Second, it requires replacing isolated, static, and one-sided metaphysical thinking with dialectical thinking;" (Modern agnosticism replaced fundamentalism with dynamical thinking.) "otherwise, one cannot explain the logically proven conclusion of agnosticism: that human knowledge possesses relativity, temporality, and is not absolute truth. Modern dialectics originates from this point." (Modern Agnosticism is relative.) "

Agnosticism has also found some resonance in contemporary philosophy. It opposes a priori truth theories, emphasizing the necessity of relying on empirical experience to obtain objectively valid knowledge, and stressing the importance of focusing on the current state of existence to acquire knowledge. These ideas have had a positive impact on contemporary positivism and the philosophy of linguistic analysis. At the same time, agnosticism limits the scope of human intellectual activity, suggesting that the meaning of human existence should be studied using methods different from those of natural sciences, and this has a significant impact on contemporary humanistic philosophy.",

"Of course, agnosticism also has undeniable destructive and negative influences.",

"References"..."[1] Tom Bottomore, translated by Chen Shuping et al. Dictionary of Marxist Thought. Zhengzhou: Henan People's Publishing House, July 1994." (Just one footnote at bottom compared to much text, yet it's sourced with book-references in middle of text, references to Marx, Engels and other philosophers in person. The content seems good and even empathizes the many facets of agnosticism and what philosophy really means, slightly biased to Marx, Engels by focusing on them more on mundane quotes such as his observation on educated foreigners even though both are classified of doing pseudo-social-science, yet maybe I am wrong. I wish that Baidu explained the negative effects of agnosticism in a separate section and how to escape agnosticism reliably, which perhaps I missed it, and more footnotes.)

Agnosticism-note:a

Objectivity-note:v

2025.12.31/cambridge .org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/9EE2044CDA598BD815349912E61189D8/S104909652300063Xa.pdf/measuring-democratic-backsliding.pdf : p.3: "objective variable is based in fact rather than a combination of opinion and fact. A useful “litmus test” is whether multiple qualified experts with access to the needed information would reach the same conclusion (Cheibub, Gandhi, and Vreeland 2010).", "An objective indicator from V-Dem is the variable “per- centage of the population with suffrage,” which asks: “What share of adult citizens as defined by statute has the legal right to vote in national elections?” These variables can be constructed on the basis of clear observational criteria and require little if any judg- ment from coders.";

2026.04.16/philpapers .org/archive/LITOAS-2.pdf : p.1: "kind of objectivism in epistemology that involves the acceptance of objective epistemic norms. It is generally regarded as harmless. There is another kind of objectivism in epistemology that involves the acceptance of an objectivist account of justification, one that takes the justification of a belief to turn on its accuracy. It is generally regarded as hopeless. It is a strange and unfortunate sociological fact that these attitudes are so prevalent. Objectivism about norms and justification stand or fall together. Justification is simply a matter of conforming to norms. In this essay, I shall make the case for objectivism about justification.

1. Introduction

I will defend two objectivist views. The first is a view about epistemic norms. Objectivists about norms believe that some norms have objective application conditions (i.e., conditions that don't supervene upon our non-factive mental states or the subjective aspects of our mental lives). The second is a view about epistemic justification. Objectivists about justification believe that justification depends upon whether certain objective conditions obtain. If, say, some objective condition is met and there's a norm that says that you shouldn't believe that it's raining if this condition is met, you couldn't justifiably believe that it's raining because this condition is met. It might not seem that the condition is met. You might have evidence that leads you to think that you violate no norms, but your belief still wouldn't be justified because you violated this norm.

Norms identify the conditions under which someone should or should not believe, do, or feel something. Objectivists and subjectivists agree that some norms have subjective application conditions (e.g., if there's a norm that requires probabilistic coherence there is a norm with a subjective application condition). Their disagreement is about whether there are any further norms that require us to believe or refrain from believing when objective conditions obtain. Their disagreement is about norms like these:

You shouldn't believe p unless you know p (Only Knowledge).1

You shouldn't believe p unless p is true (Only Truth).2

Objectivists will have their disagreements about these norms (e.g., some would argue that Only Truth needs to be supplemented by further norms and some would argue that Only Knowledge delivers the wrong verdict in Gettier cases), but they wouldn't think that these aren't genuine norms just because we refer to something objective in",

p.2: "specifying their application conditions. Subjectivists, on the other hand, insist that all genuine norms have subjective application conditions, conditions we specify by reference to subjective aspects of your mental life. Normative evaluation, they'll say, should always be concerned with relations between a subject's attitudes or actions and further features of our subjective mental lives.";

2026.04.16/researchgate .net/publication/227712020_Objective_Reasons : "In order to establish that judgments about practical reasons can be objective, it is necessary to show that the applicable standards provide an adequate account of truth and error. This in turn requires that these standards yield an extensive set of substantive, publicly accessible judgments that are presumptively true. This output requirement is not satisfied by the standards of universalizability, consistency, coherence, and caution alone. But it is satisfied if we supplement them with the principle that desire is a source of minimal reasons. This principle is justified despite currently fashionable arguments against the claims of desire.";

Objectivity-note:a

Objective idealism-note:v

2026.05.10/philosophyprofessor .com/philosophies/objective-idealism/ : "first major articulation is in Friedrich Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) and his later Naturphilosophie. Schelling argued that nature and mind (or spirit) are two manifestations of a single underlying absolute. Nature is "visible spirit"; spirit is "invisible nature". Schelling's project was to overcome the Kantian dualism between phenomena (the world as it appears) and noumena (the world as it is in itself). The absolute, on Schelling's view, manifests itself both objectively (as nature) and subjectively (as mind). The two perspectives reveal the same underlying reality."..."prototype of objective idealism. The absolute is mental in some sense, but not a finite mind; it is the source of both the natural world and finite consciousness, neither of which fully captures it.",

"most ambitious objective idealism is Hegel's absolute idealism. Hegel's mature system, articulated in the Science of Logic (1812–1816), the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817), and the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, presents reality as the self-development of the Absolute Spirit (Geist).",

"Hegelian-influenced contemporary philosophy", "Panpsychism", "Process philosophy", "Theistic philosophy",

"argument from analogy. Why think reality is mental? Our experience is mental, but extrapolating from one's own experience to the entire universe seems unwarranted. Objective idealists reply that the dialectical or transcendental arguments (Hegel, Bradley) provide independent grounds.

The complexity objection. Objective idealism, especially in Hegelian form, is enormously complex. Critics charge that the complexity is gratuitous: simpler frameworks (materialism, neutral monism) handle the same data with fewer commitments.

The Russell-Moore critique. Russell and Moore in the early 1900s attacked Bradley's idealism as resting on confused arguments — especially about the nature of relations. Russell's "Logical Atomism" (1918) was a deliberate alternative to Bradleian idealism and helped establish analytic philosophy.",

"Objective idealism connects with several other doctrines: Idealism — the broader category. Subjective idealism — the principal contrast. Transcendental idealism — Kant's intermediate position. The absolute — the central concept. Dialectic — Hegel's method. Internal relations doctrine — Bradley's central thesis. Holism — natural ally. Pantheism — theological cousin. Panpsychism — contemporary descendant. Process philosophy — Whiteheadian relative.",

"major figures are Schelling and Hegel in German Idealism; F. H. Bradley, Bernard Bosanquet, and Josiah Royce in British and American absolute idealism; and to varying degrees the early Russell and G. E. Moore (before they turned against the school)",

"Through the rise of analytic philosophy (Russell, Moore) and logical positivism in the early 20th century. Russell's "Logical Atomism" was a deliberate alternative to Bradleian idealism. The complexity and obscurity of Hegelian metaphysics also worked against the school.

Is objective idealism still defended today?

The strict doctrine is rare, but elements survive in Hegelian-influenced contemporary philosophy (Brandom, McDowell), in panpsychism (Galen Strawson, David Chalmers), in process philosophy (Whitehead and his successors), and in some philosophical theology."

; 2026.05.10/iep.utm .edu/germidea/ : "Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) had been Schelling’s classmate in Tübingen from 1790-1793. Along with the poet Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843), the two had collaborated on The Oldest Program for a System of German Idealism (1796). After following Schelling to Jena in 1801, Hegel published his first independent contributions to German idealism, The Difference Between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy (1801), in which he distinguishes Fichte’s “subjective” idealism from Schelling’s “objective” or “absolute” idealism. Hegel’s work documented the growing rift between Fichte and Schelling. This rift was to expand following Hegel’s falling-out with Schelling in 1807, when Hegel published his monumental Phenomenology of Spirit (1807). Although Hegel only published three more books during his lifetime, Science of Logic (1812-1816), Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1817-1830), and Elements of the Philosophy of Right (1821), he remains the most widely-read and most influential of the German idealists.

2. Logic

The German idealists have acquired a reputation for obscurity, because of the length and complexity of many of their works. As a consequence, they are often considered to be obscurantists and irrationalists. The German idealists were, however, neither obscurantists nor irrationalists. Their contributions to logic are earnest attempts to formulate a modern logic that is consistent with the idealism of their metaphysics and epistemology.

Kant was the first of the German idealists to make important contributions to logic. In the Preface to the second (B) edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant argues that logic has nothing to do with metaphysics, psychology, or anthropology, because logic is “the science that exhaustively presents and strictly proves nothing but the formal rules of all thinking”",

"German idealism’s contributions to logic were largely dismissed following the rise of empiricism and positivism in the nineteenth century, as well as the revolutions in logic that took place at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, however, there is a renewed interest in this part of the idealist tradition, as is evident in the attention which has been paid to Kant’s lectures on logic and the new editions and translations of Hegel’s writings and lectures on logic.",

"idealism espoused by the German idealists is, however, different from other kinds of idealism with which contemporary philosophers may be more familiar. While earlier idealists maintained that reality is ultimately intellectual rather than material (Plato) or that the existence of objects is mind-dependent (Berkeley), the German idealists reject the distinctions these views presuppose. In addition to the distinction between the material and the formal and the distinction between the real and the ideal, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel also reject the distinction between being and thinking, further complicating the German idealists’ views on metaphysics and epistemology.

Kant’s idealism is, perhaps, the most moderate form of idealism associated with German idealism. Kant holds that the objects of human cognition are transcendentally ideal and empirically real. They are transcendentally ideal, because the conditions of the cognition human beings have of objects are to be found in the cognitive faculties of human beings. This does not mean the existence of those objects is mind-dependent, because Kant thinks we can only know objects to the extent that they are objects for us and, thus, as they appear to us. Idealism with respect to appearances does not entail the mind-dependence of objects, because it does not commit itself to any claims about the nature of things in themselves. Kant denies that we have any knowledge of things in themselves, because we do not have the capacity to make judgments about the nature of things in themselves based on our knowledge of things as they appear.

Despite our ignorance of things in themselves, Kant thought we could have objectively valid cognition of empirically real objects. Kant recognized that we are affected by things outside ourselves and that this affection produces sensations.",

"To say that the idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel is more radical than Kant’s idealism is to understate the difference between Kant and the philosophers he inspired. Kant proposed a “modest” idealism, which attempted to prove that our knowledge of appearances is objectively valid. Fichte, however, maintains the very idea of a thing in itself, a thing which is not an object for us and which exists independently of our consciousness, is a contradiction in terms. There can be no thing in itself, Fichte claims, because a thing is only a thing when it is something for us. Even the thing in itself is, in fact, a product of our own conscious thought, meaning the thing in itself is nothing other a postulation of our own consciousness.",

"Fichte concludes that “everything which occurs in our mind can be completely explained and comprehended on the basis of the mind itself” (Breazeale 1988, 69). This is a much more radical form of idealism than Kant maintained.",

"Schelling defended Fichte’s idealism in On the I as Principle of Philosophy, where he maintained that the I is the unconditioned condition of both being and thinking. Because the existence of the I precedes all thinking (I must exist in order to think) and because thinking determines all being (A thing is nothing other than an object of thought), Schelling argued, the absolute I, not Reinhold’s principle of consciousness, must be the fundamental principle of all philosophy. In subsequent works like the System of Transcendental Idealism, however, Schelling pursued a different course, arguing that the essential and primordial unity of being and thinking can be understood from two different directions, beginning either with nature or spirit. It could be deduced from the absolute I as Fichte had done, but it could also arise from the unconscious but dynamic powers of nature. By showing how these two different approaches complemented one another, Schelling thought he had shown how the distinction between being and thinking, nature and spirit, could be overcome.

Fichte was not pleased with the innovations of Schelling’s idealism, because he initially thought of Schelling as a disciple and a defender of his own position. Fichte did not initially respond to Schelling’s works, but, in an exchange that began in 1800, he began to argue that Schelling had confused the real and the ideal, making the I, the ideal, dependent upon nature, the real. Fichte thought this violated the principles of transcendental idealism and his own Wissenschaftslehre, leading him to suspect that Schelling was no longer the disciple he took him to be. Intervening on Schelling’s behalf as the dispute became more heated, Hegel argued that Fichte’s idealism was “subjective” idealism, while Schelling’s idealism was “objective” idealism. This means that Fichte considers the I to be the absolute and denies the identity of the I and the not-I. He privileges the subject at the expense of the identity of subject and object. Schelling, however, attempts to establish the identity of the subject and object by establishing the objectivity of the subject, the I, as well as the subjectivity of the object, nature. The idealism Schelling and Hegel defend recognizes the identity of subject and object as the “absolute,” unconditioned first principle of philosophy. For that reason, it is often called the philosophy of identity.

It is clear that by the time he published the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel was no longer interested in defending Schelling’s system. In the Phenomenology, Hegel famously calls Schelling’s understanding of the identity of subject and object “the night in which all cows are black,” meaning that Schelling’s conception of the identity of subject and object erases the many and varied distinctions which determine the different forms of consciousness. These distinctions are crucial for Hegel, who came to believe that the absolute can only be realized by passing through the different forms of consciousness which are comprehended in the self-consciousness of absolute knowledge or spirit (Geist).

Contemporary scholars like Robert Pippin and Robert Stern have debated whether Hegel’s position is to be regarded as a metaphysical or merely epistemological form of idealism, because it is not entirely clear whether Hegel regarded the distinctions that constitute the different forms of consciousness as merely the conditions necessary for understanding objects (Pippin) or whether they express fundamental commitments about the way things are (Stern). However, it is almost certainly true that Hegel’s idealism is both epistemological and metaphysical. Like Fichte and Schelling, Hegel sought to overcome the limits Kant’s transcendental idealism had placed on philosophy, in order to complete the idealist revolution he had begun. The German idealists agreed that this could only be done by tracing all the different parts of philosophy back to a single principle, whether that principle is the I (in Fichte and the early Schelling) or the absolute (in Hegel).

4. Moral and Political Philosophy

The moral and political philosophy of the German idealists is perhaps the most influential part of their legacy, but it is also one of the most controversial.";

2026.05.10/en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Karl_Leonhard_Reinhold : "Reinhold tried to show that Kant's philosophy provided an alternative to either religious revelation or philosophical skepticism and fatalistic pantheism. But Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was a difficult and confusing book. It was not widely read and had little influence. Reinhold decided to write his comments on it in the literary journal The German Mercury. He skipped over the beginning and middle of the book and started at the end. Reinhold showed that the book was best read backwards, that is, starting with the end section.", "According to historian of philosophy Karl Ameriks, "Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Schiller, Hölderlin, Novalis, and Friedrich Schlegel all developed their thought in reaction to Reinhold's reading of Kant..."";

2026.05.10/scielo .org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0188-66492025000200093 : "Schelling’s 1806 essay against Fichte is important for two reasons: it discusses (1) the impossibility of idealism to grasp the real and objective status of Being and, therefore, the need for a metaphysical grounding of reflection situated outside of consciousness itself; (2) the discovery of the irreversibility of nature in God, which sheds new light on Schelling’s speculations about the relation between the ideal and the real ground of philosophy. Schelling changed the stance first presented in the System of Transcendental Idealism of 1800 to one according to which there is a non-derivative relation between nature and God: both are independent beings; at the same time, he makes God, as in classical metaphysics, a being that transcends nature. This allows Schelling to overcome the problem of the idealist distinction between logical and real movement, although it destroys the possibility of a single system of philosophy in the years after 1806.";

2026.05.10/iep.utm .edu/schellin/ : "dominant and most often limited understanding of Idealism as systematic metaphysics of the Subject is applicable more to Hegel’s philosophy than Schelling’s.",

"While initiating the Post-Kantian Idealism of the Subject, Schelling went on to exhibit in his later works the limit and dissolution of such a systemic metaphysics of the Subject. Therefore, the convenient label of Schelling as one German Idealist amongst others ignores the singularity of Schelling’s philosophy and the complex relationship he had with the movement of German Idealism. The real importance of Schelling’s later works lies in the exposure of the dominant systemic metaphysics of the Subject to its limit rather than in its confirmation. In this way, the later works of Schelling demand from the students and philosophers of German Idealism a re-assessment of the notion of German Idealism itself. In that sense, the importance and influence of Schelling’s philosophy has remained “untimely.” In the wake of Hegelian rational philosophy that was the official philosophy of that time, Schelling’s later works was not influential and fell onto deaf ears. Only in the twentieth century when the question of the legitimacy of the philosophical project of modernity had come to be the concern for philosophers and thinkers, did Schelling’s radical opening of philosophy to “post-metaphysical” thinking receive renewed attention. This is because it is perceived that the task of philosophical thinking is no longer the foundational act of the systematic metaphysics of the Subject. In the wake of “end of philosophy,” the philosophical task is understood to be the inauguration of new thinking beyond metaphysics. In this context, Schelling has again come into prominence as someone who in the heyday of German Idealism has opened up the possibility of a philosophical thinking beyond the closure of the metaphysics of the Subject. The importance of Schelling for such post-metaphysical thinking is rightly emphasized by Martin Heidegger in his lecture on Schelling of 1936. In this manner Heidegger prepares the possibility of understanding Schelling’s works in an entirely different manner. Heidegger’s reading of Schelling in turn has immensely influenced the Post-Heideggerian French philosophical turn to the question of “the exit from metaphysics”. But this Post-Structuralist and deconstructive reading of Schelling is not the only reception of Schelling. Philosophers like Jürgen Habermas, whose doctorate work was on Schelling, would like to insist on the continuation of the philosophical project of modernity, and yet attempt to view reason beyond the instrumental functionality of reason at the service of domination and coercion. Schelling is seen from this perspective as a “post-metaphysical” thinker who has widened the concept of reason beyond its self-grounding projection. During the last half of the last century, Schelling’s works have tremendously influenced the post-Subject oriented philosophical discourses.",

..."Schelling appears to be the mark that delineates the limit of the systematic task of philosophy, “the end of philosophy and the task of thinking” as Heidegger says. Prominent Schelling scholars like Manfred Frank and Andrew Bowie (1993) have, however, pointed out that Schelling had never abandoned the idea of ‘system’, although the idea of ‘system’ was no longer grounded on a restricted, narcissistic concept of reason as totalizing and self-grounding but as opening to that which cannot be thought in the concept.

For the sake of convenience we can roughly divide the philosophical career of Schelling into four stages:

a. Naturphilosophie and Transcendental Philosophy

b. Identity philosophy

c. The Middle period: Freedom essay and The Ages of the World

d. Positive Philosophy (Philosophy of Mythology and Philosophy of Revelation)

a. Naturphilosophie and Transcendental Philosophy

The significance of Schelling’s early philosophical works lies in its radically new understanding of nature that departs significantly from the then dominant philosophical and scientific understanding of nature. Perhaps the best the way to approach the Schelling of Naturphilosophie is to see him, on the one hand, in relation to the dominant mechanistic determination of nature at that time, that of the Newtonian mathematical determination of nature according to which nature follows certain determinable physical laws of motion and rest, and that can be grasped in the objective cognition that has universal and non-relative validity and on the other hand, as a development of post-Kantian philosophy that led to a radical revision of Kant himself. Schelling’s philosophy of nature thus arose out of the demand to respond to the mechanistic determination of nature that was dominant at that time on the one hand, and to respond to the problems that arose in Kant’s division of the phenomenal realm of nature and noumenal realm of freedom. This demanded a dynamic philosophical account of nature where nature is no longer seen as a totality of objects that are a mere inert, opaque mass, but nature that is subjected to universal laws of causality. Such a dynamic philosophy of nature must be able to resolve the abyss that is opened up in the wake of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. It is the abyss between the deterministic, causal, conditioned realm of understanding on the one hand, and the unconditioned realm of ethical self-determination on the other hand, between theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy. The task that the Post-Kantian philosophy has given to itself is to bridge this gap between the conceptual, constitutive realm of nature which can be grasped by causal laws that has universal validity, and the ethical spontaneity of the practical reason where the ethical subject is beyond the conditioned realm of determination and is thus a free Subject of self-determination. This Subject is the Subject of freedom that cannot be grounded in the constitutive principles of understanding but in the regulative Ideas of reason.", "Schelling’s early works flourished under the influence of Fichte’s thinking. In 1797 Schelling published an essay called Treatise Explicatory of the Idealism in the “Science of Knowledge” in Philosophisches Journal edited by Immanuel Niethammer. This essay is crucial document for understanding the transition from Kantian critical philosophy to German Idealism. While attempting to elucidate what Kant would have intended if Kant’s philosophy is to prove internally cohesive, Schelling moves to the task of unifying theoretical and practical philosophy in a single principle in such a manner that he actually moves beyond both Kantian and Fichtean philosophy. What allows this unification of theoretical and practical philosophy is the Spirit’s infinite striving to represent the universe. The Spirit is not a static entity given, something mysterious X, but infinite becoming and infinite productivity. It is in this ceaseless production lies the organic nature of human Spirit that is moved by its immanent laws and that has its purposive-ness within itself.",

"same year Schelling published his  Naturphilosophie that further elaborates the concept of organism through analysis of natural phenomena with the help of scientific studies of the day. This work responds to the dual tasks mentioned above. On the one hand it must give an account of a dynamic process of the emergence of nature as against the mechanistic, deterministic understanding of nature; and on the other hand, to resolve the problem left by Kant, that of bridging the realm of theoretical and practical philosophy by developing a dynamic philosophy of nature that takes into account Fichtean dialectical philosophy of consciousness. Like the Treatise of the same year, this new philosophy of nature is not grounded in the self-positing, unconditioned self-consciousness but by positing a “non-objective”, unconditioned in nature itself which Schelling calls “productivity”. It is this productivity that emerges through the logic of polar oppositions between subject and object that is shown to lead to a higher subject-object synthesis. For Schelling such a dialectical logic is deducted as a movement of potencies. The first potency is the movement of infinite to the finite. The second potency makes the reverse movement, while the third potency alone, which is higher than the other two, unities preceding potencies. In this manner Schelling explains magnetism as the first potency, electricity as the second and chemistry as the third potency that dialectically sublates the other two. Schelling’s philosophy of nature that attempts to develop the dynamic process of Idealism from the objective side can be seen as a parallel development to the Subjective Idealism that is elaborated by Fichte.

In the Treatise Explicatory of the Idealism in the “Science of Knowledge” of 1797 Schelling hints at the idea of “the history of self-consciousness”. The Spirit through its originary activity presents the infinite in the finite, a movement whose goal is self-consciousness that marks the unification of theoretical and practical philosophy, nature and history. Schelling perfects this model in his System of Transcendenatl Idealism.   Schelling’s publication of The System of Transcendental Idealism in 1800 brought immediate fame to the young 25 year old philosopher. Schelling here draws from Fichte’s great insight that self-consciousness is not a mere “given entity”. It is not an unknown and inaccessible X,  a mysterious transcendental “in-itself” as the formal ground of cognition, but a coming into presence of itself, a pure self-positing emergence through the dialectical process of self-positing and self-limitation. In that way a “history of self-consciousness” can be deduced from one principle that explains the coming into being of the theoretical cognition that at its limit passes into the practical realm of freedom, that is, the objective world of history . This is the task of Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism of 1800. Thus the axiomatic sense of Fichtean I=I is transformed into the dynamic deduction of the self-consciousness by one principle. This is emergence of the Idealist notion of System whose possibility, according to the Idealists, is already given in Kantian Critical philosophy; a possibility is denied by Kant himself.

“The history of self-consciousness” comes into being in three stages or epochs. While the first epoch manifests the coming into being of “productive intuition” from “original sensation” and the second epoch manifests the emergence of “reflection” from “productive intuition”, the third epoch recounts the emergence of “the absolute act of will” from “reflection”. At the end of the third epoch, “the history of self-consciousness” passes into the practical realm where the deduction of the concept of history is shown to be the realm of unity of freedom and necessity. This has led Schelling to ask at the end of System: how the Subject which is now a completed self-consciousness can become conscious of that moment of its origin which is now unconscious for it, a past that appears to have receded into an immemorial origin and is inaccessible? It now appears that the condition of possibility of consciousness as such remains irreducible to consciousness itself. This is the problem that has become decisive, not only for Schelling’s subsequent philosophical career, but for the fate of Idealism as such. It now appears as if our self-consciousness is driven or constituted by an unconscious ground, forever inaccessible to consciousness, which can never be grounded in consciousness itself.

For Schelling this shows the limit of philosophical cognition and at the same time the importance of works of art. By refusing the claim to say or represent the synthesis of unconscious and conscious, the work of art rather shows it. Therefore art can be said to be the “the eternal organ and document of philosophy” whose basic character is an “unconscious infinity” that arises in the work of art’s synthesis of nature and freedom. While the artist initiates a work of art with a manifest, conscious intention, she, in an unconscious and unintentional manner, depicts infinity without representing or saying it. Such an unintentional showing exceeds the representational acts of consciousness. It cannot be reduced to categorical statements. Therefore works of art cannot be understood on the basis of pre-given set of rules. Works of art are not exhausted in the normative or axiomatic definitions as to ‘what constitutes art as such’. What constitutes the ‘essence’ of art lies rather in its excess of showing over the said. In that sense works of art are more analogous with organisms by virtue of its existing as a link between unconsciousness and consciousness. Such a link can only be shown and therefore remains irreducible to the propositional character of judgment. Schelling develops such insights further in his lectures on The Philosophy of Art (1802), two years after The System of Transcendental Idealism . Unlike Hegel’s lectures on Aesthetics where Hegel argues that “the work of art is a thing of the past” in so far as it no longer has an essential relation to the Absolute even though works of art will continue to be produced, and thus pass into the sobriety of philosophy’s Absolute Knowledge, Schelling sees works of art and philosophy as manifesting the differential mode of the Absolute where art retains an essential, singular and irreducible role.",

"b. Identity Philosophy

In 1795,  Friedrich Hölderlin published an article called On Judgment and Being that has proved to be of decisive importance for the later development of German Idealism. In this small article Hölderlin attempts to think of an Absolute identity, a prior and originary ground of consciousness that cannot be grasped or known within the immanence of self-consciousness. Hölderlin calls this originary identity “being”( Seyn) which he distinguishes from Judgment ( das Urteil). Hölderlin here attempts to think of an originary identity that grounds the reflective judgment. According to Hölderlin this reflective judgment which is the unity of a disjunction, separation or difference between the subject and the object, must already presuppose an originary identity before judgment. In so far as judgment presupposes the difference between the subject and the object of consciousness, it must already be grounded in an identity. This identity is being (Seyn) which, because of its ground character, remains irreducible to the reflective consciousness. In order for judgment to be possible, it must be grounded in a principle that exceeds judgment itself. This originary identity is being which is before or without consciousness.

In his Identity philosophy, Schelling too attempts to move beyond the immanence of self-consciousness and the circle of reflective judgment. With this move, Schelling decisively breaks away from the Fichtean subjective Idealism. The question of ‘I’ is no longer the point of departure, unlike that of Fichte’s absolute ‘I’ that is not an inert substance but arises purely in the act of self-positing. Rather, here it is the question of consciousness as a result of a process which is to be grasped not merely from the side of the Subject of self-consciousness but from the other side as well. This relation between subject and object thus can no longer be grounded within self-consciousness itself but in an absolute indifference that is prior to this distinction and hence, that can only be presupposed but is never accessible to reflective judgment or to the categories of understanding. Unlike that of reflective philosophy, the question is no longer that of making a correspondence between the subject and the object of consciousness. Such a representational philosophy of correspondence is here abandoned. The problem is rather that of explaining the manifestation of a finite world from a ground that is forever excluded from the infinite chain of conditioned, finite, particular entities. In order not to fall into dualism, which Jacobi alludes is the dualism between the unconditioned ground on the one hand and the infinite chain of conditioned, finite entities on the other, Schelling has to explain the manifestation of the finite world out of its unconditioned ground, from an absolute indifference, without falling into the logic of reflective thinking which Hegel later uses to develop in his Phenomenology of Spirit. This is the emergence of the finite world of entities that are connected to each other in an infinite chain of predicates from an originary indifference which is unconditioned. This emergence is not a smooth transition but a qualitative leap, a diversion, a falling away (Abfall) from its originary ground. Later in his critique of Hegel, Schelling argues that such a leap cannot be understood on the basis of Hegelian modality of dialectical negativity that arrives at absolute knowledge only on the basis of the self-cancellation of the finite.

Perhaps the most lucid and systematic exposition of Schelling Identity philosophy will be found in his posthumously published lecture called The System of Philosophy in General and of the Philosophy of Nature in Particular (1804).";

2026.05.13/mdpi .com/2076-0787/14/4/84 : "letter from 11 November 1989: “Ich sehe ein, daß Novalis’ spekulative Produktivität der von Hölderlin vielleicht überlegen war” (I recognize that Novalis’ speculative productivity was perhaps superior to that of Hölderlin). But he contended that Novalis came much later than Hölderlin to a critique of Fichte, arguing, therefore, that Hölderlin had been the pioneer in overcoming a philosophy of reflection. But this, too, is doubtful. According to Friedrich Strack’s new dating, Hölderlin’s sketch Urtheil und Seyn (Judgment and Being) was not written in April 1795, as Henrich, with great philological effort and authority, had argued,14 but, at the earliest, in December 1795, if not in January or February 1796 (Strack 2013, p. 13 ff.). This significant little text was written on what appears to be the flyleaf of a special printing of Schelling’s Philosophische Briefe über Dogmaticismus [sic!] und Kriticismus (Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism), which Schelling brought along for his friend during a visit to Nürtingen or Stuttgart in December 1795. On the other hand, according to Hans-Joachim Mähl, the first editor of the Fichte-Studien, Novalis began these notes in September 1795.15 Indeed, his reasonings here on being, identity, and judgment, which are so similar to the argumentation in Hölderlin’s sketch, are found at the very beginning of his notes (Novalis 1965, p. 104). Whatever the exact chronology may be, both Hölderlin and Hardenberg converge surprisingly in their reaction to the Jena “constellation”. Both owned the first sections of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre (Science of Knowledge; Waibel 2000, p. 22 ff.; Mähl in Novalis 1965, p. 30 f.), which initially was printed lecture by lecture and made accessible only to those in attendance; the complete book first appeared in early summer 1795. And both received repeated requests from Niethammer for submissions to his recently established Philosophisches Journal. Novalis’ Fichte-Studien, written September 1795 through Juli 1796 and so named not by him but much later by the editors, were probably the sketch of an essay Novalis intended to write in response to these requests.16 This also seems plausible in light of the notes themselves: the occasional addressing of an (implicit) reader, and, in general, their dialogical style seem to point toward such an intended publication. Hölderlin, too, was urged by Niethammer to submit an article to the Philosophisches Journal, and in his correspondence from 1795/1796 he mentions repeatedly that he was working on one.17 Perhaps he was referring to his Neue Briefe zur ästhetischen Erziehung (New letters on aesthetic education); he writes in several letters how he was wrestling—not without anguish and misgivings—on this project. Or it may be that some of the philosophical fragments from 1795 and 1796 that have been collected in the 17th volume of the Frankfurt Hölderlin-Edition (Hölderlin 1991) were intended for this purpose. The Philosophisches Journal was conceived as a forum for testing the robustness—or the untenability—of a so-called “first and highest principle” of philosophy.",

"These are the thoughts I wrote down while still in Waltershausen, when I read the first parts, immediately after reading Spinoza; Fichte confirms my (Hölderlin 2009, p. 48). At this point a collector or auctioneer ripped out a part of the manuscript. Nevertheless, it is clear that at least one conversation took place where Fichte made some concessions to Hölderlin.36",

"In contrast to Novalis, Hölderlin did not avoid the old conundrum of self-consciousness when he sought a solution in the realm of poetry. He was still on the trail of the de se problem he had so discerningly described in Urtheil und Seyn. But, in 1800, Hölderlin did, in fact, transfer the solution of the (cognitive–theoretical) de se problem onto poetry. This is demonstrated most clearly in the long annotation in the “Verfahrungsweise des poëtischen Geistes” (On the operation of the poetic spirit, Hölderlin 1994, pp. 540–42). Here, Hölderlin discusses the “subjektive Natur” (subjective nature), or what, a few lines earlier, he had called the “ursprüngliche poetische Individualität, das poetische Ich” (Hölderlin 1994, p. 539; “the original poetic individuality, the poetic I”; Hölderlin 2009, p. 287). To state the issue far too succinctly, in this text, a state of unconscious—pre-reflective—“Innigkeit” (inwardness), which Hölderlin also calls “subjektive Natur” (subjective nature) or the “Alleinseyn” (solitude) of spirit (Hölderlin 1994, pp. 540, 542) is contrasted to a state of “reell” (real), “direct”, or “gerade” (direct) opposition (Hölderlin 1994, pp. 541, 535, 533). The former (in which just a hint of opposition does not disrupt unity, and, therefore, is called “harmonisch” [harmonic]61) is unconscious, the latter, conscious. But only the former guarantees unity; the latter destroys it." (Novalis didn't moved to objectivity.);

2026.05.13/iep.utm .edu/objectiv/ : "Berkeley’s Idealism asserts that the only realities are minds and mental contents. He does, however, have a concept of objective reality. A table, for example, exists objectively in the mind of God. God creates objective reality by thinking it and sustains any objective reality, such as the table, only so long as he continues to think of it. Thus the table exists objectively for us, not just as a fleeting perception, but as the totality of all possible experiences of it.";

2026.05.13/plato.stanford .edu/entries/schelling/ : "Schelling was born in Leonberg near Stuttgart on 27 January 1775. He attended a Protestant seminary in Tübingen from 1790 to 1795, where he was close friends with both Hegel and the poet and philosopher Friedrich Hölderlin. He moved to Leipzig in 1797, then to Jena, where he came into contact with the early Romantic thinkers, Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis, and, via Goethe’s influence, took up his first professorship from 1798 to 1803.", "The significance of the work of the early Schelling (1795–1800) lies in its attempts to give a new account of nature which, while taking account of the fact that Kant had irrevocably changed the status of nature in modern philosophy, avoids some of the consequences of Kant’s theory that were seen as problematic by Kant’s contemporaries and successors. For the Kant of the Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787) nature is largely seen in the ‘formal’ sense, as that which is subject to necessary laws. These laws are accessible to us, Kant argues, because cognition depends on the subject bringing forms of thought, the categories, to bear on what it perceives. The problem this leads to is how the subject could fit into a nature conceived of in deterministic terms, given that the subject’s ability to know is dependent upon its ‘spontaneous’ self-caused ability to judge in terms of the categories. Kant’s response to this dilemma is to split the ‘sensuous’ realm of nature as law-bound appearance from the ‘intelligible’ realm of the subject’s cognitive and ethical self-determination. However, if the subject is part of nature there would seem to be no way of explaining how a nature which we can only know as deterministic can give rise to a subject which seems to transcend determinism in its knowing and in its self-determined actions. Kant himself sought to bridge the realms of necessity and spontaneity in the Critique of Judgement (1790), by suggesting that nature itself could be seen in more than formal terms: it also produces self-determining organisms and gives rise to disinterested aesthetic pleasure in the subject that contemplates its forms. The essential problems remained, however, that (1) Kant gave no account of the genesis of the subject that transcends its status as a piece of determined nature, and (2) such an account would have to be able to bridge the divide between nature and freedom.

The tensions in Schelling’s philosophy of this period, which set the agenda for most of his subsequent work, derive, then, from the need to overcome the perceived lack in Kant’s philosophy of a substantial account of how nature and freedom come to co-exist. Two ways out of Kantian dualism immediately suggested themselves to thinkers in the 1780s and 90s. On the one hand, Kant’s arguments about the division between appearances and things in themselves, which gave rise to the problem of how something ‘in itself’ could give rise to appearances for the subject, might be overcome by rejecting the notion of the thing in itself altogether. If what we know of the object is the product of the spontaneity of the I, an Idealist could argue that the whole of the world’s intelligibility is therefore the result of the activity of the subject, and that a new account of subjectivity is required which would achieve what Kant had failed to achieve. On the other hand, the fact that nature gives rise to self-determining subjectivity would seem to suggest that a monist account of a nature which was more than a concatenation of laws, and was in some sense inherently ‘subjective’, would offer a different way of accounting for what Kant’s conception did not provide. Schelling seeks answers to the Kantian problems in terms that relate to both these conceptions. Indeed, it is possible to argue that the conceptions are in one sense potentially identical: if the essence of nature is that it produces the subjectivity which enables it to understand itself, nature itself could be construed as a kind of ‘super-subject’. The main thinkers whose work is regarded as exemplifying these alternatives are J.G. Fichte, and Spinoza.

The source of Schelling’s concern with Spinoza is the ‘Pantheism controversy’, which brought Spinoza’s monism into the mainstream of German philosophy. In 1783 the writer and philosopher F.H. Jacobi became involved in an influential dispute with the Berlin Enlightenment philosopher Moses Mendelssohn over the claim that G.E. Lessing had admitted to being a Spinozist, an admission which at that time was tantamount to the admission of atheism, with all the dangerous political and other consequences that entailed. In his On the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Herr Moses Mendelssohn, (1785, second edition 1789), which was influenced by his reading of Kant’s first Critique, Jacobi revealed a problem which would recur in differing ways throughout Schelling’s work. Jacobi’s interpretation of Spinozism was concerned with the relationship between the ‘unconditioned’ and the ‘conditioned’, between God as the ground of which the laws of nature are the consequent, and the linked chains of the deterministic laws of nature. Cognitive explanation relies, as Kant claimed, upon finding a thing’s ‘condition’. Jacobi’s question is how finding a thing’s condition can finally ground its explanation, given that each explanation leads to a regress in which each condition depends upon another condition ad infinitum. Any philosophical system that would ground the explanation of a part of nature thus “necessarily ends by having to discover conditions of the unconditioned” (Scholz, ed., 1916, p. 51). For Jacobi this led to the need for a theological leap of faith, as the world’s intelligibility otherwise threatened to become a mere illusion, in which nothing would be finally grounded at all. In the 1787 Introduction to the first Critique Kant maintains this problem of cognitive grounding can be overcome by acknowledging that, while reason must postulate the “unconditioned (…) in all things in themselves for everything conditioned, so that the series of conditions should thus become complete” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason B, p. XX), by restricting knowledge to appearances, rather than assuming it to be of “things in themselves”, the contradiction of seeking conditions of the unconditioned can be avoided. As we have already seen, though, this gives rise precisely to the problem of how a subject which is not conditioned like the nature it comes to know can emerge as the ground of knowledge from deterministic nature.

The condition of the knowledge of appearances for Kant is the ‘transcendental subject’, but what sort of ‘condition’ is the transcendental subject? The perception that Kant has no proper answer to this problem initially unites Schelling and Fichte. Fichte insists in the Wissenschaftslehre (1794) that the unconditioned status of the I has to be established if Kant’s system is to legitimate itself. He asserts that “It is (…) the ground of explanation of all facts of empirical consciousness that before all positing in the I the I itself must previously be posited” (Fichte 1971, p. 95), thereby giving the I the founding role which he thought Kant had failed adequately to explicate. Fichte does this by extending the consequences of Kant’s claim that the cognitive activity of the I, via which it can reflect upon itself, cannot be understood as part of the causal world of appearances, and must therefore be part of the noumenal realm, the realm of the ‘unconditioned’. For Fichte the very existence of philosophy depends upon the free act of the I which initiates the reflection on its own activity by the I.

Schelling takes up the issues raised by Jacobi and Fichte in two texts of 1795: Of the I as Principle of Philosophy or on the Unconditional in Human Knowledge, and Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism. In a move which prefigures aspects of Heidegger’s questioning of the notion of being, he reinterprets Kant’s question as to the condition of possibility of synthetic judgements a priori as a question about why there is a realm of judgements, a manifest world requiring syntheses by the subject for knowledge to be produced, at all. In Of the I, Schelling puts Kant’s question in Fichtean terms: “how is it that the absolute I goes out of itself and opposes a Not-I to itself?” (Sämmtliche Werke [SW], I/1, p. 175). He maintains that the condition of knowledge, the ‘positing’ by the I of that which is opposed to it, must have a different status from the determined realm which it posits: “nothing can be posited by itself as a thing, i.e. an absolute/unconditioned thing (unbedingtes Ding) is a contradiction” (ibid., p. 116). However, his key worry about Fichte’s position already becomes apparent in the Philosophical Letters, where he drops the Fichtean terminology: “How is it that I step at all out of the absolute and move towards something opposed (auf ein Entgegengesetztes)?” (ibid., p. 294). The problem Schelling confronts was identified by his friend Hölderlin, in the light of Jacobi’s formulation of the problem of the ‘unconditioned’. Fichte wished to understand the absolute as an I in order to avoid the problem of nature ‘in itself’ which creates Kantian dualism. For something to be an I, though, it must be conscious of an other, and thus in a relationship to that other. The overall structure of the relationship could not, therefore, be described from only one side of that relationship. Hölderlin argued that one has to understand the structure of the relationship of subject to object in consciousness as grounded in ‘a whole of which subject and object are the parts’, which he termed ‘being’. This idea will be vital to Schelling at various times in his philosophy.

In the 1790s, then, Schelling is seeking a way of coming to terms with the ground of the subject’s relationship to the object world. His aim is to avoid the fatalist consequences of Spinoza’s system by taking on key aspects of Kant’s and Fichte’s transcendental philosophy, and yet not to fall into the trap Hölderlin identified in Fichte’s conception of an absolute I. In his Naturphilosophie (philosophy of nature), which emerges in 1797 and develops in the succeeding years, and in the System of Transcendental Idealism of 1800, Schelling wavers between a Spinozist and a Fichtean approach to the ‘unconditioned’. In the Naturphilosophie the Kantian division between nature as appearance and nature in itself is seen as resulting from the fact that the nature theorised in cognitive judgements is objectified in opposition to the knowing subject. This objectification, the result of the natural sciences’ search for fixed laws, fails to account for the living dynamic forces in nature, including those in our own organism, with which Kant himself became concerned in the third Critique and other late work, and which had played a role in Leibniz’s account of nature. Nature in itself is thought of by Schelling as a ‘productivity’: “As the object [qua ‘conditioned condition’] is never absolute/unconditioned (unbedingt) then something per se non-objective must be posited in nature; this absolutely non-objective postulate is precisely the original productivity of nature” (SW I/3, p. 284). The Kantian dualism between things in themselves and appearances is a result of the fact that the productivity can never appear as itself and can only appear in the form of ‘products’, which are the productivity ‘inhibiting’ itself. The products are never complete in themselves: they are like the eddies in a stream, which temporarily keep their shape via the resistance of the movement of the fluid to itself that creates them, despite the changing material flowing through them.

Schelling next tries to use the insights of transcendental philosophy, while still avoiding Kant’s dualism, to explain our knowledge of nature. The vital point is that things in themselves and ‘representations’ cannot be absolutely different because we know a world which exists independently of our will, which can yet be affected by our will:

one can push as many transitory materials as one wants, which become finer and finer, between mind and matter, but sometime the point must come where mind and matter are One, or where the great leap that we so long wished to avoid becomes inevitable. (SW I/2, p. 53)

The Naturphilosophie includes ourselves within nature, as part of an interrelated whole, which is structured in an ascending series of ‘potentials’ that contain a polar opposition within themselves. The model is a magnet, whose opposing poles are inseparable from each other, even though they are opposites. As productivity nature cannot be conceived of as an object, since it is the subject of all possible real ‘predicates’, of the ‘eddies’ of which transient, objective nature consists. However, nature’s ‘inhibiting’ itself in order to become something determinate means that the ‘principle of all explanation of nature’ is ‘universal duality’, an inherent difference of subject and object which prevents nature ever finally reaching stasis (SW I/3, p. 277). At the same time this difference of subject and object must be grounded in an identity which links them together, otherwise all the problems of dualism would just reappear. In a decisive move for German Idealism, Schelling parallels the idea of nature as the producing subject with the spontaneity of the thinking subject, which is the condition of the syntheses required for the constitution of objectivity. The problem for Schelling lies in explicating how these two ‘subjects’ relate to each other.

In the System of Transcendental Idealism Schelling goes back to Fichtean terminology, though he will soon abandon most of it. He endeavours to explain the emergence of the thinking subject from nature in terms of an ‘absolute I’ coming retrospectively to know itself in a ‘history of self-consciousness’ that forms the material of the system. The System recounts the history of which the transcendental subject is the result. A version of the model Schelling establishes will be adopted by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Mind. Schelling presents the process in terms of the initially undivided I splitting itself in order to articulate itself in the syntheses, the ‘products’, which constitute the world of knowable nature.",

"How, though, does one gain access by thought to what cannot be an object of consciousness? This access is crucial to the whole project because without it there can be no understanding of why the move from determined nature to the freedom of self-determining thinking takes place at all.

Schelling adopts the idea from the early Romantic thinkers Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis, whom he knew in Jena at this time, that art is the route to an understanding of what cannot appear as an object of knowledge. Philosophy cannot represent nature in itself because access to the unconscious must be via what appears to consciousness in the realm of theoretical knowledge. The work of art is evidently an empirical, appearing object like any other, but if it is not more than what it is qua determinable object it cannot be a work of art, because this requires both the free judgement of the subject and the object’s conveying of something beyond its objective nature. Although the System’s own very existence depends upon the transition from theoretical to practical philosophy, which requires the breaking-off of Jacobi’s chain of ‘conditions’ by something unconditioned, Schelling is concerned to understand how the highest insight must be into reality as a product of the interrelation of both the ‘conscious’ and the ‘unconscious’. Reality is not, therefore, essentially captured by a re-presentation of the objective by the subjective. Whereas in the System nature begins unconsciously and ends in conscious philosophical and scientific knowledge, in the art work: “the I is conscious according to the production, unconscious with regard to the product” (SW I/3, p. 613). The product cannot be understood via the intentions of its producer, as this would mean that it became a ‘conditioned’ object, something produced in terms of a pre-existing rule, and would therefore lack what makes mere craft into art. Art is, then, “the only true and eternal organ and document of philosophy, which always and continuously documents what philosophy cannot represent externally” (ibid., p. 627). The particular sciences can only follow the chain of conditions, via the principle of sufficient reason, and must determine any object via its place in that chain, a process which has no necessary end. The art object, on the other hand, manifests what cannot be understood in terms of its knowable conditions, because an account of the materials of which it is made or of its status as object in the world does not constitute it as art. Art shows what cannot be said. Philosophy cannot positively represent the absolute because ‘conscious’ thinking operates from the position where the ‘absolute identity’ of the subjective and the objective has always already been lost in the emergence of consciousness.

Although Schelling’s early work did not fully satisfy either himself, or anybody else, it manages to address, in a cogent and illuminating fashion, many topics which affect subsequent philosophy. The model presented in the System impresses not least because, at the same time as establishing the notion of the history of self-consciousness that would be decisive for Hegel, it offers, in a manner which goes beyond its sources in Fichte, a model of the relationship between the subject and its conceptually inaccessible motivating forces which would affect thinkers from Schopenhauer, to Nietzsche, to Freud, and beyond.

3. Identity Philosophy

Although the period of Schelling’s ‘identity philosophy’ is usually dated from the 1801 Presentation of My System of Philosophy until sometime before the 1809 On the Essence of Human Freedom, the project of that philosophy can be said to be carried on in differing ways throughout his work. The identity philosophy derives from Schelling’s conviction that the self-conscious I must be seen as a result, rather than as the originating act it is in Fichte, and thus that the I cannot be seen as the generative matrix of the whole system. This takes him more in the direction of Spinoza, but the problem is still that of articulating the relationship between the I and the world of nature, without either reverting to Kantian dualism or failing to explain how a purely objective nature could give rise to subjectivity.

Schelling’s mature identity philosophy, which is contained in the System of the Whole of Philosophy and of Naturphilosophie in Particular, written in Würzburg in 1804, and in other texts between 1804 and 1807, breaks with the model of truth as correspondence. It does so because:

It is clear that in every explanation of the truth as a correspondence (Übereinstimmung) of subjectivity and objectivity in knowledge, both, subject and object, are already presupposed as separate, for only what is different can agree, what is not different is in itself one. (SW I/6, p. 138)

The crucial problem is how to explain the link between the subject and object world that makes judgements possible, and this cannot be achieved in terms of how a subject can have thoughts which correspond to an object essentially separate from it. For there to be judgements at all what is split and then synthesised in the judgement must, Schelling contends, in some way already be the same. This has often been understood as leading Schelling to a philosophy in which, as Hegel puts it in the Phenomenology, the absolute is the ‘night in which all cows are black’, because it swallows all differentiated knowledge in the assertion that everything is ultimately the same, namely an absolute which excludes all relativity from itself and thus becomes inarticulable. This is not a valid interpretation of Schelling’s argument. In an early version of the identity philosophy he had said the following:

For most people see in the essence of the Absolute nothing but pure night and cannot recognise anything in it; it shrinks before them into a mere negation of difference, and is for them something purely privative, whence they cleverly make it into the end of their philosophy (…) I want to show here (…) how that night of the Absolute can be turned into day for knowledge (SW I/4, p. 403).

In order to try to get over the problem in monism of how the One is also the many, Schelling, following the idea outlined above from Hölderlin, introduces a notion of ‘transitive’ being, which links mind and matter as predicates of itself. Schelling explains this ‘transitivity’ via the metaphor of the earth:

you recognise its [the earth’s] true essence only in the link by which it eternally posits its unity as the multiplicity of its things and again posits this multiplicity as its unity. You also do not imagine that, apart from this infinity of things which are in it, there is another earth which is the unity of these things, rather the same which is the multiplicity is also unity, and what the unity is, is also the multiplicity, and this necessary and indissoluble One of unity and multiplicity in it is what you call its existence (…) Existence is the link of a being (Wesen) as One, with itself as a multiplicity. (SW I/7, p. 56)

‘Absolute identity’ is, then, the link of the two aspects of being, which, on the one hand, is the universe, and, on the other, is the changing multiplicity which the knowable universe also is. Schelling insists now that “The I think, I am, is, since Descartes, the basic mistake of all knowledge; thinking is not my thinking, and being is not my being, for everything is only of God or the totality” (SW I/7, p. 148), so the I is ‘affirmed’ as a predicate of the being by which it is preceded. In consequence he already begins to move away, albeit inconsistently, from the German Idealist model in which the intelligibility of being is regarded as a result of its having an essentially mind-like structure.

Schelling is led to this view by his understanding of the changing and relative status of theoretical knowledge. It is the inherent incompleteness of all finite determinations which reveals the nature of the absolute. His description of time makes clear what he means: “time is itself nothing but the totality appearing in opposition to the particular life of things”, so that the totality “posits or intuits itself, by not positing, not intuiting the particular” (SW I/6, p. 220). The particular is determined in judgements, but the truth of claims about the totality cannot be proven because judgements are necessarily conditioned, whereas the totality is not. Given the relative status of the particular there must, though, be a ground which enables us to be aware of that relativity, and this ground must have a different status from the knowable world of finite particulars. At the same time, if the ground were wholly different from the world of relative particulars the problems of dualism would recur. As such the absolute is the finite, but we do not know this in the manner we know the finite. Without the presupposition of ‘absolute identity’, therefore, the evident relativity of particular knowledge becomes inexplicable, since there would be no reason to claim that a revised judgement is predicated of the same world as the preceding — now false — judgement."

"Nasser, D., 2013, The Romantic Absolute: Being and Knowing in Early German Romantic Philosophy, 1795–1804, Chicago: Chicago University Press.

[Exploration of the meaning of the Absolute in Early German Romanticism, including Schelling.]";

2026.05.13/ia801606.us.archive .org/13/items/f-w-j-schelling-the-schelling-reader/f-w-j-schelling-the-schelling-reader.pdf : p.8: "Schelling (1775-1854) stands between J.G. Fichte and G.W.F. Hegel in the sequence of great German thinkers that follow in the wake of Immanuel Kant's Copernican revolution in philosophy. Anyone who takes the history of philosophy seriously will find it impossible to gainsay his enormous contribution, not only to what has recently been called `the twenty-five years of philosophy' 1(running from the Critique of Pure Reason of 1781 to the Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807), but, beyond that, to post-Hegelian currents and debates in the 1830s and 1840s. And yet, Schelling is also much more than an important figure within the German Idealist tradition: according to Martin Heidegger, Schelling `shattered' idealism; 2for Paul Tillich, he is to be listed alongside `the other rebelling existentialists of the nineteenth century (Kierkegaard, the younger Marx, Nietzsche)'; 3and his philosophies of nature inspired later scientific advances in dynamics, electromagnetic field theory and theories of evolution.4Indeed, for Schellingians from Coleridge to Zizek, he represents, in Karl Jaspers's words, `a prototype of modern possibilities;' 5

or,asGabrielMarcelputsit:`Forthoughthatregardsphilosophyasa heroic adventure entailing risks and skirting abysses, he will always

remain an exhilarating companion: 6",

p.9: "judge for themselves whether Schelling approaches these themes in the same way throughout his life or whether he changes his mind. That is, it addresses the Hegelian accusations of Schelling as a 'Proteus of philosophy' who `carried out his philosophical education in public:$ Is Schelling simply an inconsistent philosopher who ch anges his mind and his system from one year to the next? And is this the case for each element of his thinking? Or are there ways in which Schelling's thought develops in a continuous fashion, building and elaborating upon his earlier ideas?",

p.14: "From an early age, Schelling demonstrated an exceptional facility with language and philosophy: he learned Greek, Hebrew, Latin and Arabic, and, by the time he was fourteen, had undertaken a serious study of Plato and Leibniz.

In 1790, at the age of fifteen, Schelling began his studies at the Tübingen theological seminary, which he briefly attended with Friedrich Hölderlin and G.W.F. Hegel, both five years Schelling's senior; for a short while, they even shared a room. Although their formal training at the seminary was conservative, Schelling, Hölderlin and Hegel were united in their enthusiasm for what appeared to be the contemporary rejuvenation of both political life and philosophical science in line with the French Revolution and a radical reinterpretation of Kant's critical turn. In a jubilant expression of their shared commitment to the ideals of the French Revolution, they planted a `freedom tree' in the seminary cloister; Schelling is sometimes credited as the first German translator of the Marseillaise.1",

p.15: "Fichte's conception of the self-positing `I' was profoundly important for Schelling, as was the second major influence upon his thought during this period: Spinoza, whose philosophy was undergoing something of a renaissance in Germany at the end of the eighteenth century. In April 1795, Schelling writes to his former roommate, Hegel: `I have become a Spinozist!' 3He began publishing his own philosophical work in 1794, and these texts of the mid-1790s - such as Of the I as Principle of Philosophy - bear the mark of both his Fichtean and Spinozist sympathies.

In the spring of 1796, Schelling moved to Leipzig where he worked as a private tutor and began his own intensive study of physics, chemistry and physiology. It was here that he wrote his Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature, which drew upon recent empirical discoveries in order to transform Kant's critical project of providing a metaphysical grounding for the natural sciences. In the autumn of 1798, after publishing a second major work on the philosophy of nature - On the World-Soul - Schelling moved again, this time to Jena, at the express invitation of Goethe, who Schelling had met and worked with on a previous visit to Jena and Weimar.

Schelling's years in Jena comprise an intense period of his career and personal life. In addition to publishing a number of important works, he was a (somewhat peripheral) member of the romantic circle. He became particularly close with Caroline Schlegel, the wife of August Wilhelm Schlegel, and the two ultimately began an affair, which negatively impacted Schelling's relationship with some of the other members of the group (particularly Friedrich Schlegel). In June 1800, Caroline's daughter, Auguste Böhmer, died of dysentery while in Bad Bocklet with Caroline and Schelling. Word soon began to spread that Schelling had intervened in Auguste's medical treatment and that he was responsible for her death; indeed, widely circulated pamphlets suggested that his idealist philosophy of nature and the medical practices connected therewith were ultimately to blame.

Although it came under serious attack, Schelling's philosophy of nature also continued to gain devotees during these years. His Journal of Speculative Physics, founded in January of 1800, made a significant impact on the philosophy and sciences of the day, thanks in no small part to the fact that it included his most important writings of the period. Schelling's increasingly apparent view that, within the whole system of philosophy, the philosophy of nature is more fundamental than transcendental idealism led to tensions in his intellectual friendship with Fichte. Although the latter",

p.16: "had, by this point, left for Berlin on account of his `atheism controversy', the two were in frequent contact and had even planned to edit a philosophical journal together. It gradually became evident, however, that the two held fundamentally irreconcilable positions regarding the nature of `first philosophy'; by January 1802, they ceased communication.

"innovation, the creation of a new way of doing something, whether the enterprise is concrete (e.g., the development of a new product) or abstract (e.g., the development of a new philosophy or theoretical approach to a problem). Innovation plays a key role in the development of sustainable methods of both production and living because in both cases it may be necessary to create alternatives to conventional ways of doing things that were developed before environmental consideration was central to most people’s framework for making decisions. Because innovation plays a central role in business success as well as in scientific progress, considerable research has focused on specifying the working conditions that are likely to produce useful innovations. In general, scholars have noted that the best model for producing useful knowledge about the empirical world (i.e., knowledge based on observation and experimentation rather than theory or belief) is to foster the work of many relatively autonomous specialists whose work is judged by its merits rather than its conformity to pre-existing beliefs or traditional ways of doing things. This reflects the attitude that enables the creation of modern scientific practice, an attitude that may be traced back to 17th-century Europe. Several attitudes and practices from that period also apply to fostering modern scientific and technical innovation. Scientific or innovative contributions should be evaluated on the basis of impersonal criteria (that is, according to the contribution’s accuracy in describing the world and the degree to which it works more efficiently than the old method) rather than according to who produced them or the personal characteristics (such as race, gender, nationality) of the person who produced them. Knowledge should be shared rather than kept secret so others can apply it to their work and the general level of knowledge can increase. Furthermore, scientists should act in a disinterested manner, seeking to increase knowledge rather than focusing purely on personal gain, and scientific claims cannot be made on the basis of authority but are open to challenge and should hold up under scrutiny. Of course, some of these rules are somewhat modified in the modern world—for instance, people do profit from their own discoveries, both directly in terms of holding patents and indirectly in terms of career success—but the basic principles hold true. Scientific innovation In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), American philosopher and historian Thomas Kuhn made a distinction between what he called normal science and episodes of scientific revolution. He defined normal science as the process of solving puzzles within the paradigms currently established for one’s particular science. For instance, in astronomy, it was believed for centuries that the planets orbited around the Earth (the geocentric model) and complex models and calculations were developed to try to explain the observed movements of the planets within this model. In contrast, scientific revolutions involve challenging or changing the dominant paradigms, as Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus did when he proposed a heliocentric universe in which the Earth as well as the other planets orbited around the sun. Most science in any time period is normal science, with people working within an existing framework that includes methods, assumptions about nature, symbolic generations, and paradigmatic experiments. Even observations that do not seem to fit the existing paradigm will be explained within it (as planetary motion was for centuries in the geocentric model) or ignored as anomalies. At some point, however, the contradictions and anomalies may become too obvious and trigger a scientific revolution, as happened in the 16th century in Europe (notably not recognized by a powerful social institution, the Catholic Church, until centuries later). Most scientists and technical employees today are analogous to normal scientists, working to discover practical applications or to illuminate small areas of knowledge within a given scientific model. For instance, many scientists in the United States are employees of corporations, government agencies, and so on, and are expected to work within accepted models rather than challenge them. This leads to conflict between the scientist’s desire for autonomy and the organization’s desire for practical results, and can stifle innovation that could lead ultimately to greater breakthroughs. One way this problem is dealt with is to have people specialize in either basic or applied science, with different evaluative criteria for each, and to have part of an organization’s budget reserved for basic research that may challenge the existing paradigm rather than work within it.",

"Another conflict for scientists and technical employees, particularly those working in for-profit companies, is their desire to communicate their discoveries to others versus their employers’ desire to keep such discoveries confidential in order to protect their profitability. Patent law is intended to allow both desires to be met. The purpose of the patent system is to stimulate scientific and technical invention by reserving the right to profit from a discovery for a period of years to the patent holder (which may be an individual or organization such as a company or university) while also making the information from the discovery public so that others may learn from it. The patent holder may sell or license the right for others to use his or her discoveries and collect fees from them." (They/them and generic masculine includes everyone in a shorter way.),

"Changes in organization may be less dramatic than scientific discoveries but are equally important in terms of promoting efficiency and productivity. For instance, an organization may innovate in the way it operates or delivers services, resulting in greater efficiency, fewer errors, faster speed of production, and so on. In The Challenge of Innovating in Government (2006), Canadian political scientist Sandford Borins identifies several characteristics typical of organizations that are successful at innovation: Top management supports innovation and provides leadership in this area. Individuals who push for innovation are rewarded. The organization dedicates resources specifically to innovation rather than expecting it to happen as a matter of course. The organization has a diverse workforce and welcomes ideas from outside the mainstream. The organization’s bureaucratic layers are closely connected so that innovations can be easily communicated and implemented. The organization is willing to experiment with different ways of doing things with the understanding that not all will be successful. Borins notes that some of these characteristics are the opposite of what is seen in many government organizations and companies. For instance, in many organizations, people who suggest or enact innovation may be subject to sanction or dismissal, and the organization may display no interest in testing different ideas to see which are useful and practical. Some organizations have a superficial commitment to innovation in the sense that they eagerly embrace whatever the current trendy solution is but do not display the commitment to evaluate the usefulness of the new ideas or conduct any kind of measurement to see if they produce the desired results. Both approaches stifle effective innovation (as they would stifle effective scientific progress) because they are based on received beliefs and authority rather than on empirical observation and testing." (This confirms Charles Murray's claim that scientific progress and innovation both in its groundbreakingness and number is decreasing. Also confirms that the Enlightenment is over.) "Examples of industrial and technological innovation Moravian-born American economist and sociologist Joseph Schumpeter used the term creative destruction to describe change of the economy from within. He viewed entrepreneurs, who invent new goods and new ways of doing things, as essential to keeping an economic system constantly evolving. New products or ways of doing things necessarily disrupt existing markets. For example, the department and catalog store Montgomery Ward was once a major retailer but went out of business in 2001, due in part to loss of market share to low-price department stores such as Kmart and Walmart. Similarly, the instant-film camera developed by Polaroid was a popular consumer product for several decades but ceased production when it was surpassed by digital cameras. Schumpeter saw the process of creative destruction as positive in the long run because it promoted economic growth and rewarded innovation and improvement. Such experiences were informative to businesses to illustrate that individuals and corporations could also suffer when their particular skills or products were no longer demanded by the market. American economist and professor Clayton M. Christensen coined the term disruptive technology (later disruptive innovation) to describe innovations that improve a product or service in ways that disrupt an existing market (as opposed to a “sustaining innovation,” which improves an existing product and reinforces the position of leading manufacturers in the field" (Like Late Baroque and Enlightened Absolutism music in 1750s. 2026.04.13/courses.lumenlearning .com/suny-fmcc-hum140/chapter/3-10-music-of-the-enlightenment-the-classical-era/ : "At first the new style took over baroque forms—the ternary da capo aria and the sinfonia and concerto—but composed with simpler parts, more notated ornamentation and more emphatic division into sections.") ). The disruptive innovation often has characteristics that the traditional customer base does not care about, and may even be inferior compared to existing products, but will appeal to a different set of customers with different priorities." (Like enlightened aristocrats against monarchy and ancien regime economy on mid-18th-century.) "The innovation is “disruptive” not to the consumer (who, at least at first, has the choice to buy either the existing or innovative product) but to businesses that may be doing a good job supplying an existing product and yet see their market disappear as the new technology becomes widespread." (Social influencers.) "One example of a disruptive innovation is downloadable music files that offer the convenience of buying music online and playing it from one’s computer, as well as the ability to purchase individual songs. This appealed first to young people" (Biggest socially influencing and technologically advanced elite.) "who were quite comfortable with computers and MP3 players (versus older consumers more used to fixed stereo systems and the concept of songs collected into albums) and severely cut into the market for compact discs. Cooperation between manufacturers and other institutions such as universities can facilitate innovation. In his work Biotechnology: The University-Industrial Complex (1986), American sociologist Martin Kenney coined the term university-industrial complex to describe, in the biotechnology industry, the flow of resources among universities (which provide knowledge and skilled labor), multinational corporations (that produce products), and venture capital firms (that provide financing to both research and production)." (Unity between right-wing-corporations, capitalists and left-wing-universities promotes innovation.) "He noted that university-employed scientists have provided most of the research that formed the basis of the biotech industry, that scientists often move between employment in academia and the corporate sector, and that many university graduate programs have been created or enlarged specifically to train students for the biotech industry." (Maybe contradicts that recommendation letters in late-first-grade-physics starts the politicization according to SimplePhysics or so Podcast on YouTube, which acts negative on Classical Physics and Objective Realism on macro-physical world as a whole to a different interpretation of Michael Pendlebury about Objectivism being platonic and common Sense Realism being Aristotelian and together forming a more genuine form of Objective Realism as the survey of before-first-grade-students on Physics shows on their conception being Naïve Impetus Theory the most, Newtonian second and Aristotelian third.) "Development of the biotech industry was facilitated in large part by increased federal funding for science," (Most non-British European countries facilitate on science funding at mid-18th-century.) "with grants awarded on a competitive basis, (Maybe mid-18th-century-Britain.) "which rewarded innovation while also facilitating the creation of well-equipped research labs at universities as well as within corporations. Other sciences have also followed the biotechnology model, with close relationships between the university and corporations becoming the norm, such that many universities now have “technology transfer” offices to facilitate the process. Regional methods of organization can also influence innovation. In the early 1990s American regional planner and political scientist AnnaLee Saxenian looked at the differing fortunes of two areas once noted for their high-technology industry: Silicon Valley (south of San Francisco, California) and the Route 128 area (near Boston, Massachusetts). In the 1970s, both were noted as centers of innovation in the electronics industry, fueled in part by university research and military spending, and both faced downturns in the early 1980s. Silicon Valley recovered, however, with the help of new start-ups such as Sun Microsystems, as well as the continued prosperity of established companies such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard (HP), while Route 128 companies such as Wang Laboratories and Digital Equipment Corporation went out of business, and other area companies declined. Business investment in Silicon Valley increased by $25 billion between 1986 and 1990 while only increasing by $1 billion in the Route 128 area, and by 1990, Texas and southern California had both surpassed Route 128 as centers of electronics production. Saxenian attributes these differences to differing regional industrial organization. Silicon Valley had a network-based industrial system with dense social networks and open labor markets, which promoted experimentation and collective learning so that competitors can learn from each other. The boundaries between individual companies and other institutions such as universities remained fluid. In contrast, Route 128 was characterized by a small number of large, hierarchical firms with barriers to information sharing between different firms and between firms and other institutions. Silicon Valley’s network system was better able to adapt to change (e.g., recovering from the loss of silicon chip manufacturing to Japan) while the Route 128 manufacturers were not able to respond when the industry shifted from minicomputers to workstations and personal computers. In general, Saxenian argued that industrial organization based on independent firms (the Route 128 model) can flourish when markets are stable and technology changes slowly because they can capitalize on economies of scale" (pre-mid-18th-century-Europe like early-18th-century-Europe copying Chinese tech according to Britannica and pre-enlightened empires.)", but in a rapidly changing industry" (Enlightenment) ", firms " (non-enlightened empires) "may find themselves saddled with obsolete technology (Increased technological gap at late-18th-century-Europe according to Britannica.) "and a workforce with outdated skills " (Industrial Revolution in 18th century Europe was first time for workers with no skills to get a job according to 2026.04.13/selfed .org.uk/node/2844 and be productive, which impacts negatively on genius-rate I assume. Otherwise, the non-enlightened-workers skills gets outdated like farmers.) "and are less able to access external sources of information. In contrast, the regional network type of organization is more flexible in responding to change and better able to promote collective technological advance."

Genius-note:a

Inventor-note:v

2026.02.22/forum.paradoxplaza .com/forum/threads/linking-literacy-rate-with-the-speed-of-scientific-research-isnt-it-too-far-fetched.1743215/ : "early days of the British Industrial Revolution, inventions and creations had little to do with knowledge, but were created in the practice of workers. Watt, Samuel Crompton, and Hargreaves had never been to university, and Hargreaves was even completely illiterate.";

2026.02.22/forum.paradoxplaza .com/forum/threads/this-feels-very-backwards.1895344/ : "Christian clergy were not the most studied in the entirety of the period that EU5 covers, as certain nations started to secularize and separate universities from the church, especially after the Reformation." 2 likes, "clergy should not be the main source of research past the mid XVIIth century though, but before (1337 - 1650), it was historically the institution where most advancement were made.

But nobles and burghers should also be able to build a little bit of research at game start. So that later, the game would just have to reverse the balance of research production from the clergy to the burghers, while the noble would be a sort of neutral and consistant weak source of research.

OR the fun option : make it like stellaris or EUIV and create 3 types of research, one for military (nobles), one for administration (clergy) and one for diplomacy (burghers). Unlikely but inspiring

After the Scientific Revolution of the XVIIth century," 4 likes, "rise of the burghers, at the expense of nobility and clergy, with their societal functions gradually being taken over by the burghers and sometimes even the commoners",

"clergy, especially in Europe, became less and less relevant to the advancement of science from the 1500s onward. The great philosophers and scientists of the time (Bacon, Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, to name a few) might have been deeply religious, but more often than not there weren't men of the cloth."..."It's false to carry the idea of "religion institution is responsible for science" from start to finish of the game. This is not the middle ages where all science was transmitted in monasteries.", "nothing to do with the clergy science abstraction in the game: you have the same kind of men as you've mentioned in the arabic world or china yet their inventions did almost nothing to advance the average level of technology in these regions

it's because what matters is the spread of the inventions on top of capital and free time to implement them and not inventions themselves. You can basically compare latin church to the internet of the era and the monasteries+universities were instrumental in the propagation and also creating demand for anything other than consumption goods" 1 like, "there was a significant overlap between literate society and clergy. So for much of the period, clergymen are disproportionately represented in the class of people reading, writing, and thinking. But religious institutions were frequently--or, we can at least agree, were frequently regarded as--forces of reaction. There's a reason Diderot said that man would never be free until the last king was strangled in the entrails of the last priest: Enlightenment thinkers understood the monarchy and the Church as the twin pillars of anti-enlightenment. We now may agree or disagree, but it's certainly what people perceived at the time. This is especially true when you remember that we're not talking about "technology"--we're talking about advances, in the sense of social changes and developments. Strictly "technological" advances in the game are often more about social adoption or dissemination; they're rarely about the sheer knowledge of an engineering technique. Thus I don't really understand why, if your bishops feel their privileges are being protected, they are going to make social advances and changes happen more quickly. More importantly, I can't identify any historical examples of this dynamic, where indulgent treatment of religious institutions drove forward cultural and technological development. The level of reaction certainly varies over time, but I don't think you can claim that the contentedness of the church can be consistently linked to the things represented by in-game advances.

One thought is that it would be more accurate to emphasize the role of religion in social control. That might need to be keyed to specific religions: Catholic clergy satisfaction might boost your commoner satisfaction, whereas Lutheran and Calvinist clergy satisfaction might boost your burgher satisfaction.";

2026.03.26/nobelprize .org/uploads/2024/12/johnson-lecture.pdf : p.31: "1940-45: Scientific and technological leadership passed from Europe to the United States, never (yet) to return";

2026.03.28/organism .earth/library/document/connections-07 : "Often, materials discovered by accident alter the course of the world. In the 1600s Dutch commercial freighters controlled Atlantic trade routes. Competing British lines induced America to produce pitch to protect hulls of their royal vessels. This arrangement lasted until 1776, after which a Scottish inventor tried to produce pitch from coal tar. By the time he succeeded the navy was using copper instead. Subsequent experiments with coal tar yielded gaslight lamps, waterproofed garments, a brilliant mauve dye that established the German chemical industry and nylon, the first of the miracle plastics.";

2026.04.01/intriguing-history .com/john-kay-inventor-of-flying-shuttle/ : "John Kay, inventor of the ‘Flying Shuttle’, held in his hands, the first flutterings of what would become, the Industrial Revolution. John Kay was a man whose entire young life had been exposed to the woolen industry. He knew the problems and the pitfalls of mechanization but could see the great need for advancement in the industry.", "In 1733 he patented the ‘New engine for opening and dressing wool’, this machine included the famous ‘flying shuttle’.", "The flying shuttle was a simple device that had huge impact The shuttle was only one part of a textile loom but it was the part that had to be physically thrown backwards and forwards by the weaver as it carries the weft through the warp. John Kay’s shuttle was shot out of a box, backwards and forwards, carrying the weft without the weaver having to come into contact with the shuttle at all. It had an enormous impact on the woolen industry. The owners loved it because it sped up the process and they could reduce the number of people they employed. The workers were impoverished by it. John Kay was the subject of many personal attacks upon himself as he struggled for financial and literal survival.", "For John Kay himself it brought misery. Manufacturers refused to pay him royalties on his invention and so he took his looms to France, here alas, they were not overly impressed by John Kay’s invention and he had to negotiate hard with the French government to get them to buy his technology.

John Kay hardly ever returned to England after 1756 becoming domiciled with his family in France.", "Inventions beget inventions and so it was with the flying shuttle, the ‘spinning jenny’ was born out of the necessity to produce more thread and so the Industrial Revolution kept revolving. John Kay died in 1779, still fighting for the money he was owed by manufacturers and governments alike."

Inventor-note:a

Counter Inventor-note:v

2026.04.01/intriguing-history .com/john-kay-house-destroyed-by-machine-breakerskeeps-inventing/ : "John Kay 1753-54 House destroyed by machine breakers…keeps inventing", "John Kay Inventor of the Flying Shuttle", "In 1754 John invented an improved carding machine which allowed the mill manufacturers to mechanise further but still they managed not to pay him for his patents."

Counter Inventor-note:a

Saharan genius:v

2025.03.17: DebateArena-AI said the Timbuktu-scholars in 14th-17th century flourished.

Saharan genius:a

Purpose and autonomous efficacy-note:v

2026.02.08 : DeepSeek-Ai online and 2 others with the question and similar like "Which culture in history had the strongest sense that one is free to act as an individual, the strongest sense that individual action can be efficacious, strongest sense that life in general has a purpose, as opposed to being pointless, and the strongest sense that this life is uniquely important, and is not just one of an ongoing sequence of lives at same time?" after several times said classical Greece "Classical Athens (5th century BCE)", which is agreed by most AIs. DeepSeek brought Spartan culture 2026.02.08/en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Spartan_hegemony : 404-371 BC , 2026.02.08/en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Classical_Greece : 500-400 BC, duck .ai with GPT-OSS 122B and gpt-5o mini agrees on classical greece being most committed to objective realism mostly., 2026.02.08/historyspage .com/post/sparta-and-athens-their-confusing-relationship-explained : "The 2nd (or Great) Peloponnesian War was fought between 431 and 404 BC. After much fighting Athens was forced to surrender to Sparta."

"As strained as their relationships may have been, Sparta and Athens were often compelled to work together for the common good of Greece." I conclude with short AI-research that the most committed to objective realist and most purpose and autonomous efficacy is the border and Athens themselves in 404-400 BC if strong Spartanian influence was present in Athens, yet GPT-4 mini disagrees., 2026.02.08/duck .ai: Mistral Small 3: American culture after asking:"Which culture embodies this the most?"

Purpose and autonomous efficacy-note:a

Enlightenment-related-note:v

2025.04.27/old.reddit .com/r/PoliticalCompassMemes/comments/gx83ro/the_political_compass_high_school_edition/ : The questionnaire-schooler is at center of lib-left-quadrant.

Enlightenment-related-note:a

Late 19th century-note:v

2026.02.03/infrequently .org/2025/10/the-app-store-was-always-authoritarian/ : 2026.02.03/home.uchicago .edu/csunstei/moreisless.html : "We can see clearly now that this micro-authoritarian structure is easily swayed by macro-authoritarians, and bends easily to those demands. As James C. Scott wrote:

I believe that many of the most tragic episodes of state development in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries originate in a particularly pernicious combination of three elements. The first is the aspiration to the administrative ordering of nature and society, an aspiration that we have already seen at work in scientific forestry, but one raised to a far more comprehensive and ambitious level. “High modernism” seems an appropriate term for this aspiration. As a faith, it was shared by many across a wide spectrum of political ideologies. Its main carriers and exponents were the avant-garde among engineers, planners, technocrats, high-level administrators, architects, scientists, and visionaries.

If one were to imagine a pantheon or Hall of Fame of high-modernist figures, it would almost certainly include such names as Henri Comte de Saint-Simon, Le Corbusier, Walther Rathenau, Robert McNamara, Robert Moses, Jean Monnet, the Shah of Iran, David Lilienthal, Vladimir I. Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Julius Nyerere. They envisioned a sweeping, rational engineering of all aspects of social life in order to improve the human condition.

— James C. Scott,
"Seeing Like A State""

Late 19th century-note:a

Nation-note:v

2025.03.11: 2018-02-06: Ch. 8 Nation State Definition Examples & Characteristics Video:

0:40 Nation-State determines what common language we speak, what laws we follow & what holidays we celebrate.

1:15 Broadest terms, the state is a body of government, the rules and laws, the government officials & their titles, the physical boundaries & those who define them.

1:22 The state is what makes a country run from a political, practical standpoint.

1:33 Nation is the people, created by a shared belief that the people inside a country are connected to each other.

1:45 The idea that people of a nation are connected to each other is called Nationalism.

2:06 The United States is a result of similar people living in the same area in the United States. The colonists began developing an unique national culture, which led to them declaring war against England & creating their own government & state.

2:25 When Mexico became independent from Spain, the country was too large & fragmented for the people to have developed a national culture. Dozens of different identities. It took nearly a century for the Mexican government to develop a sense of Mexicanness or Mexicanidad in Spanish. They had to control language, education & holidays to be on same national culture.

3:15 15th-century-Italy, the independent body of government was centered on a city. City-states: based on city, but their power extended beyond the city limits & could change.

3:34 Nation-state by contrast has definite border where its power ends.

3:44 At one time, kingdoms & empirics rules over lots of very different people who did not see themselves as united or sharing any sort of identity.

3:50 Scholars debate about nation-states's origin "Imagined communities"-author Historian Benedict Anderson argued that nation-states began because of print media such as newspapers when the rise in literacy and new technologies like the printing press between 1500-1600 let people talk to each other in new ways. They discussed their similarities & ideas through the press & this meant they had to share a common language. They began to form the early version of national identities. Anderson's argument is still the most commonly held belief by historians.

4:38 However, other scholars noted origin by map technologies in 1500s, when European merchants began sailing around the world for first time. Better maps & tech to move people & goods change the way that people particularly rulers understood boundaries & borders.

5:10 Where there was no long-standing government in place, particularly in European colonies in the Americas, people got rid of old governments & formed new ones. Some of the first true nation-states were former colonies. In Italy & Germany, Identity came first. In other areas like England/UK or China, the political state was established first & then had to develop a national culture. Just like in Mexico.

5:43 By the late 1800s, the nation-state was the dominant form of political and cultural organization in the world. 8:19 : Literacy & press media, new shipping technologies & new maps all changed the way people reorganize along new ideals. 8:23 Nation-state appeared during Age of Exploration some time between 1500-1700s & it became the dominant system by late 1800s. Sometimes nation developed first, sometimes the state. Comment: Portugal with majority court power at most territory, no hierarchy etc. is first Nation-State & one of most homogenous nation.;

2025.03.11/britannica .com/topic/nation-state : "nation-state, a territorially bounded sovereign polity—i.e., a state—that is ruled in the name of a community of citizens who identify themselves as a nation. The legitimacy of a nation-state’s rule over a territory and over the population inhabiting it stems from the right of a core national group within the state (which may include all or only some of its citizens) to self-determination. Members of the core national group see the state as belonging to them and consider the approximate territory of the state to be their homeland. Accordingly, they demand that other groups, both within and outside the state, recognize and respect their control over the state. As the American sociologist Rogers Brubaker put it in Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe (1996), nation-states are “states of and for particular nations.” As a political model, the nation-state fuses two principles: the principle of state sovereignty, first articulated in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which recognizes the right of states to govern their territories without external interference; and the principle of national sovereignty, which recognizes the right of national communities to govern themselves. National sovereignty in turn is based on the moral-philosophical principle of popular sovereignty, according to which states belong to their peoples. The latter principle implies that legitimate rule of a state requires some sort of consent by the people.", "France after the French Revolution (1787–99) is often cited as the first nation-state, some scholars consider the establishment of the English Commonwealth in 1649 as the earliest instance of nation-state creation. Since the late 18th century the nation-state has gradually become the dominant vehicle of rule over geographic territories, replacing polities that were governed through other principles of legitimacy. The latter included dynastic monarchies (e.g., the Habsburg and Ethiopian empires), theocratic states (e.g., the Dalai Lama’s rule over Tibet and the rule of the prince-bishops of Montenegro), colonial empires (justified by colonizing powers as a means of spreading a “true” religion or of bringing progress to “backward” peoples), and communist revolutionary governments that purported to act in the name of a transnational working class", "some nation-states have been formed by polity-seeking national movements, others have formed when existing polities were nationalized—i.e., transformed into nation-states—either because theocrats or monarchs ceded authority to parliaments (as in Britain and France) or because empires retreated or broke apart (as did the British and French colonial empires in the mid-20th century and the Soviet empire in eastern Europe beginning in the late 1980s).", "processes of nation-state formation increase the likelihood of wars. As the social scientists Andreas Wimmer and Brian Min showed in a 2006 study (“From Empire to Nation-State: Explaining Wars in the Modern World, 1816–2001”), three types of wars are more prevalent at approximately the time of the foundation of nation-states"

Nation-note:a

Social contract-note:v

2025.03.03/blog.ipleaders .in/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-social-contract-theory/ : Social contract is "predominantly associated with the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and the French Philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau.", " 1 Legislature: It had the power to make laws. The legislature was the supreme body within the government. 

Executive: The power to enforce the law was vested in the executive. Executive also included the judicial power. The executive was subordinate and accountable to the legislature.

Federative: The Federative wing had the power to make treaties and conduct external relations."; 2025.03.03/rintintin.colorado .edu/~vancecd/phil215/Huemer1.pdf : "David Hume,

We may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master; though he was carried on board while asleep, and must leap into the ocean, and perish, the moment he leaves her.11", "not the primary issue. The primary issue is whether one is being asked to give up something to which one has a right, as the price of rejecting the social contract."

Social contract-note:a

Superstition reduced crime:v

2025.03.17/ 2013: dirt.asla .org/2013/05/ ;

Superstition reduced crime:a