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MARTIN MOORS
reason. Consequently, such a science (i.e., metaphysics) will demonstrate but
does not prove (erweisen). To “prove” anything, according to its positivity,
takes place only on the condition which states that being is prius to essence.
With its critical overtone, Kant’s transcendental logic can certainly serve as
an introduction or—as he calls it—a preparation (CrpR B 26), or propaedeutics
(CrpR B 25). But it can merely be an introduction with a negative utility,
namely as “purification of our reason” (CrpR B 25) or for the sake of
“supplying the touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all cognitions
a priori” (CrpR B 26). Transcendental logic in its critical, i.e., preparatory,
signification may promise “a future metaphysics” and ultimately prepare for
a “practico-dogmatic metaphysics of freedom,”** but it remains entangled
within the negativity of mere thought. Hence, it can be considered as one of
the showpieces of negative philosophy.
Schelling’s Introduction also “prepares” and “purifies” and “supplies a
touchstone of the worth or worthlessness of all cognitions a priori” but it
does so toto caelo differently from Kant’s. In our interpretation, Schelling’s
Introduction that precedes his philosophy of Revelation by providing a grounding
of positive philosophy is truly an initiation. Indeed, Schelling’s a priori brings
forward a prius of which, per posterius, one can comprehend scientifically
“the real God, the actual chain of events, and a free relationship of God to
the world.”** Preparing the philosopher’s mind to such a comprehension of the
real, fulfils the task (Aufgabe)* of an initiation. A philosophy of revelation which
must come forward as a real science about the real becomes prepared for this
task by an introduction which initiates. Differentiating negative from positive
philosophy, and faced with the task of identifying a grounding for the latter,
Schelling’s Introduction also purifies (but without rejecting) the universal
possibility (being as the immediate content of reason) of its antecedent logical
preformation.* It even supplies the touchstone of the worth or worthlessness
of bringing the said task to completion. For Schelling, there is no other
touchstone for philosophy (which must be a real science) for assessing worth
or worthlessness than what he calls “the maxime cognoscendum, that which is
most worthy of knowing [...] that which is known in the purest knowing [...] that
which is the most, indeed, that which is alone worthy of existence.”*”’
®® See his so-called Fortschritte essay: What Real Progress has Metaphysics Made in Germany
since the Time of Leibniz and Wolff? (1793/1804) in The Cambridge Edition ofthe Works of
Immanuel Kant, general editors: Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press. The English translation of the Fortschritte essay is included in the volume
Theoretical Philosophy after 1781, edited by Henry Allison and Peter Heath, translated
by Gary Hatfield, Michael Friedman, Henry Allison, Peter Heath, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press, 2002, 349-424. In Ak. 20, 259-351, see especially 293-296.
54 Grounding, Lecture VII (SW II/3, 132).
35 Grounding, Lecture V (SW I1/3, 93).
36 See Grounding, Lecture VIII (SW II/3, 148).
57 Grounding, Lecture VIII (SW 11/3, 149).
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