ABSTRACT
Two years after Kant publishes the Religion, F.W.J. Schelling takes up the question of conversion in his Philosophical Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (1795/96). While Kant explores the possibility of moral conversion, Schelling focuses instead on the possibility of philosophical or systematic conversion—that is, conversion from one set of fundamental practical-theoretical commitments to another. There are ultimately, thinks Schelling, only two philosophical systems to choose from: “criticism,” which takes the reality of freedom as its starting point, and “dogmatism,” which rejects such freedom as illusory. One’s decision to embrace either system, we are told, follows not from rational deliberation but from the kind of person one is. This last claim has led many commentators to classify Schelling as a Spontaneous Choice theorist, a “proto-existentialist” figure who concedes the rational irresolvability of the dogmatism/criticism dispute. Here, we argue that while this classification is generally correct, it is in need of considerable qualification. Though Schelling does describe the decision to adopt or convert to a philosophical system as spontaneous, he claims also that criticism is both true and practically superior to its “delusional” dogmatic counterpart. Recent failure to appreciate this claim has resulted in a broader failure to appreciate the thematic importance of conversion in Schelling’s text. For although he admits the impossibility of persuading “consistent” dogmatists to convert to criticism, Schelling writes the Letters with the express intention of persuading inconsistent or merely nominal dogmatists to convert in just this way: from dogmatism to criticism, “from lack of self to selfhood.”
