The Subject-Object of Being

±A, the third potency, is what has the highest claim to be what has being - “[d]en höchsten Anspruch, das Seyende zu seyn, hat.”³⁷⁹ It is the subject-object, combining the features of -A and +A to become that which can and cannot be “d[as] seyn und nicht seyn Könnende”.³⁸⁰In discussing ±A, it is easiest to come to the conclusion that just as -A is the undetermined unlimited and +A the limit introduced into this unlimited, then ±A is the discrete final product of the productive process, a rigid form filled with a fluid matter, so to speak. This is how, for Schelling, Plato thinks of the “third thing” resulting from the determination of the apeiron by

377 See SW XI, 410.

378 Chapter VII will address the issue of individuation in the Potenzenlehre.

379 SW XI, 313.

380 SW X, 306.

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the peras, and this is indeed how the finite products constituting the universe are made for him; they are a combination of being and non-being:

Bisher also konnten wir unsere beiden ersten Ursachen in den Platonischen erkennen. Auch zum Dritten aber geht Platon fort. Dieses ist ihm jedoch nicht ein Princip oder eine Ursache, sondern das aus den beiden ersten Erzeugte (τò τούτων ε ́κγονον), das schon eine gemischte und gewordene Natur (μικτὴ καὶ γεγεννημένη ου σία) ist.³⁸¹

For Plato the third is not a principle or cause, but an object. To Schelling’s mind, this above simplistic conclusion is imprecise at best: ±A is not a finite and discrete product of the potency dialectic; it should rather still be viewed functionally. Its function as what stands at the top consequent end of the natural process of production is in accordance with the way Schelling uses the conceptual pair antecedent-consequent. Hermann Schrödter also speaks out against such an interpretation of the third as an individual thing: the potencies are for him all principles.³⁸² The function of ±A as something at the top end of a local natural process of generation corresponds to the way in which Schelling analyses the conceptual pair antecedent-consequent. Recall that the antecedent is an antecedent just because it has a certain consequent, thus making the consequent define the antecedent and in that sense, i.e., at least definitionally, consequent upon it. To give a concrete example Schelling himself uses: a mother is a mother only in consequence of bearing a child, to whom she is nevertheless a cause. Similarly, the ±A could not exist without the interaction of -A and +A like the child could not exist without the mother; Schelling nevertheless insists that the principles -A and +A can and do unfold only through conflict, therefore what allows them to unfold is the

“promise”, or rather, the possibility of ±A.³⁸³ This is why Hogrebe, in explaining ±A as part of his predication theory, speaks about it as “a medium”, i.e. that which gives the two potencies operative in its antecedence the possibility to interact with each other:

Was Schelling hier [wenn er ±A postuliert - DK] postuliert, macht nur Sinn, wenn wir das Dritte als jenes ontische Medium fassen, in dem Irgendetwas ein So-und-so sein kann, d.h. als die Möglichkeit, daß Irgendetwas und die prädikative Bestimmung zusammen stehen können.³⁸⁴

381 SW XI, 394. “Until now we were able recognize our first two causes in the Platonic ones. But Plato also proceeds to the third. This is, to him, however, not a principle or a cause, but that which is generated from the first two (τò τούτων ἔκγονον), which already is a mixed and becoming nature (μικτὴ καὶ γεγεννημένη οὐσία).“

382 Compare Grundlagen der Lehre, p.566.

383 We see in the Stuttgarter Privatvorlesungen that A³ is the ground of the relation between A and A² – SW VII 427: “Beide Einheiten oder Potenzen sind wieder Eins in der absoluten Einheit, diese also als

gemeinschaftliche Position der ersten und der zweiten Potenz ist A³[…]“. For English, see Stuttgart Seminars, p.

202.

384 PG, p. 73. English: “What Schelling postulates here [when postulating ±A] only makes sense if we construe the third as that ontic medium, in which something can be thus-and-so, i.e., as the possibility that something and a predicative determination can stand together.”

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As mentioned earlier, ±A is not a medium in the sense in which air is a medium for the propagation of sound, but is rather a mediator between two powers, a third-power space given to them for functioning. The space given to the first two potencies by ±A is moreover precisely a medium (here taken to mean “space”) of probability because ±A is a provisional terminus of the Potenzenlehre operations, and as the provisional terminus, it is the point at which the Potenzenlehre triad finally exerts extainment not at the level of its own elements (-A, +(-A, ±A), but rather at the level of other triads in the world. To make this clearer: in the singularly isolated process of natural becoming P1, the elements -A and +A extain each other and ±A, exerting a force of mutual “border authority” definition upon each other. This extainment works positively (so, not as elimination – see footnote 354):

±A, es sey nur als von beiden (jedem für sich) ausgeschlossenes, wobei ausschließen im positiven Sinn genommen wurde. Sich ausschließen im negativen Sinn könnten sie nur, wenn sie drei Seyende wären. Das sind sie aber nicht, und vielmehr vermitteln sie sich gegenseitig, Momente des Seyenden zu seyn. Das erste ist schon nur gesetzt in Hinaussicht auf das letzte, sie sind nicht bloße zusammen-sich-Vertragende, wie die vorkantische Metaphysik von dem allervollkommensten Wesen sagte, daß es alle realitates compossibiles in sich vereinige, vielmehr fordern sie sich gegenseitig und sind die wahren consentes (wirklich von con-sum, wie praesens von prae-sum), wie die Etrusker gewisse Götter nannten, von denen sie sagten, daß sie nur miteinander entstehen und miteinander untergehen können.³⁸⁵

When the chain of potency process is taken to have reached ±A, it is for the first time that the natural process P1 ascends a level higher and the resultant ±A specific to P1 can exert its extainment upon the elements of other processes distinct from P1. ±A is finally the space where -A and +A can exert their powers: it is here that the potencies acquire a real effect. In a certain sense, the entire Potenzenlehre scheme – and this is what ties potencies to possibility – is a scheme of possibilities, where -A is the maximally possible indeterminacy, +A the maximally possible determinacy and ±A – at least taken purely, before the Potenzenlehre scheme is applied to any concrete events – is the pure possibility of the possibilities lying in between the two pure termini. Schelling himself hints at that in the Darstellung der Reinrationalen Philosophie:

385 SW XI, 292-293. “±A, it would be only as the extained from both (each for itself), where extainment is taken in the positive sense. They could only be extained in the negative sense if it were three existents. This they are not, and furthermore they mutually mediate each other in being moments of that which has being. The first is already only posited in regard to the last. They are not mere tolerating-each-other-together, like in what the pre-Kantian metaphysics said of the most perfect being, that it unites in itself all realitates compossibiles;

furthermore they found each other mutually and are true consentes (from con-sum, just as praesens from prae-sum), like the Etruscans called certain gods, of whom they said that they can only arise and perish together.“

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Die drei Ursachen sind die ersten, die reinen Möglichkeiten, von denen jene zwischen Anfang und Ende liegenden concreten Möglichkeiten sich ableiten.³⁸⁶

If until now and despite all the warnings that the potencies are only ever active as a triad, the reader has had the impression that -A and +A have actually acted on their potentials, that impression must once again be disavowed as false: the triad is only ever active as a triad, and it is only once ±A enters the picture as a provisional terminus that -A and +A are able to engage in their extaining activities. ±A cannot be without -A or +A, just as they cannot be without it: what exists is the entire triad or, put otherwise, ±A insofar as it implicitly is the entire triad³⁸⁷ and insofar as the dissolution of the triad into its three dialectical units is an abstraction that does not correspond to reality in-itself – the triad actually exists as a dynamic unity. Since the potency which completes this dynamic unity, letting all its factors perform their functions is ±A, Schelling speaks of it as a self-determining substance:

Die erste bloß materiale Ursache ist eigentlich nicht Ursache, da sie als die bestimmungslose, darum der Bestimmung bedürftige Natur eigentlich nur leidend ist. Dieses der Bestimmung Unterliegende ist reine Substanz, und dieß der erste Begriff. Die zweite Bestimmung gebende, zu der Substanz als bestimmende Ursache (ratio determinans) sich verhaltende, diese ist reine Ursache, da sie auch nichts für sich will. Was kann nun noch über beiden gedacht werden, oder vielmehr was muß über beiden gedacht werden, um zu einem begrifflichen Abschluß zu gelangen? Offenbar was Substanz und Ursache, Bestimmbares und Bestimmendes zugleich, also die sich selbst bestimmende Substanz ist, als Unbestimmtes ein Können in sich schließend, aber über dessen Gefahr durch das Seyn erhoben, an das es ihr gebunden ist, erst das wahrhafte, nämlich das frei seyn Könnende ist, weil Seyn und nicht Seyn ihr gleich, da sie im Seyn (in das Seyn sich bewegend) nicht aufhört Können zu seyn, und im nicht Seyn seyend bleibt [...]³⁸⁸

386 SW XI, 391. English: “The three causes are the first, the pure possibilities, from which the concrete possibilities that lie between the beginning and the end derive themselves”.

387 The potencies A and A² are only subordinate forms of A³: “nur die gemeinschaftlich untergeordneten Formen des A³ […]“ – SW VII, 451. Schelling stays of this opinion also in the Darstellung der Reinrationalen Philosophie: “Aber um eine Zusammenwirkung derselben und also ein Zusammengesetztes zu begreifen, mußten wir stillschweigend eine Einheit voraussetzen, durch welche die drei Ursachen zusammengehalten und zu gemeinschaftlicher Wirkung vereinigt werden.” - SW XI, 399. English: “But in order to grasp the mutual effect and the thus a mutual positing, we must silently presuppose a unity through which the three causes hold together and are united in common effect.”

388 SW XI, 394-395. “The first merely material cause is properly not a cause, for it, as the definitionless nature, hence in need of definition, is properly only passive. It, underlying determination, is pure substance, and this is the first concept. The second, which gives determination and relates to substance as a determining cause (ratio determinans), this is the pure cause, for it also does not will anything for itself. What can now also be thought over them both, or rather: what must be thought over them both in order to come to a conceptual completion? Obviously, substance and cause, simultaneously determinable and determining, thus self-determining substance, enclosing, as indeterminate, a Can in itself, but raised by Being above the risk thereof through being, to which it is tied. It is the free Can-be, because being and non-being are the same to it, for it in being (moving itself in being) does not cease to be Can, and in non-being remains being […]”

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It is fairly clear why Schelling here presents it as a substance: it is the only element of the triad that can be given that name, because it is the only one which can be said to have being.³⁸⁹ This obvious reification ceases to be puzzling at all, if it ever was, once it is remembered that it is only with and through ±A that potencies acquire an effect in the outside world and that Schelling subscribes to the Platonic definition of being, which is “simply power”.³⁹⁰ ±A is the site/node at which the powers of -A and +A act at all, therefore making it a site of, and placeholder for, being. It is significantly more puzzling to see that Schelling names it “self-determining”, as it would seem that it is determined by precisely that which is not it, i.e., -A and +A. This would however underestimate the dependence of any of the elements of the triad on all others, and on the (albeit relative) completion of the triad in ±A. In a certain entangled (or rather, non-dis-entangled) sense, ±A compacts the entire potency triad because it is the condition which provides to +A and -A the possibility to act, therefore determining itself through the other two potencies.³⁹¹ This peculiar property, according to which ±A can be spoken of as the entire potency triad that brought it into existence, brings us to our next point:

the apparent layered fractality of the potencies, whereby what is an entire triad at one level

389 SW XI 313: “Den höchsten Anspruch, das Seyende zu seyn, hat, wie wir gesehen, das Dritte. Aber, da es das, was es ist, nicht für sich seyn kann, sondern nur in Gemeinschaft mit den andern, so gilt von ihm, daß es für sich eben auch nur das Seyende seyn kann, eine Potenz des Seyenden ist.“ Schelling then proceeds to explain why ±A is not a substance: “Aber das Ganze, das sich im Gedanken mit Nothwendigkeit erzeugte, dieses wird wohl das Seyende seyn? Ja, aber im bloßen Entwurf, nur in der Idee, nicht wirklich. Wie jedes einzelne Element das Seyende nur seyn kann, so ist das Ganze zwar das Seyende, aber das Seyende, das ebenfalls nicht Ist, sondern nur seyn kann. Es ist die Figur des Seyenden, nicht Es selbst, der Stoff der wirklichen Idee, nicht sie selbst, sie wirklich, wie Aristoteles von der Dynamis im Allgemeinen sagt: sie sey nur der Stoff des Allgemeinen.

Zur Wirklichkeit wird es erst dann erhoben, wenn Eines oder Etwas Ist, das diese Möglichkeiten ist, die bis jetzt bloß in Gedanken reine Noemata sind.“ English: “The third has, as we have seen, the highest claim to be what has being. But since it cannot be what it is for-itself, but only in community with the other, it is the case regarding it that it for itself also merely can be what has being, i.e. is a potency of that which has being. […] But as to the whole, which produces itself in thoughts with necessity, will this indeed be that which has being? Yes, but in mere outline, only in the idea, not actually. Just as every individual element of that which has being only can be, so the whole is that which has being, but one that likewise Is not, but merely can be. It is the figure of that which has being, not It itself; the matter of actual idea, not the idea itself; actual, as Aristotle speaks of the Dynamis in general: it is merely the matter of the general. It is only then lifted to actuality when One or Something Is that is these possibilities, which until now have been pure noemata in thought.”

390 Sophist 247e. Indeed, in the Weltalter-fragments (specifically WA I 42) Schelling defines existence as follows: “Sich selber wollen, sich seiner annehmen, sich zusammenfassen, sich in seiner Ganzheit setzen. Ist alles Eins, ist allen die thätige, die wahre Existenz”. English: “To will oneself, to assume one’s own for oneself, to recapitulate oneself, to posit oneself in one’s entirety. Everything is one, is the active, the true existence.”

391 SW XI, 396-7: “Hieraus erhellt, daß zum Begreifen eines Werdens ein Drittes erforderlich ist, nicht ein selbst Gewordenes, sondern das selbst Ursache ist. Denn in jedem der beiden andern ist ein für sich

unendliches Wollen, das erste will nur im Seyn sich behaupten, das zweite nur es ins nicht Seyn zurückführen, das dritte allein, als das selbst, daß ich so sage, affectlose, kann bestimmen, in welchem Maß jeder Zeit, d. h. für jeden Moment des Processes, das Seyn überwunden seyn soll; es selbst aber, durch das jedes Werdende allein zum Stehen, also zu Stande kommt, ist das von innen heraus alles Zweckmäßige wirkende und zugleich selbst Zweck.” English: “From this it becomes clear that in order to grasp becoming a third element is necessary, not one that has become itself, but one that is itself cause. For in each of the two others there is for-itself infinite will; the first wants to assert itself only in Being and the second only to return the first to non-being. The third alone, as that itself, so to speak, affectless, can determine in what measure each time (i.e. for each moment of the process) being is to be overcome. It itself, however, through which each becoming alone comes to stand, thus to be, is what makes everything function goal-orientedly from the inside out and is itself a goal.”

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becomes merely one element in a higher-standing triad at another. It is at the heart of this fractality, I would argue in what follows, that the key to Schelling’s different notations of the Potenzenlehre lies.