The Game of Darkness: Heidegger, Schelling, and Spinoza

Abstract

This article aims to analyze, first, the problem of pantheism concerning determinism and freedom, treated by Schelling when he takes a position on the "Spinoza's error". Secondly, we will seek to understand, both in Schellingian thought and in his Heideggerian interpretation, Heidegger's statement that there would be in Schelling a "treatise that shakes Hegel's Logic even before it appears". Thirdly, following the path of the Descartes-Kant-Hegel lineage in the history of metaphysics, we will seek to elaborate the trajectory of the problem of “freedom and intelligible character”, confronting the latter one with the Schellingian solution, in order to analyze it through the conflict of the origin of evil and the impossibility of freedom. Finally, we will endeavor to respond to the accusation of “Spinoza's error” and thereby propose the opening for further interpretations of Spinoza, especially with regard to the problem of human freedom.