The notion of "drive" oscillates between, and thus can mediate between, the realm of nature and that of the spirit. Sometimes, drives can have a reductionist-naturalist connotation, sometimes they can capture the Romantic striving for some ideal that remains forever beyond our reach; they can denote a psychological category, or a property of organic matter, or a bodily instinct. Schelling develops a highly intricate conceptual framework for dealing with he notion of, and the reality of, drives, and he is particularly interested in their potential for overcoming traditional demarcations. In particular, Schelling discusses “drives” (and related concepts, such as “instincts”), with surprising consitency, in the context of cognitive endeavours: He analyzes the indispensability of “drives” in any account that can do justice to science’s and philosophy’s ability to produce genuinely new insights. In doing so, he is particularly interested in drives towards “the general”, drives that are in themselves highly abstract and that aim at rather general and abstract results.
This directly implies that. His way of handling “drives” subverts our traditional hierarchies between “lower” and “higher” human capacities. This paper analyzes Schelling's conceptual topology for the notion of "drive", and will explore how he employs this concept as a means to go beyond traditional metaphysical boundaries, and beyond traditional epistemological/psychological attitudes. No core text will be used; the paper will discuss various texts and topical constellations in Schelling's oeuvre.
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