CONTRIBUTI / Laura Follesa
Life in Matter and Nature’s Balance in Herder and Schelling
In 1971 Valerio Verra pointed out Herder’s identification of the principle of universal explanation of nature and culture as a ‘rule of equilibrium’ that should be understood in the framework of a ‘progressive’ or ‘ascending’ development. In Herder’s contribution converge several elements already present in previous philosophical (and religious) traditions, which refer, in general, to the idea of an ‘economy in nature’. But the way Herder manages to rework the principle of ‘balance’ is decisive, paving the way for Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Schelling’s notion of a ‘dynamic equilibrium’ owes a lot to Herder’s ideas, but the speculative frame in which it is inserted is so different that Herder himself refused to recognize since the beginning any affinity between them. Nevertheless, Herder did not fail to refer back to Schelling, even if in a disguised way, in his «Adrastea» (1802), but the assumption of the two philosophers is completely different: Herder refuses every a priori and metaphysical knowledge and, for this reason, also Schelling’s project of a ‘speculative’ Naturphilosophie.
