Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism (1800) cannot be interpreted as a work of transcendental philosophy in the Kantian sense of grounding philosophy in the conditions of possibility of knowledge, nor in the early Fichtean sense of deriving philosophy from the self’s activity. Instead, this paper shows that Schelling’s STI develops a new form of transcendental philosophy that provides the foundation for understanding the relationship between transcendental philosophy and the philosophy of nature. This new framework makes possible an independent philosophy of nature that stands in parallel to transcendental philosophy, rather than being derived from it. Through analysis of the structure of the STI and its key concepts—particularly the introduction of the Absolute and the role of artistic intuition—this paper argues how this new transcendental philosophy not only foreshadows the philosophy of identity but also calls for a reconsideration of what transcendental philosophy can mean.
