Seele (peer-reviewed)

Jacobi’s reconceptualization of the role of the soul can be seen as a fundamental break with a traditional ontological perception of the soul as substance.1 Jacobi takes an independent path that differs fundamentally from the dependency of the soul in Kant's philosophy of the subject (see Sandkaulen 2023: 55f.).<br/><br/>In order to understand the significance of this transformation, it is important to understand what kind of a tradition Jacobi is breaking with. However, the history of the concept of the soul before Jacobi is almost impossibly rich and varied, to the point that even a brief outline can scarcely be attempted here. We will therefore limit ourselves to some schematic remarks on this history and the degree to which Jacobi might have been exposed to some concepts of the soul (section 1).<br/><br/>This lemma focuses on the philosophical concept of ‘Seele’ in Jacobi’s works. This word also has a relatively distinct religious and literary semantic context, which Jacobi also uses in his novels and Biblical discussion in Von den göttlichen Dingen (1811).2 At times, these semantic contexts slightly overlap with his philosophical notion (see section 2.4), but reading Jacobi’s philosophical concept of ‘Seele’ entirely from one of these semantic contexts would severely undercut Jacobi’s strong systematic commitments and his place in a philosophical tradition of defining the soul.<br/><br/>Broadly speaking, the first section will discuss Jacobi’s relationship with historical conceptions of the soul, while the second section will discuss his systematic views on the soul. The third section will discuss the reception of these systematic views.