Schelling on Freedom, Evil, and Exhibition: A Response to Stern ¹

Abstract This paper is a response to Stern's 2023 ‘Schelling on Freedom, Evil and Imputation: a Puzzle’, where he argues that (contra what he terms the ‘standard account’) the conception of freedom that Schelling puts forward in the Freedom essay is not an account of freedom as constituted by choice, but as constituted by acting in accordance with essence. Stern takes my reading of Schelling to be an example of the standard view; I want to demonstrate that in fact I agree with Stern's claim that Schelling's account is essentialist. However, I argue that there is an important nuance here in Schelling's view that is missed on Stern's account: Schelling is providing both a theory of freedom in general and an account of specifically human freedom. I therefore argue that Stern is right to claim that Schelling's account of freedom in general is essentialist, however in the case of human freedom I demonstrate that this account gives way to a view which is closer to existentialism. One reason, I argue, for Stern's overlooking of this distinction is that he reads the Freedom essay in isolation from Schelling's broader philosophical project, in particular from his Naturphilosophie , therefore I show that when we bring this broader project into view we are able to think more effectively about Schelling's conception of freedom.