24Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology Vol 44 No 1 January 2013HOW NATURE COMES TO BE THOUGHTSCHELLINGrsquoS PARADOX AND THE PROBLEM OFLOCATIONIAIN HAMILTON GRANTAs for me I rather think Nature first produced the things to its own liking and then createdhuman reason1

In his Predication and Genesis2 Wolfram Hogrebe reconstructs SchellingrsquosAges of the World3 along the lines of a theory of predication while asking withSchelling how it is that predication or judgment comes about In one sensetherefore the work asks lsquohow does reasoning arise in naturersquo In another itaffirms that ldquothe world lies caught in the nets of reason but the question ishow did it come to be in these netsrdquo4 A philosophy of nature in that it seeksprecisely to embrace nature in reason or affirms that nature cannot ndash sinceldquonature is incognizablerdquo is a cognition ndash be considered a priori insusceptible toall cognitive strategies without begging the question can neither avoid thereforethe problem of the identity of nature in thought with nature before thoughtWhile the first question posits that reasoning is contained in nature and thesecond conversely that nature is contained in reasoning and since the twocontradict one another one can only be true if the other is false5With Schellinghowever I will argue first that both are true and second that it is becausereasoning occurs in nature that nature comes to be contained in reason and thatit is the reverse of this order that is importantly false Otherwise eitherreasoning if it occurred in a world could not reason about nature or it couldonly catch nature in its nets if that reasoning were other than the world in whichit occurs

It is precisely because thinking starts in nature from the actuality of whichthought is part that a philosophy of nature must oppose the idea that nature isidentical with its concept What identity there might be cannot therefore beconsequent on the conceiving but consists in what we might call the commonroot of their emergence or the containment of the concept in the nature priorto its being conceived Ontological identity therefore entails essential differenceYet the opposition cannot be simple unless a line can be drawn either fromwithin the concept or from within nature beyond which lies the one and beforewhich the other If such a line is drawn in a medium let us say for example inreason then while it may consistently be drawn the consequence is that natureand the concept lose exactly what is specific to each ie any predicates otherthan being opposed to one another The philosophy of nature therefore opposesthe idea that nature is to be identified with its concept in two ways Firstly inthe sense that just as no chain of reasoning terminates in Being nor is

25lsquoexistencersquo sufficiently discriminating to be predicated informatively of anyone subject because it is predicable of all possible subjects so neither is naturethe result or consequence of reasoning nor a discriminative predicate in anyjudgment Secondly a philosophy of nature opposes the identity of nature andits concept not insofar as it seeks a demarcation line between them but insofaras any concept of nature that has nature as its subject must acknowledge itspartiality This is because the judgment that nature is thus and so is itself anexpression of the nature in which that judgment arises and to this extent isconsequent upon a nature that leaves the concept naturally porous so to speaktowards its underside towards what is not it or better towards what is not it Inother words the difference between nature and concept is not a differencebetween nature and one or several concepts of nature but between it and theconcept as such regardless of its content Concepts are consequent upon thenature of which they are qua concepts late expressions If this is acceptedthen while a philosophy of nature opposes the idea that nature is to be identifiedwith its concept it also affirms the identity of nature and concept without whichthe concept would not be at all The identity of nature and the concept liestherefore at the level of the ultimate subject of any proposition whatever butdoes not in consequence conclude an identity of nature and the concept from theconcept The subject of a proposition is ultimate that is to the extent to whichits predicates never supplant that subjectrsquos primacy with respect to thejudgments made upon it

It is not that we may therefore affirm that nature is that which exceeds theconcept or the totality of conceptual possibilities since nature only is nature toprecisely the extent that it is thus lsquoexceededrsquo not only by the concept but byany of its consequents from planets to bacteria It is rather that inherent in therelation between nature and concept or since this lsquorelationrsquo is too imprecisein the concept of nature itself there is an irreversible asymmetry which meansfor the concept of nature that the nature embraced in the concept is natureinsofar as the concept can embrace nothing else and is not nature insofar as itis from it that the concept arises The philosophy of nature therefore requires aconceiving of nature that extains6 more than it contains and it is in this that itsnature lays

1 From Nature to (Nature and Logic)The problem of whether reason is in nature or nature in reason arises becausethere is reason and reason has content But reason arises because there is natureWhat is inside and what is outside reason andor nature is therefore a localproblem in the sense that it is consequent upon one thing being consequent uponanother According to Gilles Chacirctelet the problem of insideoutside is aldquoreducibly local tension from which ontology unfoldsrdquo7 Ontology unfolds fromthis tension because a judgment concerning being arises in consequence of a

26prior partition of being separating it into the being antecedent to the judgmentand the being consequent upon it A proposition therefore minimally introducesa locality a position into what according to the hypothesis was without oneThe being consequent upon the judgment is accordingly not identical to thebeing antecedent to it since a logical space has now formed in which the subjectof the proposition is a creature of that proposition The primary division ofbeing effected by the judgment is insuperably its multiplication What thejudgment cannot articulate without self-contradiction therefore is that despite itsoperation being remains unsundered since even this claim augments thepartitions it expressly denies albeit for the same reason not of the samesubject

Yet it is clearly true that being does not for its part exclude the judgmentmade upon it that (according to a further judgment) being now contains thatjudgment or is expressed as it It is precisely the problem therefore ofarticulating the inside and the outside of the terms of the judgment ndash what iscontained in the subject and in the predicate on the one hand and what containsthem on the other ndash that the judgment itself introduces as a problem of positionand it is in this sense a local problem albeit subject in principle to non-finiteiteration Because the subject of any judgment even if it treats of a judgmentantecedent to it entails the production of a new position it cannot be said thatthere is one ultimate subject or substrate of judgment that is divided with eachjudgment upon it

Nor can we conclude from this that locality is insuperable to any outside onthe grounds that it first articulates this and is subject to iterative operationsrather it is the positive emergence of locality that as we have seen iterativelydistributes an antecedent and a consequent of the logical space articulated in thejudgment Judgment accordingly multiplies positions in localities such thatbeing is only said in many ways one of which being that for example beingis univocal What then happens between being and its expressionIf before answering this question we now consider the problem of locality interms of the philosophy of nature the implication is clear what lsquonaturersquo remainsthat could furnish the ultimate subject of all judgments Yet just because notwo judgments may have the same subjects it does not follow that a singlejudgment may not have as its subject precisely an ultimate subject that underliesall judgments What it does mean is that such a subject must itself be consequentupon any such ultimate subject to which it refers and so is not identical withthat subject Just as the problem of locality discussed above highlights theproduction of position or emergence along with all the boundary formationsthis entails so too the production of such an ultimate subject is consequent uponthe emergence of locality where none was Thus while an environing nature isnot itself at risk of elimination by being judged the concept of such a nature isimportantly distinct from the ultimate subject with which it might seek to claim

27identity simply because its consequent nature entails if there is a judgment atall that it emerges as one precisely by being consequent upon an antecedent inwhich judgment was not included

While it may seem as if this successfully eliminates the possibility of accessto a nature beyond the concept such that the only nature conceiving beings canconceive is a conceptual one we must recall the second part of Hogrebersquosquestion which asks how nature comes to be caught in reason not whether itis The question is reiterated in On the History of Modern Philosophy (1836-7)with an important additionThe whole world lies so to speak in the nets of the understanding or of reason but the questionis how exactly it got into those nets since there is obviously something other and somethingmore than mere reason in the world8

The difficulty here is clearly expressed it is the whole world (WW) that reasoncaptures and there is more than reason in the world (W) But if W containsldquomorerdquo than WW then either reason being part of W does not for that reasoncontain WW and the statement simply contradicts itself or the wholeness of theworld is an artefact of the reason that contains it so that the ldquowhole worldrdquo is lessthan the world an abstraction from it perhaps Now Schellingrsquos ldquohowrdquo questionis asked in two registers the first asks what the WW that is in reason is thesecond asks by what means the WW that is in reason got there Taking thesequestions in order it is clear that since the option of taking the whole world inreason and reason to be in the world to form a contradiction is effectively ruledout by the formulationrsquos concision on the one hand and the fact of its exactrepetition after a decade and a half on the other WW must be considered anartefact and the assumption will be that if it is an artefact then it is one of reasonie simply a concept9 Yet this presupposes an answer to the question whichappears at first sight to concern the passage from nature to reason namely thatthere is no transition from W to WW since W is not and WW is such anartefact In other words neither are we to learn of how it comes to be either thatthis transition arises or if it does not then by what means the entire situation isto be logically reconstructed nor of how if this is not the case and the transitiondoes take place the reason from which WW arises itself arisesThe second register of the question therefore arises by countering theassumption that the produced nature of WW entails that it is an artefact ofreason We have already noted the manner in which the emergence of ajudgment constitutes the multiplication of the subject of that judgmentAccordingly that the world is to be qualified as ldquowholerdquo entails that it is thesubject of a judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo or ldquothis is the whole world in theconceptrdquo But it also indicates that such a ldquowholerdquo world is so only if its localityis denied so that its antecedent is eliminated in which case its wholeness wouldbe a consequence of the elimination of its production which is contradictoryTo reinstate this latter therefore demonstrates that WW is by the extainment of

28antecedence and consequence and this reinstatement occurs precisely in thesecond register of the question If that is W1048576 WW occurs it is because thepredicate ldquois wholerdquo is consequent upon what is antecedent to the judgment inthe event that the judgment occurs In other words it is not that W becomesWW but rather that WW arises after W and that this process is precisely theprocess by which reasoning comes to be in the world by being after it Theworld as it is that is is not whole except in consequence of a judgment suchthat its conceiving is precisely that means by which the concept WW arisesand augments the W in which it does so In consequence of the judgment thatit is and of this judgment being itself consequent the world that is more thanreason is so precisely in the sense that (a) the world does indeed acquire morethan itself insofar as the judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo is not included in theworld so judged and so is not whole without it and (b) if it is not whole withoutconsequents this is because the world is not whole but is more than what isjudged in the judgment since it is precisely what it is that does the judging thatis judged and that antecedes judging as such In other words because it is bynature that the judgment is consequent upon what it is that the judgmentconcerns judgment precisely exhibits the process of nature insofar as nature iscreation or that which is not what it is unless emergence occurs WW is notderived from the partition of nature so much as from its multiplication naturersquosaugmentation by the dimension of the concept The truth of reason so to speakthat the subject of the proposition is not logically identical with or the samething as the referent of that proposition coincides with the truth of fact thatthe nature there is has as one of its consequences the making of judgmentswithin it It is the consequent nature of the consequent that makes the antecedentnecessarily insurmountable by it It is as Schelling says ldquounprethinkable being[unvordenkliches Seyn]rdquo[O]ne must certainly call Being [hellip] unprethinkable antecedent to all thinking [hellip] One couldalso say that what is antecedent to thinking is without a concept inconceivable But philosophymakes what is a priori inconceivable a posteriori into something conceivable10

Here the involution implicit in the thinking of the world is made explicitconceiving entails the transformation of what is not conceived whichconceiving always entails a consequent extainment an ldquounprethinkablerdquo Butso too is the realism of the account The contradiction of the world thoughtwhole within a world of which thought is part appears as such due to the logicalinsuperability of the reference to a nature within which both occur but only inone direction at a time It is only if thinking about nature always involves morenature than can be thought that nature is in fact being thoughtThis is why somethingrsquos being conceived is not identical to its containmentThat something is conceived does entail that something is contained in theconceiving but this does not mean that what is antecedent to the conceiving isconceived or contained in the conceiving There are two reasons for this Firstly

29there is more to the thing thought than its being thought or there is more thanreason in the world Secondly the conceiving is a consequent in that world aswe have seen Accordingly what it is that is thought extains its being-thoughtjust when its being-thought contains that extainment as extaining precisely itsbeing-thought11 Neither does containment lsquodenaturersquo extainment so to speakor reduce it to a dimension of the contained nor does extainment makecontainment impossible Transposed back to the question of what it is that isconceived in the conceiving and how it is that this conceived is related to whatis antecedent to the conceiving it is now clear why it is neither false (a) thatwhat is conceived is contained in the conceiving nor (b) that what it is that isconceived in the conceiving is not what is conceived or why it is that the wholeworld is caught in the nets of reason and that reason is part of the worldThis is because as Kauffman states extainers are ldquoentities open to interactionand distinguishing the space that they are notrdquo12 In other words the containmentof containment must contain extainment if something is to be contained at allor containment does not self-contain without iteration (C1rarrC2) and theiteration presupposes the extainment of the container by the contained A cubefor instance may be contained within a cube just when the contained cubeextains its container since otherwise a cube would not be in another and therewould only be one cube Similarly the extainment of extainment extainscontainment since this is precisely what extainment is The extainment of thecontaining cube by the contained does reduce the extained space to the contentof the difference of the two cubes since extainment is operative on both sidesof the container Extainment continues following its interruption by containmentand articulates the outward trajectory against which the containerrsquos outer surfaceis turned So conceived extainers do not contain but rather extain containers13In the extainercontainer contrastive pair in other words there would be nonegative and positive space Rather all parts of space are actors The interactionbetween them in other words is importantly not linear as the one involves theother in the production of boundaries such that complex forms like knots14 arethemselves neighbourhoods formed of iterations of this couple Moreover as alogic of form in general it is indifferent to the domain it spatialises or is asChacirctelet puts it it is ldquoautospatialityrdquo15 In other words this is the localisationprocess that effects any entity whatever the only constraint being therefore thatits universality ensures that it neither begins nor ends in a form of all forms orin a featureless universe It is because the All is precisely not local preciselynon-extaining that according to Roland Omnegraves it is a ldquobasic tenet of sciencerdquothat it investigates ldquoan isolated part of the world by itselfrdquo16 How then is thequestion ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo to be answered How from theldquoreducibly local tension from which all ontology unfoldsrdquo can there be derivedldquothe possibility of capturing the power enveloping a fieldrdquo17 How again canldquothe whole worldrdquo be conceived

302 The Essence of the Central Phenomenon

If the whole world does indeed come to lie in the nets of reason but if it isnot of another nature than the reason that arises in the world it is importantlynot false that the whole world is indeed contained in reason as a multiplicationor lsquopotentiationrsquo of the world as that world in which reason arises Yet the wholeworld is not only thinkable but also since the localisation of this lsquowhole worldrsquois consequent upon its being a consequent in the sequences of antecedence andconsequence necessitated if there is emergence in nature at all its being thoughtis precisely a consequence of the nature so thought That there is suchemergence is locally exemplified in the fact of conceiving The ldquowhole worldrdquois therefore involved in the sequence of creation over which that world doesnot wholly extend That is the whole world is thinkable on condition that it isthought precisely as a midpoint of itself as within the world and therefore asentailing extainment

Yet this account carries with it the risk that thinking nature is wholly extainedfrom the nature being thought That is to say that thought as such is overlylocalised within the world in which it takes place The resultant ldquonearontologyrdquo18 restricts thought to what is local to it rather than situating it in theworld Two examples will make the point clear The first stems from Novalisrsquoaccount of nature and the second from Schellingrsquos account of the relationbetween localisation and dimensionalisation The two examples will coincidein what the latter calls following Bacon a ldquocentral phenomenonrdquo19

One of Novalisrsquo fragments asks ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo Thisquestion is immediately preceded by another ldquoWhere is the primal germ thetype of the entirety of nature to be foundrdquo20 From this may be distinguished areflective or transcendental question of naturersquos nature from an empiricalquestion of the Urkeim the ldquoprimal germrdquo and the problem of its discovery21If it is to be discovered the question stipulates it must lie somewhere Insofaras it a germ however it is the nature of nature insofar as generation issues fromit Yet since in nature ldquoeverything is a seed-cornrdquo22 that generates no primalgerm of the whole may be discovered Since any candidate form mustminimally therefore be four- rather than three-dimensional the investigationof primal forms cannot be pursued in space alone Yet precisely because theprimal is primal with respect to nature as such the ldquometaphysics of naturerdquodeals with ldquonature before it becomes naturerdquo23 From this Novalis formulatesa rule of naturersquos primacy as much as for primals in nature ldquoNature goes froma priori ad posterius ndash at least for usrdquo24 This transcendental addendum to thecharacterisation of the nature of nature introduces a curvature around theconcept reducing its neighbourhood not only to what the concept is near tobut isolating it against what it is not Yet it does not stipulate only but rather atleast for us that is it states that what is prior is so because it is ldquomore knowablein relation to usrdquo25 This ldquonear ontologyrdquo stipulates that as far as our knowing

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

25lsquoexistencersquo sufficiently discriminating to be predicated informatively of anyone subject because it is predicable of all possible subjects so neither is naturethe result or consequence of reasoning nor a discriminative predicate in anyjudgment Secondly a philosophy of nature opposes the identity of nature andits concept not insofar as it seeks a demarcation line between them but insofaras any concept of nature that has nature as its subject must acknowledge itspartiality This is because the judgment that nature is thus and so is itself anexpression of the nature in which that judgment arises and to this extent isconsequent upon a nature that leaves the concept naturally porous so to speaktowards its underside towards what is not it or better towards what is not it Inother words the difference between nature and concept is not a differencebetween nature and one or several concepts of nature but between it and theconcept as such regardless of its content Concepts are consequent upon thenature of which they are qua concepts late expressions If this is acceptedthen while a philosophy of nature opposes the idea that nature is to be identifiedwith its concept it also affirms the identity of nature and concept without whichthe concept would not be at all The identity of nature and the concept liestherefore at the level of the ultimate subject of any proposition whatever butdoes not in consequence conclude an identity of nature and the concept from theconcept The subject of a proposition is ultimate that is to the extent to whichits predicates never supplant that subjectrsquos primacy with respect to thejudgments made upon it

It is not that we may therefore affirm that nature is that which exceeds theconcept or the totality of conceptual possibilities since nature only is nature toprecisely the extent that it is thus lsquoexceededrsquo not only by the concept but byany of its consequents from planets to bacteria It is rather that inherent in therelation between nature and concept or since this lsquorelationrsquo is too imprecisein the concept of nature itself there is an irreversible asymmetry which meansfor the concept of nature that the nature embraced in the concept is natureinsofar as the concept can embrace nothing else and is not nature insofar as itis from it that the concept arises The philosophy of nature therefore requires aconceiving of nature that extains6 more than it contains and it is in this that itsnature lays

1 From Nature to (Nature and Logic)The problem of whether reason is in nature or nature in reason arises becausethere is reason and reason has content But reason arises because there is natureWhat is inside and what is outside reason andor nature is therefore a localproblem in the sense that it is consequent upon one thing being consequent uponanother According to Gilles Chacirctelet the problem of insideoutside is aldquoreducibly local tension from which ontology unfoldsrdquo7 Ontology unfolds fromthis tension because a judgment concerning being arises in consequence of a

26prior partition of being separating it into the being antecedent to the judgmentand the being consequent upon it A proposition therefore minimally introducesa locality a position into what according to the hypothesis was without oneThe being consequent upon the judgment is accordingly not identical to thebeing antecedent to it since a logical space has now formed in which the subjectof the proposition is a creature of that proposition The primary division ofbeing effected by the judgment is insuperably its multiplication What thejudgment cannot articulate without self-contradiction therefore is that despite itsoperation being remains unsundered since even this claim augments thepartitions it expressly denies albeit for the same reason not of the samesubject

Yet it is clearly true that being does not for its part exclude the judgmentmade upon it that (according to a further judgment) being now contains thatjudgment or is expressed as it It is precisely the problem therefore ofarticulating the inside and the outside of the terms of the judgment ndash what iscontained in the subject and in the predicate on the one hand and what containsthem on the other ndash that the judgment itself introduces as a problem of positionand it is in this sense a local problem albeit subject in principle to non-finiteiteration Because the subject of any judgment even if it treats of a judgmentantecedent to it entails the production of a new position it cannot be said thatthere is one ultimate subject or substrate of judgment that is divided with eachjudgment upon it

Nor can we conclude from this that locality is insuperable to any outside onthe grounds that it first articulates this and is subject to iterative operationsrather it is the positive emergence of locality that as we have seen iterativelydistributes an antecedent and a consequent of the logical space articulated in thejudgment Judgment accordingly multiplies positions in localities such thatbeing is only said in many ways one of which being that for example beingis univocal What then happens between being and its expressionIf before answering this question we now consider the problem of locality interms of the philosophy of nature the implication is clear what lsquonaturersquo remainsthat could furnish the ultimate subject of all judgments Yet just because notwo judgments may have the same subjects it does not follow that a singlejudgment may not have as its subject precisely an ultimate subject that underliesall judgments What it does mean is that such a subject must itself be consequentupon any such ultimate subject to which it refers and so is not identical withthat subject Just as the problem of locality discussed above highlights theproduction of position or emergence along with all the boundary formationsthis entails so too the production of such an ultimate subject is consequent uponthe emergence of locality where none was Thus while an environing nature isnot itself at risk of elimination by being judged the concept of such a nature isimportantly distinct from the ultimate subject with which it might seek to claim

27identity simply because its consequent nature entails if there is a judgment atall that it emerges as one precisely by being consequent upon an antecedent inwhich judgment was not included

While it may seem as if this successfully eliminates the possibility of accessto a nature beyond the concept such that the only nature conceiving beings canconceive is a conceptual one we must recall the second part of Hogrebersquosquestion which asks how nature comes to be caught in reason not whether itis The question is reiterated in On the History of Modern Philosophy (1836-7)with an important additionThe whole world lies so to speak in the nets of the understanding or of reason but the questionis how exactly it got into those nets since there is obviously something other and somethingmore than mere reason in the world8

The difficulty here is clearly expressed it is the whole world (WW) that reasoncaptures and there is more than reason in the world (W) But if W containsldquomorerdquo than WW then either reason being part of W does not for that reasoncontain WW and the statement simply contradicts itself or the wholeness of theworld is an artefact of the reason that contains it so that the ldquowhole worldrdquo is lessthan the world an abstraction from it perhaps Now Schellingrsquos ldquohowrdquo questionis asked in two registers the first asks what the WW that is in reason is thesecond asks by what means the WW that is in reason got there Taking thesequestions in order it is clear that since the option of taking the whole world inreason and reason to be in the world to form a contradiction is effectively ruledout by the formulationrsquos concision on the one hand and the fact of its exactrepetition after a decade and a half on the other WW must be considered anartefact and the assumption will be that if it is an artefact then it is one of reasonie simply a concept9 Yet this presupposes an answer to the question whichappears at first sight to concern the passage from nature to reason namely thatthere is no transition from W to WW since W is not and WW is such anartefact In other words neither are we to learn of how it comes to be either thatthis transition arises or if it does not then by what means the entire situation isto be logically reconstructed nor of how if this is not the case and the transitiondoes take place the reason from which WW arises itself arisesThe second register of the question therefore arises by countering theassumption that the produced nature of WW entails that it is an artefact ofreason We have already noted the manner in which the emergence of ajudgment constitutes the multiplication of the subject of that judgmentAccordingly that the world is to be qualified as ldquowholerdquo entails that it is thesubject of a judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo or ldquothis is the whole world in theconceptrdquo But it also indicates that such a ldquowholerdquo world is so only if its localityis denied so that its antecedent is eliminated in which case its wholeness wouldbe a consequence of the elimination of its production which is contradictoryTo reinstate this latter therefore demonstrates that WW is by the extainment of

28antecedence and consequence and this reinstatement occurs precisely in thesecond register of the question If that is W1048576 WW occurs it is because thepredicate ldquois wholerdquo is consequent upon what is antecedent to the judgment inthe event that the judgment occurs In other words it is not that W becomesWW but rather that WW arises after W and that this process is precisely theprocess by which reasoning comes to be in the world by being after it Theworld as it is that is is not whole except in consequence of a judgment suchthat its conceiving is precisely that means by which the concept WW arisesand augments the W in which it does so In consequence of the judgment thatit is and of this judgment being itself consequent the world that is more thanreason is so precisely in the sense that (a) the world does indeed acquire morethan itself insofar as the judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo is not included in theworld so judged and so is not whole without it and (b) if it is not whole withoutconsequents this is because the world is not whole but is more than what isjudged in the judgment since it is precisely what it is that does the judging thatis judged and that antecedes judging as such In other words because it is bynature that the judgment is consequent upon what it is that the judgmentconcerns judgment precisely exhibits the process of nature insofar as nature iscreation or that which is not what it is unless emergence occurs WW is notderived from the partition of nature so much as from its multiplication naturersquosaugmentation by the dimension of the concept The truth of reason so to speakthat the subject of the proposition is not logically identical with or the samething as the referent of that proposition coincides with the truth of fact thatthe nature there is has as one of its consequences the making of judgmentswithin it It is the consequent nature of the consequent that makes the antecedentnecessarily insurmountable by it It is as Schelling says ldquounprethinkable being[unvordenkliches Seyn]rdquo[O]ne must certainly call Being [hellip] unprethinkable antecedent to all thinking [hellip] One couldalso say that what is antecedent to thinking is without a concept inconceivable But philosophymakes what is a priori inconceivable a posteriori into something conceivable10

Here the involution implicit in the thinking of the world is made explicitconceiving entails the transformation of what is not conceived whichconceiving always entails a consequent extainment an ldquounprethinkablerdquo Butso too is the realism of the account The contradiction of the world thoughtwhole within a world of which thought is part appears as such due to the logicalinsuperability of the reference to a nature within which both occur but only inone direction at a time It is only if thinking about nature always involves morenature than can be thought that nature is in fact being thoughtThis is why somethingrsquos being conceived is not identical to its containmentThat something is conceived does entail that something is contained in theconceiving but this does not mean that what is antecedent to the conceiving isconceived or contained in the conceiving There are two reasons for this Firstly

29there is more to the thing thought than its being thought or there is more thanreason in the world Secondly the conceiving is a consequent in that world aswe have seen Accordingly what it is that is thought extains its being-thoughtjust when its being-thought contains that extainment as extaining precisely itsbeing-thought11 Neither does containment lsquodenaturersquo extainment so to speakor reduce it to a dimension of the contained nor does extainment makecontainment impossible Transposed back to the question of what it is that isconceived in the conceiving and how it is that this conceived is related to whatis antecedent to the conceiving it is now clear why it is neither false (a) thatwhat is conceived is contained in the conceiving nor (b) that what it is that isconceived in the conceiving is not what is conceived or why it is that the wholeworld is caught in the nets of reason and that reason is part of the worldThis is because as Kauffman states extainers are ldquoentities open to interactionand distinguishing the space that they are notrdquo12 In other words the containmentof containment must contain extainment if something is to be contained at allor containment does not self-contain without iteration (C1rarrC2) and theiteration presupposes the extainment of the container by the contained A cubefor instance may be contained within a cube just when the contained cubeextains its container since otherwise a cube would not be in another and therewould only be one cube Similarly the extainment of extainment extainscontainment since this is precisely what extainment is The extainment of thecontaining cube by the contained does reduce the extained space to the contentof the difference of the two cubes since extainment is operative on both sidesof the container Extainment continues following its interruption by containmentand articulates the outward trajectory against which the containerrsquos outer surfaceis turned So conceived extainers do not contain but rather extain containers13In the extainercontainer contrastive pair in other words there would be nonegative and positive space Rather all parts of space are actors The interactionbetween them in other words is importantly not linear as the one involves theother in the production of boundaries such that complex forms like knots14 arethemselves neighbourhoods formed of iterations of this couple Moreover as alogic of form in general it is indifferent to the domain it spatialises or is asChacirctelet puts it it is ldquoautospatialityrdquo15 In other words this is the localisationprocess that effects any entity whatever the only constraint being therefore thatits universality ensures that it neither begins nor ends in a form of all forms orin a featureless universe It is because the All is precisely not local preciselynon-extaining that according to Roland Omnegraves it is a ldquobasic tenet of sciencerdquothat it investigates ldquoan isolated part of the world by itselfrdquo16 How then is thequestion ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo to be answered How from theldquoreducibly local tension from which all ontology unfoldsrdquo can there be derivedldquothe possibility of capturing the power enveloping a fieldrdquo17 How again canldquothe whole worldrdquo be conceived

302 The Essence of the Central Phenomenon

If the whole world does indeed come to lie in the nets of reason but if it isnot of another nature than the reason that arises in the world it is importantlynot false that the whole world is indeed contained in reason as a multiplicationor lsquopotentiationrsquo of the world as that world in which reason arises Yet the wholeworld is not only thinkable but also since the localisation of this lsquowhole worldrsquois consequent upon its being a consequent in the sequences of antecedence andconsequence necessitated if there is emergence in nature at all its being thoughtis precisely a consequence of the nature so thought That there is suchemergence is locally exemplified in the fact of conceiving The ldquowhole worldrdquois therefore involved in the sequence of creation over which that world doesnot wholly extend That is the whole world is thinkable on condition that it isthought precisely as a midpoint of itself as within the world and therefore asentailing extainment

Yet this account carries with it the risk that thinking nature is wholly extainedfrom the nature being thought That is to say that thought as such is overlylocalised within the world in which it takes place The resultant ldquonearontologyrdquo18 restricts thought to what is local to it rather than situating it in theworld Two examples will make the point clear The first stems from Novalisrsquoaccount of nature and the second from Schellingrsquos account of the relationbetween localisation and dimensionalisation The two examples will coincidein what the latter calls following Bacon a ldquocentral phenomenonrdquo19

One of Novalisrsquo fragments asks ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo Thisquestion is immediately preceded by another ldquoWhere is the primal germ thetype of the entirety of nature to be foundrdquo20 From this may be distinguished areflective or transcendental question of naturersquos nature from an empiricalquestion of the Urkeim the ldquoprimal germrdquo and the problem of its discovery21If it is to be discovered the question stipulates it must lie somewhere Insofaras it a germ however it is the nature of nature insofar as generation issues fromit Yet since in nature ldquoeverything is a seed-cornrdquo22 that generates no primalgerm of the whole may be discovered Since any candidate form mustminimally therefore be four- rather than three-dimensional the investigationof primal forms cannot be pursued in space alone Yet precisely because theprimal is primal with respect to nature as such the ldquometaphysics of naturerdquodeals with ldquonature before it becomes naturerdquo23 From this Novalis formulatesa rule of naturersquos primacy as much as for primals in nature ldquoNature goes froma priori ad posterius ndash at least for usrdquo24 This transcendental addendum to thecharacterisation of the nature of nature introduces a curvature around theconcept reducing its neighbourhood not only to what the concept is near tobut isolating it against what it is not Yet it does not stipulate only but rather atleast for us that is it states that what is prior is so because it is ldquomore knowablein relation to usrdquo25 This ldquonear ontologyrdquo stipulates that as far as our knowing

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

26prior partition of being separating it into the being antecedent to the judgmentand the being consequent upon it A proposition therefore minimally introducesa locality a position into what according to the hypothesis was without oneThe being consequent upon the judgment is accordingly not identical to thebeing antecedent to it since a logical space has now formed in which the subjectof the proposition is a creature of that proposition The primary division ofbeing effected by the judgment is insuperably its multiplication What thejudgment cannot articulate without self-contradiction therefore is that despite itsoperation being remains unsundered since even this claim augments thepartitions it expressly denies albeit for the same reason not of the samesubject

Yet it is clearly true that being does not for its part exclude the judgmentmade upon it that (according to a further judgment) being now contains thatjudgment or is expressed as it It is precisely the problem therefore ofarticulating the inside and the outside of the terms of the judgment ndash what iscontained in the subject and in the predicate on the one hand and what containsthem on the other ndash that the judgment itself introduces as a problem of positionand it is in this sense a local problem albeit subject in principle to non-finiteiteration Because the subject of any judgment even if it treats of a judgmentantecedent to it entails the production of a new position it cannot be said thatthere is one ultimate subject or substrate of judgment that is divided with eachjudgment upon it

Nor can we conclude from this that locality is insuperable to any outside onthe grounds that it first articulates this and is subject to iterative operationsrather it is the positive emergence of locality that as we have seen iterativelydistributes an antecedent and a consequent of the logical space articulated in thejudgment Judgment accordingly multiplies positions in localities such thatbeing is only said in many ways one of which being that for example beingis univocal What then happens between being and its expressionIf before answering this question we now consider the problem of locality interms of the philosophy of nature the implication is clear what lsquonaturersquo remainsthat could furnish the ultimate subject of all judgments Yet just because notwo judgments may have the same subjects it does not follow that a singlejudgment may not have as its subject precisely an ultimate subject that underliesall judgments What it does mean is that such a subject must itself be consequentupon any such ultimate subject to which it refers and so is not identical withthat subject Just as the problem of locality discussed above highlights theproduction of position or emergence along with all the boundary formationsthis entails so too the production of such an ultimate subject is consequent uponthe emergence of locality where none was Thus while an environing nature isnot itself at risk of elimination by being judged the concept of such a nature isimportantly distinct from the ultimate subject with which it might seek to claim

27identity simply because its consequent nature entails if there is a judgment atall that it emerges as one precisely by being consequent upon an antecedent inwhich judgment was not included

While it may seem as if this successfully eliminates the possibility of accessto a nature beyond the concept such that the only nature conceiving beings canconceive is a conceptual one we must recall the second part of Hogrebersquosquestion which asks how nature comes to be caught in reason not whether itis The question is reiterated in On the History of Modern Philosophy (1836-7)with an important additionThe whole world lies so to speak in the nets of the understanding or of reason but the questionis how exactly it got into those nets since there is obviously something other and somethingmore than mere reason in the world8

The difficulty here is clearly expressed it is the whole world (WW) that reasoncaptures and there is more than reason in the world (W) But if W containsldquomorerdquo than WW then either reason being part of W does not for that reasoncontain WW and the statement simply contradicts itself or the wholeness of theworld is an artefact of the reason that contains it so that the ldquowhole worldrdquo is lessthan the world an abstraction from it perhaps Now Schellingrsquos ldquohowrdquo questionis asked in two registers the first asks what the WW that is in reason is thesecond asks by what means the WW that is in reason got there Taking thesequestions in order it is clear that since the option of taking the whole world inreason and reason to be in the world to form a contradiction is effectively ruledout by the formulationrsquos concision on the one hand and the fact of its exactrepetition after a decade and a half on the other WW must be considered anartefact and the assumption will be that if it is an artefact then it is one of reasonie simply a concept9 Yet this presupposes an answer to the question whichappears at first sight to concern the passage from nature to reason namely thatthere is no transition from W to WW since W is not and WW is such anartefact In other words neither are we to learn of how it comes to be either thatthis transition arises or if it does not then by what means the entire situation isto be logically reconstructed nor of how if this is not the case and the transitiondoes take place the reason from which WW arises itself arisesThe second register of the question therefore arises by countering theassumption that the produced nature of WW entails that it is an artefact ofreason We have already noted the manner in which the emergence of ajudgment constitutes the multiplication of the subject of that judgmentAccordingly that the world is to be qualified as ldquowholerdquo entails that it is thesubject of a judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo or ldquothis is the whole world in theconceptrdquo But it also indicates that such a ldquowholerdquo world is so only if its localityis denied so that its antecedent is eliminated in which case its wholeness wouldbe a consequence of the elimination of its production which is contradictoryTo reinstate this latter therefore demonstrates that WW is by the extainment of

28antecedence and consequence and this reinstatement occurs precisely in thesecond register of the question If that is W1048576 WW occurs it is because thepredicate ldquois wholerdquo is consequent upon what is antecedent to the judgment inthe event that the judgment occurs In other words it is not that W becomesWW but rather that WW arises after W and that this process is precisely theprocess by which reasoning comes to be in the world by being after it Theworld as it is that is is not whole except in consequence of a judgment suchthat its conceiving is precisely that means by which the concept WW arisesand augments the W in which it does so In consequence of the judgment thatit is and of this judgment being itself consequent the world that is more thanreason is so precisely in the sense that (a) the world does indeed acquire morethan itself insofar as the judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo is not included in theworld so judged and so is not whole without it and (b) if it is not whole withoutconsequents this is because the world is not whole but is more than what isjudged in the judgment since it is precisely what it is that does the judging thatis judged and that antecedes judging as such In other words because it is bynature that the judgment is consequent upon what it is that the judgmentconcerns judgment precisely exhibits the process of nature insofar as nature iscreation or that which is not what it is unless emergence occurs WW is notderived from the partition of nature so much as from its multiplication naturersquosaugmentation by the dimension of the concept The truth of reason so to speakthat the subject of the proposition is not logically identical with or the samething as the referent of that proposition coincides with the truth of fact thatthe nature there is has as one of its consequences the making of judgmentswithin it It is the consequent nature of the consequent that makes the antecedentnecessarily insurmountable by it It is as Schelling says ldquounprethinkable being[unvordenkliches Seyn]rdquo[O]ne must certainly call Being [hellip] unprethinkable antecedent to all thinking [hellip] One couldalso say that what is antecedent to thinking is without a concept inconceivable But philosophymakes what is a priori inconceivable a posteriori into something conceivable10

Here the involution implicit in the thinking of the world is made explicitconceiving entails the transformation of what is not conceived whichconceiving always entails a consequent extainment an ldquounprethinkablerdquo Butso too is the realism of the account The contradiction of the world thoughtwhole within a world of which thought is part appears as such due to the logicalinsuperability of the reference to a nature within which both occur but only inone direction at a time It is only if thinking about nature always involves morenature than can be thought that nature is in fact being thoughtThis is why somethingrsquos being conceived is not identical to its containmentThat something is conceived does entail that something is contained in theconceiving but this does not mean that what is antecedent to the conceiving isconceived or contained in the conceiving There are two reasons for this Firstly

29there is more to the thing thought than its being thought or there is more thanreason in the world Secondly the conceiving is a consequent in that world aswe have seen Accordingly what it is that is thought extains its being-thoughtjust when its being-thought contains that extainment as extaining precisely itsbeing-thought11 Neither does containment lsquodenaturersquo extainment so to speakor reduce it to a dimension of the contained nor does extainment makecontainment impossible Transposed back to the question of what it is that isconceived in the conceiving and how it is that this conceived is related to whatis antecedent to the conceiving it is now clear why it is neither false (a) thatwhat is conceived is contained in the conceiving nor (b) that what it is that isconceived in the conceiving is not what is conceived or why it is that the wholeworld is caught in the nets of reason and that reason is part of the worldThis is because as Kauffman states extainers are ldquoentities open to interactionand distinguishing the space that they are notrdquo12 In other words the containmentof containment must contain extainment if something is to be contained at allor containment does not self-contain without iteration (C1rarrC2) and theiteration presupposes the extainment of the container by the contained A cubefor instance may be contained within a cube just when the contained cubeextains its container since otherwise a cube would not be in another and therewould only be one cube Similarly the extainment of extainment extainscontainment since this is precisely what extainment is The extainment of thecontaining cube by the contained does reduce the extained space to the contentof the difference of the two cubes since extainment is operative on both sidesof the container Extainment continues following its interruption by containmentand articulates the outward trajectory against which the containerrsquos outer surfaceis turned So conceived extainers do not contain but rather extain containers13In the extainercontainer contrastive pair in other words there would be nonegative and positive space Rather all parts of space are actors The interactionbetween them in other words is importantly not linear as the one involves theother in the production of boundaries such that complex forms like knots14 arethemselves neighbourhoods formed of iterations of this couple Moreover as alogic of form in general it is indifferent to the domain it spatialises or is asChacirctelet puts it it is ldquoautospatialityrdquo15 In other words this is the localisationprocess that effects any entity whatever the only constraint being therefore thatits universality ensures that it neither begins nor ends in a form of all forms orin a featureless universe It is because the All is precisely not local preciselynon-extaining that according to Roland Omnegraves it is a ldquobasic tenet of sciencerdquothat it investigates ldquoan isolated part of the world by itselfrdquo16 How then is thequestion ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo to be answered How from theldquoreducibly local tension from which all ontology unfoldsrdquo can there be derivedldquothe possibility of capturing the power enveloping a fieldrdquo17 How again canldquothe whole worldrdquo be conceived

302 The Essence of the Central Phenomenon

If the whole world does indeed come to lie in the nets of reason but if it isnot of another nature than the reason that arises in the world it is importantlynot false that the whole world is indeed contained in reason as a multiplicationor lsquopotentiationrsquo of the world as that world in which reason arises Yet the wholeworld is not only thinkable but also since the localisation of this lsquowhole worldrsquois consequent upon its being a consequent in the sequences of antecedence andconsequence necessitated if there is emergence in nature at all its being thoughtis precisely a consequence of the nature so thought That there is suchemergence is locally exemplified in the fact of conceiving The ldquowhole worldrdquois therefore involved in the sequence of creation over which that world doesnot wholly extend That is the whole world is thinkable on condition that it isthought precisely as a midpoint of itself as within the world and therefore asentailing extainment

Yet this account carries with it the risk that thinking nature is wholly extainedfrom the nature being thought That is to say that thought as such is overlylocalised within the world in which it takes place The resultant ldquonearontologyrdquo18 restricts thought to what is local to it rather than situating it in theworld Two examples will make the point clear The first stems from Novalisrsquoaccount of nature and the second from Schellingrsquos account of the relationbetween localisation and dimensionalisation The two examples will coincidein what the latter calls following Bacon a ldquocentral phenomenonrdquo19

One of Novalisrsquo fragments asks ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo Thisquestion is immediately preceded by another ldquoWhere is the primal germ thetype of the entirety of nature to be foundrdquo20 From this may be distinguished areflective or transcendental question of naturersquos nature from an empiricalquestion of the Urkeim the ldquoprimal germrdquo and the problem of its discovery21If it is to be discovered the question stipulates it must lie somewhere Insofaras it a germ however it is the nature of nature insofar as generation issues fromit Yet since in nature ldquoeverything is a seed-cornrdquo22 that generates no primalgerm of the whole may be discovered Since any candidate form mustminimally therefore be four- rather than three-dimensional the investigationof primal forms cannot be pursued in space alone Yet precisely because theprimal is primal with respect to nature as such the ldquometaphysics of naturerdquodeals with ldquonature before it becomes naturerdquo23 From this Novalis formulatesa rule of naturersquos primacy as much as for primals in nature ldquoNature goes froma priori ad posterius ndash at least for usrdquo24 This transcendental addendum to thecharacterisation of the nature of nature introduces a curvature around theconcept reducing its neighbourhood not only to what the concept is near tobut isolating it against what it is not Yet it does not stipulate only but rather atleast for us that is it states that what is prior is so because it is ldquomore knowablein relation to usrdquo25 This ldquonear ontologyrdquo stipulates that as far as our knowing

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

27identity simply because its consequent nature entails if there is a judgment atall that it emerges as one precisely by being consequent upon an antecedent inwhich judgment was not included

While it may seem as if this successfully eliminates the possibility of accessto a nature beyond the concept such that the only nature conceiving beings canconceive is a conceptual one we must recall the second part of Hogrebersquosquestion which asks how nature comes to be caught in reason not whether itis The question is reiterated in On the History of Modern Philosophy (1836-7)with an important additionThe whole world lies so to speak in the nets of the understanding or of reason but the questionis how exactly it got into those nets since there is obviously something other and somethingmore than mere reason in the world8

The difficulty here is clearly expressed it is the whole world (WW) that reasoncaptures and there is more than reason in the world (W) But if W containsldquomorerdquo than WW then either reason being part of W does not for that reasoncontain WW and the statement simply contradicts itself or the wholeness of theworld is an artefact of the reason that contains it so that the ldquowhole worldrdquo is lessthan the world an abstraction from it perhaps Now Schellingrsquos ldquohowrdquo questionis asked in two registers the first asks what the WW that is in reason is thesecond asks by what means the WW that is in reason got there Taking thesequestions in order it is clear that since the option of taking the whole world inreason and reason to be in the world to form a contradiction is effectively ruledout by the formulationrsquos concision on the one hand and the fact of its exactrepetition after a decade and a half on the other WW must be considered anartefact and the assumption will be that if it is an artefact then it is one of reasonie simply a concept9 Yet this presupposes an answer to the question whichappears at first sight to concern the passage from nature to reason namely thatthere is no transition from W to WW since W is not and WW is such anartefact In other words neither are we to learn of how it comes to be either thatthis transition arises or if it does not then by what means the entire situation isto be logically reconstructed nor of how if this is not the case and the transitiondoes take place the reason from which WW arises itself arisesThe second register of the question therefore arises by countering theassumption that the produced nature of WW entails that it is an artefact ofreason We have already noted the manner in which the emergence of ajudgment constitutes the multiplication of the subject of that judgmentAccordingly that the world is to be qualified as ldquowholerdquo entails that it is thesubject of a judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo or ldquothis is the whole world in theconceptrdquo But it also indicates that such a ldquowholerdquo world is so only if its localityis denied so that its antecedent is eliminated in which case its wholeness wouldbe a consequence of the elimination of its production which is contradictoryTo reinstate this latter therefore demonstrates that WW is by the extainment of

28antecedence and consequence and this reinstatement occurs precisely in thesecond register of the question If that is W1048576 WW occurs it is because thepredicate ldquois wholerdquo is consequent upon what is antecedent to the judgment inthe event that the judgment occurs In other words it is not that W becomesWW but rather that WW arises after W and that this process is precisely theprocess by which reasoning comes to be in the world by being after it Theworld as it is that is is not whole except in consequence of a judgment suchthat its conceiving is precisely that means by which the concept WW arisesand augments the W in which it does so In consequence of the judgment thatit is and of this judgment being itself consequent the world that is more thanreason is so precisely in the sense that (a) the world does indeed acquire morethan itself insofar as the judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo is not included in theworld so judged and so is not whole without it and (b) if it is not whole withoutconsequents this is because the world is not whole but is more than what isjudged in the judgment since it is precisely what it is that does the judging thatis judged and that antecedes judging as such In other words because it is bynature that the judgment is consequent upon what it is that the judgmentconcerns judgment precisely exhibits the process of nature insofar as nature iscreation or that which is not what it is unless emergence occurs WW is notderived from the partition of nature so much as from its multiplication naturersquosaugmentation by the dimension of the concept The truth of reason so to speakthat the subject of the proposition is not logically identical with or the samething as the referent of that proposition coincides with the truth of fact thatthe nature there is has as one of its consequences the making of judgmentswithin it It is the consequent nature of the consequent that makes the antecedentnecessarily insurmountable by it It is as Schelling says ldquounprethinkable being[unvordenkliches Seyn]rdquo[O]ne must certainly call Being [hellip] unprethinkable antecedent to all thinking [hellip] One couldalso say that what is antecedent to thinking is without a concept inconceivable But philosophymakes what is a priori inconceivable a posteriori into something conceivable10

Here the involution implicit in the thinking of the world is made explicitconceiving entails the transformation of what is not conceived whichconceiving always entails a consequent extainment an ldquounprethinkablerdquo Butso too is the realism of the account The contradiction of the world thoughtwhole within a world of which thought is part appears as such due to the logicalinsuperability of the reference to a nature within which both occur but only inone direction at a time It is only if thinking about nature always involves morenature than can be thought that nature is in fact being thoughtThis is why somethingrsquos being conceived is not identical to its containmentThat something is conceived does entail that something is contained in theconceiving but this does not mean that what is antecedent to the conceiving isconceived or contained in the conceiving There are two reasons for this Firstly

29there is more to the thing thought than its being thought or there is more thanreason in the world Secondly the conceiving is a consequent in that world aswe have seen Accordingly what it is that is thought extains its being-thoughtjust when its being-thought contains that extainment as extaining precisely itsbeing-thought11 Neither does containment lsquodenaturersquo extainment so to speakor reduce it to a dimension of the contained nor does extainment makecontainment impossible Transposed back to the question of what it is that isconceived in the conceiving and how it is that this conceived is related to whatis antecedent to the conceiving it is now clear why it is neither false (a) thatwhat is conceived is contained in the conceiving nor (b) that what it is that isconceived in the conceiving is not what is conceived or why it is that the wholeworld is caught in the nets of reason and that reason is part of the worldThis is because as Kauffman states extainers are ldquoentities open to interactionand distinguishing the space that they are notrdquo12 In other words the containmentof containment must contain extainment if something is to be contained at allor containment does not self-contain without iteration (C1rarrC2) and theiteration presupposes the extainment of the container by the contained A cubefor instance may be contained within a cube just when the contained cubeextains its container since otherwise a cube would not be in another and therewould only be one cube Similarly the extainment of extainment extainscontainment since this is precisely what extainment is The extainment of thecontaining cube by the contained does reduce the extained space to the contentof the difference of the two cubes since extainment is operative on both sidesof the container Extainment continues following its interruption by containmentand articulates the outward trajectory against which the containerrsquos outer surfaceis turned So conceived extainers do not contain but rather extain containers13In the extainercontainer contrastive pair in other words there would be nonegative and positive space Rather all parts of space are actors The interactionbetween them in other words is importantly not linear as the one involves theother in the production of boundaries such that complex forms like knots14 arethemselves neighbourhoods formed of iterations of this couple Moreover as alogic of form in general it is indifferent to the domain it spatialises or is asChacirctelet puts it it is ldquoautospatialityrdquo15 In other words this is the localisationprocess that effects any entity whatever the only constraint being therefore thatits universality ensures that it neither begins nor ends in a form of all forms orin a featureless universe It is because the All is precisely not local preciselynon-extaining that according to Roland Omnegraves it is a ldquobasic tenet of sciencerdquothat it investigates ldquoan isolated part of the world by itselfrdquo16 How then is thequestion ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo to be answered How from theldquoreducibly local tension from which all ontology unfoldsrdquo can there be derivedldquothe possibility of capturing the power enveloping a fieldrdquo17 How again canldquothe whole worldrdquo be conceived

302 The Essence of the Central Phenomenon

If the whole world does indeed come to lie in the nets of reason but if it isnot of another nature than the reason that arises in the world it is importantlynot false that the whole world is indeed contained in reason as a multiplicationor lsquopotentiationrsquo of the world as that world in which reason arises Yet the wholeworld is not only thinkable but also since the localisation of this lsquowhole worldrsquois consequent upon its being a consequent in the sequences of antecedence andconsequence necessitated if there is emergence in nature at all its being thoughtis precisely a consequence of the nature so thought That there is suchemergence is locally exemplified in the fact of conceiving The ldquowhole worldrdquois therefore involved in the sequence of creation over which that world doesnot wholly extend That is the whole world is thinkable on condition that it isthought precisely as a midpoint of itself as within the world and therefore asentailing extainment

Yet this account carries with it the risk that thinking nature is wholly extainedfrom the nature being thought That is to say that thought as such is overlylocalised within the world in which it takes place The resultant ldquonearontologyrdquo18 restricts thought to what is local to it rather than situating it in theworld Two examples will make the point clear The first stems from Novalisrsquoaccount of nature and the second from Schellingrsquos account of the relationbetween localisation and dimensionalisation The two examples will coincidein what the latter calls following Bacon a ldquocentral phenomenonrdquo19

One of Novalisrsquo fragments asks ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo Thisquestion is immediately preceded by another ldquoWhere is the primal germ thetype of the entirety of nature to be foundrdquo20 From this may be distinguished areflective or transcendental question of naturersquos nature from an empiricalquestion of the Urkeim the ldquoprimal germrdquo and the problem of its discovery21If it is to be discovered the question stipulates it must lie somewhere Insofaras it a germ however it is the nature of nature insofar as generation issues fromit Yet since in nature ldquoeverything is a seed-cornrdquo22 that generates no primalgerm of the whole may be discovered Since any candidate form mustminimally therefore be four- rather than three-dimensional the investigationof primal forms cannot be pursued in space alone Yet precisely because theprimal is primal with respect to nature as such the ldquometaphysics of naturerdquodeals with ldquonature before it becomes naturerdquo23 From this Novalis formulatesa rule of naturersquos primacy as much as for primals in nature ldquoNature goes froma priori ad posterius ndash at least for usrdquo24 This transcendental addendum to thecharacterisation of the nature of nature introduces a curvature around theconcept reducing its neighbourhood not only to what the concept is near tobut isolating it against what it is not Yet it does not stipulate only but rather atleast for us that is it states that what is prior is so because it is ldquomore knowablein relation to usrdquo25 This ldquonear ontologyrdquo stipulates that as far as our knowing

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

28antecedence and consequence and this reinstatement occurs precisely in thesecond register of the question If that is W1048576 WW occurs it is because thepredicate ldquois wholerdquo is consequent upon what is antecedent to the judgment inthe event that the judgment occurs In other words it is not that W becomesWW but rather that WW arises after W and that this process is precisely theprocess by which reasoning comes to be in the world by being after it Theworld as it is that is is not whole except in consequence of a judgment suchthat its conceiving is precisely that means by which the concept WW arisesand augments the W in which it does so In consequence of the judgment thatit is and of this judgment being itself consequent the world that is more thanreason is so precisely in the sense that (a) the world does indeed acquire morethan itself insofar as the judgment ldquothe world is wholerdquo is not included in theworld so judged and so is not whole without it and (b) if it is not whole withoutconsequents this is because the world is not whole but is more than what isjudged in the judgment since it is precisely what it is that does the judging thatis judged and that antecedes judging as such In other words because it is bynature that the judgment is consequent upon what it is that the judgmentconcerns judgment precisely exhibits the process of nature insofar as nature iscreation or that which is not what it is unless emergence occurs WW is notderived from the partition of nature so much as from its multiplication naturersquosaugmentation by the dimension of the concept The truth of reason so to speakthat the subject of the proposition is not logically identical with or the samething as the referent of that proposition coincides with the truth of fact thatthe nature there is has as one of its consequences the making of judgmentswithin it It is the consequent nature of the consequent that makes the antecedentnecessarily insurmountable by it It is as Schelling says ldquounprethinkable being[unvordenkliches Seyn]rdquo[O]ne must certainly call Being [hellip] unprethinkable antecedent to all thinking [hellip] One couldalso say that what is antecedent to thinking is without a concept inconceivable But philosophymakes what is a priori inconceivable a posteriori into something conceivable10

Here the involution implicit in the thinking of the world is made explicitconceiving entails the transformation of what is not conceived whichconceiving always entails a consequent extainment an ldquounprethinkablerdquo Butso too is the realism of the account The contradiction of the world thoughtwhole within a world of which thought is part appears as such due to the logicalinsuperability of the reference to a nature within which both occur but only inone direction at a time It is only if thinking about nature always involves morenature than can be thought that nature is in fact being thoughtThis is why somethingrsquos being conceived is not identical to its containmentThat something is conceived does entail that something is contained in theconceiving but this does not mean that what is antecedent to the conceiving isconceived or contained in the conceiving There are two reasons for this Firstly

29there is more to the thing thought than its being thought or there is more thanreason in the world Secondly the conceiving is a consequent in that world aswe have seen Accordingly what it is that is thought extains its being-thoughtjust when its being-thought contains that extainment as extaining precisely itsbeing-thought11 Neither does containment lsquodenaturersquo extainment so to speakor reduce it to a dimension of the contained nor does extainment makecontainment impossible Transposed back to the question of what it is that isconceived in the conceiving and how it is that this conceived is related to whatis antecedent to the conceiving it is now clear why it is neither false (a) thatwhat is conceived is contained in the conceiving nor (b) that what it is that isconceived in the conceiving is not what is conceived or why it is that the wholeworld is caught in the nets of reason and that reason is part of the worldThis is because as Kauffman states extainers are ldquoentities open to interactionand distinguishing the space that they are notrdquo12 In other words the containmentof containment must contain extainment if something is to be contained at allor containment does not self-contain without iteration (C1rarrC2) and theiteration presupposes the extainment of the container by the contained A cubefor instance may be contained within a cube just when the contained cubeextains its container since otherwise a cube would not be in another and therewould only be one cube Similarly the extainment of extainment extainscontainment since this is precisely what extainment is The extainment of thecontaining cube by the contained does reduce the extained space to the contentof the difference of the two cubes since extainment is operative on both sidesof the container Extainment continues following its interruption by containmentand articulates the outward trajectory against which the containerrsquos outer surfaceis turned So conceived extainers do not contain but rather extain containers13In the extainercontainer contrastive pair in other words there would be nonegative and positive space Rather all parts of space are actors The interactionbetween them in other words is importantly not linear as the one involves theother in the production of boundaries such that complex forms like knots14 arethemselves neighbourhoods formed of iterations of this couple Moreover as alogic of form in general it is indifferent to the domain it spatialises or is asChacirctelet puts it it is ldquoautospatialityrdquo15 In other words this is the localisationprocess that effects any entity whatever the only constraint being therefore thatits universality ensures that it neither begins nor ends in a form of all forms orin a featureless universe It is because the All is precisely not local preciselynon-extaining that according to Roland Omnegraves it is a ldquobasic tenet of sciencerdquothat it investigates ldquoan isolated part of the world by itselfrdquo16 How then is thequestion ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo to be answered How from theldquoreducibly local tension from which all ontology unfoldsrdquo can there be derivedldquothe possibility of capturing the power enveloping a fieldrdquo17 How again canldquothe whole worldrdquo be conceived

302 The Essence of the Central Phenomenon

If the whole world does indeed come to lie in the nets of reason but if it isnot of another nature than the reason that arises in the world it is importantlynot false that the whole world is indeed contained in reason as a multiplicationor lsquopotentiationrsquo of the world as that world in which reason arises Yet the wholeworld is not only thinkable but also since the localisation of this lsquowhole worldrsquois consequent upon its being a consequent in the sequences of antecedence andconsequence necessitated if there is emergence in nature at all its being thoughtis precisely a consequence of the nature so thought That there is suchemergence is locally exemplified in the fact of conceiving The ldquowhole worldrdquois therefore involved in the sequence of creation over which that world doesnot wholly extend That is the whole world is thinkable on condition that it isthought precisely as a midpoint of itself as within the world and therefore asentailing extainment

Yet this account carries with it the risk that thinking nature is wholly extainedfrom the nature being thought That is to say that thought as such is overlylocalised within the world in which it takes place The resultant ldquonearontologyrdquo18 restricts thought to what is local to it rather than situating it in theworld Two examples will make the point clear The first stems from Novalisrsquoaccount of nature and the second from Schellingrsquos account of the relationbetween localisation and dimensionalisation The two examples will coincidein what the latter calls following Bacon a ldquocentral phenomenonrdquo19

One of Novalisrsquo fragments asks ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo Thisquestion is immediately preceded by another ldquoWhere is the primal germ thetype of the entirety of nature to be foundrdquo20 From this may be distinguished areflective or transcendental question of naturersquos nature from an empiricalquestion of the Urkeim the ldquoprimal germrdquo and the problem of its discovery21If it is to be discovered the question stipulates it must lie somewhere Insofaras it a germ however it is the nature of nature insofar as generation issues fromit Yet since in nature ldquoeverything is a seed-cornrdquo22 that generates no primalgerm of the whole may be discovered Since any candidate form mustminimally therefore be four- rather than three-dimensional the investigationof primal forms cannot be pursued in space alone Yet precisely because theprimal is primal with respect to nature as such the ldquometaphysics of naturerdquodeals with ldquonature before it becomes naturerdquo23 From this Novalis formulatesa rule of naturersquos primacy as much as for primals in nature ldquoNature goes froma priori ad posterius ndash at least for usrdquo24 This transcendental addendum to thecharacterisation of the nature of nature introduces a curvature around theconcept reducing its neighbourhood not only to what the concept is near tobut isolating it against what it is not Yet it does not stipulate only but rather atleast for us that is it states that what is prior is so because it is ldquomore knowablein relation to usrdquo25 This ldquonear ontologyrdquo stipulates that as far as our knowing

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

29there is more to the thing thought than its being thought or there is more thanreason in the world Secondly the conceiving is a consequent in that world aswe have seen Accordingly what it is that is thought extains its being-thoughtjust when its being-thought contains that extainment as extaining precisely itsbeing-thought11 Neither does containment lsquodenaturersquo extainment so to speakor reduce it to a dimension of the contained nor does extainment makecontainment impossible Transposed back to the question of what it is that isconceived in the conceiving and how it is that this conceived is related to whatis antecedent to the conceiving it is now clear why it is neither false (a) thatwhat is conceived is contained in the conceiving nor (b) that what it is that isconceived in the conceiving is not what is conceived or why it is that the wholeworld is caught in the nets of reason and that reason is part of the worldThis is because as Kauffman states extainers are ldquoentities open to interactionand distinguishing the space that they are notrdquo12 In other words the containmentof containment must contain extainment if something is to be contained at allor containment does not self-contain without iteration (C1rarrC2) and theiteration presupposes the extainment of the container by the contained A cubefor instance may be contained within a cube just when the contained cubeextains its container since otherwise a cube would not be in another and therewould only be one cube Similarly the extainment of extainment extainscontainment since this is precisely what extainment is The extainment of thecontaining cube by the contained does reduce the extained space to the contentof the difference of the two cubes since extainment is operative on both sidesof the container Extainment continues following its interruption by containmentand articulates the outward trajectory against which the containerrsquos outer surfaceis turned So conceived extainers do not contain but rather extain containers13In the extainercontainer contrastive pair in other words there would be nonegative and positive space Rather all parts of space are actors The interactionbetween them in other words is importantly not linear as the one involves theother in the production of boundaries such that complex forms like knots14 arethemselves neighbourhoods formed of iterations of this couple Moreover as alogic of form in general it is indifferent to the domain it spatialises or is asChacirctelet puts it it is ldquoautospatialityrdquo15 In other words this is the localisationprocess that effects any entity whatever the only constraint being therefore thatits universality ensures that it neither begins nor ends in a form of all forms orin a featureless universe It is because the All is precisely not local preciselynon-extaining that according to Roland Omnegraves it is a ldquobasic tenet of sciencerdquothat it investigates ldquoan isolated part of the world by itselfrdquo16 How then is thequestion ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo to be answered How from theldquoreducibly local tension from which all ontology unfoldsrdquo can there be derivedldquothe possibility of capturing the power enveloping a fieldrdquo17 How again canldquothe whole worldrdquo be conceived

302 The Essence of the Central Phenomenon

If the whole world does indeed come to lie in the nets of reason but if it isnot of another nature than the reason that arises in the world it is importantlynot false that the whole world is indeed contained in reason as a multiplicationor lsquopotentiationrsquo of the world as that world in which reason arises Yet the wholeworld is not only thinkable but also since the localisation of this lsquowhole worldrsquois consequent upon its being a consequent in the sequences of antecedence andconsequence necessitated if there is emergence in nature at all its being thoughtis precisely a consequence of the nature so thought That there is suchemergence is locally exemplified in the fact of conceiving The ldquowhole worldrdquois therefore involved in the sequence of creation over which that world doesnot wholly extend That is the whole world is thinkable on condition that it isthought precisely as a midpoint of itself as within the world and therefore asentailing extainment

Yet this account carries with it the risk that thinking nature is wholly extainedfrom the nature being thought That is to say that thought as such is overlylocalised within the world in which it takes place The resultant ldquonearontologyrdquo18 restricts thought to what is local to it rather than situating it in theworld Two examples will make the point clear The first stems from Novalisrsquoaccount of nature and the second from Schellingrsquos account of the relationbetween localisation and dimensionalisation The two examples will coincidein what the latter calls following Bacon a ldquocentral phenomenonrdquo19

One of Novalisrsquo fragments asks ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo Thisquestion is immediately preceded by another ldquoWhere is the primal germ thetype of the entirety of nature to be foundrdquo20 From this may be distinguished areflective or transcendental question of naturersquos nature from an empiricalquestion of the Urkeim the ldquoprimal germrdquo and the problem of its discovery21If it is to be discovered the question stipulates it must lie somewhere Insofaras it a germ however it is the nature of nature insofar as generation issues fromit Yet since in nature ldquoeverything is a seed-cornrdquo22 that generates no primalgerm of the whole may be discovered Since any candidate form mustminimally therefore be four- rather than three-dimensional the investigationof primal forms cannot be pursued in space alone Yet precisely because theprimal is primal with respect to nature as such the ldquometaphysics of naturerdquodeals with ldquonature before it becomes naturerdquo23 From this Novalis formulatesa rule of naturersquos primacy as much as for primals in nature ldquoNature goes froma priori ad posterius ndash at least for usrdquo24 This transcendental addendum to thecharacterisation of the nature of nature introduces a curvature around theconcept reducing its neighbourhood not only to what the concept is near tobut isolating it against what it is not Yet it does not stipulate only but rather atleast for us that is it states that what is prior is so because it is ldquomore knowablein relation to usrdquo25 This ldquonear ontologyrdquo stipulates that as far as our knowing

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

302 The Essence of the Central Phenomenon

If the whole world does indeed come to lie in the nets of reason but if it isnot of another nature than the reason that arises in the world it is importantlynot false that the whole world is indeed contained in reason as a multiplicationor lsquopotentiationrsquo of the world as that world in which reason arises Yet the wholeworld is not only thinkable but also since the localisation of this lsquowhole worldrsquois consequent upon its being a consequent in the sequences of antecedence andconsequence necessitated if there is emergence in nature at all its being thoughtis precisely a consequence of the nature so thought That there is suchemergence is locally exemplified in the fact of conceiving The ldquowhole worldrdquois therefore involved in the sequence of creation over which that world doesnot wholly extend That is the whole world is thinkable on condition that it isthought precisely as a midpoint of itself as within the world and therefore asentailing extainment

Yet this account carries with it the risk that thinking nature is wholly extainedfrom the nature being thought That is to say that thought as such is overlylocalised within the world in which it takes place The resultant ldquonearontologyrdquo18 restricts thought to what is local to it rather than situating it in theworld Two examples will make the point clear The first stems from Novalisrsquoaccount of nature and the second from Schellingrsquos account of the relationbetween localisation and dimensionalisation The two examples will coincidein what the latter calls following Bacon a ldquocentral phenomenonrdquo19

One of Novalisrsquo fragments asks ldquoWhat is the nature of naturerdquo Thisquestion is immediately preceded by another ldquoWhere is the primal germ thetype of the entirety of nature to be foundrdquo20 From this may be distinguished areflective or transcendental question of naturersquos nature from an empiricalquestion of the Urkeim the ldquoprimal germrdquo and the problem of its discovery21If it is to be discovered the question stipulates it must lie somewhere Insofaras it a germ however it is the nature of nature insofar as generation issues fromit Yet since in nature ldquoeverything is a seed-cornrdquo22 that generates no primalgerm of the whole may be discovered Since any candidate form mustminimally therefore be four- rather than three-dimensional the investigationof primal forms cannot be pursued in space alone Yet precisely because theprimal is primal with respect to nature as such the ldquometaphysics of naturerdquodeals with ldquonature before it becomes naturerdquo23 From this Novalis formulatesa rule of naturersquos primacy as much as for primals in nature ldquoNature goes froma priori ad posterius ndash at least for usrdquo24 This transcendental addendum to thecharacterisation of the nature of nature introduces a curvature around theconcept reducing its neighbourhood not only to what the concept is near tobut isolating it against what it is not Yet it does not stipulate only but rather atleast for us that is it states that what is prior is so because it is ldquomore knowablein relation to usrdquo25 This ldquonear ontologyrdquo stipulates that as far as our knowing

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

31extends nature goes from prius to posterius from antecedent to consequent orfrom Nature 1 to Nature 2 (N1rarrN2) And Novalis has already provided somereasons for this the search namely for the primal germ of nature reveals natureas a plenitude of germs none of which are primal but all of which generate Ifempirical natural science therefore orients its inquiry with respect to naturersquosprimals then ldquowe look everywhere for the unconditioned [das Unbedingte] butonly ever find things [Dinge]rdquo26 In the empirical investigation of nature thethings that we find are never indices of autochthony of spontaneity but alwaysof an ldquoadaptation transformation dissolution of the divine and human intounbound [unbaumlndige] forcesrdquo27 It is precisely by way of the sensuous inquiryinto first things or Ursachen the ldquostriving for grounding [Streben nachErgruumlndung]rdquo that firsts turn out to sever things from the security of theiremergence and pull ldquothe organs of thoughtrdquo back into the depths28 Accordinglythe curvature to which antecedent and consequent are subject in the cognitionof nature does not close around phenomena but smears things back to theunfathomable vortices of their emergence ndash ldquoat least for usrdquo If ldquophilosophy isgrounded in the striving for the thought of the groundrdquo29 ndash an absolute groundthat must be on Manfred Frankrsquos reading ldquoimpossiblerdquo30 ndash the ground Novalisintroduces before thought by means of the thought of nature does not remainprior to thought precisely because the ground sought is consequent upon theantecedent-but-ongoing self-grounding of philosophy This situation is preciselyinsurmountable despite and because of the endless striving for grounds inwhich Novalis claims philosophy consists

Novalisrsquo near ontology apparently settles two dimensions of extainmentaround the concept The first isolates the field of the concept itself such that nojudgment made concerning nature can be made elsewhere than in and for thatfield Thought is set within an interiority constituted by its extainment of whatis not thought The judgment in other words turns in its own circle and neverstrays from its neighbourhood Yet as according to Chacirctelet Schelling knewldquothought is not in every case encapsulated in a brain[] it could be everywherehellipoutsiderdquo31 We will see the sense of this in what follows The second whichestablishes the first is the ldquounfathomable groundrdquo in the approach to which thejudgment disintegrates as do its objects The attempt to ground concepts inthings in response to the question of what is prior to them leads to the smearingof things and concepts alike into indiscrete states The conceptual descent intothe underworld of the concept leads neither to grounds nor to objects but seeksto collapse the difference N1rarrN2 or antecedent and consequent even when theantecedent of the thought of N1 is N1rarrN2 In consequence the conceptual fieldndash thought itself ndash can only be ldquoascendentalrdquo and futural the question ldquowhat isthe nature of naturerdquo takes its answer formally from the N2 that is its productThus of the two dimensions of extainment in the conceptrsquos neighbourhood theone marks the ascent to consequence from N1 and is secured by the other the

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

32dimension of depth or of antecedence The difference between N1rarrN2 issuesfrom the fact that if N1=N2 no process is described The process is moreoverprecisely transcendental insofar as it is not ldquodescendentalrdquo That is even if it isconcluded that in N1rarrN2 N1 is the initial presentation of nature in thought thethinking of N1 entails that N1rarrN2 is reiterated because the thinking of N1 isonly occurrent as N1rarrN2 otherwise N1 cannot be thought Thus the domain ofthe concept secured against that of nature by the concept of nature itselfbecause the apparent two dimensions of extainment turn out to be one fromnature to thought the passage is irreversible such that thought cannot think thenature prior to it In consequence the formula describes the operation Aristotlecalled ldquometabasis eis allo genosrdquo32 as performed on a nature that will turn outnever not to have been a thought-nature but which preserves as its possiblefuture like Parmenidesrsquo way of opinion the descent into chaos consequentupon its reflexively disabling reversal To pursue this line is to secure aphilosophy of nature that resituates the latter within the former alone or tocontain the ldquowhole worldrdquo in reason precisely insofar as that is the only worldthere is for conceiving As Schelling shows this is the essential transcendentaloperation[hellip] if the world (under which Kant always understood only material nature extended in space)is to be enclosed within limits a positive cause is required a cause that lies outside it since itcontains no ground of limitation Now in so far as knowledge of this positive cause is lackingthe proposition that affirms finitude can only be grounded by the refutation of its opposite andthis too (the refutation of non-finitude) cannot occur by reference to a true cause of finitudeand must accept the aid of a metabasis eis allo genos a transfer into an entirely alien field bycalling on time33 The world cannot be [known to be] unlimited because there is insufficienttime to effect a complete synthesis which is why Kant silently presupposes what is only laterexpressly stated namely that the world consists in our presentation [Vorstellung] and can onlyexist as a whole in a complete synthesis produced by us34

The Novalis-problem which we can now see concerns more than simplyNovalisrsquo account of nature turns around the localisation of thought within itsown neighbourhood In other words there are no judgments that do not havejudgments as their objects The ldquowhole worldrdquo so judged is simply thereforethe totality of self-consistent judgments ndash the ldquospace of reasonsrdquo or the ldquototalityof factsrdquo depending on onersquos inclination That thought is not so localised isimperative therefore if a philosophy of nature that does not reduce the latter toa dimension of the former is to be possible

A beginning in this direction can be made by considering Schellingrsquosaccount in lecture 19 of his last work Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy of Aristotlersquos theory of dimensionalisation insofar as this isconsidered from the point of view of animal motion Two problems remainimportantly identified in Novalisrsquo philosophy of nature firstly that imposedby the law of succession that it institutes with regard to thought (if the thoughtof nature is always N1rarrN2 then how is N1 thinkable) and secondly the

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

33problem of the location or topic of thought with regard to naturersquos primals Wewill concentrate firstly on the second problem

Having discussed the near-ontological problem of ldquointelligible matterrdquowhich stems from on the one hand the universality of matter for any materialistphilosophy of nature and on the other from consequences this has for thepredictability or identity criteria of matter itself35 Schelling moves on to discussthe local behaviour of a material body par excellence ie the animalSchelling maintains from the outset that as regards inorganic bodiesdimensions are derivative of their situation with respect to organic beings whatis above and below for instance is determined on the basis of the relation ofwhat is so described by that being which judges them so whether expressly orby action Yet the problem of the ground of dimensionality or as we have beendiscussing the problem the emergence of locality derives its necessity fromthe articulation of what Schelling had long since called the ldquocategories of thedynamic processrdquo36 ie electricity magnetism and chemism that is frommaterial processes rather than the situation of their recording or reference toanother cognizing being in which there first arises ldquothe whole ideardquo (SW XI436) There is therefore a tension between the animal and the magnet since amagnet arises only when opposing poles (north and south positive andnegative) are combined in a single material Disregarding for the moment thequestion of the ultimate ground of dimensionality or localisation Schellingrsquosaccount of the emergence of dimensionality begins with the demonstration thatthe dimension of height is the principle of those of length and breadth Ananimal located on a plane and whose head is therefore above that plane to aparticular degree is first in a position to determine its length and breadth andwith the latter to determine right and left Yet the determinability of thesedimensions remains consequent upon a determination of height contingent uponthe height actually instanced in the situation It is not then from the ldquowholeideardquo that dimensionality stems but from the situation from which the ldquowholeideardquo may be actualized It follows that ideation and the dimensionality ofrelative motion emerge from a body in a particular situation relative to othersMoving from discussing On the Progression of Animals to On the HeavensSchelling demonstrates the outward sweep of the problem of the ground ofdimensionality such that its ultimate reference is no longer the body in asituation but rather the proton hypokeimenon the ldquoprimary subjectrdquo not insofaras this is a conscious subject able therefore to articulate the dimensions in whichshe is involved but insofar as it is that in reference to which dimensionality isarticulated Moreover each set of dimensions is subject to a certain asymmetryIt is ldquoagainst naturerdquo Schelling cites Aristotle as claiming that a bird fliesbackwards37 such that dimensions are themselves articulated according tocertain relatively invariant forms of motion38 against which motions arethemselves rearticulated

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

34There are three reasons why Schellingrsquos examination of the ground ofdimensionality begins with the animal body The first is that the dimensions ofits motions do not react on pre-given dimensions but on dimensions issuingfrom animal motions and the dimensionalizing operations of their bodies (inthe bird forward parts or eyes and sternum rear parts tail upper and lowerparts or wings and feet etc) which remain constant in their motions despitechanges in direction or in relation to the dimensions of before and behind forexample as described in its initial path39 It is in other words not becauseanimals are the only things capable of dimensionalisation but because the latteremerges only through the actions of things that the animal is the starting pointof this analysis Secondly the direction of emergence as issuing from the moreto the less complex demonstrates that localisation is a dynamic rather than astatic process since the form of a thing remains constant just when extainmentis extained in its description when it is reducibly therefore containment But insuch a case nothing distinguishes form from ground to which extent it cancontain nothing since nothing differentiates container from contained Thirdlyfrom the animal body and throughout what Schelling calls the ldquoserialtransformation of organic beingsrdquo which stands ldquoin direct proportion to theseparation and actual differentiation of dimensionsrdquo (SW XI 436) theredescends the dimension of the inorganic and ascends that of thought The twocoincide in the ldquoproton hypokeimenonrdquo in what is absolutely under40 or anultimate subject riven only between being the content of thinking when thoughtthinks what is on the one hand and what thinking insofar as it thinks does notcontain because it is consequent upon it on the other

The ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo41 can only be thought consequently upondimensionality or in other words dimensionality is emergent if it is at allfrom what is not dimensional This does not mean that there are no dimensionsprior to their thought but that there are none prior to the operation ofdimensions such that only such a thought is capable of thinking the emergenceof dimensionality from non-dimensionality as such If this has not taken placethen dimensionality is either completely and entirely given and never rearticulatedby the movements or progression of bodies of whatever nature orthere is no dimensionality at all Moreover since thought is that dimension ofmotion that causes the problem of the ground of dimensionality to be a problemit is clear that thought is amongst the dimensions of the motions of bodies orbetter is precisely the totality of motions of which bodies are capable ie thearticulation of dimensionality itself

Throughout his career Schelling returned again and again to the magnet as aldquocentral phenomenonrdquo (SW XI 445) What it is that makes a central phenomenonmay be explained with reference to how Schelling progressively presents itIt assumes its first striking role in Schellingrsquos Presentation of my System ofPhilosophy where it appears as the diagram relating indifference or the being

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

35indifferent to all that is to the poles of its differentiation or the specificdifferences in being introduced by things of all kinds It is presented in the 1801System thus42

A+ = B A = BndashA = A0

While Hegel in his account of Schellingrsquos philosophy in the Differenzschriftmakes great play of the coincidence of its poles Schelling has a quite differentunderstanding of it namely that since the poles are opposed there are noinherent limits in the potentiation of either In other words the power of a poleis relative only to its difference from indifference (A=A0) such that betweenthem no finite magnitude of powers stand The point is made explicit whenSchelling writes that ldquothe empirical magnetrdquo which the diagram representsldquomust be regarded as the indifference-point of the universal magnet[Totalmagnet]rdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) The powers expressible within theuniversal magnet are infinite or subject only to their total insofar as theempirical magnet is precisely its indifference point If the powers are limitedonly by their difference from indifference and operate in entirely opposeddirections rather than one (A+=B) limiting the other (A=Bndash) the magnetaugments the number of infinites rather than limiting them43 It is into thecontext of this total magnet that empirical magnets are ldquoinvolvedrdquo On the onehand the ldquototal magnetrdquo extends the empirical magnet throughout all naturefrom which the empirical magnet is contracted in the first place On the otherthe conceiving of the total magnet augments the magnetrsquos function in thedirection of multiplying the thought of the powers contained in itIt is this involution of the empirical into the universal that makes aphenomenon central for Schelling Accordingly when in an 1832 lecture onlsquoFaradayrsquos most recent discoveryrsquo he returns to magnetic phenomena ascentral for reasons best articulated by himThe moment a body takes on magnetic properties it becomes not only across its whole surfacebut by a more deeply penetrating force even throughout its entire interiority and in every pointof its extension a double essence [ein Doppelwesen] as it were in which without excludingone another two ndash how are we to name them We cannot say ldquotwo bodiesrdquo but two spirits[Geister] or if it seems more comprehensible two powers [Potenzen] regardless of theiropposition or indeed precisely because of it like two simultaneously born and raised twinbrothers sustain one another in such a form as when in one direction one appears dominantby a kind of mute compact the other emerges as predominant in the opposite direction This isthe state into which a solid electrically conducting body is set when placed within the closedpile indeed even this state is transitory and when the pile is opened disappears again Thusthe ever-extending galvanic chain has also taken magnetism into itself and explicates itself asthat central phenomenon that Bacon44 wanted and predicted and that as closing all three formsin itself can no longer be named according to one of them (SW XI 445-6)

Again the passage begins from a body one to whose extainment-containmentrelations magnetism shows itself indifferent insofar as it is both a superficial anda penetrating force In consequence the body is transposed between the two

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

36powers proper to magnetism the negative and the positive or the north and thesouth poles of the magnet but also between body and spirit What Schelling hasin mind here is the effects of the Voltaic Pile on ldquoponderable matterrdquo that is abody possessing substance and weight or gravitation as Humphrey Davyrsquosldquoconduction experimentsrdquo45 had shown the operation of the Pile or batterytransposed ponderable matters ndash not only alkalis acids and gases but earthsand even metals ndash from one pole to another regardless of obstacles The Pilethus ldquospiritualizesrdquo in that everything ponderable everything somatic ormaterial is transformed in it into a ldquoplay of forcesrdquo (SW XI 441) Thecontentious term lsquospiritrsquo designates not simply what is other than body butarises through the operation of the Pile as the releasing of the operative modesproper to powers themselves from the limited action repertoire a body presentsSpirit designates therefore active powers which at the same time integratesthose operations associated with mind into naturersquos processes more generallyThe point is neither that these processes should therefore be subject toanthropomorphism nor that physics can be losslessly transformed into poetrybut rather that thought is amongst the powers involved in a central phenomenoninsofar as the powers articulated by the experiment materialise the antitheses itinvolves just as the antithesis spiritualises bodies Schellingrsquos point here is thatthought does not arise in consequence of a thinker but in consequence of whatit is that is thought46 The thought involved therefore pursues precisely thatintegration of the ldquoentire dynamic process of naturerdquo (SW XI 443) ndash that iselectricity magnetism and chemism ndash into the galvanic chain that extendsbeyond that central phenomenon

The experimental series that Schellingrsquos lecture narrates and that culminatesin the confirmation of the electromagnetic field starts as will the Presentationof Pure Rational Philosophy with the connective tissue of animals By applyingcurrent to these Galvani had demonstrated the involvement of electricalphenomena in organic movement whereafter Volta showed these to be merelyincidental within a theory of nature in general Davy followed this bydemonstrating that chemical and metallic bodies followed physical rather thanmaterial laws ndash that is that their composition is not exhausted by ponderablematter but belongs rather to the domain of the co-articulation of forces ndash whileOslashrsted demonstrated that this larger domain was electromagnetic such thatmagnetism could be derived from electricity Faraday finally completes thisseries by demonstrating the reverse also true that is that electrical effects canbe derived from magnetic phenomena Electromagnetism thus opens the wayfor a unity of the sciences because it demonstrates the universality of its processthroughout nature a universality that impels its conceiving

Thus the ldquocentralityrdquo of the phenomenon does not describe its locality in aspecific domain of nature nor does it situate it with regard to a given theory butis central precisely to the extent that it contains bodies in this instance in

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

37electromagnetic phenomena which are in turn contained in the thinking of thisseries of containings which containing is again contained in the ldquouniversalcategories of the process of naturerdquo (SW XI 444) As we have seen howevera contained is contained just when it extains its container while the processitself extains these containments to the extent that it is not reducible to itscontainings ldquoThe empirical magnet is the indifference point of the totalmagnetrdquo (SW IV 156 Rupture 171) because magnetism is such when itexceeds what it acts in and forms Likewise a phenomenon is centralising whenit entails reconceiving nature as involving thought in those processes thatexceed it in the direction of particulars on the one hand and in that of theextaining processes within and outside them

The emergent dimensionality of magnetic motions is thus not linear haltingat the mere opposition of its poles but rather constitutes a ldquodouble essencerdquoThis follows Schellingrsquos account of essence or Wesen in the Freedom essay asldquoactually self-dividing into its two operative modesrdquo47 One of its operativemodes is the ldquoground of existencerdquo of the essence As such a ground it is notin but extains essence because ldquonothing individual has the ground of itsexistence in itselfrdquo48 It is because the ground of finite being lies always outsideit that essence is (at least) double-essence or entails that only in its secondoperative mode is it essence proper ie merely what is but which inconsequence doubles again into ground and essence Essence ndash what is ndashcontains what is and its ground but ground extains essence in turn withoutwhich nothing would be Thus an essent emerges because it depends on whatis not it An untidy or ldquoindiscreterdquo ground issues therefore in and from thefunctions of essence or those functions more simply stated in which theemergence of something consists This function follows precisely from thedynamics evidenced in nature its ldquoidentity with spiritrdquo49 entailing that the samedoubling is found in logic and creation that a consequent is preciselyconsequent upon its antecedent on which it depends but with which it cannotif it is genuinely consequent be identical

That what is self-divides or doubles is precisely evident in the opening andclosing of the Voltaic Pile the properties a body has when placed in the closedbattery are distributed between the poles a distribution which when the batteryis opened again disappears If therefore the dynamic process is universal in themanner experimentation suggests then everything that is undergoes thiselectromagnetic doubling in which as we see from the battery in its open statethe phenomenon of ponderability of material or somatic being also consistsThe problem therefore of the ldquoground of dimensionalityrdquo (SW XI 435) isresolved by a central phenomenon to the extent that the dimensions aphenomenon articulates centralize that phenomenon in a field the dimensionsof which extend to the ldquoultimate subjectrdquo That in other words there is a groundprior to electromagnetic operations is shown by successive experiments to be

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

38precisely false grounds are themselves consequent upon the articulations ofthe field from which they issue The thinking of this field in that thephenomenon around which it centres and from which it issues is itself centralto the extent that it is in turn centred in the process from which that field issuesis that dimension of the field from which the ground of what exists first arisesas other than that field The thinking of the central phenomenon therefore thinksthe process of nature that extends beyond the phenomenon under considerationThis is why the causal histories of objects must necessarily exceed theproduction of those objects insofar as the further back that history reaches theless discretely a cause will be responsible for the particular effect50

3 From Electromagnetism to Field Ontology

For what I mean by matter is precisely the ultimate underlying subject common to all the thingsof Nature presupposed as their substantial and not accidental constituent(Aristotle Physics 192a32-4)

Aristotlersquos account of matter conflates logical and physical grounds or subjectsas what ldquoultimately underlierdquo not only all natural substances or concrete wholesbut also as what is presupposed in all judgment As a result matter is irreducibleto the ponderable lsquostuff-nessrsquo of things since it is necessarily involved as theultimate logical subject in all judgments Equally prior to the accidentsexpressive of natural particulars and presupposed in judgments whose ultimatesubject it thereby furnishes matter is expressive mass As a result theexplication of what is contained in the logical subject extends exactly as far asdo the substantial accidents of nature Neither is reason consequent upon naturenor nature upon reason since the two inhere in a single subject Even if it isobjected that the logical subject merely presupposes the matter underlyingnaturersquos capacity for accidents and as such does not constitute an identity itremains the case that what is presupposed in all judgment cannot be other thanthe matter underlying the things of nature so that what grounds the judgmentand what grounds naturersquos accidents is the same

Yet if matter consists in the identity of the logical and natural subject therelation between substance and accident like that between subject andpredicate is one of containment such that Nature is the explication of what iscontained in its subject In this sense the Aristotelian theory of matter is that thelogical subject contains precisely what is explicated in naturersquos accidents Inasking how the world comes to be caught in the reason the world contains inturn I follow Schelling in disputing three things in this formulation Firstlythat the logical subject contains explicitly or implicitly everything that natureexpresses secondly that what underlies nature and what is thought in thejudgment are identical and thirdly that matter is prior and fundamentalBy contrast I have argued that nature is what it is insofar as it isasymmetrically prior to the thought of nature not insofar as it is thought When

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

39therefore nature is thought it is so consequently upon the nature that is Due tothe asymmetry of the relation when the consequent character of the thought ofnature conceives by this means precisely the nature that thought is not insofaras nature is being thought it does so consequently In other words the naturethat is thought does not issue from the thought of it rather the thinking of thatnature has the character it has precisely insofar as nature is the ground of whichits being thought is the consequent

Yet what is antecedent is not for that reason ground Grounding is operativeonly where there are consequents so that the conclusion that ground is itselfconsequent upon consequents rather than prior to them seems inescapable Ifgrounds arise in this way their arising seems to entail a degree of circularity thatundercuts the asymmetry of the relation rendering ground and consequent codependentJust as Schelling argues a phenomenon is central when it involveswhat exceeds it ndash when for instance the Voltaic Pile is demonstrated to localizeor centralize the electromagnetic field that hosts it ndash a consequent is consequentjust when it extains its ground on the one hand and when it is neverthelessdependent on that from which it arises on the other If it is not the case whatjust because X is antecedent that it is ground nevertheless any candidate groundis such only when it is the ground of consequents It is not ground that isconsequent upon its consequent therefore but the co-dependency of ground andconsequent that is consequent upon it The circle must therefore be thought asthe extainer of the ground upon which that circle is consequent when thisextainment is thought in the consequent In other words ground is antecedentregardless of the quantity of its iterations in thought or in the concept sincethese too exist and as such have the ground of their existence outsidethemselves

Nature imposes on thought precisely this regimen if it is nature at all that isto say that actuality within which thinking starts as a part of it The thinking ofnature therefore involves precisely the introduction of locality within it suchthat in this locality extainment is also thought No thought of nature is athought of nature therefore that does not include what is outside the thoughtitself Yet the same is true of any phenomenon A phenomenon is centralSchelling argues just when it involves what exceeds it when its empiricalcharacter ndash that is its particularity ndash is involved into constituents that whilethey belong to that phenomenon are not reducible to it A ground is a groundnot therefore when it ldquounderliesrdquo when it is hypokeimenon or ldquoultimatesubjectrdquo but precisely when it is extained in the existent both as antecedent toand as hosting that existent It is not the case therefore that in philosophynature is ldquoleveragedrdquo into thought (against what would it be thus leveraged)but rather that thought recovers its locality with respect the existents it extainsand nevertheless conceives although not without that conceiving extaining inturn It is therefore because the identity of thought and nature is stipulated by

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

40nature that thought occupies the consequent pole in the articulation of anyphenomenon giving in turn position locality or topos to thought with respectto what is Thinking this is precisely not to do ldquonearrdquo or ldquoparochialrdquo51 but ratherfield ontology

Conceiving ground as antecedent of consequent and yet not as ultimatelyunderlying is itself consequent upon the beginnings of field-theoretical ontologySchelling describes in his account of the history of electromagnetic experimentsThat central is precisely not fundamental is a lesson learned from the earthground hard crust is local and dissolves into magma at the planetary core andin turn into the magnetic field that maintains the contrary motion of the corewith respect to the mantle on the one hand and maintains the atmosphere onthe other The containing field that hosts the earth therefore is its groundprecisely insofar as it exceeds it on the one hand and into which thereforeplanetary behaviours extend Phenomena are central therefore when thebehavioural repertoires of existents are augmented by the actions that antecedethem just as thought is centred or located precisely when it extains the groundsit nevertheless thinksThis is how nature lies caught in reason not insofar as it is self-containedbut precisely because it is self-extaining Field ontology is iterative thereforenot because this is a consequence of thinking but because there are fields

University of the West of England

References1 Galileo Dialogues on the Two Chief World-Systems Dialogue II2 Wolfram Hogrebe Praumldikation und Genesis Metaphysik als Fundamentalheuristik imAusgang von Schellings rdquoDie Weltalterldquo Frankfurt Suhrkamp 19893 FWJ Schelling Ages of the World hereafter Ages trans JM Wirth Albany StateUniversity of New York Press 2000 Schellingrsquos works will be referred to first according toSchellings saumlmtliche Werke ed KFA Schelling Stuttgart and Augsburg Cotta 1856-61XIV vols and then by translation The Ages of the World appears in SW VIII 195-3444 FWJ Schelling Initia philosophiae universae Erlangen Vorlesungen 182021 ed HorstFuhrmans Bonn Bouvier 1969 p 2225 This ldquowould indeed be contradictoryrdquo writes Schelling but he resolves the contradiction notby demonstrating one false but both true ldquoit is not because there is thinking that there is beingbut rather because there is being that there is thinkingrdquo Grounding of Positive Philosophy SWXIII 161n tr Bruce Matthews Albany State University of New York Press 2007 p 203nThe same line of reasoning augmented also appears in SW XI 5876 I draw the term lsquoextainmentrsquo from Gilles Chacircteletrsquos discussions of the role of the local divisionof insideoutside the entrelacs and the theory of knots in Lrsquoenchantement du virtuel ParisEditions Rue drsquoUlm 2010 hereafter Lrsquoenchantement esp pp 75-81 where he refers to thework of Louis H Kauffman a lsquobiologicianrsquo working on the relation between living systemsand formalism His lsquoBiologic IIrsquo in eds Nils Tongring and RC Penner Woods HoleMathematics Perspectives in Mathematics and Physics Singapore World Scientific 2004pp 94-132 describes ldquoextainers [as] entities open to interaction and distinguishing the spacethat they are notrdquo (95) A concept lsquoextainsrsquo just when what it excludes is consequent upon whatit contains Since many things may be extained conceptual and otherwise extainmentintegrates the concept into its environment at the point of the conceptrsquos emergence In

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

41consequence the fields of extainment are mutually indiscrete such that overlaps and shareddistributions are contained in its concept It is by extainment therefore that the concept gainsits discrete character or as Kauffman suggests it is due to the recursion of extainment onitself that containment arises as the extained of the extained On the discrete and the indiscretesee Wolfram Hogrebe Metaphysik und Mantik Frankfurt Suhrkamp 1992 ch IV esp pp116-77 Lrsquoenchantement p 948 SW X 143-4 trans A Bowie On the History of Modern Philosophy Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1994 p 1479 This is moreover the basis of Schellingrsquos criticism of Hegel in his History of ModernPhilosophy from where the above citation is taken See SW X 126-164 History pp 134-16310 FWJ Schelling Philosophie der Offenbarung 18412 3rd edition ed Manfred FrankFrankfurt Suhrkamp 1993 p 161 ldquoUnprethinkablerdquo occurs in bold type in the text11 ldquoExtainersrdquo arise according to Louis H Kauffmanrsquos lsquoBiologic IIrsquo (hereafter lsquoBiologicrsquo) in edsNils Tongring and RC Penner Woods Hill Mathematics Perspectives in Mathematics andPhysics Singapore World Scientific 2004 94-132 in boundary mathematic where there areno containers without extainers The extainmentcontainment couple is therefore coextensivewith the articulation of form and their development demonstrates Kauffmanrsquos allegiance tothe programme of investigating the ldquorelationships of formal systems with biologyrdquo stemmingfrom DrsquoArcy Wentworth Thompsonrsquos On Growth and Form Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press 1917 itself a development according to Reneacute Thom in Morphogenegravese etlrsquoimaginaire Circeacute 8-9 Paris Les Lettres modernes 1978 55 of the Naturphilosophie ofthe late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries For a survey of recent contributions to thisfield see Eacutemile Noeumll Les sciences de la forme aujourdrsquohui Paris Seuil 199412 Kauffman Biologic p 9513 In Kauffmanrsquos formalisation Let E = gtlt and C = ltgt then EE = gtlt gtlt = gtClt and CC = ltgtltgt = ltEgt See Biologic p 9514 For examples see Lrsquoenchantement pp 77-7915 See Lrsquoenchantement p 78 where Chacirctelet notes the application of this topological functionin quantum field theory16 Roland Omnegraves Quantum Philosophy Understanding and Interpreting Contemporary Sciencetrans Arturo Sangalli Princeton Princeton University Press 1999 p 22917 Lrsquoenchantement pp 87 161 respectively18 Bernard drsquoEspagnat On Physics and Philosophy Princeton Princeton University Press 2006p 29 defines realism as near when its criteria are drawn from clear concepts A near ontologytherefore consists in the identification of concept and being19 SW IX Uumlber Faradays neueste Entdeckungrsquo p 44520 Novalis Die Christenheit oder Europa und andere philosophische Schriften ed Rolf TomanKoumlln Koumlnemann 1996 p 440 ldquoWo ist der Urkeim der Typus der ganzen Nature zu findenDie Natur der Naturrdquo21 The problem of the primal elements of nature preoccupied naturalists in the Romantic eraAccording to Goethe the search therefore for the ldquoprimal plantrdquo will conclude withprecisely that plant from which all other plants derive The ldquoprimal bonerdquo will do the samefor the skeleton According to Steven Jay Gould Ontogeny and Phylogeny CambridgeHarvard University Press 1977 this becomes the Mekkel-Serres Law that ldquoontogenyrecapitulates phylogeny while according to Edwin Clarke and LS Yacyna NineteenthCentury Origins of Neuroscientific Concepts Berkeley CA University of California Press1987 it is the precursor of the ldquogenetic problemrdquo the ldquosearch for the basal type of nervousorganisationrdquo (p 18) For a discussion of the kinds of recapitulation theses current in theearly nineteenth century see my Philosophies of Nature after Schelling LondonContinuum 2006 ch422 Novalis Werke (hereafter Werke) ed Gerhard Schulz Muumlnchen Beck 1987 p 389 ldquoAllesist Samenkornrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

4223 Werke 446 The passage has considerable interest ldquoDie transzendentale Physik ist die ersteaber die Niedrigste Wissenschaft ndash wie die Wissenschaftslehre Eschenmayer nennt sieNaturmetaphysik Sie handelt von der Natur ehe sie Natur wirdrdquo24 Werke 558 ldquoDie Natur geht auch a priori ad posterius ndash wenigstens fuumlr unsrdquo25 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 72a7 ldquoprior and more knowable in relation to usrdquo The pointis repeated in the Physics (184a24-6) where Aristotle distinguishes between abstracta thatmay only consequently be cognizable and the concrete whole that is ldquomore readily cognizableby the sensesrdquo26 Werke 323 ldquoWir suchen uumlberall das Unbedingte und finden immer nur Dingerdquo27 Novalis The Novices of Sais tr Ralph Mannheim New York Archipelago 2005 hereafterSais Werke 10528 Novalis Sais 41-3 Werke 105 ldquoThe effort to fathom [Streben nach Ergruumlndung] the giantmechanism is in itself a move towards the abyss [ein Zug in die Tiefe] an incipient vertigo[beginnender Schwindel]rdquo which ends with the ldquodestruction of the organs of thoughtrdquo29 Novalis Werke 312 ldquoDem philosophieren liegt also ein Streben nach dem Denken einesGrundes zum Grunde [hellip] Alles Philosophieren muss also bei einem absoluten Grundeendigen [hellip W]enn dieser Begriff einer unmoumlglichkeit enthielte ndash so ware der Trieb zuphilosophieren eine unendliche Taumltigkeitrdquo30 Frank provides a rich and provocative reading of Novalisrsquo philosophy in Auswege aus demDeutschen Idealismus Frankfurt Suhrkamp 2007 pp 30-3531 Gilles Chacirctelet Les Enjeuz du mobile Paris Seuil 1993 p 3932 Aristotle Posterior Analytics 75b9 ldquotransfer to another fieldrdquo33 This prefigures Peter Rohs excellent project in Feld-Zeit-Ich Frankfurt Klostermann 1996pp 6 17 which conjoins a ldquofield-theoretical transcendental philosophyrdquo with a ldquofield theoryof naturerdquo by means of a theory of time freedom and the subject which insofar as physics doesnot account for these latter entails its essential incompleteness34 SW X 340 Exhibition of the Process of Nature35 Schelling summarizes the problem of intelligible matter at the outset of lecture 19 SW XI433 It is matter ldquobecause it assumes all determinations without itself being determinableand intelligible because these determinations are determinations of pure thoughtrdquoNevertheless abstract space remains both ldquointelligible but also materialrdquo so that thedeterminations of pure thought while they do not coincide with the determination of matterare nevertheless themselves material36 This nomenclature is explicit for example in the 1800 Universal Deduction of the DynamicProcess SW IV 1-7937 SW XI 445 citing Aristotle On the Progression of Animals herafter Progression 711a5-6 712b1838 ldquoThe crab is the only animal that moves not forwards but obliquelyrdquo because ldquoits eyes canmove themselves obliquelyrdquo Aristotle Progression 712b16 2039 Schelling SW XI 435-6 puts the point simply ldquowe call lsquorightrsquo what corresponds to our leftlsquobeforersquo what is opposite to what is behind us lsquobehindrsquo what is turned away from us withoutthere being such distinctions in the objects themselves for if we turn around what is rightbecomes left and what was behind becomes in front of usrdquo40 SW XI 442 ldquoThis lsquounderrsquo is therefore one with that so-called prime matter that is the primumsubjectum (prwton upoceimenon) that serially grounds and is concealed in everything corporealone with what is relatively nothing or that which does not have being [eins mit jenem relativennichts oder nicht-Seyenden] from which everything becomes with the contingency from whicheverything that has become from it acquires the character of the past it is at any rate difficultto conceive precisely because it can be conceived only as the starting point but is therefore notinconceivable for something is inconceivable only if it is regarded as being an original whereasfor us it is something conceived because it is derivative or consequentrdquo41 SW XI 435 The magnet returns in Schellingrsquos last work the Presentation of Pure RationalPhilosophy XI 4354342 SW IV 137 trans Michael Vater and David W Wood in The Philosophical Rupture BetweenFichte and Schelling hereafter Rupture Albany State University of New York Press 2012p 15943 It is in this sense that Carl August Eschenmayerrsquos Experiment in the A Priori Derivation ofMagnetic Phenomena Tuumlbingen Heerbrandt 1st edn 1795 40 passim provides theprototype of Schellingrsquos diagram Following Chacircteletrsquos reconstruction in Enjeux 138 it reads1+ larr rarr 1ndash1048576 rarr1+ 13 12 11 1ndash1 1ndash2 1ndash3 1ndash104857610Here the symbol ldquo1048576 1048576 1048576 rdquo indicates (a) the location of the empirical magnet and (b) the derivation ofthe total magnet from a pre-magnetic field Eschenmayerrsquos Versuch takes this as theunconditioned form of dynamics in general before proceeding to deduce the categories ofKantrsquos philosophy of nature from that unconditioned form Schellingrsquos excitement atEschenmayerrsquos work is evident in his 1797 Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature SW II 313-4ntrans EE Harris and P Heath Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1988 p 24944 Schellingrsquos reference to Bacon is to the experimentum crucis which is crucial not merely indeciding between (at least two) theories as Karl Popper puts it in Conjectures and RefutationsLondon Routledge and Kegan Paul 1963 p 112 but insofar as it constitutes an enfolding of

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo

the empirical into the theoretical or of nature into reason45 Now called lsquoelectron-transferrsquo experiments46 ldquoSpirit neither has being nor does not have being It only has being in relationship to what isBeing to it It does not have being in itselfrdquo SW VIII 264 Ages of the World trans JMWirth Albany State University of New York Press 2000 p 4647 SW VII 409 ldquothe One essence divides itself in actuality into its two operative modes in oneof which there is only the ground of existence and in the other only essence [daszlig Eine Wesenin seinen zwei Wirkungsweisen sich wirklich in zwei Wesen scheidet daszlig in dem einen bloszligGrund zur Existenz in dem andern bloszlig Wesen ist]rdquo Neither Gutmannrsquos nor Love andSchmidtrsquos translations capture the recursive characterization of Wesen all the more importantgiven the centrality of the latter to the late philosophyrsquos distinction between the lsquowhatrsquo and thelsquothatrsquo of being48 SW IV 430 Rupture 155 The Inquiries contains an extended discussion of the ldquolaw of thegroundrdquo according to which finite being is ldquonecessarily in anotherrdquo (SW VII 340) so that anindividual is ldquosomething that has become only through anotherrdquo (SW VII 346)49 SW VII 333 This claim common throughout Schellingrsquos nature and identity philosophy upto and including the Freedom essay becomes progressively more complex so that in theFaraday lecture Schelling argues that the actions of the Voltaic Pile demonstrate thatponderable matter is reducible to forces that is to what is ldquoecstatic or spiritualizing in the Pilerdquo(SW XI 441) ie ldquospirits or powersrdquo (SW XI 445)50 Werner Heisenberg Physics and Philosophy Harmondsworth Penguin 1989 pp 49-50ldquoWe know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the aparticleButhellip if we wanted to know why the a-particle was emitted at that particular time wewould have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves and thatis impossiblerdquo51 David Bellrsquos essay lsquoTranscendental arguments and non-naturalistic anti-realismrsquo in RobertStern ed Transcendental Arguments Problems and Prospects Oxford Oxford UniversityPress 1999 p 192 accounts an ontology ldquoparochialrdquo when it adheres to the following criticalinjunction ldquoThe transcendental argument must not invalidly infer objective andor unrestrictedconclusions from purely subjective andor parochial premisesrdquo