Schelling on the Idea of Tragedy as Reconciliation: Freedom and Evil

Abstract

Schelling´s idea of tragedy as culmination of the arts is something more than a purely esthetic concept, it is the symbolic expression of an absolute freedom that implies the recognition of necessity and evil, points to the reconciliation between the I and its irrational aspects and indicates the place occupied by the individual in the society and the universe. This article studies the concept of tragedy in The Philosophy of Art and its previous developments to show that it can be considered as explicative key to the continuity of Schelling´s future thought, where History appears as dramatic field of battle between the dark and the light side of God.