Anna Vinkelman
This paper examines Schelling’s philosophy of time as articulated in The Ages of the World (1811–1815), focusing on the enigmatic claim that any “healthy and vigorous life” depends on the awareness of a “time‑producing principle in oneself.” Situating Schelling’s reflections on time within the broader trajectory of his thought—from his early epistemological investigations, where he emphasizes the productive power of the I, to his philosophy of nature, where this principle is transposed onto nature itself—the paper seeks to elucidate the profound implications of this assertion. I argue that, for Schelling, time is not merely a phenomenon within the world, but constitutes both the world and nature themselves. This perspective reveals the novelty of Schelling’s account: time is not given to us as a form of intuition but is actively created by the I, which thereby generates not only time but also the world itself. In this view, the self‑positing power of the I lies at the heart of Schelling’s philosophy, challenging the notion that the world is simply already given and instead positing it as the ongoing creation of the I.