Abstract

The individual is characterized in Schelling’s identity philosophy simultaneously by its unity (separate existence, self-sufficiency) and by its unicity (entire determination, singularity). The link of the individual with the principle of the system is at the same time a necessary one (in order for the system to be completed) and an impossible one (because how would it be possible to explain what differs from anything else by means of what is One in everything?). The present article first underscores that the ontological and epistemological status of individuality in the philosophy of identity is ambiguous. It then shows the turn taken in the Freiheitsschrift, when Schelling finds in the human personality and its historicity the anchoring point of individual singularity in the absolute (transforming, to this extent, a theoretical problem into an ethical one). In conclusion it suggests that the 1811 understanding of individuality as temporality aims to extend this principle of individuation to every individual, with the consequence of now showing the impossibility of completing the system of philosophy.