"For someone who is sufficiently familiar with the Hegelian line of thinking but always had difficulty in understanding the philosophical alternative created by his contemporary Schelling, this book is a long-awaited stroke of luck. With enormous lucidity, clarity, and elegance its author, Peter Dews, succeeds in reconstructing step by step the philosophical arguments that allow Schelling to depart from Hegel's system to develop his own notion of the dialectics of human freedom. At the end of this long and thrilling journey through Schelling's oeuvre, one uncomfortably starts to wonder whether one's own intuitions concerning the place of reason within history are not better harbored by Schelling than by Hegel. Is there a better argument for the intellectual value of a book than its power to make one reconsider one's own cherished assumptions and beliefs?" -- Axel Honneth, Jack C. Weinstein Professor for the Humanities in the Department of Philosophy, Columbia University "Schelling was famously called the great Proteus of philosophy. So numerous and diverse are the philosophical systems he developed in rapid succession that his philosophical position seems in constant flux, almost impossible to pin down. From the scattered building blocks of Schelling's neglected late philosophy, Dews now derives an astonishing and compelling account of Schelling's overall project that gives it clear definition and edge. Dews shows that Schelling provides us with a form of absolute idealism that should be considered as the most serious competitor to Hegel's: an absolute idealism beyond the Idea.

" -- Thomas Khurana, Chair of Philosophical Anthropology and Philosophy of Mind, University of Potsdam "Dews shows that Schelling provides us with a form of absolute idealism that should be considered as the most serious competitor to Hegel's: an absolute idealism beyond the Idea." -- Thomas Khurana "With enormous lucidity, clarity, and elegance its author, Peter Dews, succeeds in reconstructing step by step the philosophical arguments that allow Schelling to depart from Hegel's system to develop his own notion of the dialectics of human freedom." -- Axel Honneth, Jack C. "It is clear that, in the wake of this tremendously lucid presentation, our understanding of German Idealism has received a powerful new impetus." -- Christoph Schuringa, New Left Review 143.