To the Things Themselves

Since the mid-19th century, when Hegel’s philosophical system gradually declined, the metaphysical concept of supersensory world gradually lost its ability to control the real experience and reality, which is the modern nihilism situation revealed by Nietzsche and Heidegger. However, this new philosophical orientation first appeared in Schelling’s philosophy. In his later period, Schelling distinguished the essence (Was) from the existence and reality of things (Dass), and put forward “philosophical empiricism” based on this distinction, and reconciled it with rationalism in a higher dimension in absolute idealism, thus saving the division and collapse brought about by modern nihilism. Finally, Schelling’s efforts to “save experience” have gone beyond experience and rationality. This beginning comes from the free ekstasis of divinity and voluntarism resolution. It is an abyssal beginning that has no basis and cannot be founded any more. Consequently, it exposes the root of modern nihilism more thoroughly.