Abstract

From the early writings up to his late lectures on revelation and mythology, Schelling emphazises that human guilt and culpability have a transcendental as wellas an empirical structure. Guilt is prior to all experience (as »original sin« or fatum) and yet must also be defined as part of the self-positing act that actually constitutes freedom. The »Ich« has to (re-)produce its a priori guilt in order to gain full autonomy. Based on this concept, Schelling develops through different stages of his philosophical career an anthropological and finally a logos-theological approach to a fundamental theory of guilt. His late version of this theory stands on the threshold of idealism and post-idealistic philosophy and is to be seen in comparison to Kierkegaard’s concept of dread and repentance. This essay argues that Schelling’s seemingly obsolete and premodern concept of guilt and culpability nonetheless implies a distinguished, albeit hidden concept of Verantwortung that could have a strong bearing upon contemporary theories of responsibility.