ABSTRACT
The attention in contemporary theoretical physics to the very emergence of a differentiated universe of space and time from that which involved neither increasingly reveals the limitations of the causal model of physics that served so well until the rise of quantum mechanics and the questioning of existing notions of causality. The key factor, which prevents a static ontology of essences, is 'becoming', the only concept appropriate to the nature of things. Two sources of Schelling’s account of the intelligibility of being have been pointed out by Frank, Hogrebe and White. The first is Kant’s conception of the ‘transcendental ideal’ in the First Critique, the second is a key passage of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre that was already important for the identity philosophy. To conclude this chapter, let the reader briefly look at one central problem before moving on to Schelling's later struggles with these ideas.
