Positivity and time in Schelling's philosophical development

Though Schelling makes the distinction between positive and negative philosophy in the later period, and starts to develop his positive philosophy mainly in his philosophy of religion (ca. 1840), this paper will try to show that there are already certain "positive" elements in the early writings. By "positive" it means twofold: first, that intuition and reality take priority over conceptual definition; second, the extreme conclusion that even nothingness is positive. It will show how Schelling gradually moves from the former to the latter. Since it is impossible to deal with his entire philosophical career in this short article, it will select four texts or periods for analysis, not strictly in chronological order, namely, Naturphilosophie (1799-1806), his idea of "productive intuition" in System of Transcendental Idealism (1800), his philosophy of time in Ages of the World (Weltalter, 1811-1815), and Philosophy of Mythology (1842). Special attention will be given to the role of time in his arguments, as it will show that time provides a major driving force for this positivity.