Schelling and the New England Mind

This essay examines the reception of F.W.J. Schelling’s philosophy in nineteenth-century New England principally through a consideration of three exemplary figures: the Congregationalist James Marsh (1794–1842), the Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), and the Pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914). It shows that although Schelling’s influence on these figures was undeniable, it was also mediated, highly attenuated, and generally more selective and impressionistic than critical or scholarly.