Following Nature? The Transition from an Aesthetics of Nature to an Ethics of Nature in Schelling

In view of the diagnosis of the Anthropocene, the need for a "different" relationship between humans and nature that "follows nature" (naturam sequi) is often emphasized. This claim can be traced back historically to Schelling, among others. However, as soon as the concept of nature is perceived in its ambivalence and historical contingency, the naturam sequi argument seems to fall prey to the naturalistic fallacy. This article argues that Schelling, on the one hand, registers this ambivalence of nature in a multi-layered description of the developmental history of nature, but that, on the other hand, he explicitly adheres to the nature-ethical naturam sequi argument, especially in his middle period philosophy between 1807 and 1822. Schelling avoids the naturalistic fallacy by adopting a "negativistic" mode of argumentation. It is precisely in this that Schelling's nature-ethical argumentation is very topical in view of the modern debates on nature-orientation in the Anthropocene.