Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854) was famously prodigious, prolific and protean: he was philosophically active from a very early age, and over an extraordinarily long span, and in the course of his lifetime the nature of his philosophical projects changed repeatedly and dramatically. Consequently, Schelling is among the most forbidding and the most influential of the German Idealists: the volume and variety of his work make him exceedingly difficult to encapsulate or summarize, but at the same time have inspired a remarkable array of subsequent thinkers and movements.

Schelling entered the theological seminary at Tübingen when he was only fifteen. His close friends at the seminary included Hegel and Hölderlin, both of whom would ultimately become more prominent than Schelling, but who were initially overshadowed by the brilliance of their younger companion. Together the three studied Kant, celebrated the French Revolution, and aspired to employ philosophy and poetry to disseminate and deepen the spirit of freedom in Germany.

Schelling began to publish while still in his teens, quickly attracted the attention and admiration of the great Goethe, and in 1798, at the age of twenty-three, was appointed to a professorship of philosophy at Jena. Joining Fichte on the faculty, Schelling was widely presumed to be the incipient and rightful heir to the Kantian tradition, and his ascension was further accelerated when Fichte was suddenly dismissed from the university the following year.