Paradiso terrestre vs età dell'oro. La periodizzazione della storia umana nell'Introduzione Storico-Critica alla Filosofia della Mitologia di Schelling

The article is devoted to a close analysis of lectures 5-9 of Schelling’s Historical- Critical Introduction to the Philosophy of Mythology. It shows that Schelling – contrary to what the Forschung usually admits – clearly distinguishes Eden from the Golden Age. According to Schelling, the “fall” banishes Adam out of Eden plunging him into that form of deceptive happiness which is the Golden Age. All subsequent history appears in turn as a fall from the Golden Age, which therefore remains an ambiguous object of nostalgia. The periodization of human history – as reconstructed by the Historical-Critical Introduction – highlights Schelling’s intention to save the phenomena. The theoretical device of doubling the idea of the “fall” serves to distinguish a legitimate nostalgia (the weaker nostalgia for Eden) from an illegitimate one (the stronger nostalgia for the Golden Age). Compared to the condition of deceptive happiness of the second origin, the divisions of history – which are the work of the Logos – have a progressive function. The whole of human history is therefore justified, except for the “origin”. The “peoples” have to walk the arduous path of history, irremediably marked by ambiguity, sice within it the happiest is also what we have to fear the most and indivision, the eternal object of nostalgia, is at the same time what distances us most from the final goal.