Guidelines

Source

F. W. J. von Schellings sämmtliche Werke, ed. K. F. A. Schelling, Stuttgart und Augsburg: Cotta, 1856–1861. Citations give division (Abtheilung), volume, and page (SW I/7, 350).

What this edition is and what it is not

This digital edition reproduces one particular print: the Sämmtliche Werke edited by Schelling’s son K. F. A. Schelling in 1856–1861, 14 volumes in two divisions (Abtheilungen). It reproduces it exactly, checked page by page against the scan and with its misprints, and makes it freely readable, searchable, and citable.

It is not a critical edition. It draws on neither manuscripts nor earlier printings, records no variants, and does not emend his son’s text. Press variants between copies have not been systematically compared. His son compiled the texts from the posthumous papers in particular from several versions; what he decided in doing so stands here unchanged.

Anyone doing text-critical work needs the Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, the historical-critical edition commissioned by the Schelling Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 1976–2023). Series I contains the works up to 1817, Series II the posthumous papers up to the Erlangen lectures of 1821, Series III the letters up to 1802. Where it offers a text, it is the better basis for citation.

It does not contain the late philosophy of Division II, the philosophy of mythology and that of revelation. The manuscripts of the Berlin lectures were lost after the printing, apart from remnants; for these texts, his son’s print is itself the transmission. Earlier versions of these lectures appear in the edition Münchener und Berliner Nachlass 1811–1854 (frommann-holzboog, since 2025) and in the Academy’s digital edition of the posthumous papers (schelling.badw.de).

This edition is prepared by Giuliano Infantino, independently and without any connection to a publisher or academy. The text is obtained by machine and measured by samples; a complete human proofreading has not taken place (Limits).

Citing

Citations follow the print: division, volume, and page, thus SW I/7, 350. Lines are counted from the top. For works that have appeared in the Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, a reference to the HKA is recommended in addition or instead. If you wish to cite this digital edition: Digital Schelling Edition, prepared by Giuliano Infantino, schellingedition.com, version and date of access.

Method

The text is produced from three readings of the same print. An older electronic transcription of the edition supplies the wording, the letter-spaced type, the notes, and the Greek. To this is added the OCR of two copies of the print digitized by the Bavarian State Library. A word is accepted without further checking only if neither of the two OCR readings contradicts it and at least one confirms it.

Every other passage is decided against the page image: letter by letter, not by sense, and in both directions. The electronic transcription has its own errors and silent corrections; the print has genuine misprints, and these remain. The decision is made by machine, with each page and its scan together. In the process the page is also proofread as a whole, and errors that none of the readings indicates are corrected. What cannot be decided conclusively goes into a second round. Press variants between copies have not been systematically compared; a complete human proofreading has not taken place.

What has been measured

• 14 volumes, 7,881 printed pages. Compared with the electronic transcription, 8,931 reading errors have been corrected, about one per page.
• 26 pages of the Freiheitsschrift (SW I/7) were read in full outside the procedure. The machine-obtained text agrees with them word for word and line for line: 7,822 words, 712 lines, letter-spaced type, and paragraphs.
• In a test, 40 plausible errors were planted in pages; the procedure found 38 of them.
• The second OCR reading is worthwhile: it reads genuine misprints literally that the first silently smooths over (verstanten, siunliche).

Reproduction

• Spelling and punctuation remain as printed (seyn, daß, Ueber). Misprints are not corrected.
• Long ſ and other Fraktur forms are resolved.
• Greek is given in Unicode, with accents as printed.
• Letter-spaced type (Sperrsatz) is marked up.
• The notes of the print are recorded; the editor’s notes are marked as such.
• The print has no line numbers. Lines are counted from the top and are to be understood that way in citations.
• Words set in roman type (Antiqua) within the Fraktur are marked up.
• Verses, mottos, and formulas that the print sets off centered are given as block quotations.
• The tables of contents follow the printed ones. Where an item of the contents listing has no heading in the text, this edition names the paragraph where it begins and sets its title beside it as a marginal label. The marginal label is an addition of this edition.

Limits

Formulas and figures are in part reproduced in simplified form, especially in SW I/4. 3 pages have only been matched by machine and not yet decided against the scan (SW I/3, 153; I/4, 295; I/10, 197). Complete freedom from error is not guaranteed; reports of errors are welcome.