At the limits of experience: A dialogue on philosophy and religion between Eschenmayer and Fries

My contribution focuses on a debate over the limits of human knowledge in which the two discussants, Eschenmayer and Fries, propose alternative maps of cognition and, more specifically, of the role of intellectual intuition. I am of the opinion that there are two visions at stake capable of providing two different concepts of religion as well as its relationship to philosophy. To this end, I discuss an essay by Wolfgang Bonsiepen in which Fries is explicitly linked to Kant’s conception of knowledge, while Eschenmayer resumes Schelling’s intellectual intuition in order to reduce the primacy of the practical as a basis for religion. My aim is to clarify Eschenmayer’s methodology with the objective of better determining his distance from Schelling. The concepts of limit, faith, presentiment and the holy are pivotal in this context. On the basis of the greater similarities than differences between Fries and Eschenmayer, I conclude that the perspectives of the two philosophers cannot be reduced to a debate on the relationship between philosophy and religion.