In this contribution I intend to demonstrate how romantic Naturphilosophie can today be an effective tool in the ecological debate, especially as an indirect source of Murray Bookchin's Social Ecology. This usefulness becomes clear if we look at the last phase of Naturphilosophie, the one that follows the “immaterialist turn” impressed by Schelling and his pupil Steffens. This turning point depends on both Schelling’s break with Fichtean and Hegelian idealism and on Schelling’s reading of theosophical and sapiential sources. Although Bookchin has elevated Hegelian logic to the main source of his philosophy of social ecology, my aim is to show how the second Naturphilosophie of Schelling and especially of Steffens seems capable of making up for some shortcomings of Hegelian thought on the anthropological side.
