In this study I will present the intellectual development of Schelling, Holderlin and Hegel during their formative years. Because of their similar social origins, the early thought of these young Swabians, during the 1790's, should be treated as a unit. Their experience as roommates at the Stift in Tiibingen and their close intellectual fellowship throughout the nineties made each extremely responsive to the others ideas. As mem bers of the political elite in Wiirttemberg, their intellectual assumptions were profoundly affected by the crisis of Wiirttemberg and German political society and by...