speaking of Schelling

His generally dismal public reception in the late Berlin years is a fine warning as to why it’s not a good idea to be too precocious in philosophy.

I once read an interestingly argued claim that Schelling and Duns Scotus were the only real prodigies in the history of philosophy, though this is factually inadequate since it leaves out Berkeley and Hume who had written major work by their mid-20’s (though that used to be older than it is now, with our modern invention of ultra-extended adolescence; I read an article recently saying that on average we all develop 10 years later intellectually than was the case in 1900). In analytic philosophy there is of course Kripke and probably some other cases. But again, I don’t think Kripke actually improved after age 30. Maybe you get just one pistol, and if you fire it early, it’s fired.