In this essay, I read F.W.J. Schelling's Clara alongside a number of his other texts from 1804-1815 in terms of the concept of sympathy. In so doing, I illuminate the implicit role of this psychological concept in Schelling's metaphysics, epistemology, metaphilosophy and political philosophy of that period, and thereby suggest that the most fundamental consequence of its employment is a populist reorientation of philosophy. Philosophy is to be undertaken not just for the people, but by them too: the activity of philosophising is identified with the public action of a community bonded by sympathetic ties.