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21. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 48
Giovanni Cogliandro Concepts, Images, Determination. Some remarks on the understanding of Transcendental Philosophy by McDowell and Fichte
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McDowell in Mind and World developed a post-transcendental understanding of some core philosophical puzzles of subjectivity, like consciousness, conceptual capacity and perception. One of the main assumptions in the background of his philosophical proposal is that all our possible experience has to be determined and therefore has to be acknowledged as conceptual, therefore this very experience has to be both relational and representational.After this statement of conceptual experience in the early 2000’s a debate started which still involves philosophers like Brandom, Gaskin, Wright, Heck, Stalnaker, Peacocke, Dreyfus.The discussion in the beginning was focused on the definition of the Space of Reasons, what is most lively today is the epistemological uncertainty of the possibility of perceiving imagines in a reductive view as perceptual (non-conceptual) experience. The proposal of McDowell is a quasi-Hegelian understanding of concepts. I think that is possible an alternative path, moving from a new understanding of conceptual spontaneity and of the determination in general, rooted in J. G. Fichte Sittenlehre (1812) and in the general framework of the Wissenschaftslehre (mostly the WL Nova methodo and some later expositions) in a broader and more nuanced understanding of the postkantian transcendental philosophy.
22. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 48
Luciano Corsico Image and Freedom in Fichte’s Doctrine of the State of 1813
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In this paper, my aim is to offer an approach to the practical meaning of the concept of image in Fichte’s Doctrine of the State of 1813. The word “image” (Bild) plays an important role within Fichte’s philosophical terminology, especially during the last period of his intellectual production and his academic life, after leaving the University of Jena. Even a superficial reading of the several different versions of the Doctrine of Science allows one to recognize that the above-mentioned term is used by Fichte more frequently during his years in Berlin (1800–1814). Despite this, the determination of the concrete meaning of the term “image” represents a difficult interpretative challenge for readers of Fichte’s philosophy. From my point of view, Fichte uses the term “image” not only at the level of theoretical or methodological reflection, but also at that of praxis. For this reason, Fichte’s transcendental reflection in the Doctrine of the State contains not only an analysis of the negative relationship between image and being, but also, necessarily, an analysis of the positive relationship between image and freedom (Freiheit). Although his Doctrine of the State is based on a theological-religious conception, which could be questioned from the perspective of a secularized rationality, Fichte maintains a consistent conception of knowledge as an image of a world ordered by the moral law. Definitively, this image plays a central role as an original model for the action of every rational being in the sensible world.
23. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 48
Susan-Judith Hoffmann Breathing Life into Primal Beauty: The Imagination at work in Fichte
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In Über den Unterschied des Geistes u. des Buchstabens in der Philosophie, Fichte writes that man’s most fundamental tendency to philosophize is simply the drive to represent for the sake of representing—the same drive which is the ultimate basis of the fine arts. The process of representing for the sake of representing is grounded in “spirit”, which is nothing other than the power of the imagination to raise to consciousness images of das Urschöne. In this paper, I suggest that the affinity between artistic activity and Fichte’s transcendental philosophy is closer than previously thought. I further suggest that for Fichte, transcendental philosophy is a performance and that such an interpretation of Fichte’s thought points to a way out of the circularity in his transcendental project.
24. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 48
Marco Dozzi The Problem of the Unconscious in Fichte’s Later Jena Wissenschaftslehre
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This essay argues for the applicability and importance of the notion of the unconscious (in the limited sense of any form of mental activity of which one is not or cannot be aware) in Fichte’s Jena period, with a focus on the ,second’ Wissenschaftslehre (1796–99). The essay begins by arguing for the existence of a fundamental tension in Fichte’s philosophy: namely, between a ,transcendence’ principle – that the conditions for consciousness cannot themselves be present within experience, since they ground that experience – and an ,immanence’ principle that there is no genuine reality outside of consciousness. It is shown that this tension is particularly evident if one observes some of the conflicting ways in which Fichte employs the notions of ,intellektuelle Anschauung’ and ,unmittelbares Bewusstsein.’ Fichte seems to violate the immanence principle especially insofar as he characterizes the conditions of the possibility of consciousness as a series of ,actions,’ which, qua actions, must be ,real’ in some sense: insofar as they are both real and not present to consciousness, it is argued, they must be unconscious. Although Fichte does not wholly embrace the notion of unconscious mental activity due to his adherence to the immanence principle, his conception of the ,two series’ of the Wissenschaftslehre as well as some of his uses of the notion of ,unmittelbares Bewusstsein’ in particular allow the recognition that Fichte has a rich but inchoate conception of the unconscious.
25. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Beiträgerverzeichnis / Notes on Contributors
26. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
David W. Wood Vorwort / Preface: Fichte’s First Principles and the Total System of the Wissenschaftslehre
27. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Elise Frketich The First Principle of Philosophy in Fichte’s 1794 Aenesidemus Review
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In Aenesidemus, G.E. Schulze adopts the skeptical voice of Aenesidemus and engages in critical dialogue with Hermias, a Kantian, in the hopes of laying bare what he views as the fundamental issues of K.L. Reinhold’s version of critical philosophy. While some attacks reveal a deep misunderstanding of Reinhold’s Elementarphilosophie on Schulze’s part, others hit their mark. In the Aenesidemus Review (1794), J.G. Fichte at times agrees with criticisms raised by Aenesidemus and at times defends Reinhold against them. On Fichte’s view, Schulze succeeds in proving that the first principle of Reinhold’s Elementarphilosophie, the principle of consciousness (Satz des Bewußtseins), is neither self-evident nor self-determining. Therefore, it cannot be the first principle of philosophy. However, Schulze fails to dissuade Fichte from viewing Reinhold’s principle of consciousness as the pithiest expression of human consciousness of the time. For these reasons, Fichte holds that Reinhold’s principle of consciousness must be deduced from an even higher principle. The goal of this paper is to assess whether Fichte puts forth his own candidate for the first principle of philosophy in his Aenesidemus Review.
28. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Jason M. Yonover Fichte’s First First Principles, in the Aphorisms on Religion and Deism (1790) and Prior
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The idea of a “first principle” looms large in Fichte’s thought, and its first real appearance is in his “Aphorisms on Religion and Deism” (1790), which has received little attention. I begin this paper by providing some context on that piece, and then developing a reconstruction of the position presented within it. Next, I establish that Fichte’s views at the time of writing, and for some years prior, are those of the “deist,” and clarify why he sensed he had to leave this stance represented in the “Aphorisms” behind. I conclude that understanding Fichte’s shift away from “deism,” a species of what he would eventually call “dogmatism,” can also help us understand Fichte’s critique of the latter kind of thinking and so shed light on Fichte’s better-known views; and I emphasize that Fichte’s transition from a strict rationalism to a form of Kantianism may be of interest not only to scholarship on Fichte and the period, but likewise to work on rationalism in contemporary metaphysics. Finally, in an appendix I supplement the paper with a first English translation of the entire text of the “Aphorisms,” complete with annotations.
29. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
David Sommer General Logic and the Foundational Demonstration of the First Principle in Fichte’s Eigene Meditationen and Early Wissenschaftslehre
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In this paper I inquire into the role of general logic in Fichte’s early formulations of his first principle. This inquiry contains three main parts. First, I summarize the role of general logic in Kant’s theoretical philosophy, as well as Gottlob Schulze’s critical claims regarding their relation in Reinhold’s Elementarphilosophie. Second, I examine the first three sections of Fichte’s private notes on the Elementarphilosophie, called the Eigene Meditationen, and closely follow his early attempts to provide a basic principle that is systematically prior both to Reinhold’s principle of consciousness, as well as the logical principle of contradiction. I examine Fichte’s struggles with relating the principles of a foundational transcendental philosophy to those of general logic, in order to emphasize his own doubts in systematically motivating the use of logical rules in the exhibition of his first principle. In the third section, I examine the manner in which these principles are introduced in the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre via the logical principles of identity and contradiction, and argue that Fichte’s procedure is problematic given the programmatic constraints on general logic put forward in the meditations on the philosophy of the elements. I conclude by briefly relating Fichte’s doubts in such a procedure, as well as an alternative procedure he already proposed in his private notes, to the method that he would later adopt in the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo.
30. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Alexander Schnell Why Is the First Principle of the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre Foundational for Fichte’s Entire Wissenschaftslehre?
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This article aims at a new interpretation of paragraph §1 of Fichte’s main work of 1794/95, the Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre. This well-known text of the early Jena period explicitly introduces a number of thought motifs that will prove to be valuable for the later versions of the Wissenschaftslehre – including the second version of 1804 – and these motifs will furthermore illuminate the significance of the first principle for Fichte’s entire Wissenschaftslehre.
31. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Philipp Schwab Difference within Identity? Fichte’s Reevaluation of the First Principle of Philosophy in §5 of the Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre
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The aim of the article is to discuss a reevaluation of the first principle in §5 of Fichte’s Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre. The article makes the case that this reevaluation takes place in an attempt to resolve the key systematic issue of a transition from identity to difference, which can be traced back to the very first draft of Fichte’s system in the Own Meditations on Elementary Philosophy. Especially as Fichte, in §1 of the Foundation, conceptualizes the principle of the I as pure identical self-positing, it proves deeply questionable how any proper transition can take place from this immanent self-relation to any other element of the system. While the first sections of the Foundation do not address this issue directly, it is in §5 that Fichte truly approaches the problem. In this light, §5 of the Foundation shall be interpreted as Fichte’s quite dramatic struggle with the absolute I, and as a complex back and forth movement: On the one hand, even more clearly than in §1, Fichte repeatedly stresses that the absolute I must have the structure of absolute identity. Yet on the other hand, he thereby realizes that it is indeed impossible to construct a plausible transition from pure identity to difference, and that he thus has to modify his first principle. Ultimately, Fichte outright sacrifices the idea of a first principle of identity, and rather inserts difference into the identity principle, unfolding a much more complex structure of I-hood than before.
32. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Gesa Wellmann "The Subsequent Delivery of the Deduction" – Fichte’s Transformation of Kant’s Deduction of the Categories
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In the wake of the massive criticism of Kant’s deduction of the categories in the first Critique, Fichte starts providing what he takes an improved version of such a deduction to be. This article aims at investigating the transformation he thereby introduces into the Kantian thought. I will do so mainly with respect to the deduction’s architectonical dimension, i.e. by investigating the role of the deduction for the Wissenschaftslehre as a whole. Concretely, I will defend the following theses: (1) By identifying the deduction of the categories and the metaphysical system, Fichte moves away both from Kant’s conception of a system and from that of a deduction. (2) It is the unique character of Fichte’s conception of a first principle of a system that allows for an identification between system and deduction.
33. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Stefan Schick From Being Reflexive to Absolute Reflection – Fichte’s Original Insight Reconsidered
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This paper defends Fichte’s conception of the absolute I by interpreting it as a modification of the reflection theory. It firstly provides a short outline of Dieter Henrich’s idea of Fichte’s “original insight,” before delineating the problems of Fichte’s “original insight” as they are presented by Henrich. It then analyzes Fichte’s concept of the absolute I by reconstructing its deduction in the Foundations of the Science of Knowledge (1794). With the concept of the absolute I delineated in this manner, it then argues against Henrich’s objections. It concludes that Fichte’s conception of the absolute I is not a rejection of the reflection theory, but rather a radical re-interpretation of it.
34. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Esma Kayar The First Principle of the Wissenschaftslehre and the Logical Principle of Identity
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The first principle of Fichte’s philosophy, the Wissenschaftslehre, is “I am,” whereas the logical principle of identity is “A is A.” The relationship of Fichte’s philosophy to logic helps us understand the relation between the principles of these two disciplines. The first principle of the Wissenschaftslehre as an Act (Thathandlung) is the ground of consciousness and therefore renders logic possible as a science. Even though logic is grounded on the Wissenschaftslehre, the form of logic is used by the latter to comprehend itself. The difference between logic and the Wissenschaftslehre consists in the fact that the former merely supplies a form and the latter contains both the form and the content. Logic arises from the Wissenschaftslehre through the free acts termed “abstraction” and “reflection.” In the Wissenschaftslehre, the form of logical propositions as equality, affirmation and substitution, are derived from the primordial act of the self-positing of the I.
35. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
G. Anthony Bruno Facticity and Genesis: Tracking Fichte’s Method in the Berlin Wissenschaftslehre
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The concept of facticity denotes conditions of experience whose necessity is not logical yet whose contingency is not empirical. Although often associated with Heidegger, Fichte coins ‘facticity’ in his Berlin period to refer to the conclusion of Kant’s metaphysical deduction of the categories, which he argues leaves it a contingent matter that we have the conditions of experience that we do. Such rhapsodic or factical conditions, he argues, must follow necessarily, independent of empirical givenness, from the I through a process of ‘genesis.’ I reconstruct Fichte’s argument by (1) tracing the origin of his neologism, (2) presenting his Jena critique of Kant’s rhapsodic appeal to the forms of judgment, and (3) illustrating the Jena period’s continuity with the Berlin period’s genetic method, while noting a methodological shift whereby Fichte directs his critique against his own doctrine of intellectual intuition in order to eliminate its ‘factical terms.’
36. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Laure Cahen-Maurel The Monogram of the "Sweet Songstress of the Night": The Hovering of the Imagination as the First Principle of Fichte’s Aesthetics
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This article presents a new reading of Fichte’s aesthetics that differs from a primarily functionalist interpretation of the imagination and art. It demonstrates that the “hovering” (Schweben) of the creative imagination should be viewed as the first principle of Fichte’s aesthetics, in which the latter consists of a triad of the pleasant, the beautiful and the sublime. Moreover, it argues that in the text Ueber Geist und Buchstab in der Philosophie (1795/1800) Fichte created a real and original monogram of the hovering creative imagination, a monogram whose theoretical basis stems from Kant’s concept of the monogram in the 1st Critique as a “wavering sketch”. It contends that this overlooked but key artistic and practical example of a monogram opens up new perspectives for Fichtean aesthetics, further confirming that its first principle should be explicitly identified with the theory of the hovering imagination in the Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre of 1794/95.
37. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Robert G. Seymour "Knowledge Is Existence" – Ascent to the First Principle in Fichte’s 1805 Erlangen Wissenschaftslehre
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Whereas in the Wl1794 the transition from the facts of empirical consciousness to the absolutely unconditioned and self-evident Grundsatz is undertaken briskly, Fichte begins the wl1805 by stating the Grundsatz with the proviso that it cannot immediately be recognised as such. Instead of proceeding from a self-evident starting point to derive the specific a priori determinations of knowledge, there follows a long process of “ascent” to clarify the Grundsatz, in what Fichte calls the Existenzlehre. This “ascent” does not correlate to any component of the Jena Wl, yet it constitutes the bulk of the 1805 presentation. In order to explain this, I will argue that the “ascent” can be reconstructed as meta-level discourse on possible candidates for first principles. Such a reconstruction can make sense of the highly abstract and paradoxical form of argument to which Fichte resorts. I will consider why Fichte comes to believe this meta-discourse is necessary and will analyse the form of argument Fichte employs in the Existenzlehre. I argue that this involves an attempt to resolve an antinomy between ‘idealist’ and ‘realist’ interpretations of the idea of an absolute presupposition of all knowledge. This resolution takes place by showing how each interpretation gives rise to a dilemma which demonstrates its inadequacy as an explanation of the absolute.
38. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Michael Nance Fichte’s First Principle of Right
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This paper addresses the following questions: what is Fichte’s first principle of right, how does he argue for it, and how does it function as the first principle of his substantive political theory? To answer these questions, the paper offers an overview of the main steps of Fichte’s derivation of the principle of right, explains its relationship to Fichte’s account of individual personhood, and then specifies some of the senses in which the resulting principle serves as the foundation of the rest of Fichte’s political and economic theory. I focus on the developmental logic of Fichte’s account of the “summons” and the “relation of right.” This developmental logic, I argue, is both recapitulated and completed within Fichte’s political theory and political economy.
39. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Pavel Reichl The Role of First Principles in Fichte’s Philosophy of History
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In this article, I explore the role of the first principle in Fichte’s philosophy of history and assess the extent to which its introduction is able to resolve problems in the philosophies of history of his predecessors. Particularly, I focus on Fichte’s response to the question of how history can be grasped in a systematic manner for the purposes of theoretical cognition. I argue that while Fichte is able to resolve the tension between Herder’s pluralism and Kant’s chiliasm in an innovative manner, the deployment of his first principle is ultimately unsuccessful in establishing historiography on a firmer scientific foundation.
40. Fichte-Studien: Volume > 49
Kienhow Goh I-Hood as the Speculative Ground of Fichte’s Real Ethics
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This article considers how the I furnishes a ground for the reality or applicability of the moral principle, or the synthetic unification of the higher and the lower powers of desire, through its originally determined nature. It argues that the nature of I-hood as an immediate unity of seeing and being, an absolute identity of the subjective and objective, is key to establishing the moral principle’s applicability. On its basis, Fichte envisages an originally determined system of drives and feelings on the one side, and of ends on the other, in and through which each of our dutiful actions in each given situation is determined. For Fichte, the question of the moral law’s application has more to do with demonstrating the moral law’s applicability as a principium executionis (or what is the same, the real, practical efficacy of reason) than with employing the law as a discursive criterion for deciding whether actions are dutiful or not. The article clarifies this point by reference to Rehberg’s critique of Kant’s ethics.