NKF Fichte

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Johann Gottlieb Fichte is one of the major figures in German philosophy in the period

between Kant and Hegel. Initially considered one of Kant's most talented followers, Fichte

deeloped his own system of transcendental philosophy, the so!called Wissenschaftslehre.

"hrough technical philosophical wor#s and popular writings Fichte e$ercised great influence

oer his contemporaries, especially during his years at the %niersity of Jena. His influence

waned towards the end of his life, and Hegel's subse&uent dominance relegated Fichte to thestatus of a transitional figure whose thought helped to e$plain the deelopment of German

idealism from Kant's ritical philosophy to Hegel's philosophy of (pirit. "oday, howeer,

Fichte is more correctly seen as an important philosopher in his own right, as a thin#er who

carried on the tradition of German idealism in a highly original form.

1. Fichte's Beginnings (1762-1794)

a. )arly life

Fichte was born on *ay +, +-/ to a family of ribbon ma#ers. )arly in life he impressed

eeryone with his great intelligence, but his parents were too poor to pay for his schooling.

"hrough the patronage of a local nobleman, he was able to attend the 0forta school, which

prepared students for a uniersity education, and then the uniersities of Jena and 1eip2ig.

%nfortunately, little is #nown about this period of Fichte's life, but we do #now that he

intended to obtain a degree in theology, and that he had to brea# off his studies for financial

reasons around +-34, without obtaining a degree of any sort. (eeral years of earning his

liing as an itinerant tutor ensued, during which time he met Johanna 5ahn, his future wife,

while liing in 6urich.

In the summer of +-7, while liing in 1eip2ig and once again in financial distress, Fichteagreed to tutor a uniersity student in the Kantian philosophy, about which he #new ery little

at the time. His immersion in Kant's writings, according to his own testimony, reolutioni2ed

his thin#ing and changed his life, turning him away from a deterministic iew of the world at

odds with human freedom towards the doctrines of the ritical philosophy and its

reconciliation of freedom and determinism.

8ac# to "able of ontents

b. Fichte's sudden rise to prominence*ore wandering and frustration followed. Fichte decided to trael to K9nigsberg to meet

Kant himself, and on July 4, +-+ the disciple had his first interiew with the master.

%nfortunately for Fichte, things did not go well, and Kant was not especially impressed by his

isitor. In order to proe his e$pertise in the ritical philosophy, Fichte &uic#ly composed a

manuscript on the relation of the ritical philosophy to the &uestion of diine reelation, an

issue that Kant had yet to address in print. "his time, Kant was justifiably impressed by the

results and arranged for his own publisher to bring out the wor#, which appeared in +-/

under the titleAn Attempt at a Critique of all Revelation.

In this fledgling effort Fichte adhered to many of Kant's claims about morality and religion bythoughtfully e$tending them to the concept of reelation. In particular, he too# oer Kant's
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idea that all religious belief must ultimately withstand critical scrutiny if it is to ma#e a

legitimate claim on us. For Fichte, any alleged reelation of God's actiity in the world must

pass a moral test: namely, no immoral command or action, i.e., nothing that iolates the moral

law, can be attributed to Him. ;lthough Fichte himself did not e$plicitly critici2e hristianity

by appealing to this test, such a restriction on the content of a possible reelation, if

consistently imposed, would oerturn some aspects of orthodo$ hristian belief, including,for e$ample, the doctrine of original sin, which states that eeryone is born guilty as a result

of ;dam and )e's disobedience in the Garden of )den. "his element of hristian theology,

which is said to be grounded in the reelations contained in the 8ible, is hardly compatible

with the iew of justice underwritten by the moral law. ;ttentie readers should hae

instantly gleaned Fichte's radical iews from the placid Kantian prose.

For reasons that are still mysterious, Fichte's name and preface were omitted from the first

edition ofAn Attempt at a Critique of all Revelation, and thus the boo#, which displayed an

e$tensie and subtle appreciation of Kant's thought, was ta#en to be the wor# of Kant himself.

which were deliered to an oerflowing

lecture hall shortly after his much anticipated arrial in Jena.


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general public. "his desire to communicate to the wider public to bridge the gap, so to

spea#, between theory and pra$is inspired his writings from the start. In fact, Fichte's

passion for the education of society as a whole should be seen as a necessary conse&uence of

his philosophical system, which continues the Kantian tradition of placing philosophy in the

serice of enlightenment, i.e., the eentual liberation of man#ind from its self!imposed

immaturity. "o become mature, according to Kant's way of thin#ing, which Fichte hadadopted, is to oercome our willing refusal to thin# for ourseles, and thus to accept

responsibility for failing to thin# and act independently of the guidance of e$ternal authority.


b. Fichte's system, the Wissenschaftslehre

Fichte called his philosophical system the Wissenschaftslehre. "he usual )nglish translations

of this term, such as >science of #nowledge,> >doctrine of science,> or >theory of science,> can

be misleading, since today these phrases carry connotations that can be e$cessiely theoretical

or too reminiscent of the natural sciences. "herefore, many )nglish!language commentators

and translators prefer to use the German term as the untranslated proper name that designates

Fichte's system as a whole.

;nother potential source of confusion is that Fichte's boo# from +-4D, whose full title is

Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre, is sometimes simply referred to as the

Wissenschaftslehre. (trictly spea#ing, this is incorrect, since this wor#, as its title indicates,

was meant as the foundations of the system as a whole= the other parts of the system were to

be written afterwards. *uch of Fichte's wor# in the remainder of the Jena period attempted to

complete the system as it was enisioned in the +-4DFoundations.


c. 8ac#ground to the Wissenschaftslehre

8efore moing to Jena, and while he was liing in the house of his father!in!law in 6urich,

Fichte wrote two short wor#s that presaged much of the Wissenschaftslehrethat he deoted

the rest of his life to deeloping. "he first of these was a reiew of a s#eptical criti&ue of

Kantian philosophy in general and 5einhold's so!called Elementarphilosophie C>)lementary

0hilosophy>E in particular. "he wor# under reiew, an anonymously published polemic called

Aenesidemus, which was later discoered to hae been written by Gottlob )rnst (chul2e

C+-+!+3AAE, and which appeared in +-/, greatly influenced Fichte, causing him to reise

many of his iews, but did not lead him to abandon 5einhold's concept of philosophy as

rigorous science, an interpretation of the nature of philosophy that demanded that

philosophical principles be systematically deried from a single foundational principle #nown

with certainty.

5einhold had argued that this first principle was what he called the >principle of

consciousness,> namely, the proposition that >in consciousness representation is distinguished

through the subject from both object and subject and is related to both.> From this principle5einhold attempted to deduce the contents of Kant's ritical philosophy. He claimed that the
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principle of consciousness was a reflectiely #nown fact of consciousness, and argued that it

could lend credence to arious Kantian iews, including the distinction between the faculties

of sensibility and understanding and the e$istence of things in themseles. (chul2e responded

by offering s#eptical objections against the legitimacy of Kant's Cand thus 5einhold'sE concept

of the thing in itself Cconstrued as the causal origin of our representationsE and by arguing that

the principle of consciousness was neither a fundamental principle Csince it was subject to thelaws of logic, in that it had to be free of contradictionE nor one #nown with certainty Csince it

originated in merely empirical reflection on the contents of consciousness, which reflection

(chul2e, following aid Hume, persuasiely argued could not yield a principle grounded on

indubitable eidenceE.

Fichte, to his consternation, found himself in agreement with much of (chul2e's criti&ue.

;lthough he was still eager to support the Kantian system, Fichte, as a result of reading

(chul2e, came to the conclusion that the ritical philosophy needed new foundations. et the

search for new foundations, in Fichte's mind, was neer e&uialent to a repudiation of the

Kantian philosophy. ;s Fichte would fre&uently claim, he remained true to the spirit, if not

the letter, of Kant's thought. His reiew of (chul2e's Aenesidemusproides one especiallytantali2ing hint about how he would subse&uently attempt to remain within the spirit of Kant's

thought while attempting to reconstruct it from the ground up: philosophy, he says, must

begin with a first principle, as 5einhold maintained, but not with one that e$presses a mere

fact, a Tatsache= instead, Fichte countered, it must begin with a factact, a Tathandlung, that is

not #nown empirically, but rather with self!eident certainty. "he meaning and purpose of this

new first principle would not become clear to his readers until the publication of the +-4D

Foundations.

In addition to his reiew of the (chul2e boo#, and still prior to his arrial in Jena, Fichte

s#etched out the nature and methodology of the Wissenschaftslehre in an essay entitled

>oncerning the oncept of the Wissenschaftslehre,> which was intended to prepare his

e$pectant audience for his classes and lectures. Here Fichte sets out his conception of

philosophy as the science of science, i.e., as Wissenschaftslehre. "he Wissenschaftslehre is

deoted to establishing the foundation of indiidual sciences such as geometry, whose first

principle is said to be the tas# of limiting space in accordance with a rule. "hus the

Wissenschaftslehresee#s to justify the cognitie tas# of the science of geometry, i.e., its

systematic efforts at spatial construction in the form of theorems alidly deduced from a$ioms

#nown with self!eident certainty. "he Wissenschaftslehre, which itself is a science in need of

a first principle, is said to be grounded on the Tathandlung first mentioned in the

Aenesidemusreiew. "he precise nature of this factact, with which the Wissenschaftslehreis

supposed to begin, is much debated, een today. et it is the essential core of the JenaWissenschaftslehrein general and the +-4DFoundationsin particular.


d.Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre

In the +-4D Foundations Fichte e$presses the content of the Tathandlung in its most

general form as >the I posits itself absolutely.> Fichte is suggesting that the self, which he

typically refers to as >the I,> is not a static thing with fi$ed properties, but rather a self!

producing process. et if it is a self!producing process, then it also seems that it must be free,since in some as yet unspecified fashion it owes its e$istence to nothing but itself. "his


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admittedly obscure starting point is subject to much scrutiny and &ualification as the

Wissenschaftslehreproceeds. In more modern language, and as a first appro$imation of its

meaning, we can understand the Tathandlungas e$pressing the concept of a rational agent

that constantly interprets itself in light of normatie standards that it imposes on itself, in both

the theoretical and practical realms, in its efforts to determine what it ought to beliee and

how it ought to act. CFichte's indebtedness to the Kantian notion of autonomy in the form ofself!imposed lawfulness should be obious to anyone familiar with the ritical philosophy.E

Gien the difficulty of the notion, unfortunately, Fichte's Tathandlung has perple$ed his

readers from its first appearance. "he principle of the self!positing I was initially interpreted

along the lines of 8er#eley's idealism, and thus as claiming that the world as a whole is

somehow the product of an infinite mind. "his interpretation is surely mista#en, een though

one can find passages that seem to support it. *ore important, though, is the &uestion of the

epistemic status of the principle. Is it #nown with the self!eident certainty that Fichte,

following 5einhold, claims must ground any attempt at systematic #nowledge Furthermore,

how does it sere as a basis for deducing the rest of the Wissenschaftslehre

Fichte's method is sometimes said to be phenomenological, restricting itself to what we can

discoer by means of reflection. et Fichte does not claim that we simply find the fully

formed Tathandlung residing somewhere within us= instead, we construct it in order to

e$plain ourseles to ourseles, to render intelligible to ourseles our normatie nature as

finite rational beings. "hus the re&uisite reflection is not empirical but transcendental, i.e., an

e$perimental postulate adopted for philosophical purposes. "hat is, the principle is

presupposed as true in order to ma#e sense of the conditions for the possibility of our ordinary

e$perience.

(uch a method leaes open the possibility of other e$planations of our e$perience. Fichte

claims, howeer, that the alternaties can actually ta#e only one form. )ither, he says, we can

begin Cas he doesE with the I as the ground of all possible e$perience, or we can begin with the

thing in itself outside of our e$perience. "his dilemma inoles, as he puts it, choosing

between idealism and dogmatism. "he former is transcendental philosophy= the latter, a

naturalistic approach to e$perience that e$plains it solely in causal terms. ;s Fichte famously

said in the first introduction to the Wissenschaftslehrefrom +--, the choice between the two

depends on the #ind of person one is, because they are said to be mutually e$clusie yet

e&ually possible approaches.

If, howeer, such a choice between starting points is possible, then the principle of the self!

positing I lac#s the self!eident certainty that Fichte attributed to it in his earlier essay on theconcept of the Wissenschaftslehre. "here are, in fact, those who do not find it at all self!

eident, namely, the dogmatists. Fichte clearly thin#s that they are mista#en in their

dogmatism, yet he offers no direct refutation of their position, claiming only that they cannot

demonstrate what they hope to demonstrate, namely, that the ground of all e$perience lies

solely in objects e$isting independently of the I. "he dogmatist position, Fichte implies,

ignores the normatie aspects of our e$perience, e.g., warranted and unwarranted belief,

correct and incorrect action, and thus attempts to account for our e$perience entirely in terms

of our causal interaction with the world around us. 0resumably, howeer, those who begin

with a disaowal of normatiity as the dogmatists do, because they are that #ind of person

can neer be brought to agree with the idealists. "here is thus an argumentatie impasse

between the two camps.


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Fichte's remar#s about systematic form and certainty in >oncerning the oncept of the

Wissenschaftslehre> gie the impression that he intends to demonstrate the entirety of the

Wissenschaftslehre from the principle of the self!positing I through a chain of logical

inferences that merely set out the implications of the initial principle in such a way that the

certainty of the first principle is transferred to the claims inferred from it. C"he method of

(pino2a'sEthicscomes to mind, but this time with only a single premise from which to beginthe proofs.E et this hardly seems to be Fichte's actual method, since he constantly introduces

new concepts that cannot be plausibly interpreted as the logical conse&uences of the preious

ones. In other words, the deductions in the Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehreare

more than merely analytical e$plications of the conse&uences of the original premise. Instead,

they both articulate and refine the initial principle of the self!positing I in accordance with the

demands made on the idealist who is attempting to clarify the nature of the self!positing I by

means of reflection.

;fter Fichte postulates the self!positing I as the e$planatory ground of all e$perience, he then

begins to complicate the web of concepts re&uired to ma#e sense of this initial postulate,

thereby carrying out the aforementioned construction of the self!positing I. "he I posits itselfinsofar as it is aware of itself, not only as an object but also as a subject, and finds itself

subject to normatie constraints in both the theoretical and practical realms, e.g., that it must

be free of contradiction and that there must be ade&uate reasons for what it beliees and does.

Furthermore, the I posits itself as free, since these constraints are ones that it imposes on

itself. @e$t, by means of further reflection, the I becomes aware of a difference between

>representations accompanied by a feeling of necessity> and >representations accompanied by

a feeling a freedom> that is, a difference between representations of what purports to be an

objectie world e$isting apart from our representations of it and representations that are

merely the product of our own mental actiity. "o recogni2e this distinction in our

representations, howeer, is to posit a distinction between the I and the not!I, i.e., the self and

whateer e$ists independently of it. In other words, the I comes to posit itself as limited by

something other than itself, een though it initially posits itself as free, for in the course of

reflecting on its own nature the I discoverslimitations on its actiity.


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e. ?or#ing out the Wissenschaftslehre and the end of the Jena

period

Fichte's writings during the rest of the Jena period attempt to fill out and refine the entiresystem. "he Foundations of !atural Right "ased on the Wissenschaftslehre C+--E and

The #$stem of Ethical Theor$ "ased on the Wissenschaftslehre C+-3E concern themseles

with political philosophy and moral philosophy, respectiely. "he tas# of the former wor# is

to characteri2e the legitimate constraints that can be placed on indiidual freedom in order to

produce a community of ma$imally free indiiduals who simultaneously respect the freedom

of others. "he tas# of the latter wor# is to characteri2e the specific duties of rational agents

who freely produce objects and actions in the pursuit of their goals. "hese duties follow from

our general obligation to determine ourseles freely, i.e., from the categorical imperatie.

8esides filling out projected portions of the system, Fichte also began to reise the

foundations themseles. (ince he considered the mode of presentation of theFoundations ofthe Entire Wissenschaftslehre unsatisfactory, he began drawing up a new ersion in his

lectures, which were gien three times between +- and +-, but which he neer managed

to publish. "hese lectures, which in some respects are superior to the Foundations of the

Entire Wissenschaftslehre, were published posthumously and are now #nown as the

Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo.

0rior to publishing any systematic presentation of his philosophy of religion, Fichte became

embroiled in what is now #nown as the Atheismusstreit, the atheism controersy. In an essay

from +-3 entitled >


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In +377 Fichte settled in 8erlin and continued to philosophi2e. He was no longer a professor,

because there was no uniersity in 8erlin at the time of his arrial. "o earn a liing, he

published new wor#s and gae priate lectures. "he 8erlin years, while productie, represent

a decline in Fichte's fortunes, since he neer regained the degree of influence among

philosophers that he had enjoyed during the Jena years, although he remained a popular

author among non!philosophers. His first major 8erlin publication was a popular presentationof the Wissenschaftslehredesigned to answer his critics on the &uestion of atheism. Known as

The %ocation of &an, it appeared in +377 and is probably Fichte's greatest literary production.

CIt seems, although this is neer e$plicitly stated anywhere in the boo#, that much of it was

inspired by the personally stinging criti&ue of Jacobi's open letter.E

Fichte continued to reise the Wissenschaftslehre, yet he published ery little of the material

deeloped in these renewed efforts to perfect his system, mostly because he feared being

misunderstood as he had been during the Jena years. His reluctance to publish gae his

contemporaries the false impression that he was more or less finished as an original

philosopher. )$cept for a cryptic outline that appeared in +3+7, his 8erlin lectures on the

Wissenschaftslehre, of which there are numerous ersions, only appeared posthumously. Inthese manuscripts Fichte typically spea#s of the absolute and its appearances, i.e., a

philosophically suitable stand!in for a more traditional notion of God and the community of

finite rational beings whose e$istence is grounded in the absolute. ;s a result, Fichte is

sometimes said to hae ta#en a religious turn in the 8erlin period.


b. 0opular writings from the 8erlin period

In +37 Fichte published two lecture series that were well!receied by his contemporaries.

"he first, The Characteristics of the Present Age, employs the Wissenschaftslehre for the

purposes of the philosophy of history. ;ccording to Fichte, there are fie stages of history in

which the human race progresses from the rule of instinct to the rule of reason. "he present

age, he says, is the third age, an epoch of liberation from instinct and e$ternal authority, out of

which humanity will ultimately progress until it ma#es itself and the world it inhabits into a

fully self!conscious representatie of the life of reason. "he second, The Wa$ Toards the

"lessed (ife, which is sometimes said to be a mystical wor#, treats of morality and religion in

a popular format.

;nother famous series of lectures,Addresses to the )erman !ation, gien in +373 during theFrench occupation, was intended as a continuation of The Characteristics of the Present Age,

but e$clusiely for a German audience. Here Fichte enisions a new form of national

education that would enable the German nation, not yet in e$istence, to reach the fifth and

final age outlined in the earlier lecture series.


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?hen the newly founded 0russian uniersity in 8erlin opened in +3+7, Fichte was made the

head of the philosophy faculty= in +3++ he was elected the first rector of the uniersity. He

continued his philosophical wor# until the ery end of his life, lecturing on the

Wissenschaftslehreand writing on political philosophy and other subjects. ?hen the ?ar of

1iberation bro#e out in +3+A, Fichte canceled his lectures and joined the militia. His wife

Johanna, who was sering as a olunteer nurse in a military hospital, contracted a life!threatening feer. (he recoered, but Fichte fell ill with the same ailment. He died on January

/, +3+4.


4. "oncl#sion

;lthough Fichte's importance for the history of German philosophy is undisputed, the nature

of his legacy is still ery much debated. He has sometimes been seen as a mere transitional

figure between Kant and Hegel, as little more than a philosophical stepping stone along

(pirit's path to absolute #nowledge. "his understanding of Fichte was encouraged by Hegel

himself, and no doubt for self!sering reasons. @owadays, howeer, Fichte is studied more

and more for his own sa#e, in particular for his theory of subjectiity, i.e., the theory of the

self!positing I, which is rightly seen as a sophisticated elaboration of Kant's claim that finite

rational beings are to be interpreted in theoretical and practical terms. "he leel of detail that

Fichte proides on these matters e$ceeds that found in Kant's writings. "his fact alone would

ma#e Fichte's wor# worthy of our attention. et perhaps the most persuasie testament to

Fichte's greatness as a philosopher is to be found in his relentless willingness to begin again,

to start the Wissenschaftslehreanew, and neer to rest content with any prior formulation of

his thought. ;lthough this leaes his readers perpetually dissatisfied and desirous of adefinitie statement of his iews, Fichte, true to his publically declared ocation, ma#es them

into better philosophers through his own e$ample of restless striing for the truth.

@KF Fichte

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