Jul 16, 2022 07:34 PM
(This post was last modified: Jul 16, 2022 07:54 PM by C C.)
https://aeon.co/essays/on-freedom-and-th...-of-fichte
EXCERPTS: Johann Gottlieb Fichte is one of the most underappreciated post-Kantian philosophers. Yet during the peak of his career in the 1790s, when he was lecturing in his private garden and within the walls of the University of Jena in Germany, he was hailed as a ‘new hero’ arriving ‘in the land of truth’, as F W J Schelling put it in 1795 in a letter to G W F Hegel. More recently, the American philosopher Allen Wood has suggested that ‘Fichte is the most influential figure in the continental tradition since 1800.’
This, if true, is largely due to the direct and indirect influence he exerted on continental philosophers such as Schelling, Hegel, Karl Marx, Søren Kierkegaard, György Lukács, Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, as well as the neo-Kantians Heinrich Rickert and Emil Lask (sometimes called neo-Fichteans), who shaped the reception of Kantian philosophy in Germany during the early 20th century.
And yet, outside of the scholarship on Hegel and the tradition of German Idealism – a tradition oriented by the works of Kant, and which includes Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (among others) – Fichte’s philosophical views are hardly known today. His theory of self-consciousness and views on social recognition have been overshadowed by Hegel’s influence. Fichte is typically treated as a mere stepping stone to Hegel’s ‘improved’ view on the intersubjective nature of self-consciousness. Unfortunately, Fichte’s own views on freedom and intersubjectivity have gone underappreciated outside the narrow historical study of his philosophy, even though he developed them prior to Hegel’s, and they shaped the views of Schelling and Hegel. A recovery and re-assessment are due.
[...] Fichte held that Kant’s critical philosophy, if its conclusions are to be accepted, ought to be based upon a first principle of subjectivity. In the words, again, of Schelling: ‘Kant has provided the results. The premises are still missing. And, who can understand the results without the premises?’ In short, Fichte’s system provided the missing premises in the form of a first principle.
Here is how Fichte first states this principle: ‘The I originally posits its own being purely and simply.’ What Fichte has in mind is not obvious, and possibly paradoxical. He is claiming that the core activity of subjectivity involves an I (or subject) determining itself (positing itself) to be an I, without relying on anything outside its own activity (purely), and without that activity consisting of multiple activities (simply). From this, Fichte attempts to deduce, or reconstruct, the Kantian system, in effect constructing the first system of freedom, something Kant attempted, but failed to achieve.
How is self-consciousness, awareness of oneself as oneself, possible?
Now, Fichte’s principle sounds paradoxical since it seems as if the I brings its own being into existence. How can something bring itself into existence if it did not already exist? I will not attempt to resolve the apparent paradox here, but it is worth noting that Fichte is not suggesting that there exists no activity within the subject prior to positing itself as an I, but only that the activity is indeterminate, so that a unique sort of activity is necessary to constitute or transform the subject into an I, a kind of congealing of the subjective self.
Fichte struggled over the years to find the best way to describe the activity of the I in positing itself... (MORE - missing details)
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Kant rejected Fichte's claim to being his successor just as much as he would have Hegel (well, probably not that much) and most of the post-Kantians (if granted a record-breaking lifespan). None of them proceeded with and refined Kant's actual project. They just borrowed from it and then shot off in their own directions, ancestrally paving the way for the European escapades of the 20th-century (though honorary mentions might go out to Fries, Schopenhauer, etc.)
Anthony K. Jensen: "Figures like [...] made calls to heed Kant’s warning about transgressing the bounds of possible experience. However, there was neither a systematic nor programmatic school of Kantian thought in Germany for more than sixty years after Kant’s death in 1804. [...] Against the failings of both the idealists and the materialists, Liebmann could only repeatedly call, 'Zurück zu Kant!'"["Return to Kant!"]
EXCERPTS: Johann Gottlieb Fichte is one of the most underappreciated post-Kantian philosophers. Yet during the peak of his career in the 1790s, when he was lecturing in his private garden and within the walls of the University of Jena in Germany, he was hailed as a ‘new hero’ arriving ‘in the land of truth’, as F W J Schelling put it in 1795 in a letter to G W F Hegel. More recently, the American philosopher Allen Wood has suggested that ‘Fichte is the most influential figure in the continental tradition since 1800.’
This, if true, is largely due to the direct and indirect influence he exerted on continental philosophers such as Schelling, Hegel, Karl Marx, Søren Kierkegaard, György Lukács, Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas, as well as the neo-Kantians Heinrich Rickert and Emil Lask (sometimes called neo-Fichteans), who shaped the reception of Kantian philosophy in Germany during the early 20th century.
And yet, outside of the scholarship on Hegel and the tradition of German Idealism – a tradition oriented by the works of Kant, and which includes Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (among others) – Fichte’s philosophical views are hardly known today. His theory of self-consciousness and views on social recognition have been overshadowed by Hegel’s influence. Fichte is typically treated as a mere stepping stone to Hegel’s ‘improved’ view on the intersubjective nature of self-consciousness. Unfortunately, Fichte’s own views on freedom and intersubjectivity have gone underappreciated outside the narrow historical study of his philosophy, even though he developed them prior to Hegel’s, and they shaped the views of Schelling and Hegel. A recovery and re-assessment are due.
[...] Fichte held that Kant’s critical philosophy, if its conclusions are to be accepted, ought to be based upon a first principle of subjectivity. In the words, again, of Schelling: ‘Kant has provided the results. The premises are still missing. And, who can understand the results without the premises?’ In short, Fichte’s system provided the missing premises in the form of a first principle.
Here is how Fichte first states this principle: ‘The I originally posits its own being purely and simply.’ What Fichte has in mind is not obvious, and possibly paradoxical. He is claiming that the core activity of subjectivity involves an I (or subject) determining itself (positing itself) to be an I, without relying on anything outside its own activity (purely), and without that activity consisting of multiple activities (simply). From this, Fichte attempts to deduce, or reconstruct, the Kantian system, in effect constructing the first system of freedom, something Kant attempted, but failed to achieve.
How is self-consciousness, awareness of oneself as oneself, possible?
Now, Fichte’s principle sounds paradoxical since it seems as if the I brings its own being into existence. How can something bring itself into existence if it did not already exist? I will not attempt to resolve the apparent paradox here, but it is worth noting that Fichte is not suggesting that there exists no activity within the subject prior to positing itself as an I, but only that the activity is indeterminate, so that a unique sort of activity is necessary to constitute or transform the subject into an I, a kind of congealing of the subjective self.
Fichte struggled over the years to find the best way to describe the activity of the I in positing itself... (MORE - missing details)
- - - - - -
Kant rejected Fichte's claim to being his successor just as much as he would have Hegel (well, probably not that much) and most of the post-Kantians (if granted a record-breaking lifespan). None of them proceeded with and refined Kant's actual project. They just borrowed from it and then shot off in their own directions, ancestrally paving the way for the European escapades of the 20th-century (though honorary mentions might go out to Fries, Schopenhauer, etc.)
Anthony K. Jensen: "Figures like [...] made calls to heed Kant’s warning about transgressing the bounds of possible experience. However, there was neither a systematic nor programmatic school of Kantian thought in Germany for more than sixty years after Kant’s death in 1804. [...] Against the failings of both the idealists and the materialists, Liebmann could only repeatedly call, 'Zurück zu Kant!'"["Return to Kant!"]
