La costituzione dell'immagine e l'assoluto nel tardo Fichte

Abstract

The Author reconstructs some aspects of the doctrine of the image developed by Fichte in the late phase of his philosophy in Berlin. The image is for Fichte the very nature of knowledge, of which the doctrine of science must be the reflexive reconstruction. A central theme in his late theory of science is the relationship between the image and absolute being. Knowledge must understand itself as an image (Bild) of the absolute, and the image exists as such only on the basis of a relationship of unity with and difference from absolute being. The image has for its part a dynamic and reflexive structure: it consists of acts of freedom in relation to a priori laws; it is capable of representing the object and at the same time representing itself, that is, it can see the object and see itself. Transcendental philosophy is ultimately the understanding of the image in this reflexive structure, that is, in its being the image of something (scheme I), self-image (scheme II), and conscious unity of the objective and the subjective image (scheme III).