Fichte's Work Research Articles

Novalis's philosophical fictions: Love, reason, and the given from the Fichte‐Studies to the Hymns to the Night

AbstractThis paper means to explore the relationship between Novalis's youthful engagement with the work of Fichte (with a nod to Kant's theory of practical postulates), on the one hand, and his late poetic work, the Hymnen an die Nacht, on the other. Against the grain of those who see in Hardenberg's development a promising young philosopher‐in‐the‐making who broke with philosophy in favor of mystical poetry, the present article hopes to show that Novalis's emerging views on such topics as reason, freedom, love, and the given (or Gegebenheit) in the Fichte‐Studien give rise to, or find themselves more adequately expressed in, the mature products of his late lyrical imagination.

Ética y filosofía de la historia en Fichte

El presente trabajo intenta mostrar la implicación entre ética y filosofía de la historia en la obra de Fichte. Para ello se considera necesario integrar su filosofía de la historia en el conjunto de su filosofía, entendida como una unidad y como sistema de la libertad. A partir de ahí propone un análisis de las llamadas cinco épocas recogidas en Los Caracteres de la Edad Contemporánea y los cinco puntos de vista presentados en su Exhortación a la vida bienaventurada o doctrina de la religión.

Systematicity in Kant’s Third Critique

Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment is often interpreted in light of its initial reception. Conventionally, this reception is examined in the work of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, who found in Kant’s third Critique a new task for philosophy: the construction of an absolute, self-grounding system. This paper identifies an alternative line of reception in the work of physiologists and medical practitioners during the 1790s and early 1800s, including Kielmeyer, Reil, Girtanner and Oken. It argues that these naturalists called on Kant’s third Critique to solidify an experimental natural history that classifies organic form within a system of laws. Kant held both kinds of system in tension, which is why the third Critique remains a singular and provocative text.

Elementos categoriais do conceito de formação em Fichte e Hegel

ABSTRACT: This article offers some reflections, informed by the work of Fichte and Hegel, concerning the categorical concept of Bildung and its possible role in the empirical diagnosis of a cultural decline. It is my claim that the analysis of the concept of Bildung is best approached in a speculative fashion, with a view to articulating a categorical determination thereof, so as to avoid reducing the incidence of such phenomena of decline to a mere historical contingency. Accordingly, the first part of the paper inquires into the categorical conditions of the possibility of Bildung, which it relates, on the one hand, to Hegel’s notion of “sublation” [Aufhebung] and, on the other, suggests a way of understanding them as part of a pre-empirical critique of the idea of the so-called decline of Bildung. The second and the third parts address the concepts of “limitation” [Schranke] and “ought” [Sollen] in Hegel’s Science of Logic and Fichte’s Foundations of the Science of Knowledge, outlining the reasons why these notions belong, qua essential categorical moments, to a proper conception of Bildung. In conclusion, the paper is intended to vindicate the idea of philosophy as the analysis of categorical conceptual structures (e.g. the notion of Bildung), as a way of resisting the tendency to turn the problems of socio-historical value, like Bildung, into a mere matter of politics.

PANENTEISME DALAM PEMIKIRAN TEOLOGI METAFISIK MOH. IQBAL

Panenteisme merupakan salah satu paham tentang Tuhan yang meyakini bahwa alam adalah bagian dari Tuhan. Secara geneologi paham panenteisme merupakan pengembangan idealisme Jerman pada abad ke-19, khususnya pada karya Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, dan dilanjutkan oleh Alfred North Whitehead pada abad 20. Begitu populernya gagasan Panenteisme ini hingga cukup berpengaruh pada pemikiran teologis Iqbal. Tulisan ini membahas tentang paham Panenteisme dalam pemikiran teologi metafisik M. Iqbal. Dalam hal ini Iqbal lebih mengarah pada eksistensi Realitas absolut, sebagai realitas yang sebenarnya dalam hubungannya dengan manusia dan alam. Karena itu, Realitas Ultim, Realitas Diri, Wujud Mutlak atau Ego Mutlak hanya dapat dicapai dengan intuisi. Untuk sampai mengetahui dan memahami Wujud Mutlak, Iqbal bertitik tolak dari intuisi tentang wujud ego manusia yang bergerak pada Realitas Wujud Ego Mutlak. Hanya intuisi, kata Iqbal yang dapat mengungkap Realitas Mutlak atau Wujud Super Ego yang sebenarnya. Hal ini karena kodrat Realitas yang sesungguhnya adalah spiritual.

Eschewing the First Person: Post-Subjective Autobiography in Hubert Fichte and his Geschichte der Empfindlichkeit / History of Sensitivity

Despite the uncanny similarities between the known facts of Hubert Fichte's life and the events depicted in his works, opinion is still divided as to whether Fichte's work constitutes an autobiography or not. This is partly because, rather than adopting the classic first person or using the same name on the cover as in the inside of the book, Fichte gives his protagonists fictitional names: Detlev, Jäcki. The designation of many of his works as 'novels' does not help either. The thesis of this article is that in his literary works, Fichte deliberately drew on the events of his own life, and deliberately invoked the various genres and procedures of life writing in order to construct what I call 'post-subjective autobiography'. In putting forward this thesis, I demonstrate how, from his third novel onwards, Fichte is not writing from the position of a secure subject, but employing a whole range of devices to interrogate the subject of autobiography. And the conclusion is that this post-subjective autobiography is a únique aesthetic and ethical achievement which we would do well to emulate. This article was submitted to the European Journal of Life Writing in May 2014 and published on 16 March 2015.

A Etnopoesia de Hubert Fichte

O artigo trata das relações entre Antropologia e LIteratura, mais precisamente de como elas são problematizadas pelo escritor alemão Hubert Fichte, cujos textos, de ficção, são resultado do estudo da teoria e da aplicação de métodos da Antropologia. Versando sobre o sincretismo das religiões afro-americanas, a obra de Fichte, a partir dos anos setenta, é denominada, pelo próprio autor, de etnopoesia, isto é, a espressão literária do saber antropológico. Ao refjeitar a prosa científica, o "etnopoeta" pretende questionar a pretensa objetividade e a utópica onipotência de pesquisadores de certas correntes da Antropologia. Faz-se por fim, um paralelo entre crítica fichteana e a dos antropológos ditos pós-modernos, ressaltando-se que as afinidades aparentes entre eles e a Etnopoesia escondem divergências fundamentais.

A disputa das Horas: Fichte e Schiller sobre arte e filosofia

One year after the publication of the Briefe über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in the journal Die Horen, Fichte sends Schiller a writing entitled Über Geist und Buchstabe in der Philosophie. Schiller, however, promptly refuses to publish the text of Fichte in his magazine, starting the so called Horenstreit. The core around which this dispute is originated, is the concept of reciprocal determination (Wechselbestimmung). Although Schiller indicates in his writing that he had taken this concept borrowed from the work of Fichte, a more detailed analysis would show that the fundamentals and assumptions of both Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre as Schiller´s Briefe were irreconcilable, which is why Schiller could not have used that concept of Fichte to substantiate his theory of impulses. However, if one considers some recent dissertations on Fichte's interest in themes of aesthetics, it is possible to speculate that the Über Buchstabe Geist in der Philosophie was written not in a polemical tone, but as an attempt to approach itself of the aesthetic project of Schiller.

A segunda pessoa - a contribuição sistemática de Fichte

O texto se debruça, sistematicamente, sobre o modo como Gotlieb Fichte apresenta a segunda pessoa, tendo o cuidado de não isolar essa exposição, que, com efeito, só pode ser compreendida no contexto integral da obra. Na recomposição do rigoroso movimento de figuras como o "Eu", o "Mim", o "Tu" e o "Nós", pretende-se mostrar como o Eu deve, enfim, ser visto em Fichte, já que se trata, primariamente, de um Nós integral e não de um Nós plural, como uma reconfiguração, em roupagem social (ou protossocial), daquele Eu pré-individual absoluto em que começou a trajetória especulativa de Fichte desde o Eu até o Mim, do Eu ao Tu, do Mim ao Ti e do Ti ao Mim, e ao qual, após a viagem pelo mundo, ela deve enfim conduzir de volta.

Was Fichte a Remonstrant?

On reading Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation (1806–7), one is struck by the numerous references to religion it contains. The religious aspect of Fichte's writing is interesting in itself as it touches upon wider issues of theology and political thought, but it is also surprising given that Fichte had been labeled an atheist. The purpose of this article is to explore the ‘religious’ aspect of the Addresses looking specifically at the relationship between Fichte's work and the idea of ‘a chosen people.’ I argue that though not restricted to Reformed theology or even to the Christian faith, the idea of a chosen people can be found in Fichte's work but that it cannot be understood in a Lutheran nor Calvinistic manner but rather through the teachings of Jacob Arminius and the Remonstrants.

Two Hundred Years of Solitude

Of all the works that Fichte himself saw to publication, the System of Ethics, which first appeared in installments beginning in December 1797 and was completely published at the end of March 1798, probably has received the least attention and has been the least influential of his major writings. In its reception and effective history Fichte's systematic treatment of moral philosophy always has been eclipsed by his companion work on the philosophy of right, the Foundation of Natural Right from 1796/97. Moreover, his ethics has been overshadowed by the keen philosophical interest and the initial and ongoing attention bestowed on the first and only presentation of Fichte's core philosophy pubUshed during his lifetime, the Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre from 1794/95. The lack of attention that the System of Ethics received upon its first publication certainly is to a large extent due to the situation at the time. For one, the work had to share the stage soon after its appearance with Kant's treatment of ethics pubUshed the same year, viz., the Metaphysical First Principles of the Doctrine of Virtue from The Metaphysics of Morals. Moreover, within a period of six montiis after the publication of Fichte's ethics the eruption of the so-called atheism dispute drew the attention of the philosophical public to Fichte's views in the philosophy of religion and to his apologetic and justificatory writings in this matter. With the loss of his professorship in Jena in early April of 1799, the ensuing move to BerUn and the beginning of his practice to limit the publication of his scientific work in philosophy to oral presentation, Fichte soon vanished from the horizon of the contemporary philosophical readership and its ongoing discussions, in which he only remained present through his earlier writings from the Jena period and through his BerUn lectures series in the popular style on the philosophy of history, culture, and reUgion (1806-08). It was not until the posthumous edition of the Berlin presentations of the Wissenschaftslehre through his son, Immanuel Hermann Fichte-first the Posthumous Works (1834/35) and then the Complete Works (1845/46) - that a firm basis was provided for an adequate estimation and appreciation of Fichte's entire body of work and its philosophical evaluation and critical discussion. That discussion and evaluation first occurred in the context of the neo-Kantianism at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries and found its continuation and first apex in German and French research on Fichte in the 1920s and 30s (Baumgartner 1968, 122-25; Fichte 1963, 402-08). During the past five decades the publication of the Bavarian Academy Edition of Fichte's Complete Works (Fichte 1962-), which has been appearing in chronological order and is scheduled to be completed in the next few years, has reinvigorated the historical and systematic study of Fichte's work on an international scale. In the process, the System of Ethics, too, has received increased attention in German, Italian, French, and Spanish research on Fichte, though for the most part in the form of journal articles on individual themes and aspects of this work. The comparatively little attention that Fichte's System of Ethics has enjoyed is due not only to the problematic reception and effective history of Fichte's philosophy in general but perhaps is also occasioned by the peculiar character of this particular work. For in it Fichte did not present an ethics that could be regarded and treated in separation from the other part of his oeuvre. Rather Fichte had integrated the presentation of his ethics into a comprehensively conceived theory of subjectivity, more precisely a theory of active, practical subjectivity - based on his ambitious encompassing philosophical program of a radically integrated new presentation of philosophy and its various discipUnes erected on the principlefs of subjectivity (I). …

Fichte and Novalis on the Relationship between Ethics and Aesthetics

Fichte's moral [theory] contains the most correct views of morality. Morality says absolutely nothing determinate - it is conscience - a mere judge without law. Morality commands immediately, but always individually. It is decision through and through. correct idea of conscience. Laws are thoroughly opposed to morality.1 As is well known, the relationship between Fichte and the early German Romantic writer Novalis has been broadly explored in the last century and a half, though with diametrically differing conclusions. Both the extent of Fichte's influence on Novalis as well as the quality of Novalis's interpretation of Fichte have been the subjects of fierce dispute.2 Most recent work on the relationship between Novalis and Fichte has been devoted to the early notebooks, written by Novalis in the years 1795-1796 and normally referred to as the Fichte-Studien, and has considered this early work almost exclusively in its relationship to the 1794 Wissenschafislehre, and, even more narrowly, to its beginning sections.3 In this essay, I will be exploring this relationship at the extreme opposite end of Novalis's albeit very short career, focusing primarily upon the last completed section of the second part of the unfinished novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen in relation to Fichte's later Jena writings, specifically the System of Ethics. This section of the novel is composed of a dialogue between the title figure, the burgeoning poet Heinrich, and an older man, introduced as Sylvester, the doctor, who, as I will demonstrate, enunciates a particular reading of the ethical views developed in the System of Ethics. This dialogue appears to be the place where Novalis attempts explicitly to come to terms with his philosophical influences, in particular, with Fichte's ethics, and to find a place for his poetic vocation in relation to it, which as I will suggest in the first half of my paper, remains problematic in Fichte's system. A close analysis of this final scene will form the second half of my essay. Sylvester passage, which fairly brims over with words such as Gewissen (conscience) and Tugend (virtue), has not been especially popular among advocates of what has been the prevailing interpretation of the early Romantics in the past few decades, as avatars of an ironic, deconstructive, and/or postmodern sensibility.4 As with any passage in Novalis, a number of possible influences come to mind, here including such figures as Hemsterhuis, Schleiermacher, and Baader. 5 Here, however, I will focus my reading of this passage on its parallels with SE, seeing the passage also as a commentary upon it. Following Beiser,6 1 will thus highlight the importance of the ethical project for Novalis and its direct relationship to his aesthetic aspirations. Fichte on Aesthetics and Ethics I thus begin with Fichte's views on the relationship between aesthetics and ethics. One of the central texts in Fichte's work explicitly addressing this topic is §31 of the System of Ethics, titled The Duties of the Aesthetic Artist.7 As Hartmut Traub notes,8 this section contains a variety of ideas which can only be understood against the backdrop of Fichte's earlier writings, especially the essay written in 1795, the Spirit and the Letter in Philosophy,9 the subject of the famed dispute with Schiller, who refused to publish it in his journal. Because it appears in the System of Ethics, the fundamental question addressed by this section is the role which the fine arts have in the development of humanity toward its final goal, namely, the self-sufficiency of reason. At the beginning of the section, a certain resistance to the topic is palpable; Fichte discusses the theme if only for the sake of completeness and because such discussions must happen due to the necessities of our age.10 This latter comment is likely a reference to the claims that Schiller made in his On the Aesthetic Education of Humanity which posit the pedagogical effects of beauty as the only way to escape the dilemmas of modern society which have led, for example, to the failure of the French Revolution. …

Strange Bedfellows

Much has been made within certain philosophic circles of Emmanuel Levinas's interaction with and critique of Western philosophy in general and German Idealism in particular. What is little recognized, however, is that J. G. Fichte is often the hidden target of this salvo. Indeed, Fichte appears within Levinas's work as one of the major foils against whom he attempts to define his own insights. When examined in light of Levinas's attack, however, Fichte's work actually appears to be in remarkable contiguity with Levinas. The aim of this paper is to illuminate these commonalities by making an apology for Fichte in light of Levinas's criticism. The result of this examination is the revelation that the German Idealism of such thinkers as Fichte, rather than rivaling Levinas's work, actually proves to be in many ways its ally and intellectual forerunner.

Subjectivity as Philosophical Principle

This paper wishes to establish some connections with the intentions that have informed the project of the philosophy of the subject. This project has especially been represented by the work of Fichte, although today it is important to make it relevant to contemporary philosophical problems and issues. A renewed philosophy of the subject must not risk being exposed to the fundamental critique, so eloquently formulated by Heidegger, that, like Fichte's work, it can begin once again from the conviction that we can lead a human life only on the basis of acts of the universal objectification of everything there is and on the basis of an act of self-empowerment. This paper proposes that a renewed philosophy of the subject has to try to bring itself into harmony with our experience and awareness of human limitations and ambivalence.

Affectivity, Transparency, Rapport

At least scholars are recognizing that the great generative architectonics of idealism's account of self-consciousness would demand or imply, from a genealogical perspective, an unconscious. yet, between Foucaultian inspired analyses of madness in Hegel, and S. Zizek's Lacanian readings of the unconscious in the worls of Schelling, there has been essentially no mention of Fichte. As an attempt to redress this failure, I will begin to sketch Fichte's own unique articulation of an unconscious (Unbewusst) by highlighting three unique aspects or perspectives: (a) the idea of a pre-conscious, self-affective self; (b) the notion of the self-seeing eye; and (c) his own first hand involvement whith psychiatry's phenoman of magnetic rapport. This exposition of the unconscious in Fichte gas two distinct ends. First, it stands as one of the first sustained expositions of the unconscious in the work of Fichte. This analysis which places Fichte's work in the broader genealogy of dynamic psychiatry, however, also stands as a critique of the Freudian psychoanalytic model of the unconscious.

Existentialism, Idealism, and Fichte's Concept of Coherence

Existentialism, Idealism, and Fichte's Concept of Coherence WALTER E. WRIGHT EXISTENTIALPHILOSOPHERS 1 HABITUALLYACCUSEIDEALISMof deserting the human perspective for the perspective of the absolute, and of losing the concrete richness of life in the barren abstractions of thought. For them, idealism is a form of ideology, alienated from its roots in rived experience. Fichte's philosophical writings present a particularly baroque and unappetizing exterior . His contorted grammar and artificialities of vocabulafly surround all the versions of his system with an air of mystification.2 Even the order of exposition followed in the most widely studied version of his Science oJ Knowledge veils its true significance. 3 Written as an outline for lectures on the system delivered at Jena, this book often defies clear interpretation. The difficultyof Fichte's style, more than anything else, is responsible for his relative obscurity. But in the final analysis Fichte's Science of Knowledge is not so remote as it appears. The underlying motive of the Wissenschcqtslehre is Lebenslehre. If it is to be understood, and if it is to communicate something of value to us, then his system must be read as an analysis of human finitude. The central problematic of Fichte's thinking is the question of the sense and aim of man's existence. Impressed by the irreconcilable conflict of idealistic and realistic accounts of knowledge, Fichte sought in the practical sphere for a reconciling principle which could illuminate man's moral destiny. This search for reconciliation dominates both his theoretical and his practical philosophy. That human existence enjoys the central place in Fichte's thought which I have assigned to it can be shown by examining the problem of philosophical evidence. This issue can be approached as a special case of the general problem of providing support for our claims to knowledge. For the most part we are not confused about what sorts of things and activities ought to count as evidence. In order to decide whether his new move in the Meran Variation is sound, the chess player tries it in tournament games. To discover whether a film is worth seeing, I read reviews or consult with people of whose tastes I approve. Only rarely in the conduct of life do we face questions about evidence which present difficulties in principle. Not surprisingly, the situation is different in philosophy. Philosophical questions are characteristically "framework" questions. They have to do with the most pervasive and x Kierkegaard and Marcel are two notable examples. 2 Whilehispopular booksare lessobscure, their "purple" passagesare almost equally offensive. s Grundlage der Gesamten WL als Handschrift fiir Seine Zuh6rer (1794). Translated in John Lachs and Peter Heath, Fichte: Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre) (NewYork: Century Philosophy Source Books, 1970). Specificreferences to Fichte's works will be to the Gesamtausgabe of I. H. Fichte (1834-1846), Siimmtliche Werke (SW).Works not translated by Laths and Heath are my own versions. [37] 38 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY elemental features of our experience. Hence, whether we view philosophical statements as reflective of the structure of language, or of "the way things are," or in some other way, such statements do not usually allow of direct confirmation or disconfirmation. Instead, they define the context within which all other confirmations and disconfirmations can occur. Since most philosophers agree that philosophical statements, whatever else they are, are not factual statements, some account must be provided of how we know them to be true. Whether a philosopher appeals to reasoned argument, phenomenologieal description, the facts of language, or perhaps even denies the possibility of any evidence in philosophy, the way he settles the problem of evidence for philosophical claims will be diagnostic for the content of his own views. Idealism, both as a critique of perception and as the belief in "the presence of rational system in the cosmos,TM usually incorporates a rationalistic account of philosophical evidence. The rationalist theory of evidence is by no means simple, and I do not propose to unravel all its mysteries here. For my purposes it will suffice to point out two of its chief forms: the Cartesian doctrine of the "clara et distincta perceptio" and the ideal of coherence. The first form of rationalism seeks to ground knowledge...

Fichte and National Socialism

Next to Hegel and Nietzsche, Fichte is the German philosopher most frequently blamed as one of the principal inspirers of the National Socialist ideologies of state despotism and the superiority of the German people. Indeed, it is not difficult to find in Fichte's work any number of passages which might be interpreted in such a way as to corroborate these views. In the writings of his middle period, around 1800, Fichte arrives at a despotism of reason which in its practical application might be even more consistently restraining than the rule of our modern dictators. In his programmatic speeches for the restoration of the German nation, he ascribes to his people a divine mission which has shocked many of his interpreters. Therefore we cannot be surprised that historians who, in accordance with the demands of their profession, lay more stress on the effects of thoughts and actions than on the intentions which motivate them, attribute to Fichte a good share of responsibility for the ideology of the National Socialist party and its hold on the German people. Yet these historians are right only with regard to the external form, while the intended aims of the two systems of thought are diametrically opposed to one another.On the whole, Fichte is a moral idealist whose principal concerns are the political and inner freedom of the individual, the right and duty of the individual to contribute his best to the welfare and the cultural progress of his nation, the independence of all nationalities, social security, and an acceptable standard of living for every human being. These demands are based on a genuine respect for the dignity of man and the desire to contribute to the rule of humanitarian values in all human relations. The National Socialist, on the contrary, is fundamentally an egotistic materialist, a ruthless Herrenmensch, with a deep-rooted contempt for freedom, equality, and all humanitarian values.