Even though Fichte’s Reden an die deutsche Nation or Addresses to the German Nation is arguably one of the founding texts of nationalist political thought, it has received little scholarly attention from English-speaking political theorists. The French, by contrast, have a long tradition of treating Fichte as a central figure in the history of political thought, and have given considerable attention to the Reden in particular. While the dominant French interpretation, which construes the Reden as a non-ethnic cultural nationalist text, (...) provides a welcome corrective to those who impute unmediated ethnic nationalism to Fichte, it is ultimately flawed for missing the text’s crypto-ethnic character. While Fichte officially defines nationality in terms of language and culture, his linguistic-cultural nationalism ultimately collapses into ethnic nationalism. This collapse, signalled by his appeals to Abstammung and Abkunft, is propelled by the fact that, ultimately, the appeal to language and culture is incapable of securing immortality, which is the supposed source of the nation's motivational power for Fichte. (shrink)

The Fate of Reason is the first general history devoted to the period between Kant and Fichte, one of the most revolutionary and fertile in modern philosophy.

This volume of 23 previously unpublished essays explores the relationship between the philosophy of J.G. Fichte and that of other leading thinkers associated ...

Ever deepening discovery of the significance of Christianity transformed Fichte's thinking.

Abstract This paper provides a reconstruction and critical assessment of Hegel's critique of Fichte's political philosophy in his 1802/3 essay On the Scientific Ways of Treating Natural Right. I argue that Hegel's critique, while not entirely successful, raises a serious problem for Fichte's political philosophy as presented in the 1796/7 Foundations of Natural Right.

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Hegel’s account of ‘recognition’ (Anerkennung) in the 1802-3 System of Ethical Life as a critique of Fichte’s account of recognition in the 1796-7 Foundations of Natural Right. In the first three sections of the paper I argue that Fichte’s account of recognition in the domain of right is not concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. I then turn, in section four, to a discussion of Hegel’s critique and transformation of Fichte’s conception (...) of recognition. Hegel’s transformation consists, I argue, in the claim that a comprehensive account of recognition in the domain of right must be concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. (shrink)

The relationship between Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre and Kant's philosophy is as important as it is ambiguous. The aim of this paper is to explore one significant and under-examined aspect of this relationship, i.e., the respective views of Fichte and Kant on the concept of God. Fichte's noteworthy divergences from Kant's discussions are described and analyzed. Fichte's explication of the concept of God is considerably sparser than Kant's. Furthermore, Fichte excludes from philosophy some of the sub-disciplines of rational theology allowed by Kant. (...) The deeper philosophical roots of these divergences are located in Fichte's radical revision of the Kantian doctrine of the “primacy of practical reason”. (shrink)

Fichte's System of Ethics, originally published in 1798, is at once the most accessible presentation of its author's comprehensive philosophical project, The Science of Knowledge or Wissenschaftslehre, and the most important work in moral philosophy written between Kant and Hegel. This study integrates the discussion of our moral duties into the systematic framework of a transcendental theory of the human subject. Ranging over numerous important philosophical themes, the volume offers a new translation of the work together with an introduction that (...) sets it in its philosophical and historical contexts. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, Fichte's thought marks a crucial transitional stage between Kant and post-Kantian philosophy. Fichte radicalized Kant's thought by arguing that human freedom, not external reality, must be the starting point of all systematic philosophy, and in Foundations of Natural Right, thought by many to be his most important work of political philosophy, he applies his ideas to fundamental issues in political and legal philosophy, covering such topics as civic freedom, rights, private property, contracts, family relations, and (...) the foundations of modern political organization. This volume offers the first complete translation of the work into English, by Michael Baur, together with an introduction by Frederick Neuhouser that sets it in its philosophical and historical context. (shrink)

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION PARTI The Origin and Publication of the First Presentation of the Basic Principles of the Wissenschaftslehre In the spring of 1794 ...

EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION Fichte in Jena The year was one of rare calm for Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Behind him lay more than a decade of employment as an ...

A modern translation of J. G. Fichte's best known philosophical work (including his two explanatory Introductions), which contributed to the development of 19th Century German Idealism from Kant's critical philosophy.

§ I. A FINITE, RATIONAL BEING CAN NOT POSIT ITSELF WITHOUT ASCRIBING TO ITSELF A FREE CAUSALITY. PROOF. A. If a rational being is to posit itself as such, ...

Fichte is the first great Post-Kantian Idealist and his debt to Spinozism has been acknowledged by virtually all of his commentators. However, the extent of Spinoza’s influence on Fichte has not been spelled out in much detail. In response to this I propose to do two things. Firstly, I propose to provide a typology of interpretations of Fichte’s Absolute I, as some commentators seem to get entangled in these different interpretations, which can be very confusing to their readership. Secondly, I (...) wish to demonstrate that the Fichtean system is better understood in the light of its Spinozist influences. (shrink)

Introduction to the Difference Essay. FICHTE, SCHELLING, AND HEGEL The essay on the Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy was ...

Thanks to the editorial work of David Pacini, the lectures appear here with annotations linking them to editions of the masterworks of German philosophy as they ...

INTRODUCTION There are only real men. With the emergence of philosophical questioning there concurrently emerges a subject who gives orientation to the ...

Machine generated contents note: 1. Fichte's theory of property; 2. Applying the concept of right: Fichte and Babeuf; 3. Fichte's reappraisal of Kant's theory of cosmopolitan right; 4. The relation of right to morality in Fichte's Jena theory of the state and society; 5. The role of virtue in the Addresses to the German Nation.

I argue that Fichte (rather than Kant or Hegel or some amalgam of the two) was the primary historical model for the ethical standpoint described in Kierkegaard's Either/Or II. I then explain how looking at Kierkegaard's texts with Fichte in mind helps in interpreting the criticism of the ethical standpoint in works like The Sickness unto Death and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, as well as the significance of the discussion of secular ethics in Fear and Trembling. I conclude with a brief (...) look at the relevance for contemporary Kantian ethics of Kierkegaard's characterization and his criticism. (shrink)

In spite of their opposite methods, Fichte's deductive process and Husserl's reduction cope with the same challenge: they aim to explain how the sensible world is dependent on reflixivity. As perception is generally linked with natural existence, and pure passivity, the deepest significance of transcendental thought in those philosophies consists in equalizing phenomenon and reflexion. In the heart of bodily life, some spiritual theme has to be found. Fichte defines action as the quantification of freedom, and freedom is effectively achieved (...) in the sensible world. Human perception reveals freedom altogether in corporal movements as in the surrounding world (Umwelt). The Fichtean theory of acknowledgment assumes this goal. In the same way, Husserl's reduction explains how significance proceeds from the body (Leib). The Husserlian analysis of kinesthesis and the radical experience of the hand touching the other hand both introduce to the status of pre-reflection. However the complete resolution of the question is given by Fichte: Intelligibility may exist in the sensible world as the metaphysical concept of phenomenon (Erscheinung) in the last Fichtean philosophy expresses the idea of the Absolute pervading the sensible. (shrink)

In this essay, I shall attempt to shed light on central practical concepts, such as action and decision, in Heidegger’s existentialism and in Fichte’s idealism. BothFichte and Heidegger, though from different philosophical frameworks and with different results, address the practical moment by developing [1] a non-epistemic concept of certainty, in connection with [2] a temporal analysis of the conditions of action, which leads to the primacy of future in their analyses. Both [1] and [2] shed light on their concept of (...) the self, and on the concept of freedom. In addition, my paper offers a further clarification of what was called before Fichte’s “proto-existentialism” (G. Zöller, D. Henrich). The ontological framework of both philosophies and their concept of the practical self, finally, leads to the proposal to merge both perspectives into what I would like to call “existential idealism.” Fichte’s and Heidegger’s practical philosophies can be taken as two sides of the same coin. (shrink)

In Totality and Infinity Levinas presents the 'face to face' as an account of intersubjectivity, but one which maintains the absolute difference of the Other. This essay explores the genesis of the 'face to face' through a discussion of Levinas in relation to Buber. It is argued that Levinas' account of subjectivity shares much in common with Fichte's theory of subjectivity. It is further argued that while the 'face to face' clarifies and opposes traditional problems in social ontology, the 'face (...) to face' is unable to avoid the traditional problems of social ontology that it seeks to avoid. (shrink)

Few periods in the history of philosophy manifest the degree of dynamism and historical complexity that characterize early post-Kantian philosophy. The reasons for this special character of so-called “classical German philosophy” are no doubt themselves quite complex. Institutional and political circumstances certainly played an important role. The end of the eighteenth century marks a point at which philosophy was seen as being deeply implicated in the political developments of the day (in particular: the upheavals in France). What’s more, this intense (...) political context for philosophy coincided with the reemergence of “academic” philosophy: the first point in the modern period when the leading figures on the philosophical scene were members of a common (and flourishing) academic community.2 But more narrowly philosophical factors are also important. Kant’s philosophical accomplishment was widely seen as marking a watershed in philosophy’s development, but it was an accomplishment whose lessons and viability were highly.. (shrink)

This is the first book in English to elucidate the central issues in the work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), a figure crucial to the movement of philosophy from Kant to German idealism. The book explains Fichte's notion of subjectivity and how his particular view developed out of Kant's accounts of theoretical and practical reason. Fichte argued that the subject has a self-positing structure which distinguishes it from a thing or an object. Thus, the subject must be understood as an (...) activity rather than a thing and is self-constituting in a way that an object is not. In the final chapter, Professor Neuhouser considers how this doctrine of the self-positing subject enables us to understand the possibility of the self's autonomy, or self-determination. (shrink)

In this paper1 i intend to elucidate a thesis that lies at the heart of Fichte’s theory of rights. This thesis states that rights are the essential foundation of rational political order not only because they govern relations among human beings but also because they help them to realize themselves as free agents. In Fichte’s words, rights are the “conditions” under which human beings can become aware of themselves as “self-positing subjects.”2 This thesis calls for the rejection of the claim (...) central to natural rights theories that the main task of rights is to protect liberties that human beings have by virtue of their “natural” or “God-given” qualities.3 This is because Fichte’s thesis implies that .. (shrink)

When we reconstruct Fichte’s philosophy of nature of the Jena period, we notice striking similarities between the conception of organism in the Doctrine of Science and Schelling’s corresponding developments in his early Naturphilosophie. Even though both thinkers agree to consider organic nature within the framework of transcendental idealism, it is nevertheless possible at this stage to discover slight differences in their interpretation which announce their future disagreement on the status of a philosophy of nature. If, for instance, organism for both (...) Fichte and Schelling can be considered as an analogon of the absolute, much depends on whether they conceive this analogy from a practical or theoretical point of view. (shrink)

Hegel’s treatment of ‘Moralität’ in both the Phenomenology of Spirit and the Philosophy of Right provides important clues as to how he conceives the recognitive dynamics of modern moral life. As ‘spirit that is certain of itself’, morality as comprehended in the Phenomenology is the final form of spirit [Geist], which, in Hegel’s exposition, follows ‘reason’ which itself had followed ‘consciousness’ and ‘self-consciousness’. Spirit had first been considered in its objective form as an ‘in itself’. This was the ‘true spirit’ (...) of the ethical world of antiquity. As something ‘for itself’, spirit had then been considered in its self-alienated form as ‘culture’ which had culminated in an analysis of modern politics—specifically the political project of ‘absolute freedom’, the French Revolution, and the terroristic consequences that had been so acutely linked to the modern rationalist political project by Schiller. But, as many have pointed out, if Rousseau was the theorist of the modern political struggle for autonomy, Kant had an equally revolutionary conception of moral autonomy, which, like Rousseau, put the idea of a self-legislating will at the centre of thought. Such an internalization of the self-legislating will, however, now reveals the proper object for judgment in terms of the evaluative polarity of good and bad—the will itself. This evaluation becomes the task of conscience. In this paper I examine Hegel’s treatment of the role of conscience in moral judgment in the light of his relationship to Fichte, and interpret it in terms of a broadly conceived pragmatics of reason-giving in moral life implicit in his concept of intersubjective recognition [Anerkennung]. (shrink)