Abstract
The chapter places the recourse to the concept of drive in the accounts of practical subjectivity in Fichte into the historical and systematic context of Platonic and Kantian thinking about the psycho-politics of self-rule. Part 1 presents Plato’s comparison of the soul’s set-up and manner of operation to a team of horses of opposed character that are driven by a seriously challenged charioteer. Part 2 first addresses Kant’s account of the irrational and rational modes of practical subjectivity and then traces Reinhold’s and Fichte’s appropriation of the concept of drive for detailing the dynamic structure and functionality of the mind’s multiple and competing drives, including the “selfish” and “unselfish drive” in Reinhold and the “natural,” “pure” and “ethical drive” in Fichte.
Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me.
—The quotation consistently has been attributed to Sigmund Freud, with no exact citation ever provided—and possible to give.
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Notes
- 1.
For a digital reproduction, see https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Eos_chariot_430-420_BC_Staatliche_Antikensammlungen.jpg (retrieved 13 September 2020).
- 2.
For a digital reproduction, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charioteer_of_Delphi#/media/File:AurigaDelfi.jpg (retrieved 13 September 2020).
- 3.
For a digital reproduction, see https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:West_pediment_-_Temple_of_Aphaia_in_Egina_-_Glyptothek_-_Munich_-_Germany_2017_(2).jpg (retrieved 13 September 2020).
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Zöller, G. (2022). Equine Driving: Plato, Kant and Fichte on the Teamwork of the Mind. In: Kisner, M., Noller, J. (eds) The Concept of Drive in Classical German Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84160-7_10
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