Fichte: Historical Contexts Contemporary Controversies

INTRODUCTION TOM ROCKMORE

Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the German idealis( philosopher, is an important but frequently misunderstood and little-studied writer, particularly in English-language circles. This volume presents the selected proceedings of one of the very few meetings, perhaps even the first, centered on Fichte's philosophy in the United States. The meeting, which was held in Pittsburgh at Duquesne University in February 1992, attracted expert students of Fichte's thought from the United States as well as from Canada, Germany, and Switzerland. The unexpectedly high level of the discussion immediately suggested to us that it would be useful to bring the best papers together in a volume. For those already aware of Fichte's thought, it is unnecessary to justify a collection of papers concerning it. Such readers are likely to share the opinion of the present writer that Fichte is a major philosophical thinker, one of the small number of philosophical minds who speak not only to their own generation but to later ones as well. They will merely lament that it has taken so long for the English-language discussion to get underway. Others, unfamiliar with Fichte's writings, will need to be persuaded. They will need to be shown why an obscure German philosopher, a representative of idealism, can reasonably be held to have anything to say to us at this late date. It is to this reader that the present introduction is directed. Although nothing, not even the best study of Fichte's thought, can take the place of reading Fichte's own writings, it will be useful to suggest why the texts collected in this volume, the present studies of Fichte's thought, are worthy of the attention of a philosopher. To begin with, we can distinguish between those few intrepid souls who have labored, often long and hard, to come to terms with Fichte's ideas and the rest of the philosophical universe. Those interested in Fichte's position, especially in the English-speaking world, belong to a sn1all minority who think that there is something important about German idealism, including Fichte's theory. Yet Fichte enthusiasts, who are at present a rare breed,

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were never in abundance. Perhaps because Fichte's thought is an acquired taste, it has never attracted many followers. Even in his brief moment of glory (from the middle 1790s until the publication of Hegel'sPhenomenology of Spirit in 1807, a period when Fichte's was the brightest star in the philosophical firmament), the circle of Fichte's readers has always been small. Yet it is worth noting that Fichte's thought has been exceedingly influential on a large number of writers, including, in no particular order, Schelling, Hegel, the final Kant, Marx, Lask, Lukacs, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and so on. Certainly, the relatively spare interest in Fichte's thought reflects the numerous obstacles standing in the way of an understanding of his theory. Whatever "idealism" is taken to mean-and astonishingly little attention has been devoted to this question-Fichte has long been regarded as an apostle of idealism in an indefensible sense. Kant's famous accusation that Fichte desired to deduce objects from concepts, an idea that Fichte nowhere favors, was early taken up in the literature, for instance, by Goethe, and has continued to haunt the Fichte discussion ever since. Obviously, Fichte's case has not been helped by his resolutely idealist mode of expression. Idealism is at present out of favor, especially in Anglo-Saxon lands, where the very term is more often understood as a topic of derision than an invitation to serious consideration. At least since G. E. Moore's famous "refutation" of a movement that he knew little about, it has been regarded as poor form to defend idealism. 1 This is particularly true among representatives of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, a movement that obviously arose as a revolt against British idealism. Fichte is further handicapped in attracting adherents by the usual difficulties that accompany original thought. Certainly no thinker who has anything original to say can be understood without a process of reception whose aim is to find a way to mediate, and hence to make available, the new insights, whose obscurity so often derives from their very difference with views already familiar to us. In this sense, Fichte's thought is difficult in the way that the thought of all important thinkers is difficult to understand, certainly prior to the process of reception. Fichte's thought is also difficult to appreciate for a number of reasons intrinsic to it, including his style, the fact that his Nachlass is still being published, our increasing historical distance from his immediate context, and his relation to Hegel. Few philosophers write as well as such acknowledged stylists as Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Bergson, Santayana, and James. Fichte, in contrast, writes badly, often very badly. His frequently atrocious style is exceptionally tedious and unnecessarily complex, in short all the things that it should not be ifhis aim were to interest readers in his work. At present, a reliable edition of Fichte's complete writings is underway

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in Germany. Since access to the texts is an important factor in assimilating a theory, it is significant that at present Fichte is the only one of the great German idealists for whom we do not have a reliable version of the collected works. The publication of trustworthy versions of his writings will help Fichte scholarship for those able to read his writings in the original German. A further obstacle to an appreciation of Fichte's thought is the increasingly unfamiliar nature of his philosophical frame of reference, the writers he had in mind as he developed his own views, those he sought to answer and whose views influenced his own. In his writings, he tried to come to grips with thinkers of the greatest importance, such as Kant and Schelling, but also with those who are neither widely known nor intrinsically important, writers who are often important only for the influence they exerted on the immediate discussion, including Reinhold, Schulze, and others. These are thinkers who have now receded into the historical background, and who are known, if known at all, only to historians of philosophy. But their ideas are important for an understanding of Fichte's theory. The relation of Fichte's thought to Hegel's is peculiarly important for the way that Fichte's position has since been understood or perhaps misunderstood. Hegel is largely responsible for inventing the idea of the history of philosophy as we know it. It is no secret that his view of this discipline continues to exert an enormous influence on our perception of the philosophical tradition, above all on our understanding of the German idealist movement. Ever since the early 1800s there has been a pronounced tendency, due to Hegel's teleological view of the history of philosophy, to regard the views of Fichte and Schelling as not intrinsically important, as important only for their contribution to Hegel's synthesis. This Hegelian view of the German idealist tradition, which has long turned attention away from Hegel's immediate predecessors,. has been increasingly contested in recent years. A number of scholars have been eager to call attention to the intrinsic merits of views earlier than Hegel's, even to correct what some regard as Hegel's tendentious reading of them. Walter Schulz, for example, has argued strenuously that the high point in German idealism is not Hegel's thought but the thought of the later Schelling. Others, such as Lauth, Siep, and Girndt in Germany and Philonenko, Bourgeois, and Renaut in France, have devoted careful attention to Fichte's views in isolation from and often in reaction to Hegel's interpretation of Fichte. The result has been a mini-renaissance in the studies of Fichte's and Schelling's theories in Europe, particularly in Germany, France, and Italy. At least as concerns Fichte, this renewed attention has more

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recently spread to China and Japan. Throughout, a guiding spirit in the Fichte discussion has been Reinhard Lauth, the head of the so-called Munich School of transcendental philosophy, coeditor of the definitive edition of Fichte's writings now underway, and the author of numerous studies of his thought. In the United States, the desultory record of Fichte scholarship is directly attributable to the intrinsic difficulty of Fichte's texts, difficult even for a native German speaker, and to two further problems: the widespread bias against the history of philosophy and, until recently, the relative lack of adequate translations. Although philosophy is a historical discipline, for many observers there is an important distinction between philosophy and the history of philosophy, between thought worthy of the name and views that our predecessors have held at various times. A red thread running through the modern tradition is the Cartesian idea that we need to start over, since everything, literally everything, in philosophy remains to be done. If that were true, then, as other earlier thinkers, Fichte would have nothing to say to us. Although nothing can palliate the difficulty of original philosophical thought, including Fichte's, recent translations into English have begun to make his thought more available to those without access to the German. Recent Fichte translations or retranslations include Chisholm's rendering of The Vocation of Man,2 Heath and Lachs's version of The Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre) as well as the first and second "Introductions to the Science of Knowledge,"3 and Breazeale's edition of Fichte's early philosophical writings. 4 The increased availability of Fichte' s texts in English versions has served as a modest stimulus to Fichte scholarship. Over the past decade, two journals have devoted special issues to Fichte. 5 The same time span has seen the publication of several books concerning Fichte's thought. To begin with, I examined the relation of Fichte and Marx around the concept of subjectivity.6 A few years later, Hohler considered the problem of intersubjectivity in The Science of Knowledge,7 and Hunter, in a volume published in German, raised the problem of intersubjectivity with respect to Fichte and Husser1. 8 More recently, Jalloh has examined the topic of Fichte's reading of Kant,9 and Neuhouser has spoken to the problem of Fichte's view of subjectivity.lo Although this is not exactly a flood of literature, even this modest beginning is promising given the dearth of discussion. The remarks so far concern obstacles to Fichte scholarship and the nascent American Fichte discussion. As concerns the latter, the present volume of selected essays represents an encouraging development, a modest

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step toward an American Fichte discussion, even if it is not yet a Fichte industry that can legitimately rival, say, the present Heidegger industry. In order to understand the interest presented by the studies collected here, it will be useful to place Fichte's position in historical perspective. Although Fichte was an important thinker, his thought is not well known even in Germany and is largely unknown elsewhere. Here the relation of Fichte's thought to Kant's is helpful. For Fichte is a post-Kantian, and Kant sets the agenda for and specifies the terms of later German idealism, to which his own view belongs, and of all later philosophy, including Hegel's and contemporary theories. The relation between Fichte's and Kant's theories is controversial. It remains unclear whether Fichte is, as he thought, a Kantian; whether he is even, as he further claimed, the only one to have understood the Critical philosophy; whether perhaps, as he further asserted, he was someone who understood it better than its author; or whether, as Kant maintained, Fichte's theory was not only incompatible with Kant's but also untenable. Whether or not Fichte is a Kantian, his theory can at least initially be understood in relation to Kant's. In the wake of the Kantian position, numerous writers, including Fichte, clain1ed to be the only one to have understood the Critical philosophy. Fichte's claim was rejected by Kant but accepted by others, including, at the beginning of their careers, both Schelling and Hegel. The latter even went so far as to assert in his initial philosophical publication that Fichte's position captured the authentic spirit of Kant's speculative thought. I I In this sense, although an original thinker, indeed a major philosophical planet whose thought moves in its own orbit, Fichte arguably is and remains the greatest of all Kantians, one whose thought cannot be understood without reference to Kant's but whose thought, by virtue of its originality, should also not be confused with Kant's. For Fichte's aim is not Kant scholarship, the patient exegesis of the master's thought within the framework of its letter. It is rather an effort to rethink the Kantian theory in terms of its spirit, an attempt that, as is so often the case, gives rise to an original position determined by, but largely different fron1, the earlier view. I t is axiomatic that important thinkers are important precisely in that they overstep their historical n10ment. For they speak not only to their own times but to later times as well. I t follows that, although important bodies of thought arise within an ongoing philosophical discussion, unlike surrounding theories they continue to remain interesting over long periods. Kant's theory is interesting not only for the way in which its author was awakened by Hume from a dogmatic slumber, but for itself, as an important contribution to the philosophical discussion that offers new and

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different insights for later generations. In the same way as all intrinsically important philosophical theories, Fichte's also transcends its immediate context. Indeed, all the contributions to this volume share the view that Fichte's thought remains relevant to present concerns. But perhaps it is time to let the reader make this judgment. I would like to close with an acknowledgment. This volume is the joint product of the chapter authors, whose contributions are gratefully acknowledged, and the fine staff at Humanities Press. It has greatly benefited . from the careful work of our production editor, Cindy Nixon, and our copy editor, Katherine Delfosse, who have produced a good book from a complex manuscript.

NOTES

1. See G. E. Moore, "The Refutation of Idealism," Mind 48 (1903): pp. 433-53. 2. See Johann Gottlieb Fichte, The Vocation of Man, ed. with an Introduction by Roderick M. Chisholm, trans. William Smith (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1956) . 3. See Fichte: Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre) , ed. and trans. Peter Heath andJohn Lachs (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970). 4. See Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings, ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). 5. See Idealistic Studies 6, no. 2 (1976), and The Philosophical Forum 19, nos. 2-3 (Winter-Spring 1988). 6. See Tom Rockmore, Fichte, Marx, and the German Philosophical Tradition (Carbondale, IL, and London: Southern Illinois University Press, 1980). 7. See T. P. Hohler, Imagination and Reflection: Intersubjectivity. Fichte's Grundlage of 1794 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982). 8. See C. Hunter, Der Interpersonalitiitsbeweis in Fichtes fruher angewandter praktischer Philosophie (Meisenheim am Glan: Hain, 1973). 9. See Chernor Maarjou J alloh, Fichte's Kant-Interpretation and the Doctrine of Science (Washington, DC: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and the University Press ofAmerica, 1988). 10. See Frederick Neuhouser, Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). 11. See G. W. F. Hegel, The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy, trans. H. S. Harris and Walter Cerf (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1977), p. 79.

1 FichteJs Dialectical Imagination RUDOLF A. MAKKREEL

In relation to Kant's epistemology, where the imagination is controlled by the guidelines provided by the understanding, Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre offers a more radical conception of the imagination. Whereas Kant located transcendental spontaneity primarily in the understanding, Fichte locates it in the imagination. In his Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1794), which will be my main source for this essay, Fichte describes the understanding as a "quiescent, inactive power of mind, the mere receptacle and preserver of what imagination brings forth, and what reason determines or has yet to determine." 1 This shift in the constellation of the Kantian faculty psychology is striking because it transforms Kant's active understanding (Verstand) into a rather passive faculty that merely fixes or actualizes what the imagination produces as possibilities. The questions immediately raised by this change are: What led Fichte as a follower of Kant to institute such a switch? Why was Fichte not content to let the imagination mediate between sense and understanding, as Kant did, allowing the synthesizing activity of the understanding to be brought down to the level of empirical intuition? Why does he instead place the imagination in relation to reason and intellectual intuition, at the same time relegating the understanding to the role of a passive intermediary? The answers seem to lie in the fact that, unlike Kant and Reinhold, Fichte does not want to reduce consciousness to being representational. Such a reduction is almost inevitable if the understanding is considered as the dominant faculty. In order to deal with G. E. Schulze's skeptical objections to Reinhold'~ thesis that all consciousness is representational, Fichte posits a prerepresentational mode of consciousness, what he calls "intellectual intuition."2 It is through this intellectual intuition that the I posits itself as the transparent "I

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simply am, because I am." Here again we must differentiate between Kant's notion of intellectual intuition, which is identified with an archetypal intellect, and Fichte's more limited sense of intellectual intuition. In what Kant projects as a divine intellectual intuition, the power to conceive X as a possibility in tantamount to the power to actualize it as an existing object. With such a convergence of intellect and intuition, objects would be known not merely as they are for us, but as they are in themselves. Kant warns that this is impossible for the human discursive intellect, and Fichte heeds this warning to the extent that his claim that "the I is because it is" is not an objectifying thesis. Fichte rejects any attempt to objectify the content of his intellectual intuition, namely, "to make the absolute existence and autonomy of the I, which is valid only for the I itself, into something which is valid in itself.,,3 The I of intellectual intuition is thus not an object of self-knowledge, but only a subjective certainty. I might say in passing that I regard Fichte's discussion of intellectual intuition as in some respect prefiguring Dilthey's attempt to define Innewerden as an initial mode of prerepresentational consciousness that is not yet burdened by any subject-object dualism. To be sure, Dilthey does not embrace the idea of a nonempirical intuition, and he differs from Fichte in clearly distinguishing between reflexive self-givenness and reflective self-positing. Innewerden as defined in Dilthey's Introduction to the Human Sciences is translated as "reflexive awareness" to indicate a prethetic as well as prereflective mode of consciousness that does not yet posit either a self or a world distinct from it. 4 The epistemological book 4 ofDilthey's Introduction to the Human Sciences has the Fichtean title "Die Tatsachen des BewuBtseins." But for Dilthey the facts, or Tatsachen, of consciousness are not to be rooted idealistically in an Act, or Tathandlung, of consciousness. When Dilthey argues that everything can be regarded as a fact of my consciousness, he is not claiming any initial translucence. Something may be a fact of my consciousness without my being aware of it as a fact of my consciousness. It is precisely this extra awareness that must be generated through Innewerden. For both Fichte and Dilthey, Kant was wrong to not allow consciousness to have any content other than what is provided by the senses. For Fichte, this means that the mind can produce its own contents even if this occurs initially through the abstract logical principles of identity and contradiction. Consequently, the initial positing of the I already involves more than Dilthey's prethetic Innewerden. The I is posed as a logical thesis. To it the not-I is opposed as its antithesis. Whereas the thesis I = I expresses an unconditional Tathandlung or Act that produces its own deed or affirms itself as a fact of consciousness, the antithesis expresses an absolute action (Handlung) that negates the I. Formally, this act of counterpositing is uncon-

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ditioned, but materially it is conditioned by presupposing an initial Act of positing. Indeed, as Fichte shows later, the not-I must be counterposited to the extent that the I finds itself to be not totally active, but also. passive or capable of suffering. Whereas the thetic principle of identity and the antithetic principle of contradiction involve total affirmation and total negation respectively, they prepare for the deduction of a third principle of synthesis that projects a partial unity between I and not-I. The third principle limits the original I, which means that it abolishes its reality, not wholly, as did the antithesis, but in part only (see GA, I, 2, p. 270). It can relate I and not-I by showing that they are both divisible into parts. Might opposites even have parts in common? With this question we have in effect moved fron1 absolute consciousness where opposites are qualitative and exclusive to objective consciousness where opposites are quantitative and can mutually determine each other. As a result we can expand Fichte's synthetic claim that "the I posits itself as determined by the not-I" (GA, I, 2, p. 287) into the further claim that the I determines itself as being subject to limitation by the not-I. To enable itself to synthesize opposites in this way, the mind must move from the simple transparency of subjective consciousness or intellectual intuition to the relational opacity involved in representational consciousness. It is in this transition that the imagination plays a crucial Tole for Fichte. Earlier I designated the understanding an "intermediary" faculty in that it represents what is actual and thus stands firm between the possibilities generated by the imagination and the necessity compelled by reason. But being a mere passive intermediary, the understanding is surpassed by the imagination, which gets conceived as an active intermediary. It is the imagination that actively mediates between the principle that posits the I and the principle that counterposits the not-I. The imagination is defined as the "absolute activity that determines reciprocity" (GA, I, 2, pp. 313-14; SK, p~ 150) and thus make possible the synthesis of I and not-I. Instead of marking some stable point between the I and not-I, the imagination goes back and forth between them in a process that Fichte characterizes as "hovering" (Schweben) (GA, I, 2, p. 360).5 The term "Schweben" was first used by Kant to describe an imaginative monogram in the Critique of Pure Reason: The monogram is "a sketch or outline that hovers in the midst of various experiences."6 In the Critique ofjudgment, where Kant expands his usage of ideas beyond rational ideas to include imaginative ideas, he also used the term "Schweben" in relation to the "normal idea" as a kind of indeterminate, average image. 7 The notion of hovering is radicalized by Fichte when he writes that the imagination "hovers in the middle between determination and non-determination, between finite and infinite" (GA, I, 2, p. 360; SK; p. 194). The imagination hovers not merely between experiential givens but

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between rational opposites. Imagination is not related to some empirical process of averaging but institutes a dialectical process of playing off metaphysical opposites against each other. I call the process "dialectical" because the opposites do not dissolve into each other. The process of Schweben could also be characterized as one of oscillation, whereby the imagination moves both outward to project intuitively and inward to reflect back on itself. The intuitive or centrifugal movement and the reflective or centripetal movement combine to give the imagination a circular or reciprocal movement that is basic for Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre. The dialectical oscillation of the imagination is transcendental in that it first makes experience possible. It constitutes the transition from pure intuition to objective intuition, from what I would call an original reflexive awareness to a representational consciousness of a world. The imagination effects this transition by transforming the principle of the not-I into a temporal phenomenal world. This transition from the logical to the temporal is reminiscent of the schematizing role assigned to the imagination by Kant. Prior to being schematized by the imagination, Kant's categories of the understanding have only a logical value and "represent no object"; only the schemata can give the categories an objective meaning (Bedeutung).8 In Fichte, of course, the relation between categories of the understanding and schemata of the imagination must be reversed. Thus Fichte's imagination all the more clearly provides our experience its initial meaning. Instead of merely lo~ating mean"': ing in objects, Fichte's oscillating imagination creates a meaning framework for objects in general. In his unpublished 1794 lectures "Concerning the Difference between the Spirit and the Letter within Philosophy," Fichte equates the productive imagination with spirit, namely, the ability to have at least a feeling or indeterminate sense of a whole (GA, II, 3, pp. 316, 339). The oscillating imagination activates the overall field of reference in relation to which individual objects then obtain their objective meaning. Let us now see how Fichte describes the process whereby the imagination produces time and a world. "It is this oscillation of imagination between irreconcilables, this conflict with itself," that according to Fichte "extends the state of the I therein to a moment of time" (GA, 1,2, p. 360;SK, p. 194). But the intuitive extension into time has a tendency to collapse: "The imagination does not sustain this [moment of time] long" (GA, 1,2, p. 361). The hovering imagination collapses at some point, which then provides an illusory substrate for reality-in any case, the understanding accepts it as a way of stabilizing a representational world. Fichte notes that an obvious exception to this tendency to collapse the play of the imagination is to be found in the feeling of the sublime "where there comes upon us an amazement, a suspension of change in time" (GA, 1,2, pp. 360-61; cf. SK, p. 194). This

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language, so reminiscent of Kant's account of the sublime as involving a process that "cancels the condition of time in the imagination's progression and makes simultaneity intuitable,,,g relates the imagination not to understanding but to reason. Just as Kant spoke of our attempt to achieve aesthetic comprehension when we are confronted by the sublime-a confrontation that in effect requires us to suspend time within time l O-so Fichte suggests that the sublime allows us to experience time as not merely a hovering flux but as a duration. When the imagination is related to the understanding, the limiting point B of its initial state A is a product of its own collapse. However, when the imagination is related to reason, as in the sublime, the limit B is incorporated into its own core. Speaking of the imagination again, Fichte writes: "It goes on, to the point where ... reason is completely determined by itself, where no limiting B other than reason is needed in the imagination, to the point, that is, where the representing self is represented" (GA, I, 2, p. 361; SK, pp. 194-95). Here the intuitive role of the imagination goes over into a reflective role that places the limiting object back into the subject. Reflection in relation to the imagination is a process that deflects the intuition of objects in the world back into the subject as its representations. The world becomes a represented world. The language Fichte uses to characterize the imagination is full of Kantian terminology, but its meaning is not always the same as Kant's. It is as ifsome of the language of the Critique ofJudgment were proj ected back into the Critique ofPure Reason. Kant also related the imagination to the problem of reflection, but reflection as a function of judgment in the Critique ofJudgment does not involve a turning in upon the self. Instead, as I have shown elsewhere, 11 reflective judgments in Kant involve an imaginative response by the self to the content of the world in an effort to produce an indirect interpretive sense of the overall order of things when direct understanding is not forthcoming. If my approach to Kant is correct, then we must distinguish between the cognitive role of the imagination in synthesizing the manifold contents of sense for the sake of the conventional scientific understanding of nature and the reflective role of the imagination in specifying rational ideas in terms of a more concrete aesthetic interpretation of systematic order. I t is this distinction that Fichte seems to collapse. For Kant we can have either a piecemeal, determinate understanding of nature or a reflective, indeterminate interpretation of the universe that opens up new possibilities in an effort to be more encompassing. But for Fichte reflection does not provide a mere indeterminate systematic unity. Instead, reflection has the opposite effect of limiting the centrifugal projections of the imagination by means of centripetal acts of self-determination. There is an interesting section in the Grundlage des Naturrechts (1797) where Fichte makes it clear that understanding is not piecemeal but

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comprehensive. The act of understanding (verstehen oder begreifen) is thus more than explanatory. He writes: "I have not understood when I am still explaining, when my judgment is still [a process of] oscillation [Schweben] and not yet fixed; when I am still led from parts of my knowledge to others" (GA, I, 3, p. 377). This suggests that the imagination already has the power to explain or provide partial connections. Understanding for Fichte requires that all partial or piecemeal explanations come together at some point. Whereas Kantian understanding involves nothing more than mechanistic explanation, Fichte's understanding is best exemplified in seeing how every part of an organism revolves around an organizing core and comes to rest there. We only achieve understanding when our search for explanations ceases. Even if there is no clear organizing function that differentiates human beings from other animals, Fichte demands that the imaginative search for explanations about what is human come to a halt. Fichte anticipated Sartre when he wrote, "Every animal is what it is; man alone is originally nothing at all. What he should be, he must become" (GA, I, 3, p. 379). One might think that, like Sartre, Fichte was opening up the idea of humanity for interpretation. Instead, Fichte finds a way to short-circuit the endless oscillation of imaginative explanations about human beings by insisting that a point of convergence must be assumed. When confronted with the purely organic phenomenon of the body of another human being, my imagination will continue to whir around in circles. According to Fichte, a stabilizing assumption must be invoked, for, as he writes, "I cannot put an end to gathering its phenomenal parts until I have come to the point that I must think of it as the body of a rational being" (GA, I, 3, pp. 377-78). Any prospect for extending imaginative explanations of human life into centrifugal interpretations flying off in different possible directions is resisted by the centripetal demand of reflection that the I possess a rational core. Reflection turns imagination in upon the self so that it can determine itself. Ultimately the imagination for Fichte has to be understood in relation to the practical task of self-determination. The imagination is dialectical in playing theory and practice off against each other in a way that Kant never could. Fichte in effect anticipates Marx's thesis that we can no longer be content to interpret the world but must change it. In considering a text rather than the world at large, Fichte shows a similar impatience with interpretation. In the "Second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge," there is the well-known passage where Fichte criticizes the "mere interpreters" (Auslegem) (GA, I, 4, p. 232) of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Such interpreters proceed literally. They content themselves with an "explanation according to the letter" (Erklarung nach dem Buchstaben) instead of seeking what Fichte himself is after, namely, an explanation according "to the spirit or intention which individual passages can have" (GA, I, 4, p. 231).

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Fichte makes it clear that an explanation or explication according to the spirit of a text must be based on the idea of it as a whole. Mere interpreters who proceed according to the letter may find their imagination being shuttled about from part to part. They can be dismissed as "literalists" (Buchstabler) content with mere "word-games and allusions" (Wortspielen und Anspielungen) (GA, II, 3, p. 316). Because Fichte proceeds from the spirit of the whole of Kant's philosophy, he feels entitled to assert that he alone understands the Critique ofPure Reason correctly: "ich allein ... verstehe es recht" (GA, I, 4, pp. 234-35). Whereas mere interpreters of the Critique of Pure Reason are forced, at least initially, to give each letter or part equal value, Fichte can devalue or even dismiss passages about the thing-in-itself as inconsistent with the overall content 'of Kant's critical insight. Fichte's claim that he understands this insight correctly is not an interpretation but an explanation according to the spirit. 12 Far from interpreting Kant, Fichte gives a critical reading that transforms Kant's text by explaining away any disparity between the letter and the spirit. There is no hermeneutical or dialectical reciprocity between parts and wholes, for the parts are completely subordinated to the whole. 13 Fichte's dialectic plays itself out not in the interpretation of the original text of transcendental idealism but in the mediation of its fundamental principles. Turning back to our theme of Fichte's dialectical imagination, we must now consider how he transforms Kant's sense of the dialectic. Kant's own preferred response to dialectical antitheses is to show that what appear to be contradictions may not be contradictions if the same terms can be shown to be used in various senses. Therefore the imagination need not have any dialectical function in resolving contradictions if they can be dissolved conceptually. Fichte's imagination, however, is expected to oscillate between irreconcilable antitheses. In dialectically mediating contradictions, the imagination neither dissolves nor resolves them. Instead, it institutes a process of reciprocal determination. Whereas Kant allows the imagination to project analogies or indirect symbolical relations between the infinite and the finite, Fichte forces them to come into direct confrontation and to delimit each other. No matter how fantastical this process of confrontation may be on the theoretical metaphysical level, it can make much sense on the practical level. For the remainder of this essay, I would like to explore how Fichte's dialectical imagination can illuminate the relations between the self and its world as the sphere of practical action. In other words, Fichte's theory of imagination may have a greater significance for understanding the world of the human sciences than the world of the natural sciences. Theoretically, the infinity involved in the positing of the I circles back onto itself, but from the practical perspective the imagination proceeds forward infinitely (geht fort in's

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unendliche) (GA, I, 2, p. 361). Here the circular Schweben of the imagination becomes a linear Streben (striving). Oscillation is transformed into a striving' that projects an infinite line proceeding beyond what is intuitable. The striving of practical reason is based on the "demand that everything should conform to the I" (GA, I, 2, p. 399; SK, p. 232), but this already presupposes the recognition that there is a "disparity" (Ungleichheit) (GA, I, 2, p. 400; SK, p. 233) between the I and the not-I. Instead of the purely reciprocal mutual determination of theory by which both I and not-I are made finite, practical reason asserts a one-sided determination in which the I is infinite and the not- I finite. Yet the infinitude of the I involves a striving that does not yet possess causality but seeks it. Here it is not some external X that introduces a check (Amtoft) on the activity of the I but an inward sense of a disparity between striving and capacity. Anticipating his later claim that only practical reason can command the I to limit itself to make room for the other, Fichte writes, "Not a being outside of the I, but the I itself must be the intelligence that posits the limitation of [the I]" (GA, I, 2, p. 400). It is in this way that practical reason can posit the I as simultaneously infinite and finite. To n1ake sense of this tension, Fichte relates his concept of practical striving to the psychological concepts of desire and feeling. When a striving (Streben) becomes self-productive and determinate, it is called a drive (Trieb) according to Fichte (GA, I, 2, p. 418; SK, p. 253). This might suggest that a drive is a finite mode of striving. Yet Fichte speaks of the drive to push on further (SK, p. 254). This leads me to suggest that if striving is the practical counterpart to the imagination's hovering and oscillation between the finite and infinite, then a drive may be the simple act of infinite projection that pushes further and further until it is countered by a finite feeling. Feeling (Gefiihl) is the dialectical opposite of a drive and is defined as its limitation (GA, 1,2, p. 419). Whereas drives are active, feelings here are passive. Such passive feelings are quite distinct from Kant's playful aesthetic feelings of pleasure and displeasure. In fact, they are also different from the feeling of the whole that we saw Fichte assign to spirit in the lectures "Concerning the Difference between the Spirit and the Letter within Philosophy." In these lectures feelings play a role from the start. The productive imagination is described "as a capacity for raising feelings to consciousness" (GA, 11,3, p. 317; EPW, p. 194). Accordingly, feeling are conceived more broadly to include spiritual as well as sensuous kinds. Whereas sensuous feelings "impose a check on our spontaneity from without, the sensation of the spiritual feeling is self-imposed" (GA, 11,3, p. 300). Thus Fichte goes on to claim that a feeling raised to consciousness by the imagination "is not a feeling of a check from without, but a feeling of our own way of acting on this check" (GA, 11,3, p. 301). The original feelings that provide the background for the productive imagination are spiritual feelings concerning freedom of action. 14

FichteJs Dialectical Imagination

15

Regardless of this more comprehensive theory of feelings being adumbrated in his lectures of 1794, the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre invokes only the passive or sensuous feelings. These feelings are really modes of touch (tactus) whereby the resistance of the world is imposed on us. The examples given of feeling are the sensations of sweetness and sourness, redness and yellowness. They are characterized as "blind" and "not conscious" (GA, 1,2, pp. 443, 426)-in effect reducing them to Kant's sensible intuitions. For Fichte's Grundlage, we can thus rewrite Kant's maxim that "thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind"15 as follows: Pure intuitions without feeling are empty, feelings without pure intuition are blind. Pure intuition provides an empty reflective self-consciousness. Only feelings of sense can put us in touch with the reality of the content of the world. These feelings are blind because they can only place us in contact with the resisting surfaces of things in the world. The inner nature or substance of these things can be neither intuited nor felt, but is projected by the productive imagination (GA, I, 2, pp. 440-41). It is the imagination in the context of practical reason that determines the inner core of the things constituting the not-I. It alone can determine whether these things are objects or other subjects. Fichte's dialectical imagination, which first makes possible the theoretical space and time in which a world can be represented, then makes necessary the practical confrontation with the reality of that world to decide whether the things in it are to be dealt with as objects to be manipulated or as other subjects to be respected. The imagination can thus be said to introduce the idea of world as well as to begin to differentiate between the worlds of the natural and the human sciences. In summary, we might reiterate some of the adjectives that have been applied to the imagination through our interpretation of Fichte and consider what they imply about the imagination. An imagination that "hovers" suggests the ability to survey possibilities. An imagination that "oscillates" would seem to expand and contract our meaning horizon. A "dialectical" imagination can play possible explanations off against each other. But none of these characterizations produces any understanding of or insight into reality unless the imagination can be centered on something. The need to concentrate on some stable point of reference seems to derive from a practical decision. Thus it is only through its conjunction with practical reason that the imagination can illuminate reality, and then not so much to interpret it as to change it. The true lesson of the dialectical imagination is that no faculty, no matter how central or productive, can be self-sufficient or all-powerful. Even Fichte's spontaneous imagination needs something beyond itself. We can now, I think, answer my original question, why the imagination rather than the understanding is the source of spontaneity. Understanding for Fichte means having arrived at the truth. Imagination involves the process of getting there through the production of meaning.

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NOTES

1. References to Fichte are to J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (hereafter GA) (see page 235). This quote GA, I, 2, p. 374. I have revised the English translation of The Science of Knowledge (hereafter SK), ed. and trans. Peter Heath and John Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), p. 207. 2. J. G. Fichte, "Review of Aenesidemus" (1794) in Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings (hereafter EPW), ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (I thaca: Cornell University Press, 1988), p. 65. 3. Ibid., p. 71. 4. Wilhelm Dilthey, Introduction to the Human' Sciences, in Selected Works, ed. with an Introduction by Rudolf A. Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), I, p. 26. A similar distinction between "reflexive" and "reflective" is used in Frederick Neuhouser's Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 169, but I do not think that Fichte himself succeeded in keeping them apart, the reason being that his consciousness is always already thetic. 5. Heath and Lachs translate it as "wavering" in SK, p. 194, but T. P. Hohler and John Sallis also use "hovering" in their discussions of the imagination in Fichte. See T. P. Hohler, Imagination and Reflection: Intersubjectivity. Fichte's Grundlage of 1794 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982), p. 74, and J. Sallis, Spacings-of Reason and Imagination in Texts of Kant, Fichte, Hegel (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), pp. 64-65. 6. I. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965), A570/B598. Translation altered. 7. I. Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft, Kants gesammelte Schriften, herausgegeben von der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 29 vols. (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1902-83), V, p. 234. 8. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, AI47/BI87. 9. I. Kant, Critique ofJudgment, trans. W. Pluhar (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1987), p. 116. 10. See Rudolf A. Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant: The Hermeneutical Import of the "Critique ofJudgment" (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p.74. 11. Makkreel, Imagination and Interpretation in Kant, ch. 6. 12. Heath and Lachs mistranslate Erkliirung as "interpretation," SK, p. 52. 13. For an account that regards Fichte as more sympathetic to interpretation, see C. M.Jalloh, Fichte's Kant-Interpretation and the Doctrine ofScience (Washington, DC: Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology and the University Press of America, 1988), pp. 32-33. 14. I suspect that this spiritual feeling of spontaneity replaces the intellectual intuition of the Aenesidemus review. 15. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A51/B75.

2

FichteJs Discovery of the Dialectical Method THOMAS M. SEEBOHM

THE CONTEXT

Are there discoveries in philosophy? Is there progress in philosophy? If we follow Fichte we have to answer "yes," though progress and discovery mean quite different things in the sciences, in the arts, and in philosophy. In philosophy progress is not a "finding"; nor is it an "invention of a hypothesis" (although this is closer, because progress is also an act of freedom); nor is it the type of discovery in which the genius in the arts finds- better, posits-a new rule for an original work of art (On the Concept, I, p. 37, fn.).l A discovery in philosophy has the character of a transcendental reflection that transcends and elevates previous philosophical reflection in an act of freedom. This is an act of freedom because it creates its objects, which. are previous acts of philosophical reflection, their structure, and their conditions. The new act is free, because there is never a necessity to enter a new level of reflection in the attempt to thematize previous reflections. A discovery is connected with a "research program," the projection of a philosophical reflection demanding a higher degree of rigor and new claims that go beyond what seemed to be desirable and p,ossible in previous steps of reflection. Before explicating this research program (that is, in Fichte's work, the program of philosophy as a Wissenschaftslehre, a doctrine of science), some remarks about the textual basis of the following considerations are necessary. The method of speculative thinking was developed in the decade from 1792 to 1802. It created a literature rich in mutual interrelations and sudden turns. Fichte and Schelling became involved in 1794; Hegel entered the scene in 1801-1802. Therefore it is necessary to determine precisely the sources of an investigation and their place in this complicated web. Fichte discovered the method of speculative thinking, which ten years later received the name "dialectical method,,2 in his Uber den BegrifJ der

17

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Wissenschaftslehre (On the Concept of the Doctrine of Science) (1 794) and his Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Foundations of the Entire Doctrine of Science) (1 794). One can add the Grundriss des Eigentiimlichen der Wissenschaftslehre (The Ground Plan of What Is Characteristic for the Doctrine of Science) (1 795), and the two "Einleitungen in die Wissenschaftslehre" ("Introductions to the Doctrine of Science") (1797). These "Introductions" belong to the context of the Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (The Attempts to Give a New Exposition ofthe Doctrine ofScience) (1797 -98). From the viewpoint of effective history these texts belong together because they contain the material on which Schelling based his critical reflections about Fichte's position (in his System des transzendentalen Idealismus [System of Transcendental Idealism] [1800]) and on which Hegel based his critique of Fichte (in Die Differenz des Fichteschen und Schellingschen Systems der Philosophie [The Difference between the Fichtean and the Schellingean System ofPhilosophy] [1801- 1802]). 3 They determine, therefore, the further development of variations of the method of speculative thinking. Avoiding the mistake of uncritically repeating Hegel's own assessment of the development, one has to acknowledge that there are three lines along which Fichte's early discovery further developed: (1) Fichte's own development, beginning with the Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (Exposition of the Doctrine ofScience) (1801-1802). The Neue Darstellung can today be read as belonging to the new development. There is no need, however, to do that. It can also be read as an introduction to the first principle of the Foundations of the Entire Doctrine ofScience of 1794, which mentions, in addition, "intellectual intuition." Intellectual intuition is, however, already called the "organ of speculative thinking" in Schelling's early writings on the Wissenschaftslehre, and the term was used in the same sense in Fichte's "Introductions." (2) Schelling distinguished his own approach from Fichte's system in his System of Transcendental Idealism. All the references to Fichte in Schelling's book are to the writings before 1798; nor can later references be found in Hegel's Difference between the Fichtean and Schellingean System. Hegel's philosophy in this text is still Schelling's philosophy. (3) The first of Hegel's published work to indicate his departure from Schelling is the Phenomenology of Mind (1807). It seems to me that these three developments lead in different directions and that, for example, Kroner's claim,4 that there is a linear development from Fichte to Schelling to and culminating in Hegel, is a Hegelian myth. I base this thesis on an account of Fichte's early exposition of the method of speculative thinking. In general, one has to distinguish between what Fichte says about his method, including the research program connected with it, and two fields of the application of the method. The first field is covered in A through E of §4 of the Foundations of the Entire Doctrine of Science. What is offered there is a methodical and systematic deconstruction of possible idealistic and dogmatic

Fichte Js Discovery of Dialectical Method

19

levels of reflection. The deconstruction ends at the beginning point of the positive application of the method in the "Deduction of Representation." At this point reflection moves (I, pp. 223ff.) in the opposite direction; this second movement is grounded in the highest synthesis, the "hovering power of imagination" reached in the first movement. It is possible to explicate the basic structures of consciousness with the aid of this synthesis (I, p. 225). At first glance, the development is nothing else but the "deduction" of the set of basic concepts used in Kant's transcendental deduction: understanding, power of imagination, intuition, sensibility, space, time, representation, and so forth. Fichte characterized the deduction of these structures as a wiederholende Auflosung (a repeating analysis of the highest synthesis) (I, p. 223). Prima facie, it seems to be the case that the New Exposition of 1797-98 is nothing but a more thorough account of the second movement, that is, the deduction of representation in the Grundlage. But there is also a serious systematic change. The "dialectic" of substance and causality, the guiding thread of the movement in A through E of §4 of the Grundlage, is now treated within the second movement in the New Exposition. The methodical preparation for the second movement is now restricted to considerations of the material of §§1-3 and A and B of §4 in the Grundlage. The dialectical deconstructive movement of the Grundlage in C through E of §4 of the Grundlage is reduced to a general discussion of dogmatism, including insufficient forms of idealism, and then to a critical interpretation and deconstruction of Kant's philosophy. The most striking change in the presentation of the system in the New Exposition is the essential role of intellectual intuition. Fichte used this concept in the "Review of Aenesidemus" (1794) (I, p. 22), but intellectual intuition is not mentioned at all in Uber den Begriff or in the Grundlage. Intellectual intuition is of crucial significance in Fichte's interpretation and critique of Kant's philosophy in the "Second Introduction" (1 797). This indicates that this "Introduction" is actually an introduction to the New Exposition. As mentioned above, Schelling had already used the term "intellectual intuition" in his early attempts to develop his own version of Fichte's discovery in 1794. We can thus distinguish three different aspects of the method in the early Fichtean system. The first aspect is the presentation of method in Uber den Begriff and in the Grundlage §§ 1-3 and §4, A and B. This exposition of the method is still used in the Grundriss, the Neue Darstellung, and, with some modifications, in Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism. The question is, however, whether intellectual intuition, though not mentioned explicitly in the Grundlage, can be introduced in this context without changing it. A second question is this: Is the first move in the Grundlage indeed, as Fichte claims, n1ethodically guiding the second move in the "Deduction of Representation"? A third question arises if this is, indeed, the case: Is the first

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move of the Grundlage tacitly presupposed in some sense in the later New Exposition? In this essay I will deal only with the first two questions. The following remarks are only hints concerning the implications of the third question. It is very difficult to justify in detail Fichte's claim in the Grundlage that the steps through which we reach the highest synthesis determine the steps of analysis in the "Deduction of Representation." On the one hand, D and E of §4 are presented with great rigor, but it is nevertheless difficult to grasp their inner structure in a manner that allows us to use it in a precise reconstruction of the steps of the "Deduction of Representation." On the other hand, it can be said that the "Deduction of Representation" in'the Grundlage, compared to that in the Grundriss, has the character of a sketch. The problem with the Grundriss, as well as with Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism, is that we can recognize certain structures that are formally parallel to D and E, but neither Fichte nor Schelling refer to these portions of the Grundlage in their later writings. Furthermore, we already find in C-E a deduction of the Kantian categories of causality, substance, and mutual determination. But in this case, causality is connected with the divisible not-I and substance with the divisible I. The question is, therefore: What is the relation between this deduction and a deduction of these categories belonging to the "Deduction of Representation" both in the doctrine of science and in the passages that have the same topic in the later writings of Fichte and Schelling? Both men leave us with the impression that the procedure in these deductions is selfexplanatory and needs no special grounding in the first movement of the Grundlage in C-E. As a matter of fact, C-E are never mentioned in the further development. Only the problems connected with them survive, without ever being traced back to the Grundlage. The first problem is the objective question of the development of the dialectic of substance and causality, of substance and ground. The second is the problem of the relation between a negative, deconstructive use of dialectics and its constructive use within the system, the question that still haunts Hegel's system and occurs there as the question of the relation between the Phenomenology of Mind and the system itself. What has been said about the third question is sufficient for the purpose of this essay because the third question does not touch (1) the thesis that the basic viewpoints determining the method occur in §§ 1-3 and §4, A and B of the Grundlage, and (2) the thesis that these viewpoints do not change in the early period; and since they do not change, they determine the further corroboration of the method in both the Grundlage and the Grundriss.

FichteJs Discovery of Dialectical Method

21

THE PROJECT OF A "DOCTRINE OF SCIENCE OR SO-CALLED PHILOSOPHY"

In general, one can characterize Fichte's project as an attempt to save the Cartesian-Spinozistic ideal of "philosophy as a rigorous science" on a higher level, that is, on a level beyond Kant's Critique. What Fichte says in the "Second Introduction" highlights his intentions. According to Kant, consciousness is only conditioned [bedingt] by self-consciousness, that is, the content of consciousness can be grounded [begriindet] by something outside the self-consciousness. The only requirement is that the results of this grounding not contradict the conditions of self-consciousness, that they not cancel its possibility; but they need not be produced [hervorzugehen] out of self-consciousness. According to the doctrine of science, consciousness as a whole is determined [bestimmt], that is, everything that occurs in consciousness is grounded [begriindet] , given [gegeben] , produced [herbeigefihrtJ by selfconsciousness. (I, p. 477) This criticism of Kant, though it was written later than On the Concept, is a good clue for the understanding of the first section of On the Concept. Speaking about the hypothetically established concept of the doctrine of science, Fichte argues that there can be only one principle, and that all contents of a possible doctrine of science are connected in it (hiingenin ihm zu einem Ganzen zusammen) (I, p. 38). The first principle must be absolutely certain and cannot be itself grounded by something else. All certainty of the theorems (Siitze) of the doctrine of science (Wissenschaftslehre) must be derived from this first certainty. In order to achieve this goal, the doctrine of science must have a systematic form. Fichte first leaves us with the impression that this certainty has the character of a derivation: If statement A is certain, then statement B is certain, and then statement C is certain, and so forth. But soon, in Uber den Begriff, it is sufficiently clear that Fichte's method is by no means a deduction more geometrico. Kant has shown (B810ff.) that mathematical proofs cannot be the paradigm for metaphysical and transcendental proofs, and hence that the Cartesian-Spinozistic approach is futile. Fichte does not deny this thesis. As we have seen, he later elucidated his first principle by interpreting and deconstructing Kant's idea ora first principle, by modifying the basic Kantian concept of the condition of possibility. What was for Kant a presupposed condition, for Fichte is a determining ground. The content of consciousness is not determined, grounded, by Kant's principle. Kant refers to a thing-initself for the purpose of determining the content of consciousness. According to Fichte, Kant also introduces the categories and the forms of intuition as factors in his philosophy that are not derived from his principle ("Second Introduction," I, p. 478). Kant finds his categories in the forms ofjudgment;

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that is, without further grounding, he presupposes formal logic as something pregiven. He also accepted as pregiven the validity of the basic principles of logic, the laws for analytic judgments: namely, the laws of identity, noncontradiction, and the excluded middle. He also introduced, without even mentioning it, the principles of logical grounding, the ground of relating (Beziehungsgrund) , and the ground of distinction or difference (Unterscheidungsgrund). He furthermore presupposes in his whole enterprise the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments. Finally, he presupposes the logical distinction between form and content. 5 It is essential that Kant presupposes all of this not only as factors in his analysis of a possible experience. There can be no doubt that he applies formal logic in his development of transcendental logic. His concept of deduction as an exposition of the inner conditions of the possibility of an object, and hence his whole transcendental deduction, presupposes logic and even a specific application of the categories. He speaks of the unity of the transcendental apperception, as well as of its spontaneity, that is, a certain type of causality. He characterizes transcendental apperception as the highest condition for the possibility of experience and the manifold of sensibility. Fichte, in contrast, already says in On the Concept (I, p. 68) that the doctrine of science determines and conditions logic. No logical principle, not even the law of noncontradiction, can be presupposed in the doctrine of science, and that also means that no logical principle can be presupposed in the method of the doctrine of science. The distinction between logical form, on the one hand, and the content from which it is abstracted, on the other, has to be developed in the doctrine of science itself. That does not mean, especially in Fichte's approach to the Foundations ofthe Entire Doctrine ofScience in 1794, that logical form is not a top priority; it is a top priority. The method of the doctrine of science begins with an explication of the principles of logic. It is clear from the "Deduction of Representation," first in the Grundlage and_ !l}en in the Grundriss, that the goal of the theoretical doctrine of science is nothing else but the deduction of the factors presupposed in Kant's transcendental deduction. Furthermore, to the extent that logical forms are involved here, their Fichtean deduction is first of all the deduction of their function and significance in the explication of the first principle. The categories of quality and quantity are already deduced in this framework. The categories of relation occur at the beginning of §4. It is essential to keep in mind in Kant's transcendental deduction that they are deduced first in their "application" to the exposition of "a possible experience" and not in their application to objects of experience, which has three results: (1) The specific function that the categories of relation have in our knowledge of objects, the knowledge of the fully generated empirical consciousness, still needs to be determined. (2) The function they have in their application to the doctrine

J

Fichte s Discovery of Dialectical Method

23

of science, that is, for the development of the systematic form of the doctrine of science, is different, and in some very essential aspects just the opposite, of their function as applied to our knowledge of objects. (3) A fully developed account, especially of the Grundriss, could show that the task Kant had in mind in his transcendental deduction becomes obsolete. In On the Concept Fichte mentions further requirements of a successful doctrine of science. The first requirement is that every theorem of the doctrine of science must be connected with all others; the second requirement is that the system must be complete; and the third requirement is that the system must come back to the beginning, in the end. Since completeness cannot be fully demonstrated in detail, this "coming back to the beginning in the end" is the only way to prove the completeness and the universal connectedness of all theorems of the system (I, pp. 58-59). If the requirements are fulfilled, then it follows that there can be only one possible system of the doctrine of science, that is, the context of concepts developed is the necessary context for knowing in general. Such requirements belong to the project of the system. The question is whether the method used in the deductions which constitute the system is capable of fulfilling them. It is a disputed question whether Fichte accomplished these goals in his actual exposition, and perhaps also whether he can reach them at all with his method. Hegel, in his Differenzschrift, was the first to deny that Fichte had accomplished his goals. This denial implies that Hegel acknowledged that Fichte's criteria as such are the criteria of a successful speculative system. Fichte deserved some credit, at least, for establishing the criteria. But Hegel was never able to admit the essential importance of Fichte's or Schelling's works in making possible the development of his own system. Since it is only possible to ask whether a certain method of speculative thinking can reach this goal after establishing the method-this at least is Fichte's point of view (I, p. 54)-one can consider the method as such without considering the further requirements mentioned in On the Concept. THE METHOD,

1: AN OLD PARADOX RAISED AGAIN

Seen from the viewpoint of On the Concept, the problem of the first principle and the question of how a first principle determines the form of a system is primarily a logical question. Fichte insists that his deductions in the first section 'of the Grundlage follow the laws of reflection, that is, the laws of logic. The deductions do not follow the laws of logic, however, in the sense that these laws determine the form of the deductions; rather, the deductions first use these laws as a clue and then, after reflecting their presuppositions, the deductions of the doctrine of science derive these laws from the principles of the doctrine of science. The circle involved in this procedure can be justified.

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If we interpret the problen1s of On the Concept in the light of the context in which Fichte developed his guiding ideas, we can easily see that· the formal logic, the laws for analytic judgments: namely, the laws of identity, noncontradiction, and the excluded middle. He also introduced, without even mentioning it, the principles of logical grounding, the ground of relating (Beziehungsgrund) , and the ground of distinction or difference (Unterscheidungsgrund). He furthermore presupposes in his whole enterprise the distinction time determines the systematic forn1 of the doctrine of science and is not the same as the formal logic of the 0 bj ect. In order to find-not to ground or to determine-the first principle, Fichte starts with the law of identity: A = A. Two points have to be kept in mind. One of them is made clear by Fichte himself (I, p. 92, cf. On the Concept, I, pp. 72, 74): To begin with the law of identity seems, in the light of the original program, to be a circle. This circle is a necessary circle because the free act that elevates itself to the level of the reflection in which the I is given to itself as the a bsolute I is an act of freedom in the medium of empirical consciousness. It is an act in the medium of the fully "constituted" object, that is, the universe both of objects and of other subjects. Even if the goal is to find a "condition of the possibility" as a "determining ground" that is grasped "in itself" by, as it is said later, intellectual intuition, it is nevertheless necessary that the reflection of the philosopher, of the observer, has to begin in this medium. Since what the philosopher is looking for is the first principle of the doctrine of science, pure and without any admixture of what might later be derived in the doctrine of science, the correlate of that starting point in empirical ·consciousness must be the most abstract principle governing "objects" in the world of empirical consciousness, the law of identity. The second point to be kept in mind is that the basic condition for "making sense out of Fichte" is, in my view, to recognize properly how he understands logical principles as laws governing the universe of objects of empirical consciousness. The key problem here is this: What does the variable "A" in "A = A," the principle (Satz) of identity, and in "-...A not = A," the principle of opposing (Satz des Entgegensetzens) , mean, that is, what are its proper substitution instances? In traditional formal logic and also in Kant's logic the first principles of logic are the principle of identity and the principle of contradiction (Satz des Widerspruchs). The principle of the excluded middle is usually considered as immediately implied in the second principle, although it is sometimes listed as the third principle. It is significant that Fichte calls the second principle the "principle of opposing" and never mentions "contradiction" in the explication of the first principles. He mentions "contradiction" only after the third principle is established. The formula for the Satz des Widerspruchs, the principle of (non-)contradiction in traditional logic is "Not: A and not-A."

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Its substitution instances for A can only be either propositions or predicates. Fichte uses a different formula for the second principle of logic in which the identity operator occurs: "---A not = A. "Thus the principle of opposing has nothing in common with logical contradiction but, as we will show, though it is one of the presuppositions for the generation of "dialectical" contradictions, it is not, considered for itself, a "dialectical" contradiction. I t should be kept in mind that even in Hegel's Logic the "principle of contradiction" of traditional logic, that is, the principle of noncontradiction, occurs in the section on "Reflection" as an implication of identity. "Not: A = ---A," that is, "A is not ---A," is only an expression of "A = A" using double negation, a negative formula expressing identity. What follows is opposition (Entgegensetzung) and then comes contradiction, a concept presenting the synthesis of identity and opposition. 6 The basic question is: What are the substitution instances of A in A = A? What comes to n1ind talking about the law of identity today is, first, Leibniz's law of identity for individuals. The identity of individuals is a very specific application of the law of identity in the formula A = A. A in Fichte's formula may refer to every content oj consciousness: individuals, universals, substances, properties, categorical forms, real entities of all kinds, and also entities that exist only in fantasy. Grasping each of them means to apprehend their identity and their being opposed to everything else. Even grasping the difference between, for example, a category and a universal property presupposes the two laws. 7 Since, for Fichte, the only condition a substitution instance has to fulfill is that A is a content of consciousness, it follows that an understanding of Fichte's conception of the principle of identity and the principle of opposing as principles ofjormallogic presupposes a radically restricted understanding of formal logic as a pure intensional logic. For an intensional logic in the traditional sense, that is, a formal logic in the Port-Royal frame, the basic and first logical theory is the theory of concepts (Lehre vom Begriff, conceptus). Kant's conception of formal logic in general belongs to this traditio!! as well. Thus the most basic formulations of the principles of logic are the formulas that can be applied to concepts, not to statements, judgments, and predicates. That Fichte presupposes this frame becon1es definitely clear in the way in which he explicates his third principle of logic, the principle of the ground. Here it can be seen that his formulations of the laws of logic are precisely those relevant in the logic of the concept. Finally, we have to remember that within this frame, principles governing a certain discipline, in this case formal logic, are not restricted to that discipline in their validity. To use non-Fichtean language, in addition to their logical significance, they have an ontological significance. Using Fichte's language and thinking, we have to say that they do not apply only to concepts and to what can be generated

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fronl concepts, that is, judgments and syllogisms, but to all contents of consciousness: for example, intuitions, colors, sounds, specific shapes. This is the reason for Fichte's claim that thinking the principle of identity as the principle that governs the givenness of any object A requires the most radical form of abstraction. What is left by abstraction implies and presupposes a necessary connection between A and A. The explanation of the necessary connection requires precisely the move of "reflection" introduced by Kant in § 16 of his transcendental deduction. Fichte does not mention this presupposition in the Grundlage, but it is sufficiently clear in his later interpretation and critique of Kant that he is aware of it (I, p. 475). Such a transcendental reflection shows that the result of the radical abstraction, the "A," is only posited by an I. Furthermore, the formula A = A requires that A be posited two times, and that the two occurrences be connected by " = " in an I that is the same I in both acts of positing. Since real existence is not a condition that has to be fulfilled by an etwas, by an A for which A = A is true, the positing does not have to be qualified in any sense by what is required for a real, ideal, fictional, or otherwise givenness for the I. The formula for the reflected law of identity is, therefore, "I posits A," and for the law of identity, "I posits A as identical with A." What is presupposed in the formula "I posits A" in connection with the formula "I posits A as identical with A" is the identity of the I itself. It is possible to explicate the next step in Fichte's consideration in Kantian terminology. The presupposed identity of the I is the analytical identity and unity of consciousness. But the analytical unity presupposes the synthetical unity of consciousness, a pure spontaneity. In Fichte's language, precisely this highest transcendental Act is expressed in the formulas of the first principle of the doctrine of science: "I posits I," and "I posits I as identical with I." Note that this formula is, from a formal point of view, nothing but the result of substituting "I" for "A" in the formula of the reflected principle of identity for all contents of consciousness: "I posits A as identical with A.,,8 Seen still from a formal point of view, the substitution of I for A goes beyond the realm of substitution instances for A. A had as substitution instances in the reflected form only objects posited in the I but not the I itself. In addition, seen from a formal point of view, instantiating A as I creates the most radical self-reference. Fichte indicates this with his famous neologism that A as posited in the I is a Tatsache. A Tatsache is not simply a fact in the English sense. "Tatsache" is a translation of the Latin ''factum.'' A factum is not every "fact" but something made by an agent. The term in German had its original field of application in jurisprudence. "I posits A" is expressing a Sache of a Tat, a Tatsache. Since not only subject and predicate but also subject and object are the same in "I posits I as identical with I,"

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the deed does not refer to a fact but to an Act. The principle is an expression for a Tathandlung, a deed-an Act. What has been said is already sufficient for the explication of what is later meant by "intellectual intuition." I will postpone this discussion. The explication of the first three principles will be interpreted first in terms of the Grundlage alone. It should already be sufficiently clear that the framework of this explication is only formal and transcendental logic. What should be mentioned, however, is the following: Pure identity without any admixture of non-identity can only be expressed in the first principle. If an A is involved in the formula "I posits A as identical with A," we have the opposition of I and A, that is, the opposition of consciousness and content of consciousness. In other words, the not-I (NichtIch) is implicitly present in the development of the first principle. 9 Some other logical concepts are implied in the explication of the fi~st principle. I want to come back to them later and follow now, in the explication of the second principle, the guidelines pregiven by the logical principles. In formal logic the principle of opposing is "'-A not = A." First Fichte points out that the presupposition of this logical principle is again the identical I: Opposing A and not-A requires the identity of the opposing I. Second, he shows that the opposing as such is posited by the I. Thus there is opposing as posited by the I. The transfer by substitution to the I itself happens very abruptly: As certainly as one has to admit the absolute certainty of the statement "-.-A not = A" among the facts of empirical consciousness, it is just as certain that a not-I is without qualification (schlechthin) opposed to the I. (I, p. 104) It is certain, we can interpolate, because the opposition of I and not-I is implicitly presupposed in empirical consciousness and explicitly presupposed in the reflected formula of the law of identity for contents of consciousness. If I posits A as identical with A, then I opposes itself to, that is, posits itself in opposition to, the A. Fichte does not, as he does for the third principle, argue that the second principle is a necessary condition in the explanation of the possibility of consciousness. He uses this viewpoint only after the discovery that the first and the second principles cancel each other. The opposition of the I and the A was implied in the discovery of the first principle. Therefore the second principle was, from the very beginning, implied in the discovery of the first principle. The second principle of the doctrine of science, "I opposes in the I a not-I to the I," is again the result of substituting I for A in the formula for the content that is thought by the empirical I if this I thinks the second principle of logic, namely, "I opposes in the I a not-A to the A." Nothing more than this substitution is required for the discovery of the second principle of the

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doctrine of science. It can be said in general that the principles of the doctrine of science are the result of substituting I for A in the principles of logic, that is, substituting "I" for "content of consciousness." Such a move is prima facie not awkward because "I" is for itself a "content." However, at second glance, it is a specific content, because "I posits I" is self-referential, but "I posits A" is not self-referential. We are again on the threshold of the theory of "intellectual intuition." In order to connect the two principles, the other logical viewpoints introduced by Fichte in the discussion of the principles have to be considered now. He said, about the first principle, that it is unconditioned in every respect; that is, it is conditioned neither in content nor in form. Furthermore, everything to which the logical principle A = A can be applied in empirical consciousness has reality, and it has reality justin the limits of A, determined by A = A. In other words: An object in general has as much reality as it has real predicates. According to the principle, it is characteristic of the being of the I that it is posited by the I and that the being of the I is positing itself. Its reality is unconditioned and unlimited because, given only the first principle, considered by itself, there is no opposing reality. The I of the first principle is an absolute I. Since the absolute is necessarily unum, to hen, das Eine (the only absolute singleton), the I of the first principle is the absolute as such. The second principle is determined in content. Not-A is determined in content, namely, its content is A. What is added in this formula is negation. Going back again to the I, it has to be said that in this case, also, the opposing presupposes the identity and unlimited reality of the I. What is added is the act of opposing. Thus, we get the negation of I, not-I (Nicht-Ich) , nothing more, nothing less. Since I is its entire positing, no positing is outside the I, and the act of opposing is also an act of the absolute I. As a positing, the opposing is unconditioned; it is unconditioned as opposing. As Fichte points out, with respect to empirical consciousness, in A and ~A we have the categories of reality and negation. A is a determined, limited content of empirical consciousness. With respect to the principles, however, we have a different situation. The identity and reality posited in the first principle is unlimited, absolute. The negation opposed to it is, hence, also an unlimited, unconditioned, absolute negation. We have an opposition between the unconditioned, unlimited, absolute reality and the unconditioned, unlimited absolute negation of absolute reality. This "of absolute reality" is the only determination qualifying the character of the otherwise unconditioned second principle. It is conditioned in what it negates, and what it negates is absolute reality. In order to grasp what has happened here, it is useful to return to an old thinking pattern in metaphysics that can be traced back to Plato, but that can also be considered in the form that it received in Kant immediately

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before Fichte started his enterprise. According to Kant, pure reason constructs its metaphysical Ideal of Pure Reason (B599-611) in the following way: Given any individual A as a real entity, its reality is determined by the real predicates of A and by the negated predicates of A. Thus the sum total of all predicates, that is, of all reality, is given for reason if some A is given, and the negation of all predicates negated of A is dropped. Since there is no negation involved in the idea of all real predicates, there is no contradiction involved, if we think of this sum total as an identity and unity. However, in order to come back to the determinate contents of A, even to one such content A, one has to cancel the identity and unity of the ens realissimum. One negation is in this respect the negation of the identity of totality. The way out for pure reason is to hypostatize the ens realissimum and to understand it as the ground of the being of all determined entities; as the ground of being, the ens realissimum is not in them but is separated from them as their ground. Note that we have here the threefold unity of reality, negation, and ground. We will discover this unity soon in Fichte's principles. Fichte's approach is different. Though he also uses a determined content, A, and its identity as the starting point of his reflection, he does not reach absolute identity and reality by an extrapolation based on Kant's principle of reason: If the conditioned is given, then the totality of the conditions for the conditioned is given. According to Kant, this principle creates the illusions of pure reason, and Fichte never challenged this result of Kant's Critique ofPure Reason. Fichte discovers unconditioned, unlimited reality in its identity in the absolute Act, the Tatandlung of the I. Thus Fichte obtains unconditioned reality and identity immediately, rather than through an indirect process of construction grounded in Kant's principle of reason or any other mediating propositions. Accordingly, opposition and the negation involved in it do not lead back to a multiplicity of determined finite entities, as they do in Kant. It is an absolute, unconditioned opposing and negating, which has as its content only the unconditioned and unlimited reality and identity. The opposition of positing and opposing leads to a "contradiction." It is a contradiction in a very specific and eminent sense. Fichte does not yet use the word "contradiction" in his treatment of the relation of the first two principles. He calls this specific relation a "reciprocal absolute canceling." Seen from the viewpoints that will be developed later, one can understand why he avoids "contradiction." Contradictions can occur only with respect to and within the synthesis that mediates the root "contradiction" that has the character of absolute canceling. It is obvious that the clash between two Tatandlungen cannot be understood as the possible ontological contradiction of two Tatsachen, let alone as the merely logical contradiction of two statements, predications, or markers of a concept. Reality as a whole and the negation of reality is in question. Even the "dialectical" contradiction of the further

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development of the method will not have the "logical" form of contradictions between Tatsachen or contradictions between judgments, predications, and markers in concepts. They ~re all rooted in the primordial mutual canceling of the first two principles and can be solved with the aid of the perspectives provided by the third principle. Fichte in the very beginning of the doctrine of science explicates the original contradiction sui generis as follows. To the extent that the not-I is posited, the 1 is not posited. But the not-I is posited in the I because it is opposed or posited in opposition to it. This opposing cancels the identity of the I that it presupposes. To the extent that the I is presupposed, it must be posited. Hence the I must be posited to the extent that the not-I is posited. The two "statements" cancel each other. The second principle is opposed to itself, and thus cancels itself. But it cancels itself only to the extent that it is posited. It cancels itself and it does not cancel itself. But with this, the first principle is canceled (aufgehoben) to the extent that the second principle is posited. To that extent, the I is not = I, but = not-I. Let me rephrase this point: According to the first principle, the I is entirely its positing and what it posits, nothing more and nothing less. According to the second principle, the I posits' the not-I. Hence the I is entirely this positing and what it posits: the not-I. Since the identity of the I is given in the first principle by the formula "I posits I," as the identity of positing and posited, and since the first principle is presupposed by the second in content, we have the identity of the I and the not-I. Fichte says: "All these conclusions are conclusions drawn from the established principles according to the laws of reflection, that is, the laws of logic, which are presupposed" (I, p. 107). They are presupposed along with the laws of identity and opposition (which have already been derived), the laws of form and content in affirmation and negation, and the categories of reality and negation. Let us look back: The contradiction is derived in a specific medium, that is, the medium of Fichte's approach of thinking absolute reality audits identity via the givenness of the I for the I. But the contradiction that occurs, if the ens realissimum is thought as an identity and if in addition one needs to explain opposition, difference, and multiplicity, can count, as we have seen, as a prefiguration of Fichte's root contradiction. Philosophy since Plato has shown time and time again that attempts to think the Absolute or the totality leave us with paradoxes and contradictions. Fichte's analysis up to this point offers nothing new in principle. He has offered only a very interesting new way of formulating such an "antinomy" for Kant's "I think," or, more precisely, for Kant's unity of transcendental apperception. To use Hegel's term: Fichte has only rediscovered in a new context the basic laws of negative dialectic. He has not reached the shores of a positive dialectic. Fichte accomplishes the new step leading to the further development of speculative dialectical thinking with the explication of the third principle.

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THE METHOD, 2: THE DISCOVERY OF POSITIVE DIALECTICS

The guiding viewpoint for the further development, beginning with the third principle, is the task of restoring the identity of consciousness that was lost in the mutual canceling of the first and the second principles. More precisely: The task is to find an X under which all the conclusions drawn from the first two principles are correct, without canceling the identity of consciousness. Thus X must be in consciousness and must be a product of an original act of consciousness, Y. The form of this act is predetermined: The opposed I and not-I shall be united; both shall be posited (gleich gesetzt) without canceling each other. Fichte's use of capital letters is an indicator of his idea of the method of solving the task of "deducing" synthesis terms. The lower-case letters "a" and "b" are used in algebraic equations as variables for known numbers. The lower-case letters "x" and "y" are used as variables for unknown numbers. Thus, for instance, the task given with the equation a + x = b is to determine the unknown number "x." The task is solved in the equation x = b - a. Fichte uses "A" and "B," as we have already seen, as variables for known contents of consciousness. The variable "X" is used for an unknown content, the variable "Y" for the act of consciousness that posits this X. The known contents are the two first principles and the fact that they cancel each other. The deduction can, therefore, be characterized as analogous to the deductions used in algebraic equations with two unknown numbers. In algebra too, deductions determining the value of two unknowns have the character of an "experiment"; that is, we "guess" a possible solution after a careful analysis of what is given. Whether the guess is correct or not can be decided after constructing the solution based on the experimental guess. A further explication of the method of positive dialectic, revealing its peculiar character, can only be given after finding the third principle. It is this principle itself that determines the true nature of the method. The third logical principle, the principle of the ground, will be deduced from the third principle of the doctrine ofscience, but the latter is not the guiding thread in the search for X and Y. Fichte begins the search with an analysis of the results of the first and second principles of the doctrine of science. It was possible to show that the categories of reality and negation, being and not-being, are implied in the first and second principles. Though he does not mention Kant in the beginning, he indicates in note 9 of §3 (I, pp. 122-23) that Kant's categories of quality are the key to the solution. The category that provides the synthesis is limitation (Einschriinkung Schranke), and in Kant's table of categories this category is the third category of quality, as Fichte himself points out. There is a further hint in Kant, which Fichte uses without mentioning it. Kant says (B96) that the principle of the division J

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(Eintheilung, dihairesis) of the system of categories is not, like the division of all other concepts, a dichotomy. There are three categories in each set (Classe). Furthermore, the third category in each set has its origin in the combination (Verbindung) of the second with the first. But this origin, that is, the mere combining of the first and the second categories, is, nevertheless, an independent act of the understanding. Act Y of the I, the lin1iting (Einschriinken), is also for Fichte an independent act. The third category is not "analytically" implied in the first two acts of the I. Fichte goes one step further. To limit something means to limit its reality not completely but in part. With the concept of limit we have, in addition to the concepts of reality and negation, the concept of divisibility: the capacity of accepting quantity, not a determined quantity. Thus we also have the transition to the categories of quantity. What Fichte does here and later in the theoretical doctrine of science with respect to Kant's table of categories as a whole is of decisive significance for the development of speculative thinking, including the thinking of Schelling and Hegel. The original inventor of this dialectical "deduction," perhaps better, "interpretation," of Kant's table of categories is Fichte. His successors are quick in their criticism of the shortcomings in Fichte's original discovery, but what they added or-changed is not very much compared to his basic discovery. The third principle is: "The I opposes in the I a divisible I and a divisible not-I." It is determined in form and in content by the first two principles and their mutual canceling. It is, however, an independent act. The two first principles taken by themselves cancel each other completely. They determine the third in their need for a solution. Furthermore, considered from the viewpoint of the very possibility of empirical consciousness, the three acts of the I are one and the same act and can be distinguished in this act only by reflection, so to speak, as different factors, abstract moments in one and the same act. The proof that empirical consciousness (that is, the medium in which the doctrine of science begins) is indeed made possible by the third principle, is the "proof" of the correctness of the deduction and its assumption. This proof is, however, finished only after the system is completed. Only the completed system can show that it was indeed possible to reconstruct empirical consciousness with the aid of the first principle. What can be seen immediately is only that the third principle of the doctrine of science is indeed sufficient to deduce the third principle of logic, the principle of the ground, and, furthermore, that the third principle of the doctrine of science determines the method of further steps in the construction of the system. These questions can be discussed only after considering the relation between the third and the first principles. Given the third principle, the absolute I as the pure positing Act, Tathandlung, "steps back." The absolute

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I, positing in itself a divisible I and a divisible not-I, is no longer included completely in either side, because the absolute I as such is not divisible. In the Kantian construction of the ens realissimum a hypostatizing of the ens realissimum was necessary in order to think its unity and identity as opposed to the divisibility of the determined entities. The further step taken by pure reason, according to Kant, is to personalize its ideal, a step that brings it even closer to Fichte's absolute I. However, the construction of Kant's pure reason is static. Fichte's construction has the power of further movement. The third principle indicates the direction of the process in which the original "contradiction" can be canceled, but it is not the complete and final synthesis. The completed synthesis, to use a concept that will be introduced at once, requires the whole process back to the absolute I and does not come to a stop as long as the just-indicated hypostatizing and separation of the absolute I and consciousness is not itself canceled. Fichte, in his deduction of the third principle of logic from the third principle of the doctrine of science, uses certain viewpoints taken from the logic textbooks of his time. The technical terms involved will be unknown to readers trained in modern versions of formal logic. He gives a peculiar definition of the concept "ground" with the aid of these technical terms. Universal concepts are in general characterized as the grounds of cognition of their objects. Objects can be objects of intuition, but the objects can be themselves concepts also. If they are concepts, a further distinction must be introduced. A concept as the ground of cognition is complete only if it contains both the ground of relation (Beziehungsgrund or Verbindunsgrund, ground of connection) and the ground of distinction (Unterscheidungsgrund). Only if both are given have we a determinate object. The underlying distinction is well known. Fichte says (I, pp. 116, 118) that the grounds of distinction are the specific differences of two species. The common ground relating two species is the genus. He proves this "principle of the ground" as a logical principle by showing that it follows from (1) the principle of identity, (2) the principle of opposition, and (3) the principle of divisibility. The proof is obvious and convincing if one understands it correctly, namely, as an exposition of the principle of the ground of cognition. A = B to the extent that A = X and B = X, where X is the ground of relation, that is, the genus. The task is to determine the unknown genus. A is not = B, and vice versa, to the extent that A is -.. X, that is, to the extent to which the content of A is divisible. The same holds for B. What is -.. X for A and -.. X for B must, however, be taken for itself, in unmediated opposition, like "rational" and "irrational," with respect to the ground of relation, "animal." -.. X is the unknown specific difference that has to be determined in order to determine X. What is thus "provable," given the viewpoints provided by the principles for determinate contents of empirical consciousness, is by no means the

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interplay of identity, opposition, and divisibility determining the method of the doctrine of science. The logical principle of ground has its application in the field of the contents of empirical consciousness. The task is .now to reinterpret the "principle of the ground" in order to grasp its specific form and significance in the context of the "material principles" of the doctrine of science. Fichte's explication of the method in his following notes 2 to 9 of §3 of the Foundations ofthe Entire Doctrine ofScience has a complex structure. He switches back and forth between a further explication of the principle of the ground in logic and the explication of the principles of the doctrine of science. On the one hand, these principles are the determining grounds for the principles of formal logic, but on the other hand, they have a completely different function in determining the method of the doctrine of science, the n1ethod of positive dialectic. Fichte provides further explications of basic concepts of formal logic in notes 3 and 4 (I, pp. 112-13). lie offers a new interpretation of the concepts of analysis and synthesis. The logical act in which we search for the marker (Merkmal; the Latin term of the logic of the time is nota) in which two compared concepts are opposed, that is, the specific difference, he calls an "antithetical act." The antithetical method in logic is, as he says, usually called the analytic method. He rejects this term, however, because it is misleading, in that it is very often connected with the false opinion that one can develop the content of a concept by analysis without first gathering the content by synthesis. The synthetic method is the act in which we search for the markers of two opposed concepts through which they are equal. If we abstract from the content of our cognition, it can be said that antithetical, that is, analytic judgments in Fichte's sense are negations (verneinende Urteile) and that synthetic judgments are affirmations (bejahende Urteile). It must be mentioned that Fichte's use of the concepts "analytic" and "synthetic" is by no means the same as Kant's use, either in his transcendental logic or in his formal logic. According to Kant's formal logic (cf. Logic, X59-63), the business of synthesis is to gather the markers of a concept. After being gathered this way in the concept, they are in an aggregate of conjunction. The analytic judgment, by no means a negative judgment, selects one or some markers of an already-constituted concept and predicates them of that concept. Genus and species, and in general the problem of the grounds of cognition, occur in Kant only after the introduction of two other logical concepts. The first is the concept of the aggregate of the disjunction of the concepts of which a concept is predicated or a marker. Given that, we can discover a series of subordination of concepts. Given the series of subordination and the aggregate of disjunction, we can define the genus and the

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specific difference, the ground of relation and the ground of distinction. The whole business of the division of concepts in Kant is the business of logical analYsis and is not called synthesis. I do not mention this in order to provide a Kantian criticism of Fichte. I only want (1) to indicate a problem and (2) to indicate that to interpret Fichte's use of the terms "analytic" and "synthetic" in terms of the definitions of "analytic" and "synthetic" judgments given in the introduction to the Critique of Pure Reason is to seriously misunderstand Fichte. What is perhaps closer to Fichte's understanding of these terms is the use of the terms in connection with "method," that is, analytic and synthetic method in the Critique. If we apply that idea to the logic of the concept of traditional logic, we are very close to Fichte's reconstruction of the meaning of these concepts. Seen from the viewpoint of the application of the concepts in the doctrine of science, the best approach will be to reflect upon what is meant by "analytic unity of consciousness" and "synthetic unity of consciousness" in Kant's transcendental deduction. Fichte points out that in the acts of our conceptualizing, the antithetical procedure and the synthetic procedure are immediately linked. No antithesis is possible without synthesis, and no synthesis is possible without antithesis. The act of opposing and the identification of the opposed concept in a third concept that they have in common are inseparable and can be separated only by (logical) reflection. In note 8 (I, pp. 118-19), Fichte continues his analysis of the act of conceptualizing in empirical consciousness under the logical principle of the ground. The topic is the rule of definition, which requires a ground of relation and a ground of distinction. Since the concepts used in the definiens are, on the one hand, the markers of the definiendum and, on the other hand, have to be defined themselves, we get an ordered series of higher and lower concepts. The process of analysis and synthesis in logic is directed toward higher and higher degress of universality, higher and higher degrees of synthesis, and it is always connected with the antitheses determinirig the relation of certain concepts to other concepts of lower degree, out of which the former are developed. The order of applying analysis and synthesis in the doctrine of science is precisely the reverse of their application in empirical consciousness. In note 2 Fichte had already introduced the concept of a thetic judgment. A thetic judgment is a judgment that does not stand under the principle of the ground. It is, rather, the ground of everything grounded, including the logical principle of the ground. Wherever such thetic judgments occur, they refer to the absolute I (I, p. 112). Seen formally, a theticjudgment (I, p. 116) is a judgment in which nothing is posited as opposed and nothing is posited as equal to it in other judgments; that is, a thetic judgment cannot have a ground of relation and a ground of distinction. The place of the predicate remains open; that is, it indicates an infinite task for the ultimate ground

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posited in a thetic judgment. Such a judgment is the judgment "I am." In this judgment nothing is said about the I. The place of the predicate is left open for the infinity of possible determinations of the I. Other thetic judgments are grounded in this judgment. "Man is free" does not subsume man under a realm offree beings. "Man is free" has meaning because I can say "I am free"; that is, I can determine the infinitely open realm of my actions. But I can say that only to the extent that I am opposed to all beings of nature. But I am opposed to all beings of nature only to the extent that I connect myself with the idea of an I that is not determinable from outside. Fichte argues that the aesthetic judgment "A is beautiful" is also thetic (I, p. 117), which indicates the eminent significance of aesthetics for Fichte, a significance that surfaces again and again in his writings, though he has not given aesthetics the systen1atic value it received later in Schelling. The necessary ingredient in the logical procedure of antithesis and synthesis in empirical consciousness is that the I posits A and posits A as = A, that is, that the I has one of the possible determinations of the "I am" as its actual determination. But this aspect is given here immediately in connection with the principle of opposition and the principle of the ground in which identity is preserved in synthesis and the process leading to synthesis of higher and higher degree. The following points are essential for the method of the doctrine of science.

1. The third principle, introducing divisibility, is the archetype for all syntheses generated by the method in the theoretical doctrine of science. Each synthesis, in turn, will be a more definitive and narrower concept. For example, very soon limitation will be replaced by mutual determination (Wechselbestimmung) (I, p. 131). It will thus narrow down the conceptual space for the next synthesis. 2. Each synthesis presupposes an analysis, which has its medium in the preceding synthesis. For each such synthesis, as Fichte points out later (I, p. 143), everything is correctly combined in the middle but not in the extremes. From that it follows that the contradiction is not solved but only pushed back. After the antithesis is precisely determined, one has' to introduce a new mediating concept that can function as synthesis. There is a general formula for this in the Grundriss (I, p. 381). Suppose A excludes B, and vice versa, with respect to totality. Then A is excluded if B determines the totality, and vice versa. Synthesis X would be the connection A + B. "+" is a sign for the strict disjunction involved in an antithesis. But A + B can, as a synthesis, be considered as either determined by A or determined by B; but that leads to the next contradiction. There are higher degrees of complication of this general scheme in the sections D and E of the doctrine of science, but we cannot deal with them

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in this essay. The final step in the theoretical part will be an opposition for which no mediating concept can be found. A most determined opposition from a final A + B by B will force the method into the consideration of the opposite detetmination of A + B by A. 3. Every antithesis is connected with a synthesis, and vice versa, and neither is possible without a thesis. The thesis has its origin in the positing I. I t is characteristic for the process in which empirical consciousness finds higher and higher syntheses in the direction of higher and higher universality that the thetic I remains outside the process. It is characteristic for the doctrine of science that the thesis stands in the beginning and grounds the whole system. The shortcoming of each synthesis is just that it cannot reach the identity and totality of the thesis. The first synthesis determines the form of the system; the thesis determines that there shall be a system. 4. The synthesis in the realm of logic is a process of ascending (Hinaufsteigen) to concepts of higher and higher universality. The process of the doctrine of science is a descending through a series of concepts of lower and lower degrees of universality. The highest is the I, as the absolute and unlimited subject. The absolute I has no opposition, no "difference" in itself. Since all concepts appearing in analysis and synthesis are determinations of the I within the system, the I is present in each step, and its presence is what forces the method to move to the next synthesis according to the form of the system. 5. With the third principle it becomes sufficiently clear that the principles of logic presupposed by Fichte are the principles of the logic of conceptformation, that is, the basic laws that govern the logic of dihairesis since Plato. It could be shown that Kant already considered them to be the very basis of formal logic in general. It is not without interest to observe that Aristotle had already said (Metaphysics, book III, 998b) that it is impossible to assume that there is one highest genus or that being is the highest genus. Since the genus cannot be predicated of specific differences, these differences have to belong to another genus. To assume the contrary leads to a contradiction with respect to the concept of a genus that implies determinability by specific differences. It is thus no surprise that the attempt to determine the absolute totality necessarily leads to contradictions. 6. The rn_ethod of the doctrine of science is the result of a radical transformation of the logic of concepts in traditional logic. The transformation is itself the result of applying this logic in an attempt to determine the Absolute. This transformation also generates a concept of "contradiction" that no longer has anything to do with whatever "contradiction" can mean in logic. Dialectical contradiction does not refer to propositions

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or predications. Already Kant's "contradictions in concepts," that is, between markers of a concept, cannot be understood like contra~ictions between propositions or between predications in judgments. If there is a contradiction in a concept, we can derive two analytic judgments that are (note the difference!) necessarily both false. But a dialectical contradiction also cannot be understood as a "contradiction in concept." On the contrary, such an attempt leads to serious misunderstandings, to the very impossibility of understanding what is at stake. Fichte's discovery had consequences reaching far beyond his system. It is the discovery that,the immediate application of the categories in an explication of consciousness can be used for the development of a positive dialectic. In this dialectic the structure of the system of categories, their division, offers a clue for overcoming the "contradiction" that is the necessary result of attempting to use the first two categories in each set of the categories to determine the absolute (or, as he says in the Grundlage, the totality): The solution is to fall back upon the third category. Since, again according to Kant, the fourth set, modality, is of another order, the same procedure can be applied to the sets of categories. If categories are interpreted in this way, they can be applied to Kant's transcendental deduction, and this application leads to an interpretation of the concepts that are of significance in the transcendental deduction: power of imagination, schematism, intuition, sensibility, forms of intuition. The different ways in which Fichte, but also the younger Schelling, presented the System of Transcendental Idealism indicate that Fichte's doubts "in the margins" of On the Concept about the possibility of constructing a system with Cartesian rigor by this method may be justified. INTELLECTUAL INTUITION As meniioned in the beginning of this essay, the term "intellectual intuition" does not occur in On the Concept or in the Grundlage. Therefore the Grundlage is of basic significance for the understanding of the "logic of dialectics" and of the connections between this logic and certain aspects of traditional logic. It is, on the other hand, a crucial question for the understanding of the Grundlage itself, whether the absence of the concept of intellectual intuition is only of marginal significance (because it could be added without any change) or whether it is essential for the conception of method in the Grundlage that intellectual intuition is missing. Prima facie, the latter might be the case, because Fichte emphasizes that his deductions in §1 have been guided only by the "laws of reflection," that is, the laws of logic, though these laws are not presupposed but are first used as clues and then derived themselves. Considered from this viewpoint, the method seems to be a method of a pure

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thinking, a method of constructing conceptual structures, that is, an ens ralionis. 10 Kant is one source of the concept "intellectual intuition" used by Fichte in 1797, but also already by Schelling in 1794, and its function for Fichte is also to indicate certain essential shortcomings in Kant's philosophy. There are, especially in Schelling, other aspects of intellectual intuition that have other sources. But Fichte mentions only Kant in his explication of the concept "intellectual intuition" in the "Introductions." Fichte presupposes this con.cept in his arguments precisely in the sense given to it by Kant. All other preferences are of significance only for the further development of the implications of this concept. The origin of the concept is probably medieval theology. It is an intriguing question what Kant's source was when he int~oduced this concept as one of the Grenzbegrijfe (limiting concepts) of his critique. This question is, however, not essential for our purposes. "Intellectual intuition" is, according to Kant, the form of the knowing of the intellectus originarius, the divine intellect (B 72, cf. B 159). Since this intellect is infinite, nothing can be given to it from the outside. This simple statement is sufficient for the derivation of everything that is essential:

1. This intellect possesses no sensibility (understood as a necessary condition of knowing with the aid of concepts). Thus it also has no concepts, because conceptual knowing presupposes the matter provided by sensibility. Thus the knowing of this intellect is both in one: intellectual intuition. 2. Since nothing can be given from the outside to this intellect, this intellect cannot have any relation to an object. This means that subject and object are the same in such an intellect. 3. Space and time are forms of sensual intuition. Since this intellect has no sensibility, for it there will be no forms of sensibility, and first of all, no time. Thus, such a knowledge is a knowledge outside of and before time, eternal in the sense of "timeless." It is not difficult to see that the second statement is immediately fulfilled by the first principle. Subject and object are the same in "I posits I as identical with I." The premise leading to this statement is also fulfilled. The absolute I is all reality; nothing is outside it. Given the Kantian framework, it is also true that the first principle refers to a timeless event. As mentioned above, the first principle is nothing else but what Kant characterized as the pure spontaneity of the synthetic unity of consciollsness. This spontaneity, according to Kant, is timeless. Time is a manifold, and grasping it as a unity presupposes precisely this synthetic act. Thus, the necessary conclusion is that the knowing of the first principle is a participating in intellectual intuition. Since the first principle detern1ines the content of the other

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principles and then of everything that is developed in the doctrine of science, it can be said that intellectual intuition is presupposed throughout in the· doctrine of science. Thus Fichte could already have used the concept intellectual intuition in the Grundlage. All requirements were fulfilled. Since the Grundlage understands itself as the explication of the "spirit-not the letter-of Kant's philosophy," we cannot find many traces that could be understood as a criticism of Kant's philosophy. Intellectual intuition is not mentioned. Intellectual intuition is the key concept of the critique of Kant's philosophy in Schelling's early presentation of The I as the Principle ofPhilosophy, that is, the early presentation of his version of Fichte's philosophy, and in Fichte's "Introduction" published three years later. According to both, the problem with Kant's philosophy is that it presupposes the synthetic unity oftranscendental apperception and its pure spontaneity as its first principle. There is no doubt that Kant "thinks" this principle. It is simply inconsistent, according to Schelling and Fichte, not to recognize that this "thinking" cannot be thought as a conceptual thinking, that is, a thinking that presupposes givenness and sensibility and implies even the givenness of the empirical I for itself. If that were the case, it would be an ens rationis. If something "thinks" the spontaneity and synthetic unity of transcendental apperception, then this thinking must be done within this spontaneity and synthetic unity itself. And with that we have the identity of subject and object. All requirements for the claim that Kant's philosophy presupposes intellectual intuition are fulfilled. Kant never considered the "presuppositions of the possibility" of his analysis of a possible experience. Therefore he never discovered that his thesis about the impossibility of intellectual intuition is, within the framework of his own enterprise, an inconsistency. There are reasons for the assumption that intellectual intuition is a systematic necessity for the early Fichte and the early Schelling. In the Critique ofPure Reason we already find a passage in which Kant says the following: We can think a transcendental object as the cause of appearance. But this transcendental object is a noumenon, an ens rationis, an empty concept without an object. Since this is the case it can be also assumed that either this transcendental object is outside of us or in us. No reasons can be given for the first or for the second alternative just because the transcendental object is . already an ens rationis. The "we" (that is, the I), thought as the "cause" of its appearances, is, therefore,also an ens rationis (B344-45). It can be said that the second alternative is somehow a foreshadowing of Fichte's and Schelling's positions. In the later reflections of convolute VII of the Opus Postumum, l1 Kant, probably already knowing something about Fichte's and Schelling's positions of 1794, offers some formulations that are precise parallels to Fichte's and Schelling's consideration. They can be understood as his further

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development of answers to the question: How can we think the synthetic unity of transcendental apperception? But Kant is adamant on one point. All this "thinking" is a thinking of an ens rationis, an empty concept without an object. He still rejects intellectual intuition. Thus it is essential for Fichte as well as for Schelling to point out that the requirements for intellectual intuition are necessarily fulfilled in thinking the "I am." It must be left open at this point whether this concept, together with its connotation, is the best possible expression for the attitude of thinking that is required by speculative thinking. 12 But there can be no doubt: The dialectical method can be justified as a method of explicating the absolute only if consciousness can reach a new "attitude" that has nothing in common with the attitude in which finite objects are given to it as opposed to it.

NOTES 1. References to Fichte are from Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte (see page 235). 2. Schelling called the method of speculative thinking "dialectic" in 1802 in lecture 6 of the Vorlesungen uber die Methode des akademischen Studiums (1803). Schellings Werke, Munchner Jubiliiumsdruck, vol. 3, p. 289. 3. This critique is written from Schelling's point of view and was recognized by Schelling as a proper presentation of his philosophy. It has nothing in common with Hegel's critique ofFichte in the framework of his own philosophy. Hegel was at this time a Schellingean, and therefore he never mentioned this essay in his later publications. 4. Richard Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel, 2 vols. (Tiibingen: J. C. B. Mohr, vol. 1, 1921; vol. 2, 1924). 5. Schelling and Hegel developed their basic arguments against Kant along the lines Fichte laid out, Hegel, of course, without mentioning it; see Hegel, Science of Logic, book 3, trans. W. H. Johnston and L. G. Struthers (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1966, 4th impression), vol. 2, p. 247. 6. See Hegel, Logic, book 2, sect. 1, Air., Johnston and Struthers, p. 42. 7. Using more recent terminology it is possible to say that "A" is a placeholder for "etwas uberhaupt." "Etwas uberhaupt" is the most universal concept in Husserl's formal ontology. 8. All translations are mine. I do not claim that these translations are "good English." They are as close to Fichte's German formulations as possible. 9. Fichte, who emphasizes the independence of the second principle from the first, is not explicit about this. Schelling's transcendental idealism develops the "second principle" immediately out of the tension between the "I am" and the selfconsciousness in which "I am" is given; Schellings Werke, vol. 3, p. 380. 10. Schelling recognized the fatal consequences of the interpretation of the absolute I as an ens rationis early; see Vom Ich als Prinzip der Philosophie, Schellings Werke, vol. 1, p. 108.

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11. Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 22, Opus Postumum 11, convolut VII. 12. Hegel is known for his rejection of intellectual intuition; see his Logic, book 1, Johnston and Struthers, vol. 1, p. 89. He prefers "standpoint of pure knowledge" or "absolute knowledge." There are other passages in which he uses intellectual intuition nevertheless, cf. book 3, Johnston and Struthers, vol. 2, p. 245. The rnystical implications of the concept he rejects occur only after Schelling compared intellectual intuition in philosophy with the intellectual intuition of the artist; see Schellings Werke, vol. 2, p. 351. It cannot be said that the early use of the concept in Fichte and in Schelling has more "mystical elements" than Hegel's "pure absolute knowledge."

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Circles and Grounds in theJena Wissenschaftslehre DANIEL BREAZEALE

Es ist schwer sich vor dem Zirkel in der Erkliirung z,u huten. -J. G. Fichte (1793)

Any philosophy worthy of the name, maintained Fichte, must be a systematic science- the science of science itself: the science of the very possibility of any scientific knowledge whatsoever: in short, Wissenschaftslehre. The task of such a science is to specify the conditions that make everyday experience possible, that is, to show how and why our representations possess objectivity, or to account for our consciousness of "representations accompanied by a feeling of necessity." The business of philosophy is, therefore, succinctly described by Fichte as follows: to display the "ultimate foundation [Grund] for the necessity of representation," or "to indicate the ground of all experience." 1 At the same time that philosophy establishes the foundation of experience, it also determines what counts as knowledge and surveys its domain and various branches. In this sense, a well-grounded philosophy is always a "philosophy of science.,,2 Consequently, philosophy itself, qua knowledge about knowledge, must be (in this specific, reflective sense) the highest-or perhaps one should say, deepest-sort of knowledge obtainable by human beings. As such, it must be the most certain as well as the most general science. It has to be universally valid and must possess the maximum amount of certainty of which any science is capable, a point that Fichte himself sometimes stressed by remarking that the Wissenschaftslehre must possess a degree of self-evidence "comparable to that of geometry.,,3

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How is such certainty to be insured or obtained? According to Fichte, it cannot be obtained simply through systematic form alone. Systematic form is capable only of transferring certainty from one proposition to another systematically related one, but it is quite unable to produce any certainty on its own. Instead, the certainty in question can be supplied only by philosophy's initial Grundsatz, or starting point. 4 All the other propositions within the system must be derived from this first principle and obtain their certainty thereby. The nature of such derivation is of course "transcendental" or "genetic" rather than strictly logical or deductive (which is, admittedly, a difference easier to insist upon than to explicate). 5 That is to say, each proposition or concept (or, more accurately, each "act") is supposed to be established by showing it to be a condition necessary for the possibility of what has already been established-until, ultimately, the entire science has been established: namely, when all of the conditions for the possibility of the first principle have been exhaustively enumerated. 6 As for the starting point itself, this n1ust be, in Fichte's words, "absolutely certain," or "certain because it is certain." 7 Thus, unlike some of his past and present critics and interpreters,8 Fichte himself saw no difficulty in the obvious fact that the "highest first principle" of all knowledge could not be demonstrated to be true; indeed, he explicitly noted that the very notion of proving something inevitably presupposes something true) but unproven. 9 Explicitly rejecting both the infinite regress implicit in the demand that the first principle be derived from some higher principle and the suggestion that even the most rigorously systematic form could somehow establish the truth or certainty of the propositions contained within the system,IO Fichte unequivocally maintained that the erste Grundsatz of the Wissenschaftslehre had to be not only "certain," but "immediately" or "self-evidently" or "intuitively" certain. 11 Consequently, the locus of philosophical certainty must be extrasystematic, indeed, extra-philosophical, from which it would seem to follow that no philosophy-whatever its systematic structure-could ever pretend to establish its own certainty and truth. Nevertheless, there are several passages in Fichte's Jena writings (17941800) where he explicitly declares that philosophy must be "self-grounding" and must "establish its own possibility,"12 passages that plainly seem to suggest that philosophical inquiry involves an inescapable circularity, insofar as the truth of the system of philosophy is supposed to be a function of the truth of its starting point, which, in turn, is supposed to be demonstrated (or "confirmed") by the very system in question. Fichte himself was clearly aware of this apparent circularity, and he explicitly conceded that "one can demonstrate the possibility of philosophy only by arguing in a circular fashion, or else philosophy requires no proof and is simply and absolutely possible." 13

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Though the remarks that follow certainly have a bearing upon the general question concerning the "possibility of philosophy," they do not pretend to address the full scope of the question. Instead, I intend to concentrate narrowly upon specific issues directly related to the alleged circularity of all human understanding and to the specific sorts of circularity characteristic of philosophy in general and of the Wissenschaftslehre in particular. The thesis of this essay is that Fichte's forthright and manifold reflections upon what he sometimes called "the inescapable circularity of the human mind" in no way conflict with or undermine either his demand that philosophy commence with something absolutely certain or his commitment to a profoundly foundationalist philosophical project-superficial appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. In support of this thesis, I shall, in what follows, survey the various discussions of circularity that one encounters with some frequency within Fichte's early writings, and especially within the major texts he wrote during his]ena period. In the course of this survey I will attempt to analyze and to categorize the various sorts of circularity discussed in these texts, as well as Fichte' s various responses· to the challenges offered by each type of circularity. I shall also offer, in passing, a few comments on the significance-for Fichte and for us-of each type of circularity. This rather elaborate attempt to sort out Fichte's various con1ments on circularity is inspired by my conviction that the failure to distinguish carefully these various senses of circularity from each other is at least partially responsible for some of the more implausible interpretations of his "circular epistemology" that have prevailed in the past 14 and that continue to be proposed today. Fichte's concern with the problem of circularity and with various varieties of circular arguments can, with a fair degree of precision, be traced to the five months he spent in Danzig between November 1792 and March 1793; indeed, his reflections on this topic seem to have been directly stimulated by his conversations with a fellow Freemason,]ohann]akob Mnioch. 15 Both of the texts Fichte composed during this period (the second edition of the Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation and the first installment of part 1 of his Contribution toward Correcting the Public's judgment of the French Revolution) contain explicit (albeit brief) discussions of particular instances of circular reasoning. 16 During the following fall and winter (1793-94) he became increasingly preoccupied with this topic and became especially concerned with issues related to the unavoidable circularity of reason, as can be easily seen by comparing the brief mention of circularity in his review of Creuzer's Skeptical Reflections on Free Will with the much more sustained discussion of the same subject contained in the "Review of Aenesidemus."17 When we turn our attention from Fichte's published writings to his

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unpublished ones, it becomes even more obvious that the problem of circularity was one of the central issues with which he wrestled during the crucial winter of 1793-94-that is, during the period when he was trying to come to terms simultaneously with the systematic demands placed upon the Critical philosophy by Reinhold, the manifest inadequacies of the "letter" of Kant's own presentation, and the skeptical attack upon both Kant and Reinhold launched by the anonymous author of Aenesidemus. It is significant that the notes for the "Review of Aenesidemus" commence with an extended discussion of the problem of the circularity that appears to be involved "in any attempt to prove any single first principle."lB It is perhaps even more striking to discover that the manuscript of Fichte's first sustained effort to develop his own, improved version of transcendental philosophy (namely, the long, unpublished text with the ungainly title "Personal Meditations on Elementary Philosophy/Practical Philosophy") also begins with a consideration of this very topic 19 and that, throughout the decade of the 1790s, he returns, again and again, to the problem of circularity. This same concern is, appropriately enough, a prominent feature of the two publications in which Fichte first outlined the strategy and methodology of his new system: the "Review of Aenesidemus" and the important metatheoretical work Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre. I dwell upon these biographical facts because it is important for my thesis that one realize that Fichte's awareness of the problems associated with various types of systematic and nonsystematic circularity did not first arise only after his initial attempts to formulate his own philosophy on the basis of a self-evidently certain first principle. I t is manifestly not the case that he initially adhered to a naively foundationalist ideal of philosophical science and subsequently modified his views as he became· aware of possible objections to such a project, objections based, perhaps, upon a new appreciation of the circular character of all systematic demonstrations-and indeed of reason itself. On the contrary, the evidence on this point is quite unequivocal: Fichte's recognition of these difficulties preceded and accompanied his own attempt to construct an all-encompassing philosophical system based upon a single, self-evident first principle. With this, let us turn to a detailed consideration of some of Fichte's reflections upon the problem of circularity, as found in his writings of the 1790s. The most important distinction between the various types of circularity discussed in the Jena writings is the distinction between what I shall call extra-systematic and intra-systematic varieties. 20 To the extra-systematic category belong Fichte's many provocative discussions of the inescapable circularity of all explanations, as well as the many passages in which he reflects upon the necessary presuppositions of philosophy itself and the circular rela-

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tionship between these presuppositions and any philosophical system. However, there are in addition many other passages that call attention to the circular relationship between various propositions or tentative conclusions contained within the Wissenschaftslehre itself. These latter are instances of what I have termed intra-systematic circularity. Of course, there are plenty of other passages that fall into neither of these two categories, passages in which Fichte simply criticizes specific instances of erroneous and avoidable circul~r reasoning, either in his own arguments or, . more commonly, in those of his critics. 21 To be sure, there is nothing particularly original or unusual about this, and I mention it only to indicate that Fichte did not think that all instances or types of circularity were of equal importance and interest and to point out that he was quite capable of recognizing the difference between avoidable and unavoidable types of circularity. In what follows, however, we shall be concerned exclusively with cases of philosophically significant-which, in most cases, means unavoidablecircularity. EXTRA-SYSTEMATIC CIRCULARITY

1. Let us begin our consideration of extra-systematic types of circularity with a consideration of what Fichte, as early as 1793, characterized as "der nothwendige Zirkel unsers Geistes" ("the necessary circle of our mind"),22 a circle "we cannot escape.' '23 The circularity in question is implicit in the very project of a "critique of reason" and is nicely summarized in Nietzsche's sardonic observation that "a critique of the faculty of cognition is nonsense: how is a tool supposed to be able to criticize itself when it can employ only itself for the purpose of such a critique?"24 No less clearly than Nietzsche, Fichte saw that "one cannot think about the laws of thinking in any other way except according to those laws,"25 and hence he conceded the point at issue: namely, that that form of consciousness in which the intellect's necessary mode of acting is to be incorporated is itself undoubtedly included among the intellect's necessary modes of acting, and the intellect's mode of acting will undoubtedly be incorporated into the form of consciousness in precisely the same way in which anything else is incorporated into this form.... [However,] in order to incorporate within the form of consciousness the necessary manner in which the intellect acts in itself, we must already be familiar with this manner of acting as such-which manner of acting must, consequently, already be incorporated into the form of consciousness. Thus we would be caught up in a circle. 26 The same fundamental point can also be expressed in terms of the relationship between the "content" and the "form" of philosophy, that is to say,

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in terms of the relationship between the actual system of the acts of the human mind and the philosophical derivation of these sanle acts in their systematic interrelation with one another. The philosopher's own acts of reflection belong, of course, to the very system of acts he wishes to derive; and thus any actual construction of such a system requires the prior performance of those very acts of reflection and abstraction whose possibility and legitimacy are supposed to be first established within philosophy itself. This is the circle Fichte describes when he notes that "the form of the science, therefore, is constantly surging ahead of its content," and adds: This is the reason for our previous announcement that the science as such can possess no more than probability. What is portrayed and the portrayal of the same are merrlbers of two different series. In the first series nothing unproven is presupposed; the second series is not possible unless some things are presupposed at the beginning that cannot be proven until later. 27 Fichte's response to the discovery of this unavoidable circle was characteristically forthright. Rather than seeking some way to avoid such circularity, he insisted that the circle in question be made explicit, and he was not at all reluctant to confess that "the Wissenschaftslehre presupposes that the rules of reflection and abstraction are familiar and valid. I t has to make this assumption, and there is nothing to be ashamed of in this and no reason to make a mystery of it and to conceal the fact.,,28 Indeed, there is every reason not to do so, since the circle in question is quite inescapable, as will sooner or later become evident to any honest and thorough inquirer. In an editorial comment appended to an essay published by another author in his PhilosophischesJournal, Fichte called explicit attention to his own, perhaps impolitic, candor on this point. After conceding that the argument of the Wissenschaftslehre is "circular" in the sense described above and after taking note of the criticism raised against the Wissenschaftslehre on just this point by its orthodox "Kantian" opponents, he then added that "the mistake committed by the Wissenschaftslehre is merely this: It knows what it is doing, and it makes no bones about stating this. If only its author had been prudent enough to keep silent on this point, then these 'Critical philosophers' could have gone on criticizing forever without ever discovering this circle in his work.,,29 There is simply no getting around the fact that philosophy, as a determinate intellectual enterprise, unavoidably makes certain specific assumptions. For example, the very task of establishing foundations and providing reasons clearly presupposes the Satz des Grundes, or "principle of sufficient reason." If, in turn, a particular philosophical system subsequently attempts to derive this very principle, then it cannot deny that it is, in this specific sense,

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arguing in a circle-which,of course, is not to say that it should not attempt such a derivation. 30 To demand the abolition of this circle is to demand the impossible; it is to posit a condition that can never, even in principle, be satisfied by any finite intellect whatsoever. Philosophy, however, is a niatter for finite intellects, and hence philosophy can no more hope to escape from this necessary circle of the mind than can geometry or any other science. On the other hand, to react to the discovery of this same circle by declaring inquiry in general and philosophy in particular to be impossible would be even less warranted. Fichte proposes, instead, that we freely acknowledge that the unavoidable circularity in question is a condition for the possibility of inquiry-including inquiry into the possibility of consciousness itself-rather than an obstacle thereto. It appears to be an obstacle only to someone who either pretends that it does not exist or else maintains that it should not exist. Hence Fichte's Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre opens with a discussion of this very problem, a discussion that concludes with- the candid admission that "this is a circle, though it is an unavoidable one. But since it is unavoidable and freely acknowledged, one may appeal to the laws of general logic even in establishing the highest first principle."31 Not only did Fichte consider such circularity to constitute no threat to the possibility of philosophy, he criticized as "irrational" any attempt to avoid this particular circle and insisted that "it is not only impossible for us to escape from these laws [of reason] , it is impossible even to will to do SO.,,32 If there really are rules governing the operations of the human understanding, then it inevitably follows that "philosophy and experience are brought into being according to the same rules, and to this extent reason is. enclosed within a necessary circle. I cannot go outside of my reason and still philosophize. I can, in turn, philosophize over this fact,but again, precisely in accordance with the laws of reason, and so on. Reason limits itself.,,33 Admittedly, no one can force another person to philosophize in a rational manner, that is, in a discursive, law-governed manner-or indeed, to philosophize at a1l 34 -but we can point out the deeply quixotic and irrational nature of any philosophical attempt to "escape from the laws of reason." Thus it would be equally irrational to consider this type of unavoidable circularity to be an objection to the possibility of philosophy. Nor was Fichte at all loathe to make explicit the implication of this circle for the truth value of philosophy, namely, "that our explanation of consciousness is also not intended to be, {as it were,} 'valid in itself,' {but is valid only 'for us'}; for transcendental philosophy possesses no validity in itself, but only in relationship to reason. ,,35 Hence, when the charge of circularity (in the sense described above) was actually raised against transcendental philosophy, Fichte had a ready, three-step response: first, to concede the

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accuracy of the accusation; second, to point out that the sole difference between the transcendental philosopher and his opponents on this score is simply the difference between those who are clearly aware of the situation in which they unavoidably find themselves and those who are not;36 and finally, to concludethat "there is no way to avoid this circle of reason; indeed, this is precisely what shows that there is no 'truth in itself,' ,,37 for "truth is what is made necessary through reason and needs no other proof. ,,38 Closely related to this conclusion is the frequently misunderstood claim that philosophy is or should be "self-grounding." As we have now seen, every philosophy must begin by assuming certain things-including its first principle, as well as the rules of thinking that govern its own derivations of further principles from this initial one. Thus, to the extent that a particular system actually succeeds in deriving from this starting point an explanation of the possibility of experience as well as of the necessity of the very rules of abstraction and reflection that the philosopher had to begin by assuming, then that system may be said to have succeeded in "establishing its own starting point" or in "confirming its own presuppositions" and may thusbe said to have accomplished a feat worthy of Baron von Miinchausen: namely, to- have "grounded" itself: or to have "demonstrated its own possibility." And indeed, Fichte occasionally described the first principle with which the Wissenschaftslehre begins as a "postulate" or "hypothesis," whose truth is subsequently to be confirmed or validated by the very system that is constructed upon this foundation or that begins with this (hypothetical) starting point. 39 It is therefore temptin,g to say (as Fichte himself occasionally did) that the task of every philosophical system is to display "the identity between what we presupposed and what we discovered," that is, to proceed in its derivations until it reaches a point where "the very principle from which we began is at the same time our final result. ,,40 The resulting identity between the starting point and the conclusion of the system, along, of course, with its internal consistency (or "coherence"), can then be cited as evidence for the correctness of the system in question. 41 From this we might easily conclude that Fichte endorses a very strong version of the "coherence theory of tr~th," at least insofar as philosophical systems are concerned. This, however, is only part of the story. For the kind of internal agreement just discussed is adequate only to establish what Fichte himself called the "inner truth,,42- by which he meant the consistency and completeness-of a system. But surely a system can be consistent and complete without being true in the sense that Fichte himself considered most important, that is, without possessing any extra-systematic basis in something certain. This kind of truth, which Fichte sometimes referred to as a philosophy's "outer truth," cannot be established simply by insuring the correct-that is, consistent and complete-systematic form. As Fichte noted at the beginning of

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Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre, it is not difficult to imagine a coherent system that is untrue. 43 An adequate philosophy must possess outer as well as inner truth; that is, it must not merely be systematically sound, it must also be constructed upon a true-that is, a self-evident or intuitively certain-first principle. Thus one must exercise caution in interpreting the sense in which the Grundsatz is a mere hypothesis or postulate. What is hypothetical is not the certainty or inner truth of this principle; instead, the philosopher's "hypothesis" is simply that this immediately certain and self-evident proposition is in addition capable of serving as the first principle of a transcendental deduction of experience. It is this hypothesis that must subsequently be confirmed by actually constructing a system on the basis of this Grundsatz. Or, as Fichte put it, until such time as "a complete transcendental idealism" has in fact succeeded in "demonstrating the truth" of its first principle (qua first principle) "by actually providing a derivation of the system of representations" from that first principle, "it remains merely a presupposition that this constitutes the necessary fundamental law of reason as a whole, a law from which we can derive the entire system of our necessary representations. ,,44 It is in this sense, and in this sense alone, that the first principle of the Wissenschaftslehre can be characterized as a "hypothesis."45 Considered by itself, the principle in question remains completely certain-even ifit cannot serve as the first principle of a system of transcendental philosophy. It is all too easy to be misled by Fichte's remarks on this topic and to conclude that, for all of his insistence upon the need for a self-evidently certain starting point, he actually anticipated the familiar Hegelian view that criticizes all claims to immediate certainty and that treats the truth of the starting point as something that can be established only as a "result" of the system. However attractive one may find such a position to be, it is not Fichte's. 2. Closely related to the above sort of extra-systematic circularity is the more specific variety of circularity associated with any attempt to demonstrate that there is but one single system of human knowledge-or, what amounts to the same thing, that there is only one single first principle of philosophy. Here again, scant reflection is required in order to see that the claim that there is only one single system or first principle is itself a philosophical claim, which, as such, can be demonstrated only within the confines of a specific philosophical system. And, of course, such a "demonstration" can only consist in deriving this very presupposition (namely, that there is a single system of human knowledge) from the single first principle with which the system begins. By proceeding in this way, however, we seem once again to have presupposed the very point at issue; and, if we had presupposed something else-for example, that there are several, systematically

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unrelated first principles of human knowledge-then, no doubt, this, too, would have been "confirmed" by the sort of (nonsystematic) philosophy that would have ensued. Here again, Fichte was only too willing to acknowledge this truism and to draw the very conclusion that presumably kept others from acknowledging it: namely, that, here too, we are in the presence of a circle "from which the human mind can never escape.,,4-6 An implicit recognition of a similar sort of circularity within every philosophical system that begins with a single first principle can also be detected in Fichte's well-known discussion (in the First Introduction to the Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre [1 797]) of the diametric opposition between and mutual irrefutability of idealism and dogmatism. The selfconfirming, circular character of each ofthese systems is made explicit in The System of Ethical Theory, where Fichte notes that, in selecting their different starting points, both the idealist and the dogmatist seem to beg the question at issue (namely, whether consciousness is or is not a part of the natural, causal series), and thus both guarantee in advance that nothing they encounter in the course of their separate derivations could possibly contradict their respective starting points. 47 As in the previous case, the point of recognizing the specific circularity involved in every attempt to demonstrate that there is a single first principle of knowledge-as well as the circularity implicit in every attempt to demonstrate that a particular proposition is the first principle of philosophy-is simply to avoid philosophical self-deception and to' prevent wishful thinking. As Fichte himself put it, "It is good explicitly to concede the presence of this circle, in order to avoid being [subsequently] confused by its unexpected discovery." Nor has anyone any cause to be embarrassed by the existence of this circle. To desire its abolition is to desire that human knowledge be totally without any foundation. It is to desire that nothing should be absolutely certain and that all human knowledge should instead be only conditional, that no proposition should be valid in itself, but rather that every proposition should be so only on the condition that the proposition from which it follows is valid. In a word, it is to claim that there is no immediate truth at all, but only mediated truth- but without anything to mediate it.4-8 But why not simply endorse the latter conclusion? Why did Fichte continue to insist that something must be immediately certain? An adequate answer to this question, which points to the deeply practical motivation behind the Wissenschaftslehre, understood as "the first system of human freedom,"4-9 would carry us well beyond the limits of the present essay. It should nevertheless be recalled-if only in passing-that Fichte always insisted that the ultimate reason for affirming the certainty of his first principle is not because one could not continue to ask questions about this

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starting point, but rather, because one ought not to do so. "I cannot go beyond this standpoint," he conceded, "because I am not permitted to do so. "50 "The sole reason why I cannot go any further is because I cannot will to do SO.,,51 3. A third methodological circle to which Fichte calls attention coricerns the general problem of the "spirit" versus the "letter'" of philosophy, and, more specifically, the relationship between understanding a systematic whole and understanding its parts. On the one hand, he enjoins anyone seeking an understanding of the Wissenschaftslehre (in this case, K. L. Reinhold) "not to . judge the individual parts too strictly before you have obtained an overview of the whole, and not to seek to construct such an overview by combining the individual parts, but rather to seek to understand the individual parts from the perspective of the whole. ,,52 On the other hand, one's grasp of this whole is obviously facilitated only through one's grasp of its parts. This, of course, is no more intended to be an argument against the possibility of understanding either the whole or the parts than the previous instances of circularity were intended to be arguments against the possibility of constructing a tenable philosophical system. Instead, this is only a reminder of what has since been called the "hermeneutic circle" of understanding and might alternately be described, with a nod to Plato's Meno, as the "heuristic circle" of learning. In this case, however, it is not sufficient simply to recognize the presence of this circle; one must also explain how we are able, ifnot to overcome it, then at least to make some progress in our attempts to learn and to understand. For Fichte, this means that genuine understanding always has to be preceded by something that might· be described as "preunderstanding" and that Fichte himself characterized variously as "blind groping" or "good fortune" or "obscure feeling" or the "drive" or "sense" (or "feeling" or "love") of "truth,,,53 and that he on other occasions referred to (in easily misunderstood terms) as "spirit" or "reason in the narrow sense" or "philosophical genius. ,,54 Thus,. whereas the presence of such a circle does not n1ean that one can never become acquainted with a systematic whole such as the Wissenschaftslehre, it does mean that one should avoid any premature judgment, either of the individual parts or of the system as a whole, and should continue one's efforts to understand the parts in terms of the whole, and vice versa-until, finally, the very distinction between parts and whole vanishes and one is at last able to "make this philosophy one's own," by grasping it as a single, living whole. 55 INTRA-SYSTEMATIC CIRCULARITY

When we turn from a consideration of Fichte's reflections upon various extra-systematic types of circularity to an examination of the kinds of circularity he himself recognized within his own system, we once again discover a

I

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distinction between avoidable and unavoidable types of circularity. Though our attention will be focused upon the latter, some brief comment is also in order concerning the important methodological and heuristic role played by the discovery of instances of avoidable circularity within the Wissenschaftslehre's own chain of derivations. For example, when toward the end of part 2 of the Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre Fichte recognizes that his attempt to account, in purely theoretical terms, for the relationship between the I and the not-I has embroiled him in a number of circular explanations (such as attempting to derive the passivity of the I from the not-I-and vice versa) ,56 he treats this discovery as an indication that something has apparently gone wrong in the course of his own deductions. Specifically, in this case, he treats his own circular argument as evidence that consciousness cannot be adequately explained so long as we confine our explanation to the realm of" theoretical reason." Thus, in such cases, Fichte's own recognition of an instance of circularity within the Wissenschaftslehre provides him with an occasion to revise the latter in a way that will perhaps avoid the circularity in question. 57 With this acknowledgment that there are a number of instances of avoidable, extra-systematic circularity in Fichte's early presentations of his philosophy, let us now turn to an examination of two varieties of unavoidable circularity present within the Jena Wissenschaftslehre; that is, to a consideration of types of circularity that cannot be eliminated or avoided by extending or modifying the chain of deductions that constitute the system. 1. The first type of unavoidable, intra-systematic circularity encountered in the Jena writings is the type that is associated with the unavoidable circularity of philosophy's very subject matter, and that is thus a conseq uence of the synthetic unity of consciousness itself. Some exampIes of this type of circularity are as follows: i. There is a passage in Fichte's very early manuscript entitled "Personal Meditations on Elementary Philosophy/Practical Philosophy" where he reflects upon his own attempt to derive the concept of spontaneity from that of the I and criticizes his attempt on the grounds that, in order to think of the thinking I, an application of spontaneity (along with all of the categories that such an application necessarily involves) is already presupposed. Thus we cannot, in turn, pretend to derive the concept of spontaneity from that of the I; and Fichte remarks (with a certain amount of surprise?), "thus our entire philosophy turns in a circle. We have attempted to derive this concept of spontaneity from the analytic proposition I am because I am. ... Great circumspection is needed here: This is and remains a circle, and one must be frankly aware of this.' ,58 ii. Another example, from the same manuscript, concerns the attempt to deduce the proposition "I am" from the law of identity ("A = A"). "To be

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sure," notes Fichte, "it [that is, "I am"] must be proven, but in a circle": by inferring the existence of the I from its own consciousness of the law of identity, and then, in turn, inferring the formal principle "A = A" from the material aspect of self-consciousness ("I am"), and by doing so in such a way that "one could say that the form that the I gives to the not-I is the material of the 1."59 iii. One encounters similar types of circularity in ·the latter sections of the Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre, for example, in the discussion of the circular relationship between the infinite activity of the I and the infinite product of this same activity (which is the same as the I itself). Here again, after reflecting upon this relationship, Fichte observes simply, "This is a circle. ,,60 iv. The Foundations of Natural Right also includes instances of this type of unavoidable circularity. After a fruitless attempt to specify the precise relationship between the I's act of positing an object and its ascription of "real efficacy" to itself, Fichte concludes (in apparent despair) that every act of comprehending occurs through the positing of the efficacy of the rational being in question, whereas it is equally true that every act of positing one's own efficacy is conditioned by a preceding act of comprehending. Thus it follows that "every possible moment of consciousness is conditioned by a preceding one, and, in the explanation of its own possibility, consciousness is already presupposed as actual. Consciousness can be explained only in a circular fashion-that is, it cannot be explained at all, and appears to be impossible. ,,61 v. The Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo is especially rich in instances of this type of unavoidable circularity. To take but a single example, consider the relationship between "the concept of a goal" and "cognition of an object of action" (that is, "objective cognition"). The upshot of Fichte's elaborate analysis of this relationship is that each of these presupposes the other, and thus he duly notes that "our explanation of consciousness thus coils back upon itself in the following circle: B (objective cognition) is derived from A (the concept of a goal), and A is derived from B.,,62 In all such cases, the author concludes that the manifest circularity of his own argument is a reflection of the underlying, synthetic character of the relationship in question. The appearance of vicious circularity in the chain of derivations that make up the Wissenschaftslehre is simply a consequence of the unavoidably linear or discursive character of any chain of philosophical deductions. Thus, in such instances, though it seems that we have illicitly derived A from Band B from A, what we have really discovered is that A and B mutually determine or reciprocally interact with one another. Or, since all of the determinations within the Wissenschaftslehre are necessary ones, what we revealed by bringing such circles to light is the underlying synthetic unity or identity of A and B.

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This point will perhaps become clearer if we glance briefly at how Fichte hin1self interpreted each of the five instances of intra-systematic circularity mentioned above. i. The apparent circularity' encountered in the initial attempt to derive the concept of spontaneity from that of the I is avoided by recognizing that the concept of the I simply is the concept of spontaneity. ii. The circular relationship, discussed in the "Eigne Meditationen," between the "I am" and the principle of identity gives way, in the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, to the celebrated opening meditation upon the identity of form and concept in the proposition "I am I." iii. Regarding the circular relationship between the infinite activity of the I and the infinite product of this same activity, Fichte follows his observation "This is a circle" with the comment, "but not a vicious [fehlerhaft] one, since it is a circle from which reason cannot escape, since this circle expresses what is purely and simply certain in itself and for its own sake. Product, activity, and active subject are here one and the same, and we distinguish them merely in order to be able to express ourselves. ,,63 iv. Similarly, the circular relationship between the I's comprehension of an object and its act of positing its own efficacy is immediately interpreted, not-as the quoted passage from the Foundations of Natural Right would suggest-as evidence that consciousness is impossible, but as evidence that the efficacy of the subject is at every moment synthetically united with the comprehension of some object. Here again, therefore, Fichte views the circle in question not as a deficiency in his argument but as an indication of an essential feature of consciousness itself. 64 v. As for the circularity of the relationship between the concept of a goal and cognition of an object, Fichte maintains that "an understanding of Critical idealism depends upon an understanding of this circle. ,,65 Indeed, it is reflection upon this circle that leads him to what is perhaps the most important new discovery in the entire Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, namely, a clear awareness of the "fivefold synthesis" necessarily present in every moment of consciousness.66 To be sure, Fichte himself was not always clearly aware of the profoundly positive implications of this type of circularity. That he was unaware of this is especially evident in his earlier writings, such as the 1793 manuscript of the "Personal Meditations on Elementary Philosophy/Practical Philosophy" where, remarking that "no circle should be present within the Wissenschaftslehre, " he recoils from what is, in fact, his important discovery of the reciprocal interdetermination of the concepts of "quantity" and "reality.,,67 However, he gradually changed his mind on this point, and by the time of his lectures on Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, he had, as we have seen, a very different reaction to the discovery of at least certain types or instances of

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circularity within his own systematic presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre. 68 Therefore, when, in such cases of unavoidable, intra-systematic circularity, Fichte remarks that "we now understand which circle we have become entangled in, and it is by calling attention to this circle that we will be able to proceed further,"69 he is neither calling attention to a certain limit of human understanding nor is he interpreting the circle in question as a sign that we need to search for a noncircular explanation of the point at issue. Instead, the presence of such circular arguments within the Wissenschaftslehre merely reflects and indicates the all-important synthetic unity of consciousness itself. . Indeed, there is a noticeable development within Fichte's J ena writings, in which the ostensibly unilinear style of step-by-step derivation adopted (under the influence of Reinhold) in the Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre gradually gives way to a more complex and multifaceted manner of presentation better suited to revealing the deeply circular structure of consciousness itself, culminating in the method of multilateral "interdetermination" employed in the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo. Thus, whether we are talking about the circular relationship between "feeling" and "thinking," "real" and "ideal" activity, "practical" and "theoretical" reason, or the "I" and the "not-I," the circularity in question is, in every case, not only unavoidable, but points directly to what is perhaps the most important result of Fichte's efforts to present the fundamental principles of transcendental philosophy-a result nicely epitomized in the lapidary comment that "consciousness is not a series; instead, it is a circle. ,,70 Before we pass to a consideration of the final sort of circularity encountered within the Wissenschaftslehre, allow me to suggest that the circularity we have just been discussing is actually implicit in the very idea of a transcendental or genetic account of consciousness, at least as it is understood by Fichte. Such an enterprise begins with what is taken to be an "absolutely certain" or "self-evident" first principle (namely, the principle that unequivocally affirn1s the I's power of free self-determination) and then proceeds to derive successive conditions for the possibility of the first principle in question (namely, a series of additional, "necessary" acts of the I) -finally coming to an end either with the manifold of empirical feeling or with the realm of alien subjectivity that summons the practical J to limit itself freely. While such an argument certainly reveals that the manifold of experience (or, alternately, the realm of intersubjectivity) can be derived from (and is thus conditioned by) the pure subjectivity with which we began, at the same time it shows that such subjectivity is itself conditioned by the very factors that have been derived from this initial starting fact-insofar as the derivation of these factors consists in showing them to be conditions necessary for the possibility of the self-positing subjectivity with which we began. In this sense, the overall deductive strategy of the Wissenschaftslehre,' and indeed, of

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any rigorously transcendental argument, is plainly circular. Such a circle, however, should not be viewed as evidence of the emptiness or fallaciousness of transcendental arguments in general but rather as an unavoidable consequence of the mutual interdependence and interdetermination of the I, the manifold of sensible feelings, and the supersensible realm of moral agency.71 2. To conclude this survey of the various types of circularity discussed by Fichte in his J ena writings, let us consider a circle that indicates, not the presence of some synthesis within consciousness, but rather the unavoidable limits or boundaries of consciousness. Here I refer to the sort of circularity involved in the recognition that every object of consciousness is-and must be- treated by consciousness itself as simultaneously "in itself' and "for consciousness." This circle, which according to Fichte, was first discovered by Kant,72 is simply the circle in1plicit in the dual recognition that the way things are "in themselves" is the way we represent them to ourselves, while, at the same time, we unavoidably must think of ourselves as representing things as they are "in themselves. ,,73 It is, of course, one of the chief contentions of transcendental philosophy that "reality" must always mean "reality for consciousness" -though such a philosophy will not have accomplished its proper task until it has explained why and how ordinary, empirical consciousness denies and must deny this same philosophical thesis; that is, until it has explained why we must nevertheless continue to affirm the independent existence of external objects. Hence the circularity at issue here is of direct concern only to the philosopher, who alone is in a position to recognize and to describe the circle that confines us. In this instance, accordingly, the very term "circle" has less to do with logical circularity or circular arguments than it does with the sort of metaphorical circularity associated with a sphere or domain within which we-like chickens inside a chalk circle-find ourselves confined. 74 Moreover, this circle applies not merely to our consciousness of "external objects of representation" but is equally applicable to the representing subject's representation of itself: even the I exists only for the I; indeed, this is precisely what it means to be an I. The I is "in itself" what it is "for itself," and "anyone who wants to escape from this circle does not understand himself and does not know what he wants.,,75 Nor, as we have already noted, did Fichte shrink from applying this same conclusion to the propositions contained within his own Wissenschaftslehre. Philosophers are also finite intellects, and philosophy, too, is valid "only of and only for our 1."76 Is this a cause for alarm? Only for those who mistake philosophers for gods and who take their transcendental reflections to be a means for viewing the world and themselves sub specie aeternitatis. Indeed, this seems to be the n1ain point of Fichte's reflections upon this final type-of circularity: to remind

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us that we are and remain finite intellects, and that even the philosophical or transcendental standpoint can be occupied only by a finite, corporeal being, for whom a purely speculative enterprise like transcendental philosophy must, therefore, always represent something of a "fiction."77 Nevertheless, the purpose of Fichte's insistence upon the impossibility, indeed, the unintelligibility, of any alleged passage from consciousness to things-in-themselves or vice versa is not purely admonitory or negative. Instead, "this philosophy points out to us the circle from which we cannot escape. Within this circle, on the other hand, it furnishes us with the greatest coherence in all of our thinking. ,,78 It is only by constantly reminding ourselves of the unavoidability of this particular circle that we can avoid the twin pitfalls of transcendent idealism and transcendent realism and can set ourselves securely upon the path toward what Fichte considered to be the only tenable philosophical standpoint: that of Critical or transcendental idealism, which combines the basic insight of transcendent idealism (all objects are objects "for consciousness") and that of transcendent realism (the I necessarily distinguishes itself from its objects and posits the independent reality of the latter), without falling prey to the shortcomings and inadequacies of either. The resulting transcendental insight into the character of all claims to objectivity-including those made by the transcendental philosopher-is well captured in the following lines near the conclusion of the Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre: "The ultimate ground of all consciousness is a reciprocal interaction of the I with itselfby means of a not-I, which has to be considered from different sides. This is the circle from which the finite mind cannot escape; nor can it even wish to do so without disowning reason and longing for its own destruction.,,79 Philosophers who remain unaware of or who deny this circularity must either remain skeptics or else defend an untenable dogn1atism. Only after we have freely recognized and conceded the unavoidable circularity of all consciousness will we be in any position to accomplish philosophy's proper task, which is, when all has been said and done, to explore this very circle. 80 In conclusion, a close examination of Fichte's actual comments upon the types of circularity associated with rational explanation in general and with the construction of philosophical systems in particular, as well as his many comments and reflections upon specific circular arguments encountered within his own philosophy, does not lend any support to the contention that his true philosophical intentions conflict with his many explicit declarations on behalf of a profoundly foundationalist understanding of the task and method of philosophical explanation. (And when I refer to his "true philosophical intentions," I mean the overall Tendenz of his phi-

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losophy, or the "spirit" of the same-and not merely the actual, subjective intentions of its author.) As we have seen, Fichte was extraordinarily concerned with circularity in general and with many specific varieties of circularity encountered both within philosophy and within human reason itself. With respect to his fundamental, foundationalist conception of philosophy's task, moreover, his chief concern was to come to terms, in advance, with these vexing issues, and to do so in such a way that the execution of the philosophical project could not subsequently be threatened by their unexpected discovery. This of course says nothing whatsoever concerning the ultimate viability of Fichte's project; it simply helps us appreciate what that project actually was. Nor have I here attempted to provide any defense of Fichte's transcendental undertaking. What such a defense would have to be like-and why it seems so unlikely at the end of the twentieth century-still cannot be expressed any more succinctly than it was by the author of the Wissenschaftslehre in the spring of 1794: "The possibility of the required science can be demonstrated only by its actuality,,,81 he wrote. "Everything depends upon the experiment!"82

NOTES 1. Uher den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre (hereafter BWL) (1794), GA, I, 2, p. 149. References to Fichte are to J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgahe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (hereafter GA) (see page 235). See, too, the "Erste Einleitung" to the Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (hereafter EE) (1797), GA, I, 4, p. 187. For other descriptions by Fichte of the. foundational task of philosophy, see the following: "Vergleichung des von Herrn Prof. Schmid aufgestellten Systems mit dem Wissenschaftslehre" (1796), GA, I, 3, p. 247; Vorlesungen iiher Logik und Metaphysik (hereafter VLM) (1797), GA, IV, 1, p. 187; "Uber den Grund unseres Glaubens in eine gottliche Weltregierung" (hereafter GG) (1 798), GA, I, 5: 348; and Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (hereafter WLnm), K, p. 12. (The WLnm exists only in two student transcriptions: K = the "Krause transcript" of Fichte's 1798-1799 lectures, ed. Erich Fuchs [Hamburg: Meiner, 1982J, and H = the anonymously transcribed "Halle transcript" of the 1797 -1 798 [?J lectures, which appears in GA, IV, 2.) 2. See BWL, §5. 3. See, e.g., Fichte's letter toJ. F. Flatt, November or December, 1793, and his letter to H. Stephani, December 1793. See, too, "Zweite Einleitung" to Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (hereafter ZE) (1797), GA, I, 4, p. 512, as well as WLnm, K, p. 21. 4. See BWL, §§1, 2. 5. See the cryptic remark, in BWL, §7, that the two secondary first principles of the

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7.

8.

9.

10. 11.

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Wissenschaftslehre must be "derived but not demonstrated" (nicht bewiesen aber abgeleitet werden). See EE, §7 (GA", I, 4, pp. 204-5) for an unusually lucid description of the distinctively transcendental character of the chain of derivations that make up the Wissenschaftslehre. GA, I, 2, p. 121. See, too, GA, I, 2, p. 149: "There must be an ultimate foundation for the necessity of representation, a foundation that, qua ultimate foundation, can be based upon nothing further." The most notable contemporary exponent of this view is Tom Rockmore, who "has repeatedly argued that, since the erste Grundsatz of the Wissenschaftslehre cannot be demonstrated, it must therefore be uncertain and cannot be known to be true. This interpretation is central to Rockmore's novel antifoundationalist reading of Fichte's early writings. See, e.g., "Fichtean Epistemology and the Idea of Philosophy," in Der transzendentale Gedanke: Die gegenwiirtige Darstellung der Philosophie Fichtes, ed. Klaus Hammacher (Hamburg: Meiner, 1981), pp. 485-97, which includes the assertion that "Fichte rejects the goal of certain knowledge" (p. 496). See, too, "Fichtean Epistemology and Contemporary Philosophy," Idealistic Studies 19 (1988): pp.156-68, which contains frequent references to "Fichte's antifoundationalist view of system" (p. 162) and repeats the claim that Fichte's recognition that the first principle of his system could not be demonstrated somehow implies that he rejected the "foundationalist program." Though I do not believe that Rockmore's ingenious interpretation of Fichte's antifoundationalism can be reconciled with the overall tenor of Fichte's texts, I do not intend in this paper to respond directly to Rockmore's interpretation. Instead, this essay is intended to be an indirect response to Rockmore's reading of Fichte. My thesis is simply that there is no necessary incompatibility between what I take to be Fichte's staunch foundationalism and his candid recognition of the inescapability of certain types of circularity. WLnm, K, p. 27 .. See, too, ZE, GA, I, 4, p. 260: "every demonstration must be based upon something simply indemonstrable. . .. If all certainty is merely conditional, then nothing whatsoever is certain-not -even conditionally. If, however, there is a final member of this series [of deductions], something whose certainty is simply not open to any further inquiry, then "there is also something indemonstrable lying at the basis of all demonstration." See BWL, §1, where Fichte unequivocally argues that the locus of certainty must lie outside the system, namely, in the self-evident certainty of the first principle. Again, see BWL, §1. Since some recent interpreters (e.g., Rockmore) have made much of the fact that the first principle of the Wissenschaftslehre cannot be demonstrated, it is perhaps instructive to take note of Fichte's own reply (in a note to GG) to an earlier version of precisely this objection: "A similar type of objection, and one that proceeds from the same spirit, is the following objection made by the same reviewer: namely, that the Wissenschaftslehre has failed to demonstrate its own first principle. But if the principle with which it begins could be proven, then it would-precisely for this reason-not be the first principle. Instead, the highest principle from which the former were demonstrated would be the first principle, which would then be the starting point. Every proof presupposes something that is sin1ply indemonstrable. That from which the Wissenschaftslehre proceeds can neither be grasped through concepts nor communicated thereby; it can only be directly intuited. For anyone who lacks this intuition, the Wissenschaftslehre must necessarily remain groundless and something

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12.

13. 14.

15.

16.

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purely formal, and this system simply cannot make any headway with such a person. This is not the first time I have made such a frank admission, but it now appears to be the custom that, even after one has publicly made a general announcement of this sort, one must still communicate it separately to each new individual opponent; moreover, one is not supposed to display the least annoyance at having to do this. With this remark, I hope, in all friendliness, to have discharged my duty toward this opponent. His proton pseudos is this: It has not yet become sufficiently clear to him that, if there is to be any truth at all, and especially if there is to be any mediated or indirect truth (that is to say, any truth that is mediated through inference), then there must also be something that is immediately true. Once he has understood this, then let him search for such an immediate truth until he finds it. Only then will he be capable of passing judgment on the system of the Wissenschaftslehre, for only then will he understand it" (GA, I, 5, p. 350). "A synthesis is already contained in the very task that all philosophy assumes, for philosophy proceeds from a fact to its foundation. {Now, however, one can raise a second question, namely:} But how do I ever arrive at the point of proceeding from a fact to its foundation? {Or, how is philosophy possible?} This is an important question, for philosophical inquiry consists precisely in posing and in answering just such questions; and, since this question lies at the foundation of philosophy itself, in order to answer it one has to philosophize about philosophy. The question concerning the possibility of philosophy is thus itself a philosop"hical question. Philosophy provides an answer to the question concerning· its own possibility.... To ask how we are able to raise ourselves beyond experience to the level of philosophy is to call into question the very legitimacy of philosophical inquiry; that is, it is to call into question the entire process of reason that makes us search for a foundation for everything contingent. Philosophy itselfis supposed to provide an answer to this question, and to this extent philosophy is selfgrounding" (WLnm, K, pp. 12-14; WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 19; in the cases of passages from the WLnm that are cited according to both K and H, the portions from H appear within scroll brackets). WLnm, K, p. 14. See, too, ZE, GA, 1,4, p. 219. Cf. e.g., the very influential discussion- of this topic in Richard Kroner's Von Kant his Hegel (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1961, originally published in two volumes in 19211924). According to Kroner (p. 408), there is a direct contradiction between Fichte's attempt to base philosophy upon a single first principle and his recognition of the unavoidable circularity of every philosophical system. For more recent efforts, see the works by Tom Rockmore cited above in note 8. The evidence for this claim is a comment that occurs in Fichte's unpublished notes for his review of Aenesidemus, where he explicitly calls attention to the existence of "this circle which is involved in the proof of a single first principle, a circle which Mnioch brought to my attention: Reason forces me to assume an unconditioned I. The I is reason. Thus the existence of reason proves that reason exists!" (GA, II, 1, p. 287). See the discussion, in §5 of the second edition of Versuch einer Kritik aUer Offinharung, of the vicious circularity involved in the claim that we must believe in God because of God's own assurance that he indeed exists (GA, I, 1, p. 155). A similar sort of petitio principi is committed by those exponents of the social contract who argue that we must honor our contracts because we promised to do so when we

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17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

22. 23. 24.

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entered into the "original contract" (see Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publikums iiber die Franzosisches Revolution, GA, I, 2, p. 277). In the Creuzer review (published in October 1793), Fichte limits himself to passing, .critical remarks concerning the circular reasoning employed by those philosophers who deny that freedom can operate within the natural world on the grounds that everything therein has a natural cause (GA, I, 2, p. 10). In contrast, the unavoidable circularity of human reason and of philosophy itself is a major theme of the "Review of Aenesidemus" (written throughout the fall and early winter of 1793 and published in January 1794). The relevant passages from the latter will be discussed below. GA, II, 2, p. 287. See GA, 11,3" pp. 21-26. Discussions of extra-systematic circularity properly belong to what Fichte himself called the "critique of philosophy," whereas those of intra-systematic circularity constitute part of philosophy or metaphysics itself. (For Fichte's own explanation of this distinction, see his 1798 preface to the second edition of BWL). For some examples of Fichte's routine disn1issal of fallaciously "circular" arguments, see the following: his critique (in VLM) of Platner's circular account of the relationship between individual things and general concepts (GA, IV, 1, pp. 215, 218); his analysis (in the unauthorized pamphlet "Ideen tiber Gott und U nsterblichkeit") of the fallacious reasoning invoked by those who first cite immortality as evidence of God's wisdom and then posit the wisdom of God as an explanation of immortality (GA, IV, 1, p. 166); the recognition (in the draft of the "Review of Aenesidemus") that if every act of representing is an empirical determination of consciousness, then Reinhold's "Principle of Consciousness" must itself be grounded in experience-which would thus both explain and be explained by the principle in question (GA, II, 2, p. 287); his discussion (again, in VLM) of the difference between a genuine definition, which goes from a higher to a lower species, and a purely circular one (GA, IV, 1, p. 268); his criticism of attempts to base the origin of language upon human convention, an explanation that presupposes the possibility of the very communication it is attempting to explain (GA, IV, 1, pp. 300, 304); his rejection of the question-begging attempt to account for the origin of superstition by treating it as an instrument of deception, an account that presupposes on the part of the would-be deceivers a prior acquaintance with the concept of superstition (GA, IV, 1, p. 315); his insistence that one cannot infer the existence of God from the physical or moral world order without falling into a circular argument (GA, IV, 1, pp. 403-4; "Appelation an das Publikum" [1799J, GA, 1,5, p. 433); his criticism (in Das System der Sittenlehre [hereafter SSJ [1798J)of the way in which defenders of determinism beg the question at issue when they posit unknown causes for what seem to us to be freely occurring acts (GA, I, 5, p. 130); and finally, his critique (in the same text) of those who would account for our recognition of other rational beings by appealing to our recognition of their "products" within the sensible world (GA, I, 5, p. 204). EM, GA, II, 3, p. 21: "Hence the necessary circle of our mind. We cannot seek the laws of our mind except by proceeding in accordance with these same laws." EM, GA, II, 3, p. 30. See, too, the passage from the draft of "Review of Aenesidemus," quoted above in note 15. Nietzsche, Wille zur Macht, §486 (1885-1886).

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25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

33. 34.

35. 36. 37. 38.

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"Review of Aenesidemus," GA, I, 2, p. 43. BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 142. BWL, GA, I, 2, pp. 148-49. BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 148. Editor's note to "Fichte und Kant, oder Versuch einer Ausgleichung der Fichteschen und Kantischen Philosophie" (1798), GA, 1,4, pp. 487-88. See "Eigne Meditationen tiber Elementar Philosophie/Practische Philosophie" (hereafter EM), GA, II, 3, p. 48. On the other hand, Fichte occasionally (most notably in BWL, §6) suggested that the circle in question was more apparent than real. See, e.g., BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 148, where, after explicitly noting that, like any other science, the Wissenschaftslehre has to make inferences and hence has to presuppose the laws of logic and must make use of certain concepts, he adds: "However, it presupposes these things merely in order to make itself intelligible; thus it presupposes them without drawing the least conclusion from them. Everything must be demonstrated. Every proposition [including such logical laws as those of contradiction and sufficient reason] must be derived from the supreme first principle." O~ this point, the position put forward six months earlier (in EM) and reiterated only a few months later (at the beginning of the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre) seems to be more advanced and candid in its frank admission of the deeply circular relationship between "universal logic" and philosophy. See, too, EM, GA, 11,3, p. 258. "Once again, the circle-a circle to which one can respond only by [noting] the indicated impossibility of escaping from it and that can be provisionally remedied only by the indicated inner self-sufficiency (Selbstandigkeit) of the system." (One possible way to avoid the appearance of conflict between these various texts might be to introduce a distinction between the "rules of reflection," which philosophy really must presuppose and from which it really does draw conclusions, and the explicit rules spelled out in the formal science of "logic.") For further discussion of this point, see the essay by Thomas Seebohm included in this volume.) Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (hereafter GWL) (1794-1795), GA, I, 2, pp. 256-57 (emphasis added). Vorlesungen uber Platners Aphorismen (hereafter VPA) (1796), GA, 11,4, p. 43: "This is the necessary circle. It is the business of this philosophy to prove that, in accordance with the laws of reason, such a world must necessarily appear. But the proof itself necessarily proceeds in accordance with the laws of reason, and the proof of this, in turn, proceeds according to the laws of reason. We are enclosed within these laws, and it is impossible for us to escape from these laws or even to will to do so." "Die Vernunft miBt sich durch sich selbst," VLM, GA, IV, 1, p. 351. VPA (1797-1798), GA, 11,4, p. 214. Indeed, this is the all-important difference between the way that reason operates within philosophy and the way it operates in constructing experience: Philosophy, unlike experience, is something one can freely choose to construct. See, too, VLM, GA, IV, 1, p. 351. WLnm, K, p. 167; WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, pp. 163-64. WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 164. WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 164. VLM, GA, IV, 1, p. 187. Like the related chimera of "things-in-themselves," "truth-in-itself" cannot withstand critical examination. In Fichte's eyes, however, recognizing this in no way detracts from the project of constructing a

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"science of science," since, "according to a well-founded philosophical system, nothing is objectively valid (true) except what must necessarily be thought in consequence of reason. "The philosopher can indeed say nothing whatsoever concerning the objectivity of representations before he has guaranteed the objectivity of his own representations. Insofar as he wishes to guarantee this objectivity, in turn, by means of a new proof, then he thereby again presupposes the objectivity of this proof; and so on, ad infinitum.... However, this objection disappears into nothing: for, according to a well-founded philosophical system, nothing is objectively valid (true) except what must necessarily be thought in consequence of reason. Truth is what is made necessary through reason and needs no other proof. The center of reason is I-hood or self-consciousness; anything that can be proved on the basis of this possesses objective validity. Consequently, when it has been proven that everyone who reflects upon a certain problem can think of it only in a certain way and in no other, then the objectivity of the solution is thereby demonstrated" (VLM, GA, IV, 1, p. 187). 39. See, e.g., EE, GA, I, 4, pp. 206- 7; EM, GA, II, 3, p. 27; and WLnm, §1. 40. BWL, GA, 1,2, pp. 144-45. In the vocabulary ofBWL, a "negative" as well as a "positive" proof is required in support of the Wissenschaftslehre's claim to have "exhausted" or "exhaustively determined" all human knowledge. "A first principle has been exhausted when a complete system has been erected upon it, that is, when the principle in question necessarily leads to all of the propositions that are asserted, and when all of these propositions necessarily lead us back to the first principle. The negative proof that our system includes no superfluous propositions is that no proposition occurs anywhere in the system that could be true if the first principle were false-or could be false if the first principle were true. This is the negative proof because a proposition not belonging to the system could be true even if the first principle of the system were false, or false even ifit were true" (GA, I, 2, p. 130). Such a negative proof of the logical consistency of the system is, in fact, automatically guaranteed by the method by which such a system is supposed to have been constructed, that is, by the fact that each proposition is derived from all of the preceding ones. The required positive proof that the system is not only logically consistent but is also "complete" (in the sense of having actually derived all of the true propositions that can be derived from the first principle) is, however, more problematic. "We require a positive criterion in order to be able to demonstrate absolutely and unconditionally that nothing more can be deduced. This criterion can only be this: that the very principle· from which we began is at the same time our final result. It would then be clear that we could go no further without retracing the path we have already taken. In some future exposition of the Wissenschaftslehre it will be shown that this theory really does complete this circuit, that it leaves the inquirer at precisely the point where he started, and thus that the Wissenschaftslehre also includes within and through itself the second, positive proof" (GA, I, 2, pp. 130-31; see also EM, GA, II, 3,p. 29). It is perhaps worth noting that this strategy of using the circularity of the Wissenschaftslehre to demonstrate its systematic completeness subsequently disappears almost completely from Fichte's metatheoretical reflections. Nor does any version of the Wissenschaftslehre actually meet the formal criterion of this positive proof of systematic completeness. 41. EM, GA, II, 3, p. 24: "Consequently, Elementary Philosophy validates itself,

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42. 43. 44.

45.

46.

47. 48. 49.

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from its agreement with itself. If the path I have actually followed can be set forth in concepts, and if the path that can be set forth in concepts has been followed, then this philosophy is true in itself. It possesses inner truth. No outer truth occurs in this case-indeed, it never occurs anywhere." This, according to Fichte, is also the method of proof actually employed by Kant, who "from start to finish assumes propositions only problematically; from the unification of his path in a single point he infers the inner truth of his system." See, too, Fichte's remark in his letter of 21 June 1794 to Goethe: "The correctness of my system is vouched for by, among other things, the inner connection between the whole and each single part." EM, GA, II, 3, p. 24. In fact, of course, even this "inner truth" remains no more than probable, due to the above-mentioned inlpossibility of demonstrating that one has made no errors in deriving the various moments of the system. BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 113. EE, GA, I, 4, pp. 204-5: "Idealism demonstrates within immediate consciousness what it asserts. Nevertheless, it remains merely a presupposition that this constitutes the necessary and fundamental law of reason as a whole, a law from which we can derive the entire system of our necessary representations-not merely our representations of a world in which objects are determined by the subsumptive and reflective power of judgment, but also our representations of ourselves as free, practical beings subject to laws. A complete transcendental idealism has to demonstrate the truth of this presupposition by actually providing a derivation of this system of representations, and precisely this constitutes its proper task." Fichte's own remarks on this topic betray a certain ambiguity. In part, this merely reflects the difference already discussed between the intrinsic truth of the proposition that serves as the first principle and its extrinsic truth qua philosophical starting point. However, there may also be an additional reason why Fichte was sometimes reluctant to characterize his own Grundsatz as a hypothesis: namely, his desire to distinguish his position from that of his contemporary, J. S. Beck, who strongly emphasized the merely "hypothetical" or "postulated" character of the first principles of his own version of Kant's Critical philosophy. In explaining the difference between his starting point and Beck's, Fichte calls attention to the purely factual character of Beck's "postulate" and contrasts the latter with the postulated Act (Tathandlung) with which his own system begins. See WLnm, K, p. 28; WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 29. BWL, GA, I, 2, 132-33. "When we assume that everything that follows from this principle is absolutely valid, then we are already assuming that the principle in question is the absolute and sole first principle and that it governs human knowledge completely. There is thus a circle here from which the human mind can never escape.... The circle is as follows: Ifproposition X is the first, highest, and absolute first principle of knowledge, then human knowledge constitutes one single system, for this conclusion follows from X. However, since human knowledge is supposed to constitute a single system, then it follows that proposition X, which (according to the proposed science) is actually the foundation of a system, is the first principle of human knowledge as such, and that the system established upon X is that single system of human knowledge." GA, I, 5, p. 130. BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 133. Letter to Baggeson, April or May 1795.

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50. "Ich kann von diesem Standpunkte aus nicht weiter gehen, wei! ich nicht weiter gehen darf' (ZE, GA, I, 4, p. 219). 51. "Ich kann nur darum nicht weiter gehen, weil ich weiter gehen nicht wollen kann" (GG, GA, I, 5, p. 351). 52. Letter to Reinhold, 29 August 1795. See, too, the discussion of this point in EM, GA, II, 3, p. 24. 53. BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 143; EM, GA, II, 3, pp. 21-22; Einige Vorlesungen uber die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794), GA, I, 3, p. 56; and the entire 1795 essay, "Uber Belebung und Erhohung des reinen Interesse fur Wahrheit" (GA, I, 3, pp. 83-90). 54. Regarding "spirit" or "reason in the narrow sense," see the third, unpublished lecture "(Tber den Unterschied des Geistes und des Buchstabens in der Philosophie" (1794), GA, II, 3, pp. 335-36. See also: BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 143n; WLnm, K, p. 33; and ZE, GA, I, 4, p. 508. 55. See the conclusion to the previously quoted passage from Fichte's 29 August 1795 letter to Reinhold: "My mind is so constructed that I must grasp the whole either all at once or not at all, which explains the faulty construction of my writings." 56. See GWL, GA, I, 2, pp. 302ff. 57. See, e.g., EM, GA, II, 3, p. 135. See, too, the conflict that emerges in GWL between an idealistic grounding of representations within the I itself and a realistic grounding of representations within the not-I, and the subsequent recognition of the need for both explanations. Though it appears (in Fichte's words) as if finite reason is here "caught in a circle," he nevertheless insists that "this conflict of reason with itself must be solved, even if this cannot be done within the theoretical Wissenschaftslehre" (GA, I, 2, p. 311). A bit later in GWL we encounter a more complex circle, involving the relationship between the intuiting subject and the intuited object, on the one hand, and the I and the not-Ion the other. After reminding his readers of his own unsuccessful attempt to explain each set of these distinctions in terms of the other, Fichte comments that "it is clear that we have no fixed point in making this distinction, but are, instead, turning in an endless circle." Here again, he interprets this circle to mean that we cannot stop at this point in our derivations, "since we do not escape from our circle in this way. Thus we must determine further" (GA, I, 2, pp. 373, 379). A similar observation occurs later in this same text (GA, I, 2, p. 402), where, after attempting to explain the difference between the (finite) objective activity of consciousness and its (infinite) striving by invoking the distinction between real and imaginary objects, and vice versa, Fichte concludes that such an explanation "involves a circle and already presupposes a distinction that first becomes possible through the distinction between these same two activities. Therefore, we must go somewhat deeper in our investigation of this difficulty." Yet another example of this sort of objectionable and avoidable circularity is encountered in the middle of the Grundriss des Eigenthumlichen der Wissenschaftslehre in Rucksicht aufdas theoretische Vermogen (hereafterGEWL) (1795), GA, I, 3, p. 166, where Fichte calls attention to the fact that unless he pushes his argument in a new direction he will be stuck with a purely circular explanation of the distinction between the ideal and real activities of the I in terms of the parallel distinction between its unlimited and limited activities, and vice versa. After noting that such an account "turns in a circle," he adds that "if we cannot escape from this circle and find some basis for distinguishing between real and ideal activity, a

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58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64.

65.

66.

67. 68.

69. 70.

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basis that has nothing to do with limitation, then the required distinction and relationship [between real and ideal activities] are impossible." For yet another example of how the discovery of (avoidable) circularity serves to advance an argument, see the discussion in SS of the relationship between the I's knowledge ofa concept ofa goal and its perception of its own willing-each of which appears to be a condition for the other: "The condition is, as we see, not possible without what is conditioned, and what is conditioned is not possible without the condition; this, without doubt, is a circular explanation and shows that we have not yet explained our consciousness of our own freedom-which is what has to be explained" (GA, I, 5, p. 103). What all these cases have in common is that such an encounter with circularity serves simply as a warning or a prod that drives the philosopher on toward the discovery of something further. In each of these cases, therefore, Fichte subsequently attempts to remove the circularity to which he himself has directed attention. EM, GA, II, 3, p. 142. GA, II, 3, p. 23. GWL, GA, I, 2, p. 393. Grundlage des Naturrechts, GA, I, 3, 340. WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 129. GWL, GA, I, 2, p. 393 (emphasis added). GA, I, 3, p. 342. A similar point is made in the transcript of Fichte's lectures on Sittenlehre in the context of a discussion of the relationship between the limitation and the activity of the I: "In order for it to have an activity it must already be an intellect; but in order for it to be an intellect, it must already have been active.... We are in a circle" (GA, IV, 1, p. 38). WLnm, K, p. 138; WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 129. This same passage includes an extended discussion of the specific understanding in question (namely, the understanding of the circle involved in the synthetic unity of freedom and limitation in the concept of necessary, pure willing). See, too, K, p. 151. Regarding the nature of this "fivefold synthesis," see especially WLnm, § 19, where the five "moments" or "elements" of this synthesis are characterized as what is determinately real, what is determinable as real, the unifying I (which is the same as the original synthesis of imagination) , what is determinable as ideal, and what is determinately ideal. GA, II, 3, p. 75. However, there is also some evidence that, even after having attained this insight into the philosophical significance of unavoidable, intra-systematic circularity, Fichte did not always remain comfortable with it. See, for example, his exasperated comment in the manuscript of his 'incomplete 1800 revision of the Wissenschaftslehre (regarding the relationship between striving, acting, and limitation): "This is a circular description. (Unfortunately, I have many of these)" (GA, II, 5, p. 386). WLnm, K, p. 138. WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 247. Compare WLnm, K, p. 227: "Consciousness is like a circle." In a sense, this result was already present from the beginning, namely, in the description (in the opening sections of WLnm) of self-consciousness as a "self-reverting activity." Thus one could say that what occurs in the tortuous course of the WLnm is that this purely abstract determination of selfconsciousness is fleshed out and further determined, until finally we are able to

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71.

72. 73.

74.

75.

76. 77.

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see that the circle ofself-consciousness coincides with the circle of consciousness in general. See the discussion, in EE, GA, I, 4, pp. 206- 7, of the argumentative strategy of the Wissenschaftslehre, which concludes with the remark that "none of the individual things it postulates is possible on its own; each is possible only in combination with all of the others. It thus follows from idealism's claim that nothing is actually present but this entire whole, and this entire whole is precisely experience. The idealist wishes to become better acquainted with this whole, and in order to do so he must analyze it." In hindsight, this conclusion is plainly foreshadowed in a passage near the beginning of EM, though the author himself was obviously only dimly aware of the implications of his own argument at the time this manuscript was composed. Fichte grants that, once the power of representation has been presupposed, then everything else can be shown to be necessary. But what about the necessity of the power of representation itself? How can this be demonstrated? One possibility, Fichte observes, would be to base all philosophy upon "a single fact." But then he suggests another possibility: "By proceeding from the unity of apperception to the practical legislation of reason and then, in turn, ascending from the latter to the former. The first would be the synthetic method, the second the analytic method. Could each of these paths be employed to demonstrate the other?" (EM, GA, I, 3, p. 26). In the spirit of the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, we might reply to this rhetorical question as follows: No, but the existence of these two paths shows the inseparability of the unity of apperception and the practical legislation of reason. "Review of Aenesidemus," GA, I, 2, p. 62. "This fact, that the finite mind must necessarily posit something absolute outside itself (a thing-in-itself), and nevertheless must recognize, from the other side, that the latter exists only for it (as a necessary noumenon), constitutes that circle that the finite mind is able to extend to infinity but can never escape. A sysfem that pays no attention whatsoever to this circle is a dogmatic idealism; for in fact it is only this circle that limits us and makes us finite beings. A systenl that fancies that it has escaped this circle is a transcendent, realistic dogmatism" (GWL, GA, I, 2, p. 412). Indeed, Fichte himself describes the circle in question here as "the circle within which the human mind is enclosed" ("Review of Aenesidemus," GA, I, 2, p. 62). "Review of Aenesidemus," GA, I, 2, p. 51: "The faculty of representation existsfor the faculty of representation and through the faculty of representation; this is the circle within which every finite understanding, that is, every understanding we can conceive, is necessarily confined. Anyone who wants to escape from this circle does not understand himself and does not know what he wants." See, too, EM, GA, II, 3, p. 135. A similar circularity is involved in our attempts to understand God. Here, too, according to Fichte, "the human mind turns in a constant circle whenever it tries to make the supersensible~whichit, to be sure, necessarily posits-into something meaningful and understandable" ("Ideen tiber Gott und Unsterblichkeit," GA, IV, 1, p. 158). WLnm, H, GA, IV, 2, p. 131. See Fichte's comment, in his 15 November 1800 letter to Schelling, concerning the "fictional" character of transcendental philosophy's attempt to "allow consciousness to construct itself." See, too, the remarks in EE, §4, regarding the

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78.

79.

80.

81.

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purely "abstract" character of all philosophical starting points. For further discussion of the relationship between the philosophical and ordinary standpoints, see the important "Fragment" Fichte attached to his 22 April 1799 letters to Jacobi and Reinhold. See as well, Daniel Breazeale, "The 'Standpoint of Life' and the 'Standpoint of Philosophy' in the Context of the 'Jena Wissenschaftslehre ' (1794- 180 I)," in Transzendentalphilosophie als System: Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen 1794 und 1806, ed. Albert Mues (Hamburg: Meiner, 1990), pp. 81-104. "It is precisely the task of the Critical philosophy to show that no such passage is required, that everything that occurs within our mind can be explained and comprehended on the basis of the mind itself. The Critical phi~osophy does not even dream of trying to answer a question it considers contrary to reason. This philosophy points out to us the circle from which we cannot escape. Within this circle, on the other hand, it furnishes us with the greatest coherence in all of our thinking" ("Review of Aenesidemus," GA, I, 2, p. 55). As Fichte concedes in this same text, there is a sense in which the Critical philosopher can be said to be, on this point at least, less open-minded and more dogmatic than his skeptical opponents. For, unlike the skeptical (or "Humean") system,which "holds open the possibility that we might someday be able to go beyond the boundary of the human mind, the Critical system proves that such progress is absolutely impossible, and it shows that the thought of a thing possessing existence and specific properties in itself and apart from th~ faculty of representation is a piece of whimsy, a pipe dream, a non-thought. And to this extent the Humean system is skeptical and the Critical system is dogmatic-and indeed negatively so" (GA, I, 2, p. 57). Such dogmatism is perhaps the price we must pay for being able to make any philosophical progress at all, since so long as the possibility in question is held open, then skepticism must remain the last word in philosophical wisdom. GWL, GA, I, 2, p. 413. See, too, GEWL (GA, I, 3, p. 169), where Fichte notes that the transcendent dogmatist merely adopts the same attitude toward the not-I as the experiencing I that is observed by the transcendental philosopher. Thus, like the experiencing I, the dogmatic philosopher is "unknowingly caught up in the very circle in which we knowingly find ourselves." As Fichte explains in GWL (GA, I, 2, p. 419), philosophy's task is not to break out of the circle within which every I is necessarily confined, but rather to explain how the I is able to develop everything from out of itself, and specifically, how it can posit the presence to consciousness of an independent not-I "without ever going outside of itself or escaping from its circle." BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 57. See WLnm, K, p. 4: "Philosophy is thus something that is at least conceivable; that is to say, it is conceivable that someone might ask about the objectivity of our own representations, and it is worthy of a rational being to ponder the answer to this question. The idea of philosophy is thereby evinced, but the only way in which its reality can be demonstrated is by actually constructing a system of philosophy." And see WLnm, K, p. 27: "Those who maintain that we should not seek any first principle might mean by this that one should not attempt to philosophize in a systematic manner at all, because it is impossible to do so. The way to remove this objection is by actually constructing a system." See as well VLM, GA, IV, 1, p. 187, and EE, GA, 1,4, pp. 204-5. BWL, GA, I, 2, p. 126 (emphasis added).

4

Some Remarks Concerning the Circularity ofPhilosophy and the Evidence ofIts First Principle in the Jena Wissenschaftslehre ALAIN PERRINJAQUET

In his book Hegel's Circular Epistemology and in a series of essays published between 1977 and 1992,1 Tom Rockmore has proposed a new and very interesting interpretation of the Fichtean conception of a philosophical system. This interpretation has called my attention to the problem of the simultaneous presence in the J ena Wissenschaftslehre 2 of the twin topics of circular proof and the evidence of the principle of philosophy.3 Rockmore propounds a solution to this problem; I will suggest in this paper a somewhat different solution. I will not present Rockmore's interpretation in detail but will only recall its main features. He gives the name "Cartesian epistemology" or "grounded epistemology" to the sort of methodology that affirms that the certainty of the position as a whole depends on its initial premise or of premises. The latter functions as a ground or foundation from which the position in question can be derived and upon which its claim to certain knowledge rests. So understood, philosophy is comparable to geometrical proof, whose truth depends upon its initial axioms. But, unlike geometry, in Cartesian epistemology the ground can be shown to be true so that, as in Aristotle's view, it loses its hypothetical character. 4

~set

According to Rockmore, this was the form of epistemology that was predominant in modern Continental philosophy. One can distinguish two

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models of grounded epistemology: a linear one and a circular one. Variants of the first model include, for example, the doctrines of Descartes, Spinoza, and Husserl, and obviously Reinhold's philosophy. Hegel's philosophy represents the second model. s The originality of Rockmore's interpretation is that he opposes Fichte's position to the first model, especially in its Reinholdian form, and he does so in spite of Reinhold's well-known influence upon Fichte. Rockmore maintains that, according to Fichte, the circularity of the dernonstration cannot be avoided; it is constitutive of our knowledge. 6 However, according to Rockmore, Fichte's epistemology is not identical to Hegel's epistemology. In contrast to Hegel, Fichte rejects the project of a "self-justifying epistemology": The identity of the starting point and of the final result does not give certainty to the principle of philosophy. For Fichte, Rockmore maintains, a philosophy is never infallible. 7 We can lay claim only to hypothetical knowledge, 8 and the process of knowledge is an infinite one. 9 In short, the ideal of philosophy as a rigorous science is, for Fichte, not constitutive, but regulative,IO whereas, according to Hegel, a circular foundation grounds the principle in the full, epistemological sense. 11 In this paper I would like to discuss Rockmore's thesis. I will first examine the functions Fichte attributes to the circular structure of his doctrine, and then I will examine his assertions concerning the evidence of the principle of his philosophy. Certainly, I cannot here embark upon an exhaustive study of these topics in Fichte's work, and thus I will not claim to have provided the last word concerning these difficult questions. I only hope to provide some hints for continuing the discussion begun by Rockmore. In the first part of my essay I will examine one of Rockmore's reference texts, Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaflslehre (1794). I will suggest that though the circular structure Fichte attributes in this work to the Wissenschaftslehre certainly has several important functions, it does not have the function ofjustifying the principle of philosophy. In the second part I will try to show that there is no contradiction in the two "Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre" of 1797, although Fichte says that, on the one hand,· he is absolutely certain of the principle of his philosophy, but that, on the other hand, he is not able to demonstrate the truth of his philosophy to a dogmatic philosopher. In the third part I will examine The System of Ethics According to the Principles of the Wissenschaflslehre (1798) in order to show how the certainty of the moral law allows one to ground the certainty of the principle of philosophy. I will assume that, although Fichte rejects the idea of a theoretical ground of philosophy, as Rockmore maintains, he provides a practical foundation for this science. Philosophy acquires in that case a quite different status than that of a merely hypothetical form of knowledge. Finally, in part four I will propose some theses concerning the relationship between intellectual intuition of the moral law as the certainty of ordinary consciousness and

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pure intellectual intuition as the evident starting point of philosophical reflection. In the fourth part I· will make frequent reference to the two 1797 "Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre," with an interpretation of the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796-1799) in the background. 12 CIRCULAR STRUCTURE IN CONCERNING THE CONCEPT OF THE WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE In Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre Fichte several times accords· a demonstrative function to circular structure. I think there are three main places where Fichte obviously considers this structure to constitute a satisfactory method of proof. But these three ci.rcular demonstrations do not concern the foundation of the principle of philosophy. The first one concerns the demonstration of the completeness and entirety of the system of philosophy, the second one its uniqueness, and the third one the validity of the laws of thought (principally the logical laws), that is, of the laws that the philosopher has to use in his deductions from the first principle of philosophy. Let us examine those three circular demonstrations more closely. I will not mention all of the features of the "hypothetical concept of the 'Wissenschaftslehre," which Fichte brings up in §1 and §2 of Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre, but I will simply recall that he allocates two main tasks to the Wissenschaftslehre as foundation of the other sciences: first, to prove (erweisen) the certainty of the principle of every particular science (after having grounded the possibility of principles in general through theexposition of the essence of certainty); 13 second, to ground (begrunden) the systematic form of every science, namely, the deductive laws that will make it possible for every science to extract from its certain first principle other, equally certain, propositions. 14 Fichte admits that this definition of the Wissenschaftslehre as the science of the sciences implies that human knowledge is a complete and unique system. 15 (This system includes only what we can know a priori, that is to say, only what is universal and necessary, or, in Fichte's words, the "necessary representations.") The Wissenschaftslehre has to furnish us with the particular first principles of all of the possible sciences, so that we are able to reconstruct systematically and exhaustively this system of knowledge. At the same time, it assigns to every science its respective place and determines the number of sciences. The Wissenschaftslehre has to exclude the possibility that a new principle without any relationship to the principles already established could ground anew science, which would threaten the certainty of the results of the other sciences and would introduce into the system of our pure sciences the characteristic of an aggregate. 16 To achieve this goal, to show that his philosophy has reconstructed the

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entire system of the pure human sciences, Fichte has to demonstrate first, that the Wissenschaftslehre is the unique science able to ground these principles, that is, that it is the unique system of the principles of human knowledge; and second, that this science is complete, that is, that he has deduced from its starting point all of the scientific first principles that could possibly be deduced.

The Completeness of the Wissenschaftslehre The principle of every science has to be grounded in a proposition of the Wissenschaftslehre. Thus, in order to be sure that we have deduced all of the possible sciences in the system of knowledge, we have to make certain that we have discovered all of the possible propositions of the Wissenschaftslehre. In §4 of Concerning the Concept ofthe Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte examines how to obtain such an assurance. The systematic aspect of the Wissenschaftslehre, namely its coherence, is proved "when the principle in question necessarily leads to all of the propositions that are asserted and when all of these propositions necessarily lead us back to the first principle, when no proposition appears within the whole system that could be true if the first principle were false or false if it were true.,,17 But this is only a "negative proof": The coherence of the Wissenschaftslehre shows only that no extraneous proposition has been admitted within this system. Such an extraneous proposition could be false even if the principle were true or true even if the principle were false. 18 So how can we know that no proposition is lacking in the Wissenschaflslehre? Fichte says we have to show that its principle is exhausted, or that no other proposition can be deduced from it. But this can be shown only by the fact that the final result of the deduction is the principle itself, in which case we could only stop with our deduction or else retrace the same deductive path as before. 19 Thus, the circularity of the deduction is what warrants the assertion concerning the completeness and exhaustivity of the Wissenschaftslehre. The other sciences do not require such a circular structure, because they can be-and are-extendable ad infinitum, without introducing any heterogeneity into the system of knowledge. 20

The Uniqueness of the Wissenschaftslehre It is not enough to exhaust the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre. We could possibly discover in the future some instances of knowledge that could not be reduced to the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre, and these would presuppose one or several other principles. In this case we would have to admit that there is not one sole system in the human mind, but two or more systems. There could be no link between these systems, which would therefore constitute that aggregate of heterogeneous knowledge that is Fichte's countermodel in §2 of Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre. 21

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How could we prove that there is only one principle of possible human knowledge and thus only one system of possible human knowledge? Here, again, Fichte must resort to a circular demonstration: If the proposition "there is only one system in human knowledge" is (a priori) true, then this very proposition also belongs to this system of knowledge, and thus it must be.deducible from the first principle of this system. If the supposed principle implies this proposition (namely, that there is but one system in human knowledge), then any proposition (if synthetic and a priori) not deducible from this principle would be not merely different from this principle but opposed to it. This new proposition would contradict another one that necessarily follows from this principle, and thus, according to modus tollens, it would contradict the first principle itself. We can never prove that such a refutation is impossible. We can only affirm that if the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre is true, then the system it grounds is unique; but the principle could be false. 22 We can go beyond the simple assertion of the incompatibility between the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre and the plurality of systems only if we accept, with Fichte, a form of circular argumentation. We will, in this way, first accept the thesis that there must be a unique system of human knowledge. Consequently, we will then accept the principle from which we can deduce this same thesis, that is to say, confirm it within the system,23 and really (re)construct a homogeneous system of human knowledge. For Fichte, this is "a circle from which no hunlan mind can ever escape."24 Moreover, we have no reason to want to go beyond this circle, because, as he says, to desire the abolition of this circle is to desire that human knowledge be totally without any foundation. It is to desire that nothing should be absolutely certain and that all human knowledge should instead be only conditional, that no proposition should be valid in itself, but rather that every proposition should be valid only on the condition that the proposition from which it follows is valid. 25

The Laws of Thought Let us now examine the third circular demonstration, which concerns the laws of thought. In §2 of Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre Fichte says that the Wissenschaftslehre, like every science, has to be grounded from a principle that is certain and in accordance with rules that are also certain. Concerning the principle he says only that it can be grounded neither in the Wissenschaftslehre (because then it would no longer be a "first principle") nor in any other science (because then the Wissenschaftslehre would no longer be the "highest science"). Therefore, the principle has to be immediately certain: "It must thus therefore be certain-indeed, it must be certain in itself: for its own sake, and through itsel("26 But he also says that the Wissenschaftslehre must

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contain within itself the laws it applies in the course of its deduction and m ust ground these laws by itself. 27 It thus seems that, whereas the first principle of philosophy cannot be grounded by the Wissenschaftslehre, its deductive form can be. In §7, however, Fichte makes clear that this demonstration is circular. We could indeed try to deduce from the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre those laws of thought that we presuppose at the beginning of our philosophical reflection. But this would not yield an absolute proof, for if we had applied other laws in the course of our deduction, then we would certainly have obtained other results and thus other "laws of thought" as well. Or perhaps these "other" laws would have failed to coincide with the presupposed ones. Then we would have come to the conclusion that either the former or the latter or both were wrong. In this way, the circular structure provides us with a negative proof of the presupposed laws: If the circular verification does not work, then we can be sure that the hypothetical laws were wrong, but the success of such a circular argument does not demonstrate the truth of the hypothetical laws. Fichte remarks that even when we rediscover the presupposed laws as a result of our deduction we cannot exclude the possibility that this coincidence could be the result of a mistake in the deduction. 28 Moreover, I think we can go a little further than Fichte on this point. We cannot exclude the possibility that we could build a consistent system upon other laws of thought than those presupposed in the Wissenschaftslehre, and that we could do so without making any mistakes in the course of our deduction. This system would be a rival model for the Wissenschaftslehre, and, like it, could claim to account for the fundamental laws of the human mind. In such a case, we would know that, if human knowledge is not a heterogeneous aggregate, then at most one of these systems really explains human knowledge, but we could not know which of them does so. The circular deduction could not resolve the conflict between the two. The deductive rules of the Wissenschaftslehrecannot be grounded in any other science. The Wissenschaftslehre can only give them greater probability, never certainty. Today we would say that these rules are never verifiable, but only falsifiable, that the "unity of the system" (that is, its consistency) shows only that it resists falsification. Fichte indeed says that the system of human knowledge is absolutely certain and infallible, but that the Wissenschaftslehre, which is only the presentation (Darstellung) of this sytem, cannot claim infallibility. We can never know with certainty that the Wissenschaftslehre is an adequate representation of the system of human knowledge: If our Wissenschaftslehre is an accurate presentation of this system of the hun1an mind, then, like this system itself, it is absolutely certain and infallible. But the question is precisely whether and to what extent our

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presentation is accurate, and this is something that we can never show by strict proofs, but only by probable ones. Our presentation contains truth only on the condition and only insofar as it is accurate. We are not the legislators of the human mind, but rather its historians. We are not, of course, journalists, but rather writers of pragmatic history. 29 In a footnote to the second edition (1798) of Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschqftslehre Fichte says some critics have opposed the modesty of the declaration just quoted to the "subsequent great immodesty of the author." We will indeed see that Fichte implicitly affirms in the "Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre" that he has reached absolute certainty in his philosophy. In the second edition of Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre he replies to his critics that his position has not changed since 1794 and that his attitude still has not contradicted this "declaration of modesty." Thus he explains that (in §7) he was speaking of the uncertainty of the deductions of the Wissenschaftslehre, not of the uncertainty of its first principle. But, Fichte states in his footnote, his critics never got beyond the first principle; they never discussed the deduction itself: "They are still quarreling over the first principle, that is, over my entire view of philosophy. My innermost conviction, then as well as now, is that, so long as one knows what the issue is, there can be no quarrel whatsoever concerning this point. And, in fact, I never reckoned upon such a dispute.,,3o The previously mentioned passage from §2, in which Fichte says the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre has to be "immediately certain," confirms that Fichte did not change his view between the first and second editions of Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre: This principle is simply certain; that is, it is certain because it is certain. It provides the foundation for all certainty; that is, everything that is certain is certain because it is certain, and if it is not certain, then nothing is. I t provides the foundation for all knowledge; that is, if one has any knowledge at all then one knows what this principle asserts. One knows it immediately as soon as one knows anything whatsoever. It accompanies all knowledge. I t is contained in all knowledge. I t is presupposed by all knowledge. 31 One might object that we have not yet mentioned a fourth occurrence of circular structure in Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre, namely, in §7, where Fichte says that the deduction in the Wissenschaftslehre begins, exactly as in every science, with an act of freedom, that is, with an act of abstraction, which is also an act of reflection. This act elevates one to a consciousness of the "necessary mode of action of the human mind," that is, to a consciousness of the highest of these modes of action, a mode of action that, assumed in its pureness, will be the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre. In his presentations of the Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte will show that this principle

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is pure self-consciousness. But how does the philosopher know, before he has discovered his principle, which action of the mind he must retain as absolutely necessary in his reflective abstraction? How does he know what he must retain and what he must give up in order to find his principle? In order to incorporate within the form of consciousness the intellect's necessary mode of acting, we must already be acquainted with this manner of acting- which manner of acting must, consequently, already be incorporated within this form of consciousness. Thus we would be caught up in a circle. 32 This circle is not put forward to justify the principle of philosophy, but only to explain how its discovery is possible. Fichte, however, does not accept this circular argument, or he does so only in part. The discovery of this principle cannot be explained by assuming that the philosopher is previously aware of this principle as such; instead, this discovery can be explained only by a process of trial and error, a process not guided by any rules but dependent upon many attempts guided by indistinct feelings of the truth. 33 The human mind thus possesses no method to reach the principle of philosophy, not even a circular one. Once, however, it has discovered this principle, it discovers that it possesses an evidence that requires no confirmation, not even a circular one. Concerning this principle there can be no more dispute, as Fichte said in the previously quoted footnote to the second edition of Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre. Let us now examine this evidence more closely.

THE CONVICTION OF THE PHILOSOPHER IN THE "SECOND INTRODUCTION TO THE WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE' ,

In § 10 of the "Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre," a text subtitled "for readers who already have a philosophical system of their own," Fichte asks if it is possible to convince a dogmatic realist of the principle of transcendental philosophy. He answers negatively and concludes that no philosophy could ever be considered universally accepted (allgemeingeltend) by all philosophers. If this is so, then what criterion can a philosopher employ to insure the truth of his philosophy, that is, the truth of his philosophical first principle, which is what Fichte is concerned with in this passage?34 This criterion, Fichte says, is the philosopher's conviction: If even a single person is completely convinced of his own philosophy, if he remains completely convinced of it at every moment, if he is entirely at one with himself in this philosophy, and if the free judgment he exercises when he philosophizes is in complete harmony with those

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judgments forced upon him in the course of his life: if this is really the case, then philosophy has achieved its goals and run its full course in this one person, for it has set him down again at the precise point where he, along with all other human beings, began. Should this ever happen, then philosophy as a science will actually be present in the world, even if no one beyond this one single person comprehends and adopts it, and even if it should happen that this person has no idea how to expound this philosophy to anyone else. 35 Fichte goes on to assert that one can learn what such conviction is "only by experiencing the fullness of conviction within oneself." He also says that very few, ifany, past philosophers were convinced of their own philosophy. But he seems to have no doubt that he himself possesses such conviction, since he seems to know what it is. Indeed, he says that conviction can only be something that does not depend upon any particular time nor upon any alteration in one's condition. It is not something that can be present within one's mind as a mere accident; it is identical with the mind itself. One can be convinced only of what is unalterably and eternally true. I t is simply not possible to be convinced of an error.36 Fichte suggests that Kant probably was not convinced of his system, since he admitted transcendental appearance (transcendentaler Schein) to be "a natural and unavoidable illusion. ,,37 In support of the claim that no illusion recurs after it has been defeated, he cited his own experience: "To know that one is deceived and yet to remain deceived: This is not a state of conviction and harmony with oneself; instead it is a state of serious inner conflict. In my experience, no such deception ever recurs, for no deception whatsoever is present within reason.,,38 Here Fichte seems to have a very firm conviction about the principle of his philosophy. His description of his conviction concerning the truth of this principle allows no room for the sort ofprobabilism that would be implied by a merely circular foundation. To be sure, at the beginning of the same section Fichte grants that he cannot demonstrate to the dogmatists themselves that their starting point is wrong. 39 The reason for this inability is that transcendental philosophy and dogmatic realism share no common principle, and someone can prove something to someone else only if they grant at least one common principle. 40 Moreover, the dogmatist cannot possibly be constrained to adopt the starting point of the transcendental idealist. This starting point cannot be externally enforced, since it is the consciousness of freedom: "Everything depends upon one's having already become intimately aware of one's own freedom and prizing it above all else; and this is something that can be achieved only by the constant-and clearly consciousexercise of one's own freedom ,,41

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In this section of the "Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre" we find the key to the well-known passages fron1 the "First Introduction" in which Fichte says that idealism and dogmatism seem to have the san1e worth from the speculative standpoint. 42 This is a conflict, he says, that has to be decided from the practical standpoint: "The sort of philosophy one chooses thus depends upon the sort of person one is.,,43 Reinhard Lauth has shown that the "First Introduction" is a response to Schelling's Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism 44 and that, in this "Introduction," Fichte corrects most of Schelling's theses but employs some of Schelling's terminology in order to spare him public embarrassment. However, Fichte makes fewer concessions than it may seem in the "First Introduction." In §6 he says that "dogmatism, however, is quite incapable of explaining what it is supposed to explain, and this decisively shows its untenability. ,,45 Dogmatism had to explain representation but failed; consequently, it is not only practically unacceptable, but also theoretically "untenable" (untauglich). "Accordingly, dogmatism is no philosophy at all, even when viewed from the speculative side, but nothing more than a helpless affirmation and assurance. ,,46 In the "Second Introduction" Fichte reaffirms his agreement with Schelling that dogmatism and criticism cannot refute each other. But he makes clear that the reason for this is not that their respective first principles are equally evident but rather because the principle of transcendental philosophy cannot be enforced from outside, since it requires an act of freedomthat is, attention to one's own freedom. This principle is certain, but its certainty has only a conditional necessity: If a person scrutinizes the autonomy of his own consciousness, then this principle is certain for that person. Freedom of consciousness is necessary for every conscious being, but a distinct consciousness of this freedom (of consciousness) is not something that necessarily occurs. Fichte can therefore affirm, as we saw above, that "the sort of philosophy one chooses thus depends upon the sort of person one is"; that is, "the final reason for the difference between the idealist and the dogmatist is, accordingly, the difference between their [practical] interests."47

CONSCIENCE (GEWISSEN) AND CERTAINTY (GEWJj3HEIT) IN THE SYSTEM OF ETHICS

Awareness of the certainty of the first principle of philosophy depends upon a moral attitude. Since transcendental philosophy is "the only n1anner of thinking within philosophy that is consistent with duty,,,48 the principle of this philosophy may be certain for everyone who is aware of duty. Let us now examine what Fichte says in The System of Ethics about the relationship

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between mor'al consciousness-that is, conscience (Gewissen) -and certainty (GewifJheit) . In §15 Fichte seeks an absolute criterion for determining the correctness of our conviction concerning duty. Such a criterion is necessary because the moral law commands us always to act in accordance with this conviction, but we are anxious to avoid being deceived by our own conviction. 49 Fichte thinks that we can infer the reality of such a criterion from its moral necessity: If it is at all possible to act in accordance with duty, then there must be such a criterion. But, according to the moral law, action in accordance with duty is purely and simply possible, and thus there is such a criterion. Thus, from the presence and necessary causality of a moral law we infer something in the faculty of cognition.... That without which there could be no duty at all is absolutely true, and it is a duty to consider it to be true. 50 Fichte, however, immediately makes it clear that the moral law cannot by itself produce a conviction about any particular d uty51 because it is not a faculty of cognition. The moral law requires the faculty of cognition 52 to determine the content of this conviction, and then it invests the latter with its own authority. If the content of the faculty of judgment coincides with the moral drive (sittlicher Trieb), which appears here as a drive toward definite cognition, "then the drive toward cognition coincides with an [actual] cognition; the original I and the actual I are in harmony, and there arises a feeling-as, according to the above proof, always occurs in cases of this sort. "53 This harmony does not generate a feeling of pleasure, as aesthetic feelings do, but only one of "cold approval." It is particularly interesting for us that for Fichte this feeling of approval refers not only to actions but also to cognitions or instances of knowledge: "In the case of actions, one calls what is approved 'right'; in the case of cognition, 'true.' Thus there is afeeling of truth and certainty, which serves as the sought-for absolute criterion of the correctness of our conviction concerning duty. ,,54 In the feeling of doubt, the oscillation of the free imagination between opposites appears. This oscillation continues as long as the faculty of judgment is searching, and it is accompanied by apprehensiveness. But when the faculty of judgment finds what was required by the moral drive, there then arises a feeling of agreement between the faculty of judgment and the practical or moral faculty. This feeling binds the imagination: "I cannot view this matter in any other way; here, as with every feeling, compulsion is present. This provides immediate certainty in cognition, which is accompanied by peace and satisfaction. "55

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This feeling, says Fichte, never deceives us, "for it is present only where there is complete agreement between our empirical and pure I, and the latter is our only true being and is all possible being and all possible truth. ,,56 In the context of § 15 of The System of Ethics, Fichte's main problem is naturally our certainty about our own particular duties. This problem is, however, analogous to the problem concerning the certainty of the first principle of philosophy. In neither case can an argument lead us from doubt to certainty. Indeed, we would need a further argument to convince us of the correctness of such an argument, and so on, ad infinitum. Fichte obviously does not deny the importance of argument within philosophy. It is only the ultimate principle of philosophy and the ultimate application of the moral law to individual circumstances that cannot be grounded through argument and that require the immediate feeling of certainty.57 Not only is there a close relationship between the problems of conviction concerning the first principle of philosophy and conviction concerning individual duties, but the solutions to these problems are also closely related: Moral certainty is not without influence in the domain of theoretical knowledge and upon the principle of philosophy. Fichte writes, still in §15, "Certainty is possible for me only insofar as I am a moral being, for the criterion of all theoretical truth is not itself, in turn, theoretical ... but is, instead, a practical criterion, based upon duty." There is such a criterion, and it has validity (es gilt) not only for the cognition of my own particular duties, "but for every possible cognition whatsoever, inasmuch as there is, in fact, no cognition that does not refer, at least indirectly, to our duties. 58 Indeed, Fichte reminds us that there are objects for us only because we have a practical drive. 59 This is deduced in the section of The System of Ethics entitled "Deduction of the Reality and Applicability of the Principle of Morality,,,60 but it was already present in the Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre of 1794. 61 The existence of objects and even their features depend upon our practical constitution. 62 We have, he remarks, "a closed whole of knowledge, a complete synthesis," in which "moral drive and theoretical knowledge are mutually interdependent."63 It is not only in his ethics that Fichte stresses the close relationship between the theoretical and the practical; this was also a central theme of his "first philosophy" from 1794 on-a point that requires no further demonstration beyond that found in the works ofHeimsoeth, Weischedel, and Pareyson,64 not to mention the works of more recent writers. Moreover, Fichte himsel is very explicit on this point: "For that in the I that determines its entire cognition is its practical nature [Wesen]-as indeed must be the case, since this is what is highest in the I. My duty is the sole firm and final foundation of all of my cognition. This is the intelligible 'in itself:' which transforms itself into a sensible world by means of the laws of sensible representation.,,65

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The situation of ordinary consciousness, which has to determine what its duty is, is similar to that of the philosopher, who is searching for an unchallengeable starting point. Neither feeling nor intuition, but only thought, discursive intelligence, can provide the solution. 66 But, as already mentioned, the argument provided by the theoretical faculty cannot be justified by another theoretical argument, which would, in turn, require a third argument or theoretical justification, and so on, ad infinitum. Ultimately, therefore, only the feeling of an agreement between the solution and the moral drive (sittlicher Trieb) can supply both ordinary consciousness and the philosopher with the conviction that the solution provided by their theoretical faculty is the correct one. This agreement occurs either, in the case of ordinary consciousness, because the particular duty discovered by the theoretical faculty is a duty consistent with the moral law, or, in the case of the philosopher, because the philosophical principle established by the theoretical faculty is the starting point of a philosophical system that is "the only way of thinking within philosophy that is consistent with duty.,,67 This ability of moral consciousness (and of it alone), when it is clear and distinct, to provide philosophy with an evident first principle is reaffirmed in two texts written around the time of the Atheismusstreit: "On the Foundations of Our Beliefin a Divine Government of the Universe" (1798)68 and "Appeal to the Public" (1799).69 INTELLECTUAL INTUITION IN THE SERIES OF THE PHILOSOPHER AND IN THE SERIES OF THE I

In §5 of the "Second Introduction" and in §3 of The System of Ethics Fichte says that consciousness of the moral law is an intellectual intuition. 7o We know that in the "second exposition" of the Wissenschaftslehre,71 self-consciousness, qua principle of philosophy, is defined in the same way, that is, as an "intellectual intuition. ,,72 But before a philosopher accomplishes his abstract reflection, he is, in his consciousness of the moral law, already conscious of himself and of his freedom. 73 This is an immediate consciousness (which needs no ground), that is, an intuition, and this intuition is an intellectual one because the moral law does not belong to the sensible world. 74 For Fichte, however, the moral law is not an intelligible object that transcends reason but the expression of (and at the same time the demand for) the autonomy of reason. The moral law is a concept formed by self-determination and requiring self-determination. 75 From the standpoint of ordinary consciousness, however, the act of self-determination (the projection of the moral law) and the consciousness of self-determination (the consciousness of the moral law) are the same (intellectual) act. 76 Consciousness of the n10rallaw, therefore, is an "activity that reverts into itself" (in sich selbst zuruckgehende

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Tiitigkeit). But for Fichte, the intellectual intuition of the pure I is precisely such an act; just as, in ordinary life, we are unable to distinguish the projection of the moral law from our consciousness of it, so, in philosophy, we cannot distinguish the pure I from this pure intellectual intuition. The pure I is "self-reverting activity" and nothing else. 77 For the I of ordinary consciousness, the intellectual intuition of the moral law is an Act (Tathandlung) of self-determination. In this Act the I becomes mediately conscious of itself; from this consciousness of itself as a self-determining subject, it arrives at a consciousness of its own activity in the overall life of its· mind. 78 This is the real intellectual intuition. 79 Yet the I of ordinary consciousness does not usually become conscious of this daily self-consciousness that is involved in moral life. It usually· remains at the level of the moral feeling and does not reflect upon this real intellectual intuition. But it is still able to reflect on this self-consciousness; indeed, this is how one becomes a philosopher. And when the philosopher reflects in this way, then the real intellectual intuition (that is, moral consciousness) becomes for him an undeniable fact of ordinary consciousness (ein Faktum, eine Tatsache des Bewusstseins) , though within ordinary consciousness itself it is never pure, but is always mixed with other facts. 8o In this reflection the philosopher thinks himself; that is to say, he thinks the I who was conscious of the moral law and of freedom, and acquires a pure consciousness of this I. But he also becomes conscious of his own act of reflection and realizes that this act of reflection was possible only as an act of freedom-exactly like the intellectual intuition of the moral law. Consciousness of freedom thus appears on two levels. In the series ofthe I it appears as real intellectual intuition (consciousness of the moral law, selfdetermination). In the series of the philosopher it appears as pure intellectual intuition. 81 The latter is possible only thanks to the reality of the former: The philosopher would not be' able to exert his freedom of reflection and abstraction were he not already free as a human being and had he not at least an indistinct consciousness of this freedom. He would not be able to obey the "postulate" of philosophy, "think of yourself,"82 if he had not already acquired, as an ordinary person, a concept of his I as an autonomous subject, as a reflective activity. Without this concept he would not know what to think. For the philosophe,r, reflection merely confirms one's ordinary consciousness of freedom. It permits him to experience freedom in the purity of speculation, an experience he had already encountered in his ordinary life as moral consciousness. Fichte also says that when faced with someone who considers our belief in the intellectual activity of the I to be an illusion, we may "confirm" this belief by appealing to "something higher. "83 This "something higher" is the presence within us of the moral law. Does this constitute a circular founda-

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tion? Is the principle of philosophy the foundation of the moral law, and the moral law the foundation of this principle? We have to remark that here it is not a question of foundation but of confirmation. The certainty of moral consciousness requires no foundation outside of ordinary consciousness. 84 Although ordinary consciousness's awareness of its own freedom seldom goes beyond moral feeling, the ordinary I may sometimes become distinctly aware . of the "I ought to, therefore I can,,,85 and it accomplishes this without the radical philosophical abstraction that leads to the pure intellectual intuition of the philosopher. 86 In the series of the I, "it is only through the medium of the ethical law that I catch a glimpse of myself' as an autonomous subject. 87 The philosopher observes that he would have had no access to his radical philosophical reflection ifhe had not previously accomplished, as an actual I, the real intellectual intuition. But this only explains his access to his principle, namely to pure intellectual intuition; it provides no foundation for this principle, which requires no such foundation. Just like real intellectual intuition, pure intellectual intuition is not an alleged fact of consciousness but, rather, a really achieved Act of the mind. This Act, according to Fichte, brings with it absolute evidence: In the Tathandlung, "I know something, because I do it. ,,88 An intuition is always an immediate consciousness that needs no foundation. The same certainty appears in the two real and pure intellectual intuitions considered above. The certainty mentioned in § 10 of the "Second Introduction," which is the result of the perfect harmony between the Sagen (saying) and the Tun (doing) of the philosopher,89 is identical to the certainty that results from the harmony between the maxim of the empirical I and the practical drive of the pure I (mentioned in §15 of The System of Ethics). 90 Nor should this surprise us, since these two intuitions are in fact the same act of mind-the return of the self to itself in an act of spontaneity, but once concretely and once abstractly.91 The two acts are identical, so we cannot affirm that they reciprocally ground each other in a circular fashion. Each of these acts, or better, each aspect of this unique kind of action or Act (Tathandlung), is immediately certain and has no ground elsewhere than in itself. In the series of the philosopher, every action of the mind is only a copying or reconstruction (ein Nachmachen) of the corresponding action in the series of the 1. 92 So too, the pure intellectual intuition is only a rediscovery of the real intellectual intuition and could not be the foundation of the latter. For ordinary consciousness, the philosopher's pure intuition does not contribute anything to the certainty of its consciousness of the moral law, which is experienced internally. 93 1t is only for philosophical knowledge that the pure intellectual intuition gives a new certainty to our freedom and to the categorical imperative. Indeed, Fichte can use this pure intuition to show that pure will (which is, roughly speaking, the categorical imperative)94 is a condition

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for the possibility of pure self-consciousness, which is immediately evident for the philosopher. But the aim of this deduction of the moral law is only to avoid philosophical errors about morality, particularly determinism. It is not meant to strengthen the evidence of the moral law for ordinary consciousness,95 because this evidence is the same as that possessed by the . principle of philosophy. CONCLUSION

The preceding investigation permits us to conclude that Fichte's philosophy was no ultimate theoretical foundation, and to this extent I am in accord with Tom Rockmore's interpretation. However, we must also insist upon the fact that it does have an ultimate practical foundation, and therefore I agree with Daniel Breazeale's assertion that Fichte's "position might be described as 'practical' (or even 'ethical') foundationalism. ,,96 Without this practical foundation, we should consider the Wissenschaftslehre to be an antifoundational, ungrounded system. It could, in this case, be nothing more than a hypothetico-deductive system: Even if it were able to deduce all the data of our experience from its own first principle, it would thereby gain nothing more than a negative confirmation. 97 We must note, however, that this foundation, though practical, is not an ad hoc postulate that one arbitrarily stipulates simply in order to construct a system that would only appear to escape circularity. Admittedly, the conviction of our own freedom and of the existence of duty is an article of faith (Glauben) that the moral law requires from US,98 and this faith is a necessary condition for access to the principle of transcendental idealism, because the discovery of this principle presupposes an act of freedom. 99 This is why the principle of the Wissenschaftslehre is not evident for philosophers who reject the summons of moral consciousness (which speaks to everyone 100 and requires them to become aware of their own freedom) . Yet this principle is evident for the philosophers who heed this summons and, in this way, acquire access to pure intellectual intuition. 101 At first, the philosopher merely postulates this intuition: He needs it to resolve an -aporia that appears in the process of constructing a philosophy of freedom and of the subject,102 a philosophy that represents "the only way of thinking within philosophy that is consistent with duty.,,103 At first this (pure) intuition is inferred by thought, but subsequently it may be accomplished by the philosopher. 104 Furthermore, in this accomplishment of the Tathandlung, this intuition is accompanied by a feeling ofevidence, because it coincides with the pure, moral drive (reiner Trieb) , which originally expresses itself in moral consciousness. 105 Admittedly, the practical foundation of the Wissenschaftslehrecannot be forced upon anyone. It is contradictory to want to enforce an act offreedom.

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Just as moral conviction can only be internal, philosophical conviction can originate only in the I's spontaneity. A conviction that would force itself upon the subject from outside and that would compel him to think in a certain manner (Denkzwang) would suppress the I's freedom because theory and practice are linked together. To require such a conviction would represent a relapse into dogmatism, which would demand that philosophical certainty force itself upon the philosopher in the same way that, according to this same dogmatism, the certainty of the existence of sensible objects forces itselfupon the I-namely, by exerting an action from outside upon a merely passive subject. Fichte writes about the certainty of moral consciousness: The feeling of certainty arises from the agreement between an act of the power ofjudgment and the ethical drive. Accordingly, it is a necessary condition for the possibility of such a feeling that the subject really does make a judgment. For this reason, certainty and conviction simply do not proceed from the judgment of someone else, and conscience can absolutely not allow itself to be guided by any authority.106 This also applies to philosophical certainty: It is not possible to convince oneself of the rightness of the propositions of the Wissenschaftslehre if one does not inwardly repeat the intellectual experiments that led Fichte to make these assertions. In 1797 Fichte said to his students that every philosopher must construct a system for himself. All that one can give to someone else is guidance in how to do this, but not the philosophy itself.... The experiment made by the philosopher is one that everyone must undertake for himself. The situation in philosophy is different from that which prevails in, for example, chemistry, where one believes the person who has made an experiment. 107 Last but not least, let us note that, if philosophy had an ultimate principle that were merely theoretical, then it would not be possible to rediscover the moral law within the philosophical system. The Wissenschaftslehre shows that the moral law is a condition for the possibility of self-consciousness. 108 The philosopher becomes aware that self-consciousness would be inexplicable without the demand made by the moral law; however, he has experienced its evidence within pure intellectual intuition. So this intuition of the moral law is integrated into the very center of his philosophical system: Its immediate evidence (for the ordinary I) receives a confirmation from its indirect or mediate evidence (for the philosopher). Were it possible to provide a philosophical system with a merely theoretical ultimate foundation, then this connection betwe~n theory and practice would collapse: Practical philosophy and theoretical philosophy would be dissociated 109 in Fichte's system, in the same way that they are (according to Fichte) dissociated in Kant's.110 In the Wissenschaftslehre, particularly in its

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second exposition, theory and practice are linked together from the very beginning of philosophical reflection, III because the starting point of such reflection is the freedom of the I, as revealed in the intuition of the morallaw. 112

NOTES

This essay is in remembrance of Fernand Brunner. I would like to thank Nicole Reinhardt (La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland), who corrected my English text, and Daniel Breazeale (Lexington, KY), who translated the quotations from Fichte's writings and revised the English text. I am further indebted to Tom Rockmore (Pittsburgh, PA) for the very enlightening discussions we had on this topic and for additional revisions of the English text. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the Societe Academique Neuchateloise for a grant that allowed me to present the first version of this paper at the first meeting of the North American Fichte Society, held on the campus of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. 1. See the following works by Tom Rockmore: Hegel's Circular Epistemology (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986); Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Avant/apres (Paris: Criterion, 1992), esp. pp. 55-65; "Le concept fichteen de la scienceet la tradition platonicienne," Annales de la Faculti des Lettres et Sciences Humaines de Nice 32 (1977),r pp. 31-40; "Epistemology in Fichte and Hegel: A Confrontation," in Erneuerung der Transzendentalphilosophie im AnschlujJ an Kant und Fichte, ed. Klaus Hammacher and Albert Mues (Stuttgart: FrommannHolzboog, 1979), pp. 300-309; "Fichtean Epistemology and the Idea of Philosophy," in Der Transzendentale Gedanke: Die Gegenwiirtige Darstellung der Philosophie Fichtes, ed. Klaus Hammacher (Hamburg: Meiner, 1981), pp. 48597; "Remarks on Fichte's Relevance: Hegel and Circular Epistemology," in Transzendentalphilosophie als System: Die Auseinandersetzung zwischen 1794 und 1806, ed. Albert Mues Harnburg: Meiner, 1989), pp. 105-16; and, in the present volume, "Antifoundationalism, Circularity, and the Spirit of Fichte." 2. The word" Wissenschaftslehre" ("theory of science" or "science of knowledge") is Fichte's term for philosophy itself, as the science of science, as well as his name for his own philosophical system (see BWL, §1, GA, I, 2, pp. 112-18 [SW, I, pp. 38-45]). Fichte's writings here refer to the edition of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (hereafter GA) (see page 235), and this edition's abbreviated title is followed by series, volume, and page numbers, respectively; the citation information that then appears within square brackets refers to the edition of Fichte's works published by his son I. H. Fichte, Fichtes Werkes (hereafter SW) (see page 235), and this edition's abbreviated title is followed by volume and page numbers. The following abbreviations are here employed for the titles of Fichte's

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3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

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individual works, contained within the collected works above: BWL: Uber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre (Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre) (1 794) WL.94: Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre) (1 794) 1.Ein: "Erste Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre" ("First Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre") (1 797) 2.Ein: "Zweite Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre" ("Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre") (1797) PV: Vorlesungen iiber Logik und Metaphysik Nach Platners philosophischen Aphorismen (Lectures on Logic and Metaphysics According to Platner's "Philosophical Aphorisms") (1797) VE: Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (An Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre) (1 798) SL: Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (The System of Ethics According to the Principles of the JiVissenschaftslehre) (1798) NM K : Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, the "Krause transcript" of the lectures of 1798-1799, ed. Erich Fuchs (Hamburg: Meiner, 1982). NM H : Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, the "Halle transcript" of the same lectures (1796-1799) SB: Sonnenklarer Bericht an das grossere Publikum, iiber das eigentliche Wesen der neuesten Philosophie (A Sun-Clear Report to the General Public Concerning the Actual Essence of the Newest Philosophy) (1801) The term "principle of philosophy" or "philosophical principle" here refers to the "first principle" or Grundsatz that is supposed to serve as the starting point for a series of derivations or deductions that, in turn, constitute a philosophical system. Hence, the expression "the evidence of the principle of philosophy" refers to the evidence (or self-evidence) of the first principle with which a particular system-in this case, the Wissenschaftslehre-commences. Rockmore, "Fichtean Epistemology and the Idea of Philosophy," p. 490. See Rockmore, "Fichtean Epistemology and the Idea of Philosophy," pp. 490-92. Rockmore, Hegel's Circular Epistemology, p. 43: "Fichte certainly shares Reinhold's acceptance of the basic rationalist model of system in terms of an initial principle. But in consequence of his rejection of the view that this principle can be established as correct, Fichte makes the very circularity, which Reinhold sought to avoid as a mistake in reasoning, constitutive of the process of knowledge. It follows that circularity cannot be avoided, but rather must be acknowledged. And it further follows that the claim to knowledge must forever remain hypothetical, since it necessarily is limited by the relation of a theory to its indemonstrable, initial principle." See Rockmore, "Remarks on Fichte's Relevance," p. Ill. See Rockmore, Hegel's Circular Epistemology, p. 43. See ibid.,p. 41. See ibid., p. 42. Rockmore, "Remarks on Fichte's Relevance," pp. 114.:-15: "I have shown that Fichte's early view of knowledge as intrinsically circular determines Hegel's renunciation of the foundationalist view of philosophy grounded in a first principle in favor of a circular, but self-justifying epistemological view. Whereas the early Fichte maintains that the resultant form of knowledge is necessarily

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12.

13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

20.

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provisional and never final, Hegel makes use of the same epistemological strategy to support a significantly different form of knowledge, knowledge in the traditional or full sense associated, for instance, with the names of Descartes and Plato." My interpretation has been strongly influenced by the authoritative work of Luigi Pareyson, Fichte: Ii sistema della liberta (Torino: Ed. di "Filosofia," 1950; 2d ed., Milano: Mursia, 1976). See particularly the second part, pp. 221-402 (2d edition) . "In this regard the Wissenschaftslehre has two things to do. First of all, it has to establish the possibility of any first principles whatsoever-to show how, to what extent, under what conditions, and perhaps to what degree anything at all can be certain, as well as what the phrase 'to be certain' means. Second, it has the special task of demonstrating the first principles of all the sciences that are possible-something that cannot be done within these sciences themselves" (BWL, §2, GA, I, 2, p. 120 [SW, I, p. 47]). See BWL, §2, GA, 1,2, p. 120 [SW, I, p. 47]. As Luigi Pareyson notes, there is in BWL an ambiguity in the notion of an encyclopedia of the sciences grounded by the Wissenschaftslehre (see Pareyson, Fichte, 2d ed., pp. 133-35). According to the examples given in BWL, §§ 1-7, it seems that the Wissenschaftslehre has to ground both the natural and the mathematical sciences, as well as such human sciences as history. However, in §8, "Hypothetical Division of the Wissenschaftslehre" (GA, I, 2, pp. 150-52; suppressed in the 2d edition of 1798), Fichte's proj ected encyclopedia of sciences grounded on the fundamental part of the Wissenschaftslehre includes only such philosophical sciences as the philosophy of right, the theory of morals, the philosophy of religion, and aesthetics. Pareyson suggests that this ambiguity comes from a hesitation on the part of the early Fichte between two models: one, an encyclopedia of all the possible sciences grounded on the Wissenschaftslehre, and the other, an encyclopedia of the purely philosophical sciences. The further development of Fichte's system shows, however, that he eventually decided in favor of the second model (see, e.g., the "Deduction of the Division of the Wissenschaftslehre" at the end of the NM K , pp. 240-44)-a model that is certainly more admissible for contemporary epistemology. On this topic, see Rockmore's remark in "Le concept fichteen de la science et la tradition platonicienne," p. 39. See BWL,§2, GA, 1,2, pp. 124-26 [SW, I, pp. 52-54]. See BWL, §2, GA, 1,2, pp. 124-25 [SW, I, pp. 52-54]. BWL, §4, GA, I, 2, p. 130 [SW, I, p. 58]. See BWL, §4, GA, I, 2, p. 130 [SW, I, pp. 58-59]. See BWL, §4, GA, I, 2, p. 131 [SW, I, p. 59]. The deductive method of the Wissenschaftslehre consists in arguing backward from its first principle, that is, self-consciousness, to the necessary conditions of this same principle (regarding this topic, see l.Ein, §7, GA, I, 4, pp. 205-8 [SW, I, 446-49] and my paper, "La methode deductive dans la seconde exposition de la Doctrine de la science," Revue de Thiologie et de Philosophie 123 [1991]: pp. 275-92, esp. pp. 277-82). I~ in the course of this process, one rediscovers one's original starting point, then one knows that the inventory of the conditions under which self-consciousness is possible has been completed. See BWL, §4, GA, 1,2, pp. 131n, 129-30n [SW, I, pp. 59n, 58n], in particular the last sentence: "Human knowledge is infinite in scope, but its nature is totally determined through its own laws and can be exhaustively described." See also

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21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

34.

35. 36. 37. 38. 39.

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BWL, §5, GA, 1,2, pp. 136-37 [SW, I, pp. 65-66J. Giuseppe Duso, in his book Contraddizione e diallettica nella formazione del pensiero fichtiano (Urbino: ArgaHa, 1974), shows that the completeness and exhaustivity of the Wissenschaftslehre, which provide us with a rigorous comprehension of the structure of finite knowledge (which is the only field of human sciences), are at the same time a warrant against the pretension to have exhausted knowledge in any particular science (see pp. 229-36). See the passage mentioned previously: BWL, §2, GA, I, 2, pp. 124-25 [SW, I, pp. 52-54J. See BWL, §4, GA, 1,2, pp. 131-32 [SW, I, pp. 60-61J. I consider the text of the second edition to be clearer. . This only proves the coherence of the system on this point. BWL, §4, GA, I, 2, p. 133 [SW, I, p. 61J; see pp. 132-33 [pp. 61-62J. BWL, §4, GA, 1,2, p. 133 [SW, I, p. 62J. BWL, §2, GA, I, 2, p. 120 [SW, I, p. 48J; see pp. 120-21 [pp.47-48J. See BWL, §2, GA, I, 2, p. 121 [SW, I, pp. 48-49J. Note that Fichte actually speaks of two (or more) mistakes in the deduction that correct each other ("two or more incorrect deductions that cooperate to produce agreement"); see BWL, §7, GA, I, 2, pp. 144-45 [SW, I, pp. 74-75J). But he seems to think that if the supposed rules are wrong, they will lead, if correctly applied, to consequences that will contradict themselves. So I think that a si!lgle incorrect application of these rules could be enough to restore the coherence in the system. See also GA, I, 2, p. 145 [SW, I, p. 75J. BWL, §7, GA, I, 2, pp. 146-47 [SW, I, p. 77J. BWL, §7, GA, 1,2, p. 146, variant K [SW, I, p. 77-78nJ (emphasis added). BWL, §2, GA, I, 2, p. 121 [SW, I,. p. 48J. BWL, §7, GA, I, 2, p. 142 [SW, I, p. 72J (emphasis added). However, we will see below (in the fourth part of my essay, note 94) that Fichte admits later (in 1797-1798) that, even before he begins to philosophize, the philosopher is already in possession, in the form of the intuition of moral law, of the intellectual intuition that is the principle of the philosophy, as ordinary consciousness. Moreover, because philosophy is nothing other than a methodic rediscovery of what is already present within ordinary consciousness, the philosopher, before beginning to philosophize, is already in possession of all the necessary representations he will later deduce in his system. But he does not yet know them as necessary representations and does not yet identify the intuition of the moral law as the first principle of philosophy. Once he begins to philosophize, he arrives at this principle only by means of the indicated process of trial and error. The conflict between the transcendental idealist and the dogmatic realist originates in the fact that they begin their philosophical reflections from two opposed first principles: the one with the subject, the other with being; the one with freedom, the other with mechanical causality. 2.Ein, §10, GA, 1,4, p. 263 [SW, I, p. 512J. 2.Ein, §10, GA, 1,4, pp. 263-64 [SW, I, p. 513J. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B354; see also B449-50. 2.Ein, §10, GA, I, 4, p. 264 [SW, I, p. 514J (emphasis added). The same criticism is to be found, in a somewhat more detailed form, in PV, §705, GA, IV, 1, p. 361. See 2.Ein, §lO, GA, 1,4, pp. 261-62 [SW, I, p. 510J.

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40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66.

67. 68.

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See 2.Ein, §10, GA, 1,4, p. 260 [SW, I, pp. 508~9J. GA, 1,4, p. 259 [SW, I, p. 507]. See 1.Ein, §5, GA, I, 4, p. 193 [SW, I, pp. 431- 32J. GA, 1,4, p. 195 [SW, I, p. 434J. See Reinhard Lauth, Die Entstehung von Schellings Identitiitsphilosophie in der Auseinandersetzung mit Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre (1795-1801) (Freiburg/Munich: Karl Alber, 1975), pp. 35-55, esp. pp. 45-51. 1.Ein, §6, GA, 1,4, p. 195 [SW, I, p. 435J. GA, I, 4, p. 198 [SW, I, p. 438J. See also Giuseppe Duso's analysis of the "aporetical situation" of the Wissenschaftslehre that "on the one hand affirms the irrefutability of Spinoza's system [the dogmatic system par excellenceJ and, on the other hand, brings about a refutation of it" (Duso, Contraddizione e dialettica, pp. 361-63, 367-69). 1.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 194 [SW, I, p. 433J. 2.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 219 [SW, I, p. 467J. See SL, §15, GA, 1,5, pp. 152-53 [SW, IV, pp. 163-64J. GA, 1,5, pp. 153-54 [SW, IV, p. 165J. This duty depends on the "determinate state of limitation within which the individual finds himself, when he first finds himself" (GA, I, 5, p. 155 [SW, IV, p. 166]). The "faculty of cognition" in question here is the power of reflective judgment (reflektierende Urteilskraft). See GA, I, 5, p. 154 [SW, IV, p. 165J. GA, I, 5, p. 155 [SW, IV, pp. 166-67J. GA,'I, 5, p. 156 [SW, IV, p. 167J. GA, I, 5, p. 156 [SW, IV, pp. 167-68]. GA, I, 5, p. 158 [SW, IV, p. 169]. GA, I, 5, p. 158 [SW, IV, p. 169]. GA, I, 5, p. 158 [SW, IV, pp. 169-70J. GA, I, 5, p. 158 [SW, IV, p. 170J. See SL, §§4-9, GA, 1,5, pp. 73-126 [SW, IV, pp. 75-131J. See WL.94, §§5-11, GA, 1,2, pp. 385-451 [SW, I, pp. 246-328]. See "Uber den Grund unseres Glaubens an eine gottliche Weltregierung" ("The Basis for our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World") (1798), GA, I, 5, p. 353 [SW, V, p. 184-85]. See also Reinhard Lauth, Die transzendentale Naturlehre Fichtes nach den Prinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre (Hamburg: Meiner, 1984), pp. 162-68. SL, §15, GA, I, 5, p. 160 [SW, IV, p. 172J. See Heinz Heimsoeth, Fichte (Munich: Ernst Reinhard, 1923); Wilhelm Weischedel, Der fruhe Fichte: Aujbruch der Freiheit zur Gemeinschaft (1939; 2d ed., Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1973); and Pareyson, Fichte. SL, §15, GA, I, 5, p. 160 [SW, IV, p. 172J. Fichte stresses this fact: "The consciousness of a determinate [dutyJ, as such, is never immediate, but is first discovered by means of an act of thinking" (SL, §15, GA, 1,5, p. 161 [SW, IV, p. 173J; see also GA, 1,5, pp. 154-55 [SW, IV, pp. 165-66J and Corollary 2, GA, I, 5, pp. 162-63 [SW, IV, pp. 174-75]). 2.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 219 [SW, I, p. 467J. "Hence our conviction concerning our own moral determination or vocation is itself already the result of a moral disposition and is a belief. To this extent, it is quite correct to say that beliefis the element of all certainty. So must it be, since morality, as surely as it is morality at all, can surely be constituted only through

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70. 71.

72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79. 80. 81.

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itself and certainly not by means of any sort of logically coercive thought. "I could indeed go further-if, that is, I were willing, even in a purely theoretical sense, to plunge into the realm of what is unbounded and ungrounded, and if I were willing to dispense absolutely with any firm standpoint whatsoever and were content to find quite inexplicable even that certainry that accompanies all of my thinking and without a deep feeling of which I could not even embark upon speculation. For there is no firm standpoint except the one just indicated, and it is based not upon logic, but on one's moral disposition or sentiment" ("Uber den Grund unseres Glaubens an eine gottliche Weltregierung," GA, I, 5, pp. 351-52 [SW, V, p. 182]; emphasis added). "My ethical determination or vocation, along with what is connected with the consciousness thereof, is the only thing that is immediately certain-the only thing that is given to me, as I am given to myself, the only thing that gives me reality for myself. Even if I am not clearly conscious of this high vocation and work even less to achieve it, the demand to recognize it persists nevertheless; and this demand alone is what .continues to provide me with life and existence.... There is no certainry but moral certainry, and everything that is certain is certain only insofar as it points toward our moral behavior" ("Appellation an das Publikum iiber die durch ein Kurttirstliches Sachsisches Konfiskationsreskript ihn1 beigemessenen atheistischen A.uBerungen" ["Appeal to the Public Concerning the Charge of Atheism Raised by a Confiscation Decree of the Saxon Consistory"], GA, I, 5, p. 430 [SW, V, pp. 210-11J; emphasis added). See 2.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, pp. 219-20 [SW, I, pp. 466-67J and SL, §3, GA, I, 5, p. 60 [SW, IV, pp. 47-48]. By the "second exposition" of the Wissenschaftslehre I mean (following Pareyson, Fichte, 2d ed., pp. 221-53, esp. pp. 249-53) all of those works that share the standpoint of the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796-1799)-from the Grundlage des Naturrechts (Foundation ofNatural Right) (1796-1797) and SL (1798) to the "Neue Bearbeitung der Wissenschaftslehre" ("New Version of the Wissenschaftslehre") (1800) and SB (1801). See 2.Ein, §4, GA, I, 4, pp. 213-16 [SW, I, pp. 458-63] and NM K , §1, pp. 27-35. See 2.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 219 [SW, I, p. 466]. See 2.Ein, §6, GA, 1,4, p. 225 [SW, I, p. 472]. See SL, §3, GA, 1,5, p. 67 [SW, IV, pp. 56-57]. See SL, §14, GA, 1,5, p. 147 [SW, IV, p. 158]. '''I' and 'self-reverting acting' [are] completely identical concepts" (2.Ein, §4, GA, I, 4, p. 216 [SW, I, p. 462]). "In the consciousness of this [moralJ law ... I am given to myself, by myself, as something that is obliged to be active in a certain way. Accordingly, 1 am given to myself, by myself, as 'active in an overall sense' or 'active as such.' I possess life within myself and draw it from myself' (2.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 219 [SW, I, p.466]). "Wirkliche intellektuelle Anschauung." See SL, §3, GA, I, 5, p. 60 [SW, IV, pp. 47-48]. See, too, Pareyson, Fichte, 2d ed., pp. 387-89. See 2.Ein, §5, GA, I, 4, pp. 218-19 [SW, I, p. 465]. On the fundamental distinction between these two series, see Pareyson, Fichte, 2d ed., pp. 273-75. Among the many texts on this distinction, see 2.Ein, §§ 1-4, GA, 1,4, pp. 209-16 [SW, I, pp. 453-63J and "A Fragment," appended to Fichte's 22 April 1799 letter to Reinhold, GA, III, 3, pp. 330-31.

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82. "Think of yourself, and pay attention to how you accomplished this: This was my first request" (VE, GA, 1,4, p.274 [SW, I, p. 525]). "Postulate: Think the concept 'I,' and, in doing so, think about yourself" (NM K , §1, p. 28). 83. See 2.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 219 [SW, I, pp. 465-66]. 84. See the Prefatory Remarks to SL, GA, I, 5, pp. 33, 36-37 [SW, IV, pp. 13-14, 17-18]. 85. This legendary quotation does not exist in Kant's writings, as Lewis White Beck has noted (A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason [Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1960; 2d edition, 1963], p. 200, footnote 74). However, Kant expresses the same idea less succinctly, for example, in the Critique of Practical Reason, at the end of §6 (A54). 86. See SL, §3, GA, 1,5, pp. 70-71 [SW, IV, p. 61]. 87. The passage continues: "and insofar as I view myself through this medium, I necessarily view myself as spontaneously active" (2.Ein, §5, GA, I, 4, p. 219 [SW, I, p. 466]). 88. GA, 1,4, p. 217 [SW, I, p. 463]. 89. See the text cited above in note 35: 2.Ein, §10, GA, 1,4, p. 263 [SW, I, p. 512]. 90. See the text cited above in note 53: SL, §15, GA, I, 5, p. 155 [SW, IV, pp. 166-67]. 91. Regarding the characterization of the process by which the moral drive searches for a particular duty as an act of reflection upon this very drive, see SL, §15, GA, I, 5, p. 160 [SW, IV, pp. 172-73]. 92. On the characterization of the series of the philosopher as a reconstruction and image of the series of the I, see NM K ,.§ 17, p. 192: "The Wissenschaftslehre is not, as it were, the producer of any cognition; it merely obs~rves the human mind in its original act of producing all cognition." Writing about the deduction of the principle of ethics, Fichte explains that "the deduction thus produces nothing more than theoretical cognition, and one must not expect anything more of it" (SL, 1. Hauptstiick, Vorerinnerung, GA, I, 5, pp. 34-35 [SW, IV, p. 15]). See also the previously cited letter to Reinhold (22 April 1799), as well as SB, III, GA, I, 7, p. 216 [SW, II, p. 358], where the teacher of the Wissenschaftslehre is described as the "rediscoverer of consciousness." See, too, Alain Perrinjaquet, "Individuum und Gemeinschaft in der Wissenschaftslehre zwischen 1796 un 1800," Fichte-Studien 3 (1991): pp. 7-28, esp. pp. 11-16. 93. See SB, GA, I, 7, p. 192 [SW, II, p. 332]. 94. See NM K , §13, p. 143. In this passage Fichte affirms that "the pure will is the categorical imperative." This, however, is only an approximate statement. Indeed, on p. 142 Fichte states that the pure will is not yet the moral law and that it becomes the moral law only when it is related to a sensible will. Concerning this point, as well as concerning the entire topic of this section, see Alain Perrinjaquet, "'Wirkliche' und 'philosophische' Anschauung: Formen der intellektuellen Anschauung in Fichtes System der Sittenlehre (1798)," FichteStudien 5 (1993), esp. the conclusion. 95. See, too, SB, GA, I, 7, p. 255 [SW, II, pp. 405-6]). 96. Daniel Breazeale, "Why Fichte Now?" Journal of Philosophy 88 (1991): p. 530. 97. Among the many places in which Fichte deals with this negative confirmation of the Wissenschaftslehre through the deduction of our ordinary experience, see the following: I.Ein, §7, GA, I, 4, pp. 205-7 [SW, I, 446-48] and SB, GA, I, 7, p. 238 [SW, II, p. 385]; see also my paper "La methode deductive," §4, pp. 286-88.

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98. See SL, §3, GA, I, 5, p. 65 [SW, IV, p. 54]. 99. Recall the sentence quoted previously: "The sort of philosophy one chooses depends upon the sort of person one is" (1. Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 195 [SW, I, p. 434]). 100. See SL, §3, GA, 1,5, p. 71 [SW, IV, pp. 61-62]. 101. To be sure, ordinary consciousness does not establish by itself this connection between the demands of duty and the principle of transcendental philosophy, and for an ordinary person it is not at all necessary to establish this connection in order to act morally. A dogmatic philosopher is able, as an ordinary person, to respond to these demands of duty and to live an exemplary life, even though he refuses to listen to this demand as a philosopher and thus denies himself access to the philosophical awareness of freedom, and consequently denies himself access to the principle of transcendental philosophy. He thus lives in a state of contradiction between his doing (Tun) and his saying (Sagen). According to Fichte, Spinoza must have lived in this way-as a dogmatic philosopher, but as a virtuous person (see 2.Ein, §10, GA, 1,4, p. 264 [SW, I, p. 513]). 102. Namely, the infinite regress in the explanation of self-consciousness. See NM K , §1, pp. 30-33. 103. See note 67, above. 104. See 2.Ein, §4, GA, I, 4, pp. 213-16 [SW, I, pp. 458-63]. 105. The same relations can be observed in the consciousness of particular duties: The intuition of the n10rallaw appears in the real I as a moral drive (see SL, §11, GA, 1,5, pp. 136-37 [SW, IV, pp. 144-45]), which appears as a "drive toward a determinate cognition," namely, the cognition of my own particular duties (seeSL, §15, GA, 1,5, p. 155 [SW, IV, p. 166]). The theoretical faculty then goes in search of this knowledge, without recourse to feeling (see GA, I, 5, p. 155 [SW, IV, pp. 165-66]). When this theoretical faculty has determined a particular duty, the agreement of this knowledge with the moral drive produces in the I a feeling of certainty (see GA, I, 5, p. 155 [SW, IV, 166-67]). This agreement originates in the fact that the duty that has been acknowledged prescribes an action that lies along the I's path toward absolute autonomy, which is the ultimate goal of the moral drive (see GA, I, 5, p. 155 [SW, IV, p. 166]). 106. SL, §15, GA, I, 5, p. 163 [SW, IV, p. 175]; see also pp. 163-64 [pp. 176-77]. 107. PV, §705, GA, IV, 1, p. 362. On this point see, too, l.Ein, §7, GA, 1,4, p. 204 [SW, I, p. 455]; PV, §919, GA, IV, 1,400-401; SB, GA, I, 7, pp. 197-98 [SW, II, pp. 336-37]. 108. See the first three sections of SL. 109. See 2.Ein, §5, GA, 1,4, p. 220 [SW, I, p. 467]. 110. See NM K , p. 5; Letter to Reinhold, 28 April 1795, GA, 111,2, pp. 314-15; and Pareyson, Fichte, 2d ed., pp. 76-80, 359. Ill. See NM H , GA, IV, 2,17. 112. See GA, IV, 2, p. 46; l.Ein, §6, GA, 1,4, p. 197 [SW, I, p. 437]; §7, 199-200 [po 440]; 2.Ein, §5, GA, I, 4, p. 221 [SW, I, p. 468].

5

Antifoundationalism Circularity, and the Spirit ofFichte J

TOM ROCKMORE

At least since Frege, the view has been widespread that if only we could avoid ambiguity we could solve most, or at least many, of the problems of philosophy. The aim of overcoming ambiguity inspired the efforts by Frege and by certain of his followers, especially among members of the Vienna Circle, to develop a so-called formalized language of pure thought. l Yet it is perhaps mistaken to put too much trust in mere precision, in the simple lack of ambiguity, since many positions reveal a composite nature on close or very close scrutiny. If Kant is correct, there is a direct link between the originality of an idea and the impossibility of providing a simple statement of it. According to Kant, original thought often depends on the application of an idea that the original thinker can apply but cannot clearly formulate. 2 The suggestion is clear that an original body of thought is often not clear to the original thinker, and is correspondingly less clear to the followers. If this is the case, then it is possible to imagine the copresence of different, even incompatible, perspectives within a single position. I believe that this is often the case; in particular, I believe that this is the case in Fichte's early thought, where, to use contemporary terminology, we can discern foundationalist and antifoundationalist tendencies. Fichte is better known for his foundationalism, which apparently corresponds to the letter of his view. Yet there is also a nascent antifoundationalist aspect corresponding to the spirit of his thought, which has not often been studied. In simplest terms, we can label these readings as· concerning grounded and ungrounded forms of system. Fichte desired to be true not to the letter but to the spirit of Kant's Critical philosophy.3 I am convinced that we can best be true to the spirit of Fichte's

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transcendental philosophy not in defending his own form offoundationalism but in abandoning it for the exciting new conception of antifoundationalism that he advances in his idea of ungrounded sytem.

An inquiry into Fichtean epistemology in the context of German idealism autolnatically breaks with two deeply rooted perceptions that govern much of the current discussion: the preference for wholly systematic philosophy and the widespread suspicion that idealism offers no insight into the problem of knowledge. Both the divorce between systematic and historical perspectives and the preference for systematic philosophy are widespread in the contemporary discussion, particularly in analytic philosophy. Contemporary analytic philosophy is less inclined toward historical considerations than have been earlier schools of philosophy. Discussion of earlier thinkers is mainly nonhistorical, without regard to the wider discussion in which their views arose and with respect to which they must be understood and evaluated. So-called Continental philosophers (that is, indigenous American students of philosophy interested in developments in French and German thought) all too often restrict their attention to the latest developments in French postmodernism. There is little awareness of earlier philosophical movements on the European continent, and almost no awareness of the relation of philosophy to the wider cultural context, including social, political, and historical factors. An example is the recent attention to the problem of Heidegger's Nazism, which has mainly been analyzed only within the context of Heidegger's writings but which cannot be understood without reference to the wider context in which his thought emerged. 4 The prevailing idea of philosophy as systematic can be illustrated by a remark by Quine. As reported by Rorty, Quine distinguishes two kinds of students of philosophy: those interested in the history of philosophy and those interested in philosophy. 5 This comment illustrates an attitude that considers the history of philosophy as a sort of vast conceptual wasteland. This attitude is already patent in Descartes's concern to discover a univocal method intended to sweep away the differences between observers equally endowed with common sense. It is restated in Kant's idea, manifest in his distinction between cognitio ex datis and cognitio ex principiis, that knowledge in the full sense is a priori. 6 It resurfaces in Husserl's conviction that we have never yet made an aGceptable beginning to philosophy. 7 And it survives in Heidegger's idea that we must destroy the history of ontology in order to return to the early Greek view of being. 8 All of these very diverse thinkers have in common the idea that nothing can be gained for philosophy by taking

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a historical viewpoint to preceding philosophy in an effort to build upon what might still be of value in preceding thought. The conviction of the essential poverty of idealist theory of knowledge is evidenced by the fact that idealism is written of but is not given serious, careful attention by those who are concerned with epistemology. In recent times, the foremost advocate of this line has been the German social theorist Jiirgen Habermas. He has consistently-but unpersuasively-argued variations on this theme: in the claim that epistemology ends with Kant,9 in the idea that German idealism is intellectually bankrupt,10 in the effort to reconstruct the Kantian view as a theory of communicative action, 11 and so on. These arguments are, however, unpersuasive since Habermas does not show (and it is unclear what argument could possibly be formulated to show) that epistemology does end with Kant or that German idealism is without resources for further development. It is a matter of record that Habermas is not convinced by his own argument. For he indirectly acknowledges the epistemological resources of Heidegger's theory, which he silently appropriates for his own proposed reconstruction of historical materialism. 12 And he explicitly acknowledges the epistemological thrust of Gadamer's hermeneutics, whose errors he has attempted· to identify and to correct. 13 One suspects that Habermas is overly eager to declare the demise of an intellectual domain with which he is not entirely familiar. Yet if he were to become more deeply versed in it, ifhe were to see that the Kantian model is only one normative view of epistemology, he might then become aware of the extension of the theory of knowledge within German idealism and well beyond it. In fact, as I shall argue below, from an epistemological perspective the period between Kant and Hegel is remarkable for the emergence of no less than two divergent but highly interesting models of knowledge: foundationalist and antifoundationalist systems.

II The point of mentioning the prevailing lack of concern either with the history of philosophy or with the epistemological dimension of German idealism was to clear away two obvious obstacles to an inquiry into Fichte's view of knowledge. The complex itinerary of this view is now increasingly well known. It is initially formulated in the "Review of Aenesidemus," 14 first stated at length in the Fundamental Principles of the Science of Knowledge, 15 and then reformulated in a series of further texts intended to perfect the system. Fichte's highly complex theory is narrow, but it is exceedingly deep and is worked out in often-excruciating detail. In this essay, I neither want to take up his position as a whole nor to consider its widespread influence on other,

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later thinkers, above all Hegel and Marx. I want, rather, to focus attention on a single, very short passage. This text occurs immediately after the preface to the Fundamental Principles of the Science of Knowledge and comprises the first paragraph of the work: "Our task is to discover the absolutely prior, simply unconditioned first principle of all human knowledge. This can neither be proved nor determined, if it is to be an absolutely primary principle."16 I want now to interpret this passage from two incompatible perspectives: according to the letter and then according to the spirit ofFichte's view, where this distinction is understood in a quasi-Kantian sense. We recall that Kant, who thought that he had been misunderstood by his readers, attributed the misunderstandings to taking isolated passages out of context, thereby generating contradictions that were easily resolved by interpreting his treatise according to the idea of the whole. An interpretation according to the idea of the whole, which Kant found transparent, is highly problematic. There· are essentially no guidelines to identify such an idea. A reading of a given text is a theory of what it means or how it can reasonably be read. If theories cannot be verified by empirical facts, then there is obviously n10re than one way to construe a theory, including Kant's theory. Nor is it sufficient to identify the author's intended meaning, as is sometimes done in the recent hermeneutic discussion, on the supposition that the author knows best what was intended. For we have already noted that if Kant is correct, an original thinker is often not cognizant of the idea that he or she understands and applies, which the epigones identify but often do not understand. 17 If, despite the difficulties of the Kantian distinction, we apply it to the interpretation of this passage, we can distinguish between two readings: according to its letter and to its spirit. In a strict sense, which is close to literal, Fichte here provides a normative description of philosophy as being concerned with uncovering an indemonstrable first principle of human knowledge. If we equate the study of human knowledge with epistemology, this is, then, a theory of epistemology. Since this principle is the expression of an Act (Tathandlung) that is the presupposition of what is given in consciousness, it cannot itself be given in that way. It is, hence, inferred as a necessary condition of consciousness. We think this indemonstrable first principle through logical laws that are assumed to be valid but whose validity is only later derived through an obvious but unavoidable conceptual circle. The whole analysis begins in a proposition that is conceded by everyone without opposition. If this is correct, then the letter of Fichte's train of thought can be reconstructed approximately as follows. Ifwe start from a self-evident proposition, we can reason backward from it as an effect to its cause, which lies in the necessary conditions of consciousness. Underlying consciousness is an initial principle that can only be inferred, but neither proven nor defined, -------------------------

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because it is absolutely prior. We arrive, then, at the conclusion that we can demonstrate what we cannot demonstrate, prove what we cannot prove, namely, that consciousness is rooted in its necessary condition, which, although it cannot be defined, is identifiable as an Act. There is an obvious contradiction between the initial statement, which we have quoted, concerning the impossibility of demonstrating a first principle just because it is first, and Fichte's attempt to provide a demonstration, in effect to demonstrate the indemonstrable.

III Interpreted in this rather literal way, which remains close to the text, the result is to reveal a deep-seated tension in Fichte's position, which probably reflects an ambivalence underlying his whole theory. The ambivalence concerns his adherence to the traditional idea of knowledge as demonstrable and demonstrated on the one hand, and the conclusion, to which he himself comes in his own analysis of the theory of knowledge, that claims to know are finally indemonstrable. At least since Descartes, the whole weight of the modern discussion is directed in an obvious way to the demonstration of claims to know in order to resist skepticism in any form. The conception of foundationalism introduced by Descartes is intended as a strategy to provide indefeasible claims for knowledge, that is, claims resistant to even the strongest forms of criticism. Descartes specifically states that the cogito is intended as an Archimedean point, and hence as a place to stand, as a foundation on which to construct the entire scaffolding of knowledge. 18 Foundationalism is often mentioned but insufficiently discussed. For present purposes, we can understand "foundationalism" as "the form of epistemological strategy that intends to identify secure foundations for knowledge." There are different types of foundationalism. Here we can distinguish three forms. Ontological foundationalism is concerned with the direct grasp of reality, as in Plato, perhaps in Aristotle, more recently in Husserl, and in Heidegger on some readings. Perceptual foundationalism is manifest in Descartes's clear and distinct perceptions, as well as in certain forms of Anglo-American philosophy, which rely on immediate experience as yielding incorrigible knowledge. A third variety, principal foundationalism, depends on principles that must be assumed, for instance in Aristotle's analysis of the law of the excluded middle. Obviously, foundationalism in all its forms is closely related to a traditional, normative view of knowledge as a permanent, ahistorical framework or matrix of reality, the ways things are, the nature of the world. Foundationalism, then, is the strategy adequate to reveal the objective structure of reality.

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Fichte's main attention in this passage, perhaps in his wider position, is consciously directed toward a neo-Cartesian, foundationalist analysis of knowledge. He offers a version of the Cartesian line of thought, as corrected by Reinhold, in the passage that we have considered. Like Reinhold, whose influence on Fichte is known, Fichte thinks that there is at least one initial principle known to be true that can serve as the secure starting point of our quest for knowledge. In Reinhold's case, this initial principle was the capacity of presentation (Vorstellungsvermogen); Fichte, who is less specific, invokes any principle at all of the many that everyone will allegedly concede to us as true. Knowledge, he says, depends on the identification of an initial principle, either known to be true or, at least, taken to be true by all observers. On this basis, we can rigorously reason backward to a first principle that, although not given in consciousness, is its basis. Unlike Descartes, who can be understood as progressively deducing the remainder of the theory from its foundation, Fichte argues regressively. His argument also differs fron1 the Cartesian line in that it begins from a fact, whereas Descartes starts from a conception of the pure epistemological subject.

IV The foundationalist thrust of Fichte's theory is largely in evidence in the passage in question in the idea that from a self-evident principle we can identify the first principle of human knowledge and hence we can ground knowledge. It is further manifest in his identification (which takes up the entire first part of his treatise) of the three fundamental principles of the entire science of knowledge. These three principle arise out ofFichte's careful expansion of the Kantian conception of the transcendental unity of apperception, the acknowledged highest principle of the Critical philosophy. 19 Taken together, these principles apparently function as the ground of the entire science, in the way that Kant's transcendental unity of apperception seems to ground his own position. Fichte continues this foundationalist line in his introduction of the concept of intellectual intention in the "Second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge" (1797). This doctrine is essentially anti-Kantian, although Fichte insists strongly that it is only Kantianism properly understood. 20 It is well known that in the Critique of Pure Reason Kant denied the possibility of intellectual intuition in order to prohibit immediate, nonsensory knowledge. The doctrine of intellectual intuition that Fichte introduces can be read in different ways. Hegel, and later Schelling, understood intellectual intuition as transcendental, namely, as the direct grasp of the more than sensory. The early Hegel went so far as to proclaim the identity of transcendental intuition

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and transcendental knowledge. 21 The early Schelling, who was always more Fichtean than Hegel, claimed that in intellectual intuition producing and intuiting are conjoined. 22 Fichte interpreted intellectual intuition differently, not as a source of transcendental knowledge but as an immediate intuition of the self. He understands intellectual intuition as the "immediate consciousness that I act, and how I act.,,23 This doctrine, which Sartre later appropriates as the basis of his dis tinction between thetic and prethetic consciousness in Being and Nothingness,24 is intended by both Fichte and then, following him, Sartre to refer to the immediate awareness of the self that is at the basis of one's actions. In this way, according to Fichte, the philosopher discovers intellectual intuition as a fact of consciousness. 25 Fichte insists that this perspective is the only possible standpoint, since, from this angle of vision, we can "explain everything that occurs within consciousness. "26 The function of this conception within Fichte's theory is clear. Intellectual intuition is another form of Reinhold's view that knowledge can be grounded in a self-evident principle. The idea of any principle that anyone will accept without protest, introduced in the passage discussed above, has only a tenuous connection with the Act held to make consciousness possible. Through the concept of intellectual intuition, Fichte attempts to strengthen the link by arguing, inconsistently, that we not only make consciousness possible through our acts but that we are aware of so acting. The inconsistency is that if the Act is prior to and a condition of consciousness, we cannot also be aware of it in intellectual intuition.

v The foundationalism identified in Fichte's theory can be understood against the background of the post-Kantian reconstruction of the Critical philosophy. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant identifies "architectonic" as "the art of constructing systems" and further insists that if the different forms of knowledge are not merely to form a mere rhapsody, to be stitched together, as it were, they must form a system. 27 Kant's normative view of knowledge as system raised a nurnber of problems. It was clear to all those who were not opposed to the Critical philosophy that the system on which he insisted was nowhere present in his thought. There was a manifest discrepancy between the so-called art of conducting systems on which Kant rather grandly insisted and the painful form he gave to his own theory, which seemed at best a pseudo-system. Nor was his normative idea of system clear. A search of his writings indicates that ~is understanding of system was only one of the topics to which he repeatedly returned and on which he seems never to have achieved a fixed perspective.

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The reaction to Kant's Critical philosophy was extraordinarily diverse. Some thinkers, such as Hamann, Herder, and Jacobi, and from another perspective Maimon and Schulze, simply rejected it. Others, for instance, Beck, insisted that in order to be understood it needed to be expounded from the correct perspective. Still others who regarded themselves as Kantians were concerned to reformulate Kant's position. The reason for this concern is clear. As a non-system, or a theory that insisted on a concept of system present mainly as an unrealized idea, Kant's theory obviously failed its own test. The post-Kantian moment of the German tradition, from Kant to Hegel, can be regarded as the effort of those who identified with the Critical philosophy, who regarded it as essentially correct, to reconstruct it as a system. The very imprecision of Kant's idea of system left the way open for different reconstructions of the theory. Reinhold, the first to attempt to provide the Critical philosophy with a system, identified the necessary conception in the rationalist form of foundationalism. The Cartesian nlodel features a foundation, or first principle known to be true, from which the remainder of the theory can be rigorously derived. In virtue of its deductive relation to its first principle known to be true, the system that follows from it is also true. Following the Cartesian model, Reinhold attempted to found or to ground philosophy in a first principle known to be true. The main difference between Descartes's foundationalism and Reinhold's, as we have noted, lies in the empirical character of Reinhold's proposed foundation. Reinhold's influence on the formation of Fichte's theory is well known. Fichte's review of the skeptical attack by Schulze on Reinhold allowed Fichte to reformulate Reinhold's foundational principle in a way that responded to Schulze's criticisms. Reinhold is important mainly as the first thinker to attempt to recast the Critical philosophy in systematic form, and Fichte is a major thinker, one of the great idealists. But the disparity between the two writers should not obscure the debt Fichte incurred to his older colleague: He owed to Reinhold not only a variety of insights in his own thought, but, above all, the concern to reconstruct the Critical philosophy as a founded system.

VI The foundationalist conception of system that Fichte elaborates in the wake of the Critical philosophy under the influence of Reinhold is largely traditional. It follows the Cartesian insight that the appropriate strategy for knowledge is foundationalism. Yet there is a less traditional, genuinely novel conception of unfounded system in Fichte's theory. If we attend less to its letter than to its spirit, we can perceive another, rival view, in tension with and, I believe, more interesting than the foundationalist model.

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A necessary clue to the antifoundationalist conception of ungrounded system is provided by Fichte's meditation on circularity. Circularity was prominent in early Greek thought, as a variant of the idea that like knows like. Several thinkers, including Parmenides and Plato, suggested that since thought needed to be like its object in order to know it, and since reality itself was circular or spherical, thought also must be circular. Yet since Aristotle's criticism of circularity as vicious, later thinkers, including Kant, routinely advance the perception of circularity as a crushing objection. Fichte's brilliant rehabilitation of circularity is not often noticed. It is certainly not present in his very earliest thought, in his most closely Kantian stage. For instance, in the Critique of All Revelation he routinely attacks the so-called supernatural view as circular. 28 But it is already present in the famous "Review of Aenesidemus." Here Fichte, who states that the purpose of philosophy is to explain the contents of consciousness from a point within it (the same claim later developed by Hegel in the Phenomenology of Spirit), insists that the result is a necessary circle. 29 The key claim that here emerges is that circularity is unavoidable, so that mere recognition of its presence is not sufficient to detect an error in the reasoning process. Fichte further develops this doctrine in other texts of the same period, in his "Own Meditations on Elementary Philosophy," which anticipated the Fundamental Principles of the Science of Knowledge, in the Fundamental Principles itself, and in the important metatheoretical text "Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre." In the Fundamental Principles of the Science of Knowledge, Fichte clearly argues that thought as such is ineliminably circular. He identifies within his position an intrinsic circularity at a number of points, including in the concept of the act, in the relation between the principles of,identity and opposition, in the relation between the self and what is manifested, in the relation between product and activity, and in the relation between the real and the ideal.

VII Foundationalism is linear in that the argument proceeds from the foundation to the theory that follows from it. A theory that is intrinsically circular is not linear, since there is no foundation. Fichte's conception of the necessary circularity of knowledge represents the spirit of his view. It is in tension with the letter of his theory, which is largely foundationalist. Yet circularity is clearly evident as a major aspect of his thought. I t is present in the passages on circularity noted above, since circularity is incompatible with linearity. A circular theory is not and cannot be linear, just as antifoundationalism and foundationalism are mutually exclusive alternatives. A view of theory as circular is explicitly present in Fichte's important metatheoretical text, Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre.

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This brilliant discussion is important as an aid in comprehending Fichte's Fundamental Principles of the Science of Knowledge, for which it provides a normative model. Fichte here advances a normative conception of ungrounded system whose relevance is clear against the background of the reconstruction of the critical philosophy as system. Following the Kantian view that philosophy must assume the form of systematic science, Fichte examines the idea of an ungrounded system in detail. He states his conviction that no higher contribution to Kant's thought can be made than through the systematic spirit of Reinhold. 30 Yet his own analysis of system is, finally, diametrically opposed to Reinhold's, since he rejects the possibility of a foundation. He compares .science to a building whose aim is certainty and which, in turn, depends on its foundation. 31 According to Fichte, who here restates the idea quoted from the Fundamental Principles of the Science ofKnowledge, every science requires a foundation (Grundsatz) that cannot be proven within it but that must be certain. 32 Since knowledge depends on a foundation that is not susceptible of proof, Fichte asserts that it is simply certain because it is certain. 33 This claim is an admission that knowledge takes the form of an ungrounded system. Fichte makes this point in two ways. First, he insists on the hypothetical character of the philosophical enterprise. 34 Philosophy simply can never go beyond likelihood to certainty.35 In other words, although philosophy r~quires certainty, it can never reach this goal. The efforts to do so represent the pragmatic element in knowledge. 36 Second, he maintains that the process of knowledge has an intrinsic circularity from which we can never escape. 37 Both the hypothetical character and the circular nature of philosophy point to the same conclusion: Philosophy cannot yield certainty, although knowledge requires it. In other words, what we can know is that the search for knowledge is an endless task because the theoretical requirement of a foundation, in other words of a linear, noncircular form of reasoning, cannot be met in practice.

VIII I an convinced that Fichte's rehabilitation of circularity is more than a mere tension in his position. It is, rather, a crucial step forward in the epistemological discussion. My conviction is based on the structure of the discussion in the post-Kantian phase of German idealism and on more general considerations. The rehabilitation of circularity is not related to a mere tension if that means that another way offormulating the position would remove the problem. Rather, in my view, the difference between the two readings of Fichte's position, at least its early form, reflects, from the alternative angles of vision, either foundationalist or antifoundationalist, a genuine and unbridgeable contradiction

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deeply rooted in his thought. Discussion about foundationalism and, perforce, about antifoundationalism is often rather vague, since there is no single normative model accepted by all observers. The term "foundationalism" seems to cover a cluster of meanings that exhibit, to use Wittgenstein's term, a family resemblance, as does the term "antifoundationalism." Nonetheless, whatever "foundationalism" is taken to mean, "antifoundationalism" must be construed as its· negation. The foundationalism and antifoundationalism in Fichte's thought cannot be reconciled in any manner in some deeper version of his theory. The coexistence within his position of incompatible elements is not, however, a sign of his incompetence as a thinker. One way to make this point is to note that the positions of both Kant and Hegel also exhibit a similar contradiction. Kant nowhere argues in a foundationalist manner. Yet there are foundationalist aspects to his thought, for instance, in the famous claim (which is only intelligible in terms ,of a conception of his thought as foundational) that to change anything in his position would cause all of human reason to totter. 38 Hegel presents an even clearer case, for he inveighs against the idea of a foundation throughout his thought, as early as his first philosophical publication in an attack on Reinhold's founding and grounding tendency. Yet he invokes the idea of Being as the obligatory starting point of his discussion, hence as a foundation. 39 Obviously, mere consistency is less important than something one can provisionally designate by the imprecise term of "insight into the nature of the problem." Fichte, who may not have been clearly aware of the inconsistency in his theory, provides two different, incompatible epistemological doctrines in the course of his participation in the effort to reconstruct the Critical philosophy in the form of a system. On the one hand, there is his corrected version of Reinhold's updating of the rationalist foundationalist model of grounded system. On the other hand, there is his effort to formulate an antirationalist, alternative model of an ungrounded system. I am convinced that the model of ungrounded system is more significant than the model of grounded system. The argument for the importance of a circular, hence ungrounded, form of system can best be made against the background of other views of knowledge. Here we need to distinguish between the immediate context and the wider discussion. In the immediate context, Fichte's brilliant innovation in proposing an ungrounded system was picked up by Hegel. The discussion of Hegel's position emphasizes its relation to Schelling's position, above all in the concept of the absolute. Hegel's preference for Schelling over Fichte is apparent as early as the Differenzschrift, Hegel's first philosophical essay.40 Yet we should resist efforts to understand Hegel's relation to his contemporaries in a one-sided fashion. It would be more precise to say that in this essay Hegel thought of Schelling's

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position as a variant of Fichte's, and Fichte's position as the correct reading of Kant's position in the context of Fichte's own concern to complete the Critical philosophy. But from an epistemological point of view, Fichte's influence on Hegel's conception of the process of knowledge as essentially circular is decisive. Hegel takes a clearly Fichtean line in his critique of Reinhold's aptly nanled founding and grounding tendency toward the end of the Differenzschrift. The point he states there, to wit, that knowledge neither requires grounding nor can be grounded, is precisely congruent with Fichte's view of the matter. 41 T'he difference between the two views of system is relatively slight. I t is difficult to be more precise, because, to the best of my knowledge, there has so far been relatively little attention directed to the conception of system in general, in German idealism, or in the positions of Fichte and Hegel. Hegel follows Fichte in rejecting the idea of an external ground for philosophy conceived as a systematic science, in insisting on systematic science as self-grounding, and in stressing the progressive nature of the ground as the system developed and reached completion. Hegel's contribution seems mainly to lie in elucidating more clearly than did Fichte the consequences of an antifoundationalist approach. Yet even Hegel seems not to have clearly grasped the alternative, since he seems to have inconsistently succumbed to the attractions of a residual foundationalism. One point of difference lies in Hegel's insistence on the idea of reason. He is cognizant, as Fichte is not, of the need to justify the claim that the philosophical instrument is adequate for knowledge. If, as Hegel consistently proclaims, that instrument is philosophical reflection, or reason, then we need to know that reason is adequate for the purposes of knowledge. Hegel approaches this problem in two ways. The first strategy is the quasipragmatic claim that the system of knowledge is self-legitimating. This approach rest,s on something like a notion of explanatory richness, which Hegel apparently takes as his criterion for the adequacy of philosophical theory in his idea of the development of knowledge. The idea is that in the progression from level to level of the discussion, conceptually richer versions of the theory demonstrate their increasing adequacy through confrontation with experience. For instance, in the Phenomenology of Spirit, sense certainty is superseded by perception, which is then replaced by understanding. The conceptually later levels are considered to be improvements on preceding levels. What I am calling the quasi-pragmatic claim depends on an appeal to experience. lIegel consistently turns to experience throughout his position. Although idealism in general, and Hegel's thought in particular, suffer from a bad press in this regard, it is difficult to think of anyone in the history of philosophy, even Aristotle, who has a deeper awareness of the cultural and historical dimensions of philosophy. Hegel's concern with the real problems

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of life run throughout his corpus, from the topic of his initial publication, a translation of Cart's letters objecting to the hegemony of Berne over the Canton of Vaud, to his many concrete concerns in the Philosophy of Right, such as problems of anti-Semitism, poverty, and so on. Dante's famous remark, that Aristotle was the master of those who know, applies equally well to Hegel. The second strategy consists in a direct effort to legitimate reason. In the absence of foundationalism, which is meant to carry out this task, it is difficult to see how to demonstrate that the application of our rational faculty to the surrounding world in fact yields knowledge in the strong, or traditional, sense. Hegel was at least aware of this problem. There are a number of passages in his works in which he simply says that it must be the case that reason can know. 42 Yet other than the turn to experience, there seems to be no other way to make this argument stick.

IX The deeper question is the contemporary interest in the very idea of an ungrounded system. This is obviously an enormously wide question, which I can only address here in the most schematic form. Let us start by distinguishing between the conceptions of system and of ground. The idea of system is basically modern. Plato is not a systematic thinker. Aristotle is a systematic thinker, but he is not directly concerned with the idea of system, and it is not clear how the distinctions he draws can be welded together in a single system. The idea of system arises in modern times together with the foundationalist epistemological strategy. If "system" is taken to mean something like "the internal coherence and unity of a series of elements," then it is clear that "system" is neutral with respect to the concept of a ground. The idealist portion of the tradition, perhaps even the earlier rationalist moment, is marked by the drive for a total system. The origins of this philosophical concern go back to Greek mathematics, to the Pythagorean identification of things with numbers. A system is an important corrective to conceptual anarchy as a means of retaining at least a semblance of rigor. The more rigorous the system, the less likely it is that the central concepts are merely stitched together, as it were. A system provides the concept ofform, whereas the ground is linked to the strategy for kJ;lowledge. If we except skepticism, which is a strategy to defeat claims to know, then there are many theories of knowledge, but many fewer strategies for knowledge. On one reading, we can collect the various theories as variations on only three basic epistemological strategies, which we can call intuitionism, foundationalism, and antifoundationalism. Intuitionism is present in the Greek tradition in the idea of the direct apprehension of the real.

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A version of this approach has lately been making a comeback of sorts, particularly in the forms of phenomenology associated with Husserl and Heidegger, who claim direct access to the way things are. Intuitionism gave way to foundationalism, with the decline of the naive Greek ontology, as a way to legitimate claims to know on the basis of a first principle, known to be true, from which the remainder of the theory could be rigorously deduced. Antifoundationalism is the name for the recent, growing convict'ion that no form offoundationalism can be made out. In one version, known as postmodernis,m, there is no single overarching tale conjoining the many partial accounts. 43 This strategy is at present opposed by a few remaining adherents of foundationalism, such as Chisholm, Apel, and Habermas. Systematicity and epistemology are only tangentially related. An intuitionist strategy for knowledge does not require an epistemological apparatus, such as a system, since it claims direct access to the real. Yet it is harder now than it once was to make this claim, as it is unclear what could be meant by the real, that is, by something like the objective structure of reality as it is independent from us. Foundationalism is also questionable, since, although it is interesting as a strategy, it is unclear that there is any way to make it work. If we grant these suppositions, then the interest of antifoundationalism, as a potentially viable alternative either to intuitionism or foundationalism, becomes clear. How are we to evaluate the interest of the Fichtean model of an ungrounded system? If intuitionism is unattractive and if foundationalism is unworkable, then antifoundationalism becomes attractive, especially when it is coupled with a concern for system to preserve as much rigor as possible. Antifoundationalism is attractive for another reason. When we reflect on human efforts over several thousand years to come to grips with and to know our surroundings and ourselves, it is obvious that this has taken place in the absence of any Archimedean point, anything resembling afundamentum inconcussum, and that there has never been a reason to trust one person's unjustified intuition of reality over anyone else's. One cannot, therefore, conclude that another approach is in1possible. Yet there is at least a suggestion, based on human experience, that what Fichte, from the antifoundationalist perspective, calls the task of philosophy-that is, to explain the contents of consciousness in terms of what occurs within it in circular fashion - is entirely consistent with the way the project of knowledge has actually unfolded over the last two-and-a-half millenia.

x I come now to the conclusion. In the wake of the effort after Kant to reconstruct the Critical philosophy in systematic form, the work of this essay

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has been to uncover and discuss two views of system in Fichte's early thought: a foundationalist idea of grounded system, and an antifoundationalist idea of ungrounded system. Fichte stands at the crossroads of modernity: He participates in the Cartesian enterprise that holds that it is only if we can ground knowledge that there is any to be had; and he further participates in the anti-Cartesian movement following from the realization that whatever knowledge there is can only arise within a process that has no foundation, and hence no certainty. Philosophy depends, according to Fichte, on who we are. If we follow Fichte's insight, then whether we prefer the Fichte who intends to complete the Critical philosophy in a grounded system or the rather different Fichte who suggests its completion in an ungrounded system depends on our own identification with foundationalism or antifoundationalism. The choice is not, however, wholly contingent, as there are important consequences for our view of knowledge. I see three reasons to prefer Fichte's antifoundationalism over his foundationalism. The first point concerns the spirit of the Kantian revolution in philosophy. Kant's Copernican Revolution is meant to secure the possibility of knowledge on the hypothesis that objectivity is parasitic on subjectivity. We recall Fichte's identification with Kant. There seems to be no way, despite Kant's view of the matter, to surpass the hypothetical status of this argument. In his suggestion that philosophy is circular, Fichte remains close, if not to the letter, then at least to the spirit of the Critical philosophy. The second point relates to Fichte's view that the problems of philosophy arise out of the problems of life. If his view of a first principle is correct, then theory, which arises out of practice, tells us that only practice can resolve practical problems. For whatever knowledge there is can only arise from practice, and practice can never yield certainty. Third, it is significant that no form of foundationalism now seems to be possible. This mandates a turn to circularity. I am convinced that we can only be certain that from a circular argument certainty cannot follow. Fichte was a political revolutionary but a philosophical conservative in a straightforward sense. Even more than the other great post-Kantian idealists, his attention was focused on completing the Copernican Revolution in philosophy. Yet like other important thinkers, including those who intend merely to contribute to the discussion underway, he displaces it in a significant fashion. From the perspective of the letter, Fichte is best characterized as a foundationalist, and his theory presents another, later, better form of the post-Kantian form offoundationalist system. Yet his theory is more interesting when it is read according to its spirit. When we do so, we find in Fichte's thought a radically new model of ungrounded system that is highly relevant today. I conclude that if we wish to avoid the dogmatism and skepticism that

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derive from an unjustifiable assertion of foundationalism, we would do well to follow the spirit of Fichte's effort to find knowledge through the model of an ungrounded system.

NOTES

1. ·For a sympathetic exposition of Frege's views of logic, see William Kneale and Martha Kneale, The Development ofLogic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, reprint 1986), ch. 8: "Frege's General Logic," pp. 478-512. It is well known that Frege's concern with precision impeded his understanding of other views. For comments on Frege's inability to understand Wittgenstein's early theory for that reason, see Ray Monk, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius (New York: The Free Press, 1990). 2. See Immanuel Kant, Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. K. Smith (London and New York: Macmillan and S1. Martin's, 1961), B862, p. 654. 3. Kant introduced the Pauline distinction between the spirit and the letter in order to protest against what he regarded as the misinterpretation of his own position. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Bxliv, p. 37. 4. For this discussion, see my book On Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy (Berkeley, .Los Angeles, and London: The University of California Press, 1992). 5. See Richard Rorty, Consequences ofPragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982), p. 211. 6. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B864, p. 655. 7. This idea runs throughout all of Husserl's work after his phenomenological breakthrough. See, e.g., Edmund Husserl, "Philosophy as Rigorous Science," in Edmund Husserl, Phenomenology and the Crisis of Philosophy, trans. with notes and an introduction by Quentin Lauer (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), pp. 71-48. 8. See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (Evanston: Harper & Row, 1962), §6: "The Task of Destroying the History of Ontology," pp. 41-48. 9. See jiirgen Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests, trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: Beacon, 1972). 10. See jiirgen Habermas, Der philosophische Diskurs der Modeme (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1985). 11. SeeJiirgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns, 2 vols. (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1981). 12. See Jiirgen Habermas, Zur Rekonstruktion des historiscken Materialismus (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1976), p. 9. 13. See Jiirgen Habermas, Zur Logik der Sozialwissenschaften (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1970), "Der phanomenologische Ansatz," pp. 188-219. 14. See "Review of Aenesidemus," in Fickte: Early Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. Daniel Breazeale (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), pp. 59-78. 15. See Fickte: Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre) with First and Second Introductions,

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16. 17. 18.

. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23. 24.

25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

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ed. and trans. Peter Heath and John Lachs (New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts, 1970). Fichte: Science of Knowledge, p. 93; translation modified. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B862, pp. 654-55. The indispensable text to understand the logic of Descartes's argument is the "Discourse on Method." See The Philosophical Works qf Descartes, trans. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), vol. 1, pp. 79-130. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, §16, BI31-36, pp. 152-55. Fichte makes this argument throughout the sixth part of the "Second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge." See Fichte: Science of Knowledge, pp. 42-62. See G. W. F. Hegel, The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System ofPhilosophy, trans. H. S. Harris and Walter Cerf (i\lbany: State University of New York Press, 1977), p. 110. See F. W. J. Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism, trans. Peter Heath (Charlottesville: The University of Virginia Press, 1978), Introduction, §4, p. 14. Fichte: Science of Knowledge, p. 38; translation modified. See Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. and with an introduction by Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square Press, 1976), Introduction, part 3: "The Pre-Reflective Cogito and the Being of the Percipere," pp. 9-17. See Fichte: Science of Knowledge, p. 40. Ibid., p. 41. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B860, p. 633. References are to Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte (hereafter SW) (see page 235). This quote SW, I, p. 55. References to Fichte are to J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (see page 235). This quote from I, vol. 2, p. 55. SW, I, p. 31. SW, I, p. 42. SW, I, p. 47. SW, I, p. 48. SW, I, p. 30. SW, I, p. 76. See SW, I, p. 77. See also the corresponding passage in the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, SW, I, p. 222. See SW, I, p. 61. See Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Bxxxviii, p. 34. For a discussion of this point, see my "Foundationalism and Hegelian Logic," Owl of Minerva 21, no. 1 (Fall 1989): pp. 41-50. For this argument, see my Hegel's Circular Epistemology (Bloonlington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986). See Hegel, The Difference between Fichte's and Schelling's System of Philosophy, pp. 179-80. See, e.g., G. W. F. Hegel, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), p. 14, translation modified: "The beginning of philosophy makes the presupposition or demand [forderungJ that consciousness be [sich bejindeJ in this element." SeeJean-Franc;ois Lyotard, La condition postmoderne (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1979).

6

The Historical and Systematic Place ofFichteJs Reflections on Language JERE PAUL SURBER

INTRODUCTION

While one could not claim that questions about language figure prominently either in Fichte's major theoretical writings or in his more "popular" essays, there is another group of texts to consider before we dismiss Fichte, along with Kant, as lacking any theory of language or as being fatally naive on linguistic issues. Still, with almost no exceptions, interpreters of the earliest phases of German idealism, be their primary interests in the history of this movement, in its underlying philosophical issues,l or in the history of linguistics, 2 have either been completely unaware of or have ignored Fichte's essay of 1795 entitled "Von der Sprachfahigkeit und dem Ursprunge -cler Sprache."3 Nor has there been any notice at all of Fichte's rather extensive lecture notes on linguistic issues, dating from around 1796. 4 Fichte, in fact, seems to have worked over these notes for several years in connection with his introductory lectures atJena, in which he used Ernst Platner's Philosophische Aphorismen5 as a sort of philosophical foil for presenting his own views . .This scholarly neglect is rather surprising for several reasons. First, Fichte's essay on language could not have appeared at a more critical moment in his intellectual development, nor in a more conspicuous place. Fichte seems to have composed this essay sometime after the beginning of 1795. It appeared in the PhilosophischesJournal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten, in two installments, in late spring and early sumn1er of that year. It is literally sandwiched between Fichte's first major public presentation of his theoretical views in the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre in 1794 and his composition of the Grundlage des Naturrechts, which occupied him during the summer of 1795. If this were not itself significant enough to warrant some

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scholarly attention, one might note that the essay was Fichte's inaugural contribution to the Philosophisches journal, which was edited by Friedrich Niethammer, together with an Editorial Advisory Board consisting of Fichte himself, Johann Benjamin Erhard, Wilhelm von Humboldt, Salomon Maimon, Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Friedrich Schiller, and Gottlob Schulze. (Later Fichte would himselfjoin Niethammer as coeditor.) We should recall that this journal was explicitly founded to be the more or less official vehicle for the promotion and discussion of issues involved with the newly emerging . idealist philosophy. One must assume that some serious premeditation on Fichte's part was involved in his decision to deal with the question of language in his initial outing in so auspicious a publication project. Indeed, the problem of language was important enough to warrant the inclusion, in the issue of this journal dated November of the same year, of another essay on the subject by Friedrich Karl Forberg,6 one of Fichte's younger colleagues at Jena who was later to figure prominently in the so-called Atheismusstreit. Beyond this, two other issues should be noted. First, the concern with linguistic questions was not merely a passing fancy for Fichte, since he continued, possibly even as late as 1799, to devote a significant part of his yearly introductory lectures, using Platner's Aphorismen, to questions regarding language. 7 Finally, unless one counts August Ferdinand Bernhardi's Sprachlehre8 of 1801-1803 (whose publication was sponsored by Fichte himself),9 Fichte's essay on language is the only self-standing and sustained discussion of linguistic questions that occurs in the entire tradition of German idealism. For this reason alone, Fichte's essay and the later handwritten notes on language deserve close reading and careful study. The present essay will serve as a propaedeutic to such a reading. Specifically, I will sketch, in a preliminary way, two points of view from which Fichte's linguistic reflections can profitably be regarded. First, I will consider Fichte's linguistic reflections against the historical background of some of the major views and controversies surrounding language to which Fichte was heir. Second, I will suggest that the essay can be read as a response to a specific objection being raised at the time against the possibility of philosophy conducted in a transcendental register. In conclusion, I will have some tentative suggestions to offer regarding how taking Fichte's linguistic reflections seriously might alter our overall view of Fichte's philosophy and its place in the history of German idealism and its aftermath. Scattered throughout these discussions will be some observations about why Fichte's linguistic reflections have for so long escaped scholarly attention.

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There is no solid evidence that, either before or after the appearance of his essay on language, Fichte engaged in any very detailed study either of the preceding history of philosophical reflection about language or of the considerable results of the more-empirical linguistic research that had been mounting during the second half of the eighteenth century.IO Still, Fichte appears to have been familiar enough with the general contours, if not the details, of the philosophical debates that, by the early 1790s, he had arrived at some very definite and distinctly novel views regarding these issues. Further, while Fichte provides no documentation for the exact sources he may have consulted on the more specifically grammatical and empirical linguistic questions with which he deals in the second half of his published essay, it is clear that he was reasonably well informed about more recent developments in this area. 11 We can summarize Fichte's responses to earlier approaches to linguistic issues .under three general headings.

The Problem of Origins The dominant form that philosophical discussions of language had taken in the eighteenth century was the attempt to answer the question concerning the origins of language. 12 Clearly, part of the title of Fichte's essay directly invokes this tradition. While the question concerning the origin of language goes back at least as far as Locke and Condillac and continues through Rousseau, it took on a specific and institutionalized form in the Germanspeaking countries. Beginning around 1750, under the leadership of Maupertuis, the Berlin Academy had begun a series of discussions concerning whether language should be regarded as having a divine origin, as suggested in the Old Testament, or whether it could have had a human origin, as the predominant views of the Enlightenment preferred. In 1756 Johann Peter Siissmilch had presented two papers tO,the Berlin Academy (later published in 1766), arguing in some detail for the former view. After considerable ensuing debate, these papers ultimately formed the basis for a "prize topic" posed by the academy in 1771, to which Johann Gottfried Herder's famous "Prize Essay" of the same year, Treatise on the Origin of Language, was the response. I3 Herder's answer was uncompromising in advocating the distinctly human origin of language, a point that was, in the philosophical tradition at least, never again seriously questioned. Still, while there seemed to be general agreement about the human origin of language, the particulars of Herder's account of this origin continued to be debated. The sections on language in Platner's Aphorismen, Forberg's essay in

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the Journal, the continuing reflections of Hamann, Herder, and Jacobi, and even the title of Fichte's essay attest to the staying power of this general issue, even after almost everyone had taken it to be generally resolved in principle, if not in specifics. On the surface, it would appear that Fichte's essay on language represented yet another attempt to clear up these essentially "pre-Critical" issues. In his essay, Fichte does present what deceptively resembles yet another "genetic" account of the origin of language, seeming to move from a postulated prelinguistic human condition to the appearance of a full-blown spoken and written language. It is this seeming reversion on Fichte's part to a pre-Kantian problematic that may account, at least in part, for the subsequent scholarly neglect of this essay. However, a closer reading of the essay reveals that what Fichte is really challenging is not so much the inadequacy of Herder's specific attempt to supply the required narration of the human origination of language, as it is the concept of "origin" implicit both in Herder's answer and in the general question itself. Fichte, in fact, fully realized that the very notion of an origin of language, be it divine or human, was precisely the sort of antinomic concept that Kant had laid to rest in the "Transcendental Dialectic." If one looks to Fichte's handwritten notes on language, one discovers that much of the discussion is directly concerned with showing that the entire question of origins is systematically ambiguous, defying any clear or even meaningful answer. His attitude can be summarized by saying that, if the origin is divine, it lies beyond all possible experience and validation, and if it is based merely on empirical features of "human nature," it cannot provide the basis for any finally adequate account of language. 14 For Fichte, to the degree that it makes sense to speak of the origin of language, its origination must be located in the "rational/purposive" nature of consciousness itself in relation to another consciousness. The question of the origin of language can therefore be confronted only as a transcendental question, bound up with the necessary constitutive conditions of consciousness itself. In no sense can the question of origins be construed as either asking about some supernatural dispensation or about some empirical or historical process of human evolution. It may well be that the decisiveness with which Fichte laid this line of questioning to rest helps account for the fact that the Ursprungsfrage would not seriously be posed again until, in the 1850s, Schelling resubmitted the question to the Berlin Academy by asking what a half-century of empirical linguistic research indicated about it. It remained for Jacob Grimn1 to pick up the gauntlet with an often appropriately ironic hand. 15

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The Rejection of Naturalism and Conventionalism Perhaps more than any other specific thesis about language advocated within the preceding century, Fichte inveighed at great length against "conventionalism," the idea that the meanings of words and other signs were to be sought in some sort of deliberate agreement. While the locus classicus of this view, at least in the n10dern tradition, was generally held to be Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding,16 it achieved broad currency throughout the eighteenth century, taking various forms in the work of such thinkers as Condillac, Rousseau, the Encyclopedists, and leaving occasional traces even in Herder. 17 In a general sense, conventionalism with regard to linguistic meaning was commonly opposed to a naturalistic account that maintained that the meanings of words could ultimately be traced back to the imitations of "natural sounds," a view maintained, though not always consistently, by Herder. In the essay on language, Fichte clearly chose not to identify his view with either party to the discussion. A parenthetical line in his handwritten notes states his view of conventionalism clearly and succinctly: "Agreement is improbable and circular." In his essay, he advances and elaborates this basic view on a number of occasions, almost to the point of redundancy. First: Why, he asks, should we expect anyone in an alleged "state of nature" to accept someone else's proposal as to what word or sign should be used to signify a concept or idea, when they either already have their own sign for the idea or have experienced no need for it to begin with? Second: Does not the very ability to agree on the meaning of a word already presuppose the existence of a language in which the agreement can be proposed and struck? In one sense, naturalism seems to fare a bit better in Fichte's· discussions. At least he does not seem to regard it as ultimately incoherent or circular, and it does figure in a limited way in Fichte's own account of the development of language. But Fichte makes a clear distinction between what he alternatively calls '-'hieroglyphic language" or an "Ursprache" (note that he does not hold that there is some single, originary Ursprache) and "language proper." The distinguishing feature of the former is precisely its "imitative" or "iconic" character, which the latter must leave entirely behind without any essential trace. Thus, a crucial issue in Fichte's linguistic reflections is to show how his theory of the development of language makes a decisive break with any naturalistic theory of n1eaning, without, of course, resorting to the conventionalism that he decisively rejects. The particular hostility that Fichte shows toward conventionalism can be explained by the fact that his own view might easily be mistaken for a version of it. Briefly, Fichte begins his essay by defining language as "the expression

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of our thoughts by means of arbitrary signs."IB The German word I have translated as "arbitrary" is "willkurlich," and it should be noted that there is in English no entirely satisfactory translation for this word, which might also be rendered (among other ways) as "contingent" or even "accidentaL" The philosophical point underlying Fichte's definition of language, which he elaborates at considerable length in the essay, is ultimately the intimate connection between the absolute freedom that he attributes to reflective consciousness, and the Willkiirlichkeit, the dissociation from "natural necessity," of the signs by which one consciousness expresses itself to another. That is, Fichte rejects any thought that an essentially free reflective consciousness can possibly express its own nature in a medium that is bound and determined by natural necessity. Thus, Fichte's strategy in his discussion is to assert the willkurlich character of signification against any empirical determinism or naturalism, while at the same time denying that this entails that conventionalism is correct. It is n10re difficult to assess whether Fichte actually managed to produce a more adequate positive theory of meaning, but his recognition of the problem and the direction in which any solution might lie sets his thought clearly apart from any of the preceding lines of reflection on language. Again, Fichte has brought the discussion of language to another plateau.

Semiotic versus Linguistic Approaches The third novel feature of Fichte's linguistic discussion concerns the deliberateness with which he focuses upon what would today be called "semiotic" as opposed to more narrowly "linguistic" issues. Again, Fichte's focus on a theory of language that sees signs and signification as more fundamental than and prior to words and developed linguistic expression was not entirely novel. In the 1770s, for example, J. H. Lambert had published a work entitled Semiotik, which introduced just such a theme, and provoked some discussion with J. N. Tetens over its virtues. I9 While Lambert's work may have been known to Fichte (it is one which Platner cites inthe Aphorismen) , it is not likely that it would have been very attractive to him, due to its decidedly pre-Kantian metaphysical concerns and its rather deliberate attempt eclectically to combine Wolffian and Lockeian views (somewhat, in fact, in the manner of Platner). What is most interesting about Fichte's insertion of a specifically semiotic dimension into his linguistic reflections is the clearly demarcated and central role that he assigns it in the overall discussion. While the "origination narratives" of thinkers such as Condillac, Rousseau, and Herder occasionally mention gestures or other nonverbal signs as involved in the development of language, these are rather consistently reabsorbed into the sweep of the linguistic account, typically by comparisons between them and "genuinely

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linguistic" phenomena. On the other hand, such discussions of signs as those in Lambert and Tetens locate semiotic issues within the broader context of logico-metaphysical discussions about the relation between "abstract concepts" and their phenomenal representations. Fichte, for his part, resists reducing the question of signs and signification to either a more narrowly focused "linguistic narrative" or to broader logical and metaphysical theories about concepts and their representation. We have already seen that Fichte, from the very beginning, defines language with reference to "arbitrary signs." This means, of course, that the semiotic question of sign and signification is, from the beginning, prior to any further understanding of verbal meaning and linguistic structure. Having laid down this definition, Fichte immediately turns, prior to offering a sort of developmental account of the increasing complexity of linguistic formations, to two interrelated semiotic issues. His discussion is designed to show how the essentially willkurlich (or arbitrary) character of signs is related to the free decision of one human being to express his or her rational purposiveness to another, and the equally free response, of the same kind, by the other to acknowledge this expression of rational purposiveness. In a theme that is again taken up in the Grundlage des Naturrechts, Fichte sees the willkiirlich character of signs as the mediun1 by which a genuinely intersubjective relation is established and developed. This semiotic basis of intersubjectivity can subsequently serve as the foundation for an account of the increasingly more determinate structural features of language, without committing Fichte to the circularity involved with conventionalism. Fichte, then, was perhaps the first to have clearly seen the advantages of a semiotic groundwork for approaching the more deterlninate and specific questions of linguistic structure and verbal n1eaning. "METACRITIQUE" AND THE DEFENSE OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY In 1784, a new and potentially devastating assault on Kant's infant project of transcendental philosophy was launched, instigated by Herder, in an essay by Johann Georg Hamann entitled "Metakritik tiber den Purismum der reinein Vernunft. ,,20 Though it was not published until 1800, it exercised what one commentator has called "a considerable subterranean influence. "21 How widely the unpublished essay itself circulated beyond its author, its instigator Herder, and, probably, Jacobi is difficult to determine. What is certain is that the project of a metacritique of the Critical philosophy, initiated by Hamann, continued to simmer and occasionally surface throughout the formative period of German idealism and, arguably, into our own iepOCh.22 While this remains an as yet little-studied strand of the last two

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decades of the eighteenth century, its resiliency can be clearly detected iIi Salomon Maimon's amazingly prescient essay on "philosophical languageconfusions"23 (which appeared in 1797, in the same journal as Fichte's essay on language) and in Herder's own "Metakritik," which constitutes part 2 of his Verstand und Erfahrung of 1799. 24 While I have as yet found no textual evidence indicating that Fichte was familiar with Hamann's essay, I suggest that he was at least acquainted with this general line of criticism, since it was indisputably in the air throughout this period. 25 On this assumption, I propose to consider here Fichte's essay on language as an attempt to respond to the project of a metacritique. Actually, it was not necessary for Fichte to be directly acquainted with Hamann's essay, since the groundwork for a Hamannian metacritique was already prepared by the ".i.4enesidemus controversy," to which Fichte was a major party by 1794. 26 Out of such discussions, the basic idea of Hamann's "Metakritik" could be easily generated in the following way. Put briefly, Kant claimed that by making a "transcendental turn" toward the "grounds for the possibility" of human experience, that is, by investigating the bases upon which "synthetic judgments could be a priori" and thus necessary and universal, the skeptic's attempt to reduce all ')udgments of experience" to contingent and subjective "judgments of perception" was supposed to be finally and decisively met. However, the question naturally arose about the nature of the evidence upon which Kant's own Critical philosophy rested. On one line of interpretation, especially that developed by Reinhold, Kant opened up a new realm offacts beyond the merely contingent empirical facts that were expressed by Kant's "synthetic a posteriori" judgments. On this view, there must also be "facts of consciousness," necessary transcendental structures or processes of synthesis, presupposed by and underlying the garden-variety contingent facts of ordinary experience. Further, these facts of consciousness would somehow have to be available to a special sort of "introspection. ,,27 Of course, to interpret Kant in this way already opened the Critical philosophy to a specific line of attack. For ifit made sense to speak offacts of consciousness, it must also make sense, following the logic of the Critical philosophy itself, to ask in turn about the "grounds for the possibility" of these facts of consciousness. Reinhold's alternative, as Hegel later observed in the Differenzschrift,28 ultimately committed him to a type of "infinite reflective regress," a sort of hall of mirrors from which there was no escape. The other alternative, pursued by those who might be called "metaskeptics," such as Schulze and Maimon (until about 1794, when he seems to have begun to throw in his lot with the "metacritics"), was a restaten1ent of essentially empiricist questions designed to terminate again in a sort of second-order skepticism. For if one granted that it was meaningful to speak

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of facts of consciousness, then the truth of antecedent empirical judgments must be assumed to account for these facts of consciousness, and these, in turn, were as vulnerable to the usual skeptical arguments as any other factual judgments. The general tendency was not so much to retreat to a Humean "subjectless impressionism" as it was to accept Kantian "transcendental phenomenalism" while denying that any "necessary and universal" judgments could somehow be derived from or shown to be presupposed by it. Hamann (like Herder, for that matter) could be fairly regarded neither as a skeptic, a dogmatist, nor an empiricist (at least in the way Kant tended to use these terms). Rather than attempting to turn transcendental philosophy against itself, the metacritics attempted to 'undercut its project entirely.29 Instead of trying to show that transcendental philosophy was, despite its best efforts, actually still ensnared in the same conceptual net of contingent and necessary judgments that both it and its skeptical opponents readily acknowledged, the metacritics took the additional step of invoking the fundamental conditions by which any conceptual net is constructed in the first place. Hamann, and later Herder, pointed out that any philosophy- be it skeptical, dogmatic, or transcendental-was only possible on the basis. of sense experience, tradition or history, and language. However, for the metacritics, the most telling point was that any philosophy was fundamentally a linguistic construction' and could be no more universal or absolute than the language in which it was expressed, and was perhaps, finally, even more obfuscating. Thus, while some philosophical positions might be more sensitive to their linguistic n1edium than 'others, none, including Kant's transcendental philosophy, had a right to lay claim to anything but, at best, a "relative necessity," qualified and limited by its own unremarked linguistic devices. On the face of it, Fichte's own transcendental project, in the Wissenschaflslehre, of recasting the basic content of Kantian philosophy into its properly scientific form was no more immune to the metacritique than was Kant's version of the Critical philosophy. While Fichte might have believed, with some justification, that the metaskeptical objections to Kant's philosophy had been answered by his response to Aenesidemus and, more systematically, by the Wissenschaftslehre, Hamann's metacritical objections remained unanswered either by Kant himself or by Fichte's own project. It is in this light that Fichte's essay on language and its place in his overall project can be interpreted. My suggestion, then, is that Fichte's essay on language be read as a defense-perhaps the only explicit defense mounted in the period of German idealism-against linguistic-based metacritical attacks on the possibility of transcendental philosophy. 30 The dilemma that such a defense must face is clear. If the would-be defender merely deduces or "reads off" the structure of language from

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categories already transcendentally established (as Kant might have been suggesting in the Prolegomena to Atry Future Metaphysics),31 then the fundamental question has been begged. Alternatively, if one appeals to inherent features of natural languages, the issue will have in effect been conceded. Fichte's strategy in the essay on language is to outflank both horns of the dilemma with a maneuver that begins from, and ultimately returns to, their common ground. To the metacritic,32 Fichte concedes that language is a distinctly intersubjective phenomenon. What he denies here is that intersubjectivity is itself purely an empirical or historical issue. "To the "empirical linguist," he grants that specific natural languages determine and limit what can be thought and expressed within them. He counters them, however, by maintaining that it is the willkurlich character of their signs that make possible their specificity as languages to begin with. Ultimately, the common ground between the metacritics, who view language as an organic and centrifugal totality in which we "live," and the linguistic empiricists, who view languages as specific, centripetal, and differentiated "forms of life," is that both must assume an "intersubjective reciprocity of freely signifying subjects." Each alternative is, in its own way, a version of determinism, which is no more palatable to Fichte in a linguistic than in a materialist or dogmatic guise. Pursuing this line of interpretation, we can also specify. how Fichte outflanks both horns of the dilemma. The metacritical attack on transcendental philosophy seeks to undermine it by invoking an organic, and ultimately mystified and metaphysical, conception of language and linguistic tradition that transcendental philosophy allegedly presupposes. From this perspective, any philosophical discourse can only be a finite and thus falsifying expression of the inarticulable truth of language itself. On the other hand, linguistic empiricism maintains that every language of itself determines, implies, and yet conceals a particular philosophical stance. Fichte's strategy is to radicalize both clain1s. If language can be conceived of as an organic totality, then consciousness must likewise be understood as expansive enough to generate and articulate such a notion. And if language can be viewed as essentially differential and limiting, then there must be certain features of language from which this process of differentiation issues. Fichte's own response to the first claim is to demonstrate that the very "idea of language" presupposes the free, intersubjective reciprocity of "rationally purposive" beings. His response to the second is his emphasis on the willkurlich nature of the signs by which the reciprocity is established and articulated. Fichte's discussion thus undertakes to show that any linguistic, metacritical attack on transcendental philosophy ends by itself making assumptions about language and signification that can only be clarified from the sort of transcendental standpoint that it attempts to call into question. Whether

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viewed as organic or differential (or perhaps both), language and signification rest just as much on transcendental presuppositions as does the Critical standpoint that they were initially invoked to defeat. CONCLUSIONS

Fichte always made bold claims on behalf of the Wissenschaftslehre. However, these were always qualified, as Fichte took great pains to explain, by the . limited and preparatory nature of the theoretical project that it represented. Fichte, of course, would also apply the procedures and insights developed in the Wissenschaftslehre to political philosophy. In both projects, he insisted upon a systematic form of exposition. Between the two projects, in parenthe~es as it were, was a work on language. This essay, which most scholars have dismissed as an anomaly if they have considered it at all, does not fulfill the expectations of systematic rigor that Fichte's better-known works lead one to expect. Yet it is the hinge or bridge between Fichte's admittedly limited theoretical philosophy and his central practical philosophy. It is, without doubt, a sketch or outline, an incomplete and groping attempt, but one that tries to raise some of the most fundamental issues underlying his philosophical convictions. Further, it is articulated in a manner more straightforward than any of his theoretical or practical texts. In it, then, Fichte is writing neither in the guise of the systematizer nor of the public rhetorician; rather, he is dealing with issues fundamental to philosophy in his own free, willkiirlich fashion. That scholars have so thoroughly neglected this essay is only further testimony to the multiple dimensions of blindness with which our reading of this period is still afflicted. While I cannot elaborate on them here, I will end by making a few tentative suggestions as to what further lines of research and interpretation a closer consideration of Fichte's reflections on language might open for us. 1. If the reading offered here is correct, then the usual view of Fichte as the first major systematizer of the idealist strains of Kantian philosophy may require some qualification in light of the fact that, especially at this most crucial point in his career, he was as much concerned to reengage preCritical issues and positions as he was to defend or develop explicitly Kantian views. 2. This would present yet another perspective from which to consider Fichte's distinctive philosophical contributions on their own terms, apart from the role assigned them by Hegel (beginning in the Differenzschrift) and unfortunately taken over by several generations of commentators on German idealism. 3. The very fact that Fichte explicitly treated linguistic and semiotic issues

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in relation to the possibility of transcendental philosophy (and, indeed, the enterprise of philosophy itself), something not seen before or later within German idealism, suggests that Fichte's work might offer a point of reengagement with this tradition on the part of more recent views that share with Fichte the conviction that this issue lies at the heart of serious philosophical reflection. 4. Since Fichte's reflections on language were almost certainly known to Wilhelm von Humboldt, who was an active member of Fichte's ''Jena circle" and a member of the Editorial Board of the journal in which the essay appeared, those concerned with the subsequent history of linguistics might well explore whether Fichte's views, rather than those of Kant or Herder, might not have been the actual point of departure for the subsequent development of linguistics in the German tradition. 5. While the relation between Fichte's thought and the early ''Jena Romantics" (especially Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel) has been well documented, another still unexplored connection can be demonstrated between Fichte and Bernhardi. Bernhardi was one of the few figures who was a member both of Fichte's more philosophical circle and the literary circle (the "Athenaeum group") that formed around Friedrich Schlegel. As already mentioned, Bernhardi published a two-volume Sprachlehre in 1801-1803, which Fichte endorsed for publication. Interestingly, it was the first full-scale treatment of language by any member of either group, and it represents perhaps the most deliberate (and, arguably, the only) explicit attempt to bring together the philosophical and literary strands of romanticism.

NOTES This essay draws upon and summarizes parts of a book-length work that I am currently preparing for press and that should eventually appear under the tentative title Language and German Idealism: Fichte's Reflections on Language. This work will include my translations of Fichte's essay on language, "Von der Sprachfahigkeit und dem Ursprunge der Sprache," his handwritten lecture notes, and the relevant sections of Ernst Platner's Philosophische Aphorismen. I refer the reader to the appropriate sections of this forthcoming work for more complete texts, discussion, and documentation of the issues that I discuss in this essay. For facilitating the research for both works, I wish to thank Professor Thomas Seebohm and the Philosophisches Seminar, Johannes Gutenberg-U niversitat/Mainz, as well as the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). Special thanks are due to Dr. Achim K6ddermann of the University at Mainz, who assisted me during my ~tay in Germany in ways too numerous to mention.

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1. To give only three examples, which could be multiplied, neither Ernst Cassirer, Bruno Liebrucks, nor Josef Simon, all of whom deal with this period at some length in various works, take any notice of Fichte's contributions to linguistic questions. 2. While his writings on the history of German linguistic thought are extensive and otherwise impressive, Fichte's contributions seem to have escaped the attention of Hans Aarsleff. Cf. his From Locke to Saussure: Essays on the Study of Language and Intellectual History (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, 1982). For a work in which it should surely have been noted but is not, see Martin L. Manchester, The Philosophical Foundations ofHumboldt's Linguistic Doctrines, vol. 32 of Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistics III: Studies in the History of the Language Sciences (Amsterdam: John Benjamin, 1985). 3. This essay appears in J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (hereafter GA) (see page 235), I, 3, pp. 92-127. Rather than continuing to cite the excellent editorial notes of this now-standard critical edition of Fichte's works, it will suffice to acknowledge here that much of the information I will mention in this essay regarding the specifics of the publication of works by Fichte is drawn fronl this source. For additional information about this period in Fichte's thought, I am indebted to Daniel Breazeale, Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). For a discussion of the period of German philosophy just prior to the one with which lam concerned, see Frederick C. Beiser, The Fate ofReason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). 4. GA, 11,4, pp. 158-81. 5. GA, II, 4 (supplementary), pp. 113-19. 6. Friedrich Karl Forberg, "Uber den Ursprung der Sprache," Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten 3, no. 2 (1795): pp. 133-60. I thank Daniel Breazeale for pointing out this reference to me. 7. See the extensive editorial notes regarding Fichte's introductory lectures using Platner's Aphorismen in GA, II, 4. 8. A. F. Bernhardi, Sprachlehre, 2 vols. (Berlin: Frolich, 1801-1803; reprinted in a photomechanical reproduction of the original, Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1973). 9. Cf. letter from Fichte to his publisher and friend J. F.Cotta, dated 25 August 1801, in which he enthusiastically recommends Bernhardi's work for publication. 10. Two well-known accounts of linguistic research in this period can be found in Hans Aarsleff, The Study ofLanguage in England, 1780-1860 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University ·Press, 1967), and R. H. Robins, A Short History of Linguistics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1968). 11. As a possible initial point of access to the question of sources, one might begin by reviewing those cited by Platner in the sections of the Aphorismen dealing with language; see especially paragraphs 474, 478, 500, and 504. 12. For the best concise account of the history of the Ursprungsfrage, with particular attention to its vicissitudes in the Berlin Academy, see Aarsleff, From Locke to Saussure, in the chapter entitled "The Tradition of Condillac: The Problem of the Origin of Language in the Eighteenth Century and the Debate in the Berlin Academy before Herder." Many of the details that follow can be found here, together with extensive references to the primary sources, which I will not repeat. 13. A convenient source for the relevant sections of Herder's "Prize Essay," together with many of his other writings on language, including parts of his "Metakritik," isJohann Gottfried Herder's Sprachphilosophie: Ausgewiihlte Schriften, ed. Erich Heintel

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14. 15.

16.

17. 18. 19.

20.

21.

22. 23. 24. 25.

26.

27.

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(Hamburg: Meiner, 1960). There is an English translation of parts of the "Prize Essay," together with Rousseau's "Essay on the Origin of Languages," in On the Origin of Language, ed. and trans. John H. Moran and Alexander Gode (New York: Ungar, 1966). See especially what appears to be Fichte's lengthy introduction to his specific discussion of Platner's aphorisms on language. For an English translation of Jacob Grimm's address to the Berlin Academy, which provides a very interesting subsequent perspective upon some of the issues discussed here, see German. Romantic Criticism, ed. A. Leslie Willson (New York: Continuum, 1982). "Words . .. come to be made use of by Men as the signs of their Ideas; not by any natural connexion, that there is between particular articulate Sounds and certain ideas, for then there would be but one Language amongst all Men; but by a voluntary imposition, whereby such a Word is made arbitrarily the Mark of such an Idea. The use then of Words, is to be sensible Marks of Ideas; and the Ideas they stand for, are their proper and immediate Signification." (John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 5th ed., 1706, III, ii). Cf. Aarsleff, The Study of Language in England; and Robins, A Short History of Linguistics. GA, I, 3, p. 97. On this, as well as other points, it is instructive to compare Fichte's views with those expressed by J. N. Tetens about twenty years earlier. See J. N. Tetens: Sprachphilosophische Versuch, ed. Heinrich pfannkuch (Hamburg: Meiner, 1971), p. 166, for his notice of Lambert. This essay can be found in J. G. Hamann: Samtliche Werke. Historisch-kritische Ausgabe, ed. Josef Nadler, vol. 3: Schriften uber Sprache, Mysterien, Vernunft (Vienna: Thomas-Morus-Presse, 1951), pp. 281-89. It is reprinted in J. G. Hamann: Schriften zur Sprache, ed. Josef Simon (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1967), pp. 219-27, with additional notes to the text. See Beiser's very helpful account of this matter in The Fate of Reason, pp. 37-43. Indeed, Beiser suggests that this essay "has a strong claim to be the startingpoint of post-Kantian philosophy" (p. 39). See, for example, HermannJ. Cloeren, Language and Thought: German Approaches to AnalYtic Philosophy in the 18th and 19th Centuries (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1988). "Die philosophische Sprach-Verwirrung," Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten 7, no. 3 (1797): pp. 213-56. See Herder's Sprachphilosophie, ed. Heintel. In fact, one might claim to find traces of it in Forberg's "Uber den Ursprung der Sprache" of November 1795, which appeared in the journal on whose editorial board Fichte was currently serving. Materials relevant to this entire episode are available in George di Giovanni and H. S. Harris, Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development ofPost-Kantian Idealism (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1985). Also, see Daniel Breazeale, "Fichte's Aenesidemus Review and the Transformation of German Idealism," The Review of Metaphysics 34, no. 3 (March 1981): pp. 545-68. See Daniel Breazeale, "Between Kant and Fichte: Karl Leonhard Reinhold's 'Elementary Philosophy,'" Review of Metaphysics 35, no. 4 (June 1982): pp. 785-821. See my G. W. F. Hegel: The Difference between the Fichtean and Schellingian Systems ofPhilosophy (Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview, 1976), especially the introductory materials.

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29. For a discussion of Herder's metacriticism in this connection, see Thomas M. Seebohm, "Der systematische Ort der Herderschen Metakritik," Kantstudien 1 (1972): pp. 59- 73. 30. I leave it to the reader to consider how Fichte's approach may have anticipated such modern "defensive" maneuvers as those of Hussed, Apel, Ricoeur, Searle, and Simon. 31. See Kant, Akademische Ausgabe, IV, 322. 32. When I differentiate here between a metacritical and an "empirical linguistic" line of attack, it should be understood that both are developments of the general project of metacriticism. Here, however, I am using the term "metacritical" in a narrower sense to refer to the particular form developed by Hamann and Herder, which was based on an "organicist" and finally metaphysical view of language. Maimon's essay of 1797 on "philosophical language confusions" can be taken as an example of the other line of attack, which I refer to here as "empirical linguistic. ' ,

7 Fichte and the Typology ofMysticism ANTHONY N. PEROVICH, JR.

The Way towards the BlessedLije, a series of lectures delivered in Berlin in 1806 by Johann Gottlieb Fichte and published the same year, is a work that has not received much attention from English-speaking scholars of German idealism. l This is unfortunate, for it is a text of considerable interest both as a sample of Fichte's later philosophy and as a fascinating statement of a religious, and indeed mystical, view of God and the world. German scholars have, by contrast, tended to rate this work quite highly: Heinrich Scholz regarded it as, "next to Schleiermacher's Addresses on Religion, the most beautiful confessional text of the entire German Idealistic movement";2 Nicolai Hartmann thought it "probably the most mature and harmonious of the works published by Fichte himself";3 and Fritz Medicus held it to be "one of the most mature and deepest works in all hun1an literature."4 It is certainly a work that merits philosophical attention, not least for those traits that many writers have recognized as mystical. It is with the characterization of The Wtry towards the Blessed Life as in son1e sense a mystical text that I shall be concerned in this essay: I want to explore where we should situate it in the mystical landscape, what difficulties we encounter as we attempt to do so, and what these difficulties suggest for the study both of mysticism and of Fichte. To begin with, it is certainly legitimate to ask whether Fichte in The Way towards the Blessed Life should be considered a mystic at all. It might be useful prior to answering this question to draw a distinction between "mysticism" understood in a weaker and a stronger sense: mysticism in the stronger sense would necessarily be experiential; in the weaker sense, however, it would not necessarily be so. Since n1ysticism is generally considered above all an experiential phenomenon, this distinction may seem peculiar, but I believe it in fact reflects the way in which the idea is employed in scholarly discussions. After all, authors considered to be mystics do not always indicate that their

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own experiences lie at the foundation of the descriptions they offer of the ultimate nature of things, but their characterization as mystics is nevertheless thought to be apt because of telling features belonging to the descriptions themselves; thus individuals are sometimes confidently classified as mystics independently of any sure knowledge of what their religious experiences were like, or whether they enjoyed any such experiences at alL 5 To be sure, mysticism is typically defined in experiential terms: When the medievals defined mystical theology as "an experimental knowledge of God through unifying love,"6 they not only made certain assumptions about the object of the mystical quest (by speaking of "God"), they also emphasized that the object of that quest was encountered experientially, that the knowledge was knowledge by acquaintance (at least after a fashion), not knowledge by description. (They also suggested that love was the means by which this goal was reached, a claim for which the Fichtean text offers striking parallels.) If, then, we consider a direct, immediate encounter to be a necessary component of mysticism in the stronger sense, we shall consider mysticism in the weaker sense to be the construction of a philosophical system whose features ,recall characteristic descriptions offered by "experiential mystics" in recounting what they have seen. Thus, while the identification of the weaker variety of mysticism is in general dependent on the identification of mysticism of the stronger sort, there may be individuals whose views can reasonably be regarded as in some sense legitimately mystical without it being possible to identify what, if any, mystical experience underlies the descriptions that justify the attribution. If we apply these observations to the present case, our question then becomes whether Fichte was a mystic of the stronger or the weaker sort. It may well be that he was both. Emerich Coreth writes that, in The Way towards the Blessed Life, a deeply religious sensibility [comes] to expression. Such pages can be written only by one whose knowledge of God is inward and alive, who has experienced the deepest longing for the eternal, longing for God himself, and who, in the love of God, in the trust· in God, and in the devotion to God, has found the most inward satisfaction and fulfillment, true peace and true happiness, who thus, from his own experience, knows about the truly "blessed life," as it is called here. 7 And it must be said that many passages of Fichte's text read as though he was speaking out of his own religious experience. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this paper it is enough that we grant that Fichte was a mystic of the weaker sort, and that he was can, I believe, be seen readily enough. In addition to offering experiential knowledge, mystical states are typically thought to involve some sort of union; this mystical union is often regarded as

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holding between, to use theistic language, God and the human being who has become aware of him. That Fichte's statements recall such claims is beyond question. Let two brief quotations suffice. Speaking of the love of God, Fichte states, "In this Love, Being and Ex-istence [that is, das Sein and das Dasein] , God and Man, are ONE; wholly transfused and lost in each other.,,8 In another passage (with an uncanny resemblance to a famous section in the Chandogya Upanisharf) he writes, "What thou seest, that thou art: but thou art it not as thou seest it, nor dost thou see it as thou art it."g Now it may be that Fichte goes on to say other things that distinguish him from this or that particular mystic; nevertheless, statements like these-and it would be easy to cite many such-sufficiently justify our classification of Fichte as (at least) a mystic of the weaker sort, for the similarity of these remarks to characteristic sayings from experiential mystics is palpable. It is no surprise, then, to find that the figures with whom Fichte is often compared (usually as a religious thinker, but not always) are those whom one naturally regards as mystics or as associated with mystical worldviews: Meister Eckhart, 10 Plotinus,11 Sankara,12 Dogen,13 and Erigena. 14 (Such studies are typical: All of the works with which I am familiar that explore the mystical dimension of Fichte's thought examine it in relation to the thought of this or that mystic rather than trying to locate its place in the general terrain of mystical phenomena; it is the latter project, however, with which I am concerned here.) If it is legitimate to regard Fichte as a mystic, it is of interest to attempt to determine what sort of a mystic he is. It is generally agreed among scholars that there are varieties of mystical experience, that mysticism is not everywhere and always the same. While the view that a distinctive sort of mystical experience is to be associated with (and, indeed, partially constituted by) each religious tradition has enjoyed something of a vogue in recent years,15 the sober view Seems to me to be that there is a relatively small number of types of mystical experience, none of which is of necessity limited to one particular religious tradition. 16 The most widely recognized distinction, perhaps, is that between what are sometimes called "extrovertive" mysticism and "introvertive" mysticism. 17 As we noted above, an experience of "oneness" is characteristic of mysticism; in extrovertive mysticism, the unity holds not only between subject and object (although that seems to be included as well) but also and primarily among the multitude of objects experienced, at least ordinarily, as external to the subject. Stace identifies this sort through its "unifying vision, expressed abstractly by the formula 'All is One.' The One is, in extrovertive mysticism, perceived through the physical senses, in or through the multiplicity of objects." 18 Extrovertive mysticism is also referred to as "Nature Mysticism." In introvertive mysticism, in contrast, union is experienced not between the self and nature, nor holding among the various objects of nature, but between the self and a supersensible One, which is identified differently in different religious traditions.

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Now varieties of introvertive mysticism may be distinguished as well, the distinction depending on how the union between the One and the self is understood. Wainwright, building on the work of Zaehner, discriminates between monistic introvertive mysticism and theistic introvertive mysticism. Theistic introvertive mysticism has a distinct object, although it is an object which is apprehended obscurely and non-sensuously, and which cannot be identified with "anything in the space-time world (or with the space-time world as a whole). The experience is thus "dualistic" rather than "monistic." The nature of the relation between the mystic and the object of his experience is indicated by the fact that he typically attempts to express it by the imagery of mutuallove. 19 With monistic introvertive mysticism one finds, rather, an undifferentiated unity; because in an undifferentiated unity there is no place for a relationship, there is a fortiori no place for a relationship that could be characterized by the imagery of mutual love. 20 I believe that there are good reasons for regarding Fichte's mysticism as introvertive rather than extrovertive. I t may seem that this distinction cannot and need not be drawn for the system of The Way towards the Blessed Life: Because of limitations imposed by conception, we can never be aware in Consciousness of an identity either with and among finite things or with God, yet Fichte says both that the "Divine Ex-istence apprehends itself and thereby becomes Consciousness [with which we ourselves are to be identified]; and its own Being-the true Divine Being-becomes a World to it,"21 and also that between us in our "deepest roots" and God "there is no separation or distinction, but both merge completely into one. "22 Thus it would seem that at the metaphysical level both extrovertive and introvertive mysticism are affirmed. However, this would be to misread, or at least miss the emphasis of, the Fichtean position: the tendency of the text is in the introvertive direction, and our unity with God at our inner core is stressed in a way that Fichte contrasts with the status he allots to ostensibly external objects: Besides God, there is truly and in the proper sense of the word no other Ex-istence whatever but-Knowledge; and this Knowledge is the Divine Ex-istence itself, absolutely and immediately; and, insofar as we are this Knowledge, we are ourselves, in the deepest root of our being, the Divine Ex-istence. All other things that appear to us as Existences-outward objects, bodies, souls, we ourselves insofar as we ascribe to ourselves a separate and independent Being-do not truly and in themselves exist; but they exist only -in Consciousness .and Thought, as that of which we are conscious, or of which we think, and in no other way whatever. 23

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Moreover, insofar as we are able to grasp God and our relationship to him immediately, that is achieved by what Fichte calls Love. We may attempt to direct our love at either God or the world, but with varying results. What we love determines the character of our lives. Ifwe are dominated by the love of God and carried by it beyond the world offinite objects, our lives are blessed, "bound up, interpenetrated, transfused, and wholly absorbed" in God. 24 In contrast, we cannot in fact be dominated by a love of the world, for the world does not allow itself to be loved; the attempt to love it yields a life "vain, miserable, and unblessed."25 Love of God shows us to be one with God; the attempt to love the world engenders only a sense of our separation from him. Thus, when he views Love "introvertively," Fichte is led to characteristically mystical remarks about our union with God, but when he considers it "extrovertively," his remarks are quite unmystical. It consequently seems fair, I think, to characterize the mysticism of The Way towards the Blessed Life as of the introvertive, not of the extrovertive, sort. But is it introvertive monistic mysticism, or is it introvertive theistic mysticism? This is one of the q~estions on which scholarship dealing with The Wqy towards the Blessed Life has tended to focus. There are several reasons that would lead one to expect that Fichte's mysticism is of the monistic sort. First, several of the figures with whom Fichte is frequently compared, such as Sankara, Eckhart, and Plotinus, are either monistic in their mysticism or at any rate have been suspected of monistic tendencies. Dominik Schmidig in fact offers a list of eighteen commentators who have interpreted Fichte's doctrine of God in a monistic/pantheistic manner. 26 "The essence of this system can only be termed 'pantheism,'" writes one of these, Ernst Ebeling. 27 Moreover, Fichte's text offers passage after passage that supports this reading. In the Fichtean universe there is nothing outside of God; he alone exists, and anything there is must not be distinguished from him: "Being is throughout simple, not manifold; there are not many beings, but only One Being. . . . Being alone is; nothing else is; not, in particular, a something which is not Being, but which lies outside of all Being."28 The idea, therefore, of creation is entirely wrongheaded: "The notion of a creation [is] the essentially fundamental error of all false Metaphysics and Religion."29 Consequently, we understand why Fichte claims, as we have already seen, that in Love, "Being and Ex-istence, God and Man, are ONE; wholly transfused and lost in each other." This follows in a more detailed fashion from the fact that at bottom we simply are our Love: It is "the root, the seat, the central point" of our life. 3o But not only are we identical with this Love, so also is God, and the consequence, of course, is the identity of the two: Thus, insofar as man is Love,-and this he is always in the root of his Life, and can be nothing but this, although it may be that he is but the

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Love of himself-but especially insofar as he is the Love of God, he remains eternally and forever one, true, and unchangeable as God himself, and is indeed in reality God himself. 31 Thus, the self must not be distinguished from God, and this is precisely what introvertive monistic mysticism affirms. It would seem therefore that we might proceed to identify Fichte as an introvertive monistic mystic without further ado, and indeed much scholarship has in fact done so. However, other scholarship has suggested that this is not the whole story regarding The Way towards the Blessed Life. Coreth has pointed out that Fichte exhibits other emphases that are incompatible with a monistic, pantheistic viewpoint; in particular he displays a commitment to both the freedom of the finite, conscious individual and to the transcendence ofGod. 32 And Schmidig has also pointed out that just as one may extract from the text a set of passages that suggests a straightforwardly monistic or pantheistic interpretation (and some of those have been quoted above), it is equally easy to collect a set of passages that requires a dualistic interpretation of the relation between God and human beings. 33 Such statements do indeed sound less pantheistic than those we have just considered. The foundation of the independence and freedom of Consciousness is indeed in God; but even on that account, because it [that is, this foundation] is in God, do ... independence and freedom truly exist, and are not an empty show [Schein]. Through his own Ex-istence, and by its essential nature, God throws out from himself a part of his Ex-istence,that is, such part of it as becomes self-consciousness, - and establishes it in true independence and freedom. 34 This Freedom God himself cannot wish to destroy.35 We, however, in ·our unalterable nature, are but Knowledge, Representation, Conception; and even in our union with the Infinite One, this, the essential form of our Being, cannot disappear. Even in our union with him he does not become our own Being; but he floats before us as something foreign to, and outside of, ourselves, to which we can only devote ourselves, clinging to him with earnest love. 36 And because the point was made above that mutual love offers a criterion for distinguishing theistic from monistic mysticism, it is worth noting that even when speaking of the union between God and human beings, Fichte refers to "this-not its, nor ours- but this reciprocal Love, which first separates us into two, and then binds us together into one.,,37 Thus it does seem as though the textual evidence regarding Fichte's alleged pantheism is ambiguouspassages of a dualist or theistic sort seem also in evidence-and consequently a problem of locating his religious position within a typology of mysticism arises (assuming, as I do, that attempts to resolve the problem by regarding the conflicts as merely apparent are implausible). Of course, it may be the

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case that his position cannot be located in a typology because his view is incoherent, but in the classification of religious 'doctrine, at any rate, rejection because of perceived inconsistency should be the last resort, not the first. Schmidig addresses the issue by calling attention to what he terms "the Theologia Negativa of the Fichtean system.,,38 He picks up on those passages that indicate the incomprehensibility of God, passages that led Coreth to attribute to Fichte a doctrine of divine transcendence. For example, Fichte claims that God is "in himself without form or substance," and thus we are without "a definite conception or knowledge of his inward essential nature. ,,39 But while we thus say "God is," we have an altogether empty conception, furnishing absolutely no explanation of God's essential Nature. From this conception, what could we answer to the question:- What then is God? The only possible addition we could make to the axiom,this, namely, that he is absolutely, of himself, through himself, and in himself,-this is but the fundamental form of our own understanding applied to him, and expresses no more than our mode of conceiving him; and even that negatively and as we can not think of him,-that is, we mean only that we cannot educe his being from another, as we are compelled by the nature of our understanding to do with all other objects of our thought. This conception of God is thus an abstract and unsubstantial conception; and when we say "God is,"-he is to us essentially nothing; and, by this very expression itself: is made nothing. 40 What Schmidig suggests is that to characterize our relation to God either as monistic or theistic is to engage in conceptualizations of him that falsify by the very act of conceptualizing. (As Fichte remarked in The Vocation of Man, "What I comprehend becomes finite through my mere comprehension, and the finite can never be transformed into the infinite even through an infinite increase and enhancement.")41 The two contrasting ways of speaking call attention to the inadequacy of each. Even the question about God must be apprehended in concepts and thereby objectified, and falsified-if one takes the concepts in their proper, univocal (formally-adequate) sense. So that the falsification can be elin1inated as much as possible, Fichte makes both dualistic and pantheistic assertions about God's relation to the world. Ultimately, however, both groups of assertions are relativized, as they are recognized as inadequate assertions about God and thus are dismissed as scientific assertions about God and his relation to the world. For in formal knowledge we know nothing more about God than that he is inconceivable by our concepts. And thus neither a pantheism nor a dualism can represent God's relation to the world in an adequate way, that is, in a scientific and univocal way. For both unity (pantheism) and duality or multiplicity are conceptualized as necessary forms of knowing. But accord-

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ing to Fichte God is inconceivable. And thus conceptualized forms of our thinking cannot-in a univocal sense-do justice to him. 42 If Schmidig is correct, Fichte's text becomes very significant for the study of mystical religion. For according to this reading, Fichte resists categorization into the mystical typology we have introduced above. He resists typing because he speaks in ways that would locate him now in one pigeonhole, now in another incompatible with the first. He speaks in these various ways because he believes that pigeonholes of the sort we have in mind concern God's relation to us, that each pigeonhole conceives God's relation to us differently, but that no conception of that relation can be adequate. Every such conception must be inadequate, because Fichte's theology is a negative theology, a theology according to which God is inconceivable, any conceptualization of him being a falsification. Because every conceptualization is a falsification, he calls attention to the inadequacy of each (on Schmidig's account) by employing incompatible, alternative ways of speaking. Fichte is not, of course, the only proponent of negative theology, but the combination of his negative theology with the difficulty encountered in the attempt to locate him in a mystical typology raises serious but interesting problems for the project of developing such a classification of types of mysticism. It is worth noting that we met little difficulty in classifying Fichte as an introvertive rather than an extrovertive mystic. The introvertive/ extrovertive distinction is a distinction that fundamentally concerns us rather than God: If our "unitary experience" (or conception) is essentially external, involving a "unifying vision" (or conception) of the things we encounter through sense-perception, then it is to be classified as extrovertive; if, rather, it is essentially inwardly directed, essentially excluding all reference to the world of sense-perception, then we regard it as introvertive. In neither case does it seem that we have been forced so much to try to conceptualize God and his relation to the self or the world as to identify the locus, either outward or inward, of the encounter. When we turn to the distinction between monistic and theistic mysticism, the case is rather different. It now does seem that we are forced to try to conceptualize God, either as identical with the self or as not (because our union with him still involves a relational element). If one takes negative theology seriously, this is the kind of choice that one can be expected to have difficulty making; or it is the kind of choice that may encourage the negative theologian, ifforced to choose, to respond by choosing both. And that apparently is what Fichte does by including statements of both a monistic and a theistic sort. Thus The Way towards the Blessed Life is a text to which the philosopher of mysticism should pay serious attention, for it suggests that mystical religion is an area where classification is fraught with peculiar dangers.

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This is not to suggest, of course, that there is in fact no distinction to be made between monism and theism. What is suggested, however, is that extreme caution should be exercised in the evaluation of monistic or theistic statements offered in the context of negative theology. In that context, neither n10nistic statements. nor theistic statements can be intended to state the literal truth about God in his relation to the self, because the truth about God necessarily eludes statement. Thus Fichte's text suggests that the attempt to offer a typology of mysticism, if not doomed, at least needs to be rethought. For if an author cannot be categorized because of the mystical character of his thought-and that seems to be what happens here, because our inability to categorize Fichte's thought as monistic or theistic seems to stem from his negative theology" a doctrine long associated with mystical authors-then the categorization in question is clearly of dubious value in the enterprise of developing an illuminating classification of mystical types. While we may be inclined to preserve the distinction between introvertive and extrovertive mysticism, The Way towards the Blessed Life makes the usefulness of seeking to distinguish generally between monistic and theistic introvertive mysticism doubtful. If, in Fichte's account, God surpasses our conceptual resources, we are left with a number of still unanswered questions, which can be dealt with only briefly. How do we know God (in some suitably broad sense of "know"), ifit is not by means of our cognitive conceptual apparatus? Fichte's answer is familiar even to the student of mystical literature unfamiliar with the preceding account: "What is it that thus carries us beyond all determinate and comprehensible Ex-istence, and beyond the whole world of absolute Reflexion? It is our Love which no Ex-istence can satisfy."43 Only in Love do we achieve an unfalsified grasp of God, "immediately and without modification by conception.,,44 What of those of us who are unable to confirm Fichte's philosophicoreligious vision experientially? One way to confirm that vision, of course, is to search in religious literature for illuminating parallels. This in fact Fichte himself does in his discussion of Johannine Christianity. He finds the Prologue to John's Gospel especially appealing for two reasons at least. By identifying God and the Word with Being and Ex-istence (Sein and Dasein), respectively, Fichte is able to find here, first, a doctrine of the identity of Ex-istence with Being (for "The Word was God") and, second, because Ex-istence is Consciousness, a doctrine that the world exists only in Consciousness (for "Through him [the Word] all things came to be").45 While this is an ingenious interpretation of the text, I must confess that it is an interpretation that cannot help but seem strained and implausible to many. Whatever its virtues, it is unlikely to have the effect of illuminating Fichte's ideas from an independent vantage: Conceivably Fichte's doctrine might be

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thought to cast light on the Johannine text, but the reverse seems unlikely in the extreme, as the reading of the Prologue offered could hardly occur to someone who did not approach it with something like the Fichtean viewpoint already in mind. This does not mean that we should abandon the aim of increasing our appreciation of The Way towards the Blessed Life by searching for revealing comparisons among religious texts, but rather that the parallels should require less by way of Fichtean interpretation if the point is to find help in making sense of his book. The reason why we should want help, in the context of the present essay, is that Fichte seems to say incompatible things about God; and it would be useful in concluding that this does not exhibit mere incoherence on his part but rather springs from the nature of the case if we could hear echoes of these statements in other, at least somewhat comparable, religious contexts. The strategy suggested here is adapted from remarks W. H. Walsh once made in a different but related connection. He suggested that the fact that mystics could understand one another (even if we could not understand them) would provide evidence for the cognitive character of mystical experience: "If mystical experience is truly cognitive, we should expect those who have it to find ways of referring to different parts or aspects of it which would be intelligible to other mystics at least.,,46 This suggests to me the following approach to an author like Fichte: Ifwe can find parallels to his most puzzling assertions in comparable passages from other mystical writing, we shall be strengthened in our conviction that we are not here dealing with a view that is merely confused, but with a genuinely coherent vision that is compelled, because of the inconceivable character of what is seen, to express itself in ways that we find incompatible and perplexing. And I believe we can find suggestive parallels for Fichte's curious mixture of monistic and dualistic statements. Consider, for example, the distinction to be found in the writings of the Greek Orthodox theologian Gregory Palamas between God's existence in his essence and his existence outside of his essence in his energies. 47 Lossky states the view as follows: We are therefore compelled to recognize in God an ineffable distinction, other than that between His essence and His persons, according to which He is, under different aspects, both totally inaccessible and at the same time accessible. This distinction is that between the essence of God, or His nature, properly so-called, which is inaccessible, unknowable and incommunicable; and the energies or divine operations, forces proper to and inseparable from God's essence, in which He goes forth fro'm Himself, manifests, communicates, and gives Himself. 48 This distinction corresponds to, and grounds, that between negative and positive theology: God is unknowable in his essence but reveals hin1selfin his energies. 49 These energies are to be understood not as created by God, but as God himself; "God thus exists both in His essence and outside of His

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essence," though without any division into two. 50 Lossky observes that "the distinction between the essence and the energies is due to the antinomy between the unknowable and the knowable, the incommunicable and the communicable, with which both religious thought and the experience of divine things are ultimately faced."51 Finally, we should add that, according to this view, "God has created all things by His energies."52 The aim of this theological development was to recognize, as Gregory Palamas puts it, that "the divine nature must be said to be at the same time both exclusive of, and, in some sense, open to participation.... We need to affirm both at the same time and to preserve the antinomy as a criterion of right devotion.,,53 That is to say, the aim is to uphold both the divine transcendence and the genuineness of the mystical union. For our purposes, however, what is of interest here is how close an approach we have to the Fichtean model if only we take human beings out of creation and locate them in the divine. For if we map Being onto God in his essence and Ex-istence onto God in his energies, several theses characteristic of the position of The Way towards the Blessed Life result: 1. Being/God in his essence is entirely unknowable (that is, negative theology is affirmed). 2. Ex-istence/God in his energies is both identical with and yet ineffably distinct from Being/God in his essence (that is, we are compelled to make statements that suggest both monism and dualism). 3. The world is created by the energies (that is, we may locate here some analog of Fichte's claim that "Consciousness [= Ex-istence] is the creator of the world").

The point of these remarks goes no further than to suggest that the kinds of statements that provoke puzzlement in Fichte's text recur in other religious writing. While finding these parallels does not perhaps make such statements comprehensible, it does more than simply double our perplexity. We see that in a context of negative theology, propositions of both a monistic and a dualistic sort may have a tendency to arise; and Fichte's remarks, now seemingly pantheistic, now seemingly dualistic, may be regarded as one instance of this tendency. I suggest that if we follow Walsh's lead and search for parallels between what Fichte says and what other negative theologians say we may find resemblances that are sufficiently impressive to encourage us to be respectful even where we are necessarily uncomprehending. It may be that the seemingly incompatible assertions that are encountered in Fichte's text are intended not only to indicate, as Schmidig suggests, that no way of conceiving God is adequate, but also, perhaps, to acknowledge that there is something in the nature of the subject that impels the religious philosopher to express himself in particular ways that are likely to perplex.

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Fichte's The Way towards the Blessed Life is, doubtless for many more reasons than I have suggested here, a fascinating book, undeserving of the neglect it has received. If I am right, it has something to tell us about the way that mysticism should be studied philosophically, but it may also be the case that the broader study of mysticism can help us to interpret The Way towards the Blessed Life as well.

NOTES

My thanks to Hope College and to Mr. and Mrs. Willard C. Wichers for a grant from the Willard C. Wichers Development Fund for Summer 1990, which helped support the research that led to this essay. 1. The only discussion with which I am familiar is C. K. Hunter's "The Problem of Fichte's Phenomenology of Love," Idealistic Studies 6, no. 2 (May 1976): pp. 178-90. 2. Heinrich Scholz, Preface and Introduction to Fichte, Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben (Berlin: Deutsche Bibliothek, 1912), p. v (quoted in R. D. Dominico Schmidig, Gott und Welt in Fichtes Anweisung zum seligen Leben [Wald: Pontificia Universitas Gregoriana, 1966], p. 12). 3. Nicolai Hartmann, Die Philosophie des deutschen Idealismus, 3d ed. (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1974),p. 103. 4. Fritz Medicus, Introduction to Fichte, Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben (Hamburg: Meiner, 1970), p. iii. 5. It is sometimes denied that even so paradigmatic a mystic as Meister Eckhart had first-hand acquaintance with what he discusses: "Henry Suso differs considerably from both Eckhart and Tauler, in that he really seems to have himself known by experience the stages of the mystical life of which he speaks, whereas the others were speaking chiefly of what they were told by those whom they directed" (Dom Francois Vandenbroucke in The Spirituality of the Middle Ages, ed. Jean Leclercq, Francois Vandenbroucke, and Louis Bouyer [New York: The Seabury Press, 1982], p. 391). While such an estimate is challenged by other scholars (see, e.g., Oliver Davies, God Within: The Mystical Tradition of Northern Europe [New York and New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1988], p. 37, p. 199, note 7), it is difficult to make out the contrary claim on the basis of any explicitly experiential reports in Eckhart's writings. Rather, one tends to infer the experiential basis from the character of the system: "Ideally it is possible, if risky, to extrapolate from theory to practice in the lives of great spiritual figures. With Eckhart this is particularly hazardous because we know so little about his life and personality. The record of his doctrine is itself incomplete. Still, I have become convinced from studying his sermons and treatises and the records of his trials, that Eckhart. knew from direct, first-hand experience the concrete truth of what he preached, particularly when he expressed himself with the candid and utter conviction that

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17. 18. 19. 20.

ANTHONY N. PEROVICH, JR.

typified his work at his best" (Richard Woods, O.P., Eckhart's Way [Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1986J, p. 13). The point I wish to make is that we base our categorization of Eckhart as a mystic more certainly on the contours of his thought than on any knowledge we possess of the character of his experience; thus, it would seem clear that the possession by a thinker's system of certain characteristic features has been and should be enough to warrant designating him or her a mystic, regardless of what is known or unknown about that individual's experiences. Quoted in F. C. Happold, Mysticism: A Study and an Anthology (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1979), p. 37. Emerich Coreth, S. J., "Vom Ich zum absoluten Sein," Zeitschrift fir katholische Theologie 79 (1957): p. 286. J. G. Fichte, Characteristics of the Present Age, and The Way towards the Blessed Life, trans. William Smith (Washington, DC: University Publications of America, Inc., 1977), p. 465/540. (The second page number refers-unless I indicate another volume-to volume V of Fichtes Werke, ed. I. H. Fichte (see page 235). Ibid., p. 361/458. Ernst von Bracken, Meister Eckhart und Fichte (Wiirzburg: Konrad Triltsch, 1943); Heinz Finke, Meister Eckehart und Johann Gottlieb Fichte verglichen in ihren religiosen Vorstellungen (Greifswald: Hans Adler, 1934); and Gangolf Schrimpf, "Des Menschen Seligkeit," in Parusia: Studien Z'"ur Philosophie Platons und Z'"ur Problemgeschichte des Platonismus, ed. Kurt Flasch (Frankfurt, 1965), pp. 431-54. Schrimpf, "Des Menschen Seligkeit." Rudolf Otto, "Fichte and the Doctrine of Advaita," in Mysticism East and West, trans. Bertha L. Bracey and Richenda C. Payne (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., 1932), pp. 239-52, and John A. Taber, Transformative Philosophy: A Study of Sankara, Fichte, and Heidegger (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1983). Kunihiko Nagasawa, Das Ich im Deutschen Idealismus und das Selbst im ZenBuddhismus: Fichte und Dogen (Freiburg-Munich: Karl Alber, 1987). Theodor Wotschke, Fichte und Erigena: Darstellung und Kritik Z'"weier verwandter Typen eines idealistischen Pantheismus (Halle: J. Krause, 1896). The most influential statement of this view is Steven T. Katz, "Language, Epistemology, and Mysticism," in Mysticism and Philosophical AnalYsis, ed. Steven T. Katz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 22-74. For criticisms of the "tradition-bound" view of mystical experience, see my "Mysticis·m and the Philosophy of Science," Journal ofReligion 65, no. 1 (January 1985): pp. 63-82; "Mysticism or Mediation: A Response to Gill," Faith and Philosophy 2, no. 2 (April 1985): pp. 179-88; and the articles collected in The Problem of Pure Consciousness: Mysticism and Philosophy, ed. Robert K. C. Forman (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). The classic source for this distinction is W. T. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy (London: The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1960), ch. 2. Ibid., p. 79. William J. Wainwright, Mysticism: A Study of Its Nature, Cognitive Value, and Moral Implications (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1981), p. 36. Wainwright emphasizes that it is crucial that the imagery be that of mutual love, noting that the imagery of love occurs in the work of a monistic introvertive mystic like Plotinus, but only to indicate that the One is the object of the mystic's eros (ibid., p. 38). He finds plausible Mariasusai Dhavamony's suggestion (Love

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of God According to Saiva Siddhanta [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971]) that

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53.

"the experience of the theistic mystic must differ from the experience of the monistic mystic, because the experience of the theistic mystic is primarily a love experience, while the experience of the monistic mystic is primarily a knowledge experience, and love experiences and knowledge experiences are phenomenologically distinct" (Wainwright [paraphrasing Dhavamony], Mysticism, p. 32). Fichte, The Way towards the Blessed Life, p. 360/457. Ibid., pp. 360-62/457-59, 344/443. Ibid., p. 350/448. Ibid., p. 469/543. See also p. 299/403. Ibid., p. 302/406. Schmidig, Gott und Welt, p. 13. His remark that it has become usual in the lexicons of recent times to count Fichte among the pantheists is borne out in English by Alasdair MacIntyre's article on "Pantheism" in volume 6 of The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Paul Edwards (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc., and The Free Press, 1967), p. 34. Ernst Ebeling, Darstellung und Beurteilung religionsphilosophischen Lehren J. G. Fichtes (Halle a.S.: Pli:itz'sche Buchdruckerei [R. Nietschmann], 1886), p. 35. Fichte, The Way towards the Blessed Life, p. 300/404-5. Ibid., p. 385/479. Ibid., p. 299/403. Ibid., p. 469/543 (emphasis added). Coreth, "Vom Ich zum absoluten Sein," pp. 290-91. Schmidig, Gott und Welt, pp. 35-41. Fichte, The Way towards the Blessed Life, p. 358/455. Ibid., p. 458/534. Ibid., p. 365/461. Ibid., p. 466/540. Schmidig, Gott und Welt, p. 41. Fichte, The Way towards the Blessed Life, p. 365/461. Ibid., p. 375/470-71. J. G. Fichte, The Vocation of Man, trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Co., 1987), p. 112/11, 304. Schmidig, Gott und Welt, pp. 44-45. Fichte, The Way towards the Blessed Life, p. 466/540. Ibid., p. 295/579; cf. Schmidig, Gott und Welt, p. 45. Ibid., pp. 386-87/480-81. W. H. Walsh, Reason and Experience (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1947), pp. 227-28. See Gregory Palamas, The Triads, trans. Nicholas Gendle (New York, Ramsey, and Toronto: Paulist Press, 1983); John Meyendorff, A Stuqy of Gregory Palamas, trans. George Lawrence (Leighton Buzzard, Beds: The Faith Press, 1964); and Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1976). Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 70. Ibid., p. 72. Ibid., pp. 73, 86. Ibid., pp. 87-88. Ibid., p. 89. Quoted in ibid., p. 69.

8 The Question ofthe Other in FichteJs Thought ROBERT R. WILLIAMS

The question of the other has become a central one in contemporary Continental philosophy. At the same time, there is little consensus concerning what the issue of the other is. Although Husserl's Fifth Cartesian Meditation, Heidegger's Mitsein, Sartre's Look, and Levinas's analysis of the Face all provide differing accounts of the other and how it is to be understood,! they all attest the significance of the other for contemporary philosophy. However, the issue of the other does not first arise in this literature, but rather in the very literature that allegedly suppresses it, namely German idealism. According to the standard picture, German idealism, in its alleged attack upon and elimination of Kant's thing-in-itself, also eliminates the other, or reduces it to immanence and thereby reduces the other to the same. To be sure, interpreters are divided on this question. F. H.]acobi believed that idealism means that the subject can know only the products of its own activity. He criticized Fichte for reducing the thing-in-itself to a wholly immanent interpretation within the circle of consciousness, as the moment of return upon itself. On such a reading, the meaning of the thing-in-itself is that "its being consists in its being represented.,,2 J. N. Findlay puts forth a somewhat more complicated interpretation. The other is a necessary myth, instrumental to the ego's development. The chief question, says Findlay, is why the ego should posit anything other than itself, particularly an other that confines, bounds, vexes, and bewilders it. 3 The answer lies in what Findlay calls an elaborate "myth of a barrier," or non-ego. "The Ego posits a resistant environment precisely because it requires such an environment to elicit its own activities, and to bring them to consciousness."4 However, says Findlay, having completed this strange story, Fichte proceeds to retract it. "He drops the myth of a barrier: the existence of the Ego's object-positing activity cannot be explained by an impact or resistance, but must be a

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consequence of the Ego's own absolute activity."s The other turns out to be a myth, an illusion. "Since our rationality n1akes us look in the data of experience for what is universal, unifying and intersubjective, we must proceed as if such universality, unity and intersubjectivity were there to be found."6 In Findlay's interpretation, intersubjectivity and the other are merely apparent. He agrees with Jacobi that what appears to be other turns out to be the result of the ego's own action. On the other hand, Alexis Philonenko maintains that Fichte "never intended to suppress the thing in itself."7 Reinhard Lauth and others have pointed out that Fichte does raise the question concerning the other, above all in the interpersonal sense. 8 This is one of Fichte's major contributions. If Fichte does raise the question concerning the other, the question arises whether the interpersonal other is simply another instance of the thing-initself, or whether it, instead, raises new dimensions of otherness that contradict Fichte's transcendental philosophy, or call for its modification. Fichte formulates the issue of the other in his early work Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation: There are a few questions which philosophy must answer before it can become Wissenschaft and Wissenschaftslehre . ... Among these questions are the following: ... How does the human being come to assume and recognize that there are rational beings similar to it outside of it, since such beings are not at all immediately or directly given to or present in its pure self-consciousness? ... The relation of rational beings to each other I term Gesellschaft. But the concept of Gesellschaft is not possible except on the presupposition that there actually exist rational beings outside of us .... How do we come to such a presupposition?9 I want to outline briefly Fichte's account of the other and then address the question: What is the other doing in his transcendental philosophical program? Does the other contradict a program of transcendental idealism, or is it, rather, part and parcel of what Fichte understands by critical idealism? I an1 particularly concerned to focus on the relation between philosophy and ordinary consciousness. This question is very important since it brings into focus the disparity between the conviction of ordinary consciousness that there are others, with the transcendental principle that the other (non-ego) is to be interpreted as a negation and self-affection of the absolute ego. THE SUMMONS OF THE OTHER

We begin with a paradox: Idealism asserts the primacy of the subject, and the corollary primacy of freedom. The rule is: No subject, no object. For the object is transcendentally constituted by the subject. 1o Thus, Fichte says, "All being, whether of the ego or the non-ego, is a determinate modification

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of consciousness; and without consciousness there is no being."ll But Fichte also makes a claim that appears to contradict this axiom of idealism: It is impossible, he says, to begin with freedom, because the self depends upon the recognition of the other for the consciousness of its freedom. Fichte asks: "The question was, how may the subject find itself as an object?,,12 This question has a history. It reflects Kant's delineation of the problen1s of self-knowledge (paralogisn1s) and of the self-consciousness of freedom. According to the third analogy of the first Critique, freedom-the capacity for self-originated causality-is possible. But Kant leaves open the questions of whether there actually is. such freedom and whether there is a being that is able to generate spontaneously its own causality. As the condition of possible objects of experience, the transcendental subject cannot be itself an object of experience and thus cannot be an object of knowledge. According to Kant, neither the transcendental subject nor freedom can be known because to know means to objectify, and what is objectified is subject to phenomenal necessity. Consequently, Kant affirms the possibility of freedom but only for practical rather than cognitive purposes. Kant affirms freedom, but it cannot be immediately known. Thus the problem: The free self cannot know itself, that is, know that it is free. In the second Critique, Kant asserts that the consciousness of freedom arises from and is mediated by the moral law. The moral law is the ratio cognoscendi of freedom, and freedom is the ratio essendi of the moral law. Kant's formulation is noncognitive, formal, and individualistic in that the moral self-consciousness does not require intersubjective mediation. Instead of the formal concept of oughtness as the ratio cognoscendi of freedom, Fichte proposes an alternative explanation to the problem of knowing that one is free. According to Fichte, the self cannot give itself the consciousness of freedom; rather, freedom is intersubjectively mediated. The first and third propositions of the Grundlage des Naturrechts run thus:

§1 A finite rational being cannot posit itself without ascribing to itself a free causality.... §3 The finite rational being cannot ascribe to itself a free causality in the world of the senses without ascribing freedom also to others, and therefore without· assuming other finite rational beings besides itself. 13 The third proposition superficially resembles P.F. Strawson's arguments (in Individuals) concerning the ascription of P-predicates: A condition of ascribing such predicates to oneself is that· one be able to ascribe them to others. However, the other that such a transcendental argument delivers is a bloodless condition of possibility of the self-ascription of freedom. Despite apparent similarities, Fichte's argument is not Strawson's. Although Fichte would agree that the other is a condition of the conscious-

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ness of freedom, that proposition 3 is a condition of proposition 1, his claim is stronger than Strawson's. The other is more than a condition of freedom. Fichte's thesis is that the other makes the subject available to itself in an original way by summoning (auffordern) the subject to freedom. The summons to responsibility is not something that the self can give to itself, nor does it involve self-objectification; instead, the summons of the other is the complete self-objectification that occasions the self's discovery of its own freedom. Thus Fichte writes: "How and in what sense is the subject determined to free causality, in order to find itself as an object? Simply insofar as it finds itself summoned to action, as someone who is capable of acting freely, and who could equally fail to act." 14 Again: "The influence was conceived as a summons [Aufforderung] of the subject to free action.,,15 Fichte's account of the summons of the other is less like Strawson's argument to transcendental conditions, and more like Sartre's Look or Levinas's Face. The summons of the other is an action directed at the subject, and such action is closer to an encounter with other than to a transcendental argument or inference. The latter are intellectual acts, and need not be intersubjective. But the summons makes explicit an intersubjective mediation of the self-consciousness of freedom, a mediation involving not an inference to the other, but rather an encounter with an other. The crucial point is that the summons (Aufforderung) requires the independence and irreducibility of the other. The other who summons one to freedom and responsibility cannot be constituted by the subject because the summons of the other precedes and founds the consciousness of freedom. Since the other sun1mons and obligates the subject's freedom, the other must precede, occasion, and grant the subject its consciousness of freedom. For this reason Fichte treats the Aufforderung as a Tatsache des Bewusstseins. A Tatsache (fact) is a given; it can be described but cannot be derived or transcendentally deduced. The fact of being summoned constitutes a phenomenological proof of the existence of the other: "If such a summons to action actually occurs, a rational being besides and outside of the self must be assumed as its cause, and so it is absolutely necessary to posit a rational being outside the subject.,,16 The self discovers itself as free, only as already summoned and obligated by an other. Further, this other must be an intelligent rational being, for only such a being can summon me to responsible free action. That is, the influence of the other is not a causal one but an influence compatible with freedom and intelligence, namely a summons or invitation. The summons is an action directed toward and respectful of the rational free agent as an end in itself. Fichte maintains that "the summons to free self-activity is usually called education."17 As a corollary Fichte insists that "the human being (and so all finite beings generally) becomes human only among others....

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Consequently the concept of humanity is not at all that of a single individual, for the individual per se is inconceivable. Rather the concept of human being is that of a species."18 It should further be noted that the priority of the other is not absolute, but only relative. According to Fichte, self and other stand in a relation of potential reciprocity. This relation he calls recognition: "The relation offree beings to each other is therefore a relation of reciprocity through intelligence and freedom. Neither can recognize the other if both do not reciprocally recognize each other, and neither can treat the other as a free being if both do not reciprocally treat each other with respect." 19 RECOGNITION AND FICHTE'S TRANSCENDENTAL PROGRAM

Ludwig Siep, sensing an incompatibility between Fichte's treatment of recognition in his Grundlage des Naturrechts and his transcendental prog,ram in the Wissenschaftslehre, seeks to explain the apparent incompatibility by distinguishing two levels: the level of transcendental explanation and the level of ordinary consciousness. The transcendental is supposed to ground or explain the empirical. This in turn means that the Wissenschaftslehre provides the basis for the Grundlage des Naturrechts and thus explains the latter work. Recognition is not a Begriff (concept) or category, but a Bewusstseinshandlung (an act of consciousness), and so must be susceptible of transcendental explanation. 20 But what would transcendental explanation look like? It looks like J. N. Findlay's account. The other is a necessary myth of ordinary consciousness, whose mythical character becomes apparent only at the transcendental level. At the level of ordinary consciousness, the other appears to be a given fact, independent of and irreducible to ordinary consciousness. But the transcendental philosopher knows better: What appears to be other is, transcendentally regarded, the result of the ego's own action. The phenomenal intersubjectivity of ordinary consciousness turns out to be an "error" that transcendental philosophy "corrects." Following Jacobi's interpretation of idealism, that the self can know only the products of its own activity, the transcendental account of the other shows it to be a construct of the transcendental ego. Intersubjective mediation by the other is reducible to self-mediation. Ultimately the other is reducible to the same, and what gets recognized is only the self. Findlay's account is a half-truth: close enough to be plausible, but ultimately misleading. Not only does Fichte not abandon the so-called myth of the other, he claims it is in1possible to do so. This fact-that the finite Geist necessarily must posit something absolute outside of itself (a thing-in-itself) and nevertheless on the other

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hand must recognize that this something exists only for the Ego (a necessary noumenon), is that circle that it can expand to infinity, but never escape. A system that has no regard for this circle is a dogmatic idealism, for it is only this circle that limits us and constitutes our finitude. 21 Findlay's "Fichte" is the dogmatic metaphysical idealist that Fichte criticizes. And the essence of dogmatism in this case is precisely the claim that the other is a construct of the self. However, Fichte denies this, for he asserts that the other is not directly accessible to consciousness, and so not an object in the cognitive sense that transcendental philosophy explains. In other words, the other is, transcendentally regarded, a failed cognition. Fichte's account of the summons does not provide direct or immediate access to the other's mind, nor does the other come to presence. But this does not necessarily imply solipsism, because the Aufforderung also clearly implies that the other, while an elusive absent-presence, is always already there, prior to the activity of the ego. This "always already thereness" supports the search for the other. Nevertheless, Findlay's reading forces us to focus on a murky question: What is the relation between the transcendental program and ordinary consciousness? Is one prior to the other? Can the latter be displaced by the former? Does ordinary consciousness simply confirm the transcendental analysis? What is at stake is whether Fichte imposes his transcendental program on ordinary consciousness or whether ordinary consciousness can be true independently of transcendental explanation. Consider the following text from Fichte's "Second Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre": The realism that impinges upon us all, even the most decided idealist, when it comes to acting,-i.e., the assumption that things exist outside and independently of us-is itself rooted in idealism and is explained and derived by idealism.... The philosopher says in his name, that everything that exists for the ego, exists through the ego. The ego however says in its own philosophy, 'As surely as I exist and live, something exists outside of me which is not there by virtue of my own doing.' ... The first standpoint is that of speculation, the second that of life and science. 22 This passage shows that the problem of the other brings into focus the issue of the relation between ordinary consciousness and Fichte's transcendental program. Ordinary consciousness is practical and realistic: The world and others are there prior to and apart from my own doing. Yet transcendental philosophy is committed to the explanation of the influence of the other, the non-ego, in terms of the self-affection of the transcendental ego. I ts principle is that everything that is for the ego must be posited by and therefore exists through the ego. Is Fichte's phenomenological program (related to his

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pragmatic history) in flat contradiction to his transcendental program, and vice versa? If all givens are to be transformed into positings, does not this reduce the other to the same? When it is said that everything for the ego exists through the ego, what does "through the ego" mean? There are several issues here. The first concerns the extent of transcendental deduction. Is everything subject to transcendental explanation? Or is transcendental deduction restticted to one region of being, namely, the justification of the scientific interpretation of nature as in itself mathematical. This is related to the question concerning the meaning of "positing" (setzen), and whether Fichte's is a metaphysical or methodological idealism. Is positing equivalent to metaphysical creation? Or is it susceptible to a metaphysically neutral phenomenological interpretation? If, as I shall argue, Fichte holds a critical-methodological idealism, the ontological status of the other is not settled by giving it an idealistconstructivist interpretation; rather, its ontological status is left open. Let us take the last question first. One possible interpretation of "posit" is the metaphysical reading, according to which the ego can know only the results of its own activity. On this reading other minds, the world, and God would turn out to be nothing but the projections of the subject. Moreover, the ego's self-explication is a priori, and nothing new is or can be introduced. But if nothing new can be introduced, alterity either has no place or is reduced to the self-san1eness of the ego. The result is transcendental solipsism, as Husserl has pointed out. It is far from clear how the conviction of ordinary consciousness that there are others and a world can be explained by such idealism. For the demand that everything for the ego exist through the ego appears to eliminate the other, or reduce it to the same, to egology. This apparent contradiction between ordinary consciousness and philosophical idealism seems to be devastating to Fichte's program. Emmanuel Levinas seizes upon this contradiction when he asserts, contra Fichte, that the relation to the other is "prior to the act that would effect it. For this relationship is not an act, not a thematizing, nor a positing in the Fichtean sense. Not everything that is in consciousness would be posited by consciousness-contrary to the proposition that seemed to Fichte to be fundamental. ,,23 But does Fichte really mean that others and the world are "through the ego," that is, metaphysically produced by the ego? This metaphysical idealism seems far removed from the critical-methodological idealism that Fichte elsewhere maintains. If Fichte's is a critical or methodological idealism, it brackets and leaves open the issue of the ontological status of both self and other. If "through the ego" is to be taken in a methodological sense, the ego's acts do not create the object but provide access to it. Providing access to the object, intending or "meaning" the object, is not creation in a metaphysical-

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causal sense. The being of the other may be independent, an "in itself." Fichte supports this phenomenological-methodological reading when he explains why ordinary consciousness requires transcendental clarification in the first place. Ordinary consciousness requires transcendental clarification because it is naive. Ordinary consciousness aims at its object, but without attending to, much less focusing on, the intentional acts through which it means or intends its object. Fichte writes: For the ordinary consciousness ... there "are" only objects, and no

Begriffe: the Begriff "disappears" in the object and coincides with the object. The philosophical talent, which consists in being able to find in the action not only the object at which the action is directed but also the action as such, is capable of uniting these divergent tendencies in one concept [BegrWJ . ... Thus the philosophical talent first discovers the Begriff in and by means of the object, and the field of consciousness obtains a new [transcendental] region. 24 Since ordinary consciousness is one-sidedly naive, it must be subject to criticism and clarification by transcendental investigation. The latter suspends the one-sided naivete and focuses on the subjective acts of meaning that are correlative to the object meant. Fichte explains that "the Begriff and its object are never separated, nor can they be separated. The object does not exist without the Begriff, for it is through the Begrijf; conversely the Begriff does not exist without the object, for the Begriff is that through which the object necessarily originates. Both are one and the same, only considered from different perspectives."25 Transcendental clarification in the criticalphenomenological sense does not render the object contingent or reduce it to self-sameness. The role of transcendental clarification is not to explain away the object or reduce the other to the same, but rather to bring to light what ordinary consciousness naively passes over and suppresses, namely, the object as "meant" and how the object is meant. Philosophical consciousness is rooted in experience. Recall Fichte's comments that it is impossible for anyone, including the philosopher, to transcend experience. This suggests that whatever the transcendental explanation is, it does not consist in explaining away ordinary consciousness and its experience. Far from displacing, much less eliminating, ordinary consciousness, philosophy presupposes it; if ordinary consciousness were somehow invalid or eliminated, philosophy itself would be undercut. For this reason Fichte indicates that philosophy cannot prescribe to but can only describe ordinary consciousness: "It describes the entire way which the former [viz., ordinary consciousness] has taken, but in reverse order. And the philosophical reflection, which can merely follow its subject, but prescribe to it no law,

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necessarily takes the same same direction.' '26 Philosophical reflection is a reconstruction in thought of the experience of ordinary consciousness. Philosophical consciousness cannot render the natural consciousness wholly transparent, nor can it ultimately displace natural consciousness. Who better than Fichte has reminded us that the sort of philosophy one chooses depends on the sort of human being one is or aspires to be? THE TRANSFORMATION OF TRANSCENDENTAL PHILOSOPHY I want now to gather up the various elements of my account and sketch briefly the transformation of transcendental philosophy into a philosophy of Spirit. The critical issue, raised by Jacobi, is that according to transcendental idealisn1, the self can know only the products of its own activity. Other minds, world, and pod would thus appear to be empty projections of the subject. This interpretation of transcendental idealism fails because it is one-sided, as I shall show. However, it appears to be a plausible interpretation of some of Fichte's statements in the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaflslehre (1 794). Consider the following passage: The final ground of all actuality [Wirklichkeit] for the ego is, according to the Wissenschaflslehre, an original interaction between the ego and something beyond the ego, of which nothing more can be said except that it must be absolutely opposed to the ego. In this interaction nothing new is brought into the ego, nothing alien to the ego is introduced. Everything ... is developed out of the ego according to its own laws. The ego is simply set in motion by this opposite ... and without such a first mover the ego would never have acted. 27 If what is thus perhaps true of the AnstofJ (or "check") were also true of the Aufforderung, then the Aufforderung of the other would introduce nothing new into the ego. If nothing new occurs through. the influence of the other on the ego, then the .independence and alterity of the other seem to be undermined. 28 Jacobi would be correct in concluding that the other is only the product of the ego's own activity, a sham other. However, Fichte's account of the Aufforderung makes it clear that the other precedes and conditions the self's consciousness of freedom. Consequently the other cannot be collapsed into the positing of the self. This means that transcendental philosophy can no longer have a unitary or monopolar ground or foundation in transcendental subjectivity or. ego. Fichte accordingly changes his account somewhat in the Darstellung der Wissenschaflslehre (1801). It remains true that no free being can become self-conscious without at the same time being conscious of other free beings. Intelligence is not to be

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understood solipsistically but rather as social. 29 Nevertheless, despite reciprocity with others, there is an asymmetry between the ego and the other. The former is directly felt, while the latter is merely conceived or represented. Against Levinas, the subject and the other are not part of the same totality, yet they overlap. Moreover, the other is not an object that is constructed or known in the transcendental sense. For this reason, in his 1810 lectures "Tatsachen des Bewusstseins," Fichte acknowledges that the other "contradicts all our previous presuppositions,"3o that is, the transcendental approach. Schelling achieves the most comprehensive formulation of the problem and its transformation of transcendental idealism. 31 Starting with the question, How does the self become conscious of its own freedom?, Schelling correctly explains that the act whereby the selfhas access to its freedom must be both explicable and inexplicable by the subject. Since intelligence contains nothing save what it produces (thus Jacobi's objection), and since it cannot produce its own self-objectification, the self's consciousness of freedom seems to be impossible. The idealist principle that everything in the subject exists through the subject is insufficient to account for the self's consciousness of freedom. Schelling makes explicit what Fichte has been hinting at: The ground of free self-determination must lie partly "within" the subject and partly "outside of" the subject. If the transcendental is retained at all, it must be conceived as bipolar; it cannot be subject only but must be both subject and object. The point is that the grounds or conditions of freedom must be divided: On the one hand, freedom and the consciousness of freedom must obviously be the subject's own doing, yet the subject is incapable of making itself into an object and so cannot be self-conscious in the crucial sense. On the other hand, an other is required to make the subject available to itself and thus to summon the subject to freedom and responsibility. Yet the summons is not a cause or necessary determination. For this reason neither ground is by itself sufficient; consequently, the ground of freedom must be twofold, divided and yet correlative.. This account of a "divided" or intersubjective realization of freedom is at the same time a "deduction of the other." Denial of such a "twofold ground" of self-determination means acceptance of solipsism and incoherence (circularity): The selfmust precede its own freedom, or will prior to willing. 32 The concept that removes the contradiction and dissolves the puzzle of the self-consciousness offreedom is the summons of the other. Schelling explains: Only the condition for the possibility of willing must be generated in the self without its concurrence. And thus we see forthwith a complete removal of the contradiction, whereby the same act of intelligence had to be both explicable and inexplicable at once. The concept which

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mediates the contradiction is that of the summons, since by means of the summons the action is explained, if it takes place, without it having to take place on that account. 33 The summons of the other provides the possibility of the self-consciousness of freedom, without, however, causing its actual development or making it necessary. Thus Schelling characterizes the summons as a mediating concept, because it connects the "internal" and the "external" grounds of freedom, while preserving the contingency of freedom's realization. He thereby makes somewhat more explicit than does Fichte the ontological implications of the latter's account of Aufforderung and Anerkennung (recognition).34 This is an important step toward Hegel's formulation of the genesis of Spirit (Geist) in and through intersubjective recognition. It was Hegel who first grasped the significance of Schelling's analysis of the summons as requiring a divided grounding for and reciprocal realization offreedom. For lIegel, Fichte's requirement that freedom be intersubjectively recognized and mediated implies that freedom has a divided ground and that consciousness exists only as doubled (verdoppelte). Further, Hegel saw that the result of the reciprocal· interactions between two (or more) individual consciousnesses is something more than their sum; it is something new, namely, a universal social consciousness. This universal consciousness is not to be confused with a logical subject such as the cogito or with the transcendental ego (Kant's transcendental unity of apperception). The transcendental ego is distinguished from and yet in some sense related to the empirical ego; but it need not be embodied, nor require mediation by the other. It can be given a consistently individualist and thus solipsist interpretation. In contrast, the universality of Spirit lies in its intersubjective mediation: Spirit is the result of reciprocal interactions between individual subjects, as concretely expressed in Hegel's description of Geist as the I that is a We and a We that is an 1. 35

Geist is not a terminological variant of the transcendental ego but, rather, an alternative to the latter. Here in German idealism, which is alleged to suppress the other, to treat it as mere negation, to reduce the other to the same, we find the discovery and account of an intersubjectively mediated universal consciousness of freedom that remains unsurpassed. 36 I want to conclude by briefly examining Fichte's early work the Vocation of the Scholar and one of his later works that deals with the issue of intersubjective community as a transcendental topic and problem, namely the "Tatsachen des Bewusstseins" (1810). Both works show Fichte's rejection and transcendence of Cartesian solipsism, the former at the level of ordinary consciousness and the latter at the transcendental level.

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REASON AS SOCIAL

The Lectures Concerning the Vocation ofthe Scholar are admittedly ambiguous. On the one hand, these reflect the terminology and problematic of Cartesian individualist epistemology. Fichte claims that before one can treat the vocation of the scholar, the vocation of man as such (an sich) must first be clarified. The qualification "vocation of man in itself" indicates that Fichte initially pursues the vocation of man in abstraction from social and cultural considerations. Consequently the highest good is determined in such individualist ternlS as the harmony of the rational being with itself. The highest good is determined conceptually as self-coincidence, identity, and unity. And humanity is understood in individualist terms such as "pure rational ego." On the other hand, Fichte makes it plain enough that these initial determinations are insufficient and inadequate, because the Cartesian cogito is an abstraction from the interhuman and the social. The vocation of man cannot be exhaustively determined in individualistic terms because real humans do not exist in solipsist isolation. Thus Fichte writes, "Real men are possible only insofar as they are associated with others like themselves. No man exists in isolation. The concept of an individual postulates the concept of his species. ,,37 The initial account of the vocation of man as self-coincidence is an abstraction from the social. When Fichte turns to the social dimension, he asserts that the other is required for the individual to become conscious of his or her freedom; this anticipates his account of Aufforderung and Anerkennung set forth in the Grundlage des Naturrechts two years later. Moreover, Fichte explicitly asserts that the human being cannot produce or otherwise bring the interpersonal other into existence, "yet the concept of such beings underlies his observation of the non-ego, and the expectation that something corresponds to this representation.,,38 This is a striking comment worth pondering. It suggests that the interpersonal other underlies not only the logical conception of the non-ego but also the belief in its objec'tive existence. Joachim Widmann asserts that for Fichte the interpersonal other is the foundation of the belief that there is a reality outside of and independent of the individual. Thus the very concepts of "reality" and "world" are dependent on and mediated by others. 39 Schelling confirms this interpretation when he writes: The sole objectivity which the world can possess for the individual is the fact of its having been intuited by intelligences outside the self.... For the individual these other intelligences are, as it were, the eternal bearers of the universe, and together they constitute so many indestructible mirrors of the objective world. The world is independent from me, although it is posited only through the ego, because it resides

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objectively for me in the intuition of other intelligences, and this social world is the archetype whose correspondence with my representations alone constitutes the truth. 40 As a consequence, there must be a restriction on transcendental constitution. As Fichte later makes explicit in the Grundlage des Naturrechts: the sense-world is transcendentally constituted but the interpersonal other is not. While there can be a transcendental deduction of the concepts of nature, or the sense-world, there can be no deduction of others. The transcendental is an abstraction from the intersubjective life-world. The task of transcendental philosophy is to construct ideal-mathematical models of nature. But there can be no mathematical model of the other that displaces it. Prior to and independent of scientific knowledge of the world, the self is practically, that is, ethically and socially, related to others. When transcendental philosophy develops its theoretical constructs and mathematical models of nature, it abstracts from practical and social relations. But these relations have not disappeared or gone away. Instead, they are the background or horizon of the theoreticalpraxis. This abstraction is overcome when Fichte removes the brackets and identifies a social drive in human nature. In addition to the drive for perfection and self-coincidence constitutive of the human as such, there is also a social drive: "The social drive is one of man's fundamental drives. It is man's destiny to live in society; he should live in society. One who lives in isolation is no complete human being. He contradicts his own nature.,,41 The foregoing account of the social in Fichte's popular philosophical work the Vocation of the Scholar is developed further in his Grundlage des Naturrechts and later writings. It lies behind his claim that the concept of right is one of the original concepts of pure reason. 42 It finds expression in his critique of individualism and solipsism. Fichte asserts that the individual must not be understood solipsistically; rather, this is a reciprocal concept. The individual implies and presupposes the species and thus is a social species-being. This is not merely the sociological thesis that human beings live in groups. It is an ontological thesis that contradicts the so-called idealist primacy of subjectivity and its corresponding concept of transcendental deduction. The other is there, prior to and independent of any constituting activity on the part of the subject. If the other is given prior to constitution, it cannot be the result of any transcendental deduction, for what is not constituted or constructed cannot be subsequently deduced. 43 But if this is so, then the very concept of the transcendental is transformed. Put simply, the transcendental can no longer be conceived in solipsist terms as a solitary, first-person ego. The ego cannot grasp itself either as worldless or apart from others. Once again Schelling expounds and makes explicit Fichte's thesis: The very objectivity of the world depends on others. "It therefore follows self-evidently ... that a

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rational being in isolation could not only not arrive at a consciousness of freedom, but would be equally unable to attain to consciousness of the objective world as such; and hence that intelligences outside the individual, and a never-ceasing interaction with them, alone make complete the whole of consciousness with all its determinations.,,44 Emmanuel Levinas criticizes German idealism, Fichte in particular, for an allegedly egological conception of ontology that reduces the other to the same. LikeJacobi, Levinas is convinced that idealism means that the self can know only the products of its own activity. Against such a conception Levinas pits his phenomenological discovery of the Face. The Face of the other calls me into question and assigns to me a responsibility for the other that is prior to my own choosing. Thus the Face of the other summons me to ethical freedom and responsibility for the other. But Fichte already has his own view concerning the face of the other: "Everyone can say: Whoever you may be, because you bear a human face, you are still a member of this great community. No matter how countlessly many intermediaries may be involved in the transmission, I nevertheless have an effect on you, and you have an effect upon me. No one whose face bears the stamp of reason, no matter how crude, exists for me in vain.,,45

NOTES

1. Edmund HusserI, Cartesian Meditations, trans. D. Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960); Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1984; English translation: Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson [New York: Harper, 1962]); Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. H. Barnes (New "'York: Philosophical Library, 1956); Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity, trans. A. Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1969). 2. "The Facts of Consciousness," in Between Kant and Hegel, ed. George di Giovanni and H. S. Harris (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1986), p. 29. For a similar interpretation, see George Armstrong Kelley, Idealism, Politics and History: Sources of Hegelian Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), who speaks of the "elimination" of the thing-in-itself (pp. 200- 20 1). 3. J. N. Findlay, Hegel: A Re-Examination (New York: Collier Macmillan, 1962), p.47. 4. Ibid., p. 48 (emphasis added). 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid. (emphasis in the original). 7. Alexis Philolenko, "Fichte and the Critique of Metaphysics," Philosophical Forum 19, nos. 2-3 (Winter 1988): p. 137. 8. Reinhard Lauth, "Le probleme de l'interpersonalite chez J. G. Fichte," Archive~

156

9.

10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

24. 25. 26.

27. 28.

29. 30. 31.

ROBERT R. WILLIAMS

de Philosophie 26 (1962): pp. 325-44. See also Heinz Heimsoeth, Fichte (Munich: Reinhardt, 1923). Fichte, Uber die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794), VI, p. 302 (references are to Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte [hereafter SWJ [see page 235J); English translation: "Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation," trans. Daniel Breazeale, in Philosophy of German Idealism, ed. E. Behler, volume 23 of the German Library (New York: Continuum, 1987), pp. 1-38. The English translation is particularly valuable, because it includes Fichte's notes to the Danish edition of this work. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations in this essay are by the author. rro be sure, constitution is one of the murkier concepts. Its range of possible meanings runs from metaphysical production and causality (metaphysical idealism) to clarification of sense or meaning. Fichte, Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre (1796) (hereafter GNR), SW, III, p. 2. GNR, p. 33. GNR, pp. 17, 30. GNR, p. 31. GNR, p. 36. GNR, p. 39. Ibid. Ibid. GNR, p. 44. Ludwig Siep, Aenerkennung als Prinzip der praktischen Philosophie: Untersuchungen ZU HegelsJenaer Philosophie des Geistes (hereafter APP) (Freiburg: Alber Verlag, 1979). Fichte, Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (hereafter GWL), SW, I, p. 281. SW, I, p. 455. Emmanuel Levinas, "Substitution," in Otherwise Than Being or Beyond Essence, trans. A. Lingis (Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press, 1981), p. 101. Schelling seeks to resolve the problem by means of a distinction between the unconscious primordial freedom and practical freedom that is, or becomes, self-conscious. See his System of Transcendental Idealism, trans. Peter Heath (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978), pp. 155ff. Fichte, GNR, SW, III, p. 5. GNR, p. 4. Fichte, GWL, SW, I, p. 223; author's translation. Cf. Edmund Husserl, "phenomenological explication does nothing but explicate the sense this world has for us all, prior to any philosophizing, and obviously gets solely from our experience- a sense which philosophy can uncover but never alter" Cartesian Meditations, trans. Dorion Cairns (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1960), p. 151. GWL, SW, I, p. 279. This is one reason why the Grundlage des Naturrechts of 1796 should not be simply subsumed under the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1 794). Fichte develops his position and makes more explicit the divided ground implicit in the earlier text. Fichte, SW, II, p. 143. Fichte, "Tatsachen des Bewusstseins" (1801) (hereafter TB), SW, II, p. 601. F. W.J. Schelling, System des Transzendentalen Idealismus (1800) (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1962; English translation: System of Transcendental Idealism, trans. Peter Heath [Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1978J, hereafter cited as TI, with the English translation first and the German references second, as G). The

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32. 33. 34.

35.

36.

37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43.

44. 45.

157

justification for bringing in Schelling at this point is that, although Fichte and Schelling were often in controversy, during this period they were in fact drawing nearer to each other. Schelling gives an interes ting exposition and account of Fichte's Aufforderung and argument to the other. TI, p. 162; G, p. 209. TI, p. 163; G, p. 210. Schelling excessively ontologizes these concepts. He tends to downplay Aufforderung as an act of the other and to treat it instead as an ontological limit principle of finitude. When that is done, there is no need to be concerned about specific actions or influences; that is, the facticity of the Aufforderung seems to be given up, and the other seems to be reduced to an ontological condition or structure (cf. TI, p. 166). In Schelling's defense, transcendental philosophy abstracts from particularity and contingency. However, Schelling appeals to the notion of preestablished harmony that obviates the need for any special influence or action. This would be a metaphysical rather than a transcendental and phenomenological analysis and solution to the problems. Hegel, Phiinomenologie des Geistes, ed. Johannes Hoffmeister (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag 1952), p. 140. For a study of Hegel's concept of Spirit, cf. my Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). Hegel, Enqklopiidie, §§435-36, ed. F. Nicolin and O. Poggeler (Hamburg: Meiner Verlag, 1969; English translation: Hegel's Philosophy of Mind, trans. W. Wallace [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969]). Fichte, Vocation of the Scholar, trans. Breazeale, p. 3n. Ibid., p. 13; Gelehrten, p. 304. Joachim Widmann, Fichte (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1982), pp. 77-78, 101. TI, p. 174; G, pp. 224-25. Fichte, Gelehrten, p. 396; English translation, p. 14. GNR, p. 8. In this respect Fichte remains faithful to Kant: The transcendental program is restricted to the constitution of nature, but there are no moral phenomena and no constitution or deduction of other persons. TI, p. 174; G, pp. 224-25. Fichte, Vocation of the Scholar, trans. Breazeale, p. 19.

9 Fichte and the Relationship between Right and Morality FREDERICK NEUHOUSER

It is a commonly held view among scholars of classical German political philosophy that Fichte's theory of right underwent a radical transformation during the period from 1793 to 1796. I This shift is said to be expressed most fundamentally in Fichte's views concerning the relationship of political theory to moral philosophy. According to this thesis, Fichte moved from a position that regarded the principles of right as derivable from the moral law to a view that upheld a "complete separation" between the foundations of right and those of morality.2 My aim in this essay is not to dispute this interpretive thesis-for it is essentially correct- but to articulate more precisely than most commentators have done the two positions Fichte is alleged to have held and to understand the philosophical significance of his move from the earlier to the later. In doing so I hope to show that Fichte's separation of right from morality was a response to his growing appreciation of the complexity of the various phenomena dealt with by practical philosophy and, more specifically, to his realization of the impossibility of reducing the rational significance of the sphere of right-including, prominently, the institution of private property-to .its relation to the moral autonomy of individuals. Implicit in Fichte's later position is the view that the political realm has its own distinctive end, the fostering of citizens' individuality, whose value is not simply derivative of the value of moral autonomy. Paradoxically, this transformation was contemporaneous with another development in Fichte's thought that seems to work in opposition to his recognition of the heterogeneity of moral and political theory: his deepening commitment to the basic systematicity of philosophy and to the view that all of philosophy (and therefore both moral and political theory) must ultimately be grounded in a

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single first principle. This means that we must ask not only in what sense right is separate from morality but also how such a separation is compatible with the essential unity of philosophy that Fichte maintained. The positions to be considered here are laid out in two principal texts: Fichte's 1793 defense of the French Revolution (known hereafter as the Beitriige) 3 and his Foundation ofNatural Right (Grundlage des Naturrechts) of 1796. My immediate task is to understand how the fundamental principle of the political theory of the Beitriige differs from that of the Naturrechts. THE POSITION OF

1793

The characterization of Fichte's earliest position as one for which there is no separation between right and morality, though not incorrect, is potentially misleading. It must not be taken to mean, for example, that the young Fichte failed to distinguish the tasks and subject matter of moral theory, on the one hand, from those of a theory of right, on the other. Fichte's treatment of right in 1793 makes it clear that he is aware that the concerns of moral and political theory are not simply identical. Whereas morality supplies us with the laws that ought to govern the individual will (both in its "internal" workings and its "external" deeds), right concerns itself with the principles of the rationally ordered society.4 Yet ifright and morality are separate in the sense that their domains are demarcated from one another, there is another sense in which it is correct to say that there is no separation between the two. The most common way of specifying what this absence of separation amounts to does so in terms of the derivability of right from morality. That is, the principles that govern the rational society follow (in some way to be specified) from those that govern the individual will. This characterization conveys the essential feature of Fichte's earliest position-that right is subordinate to and dependent on morality- but it also stands in need of further elaboration, if we are to grasp the precise nature of this relationship. Our first task, then, is to ask in what specific way right is to be derived from morality. It would be mistaken to assume that Fichte's first political theory aimed to derive the whole of right from what he took to be the basic principle of morality, Kant's categorical imperative. Fichte explicitly rejects such a view in statements such as the following: "The legislation of [Kantian pure] practical reason is ... insufficient for the foundation of a state. Civillegislation goes one step further. It concerns itself with things that the law of practical reason leaves to purely preferential choice [Willkur]."5 Here Fichte clearly singles out portions of the sphere of right- "the foundation of a state" and "civil legislation" -that are not deducible from moral principles alone. Thus we should expect Fichte to attempt to derive only a part of political

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theory from morality, and this is indeed what he sets out to do early in the Beitriige, when he provides us with his account of "natural" or "human" rights. Natural rights, Fichte claims, are human rights in the sense that they are rights one has in virtue of one's status as a human being (Mensch) rather than as a consequence of one's membership in a particular society. In addition, natural rights are identified with inalienable rights;6 that is, they are rights that the individual may not give up or trade away within political society and that any legitimate state is obligated to preserve and defend. In order to comprehend the sense in which Fichte intends to derive natural rights from moral theory, it is helpful to consider the way in which he draws the distinction between alienable and inalienable rights ..This distinction is articulated by first identifying the domain of rights in general with that which we are morally permitted to do. 7 In this broad sense of the term, which includes both alienable and inalienable rights, we have a right to do whatever morality does not forbid. What the notion of a "right" adds here to "the morally permissible" is simply the idea that others have a prima facie obligation to refrain from hindering individuals in the exercise of these rights. 8 Within this broad class of rights it is possible to distinguish those that may be surrendered by individuals within civil society (alienable rights) from those that may not (inalienable rights). Once again, the "may" here refers to moral permissibility, and so the principle that distinguishes these two classes of rights is none other than the moral law itself. Thus, one's inalienable rights are derived directly from one's duty to fulfill the moral law. They can be understood as restrictions placed upon the actions of others that safeguard those freedoms necessary for living up to one's nature as a morally autonomous being'in the Kantian sense. If, for example, I have a moral duty to perfect my mental capacities and talents, then I have a natural, inalienable right to the freedoms required for such self-development. It is this feature of natural rights-that they are essential to the individual's fulfilling the requirements of morality-that accounts for their inalienability. To give up those freedoms would be to forsake one's vocation as a human (that is, moral) being. Moreover, the obligation we have to respect the natural rights of others is itself a moral one. It is not derived from the consent of freely choosing individuals but is grounded in our nature as rational beings capable of moral autonomy. Although a well-ordered state will provide other, nonmoral incentives for respecting the natural rights of others, the moral obligation to respect these rights remains in force even in the absence of such a state. Alienable rights, in contrast, may be given up or traded away without affecting one's ability to follow the dictates of morality. They are associated with a vast realm of practical possibilities with respect to which the moral law is silent and that are therefore "left to Willkiir." These rights delimit the

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sphere of possible civil legislation, whose task is to specify which of one's alienable rights are retained and which are given up in a particular society. o bligation in this domain has a different source from the 0bligation associated with natural rights. Laws that restrict the exercise of our alienable rights bind us only insofar as they are products of our own wills-that is, only insofar as we consent to be bound by them (or insofar as they are the products of an agreed-upon decision-making process, such as the mechanisms established by a social contract). It is in this sense that morality alone is insufficient to determine completely the content of civil legislation and the terms of the social contract. Yet political theory can still be understood as deriving from n10rality in the very significant sense that individual natural rights, deduced from our requirements as moral beings, function as fundamental principles of political theory in two distinct ways. Natural rights (1) place constraints on the constitution and possible legislation of a legitimate state and (2) impose upon the state the obligation to protect its citizens' natural rights from being violated by the actions of other individuals. Finally, there is another, related sense in which Fichte's early theory of right derives from moral theory. I t is expressed in his view that morality places positive requirements on the state that go beyond its more limited role of safeguarding the natural rights of individuals. In addition to this latter function, the state is charged with the task of forming or cultivating its citizens toward the end of moral autonomy. This cultivation (Bildung) is understood to consist primarily in the taming and reforming of citizens' natural sensibilities. The state fulfills its task of Bildung when it creates and sustains social institutions that transform the natural desires and inclinations of citizens in such a way that their reformed sensibilities are consistent with and serve the ends of morality rather than standing in opposition to those ends. 9 We are now in a position to specify the precise sense in which Fichte's first theory of right is derivative of moral theory. This relationship is articulated most clearly in Fichte's statements about the ultimate purpose of political community. The question as to the state's "highest end" (der beste Endzweck) is answered by considering the highest end of the individuals who compose the state: "The answer to this question is purely moral and must be grounded in the moral law, which alone ... prescribes a final end [Endzweck] to the human being" (VI, p .. 62).10 Moreover, the moral autonomy of individuals is not only the state's highest end, it is also asserted to be the state's only end (VI, p. 101). Thus the sphere of right has no end independent of the ends of morality. The principles that govern the rational state are justified by establishing their connection to those moral ends (ultimately, the moral autonomy of individuals) that can be furthered within a political community. As we have seen, such a connection may be drawn in two

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different ways: First, principles of right may take the form of natural, inalienable rights that define a sphere of individual freedoms that the state must strengthen and preserve. Second, principles of right may enjoin the state to create and support institutions that contribute positively to the achievement of individual moral autonomy through the process of Bildung. Thus Fichte's early position can be characterized as one in which both moral and political theory are grounded in the same conception of subjectivity-namely, moral autonomy. This must not be taken to imply, however, that the two fields simply collapse into one. For while morality supplies the principles according to which an autonomous will must determine itself, political theory provides the principles that specify how the social world must be organized in order to create the external conditions necessary for moral agency to be realized. THE POSITION OF

1796

Fichte begins his Grundlage des Naturrechts (1796) with an explicit rejection of his earlier conception of the relationship between right and morality: It is misguided, he claims, to attempt to derive a theory of right from the moral law; right is not to be understood as merely a "chapter" within moral theory but as "a separate and self-standing science." 11 Although statements such as these leave no room to doubt that it was Fichte's intention to draw a sharper boundary between right and morality than he did in 1793, they do not furnish us with a clear enough picture of the nature and import of the intended distincdon. While commentators have rightly perceived a fundamental shift in Fichte's political theory of 1796, they have been less successful in explicating the precise nature of that shift. I believe that the best way of understanding this transformation is to see it as following from a change in the conception of the subject that grounds the theory of right. In 1796 the principles of right are no longer derived from the notion of a morally autonomous subject; rather, they are derived from what Fichte calls the "person." Hence, in order to understand Fichte's theory of 1796, we need first to inquire into his conception of the person and, after that, into how this conception of the person is supposed to ground a theory of right. At the beginning of the Grundlage des Naturrechts, Fichte articulates the fundamental thought of his theory of right in the following way: "The rational being cannot posit itself as such with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among several rational beings."12 Fichte's emphasis of the tern1 "individual" should indicate to us that individuality will playa central role in his conception of the person and therefore in his new account of right as well. This point alone suggests a preliminary formulation of the principal difference between the Grundlage des Naturrechts and Fichte's earlier political thought: The principles and institutions of right

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will no longer be justified in terms of their ability to foster moral autonomy; rather, the political realm will be understood as a sphere whose main purpose is to allow' for the realization of its members' individuality. Since being an individual involves distinguishing oneself from other individuals, it is not difficult to see how a liberal political order-one committed to safeguarding a private sphere demarcated by a set of individual rights-might be understood as fostering the value of individuality. Although some form of this idea lies at the bottom of Fichte's theory of right, there is a good deal more to be said about the way in which he construes individuality as the main value of the political realm. In the first place, Fichte's notion of individuality involves more than the subject's distinguishing itself from others. To "posit" oneself as an individual, Fichte says, is to be aware of oneself as "one among several rational beings." That is, it is to know oneself both as something unique and particular and as a being of a certain general type (a "rational being"). Second, a theory of right that is committed to upholding the value of individuality will need to specify which aspects of our natures as individuals are the appropriate concern of political theory. In other words, what kind of individuality does the rational political order strive to realize? Both of these issues are addressed in the conception of the person that, I am claiming, underlies Fichte's political thought in 1796. This conception of the person finds its expression in remarks scattered throughout the Introduction and §§ 1-7 of the Grundlage des Naturrechts. I turn now to the task of gathering together and making sense of the various elements of Fichte's conception. We can begin to understand Fichte's view by noting that "person" is often used interchangeably with the expression "rational individual" (III, pp. 9, 56). The person's rationality will consist, in part, in its capacity for conscious, goal-directed activity-that is, in its ability to act in accord with a conception of an end (Zweckbegriff) . Yet we would be seriously misled if we were to understand the person's rationality in only this minimal sense. For according to Fichte's usage, to characterize persons as rational is also to say that they are subjects (III, pp. 1, 2). Since the essential feature of subjectivity, for Fichte, consists in the activity of "self-positing," we know that the person, as a kind of subject, must also be "self-positing" or, in less Fichtean language, self-conscious and (in a sense to be explicated) free. The person, then, in addition to being rational in the sense indicated above, is a self-conscious,free individual, and an account of personhood must say something about each of these elements. Let us begin with the feature freedom and ask in what sense the person is free. The type of freedom relevant to being a person is what Fichte calls "formal" freedom,13 which is to be contrasted with the "substantive" freedom (or "substantive self-determination") that pertains to the autonomous, moral subject and constitutes the central concept of Fichte's Sittenlehre.

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Formal freedom is characterized by Fichte as a capacity for "absolute spontaneity" in "the formation of the conception of an end [Zweck], or of an intended efficacy outside of US.,,14 To be formally free is to be "the absolute and ultimate ground" of one's Zweckbegriffe, that is, to be the author of the conceptions of the ends according to which one acts (III, p. 113). A n10re straightforward way of putting Fichte's point is to say that the freedom of the person consists in its capacity for free choice; the person chooses among a set of possible actions open to it and chooses freely because its choice is carried out in accord with a conception of an end that it espouses with spontaneity (III, pp. 41-43). The formal freedom of the person, then, is considerably broader than the substantive self-determination required for moral autonomy. This substantive self-determination is achieved only when the subject determines its ends (Zwecke) in accord with its conception of its own essential nature as a rational, self-sufficient being. Hence, being substantively free will depend, in part, on the content of the particular ends espoused, namely, on whether or not those ends are consistent with one's essential nature. The person's formal freedom, on the other hand, does not require that ends be espoused in accord with principles deriving from one's essential nature; what is required is only that one's ends be freely espoused, not given to oneself or determined from without. Although the autonomous moral subject always possesses the formal freedom of the person (it must be capable of choosing the wrong), to be substantively free, it must exercise that freedom in accord with the requirements of the moral law. Thus far our discussion of formal freedom has referred only to capacities and states internal to the subject-namely, those involved in the person's spontaneous espousal of ends. If Fichte's account of the person's freedom were to end here, however, it would be unsuited to its task of grounding a political theory, since on this account the external world-and whatever hindrances to effective action it might pose-would be irrelevant to the person's free espousal of ends. But participation in the external world-more specifically, the carrying out of one's freely espoused ends through action - is relevant to Fichte's conception of the person, as evidenced by passages such as the following: What is contained most immediately in the concept of freedom is simply the capacity of constructing concepts of our possible efficacy through absolute spontaneity.... But in order for a rational individual, or person, to find itself as free, something else is required-namely, that the object thought through the concept of one's efficacy be present in experience, or that something in the external world follow from the person's thought of its activity. (III, pp. 8-9) From this passage we see that it is not enough to characterize the person as simply a formally free chooser of ends. The person must also be causally

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efficacious; it must be able to translate its intended purposes, or at least a significant portion of them, into real action in the external world. This element of real efficacy (Wirksamkeit) seems to be essential to Fichte's conception of the person for two reasons. First, the person's freedom itself is not exhausted by its spontaneous espousal of ends. To be fully free (in the formal sense) the person must also be able to execute those ends in real action: A subject that was able to will its own ends but lacked the capacity to carry them out would not have achieved the full measure offreedom appropriate to the person. 15 This aspect of formal freedom has important implications for the theory of right, since it is from this consideration that Fichte derives his claim that the person is necessarily an embodied subject. For if the person is to be causally efficacious, it must be more than a will; it must also be a body that is capable of interacting with other objects in the external world. 16 The second, less straightforward reason that efficacy is essential to Fichte's notion of the person is expressed in the passage cited above. There Fichte first characterizes the person's freedom in terms of its spontaneous espousal of ends and then brings in the notion of causal efficacy as a condition of the person's ability to "find itself as free." The point here seems to be that real causal efficacy is essential to the person, not only because it constitutes one element of the person's formal freedom, but also because it is required for the person to be self-conscious with respect to its freedom. The person "finds itself as free" only by encountering that freedom as an object of experience-that is, only by finding real expressions of its freedom in the external world. The kind of self-consciousness at issue here should not be understood as the simple and momentary self-awareness inherent in every instance of choosing and acting. Espousing an end and undertaking an action always involve-or so it might be argued-the bare awareness of oneself as doing such. 17 The self-consciousness that Fichte is singling out as essential to being a person is more akin to a self-conception, a stable and enduring understanding one has of oneself as a being of a particular sort. In this case, the person possesses a conception of itself as an agent-that is, as a possible source of causality within the objective world. Fichte's claim here is that such a self-conception is achieved and solidified only by experiencing one's freedom by encountering in the world the real effects of one's agency- by having before oneself as objects of experience the house one has built, the cloth one has woven, the fields one has cleared and plowed. Thus, the person's consciousness of itself as free derives from the real exercise of its formal freedom. Recall, however, that the person is not only free; it is also an individual, and, as a self-conscious being, it must be aware of itself as such. According to Fichte, the person's awareness of its individuality is also inextricably bound up with the real exercise of its formal freedom. Let us consider two passages in which Fichte sets out his conception of the person's individuality and its connection to freedom:

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Within its appointed sphere [of activity] the subject chooses, gives to itself absolutely the final determination of its action. The ground of the final determination of its efficacy lies solely in the subject. It is, for that reason alone, able to posit itself as an absolutely free being, as the sole ground of something, and able to distinguish itself completely from the free being outside of itself [that is, another rational being] and ascribe its efficacy only to itself. (III, pp. 41-42) What exclusively chooses within [its] sphere ... is the individual, a rational being that becomes determinate through its being set over against another rational being; and this individual is then characterized by a determinate expression offreedom that belongs exclusively to itself. (III, p. 42) . We have already seen that to be conscious of one's individuality is to be a\vare of oneself as "one among several rational [or free] beings." The individual shares with other individuals the fundamental capacity for formal freedom. Yet the individual is also "one"; it distinguishes itself from other free beings, and the passages cited above indicate two ways in which the individual, in exercising its formal freedom, distinguishes itself from others. One of these ways consists in the person's making itself into a determinate and, hence, distinguishable being by choosing particular courses of action among those that stand open to it. In espousing a particular end and then acting upon it, I acquire determinate qualities that distinguish me from other beings who may have faced similar alternatives. In Fichte's words, the formally free agent "becomes determinate"; it comes to be "characterized by a determinate expression of freedom that belongs exclusively to itself." The point here is simply that the individuation of beings of a single general kind ("free beings") requires particularization-that is, the acquisition of determinate, particular qualities that make like beings different from ,one anoth~r. Yet the aspect of individuality that Fichte emphasizes most in the Grundlage des Naturrechts is not particularity as such but a second sense in which the person can be said to be an individual. This sense of individuality can be characterized as the awareness of oneself as a single, bounded unit of agency or, in the terminology I shall use here, as a discrete unit of formally free causal efficacy. The individual is aware that its free actions have their causal ground in it alone. They are not the fruits of a collective or alien will, nor are they the products of some more amorphously defined agent. The'individual is able to say with respect to its freely chosen actions, "I did this; ultimately it was I, not some other being, who initiated these deeds." Hence it is the exercise of one's formal freedom, the choosing of a particular course of action from among a set of possibilities, that both individuates the person and allows for its awareness of its individuality. The individual and exclusive nature of the choosing involved in formal freedom results in individualized persons with distinguishable, real characteristics.

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Given the crucial role that individuality plays in the Grundlage des Naturrechts and in distinguishing moral theory from a theory of right, it is worth emphasizing the close connection Fichte wants to assert between individuality and the formal freedom of the person. The freedom on which Fichte's (Kantian) moral theory is founded-the subject's autonomous, or substantive, self-determination-is not a freedom that serves to individuate the beings that exercise it. For moral self-determination requires the subject to determine its ends in accord with what it has in common with other subjects: its essence as a rational being bound by the moral law. This is not, of course, to say that morality is in some way inimical to the realization of individuality but merely that moral self-determination alone, bound as it is by universal laws applicable to all rational beings, does not serve to individuate the agents that exercise it. 18 Let us now turn our attention to the way Fichte derives his theory of right from his conception of the person. We shall restrict our inquiry to that part of Fichte's theory that corresponds to his earlier doctrine of natural rights. These natural rights are now termed" Urrechte" ("original rights"), but they continue to playa similar role in Fichte's theory in that they designate a set of rights individuals have prior to the existence of political institutions that must be both safeguarded and respected by those institutions. Original rights are introduced as "the conditions of personhood" (III, pp. 94, 111, 112). They are defined as those rights that "are contained in the mere concept of the person" (III, p. 94) and as "rights that ought to belong absolutely to every person as such" (III, p. 113). Statements such as these show clearly that original rights are to be derived from the conception of the person, but two further points must be made in order to grasp the connection between personhood and rights. First, rights are necessarily intersubjective in nature. They govern relations among persons and only arise insofar as persons exist together. Second, original rights are concerned, not with the requirements of personhood in general, but only with those aspects of personhood that "appear in the sensible world," and those aspects are therefore subject to disruption by the actions of other persons (III, pp. 94, 112). The ability spontaneously to espouse ends is an essential condition of being a person, but insofar as this internal willing is unaffected by the actions of others, it does not enter into an account of the rights inherent in personhood (III, p. 113). Hence, the aspect of the person's "formal freedom" that figures most prominently in a theory of right is not the free espousal of ends but the person's ability to realize its freedom by translating its ends into effective action. This account of original rights can be formulated in the following way: The original rights of a person are defined by a set of principles that restrict the actions of others (including eventually the state) so as to constitute for the person "an exclusive, external sphere of freedom"19 within which the fundamental elements of personhood can be realized. It is important to note

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that original rights do not guarantee to individuals the realization of those characteristics Fichte ascribes to the person. What they guarantee, rather, is that the external social conditions necessary for individuals to be able to realize their personhood will obtain. 20 These rights are based on the principle "everyone ought' ... to be able to be a person" (III, p. 93, emphasis added) and stipulate therefore that the individual not be hindered by others in its exercise of those capacities essential to being a person. In other words, original rights translate into the demand that individuals be treated by others in a manner consistent with their status as persons. 21 They can be reduced to the formula: "No one has the right to an action that makes impossible the freedom and personhood of another" (III, pp. 93-94). The rights that Fichte believes to be derivable from his conception of the person fall into two broad classes: those that concern the inviolability of the body and those that guarantee the individual a sphere of freedom of action, or "free influence in the ... sensible world" (III, p. 119). Included in the latter group are rights to self-preservation (Selbsterhaltung) and private property.22 For the present, however, we shall not pursue questions about the content of these particular rights or whether they in fact follow from Fichte's conception of the person. Let us instead attempt to specify how the sphere of right more generally can be understood to satisfy the requirements of personhood. It is not difficult to see how a political order based on the preservation of its members' original rights allows for the realization of persons' individuality. By creating and preserving an exclusive sphere of free action for each of its members, it allows them to exercise their formal freedom as individual agents who, in acting as such, constitute themselves as particular individuals. We encounter a more difficult issue, however, when we ask about the relationship that is supposed to obtain between the realm of right and the selfconsciousness of persons. In one respect such a connection is easy to make out: The realization of freedom and individuality surely contributes to or reinforces one's conception of oneself as a free individual. The thornier question is whether or not this exhausts the connection between right and personal self-consciousness: Is the realn1 of right limited to the role of providing persons with an arena within which they are able to satisfy and confirm their conceptions of themselves as free individuals? Or, does right playa deeper, formative role in the constitution of individuals' awareness of themselves as persons? These questions are significant for at least two reasons. First, an affirmative answer to the latter would imply that the political realm ought not to be understood primarily as an instrument that already-constituted persons use in order to satisfy their aspirations to individual freedom. Rather, the rational basis of the liberal political order would reside, most fundamentally, in

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its ability to form the self-conceptions of its members as free individuals. Second, and more generally, such questions are of deep importance to a philosophy, such as Fichte's, whose paramount concern is to comprehend the nature of subjectivity and the variety of relations to the world that make it possible. Specifically, it raises the question of how fundamental one's political (rechtliche) relations to other persons are to one's becoming a fully self-conscious, "self-positing" subject. Although Fichte appears to give conflicting answers to these questions in the Grundlage des Naturrechts, I believe that he is ,best understood as taking the stronger of the two positions; that is, he ascribes to the political realm a formative role in the constitution of persons' conceptions of themselves as individuals. 23 This position is expressed most forcefully in Fichte's repeated assertions that the concept of right (der Rechtsbegriff) is "an original concept of pure reason." This is equivalent to the claim that right is "necessary" in the sense of being a condition of the possibility of the subject's "self-consciousness" (III, pp. 2, 8, 53). This thought is developed at length in the Grundlage des Naturrechts, most fully in §4, the locus of Fichte's celebrated deduction of intersubjectivity as a condition of individual self-consciousness. Roughly put, Fichte's claim is that the subject can have an awareness of itself as an individual only by standing in "the relationship of right" to other persons. It is important to note that the aspect of individuality that is alleged to be conditioned by right is not the awareness of one's particularity-the ways in which one differs qualitatively from other individuals- but the awareness of oneself as a discrete unit of free efficacy, a being that is capable of being the ultimate ground of its deeds. Fichte's various claims in this section are both individually obscure and difficult to weave into a single coherent line of argument. As I see it, Fichte makes two claims in §4 that are relevant to our concerns. 24 The first is a conceptual point about the inherently intersubjective nature of "individuality." The claim here is that an awareness of myself as an individual must involve the thought of myself as "one among other rational beings." That is, applying the concept "individual" to myself involves thinking of myself as standing in relation to other (possible or actual) free, rational beings. The argument for this claim follows from Fichte's assertion that to regard myself as an individual is "to ascribe to myself an exclusive sphere for my free choice," a sphere to which I am entitled to deny access to other free beings. 25 If individuality includes the notion of exclusive access to a sphere of action, then it necessarily refers to the idea of other free beings-that is, beings who could act within my sphere but who are precluded by right from doing so. Hence, thinking of myself as an individual in this sense requires having the thought of other (possible or actual) free beings who stand in some relation to my freedom.

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The second point is best understood as a claim about the genetic conditions for the ascription of individuality to oneself: A subject can attain self-consciousness as an individual only by having its individuality recognized by other beings whom the recognized subject takes to be free. 26 This recognition consists in more than a merely theoretical posture on the part of the recognizer; it also requires that the recognized subject actually be treated as such or, in other words, that its individuality acquire a real and protected existence in the external world. But to be treated as a free individual is siJ!1ply to have one's original rights respected by others. Fichte's idea here must be that I come to a conception of myself as having exclusive charge over my own sphere offreedom only as a consequence of my actually having been treated as such by other beings. Moreover, in order for this behavior of others to result in my acquisition of the appropriate self-conception, I must regard that behavior as more than accidental. I must understand their failure to violate my sphere of freedom as essentially connected to the kind of being I am. Hence, the behavior of others through which I acquire a consciousness of my individuality (their recognition of my personhood) must be understood by me to be the behavior of other free, rational beings. They must be free beings (who could have done otherwise) and they must also be rational beings (capable of restraining their actions on the basis of a concept-in this case, the concept of a free individual, applied to me). Hence, even though the consciousness of one's individuality involves the awareness of particularity and differentiation from others, it also includes a species of what the idealist tradition calls "universal" self-consciousness. For, insofar as the individual's self-consciousness requires the awareness of being treated as such by other free, rational beings, it involves the thought of oneself as standing in a relation to other; beings who are taken to be beings of the same general type as oneself, beings who, like oneself, possess the basic qualities of freedom and rationality. Although Fichte makes a plausible case for attributing to the reaim of right a formative role in the constitution of persons' self-consciousness, it is important to note that his argument for this position rests upon a subtle but significant shift in the concept of individuality~ The concept that pblYS a role in his argument goes beyond that of the individual as simply a discrete unit of free causal efficacy, the sole ground of its own actions. In addition, it attributes to the individual (and must do so if the argument is to succeed) an exclusive sphere offreedom that other free beings are proscribed by right from entering. This shift adds an element to the self-consciousness of individuals that was missing from the earlier account. That is, the individual is no longer aware of itself merely as a discrete volitional unit that is capable of being the ultimate ground of actions in the objective world; it is also a unit in the sense that it lays claim to a determinate part of the external world that it views as

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rightfully subject to its ends alone. The violation of this sphere by another individual does not, strictly speaking, threaten one's status as a unit of causal efficacy. What it threatens, rather, is one's conception of oneself as an individual who deserves to have its own sphere of activity respected by others. It is plausible, I believe, to suggest that the realm of right serves to form our conceptions of ourselves as individuals, but the sense in which it does so much be carefully specified: Our legal status as persons with rights does not constitute us as beings aware of our individual free efficacy but, rather, as beings who value that individual freedom and consequently regard it as worthy of respect from others. One implication of this shift in the concept of individuality is that there is an important discontinuity in Fichte's deduction of original rights, insofar as that deduction purports to be a series of transcendental arguments that articulate the conditions of the possibility of self-consciousness for a finite rational being. Being an individual (in the sense of being aware of oneself as a discrete unit offree efficacy) is first set out as a condition of a rational being's self-consciousness, and then original rights ("the conditions of personhood") are derived as conditions of the possibility of such individuality. But, as we have seen, original rights can plausibly be understood as conditions of individuality only if individuality is understood in a richer sense that includes the awareness of oneself as having exclusive charge over a specified sphere of activity. This defect in Fichte's argument is responsible for his ending up at the highly implausible conclusion that a liberal political order governed by individual rights is necessary for subjects to achieve an awareness of themselves as discrete units of causal efficacy. This is not to say that original rights are completely unrelated to the concept of individuality with which Fichte begins but only that they cannot be understood as transcendental conditions of that individuality. Original rights ought not to be understood as those conditions that make it possible for individuals to become aware of themselves as discrete units of free efficacy but ought rather to be understood as principles that guarantee that the external world will be hospitable to the formal freedom involved in that concept of individualityin other words, as principles that structure the social world so as to allow for the realization and flourishing of individuals' free efficacy. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF FICHTE'S INNOVATION

Now that we have grasped the basic nature of the transformation undergone by Fichte's early political thought, it is time to inquire into its philosophical significance. We can best approach this topic by asking what considerations led Fichte to abandon moral subjectivity as the basis of right and to replace it with his conception of the person. We shall begin by examining the

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explanation Fichte himself gives for this change. It is at first glance a puzzling explanation, one that has been echoed by many commentators but not, I think, understood. 27 I shall argue that it is possible to make more sense of Fichte's explanation than is usually done and then go on to suggest a second reason for the change in his political theory. Fichte purports to establish the underivability of political theory from morality by appealing to a fundamental conceptual distinction between rights and moral duties. Principles that ascribe rights, he claims, are of a distinct logical type from those that prescribe duties, and this difference is sufficient to show that a theory of right must be independent of a moral theory. The basic point is that while moral laws command categoricallythey tell us what we must and may not do-rights merely permit; they provide us with prerogatives to act in particular ways but never command. us to act on those prerogatives: "A right is something one can avail oneself of, or not.... The principle of right [RechtsgesetzJ only permits but never commands that one exercise one's right" (III, pp. 13,54). Fichte's claim here is not that it is conceptually impossible to derive permissibility as such from a categorical ought. Such a claim would clearly be mistaken, since permissibility can be inferred in instances where the moral law is silent. 28 Fichte's point, rather, is that asserting a right to a particular action involves more than claiming that the deed is simply permissible; it includes the further claim that the possibility of such an action must be guaranteed to individuals by placing restrictions on the interfering actions of others: "The question 'Do I have a right?' does not mean 'May I?' but rather 'May someone prevent met ,,29 Fichte's argument, then, seen1S to be that while a categorical moral law is able to say "You must" and "You may not" (and therefore also "You may"), it lacks the logical resources to pronounce the very different assertion "You have a right." While Fichte is correct to distinguish rights from both duties and merely permissible actions, it remains unclear how this conceptual difference alone implies that rights cannot be derived from moral theory. To illustrate this objection we need only recall Fichte's earlier account of natural rights. There Fichte generated a set of constraints on the actions of others by considering what kinds of practical possibilities must be available to individuals if they are to be able to achieve moral autonomy. The spaces left open by these constraints on the actions of others constituted the natural rights of individuals. But Fichte's claim in 1796 is that this way of delineating a set of rights does not in fact yield rights at all. Our problem is to understand why he came to believe that his own earlier theory lacked the conceptual resources necessary for deriving natural rights. I believe that Fichte's later position can be understood only if we attend to a specific point made in one of the passages in which he elaborates on the distinction between rights and duties: "The moral law very often forbids the

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exercise of a right, which, however, ... does not therefore cease to be a right. In such a case one makes thejudgment: He surely had a right [to his action], but he ought not to have availed himself of it" (III, p. 54). What Fichte is pointing to here is the important fact that rights can permit actions that morality prohibits: Although I have the right to dispose of my property as I will, morality may require me to buy my jobless neighbor a meal in place of betting my money at the races. 30 The crucial point here is that if I have the right to dispose of my property in ways that conflict with what morality requires, then that right must be grounded in some principle other than the moral rectitude of the actions it permits. One's rights to those actions that morality condemns must be understood as serving some end other than that of moral autonomy, and it is an account of just this end that Fichte's conception of the person is supposed to provide. The rational justification of a political order founded on a system of original rights is based on the fact that such rights guarantee to citizens an exclusive sphere offree activity that is necessary in order for subjects to realize themselves as free individuals. The principles that govern the political realm, then, are to be understood as based upon a foundation distinct from that of morality, a foundation that might be formulated as the imperative "Foster the realization of free, selfconscious individuality!" Finding a new foundation for the theory of right in the concept of personhood enabled Fichte to explain how rights can pern1it actions ruled out by the moral law. But there is reason to believe that a second, more specific consideration also motivated this development: Deriving original rights from the co~~eption of the person gave Fichte the means to provide a firmer grounding of the right to private property than was available from his earlier perspective. It is difficult to see how a theory that derived natural rights from the requirements of a substantively self-determined will could establish on its own, without the concept of personhood, an inalienable right to private property.31 Fichte himself admitted as much in his theory of 1793, where he arrived at the conclusion that the right to property could be alienated both in part and as a whole (VI, p. 177). By 1796, however, Fichte had come to view individually owned property as essential to the realization of human subjectivity and as a central concern of a theory of right. We find this view, along with Fichte's new conception of the basic tasks of political theory, expressed in a set of notes written in 1795: "Property, contract, and the synthesis of both, civil society, are the principal objects of the theory of right.... What belongs to a deduction of property?"32 One year later Fichte answered this question by constructing a theory of original rights based upon the concept of personhood. If we conceive of private property, as Fichte does, as part of the sensible world that is "subordinated to [one's] ends" and "appropriated exclusively as the sphere of [one's] interaction" with that world (III, pp. 116,210), then

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it is not difficult to see how his conception of the person opens up the way to understanding private property as a necessary, inalienable right: If formal freedom is fully realized only in real, causally efficacious action, then the subjection of a part of the external world to one's subjective ends is necessary for the realization of one's personhood. Moreover, if the person is to be an individual, the part of the world subject to its ends must be exclusively its own, a sphere in which other individuals are prohibited by right from carrying out their own purposes. Hence, to surrender one's right to private property, or to live in a social order where no provisions for individual property exist, is to preclude the complete realization of one's subjectivity. What such an arrangement threatens, however, is not one's status as a moral, autonomous subject but one's existence as a self-conscious, formally free individual. 33 It should be clear by now how we are to understand Fichte's 1796 assertion that the theory of right is a "self-standing science" separate from moral philosophy: Right and morality are grounded in different first principles; or, in other words, the two realms aim at the realization of distinct conceptions of subjectivity-namely, the person (with its merely formal freedom) and the autonomous, or substantively self-determining, will. Attending exclusively to Fichte's separation of right from morality, however, leaves open the equally important 'question of what relationship, ifany, exists between the two fields (and hence between the two conceptions of subjectivity that ground them). This issue is especially significant in light of Fichte's view that the various branches of philosophy n1ust constitute a single, unified system. Given his fundamental commitment to the systematicity of philosophy, Fichte's characterization of right and ll10rality as separate realms cannot be his final word on the topic. Right and morality must also stand in some systematic relation to each other; the question is not whether such a relation exists but how it is to be understood. Are right and morality separate spheres that are systematically related only in the sense that their respective starting points ultimately derive from a single principle that stands above both (the absolutely first principle of philosophy, the "self-positing" and self-sufficient nature of all subjectivity)? On this view, the capacities for personhood and moral autonomy would constitute two independent and complementary conditions of the fully self-sufficient subjectivity that is set up as the first principle of Fichte's entire system. Or is the starting point of right distinguishable from but, at the same time, subordinate to that of morality in the sense that personhood is deduced in Fichte's system as a condition of moral autonomy itself? Resolving this issue is important not only for clarifying the architectonic of Fichte's system but also because it is bound up with a fundan1ental question that arises as a consequence of separating right from morality: What is the status of the principal value realized in the

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political realm (free individuality) with respect to the value of moral autonomy? Is the free individuality of persons valuable in itself, apart from its relationship to morality, or does it have value only because it in some way makes possible the capacity for moral self-determination? Despite Fichte's obsession with the topic of philosophical systematicity in general, he devotes remarkably little attention to the specific issue of how right and morality fit together within his system. 34 His most explicit statement on the topic- that the first principle of morality is "higher" than that of right (IV, p. 218)-suggests the second of the two possibilities sketched above-namely, that the concept of personhood is deduced as a transcendenta1.condition of moral autonomy. This view is also hinted at in Fichte's remark later in the Sittenlehre that formal freedom (a central element of personhood) is a necessary condition of moral action (IV, p. 276). It seems to me that the best way of spelling out how personhood might be seen as a condition of moral autonomy is to recall Fichte's emphasis on the notion of individuality when he discusses the systematic necessity of the concept of personhood: "The rational being cannot posit itself as such ... without positing itself as an individual, as one among several rational beings" (III, p. 8). If we recall, too, that "individual" here simply refers to a discrete unit of formally free agency, then it is not difficult to see individuality as a condition of moral autonomy. In order to engage in the kind of reasoning involved in testing the universalizability of one's maxims, the subject must be able to see its maxims and actions as its own (the maxims and actions of an individual agent) and be aware of itself as inhabiting a world made up of other like individuals. If we accept this account of the relationship between the individuality of persons and moral subjectivity, it is tempting to conclude that personhood is important to Fichte solely because of its status as a condition of moral autonon1y and that formally free individuality has no value independent of its relation to the mo~al sphere. On this view, right would be separate from morality in that its principles could be grasped without recourse to the concept ofa morally autonomous subject (the conception of the person would suffice), but the personhood realized by right would have value only because of the role it played in the achievement of moral autonomy. However, without denying that the subject's consciousness of itself as a formally free unit of agency is a condition of moral autonomy, I want to resist the conclusion that Fichte therefore must view the value of personhood (and the political realm) as simply derivative of moral value. Much of the apparent force behind this conclusion rests upon a misunderstanding of the relationship that exists between Fichte's principles of right and the kind of individuality presupposed by moral subjectivity (the awareness of oneself as a discrete unit of free efficacy). Even if the capacity for moral autonomy

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presupposes that subjects be constituted as individuals in this sense, it does not follow from this that the political realm itself is a condition of moral autonomy. I argued earlier that although the political realm could plausibly be seen as playing a formative role in the constitution of subjects as individuals who value their own formal freedom and regard that freedom as worthy of respect from others, it could not be understood as a condition of the awareness of oneself simply as an individual unit of free efficacy. Right is related to the latter concept of individuality not in the sense that it makes this kind of individual self-consciousness possible but in the sense that it defines a social world that allows for the realization and flourishing of such individuality. But the flourishing of this individual freedom is 'not itself a condition of the subject's moral autonomy, and its value therefore is not necessarily (or even plausibly) derived solely from its relation to moral autonomy. It is difficult to see, for example, how one could understand the necessity of a system of individual property rights, one of the "principal objects" of right, as based solely on the role such a system might play in the realization of moral subjectivity. I believe that the most compelling reading of Fichte's position is one that attributes to him the recognition that personhood (and its realization in the world through the realm of right) is an end in itself that can be understood as valuable independently of its relation to the moral sphere. 35 For the reasons suggested above, this interpretation makes most sense of the importance Fichte's theory of 1796 ascribes to the institution of private property. It is also strongly suggested by his insistence that "the concept [of right] has nothing to do with the moral law and is deduced without it" (III, p. 54). This interpretation does not exclude the possibility that some of the principles of right might also be necessarily bound up with the realization of individuals' moral autonomy and hence be deducible not only within a theory of right but from the higher standpoint of moral theory as well. 36 What it asserts, rather, is that any such connection would be irrelevant from the perspective of a theory of right and unnecessary for a political justification of such principles (and unnecessary as well for an appreciation of their value in furthering the free individuality of persons). Such a reading is required, it seems to me, if we are to take seriously Fichte's claim, made throughout the Grundlage des Naturrechts, that the necessity of right can be grasped without the'moral law and with reference solely to the conception of the person, the principle upon which the "self-standing science" of right is founded. One question raised by this interpretation is whether Fichte's system can accommodate a species of value that is not simply derivative of moral autonomy.37 I believe that it can and that this becon1.es apparent if we recall that the highest principle of Fichte's philosophy is not the substantively

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self-determining will of the n10ral sphere but a more general characterization of subjectivity expressed in terms of the self-sufficient, self-positing nature of all subjectivity. Moral autonomy is one, indeed the highest, form of selfsufficient, self-positing subjectivity, and therefore moral value represents the highest value for Fichte. I t does not follow from this, however, that there are no values independent of morality, or that other forms of subjectivity have value only insofar as they further moral autonomy. Theoretical subjectivity (knowing the world) and the exercise of personhood are also forms of self-positing subjectivity and, I am claiming, are therefore valuable in themselves, even if they do not represent the highest degree of the subject's self-sufficiency, which is attainable only in moral self-determination. In less Fichtean terms, personhood is valuable in itself because it involves a kind of self-determination (the formal freedom of individuals), which, though a less adequate form of self-determination than moral autonomy, remains nonetheless a species of freedom. I t may be objected that this interpretation of the relationship between right and morality (and between personhood and moral autonomy) commits the error of reading Fichte through Hegelian lenses. I believe it would be more accurate, however, to say that on this issue Hegel was an especially sensitive reader of his predecessor, and that he realized, perhaps more clearly than Fichte himself sometimes did, the implications of Fichte's most important contribution to practical philosophy: the separation of right from morality.

NOTES

I would like to express my thanks to the partIcIpants of the Duquesne Fichte Conference and to Stephen Engstrom, Raymond Geuss, Michael Hardimon, John Rawls, David Weberman, and Allen Wood for their helpful comments and criticism. 1. I shall use the term "right" to mean roughly the same thing as Fichte's term "Recht." There is no single English equivalent for Recht, which can refer to (1) law, (2) rights in a narrower sense (natural or legal), or (3) principles and institutions of the political sphere more generally, including the foundations of political community as articulated in social contract theory. I shall use "theory of right" interchangeably with "political theory." 2. This phrase (vollige Trennung) comes from Ludwig Siep, "Wandlungen in Fichtes Gesellschaftslehre," Philosophische Rundschau 26, nos. 1-2 (1979): p. 122. 3. The full title is Beitriige zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publikums uber die franzosische Revolution (Contributions toward Correcting the Public's Judgment of the French Revolution) . . \ 4. References are to Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte (hereafter SW) (see page

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8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

13.

14.

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235). This passage refers to SW, VI, pp. 111-13. See especially p. 112, where Fichte warns us not to "step out of the boundaries of natural right into those of morality." SW, VI, p. 83. Willkiir might also be translated as "arbitrary will." All translations from the German are my own. In this important respect Fichte's earliest conception of natural rights diverges from more well-known accounts, such as Locke's, in which certain natural rights (e.g., the right to enforce the law of nature) may-indeed must-be alienated upon entering civil society. SW, VI, p. 60. This way of proceeding already indicates one important sense in· which morality is prior to right: The moral law delimits the sphere of all rights (alienable and inalienable) by means of the notion of the morally permissible, "das durch die Vernunft Freigelassene" (p. 83). "To say that I have a right to be free and to do my duty means only that ... no one has a right to hinder me from doing such" (SW, VI, p. 61). I ignore here the question of which specific social institutions would carry out this task of Bildung. Parenthetical references in the text cite volume and page numbers of Fichtes Werke (SW) (see page 235). "Eine eigene, fur sich bestehende Wissenschaft" (SW, III, p. 10). SW, III, p. 8. To say that the subject "posits" itself as X is to say that it is conscious of itself as X and that this self-consciousness is (at least in part) constitutive of its being X; being aware of oneself as an individual is a necessary part of being an individual. For a more complete account of the notion of self-positing, see ch. 3 of my book Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). SW, III, pp. 43, 112. I claim that "formal freedom" is equivalent to the "formal self-determination" that Fichte discusses in the Sittenlehre (Doctrine ofMorals). For an extended discussion of Fichte's distinction between formal and substantive self-determination, see my Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity, ch. 4. "Das Bilden des Begriffes von einer vorgesetzten Wirksamkeit auBer uns, oder von einem Zwecke" (SW, III, p. 19). He alludes to the spontaneous nature of this capacity on p. 8. This facet ofFichte's view of the person's freedom is not always apparent, but it is clearly expressed in passages such as the one at SW, III, p. 51: "Being free constitutes my essential character. But what does it mean to be free? Obviously, being able to carry out the concept of one's actions." See §§5, 11 of the Grundlage des Naturrechts. On my interpretation this follows from Fichte's view of the "self-positing" character of subjectivity in general. See my Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity, ch. 3. This point is hinted at in the Sittenlehre (SW, IV, p. 254). Variations of this phrase occur throughout the Grundlage des Naturrechts: SW, III, pp. 46, 51, 56. For example, original rights do not guarantee that individuals will in fact be efficacious agents; they guarantee that the external social conditions that make such efficacy possible will obtain. Notice that on this view being treated as a person does not imply that one is a (fully realized) person. This view is expressed in Fichte's statements that original rights constitute the conditions of personality. That the second class is intended to ground the rights of personal property is

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made clearer in Fichte's discussion of the requirements of personhood in the Sittenlehre (SW, IV, pp. 282ff.). Two doctrines of the Grundlage des Naturrechts seem to work against my interpretation: (1) Fichte often claims (e.g., SW, III, p. 9) that a theory of right can only establish what a community of free, rational individuals must look like if such a community were to exist; it cannot show that such a community ought to be. This claim is associated with his view that the decision to become a member of political society (not just a particular society, but political society in general) is wholly a matter of Willkiir. But if living in a political community governed by the rules of right is required, as my interpretation claims, for the self-consciousness of individuality, and if such self-consciousness is an essential part of being a person, then, contrary to some of Fichte's assertions, it no longer seems to be a matter of arbitrary choice whether or not we enter such a political order. (2) It is possible to conclude from the Grundlage des Naturrechts (§3) that the form of intersubjectivity required for the person's self-consciousness is not right but Erziehung (upbringing or education) and that the concept of right simply specifies how such educated individuals must arrange their relations to one another if they are to exist together. The second objection can be met by pointing out that Erziehung is invoked to account only for the possibility of ascribing free efficacy to oneself. Although this crucial point is obscured in the text, the role of right and the recognition involved therein are brought in to explain the possibility of the awareness of one's individuality in the sense of having a defined, exclusive sphere of freedom that is recognized as such by other like beings. The free efficacy associated with Erziehungis merely one component of this individuality, and therefore it does not exhaust the set of conditions of the person's self-consciousness. (I am less sure how to reconcile my interpretation with the first objection, beyond saying that I find the view on which the objection is based to be [IJ one of the least plausible features of Fichte's theory of right, and [2J inconsistent with another of Fichte's central assertions treated below-namely, that the concept of right is "an original concept of pure reason" that specifies a necessary condition of a rational subject's self-consciousness.) Fichte's treatment of recognition and intersubjectivity is considerably more complex than my discussion here. I have limited myself to those aspects of his view that are both directly relevant to themes of this essay and supportable by plausible arguments. SW, III, p. 46. This point is said to follow from "the concept of individuality." My argument here ignores the inherently reciprocal nature of recognition. My statement claims that a recognized individual (A) must regard its recognizer (B) as free; it ignores that further Fichtean point that A must also recognize (i.e., treat) B as an individual. E.g., Luc Ferry, "The Distinction between Law and Ethics in the Early Philosophy ofFichte," trans. William James Earle, Philosophical Forum 19 (Winter-Spring 1987-1988): p. 183. Hansjiirgen Verweyen is one commentator who expresses doubt about the soundness of Fichte's reasoning, but he does not explore this issue in detail. See his Recht und Sittlichkeit in J. G. Fichtes Gesellschaftslehre (Freiburg: Alber, 1975), pp. 94-95. In his earliest writings Fichte explicitly acknowledges this point, insofar as he recognizes a class of actions that are morally permissible but not morally required (e.g., SW, VI, pp. 58, 60, 318-19). By 1795 Fichte had come to hold the

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highly implausible view that, morally speaking, there are no merely permissible actions. (See J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissensclzaften [hereafter GAJ [see page 235J, II, 3, p. 405; also SW, IV, p. 264.) This change in his position, however, does not affect the conceptual point made here-namely, that it is logically possible to derive mere permissibility from a categorical ought. GA, II, 3, p. 396; see also p. 399. Although particular ways of exercising my rights may conflict with moral demands, it would be incorrect to say that the requirements of personhood come into conflict with those of morality. Personhood requires only that I be free (have the option) to bet my money on the horses, not that I actually do so. Although the Sittenlehre establishes a positive moral duty to acquire property, it does so only via the concept of personhood and the moral duty to realize one's formal freedom (SW, IV, p. 276 and §23, throughout). GA, II, 3, p. 406. It is important to note that this defense of private property is not necessarily a defense of capitalist property relations. This part of Fichte's doctrine does not address what kinds of things may be owned by individuals, and hence it leaves open the possibility that the means of production may not be among them. See, for example, Fichte's division (Einteilung) of philosophy into its various subfields (GA, 1,2, p. 151), where he divides practical philosophy into right and morality but fails to articulate the relationship between them. Thus, my interpretation diverges from that of Alain Renaut, who argues that right is independent of morality with respect to its functioning-civil laws do not require goodwill or moral sensibility- but is "subordinated to the categorical imperative" with respect to "its value." See Le systeme du droit: Philosophie et droit dans la pensee de Fichte (Paris: PDF, 1986), p. 250. See, for example, Fichte's arguments in the Sittenlehre that belonging to a state and acquiring property are also moral duties (SW, IV, pp. 292, 300). Verweyen raises this question (p. 90) and answers it in the negative. In regarding this as a problem for Fichte's 1796 position, Verweyen implicitly agrees with my interpretation of the Grundlage des Naturrechts as implying a species of value that is not simply derivative of moral autonomy.

10

Leibniz and Fichte JEAN GRONDIN

So war vielleicht Leibnitz iiberzeugt, und der einige Uberzeugte in der Geschichte der Philosophie. - J. G. Fichte

The notion of the I is certainly the first that comes to mind when one thinks of Fichte. The I functions for Fichte as the ultimate reference point of reality or action and thus as the starting point of philosophy. However, this concept of the I remains intriguing, and it has been problematic in more recent philosophical discussions, primarily on two counts. The analytic tradition soberly claimed that the I, after all, is nothing more than the first-person singular in the grammar of some languages, and that some other linguistic cultures do not even have such a grammatical form. Ernst Tugendhat thus distinguishes "ich," which is a mere grammatical subject, from capitalized "Ich," which he believes is a mere fiction that one never actually encounters. l On the Continental side, the recent trend of deconstructivism claimed that the I or the human subject was a mere invention,2 a fiction typical of the Enlightenment and its stress on the autonomy of the human self, a manifestation that would have faded in the wake of discoveries by, say, authors like Marx or Freud of what lies beyond the human mind, to say nothing of its fate in the face of behaviorism, whose perhaps unintended result is to cast doubt on the notions of human dignity and freedom. My aim here is not to discuss those criticisms of the hypostasis of the I that stem from either the analytic or the Continental current of philosophy. Fichte was admittedly the first philosopher to speak so enthusiastically and

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prominently of the I, to the point of defining everything non-human through the almost "psychotic" formula of the "not-I." The emergence of the I as a philosophical subject in Fichte's work is so sudden, as it appears for instance in the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1 794), that one has to inquire whether it has any meaningful predecessors in the philosophical tradition. The scope of my essay will be limited to this search for a philosophical precedent to Fichte, in order to find out what type of theoretical necessity led Fichte to such a hypostasis of the I. Th'e two philosophers that first come to mind might be Kant and Descartes. It is questionable, however, whether Kant or Descartes conceived of the I as Fichte did. Even though Kant, in the rather obscure transcendental deduction of his Critique of Pure Reason, put forward the hypothesis of a transcendental "I think" to account for synthetic a priori cognitions in Newtonian physics, he was quick to point out in his Paralogisms that a metaphysical knowledge of this I could not be obtained; he even called into question, in almost Freudian fashion, the idea that it was actually an I that was active at the root of thinking. He wrote: "Through this I, or He, or It (the thing), which thinks, one cannot represent anything more than a transcendental subject of thought that is equal to an X, which can only be known through the thoughts that are its predicates and of which, if we abstract from those thoughts, we don't have the slightest concept.,,3 The "I think," he states ironically, is "the whole text" of rational psychology. In other words, Kant challenges all philosophers to say something scientific about the psyche besides the "I think" that accompanies every process of representation. This led Kant, in his architectonic of pure reason, to exclude rational psychology from the realm of pure sciences and to replace it with empirical psychology. In spite of the view he is reputed to hold, it is also debatable whether Descartes was such a great champion of the I, or the ego. When Descartes stated his first certitude, "I think, I am," in which the I seems so prominent; the Latin he used in his Meditations enabled him to avoid speaking of an ego. "Cogito, sum" is Descartes's first certitude. The stress lies much more, one can surmise, on the activity of the cogito than on any underlying ego as such, so much so that when Descartes goes about describing what this ego is, he finds nothing better to say than that it is a "thing that thinks," a res cogitans. Descartes's aim, I believe, is to ground science on this rigor of the thinking process and on the evidence of methodically articulated, clear and distinct ideas that impose themselves upon thinking. One could argue that in this process of grounding science the individual ego as such is merely incidental, since the order of reasons can be reproduced by any subjectivity. Thus, one would be hard-pressed to find any metaphysics of the ego in Descartes or in Kant.

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If a more immediate parallel to Fichte's conception can be sorted out, it might very well be found in Leibniz. My thesis here will be that Leibniz's conception of the monad is in many ways the true philosophical antecedent both ofFichte's notion of the I and of its essential ambiguities. As a matter of fact, Leibniz was probably the first philosopher to speak in explicit terms of a "Moi," which is the model on which the Fichtean notion of the Ich is built. Leibniz uses this notion, for instance, in §30 of his Monadology: It is also through the knowledge of necessary truths, and through their abstract expression, that we rise to acts of re.flexion, which make us think of what is called I [Moi, a word Leibniz emphasizes], and observe that this or that is within us: and thus, thinking of ourselves, we think of being, of substance, of the simple and the compound, of the immaterial, and of God Himself, conceiving that what is limited in us 'is in Him without limits. 4 What is striking is not only the fact that Leibniz uses the term "Moi," but that he sees it as a consequence of our "actes rijiexijs," that is, of our process of reflection. This sounds very Fichtean indeed. Fichte constantly stressed that the I can only be attained through a process of reflection. "Look into yourself," Fichte often exhorts his readers, "to discover the I at the root of all reflection."s This is by no means the only significant parallel between Fichte and Leibniz. In a broader perspective, there are in fact two major similarities in the philosophical endeavors of Leibniz and Fichte. On the one hand, they are both committed to a version of systematic philosophy that is rigorously deductive in character, the avowed aim of Leibniz's characteristica universalis and of a philosophical project revolving for Fichte around the programmatic title of a Wissenschaftslehre. On the other hand, they both hope to accomplish this metaphysical project by relying on an absolute, self-sufficient, but also reflective subject, the monad (Leibniz) or the I (Fichte). It is also important to note that for Fichte and Leibniz, the notion of the absolute monad or the I is required for purely philosophical reasons. They sought a notion that would serve as an absolute beginning to a philosophical system; neither sought to identify, say, this or that monad, this individual I as opposed to that one. This is so much the case that it remains difficult to single out the precise concretion of what Fichte calls the I and Leibniz calls the monad. Both the monad and the I are defined by what is needed for a philosophical starting point, without any reference to any particular sort of individual that would exemplify it. What is a monad for Leibniz? Is an atom or a cell a monad? Is a human being, or only his or her soul, a monad? It is not always clear. The same phenomenological ambiguity applies, of course, to Fichte's I. One of the great unresolved problems of Fichte scholarship is

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the precise referential meaning of this I. Does he envision every human being as an I, or the whole of humanity, or does he envision merely some kind of "transcendental" I opposed to the "empirical" one; or even a trans-human subject; or does he, perhaps, envision just a philosophical construct, as he at times seems to suggest?6 This ambiguity, as we all know, is not unrelated to the charge of being an atheist that was laid against Fichte. These ambiguities won't be resolved in this essay, but it is clear that Fichte reproduces the ambiguity of the Leibnizean monad, which also appears to be equated with divinity in various texts (for example, in §47 of Monadology). Fichte and Leibniz thus invite us to go back to some monad or to the I to understand the whole of reality. Reality is understood in both instances from a binary, antithetic perspective: The monad represents what is simple in the world as opposed to what is complex, composed of simple monadS'; Fichte opposes the I to the not-I. In both cases, what is second is defined by its derivative stature in relation to what is claimed to be primordial, the simple subject or substrate. In both cases, the dichotomy can be said to account for the whole of reality, albeit in very primitive terms; but primitivity is more often than not a virtue in philosophy: All that is not the I belongs to the not-I, and everything complex must be composed ultimately of simple units, whatever they might be (an ambiguity, it is worth repeating, that neither Fichte nor Leibniz will lift on a purely empirical basis). What can be said further of the monad or the I? We will follow Leibniz and see how his insights were reproduced by Fichte. After claiming that monads are the simple elements or atoms of all things, Leibniz argued that they were not subject to generation or corruption. If "corruption" means "decomposition into component parts," it simply cannot occur in the case of monads, since they are characterized by their non-composed nature. Leibniz concludes that, thus, monads can only begin or cease to exist through an act of divine creation or annihilation. It is precisely in the context of this refutation of monads' generation or corruption that Leibniz made his famous statement that "monads have no windows" (§7), for to have a window would entail that something could enter the monad from the outside and alter it. If this were the case, the monad would not be simple. Hence, the monad is characterized by the virtue of autarchy, or autonomy. Every alteration of the monad must come from within. Leibniz states this very acutely: "It follows from what has just been said, that the natural changes of the Monads come from an internal principle, since an external cause can have no influence upon their inner being."7 Leibniz is not an eleatic Parmenidian: He argues that the single monad cannot be altered from the outside, but he has to account for the movement or evolution of the monad. This presents Leibniz with an enigma: How can something that is simple change, evolve, or become something else, all the

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while, of course, without ceasing to be the single monad that it is or was? Presupposing that change implies plurality, Leibniz states the problem in the following terms: How can one allow for a plurality of relations in something that has no parts? Leibniz answers his own query by saying that this multiplicity in unity is precisely what one calls "perception." Perception, then, must be the first essential determinant of the monad. This account of perception is very particular, but nevertheless essential to Leibniz's project and to our present understanding of Fichte's secret debt to Leibniz. We would now normally tend to conceive of perception as the sensory grasp of something that is outside us, say, the visual perception of this piece of paper. Not so for Leibniz. Remember that the monad does not enjoy windows through which to contemplate any so-called outside world. Perception remains thoroughly immanent to the monad and is destined to solve a purely metaphysical problem, that is, the puzzle of the pertaining unity of the monad throughout the multiplicity of its modifications. The parallel to Fichte is particularly striking here. We find, I contend, an echo to this Leibnizean understanding of perception as the unity in multiplicity in Fichte's understanding of perception as an immanent "synthesis" in the realm of the ego, as evidenced by the dense argument of the Grundriss des Gigenthumlichen der Wissenschaftslehre (1795). Readers often took offense at Fichte's thoroughly immanent understanding of perception, as if the I created the not-I within itself, to recall a pervasive caricature of Fichte's position (which, like all caricatures, carried its load of exaggeration but also a token of truth). It is likely that Fichte was confronted with the same metaphysical puzzle as Leibniz. If the I is to be established as a starting point, so autonomous and independent that it does not need "windows," every reality attributed to the not-I will have to stem from the I itself. The sphere of the not-I will, consequently, have to be opened up by the I in order to manifest itself as alterity.8 What Leibniz calls "perception as the multiplicity in unity" is what Fichte contemplates under the "synthetic activity of the I." We note that our "usual" conception of perception, that is, the sensory grasp of something foreign to us, is alien to the metaphysical problem of Leibniz and Fichte; both are content with an immanent account of the I as a starting point that will unravel within itself the realm of alterity. Perception is not the only essential attribute of the monad for Leibniz. It does offer an explanation' of sorts fOf the existence of change (equated with multiplicity) within the monad; but one could ask, in the true Leibnizean order of reasons: Why would there have to be anything like "change" for a monad? Another principle than that of perception is here called for. Surely, this principle cannot be situated outside the monad. It can only be an inner principle of action. It is this principle that Leibniz, who has the reputation of being a rationalist, calls "appetition" ("appetite"). Again, appetite for Leibniz

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is not appetite in our vulgar understanding of the word, in which appetite is a drive directed toward something exterior, like good wine, the end of this essay, and so on. For Leibniz, appetite has the metaphysical function of explaining the passage from one perception of the monad to another (see Monadology, §15). This appetite is ultimately a drive toward perfection, that is, toward a more integral realization of what the monad truly is. This is why Leibniz resuscitates the Aristotelian notion of "entelecheia" to characterize the essential appetite of the monad, that is, a drive directed toward the realization of its own essence. One cannot resist the temptation to find an echo of this central notion of appetite at the heart of Fichte's philosophy, namely, in his famous notion of the Triebcharakter (drive character) of the I. The I is characterized by an inner drive, a Streben (striving), to realize fully its own potentialities. This notion played an important role in the enthusiastic reception that Fichte's early philosophy received. The I senses the inner tendency to liberate itself from the intricacies of the not-I, or alienation, in order to approach ever more closely a realization of the virtualities of its autonomy. This appetite for a perfection that can only come from within could also be a hidden Leibnizean heritage in Fichte. For one thing, it accounts for the unity of the practical and the theoretical subject for Fichte. As is well known, Kant separated the sphere of knowledge from that of the will and assigned them to two different branches of philosophy. Fichte successfully overcame this distinction by incorporating the idea of a Trieb within the activity of the thinking subject. The thinking self does not leave its appetite at the front door, so to speak; some kind of Trieb or appetite remains the driving force behind every successful step away from the not-I. It could very well be that Fichte went beyond Kant's dichotomy of the theoretical and the practical, but he did so by going back to the foundations of Leibnizean monadology, in which perception and appetite formed an interwoven whole as the determining characteristic of what the I, understood as a monad, essentially represents. In a nutshell, just as perception requires an appetite for its own perception, so for Fichte the synthesis accomplished by the I flows from a drive toward the fulfillment of the potencies of the I. Let's conclude this brief survey of the metaphysical kinship between Fichte and Leibniz by alluding again to their common ambiguity. What, ultimately, is the I or the monad? Are these merely anthropomorphic categories? Certainly, Leibniz and Fichte were tempted by this anthropological reading of what can count as the basic, sirpple element of reality. The humanistic connotations of their main metaphysical concepts bear witness to this (how can one conceive, for instance, of a monad like a piece of rock that would be defined by perception and appetite?). But they were both aware that it was risky to enthrone the human being in such a primary position. Consequently, both

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Leibniz and Fichte resorted at times to a more theological reading of the primary subject they were philosophizing about. In almost poetic fashion, Leibniz spoke of the individual monads as "fulgurations" of God as the single underlying monad: "Thus God alone is the primary or original simple substance, of which all created or derivative Monads are products and have their birth, so to speak, through continual fulgurations of the Divinity from moment to moment, limited by the receptivity of the created being whose essence is to have limits."g Ultimately, this limitation, of which Fichte and Leibniz were keenly aware, requires a transcendence of the merely anthropomorphic. It is no accident that the author of the Monadology also wrote a Theodicee, and no accident either that Fichte vigorously defended himself against the charge of being an atheist, claiming at times, if not consistently, that the absolute I he envisioned was nothing but God. This theological outcome of his philosophy was certainly radicalized in his later work, as recent scholarship has recalled. More important, perhaps, is the fact that this ambiguity pertaining to the precise nature of the absolute was never resolved after all. The philosopher can only clain1 or postulate that one needs a single subject, a monad, to account for the compository nature of beings; or that some kind of subject, or I, is required at the bottom of what is experienced as not-I, or alienation. Surely, one can counter the somewhat anthropocentric bent of modern thought by claiming that the I is but a grammatical subject and by arguing that the positioning of man as an absolute beginning is something very recent. However, Fichte and Leibniz were certainly aware of the danger of positioning man as central. Neither ever identified an empirical instance of metaphysical notions he deemed central to the pursuit of philosophical wisdom. What they clearly saw was that a monad or some kind of I is necessary for any rigorous philosophy that strives toward an absolute beginning. One can claim, as is common in contemporary philosophy, that one can best do without such an underlying foundation. That might very 'well be, but what Fichte and Leibniz can remind us of is that we are thus doing away with the traditional quest of philosophy. The somewhat elusive character of their most essential metaphysical concepts is to a certain degree also apparent in the absence of any definitive formulation of the philosophical systen1s of either Leibniz or Fichte. Even though they were both resolutely devoted, as suggested earlier, to the elaboration of a systematic philosophy, neither Leibniz nor Fichte seemed to give any real importance to creating a final written exposition of such a system. Fichte published countless introductions and groundworks to his Wissenschaftslehre, which he never ceased to rethink and rework until his death. One would be hard-pressed to single out any of these as the definitive account of his systematic thought. This is also true for Leibniz. What could count as his

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major work? The Theodicee? The Nouveaus essais, which he himself did not publish? The Monadology, which he also left unpublished? It is well known that Leibniz also kept redrawing the lines of his own system of monadological metaphysics and was never satisfied with the written versions-very few of which he published-that he offered of it. I t is fascinating to observe that Fichte perceived here one of the strengths of Leibniz's philosophical approach. At the end of his eloquent "Second Introduction to the Doctrine of Science" (1 797), Fichte reflects on the inner conviction that philosophers have of their own philosophies. He reaches the stunning c~nclusion that Leibniz was blessed with such a conviction of the inner truth of his system and was "perhaps the only example of it in the history of philosophy." 10 In Fichte's eyes, Leibniz was so convinced of his philosophy that he never bothered about its written expression. His "freedom of mind" in this regard was such that he must have been one of the prime examples of a sort of philosophical conviction with which Fichte clearly identifies himself. It is worth pointing out that Fichte praised Leibniz on this account just after he denied such conviction to Spinoza or even to Kant. One can easily guess why Fichte would dispute Kant's inner philosophical conviction. In Fichte's view, Kant remained too much attached to the letter of his own system, so much so that he even failed to recognize in Fichte the true spiritual heir of his transcendental philosophy. The kinship between Fichte and Leibniz must thus be interpreted against the background of the debate, initiated by Fichte, on the letter and the spirit of the Kantian philosophy. In order to save Kant's system, Fichte had to depart from its literal formulation and to undertake a new formulation of its spirit in the guise of his Wissenschaftslehre. It is important to recall that, at the time, the spirit of Kant's philosophical revolution was pretty much up for grabs. Kant's contemporaries encountered immense difficulties in sorting out his ultimate philosophical goals: Did he want to destroy metaphysics (as he actually did in his transcendental dialectic) or to save it (as claimed in the Critique as well as in the Prolegomena)? Did he identify with rationalism (of the Leibnizean sort, for instance) or with some form of Humean skepticism? As early as 1785, Mendelssohn expressed the uncertainties of the epoch when he spoke of Kant as an "ailes zermalmenden" thinker, as one "who crushes everything." Soon thereafter, Jacobi developed the notion of "nihilism" to justify the leap into faith that would free the human spirit from' the skeptical doubts of human reason. Clearly, after Kant one wondered if philosophy had any future (even if this "nihilistic" reading ran counter to Kant's true intentions).ll In this atmosphere of philosophical uncertainty, which happened to occur during a politically revolutionary time, Fichte's historical merit and courage

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consisted in reworking the philosophical foundations of transcendental philosophy in order to save the spirit of the Kantian system. In his rethinking of the Kantian spirit, Fichte certainly had to draw heavily on the "pre-Critical" systems of metaphysics that still determined the paradigm of what philosophy ought to strive for. Arguably, the last major philosophical system before Kant's was Leibniz's. It obviously constituted, even if through less important intermediaries, the mold of thought in which both Kant and Fichte were formed. According to the leading hypothesis of this essay, Fichte extended the Leibnizean line of metaphysical thinking in his own Wissenschaftslehre, thus demonstrating the continuity of Kant's own philosophical system with the earlier quest of philosophy. He thus helped philosophers surmount a momentary crisis of self-confidence and reaffirmed the age-old claim that there is a prima philosophia.

NOTES

1. See, for instance, E. Tugendhat, Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1979). 2. The prime example of this deconstructivist reading of man is to be found in M. Foucault, Les mots et les choses (Paris: Gallimard, 1966). 3. I. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, A346/B404. 4. Monadology, §30, trans. R. Latta (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 234 ("c'est aussi par la connaissance des verites necessaires et par leurs abstractions que nous sommes eleves aux actes reflexifs, qui nous font penser a ce qui s'appelle Moi, et a considerer que ceci ou cela est en nous: et c'est ainsi qu'en pensant a nous, nous pensons a l'Etre, a la substance, au simple et au compose, a l'immateriel et aDieu meme"). 5. See, for instance, J. G. Fichte Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (1797), in Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte (hereafter SW) (see page 235), I, p. 521ff., especially p. 523: "Beides sonach, der Begriff eines in sich zuuckkehrenden Denkens, und der Begriff des Ich, erschopfen sich gegenseitig." 6. See SW, I, p. 515: "Das Ich ist in dieser Gestalt nur fur den Philosophen, und dadurch, daB man es erfaBt, erhebt man sich zur Philosophie." 7. Monadology, §11, trans. Latta, p. 223 ("II s'ensuit de ce que nous venons de dire, que les changements naturels des monades viennent d'us principe interne, puisqu'une cause externe ne saurait influer dans son interieur"). 8. See, for example, J. G. Fichte, SW, I, p. 172. 9. Monadology, §47, trans. Latta, pp. 243-44 ("Ainsi Dieu seul est l'unite primitive, ou la substance simple originaire, dont toutes les Monades creees ou derivatives sont des productions, et naissent, pour ainsi dire, par des Fulgurations continuelles de la Divinite de moment en moment, bornees par la receptivite de la creature, a laquelle il est essentiel d'etre limitee").

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10. SW, I, p. 515 (also in Fickte: Science ofKnowledge [Wissenschaftslehre), ed. and trans. P. Heath and]. Lachs [New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1970J, p. 83). 11. I have stressed the metaphysical outcome of Kant's philosophy in Kant et le probleme de la philosophie: L'a priori (Paris: Vrin, 1989) and in Emmanuel Kant (Paris: Criterion, 1991).

11 The Wissenschaftslehre of1801-1802 MICHAEL G. VATER

Fichte spent the early months of 1802 putting his notes from the autumn 1801 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre into publishable form (Presentation ofthe Science of Knowing) 1801-1802).1 He had apparently formed a plan to rework his system in the closing days of 1800. Disputes with his sometime disciple Schelling (which the latter initiated by assigning a positive role to nature in his System of Transcendental Idealism and which was exacerbated by frank comments in letters on both sides) forced Fichte to alter the external shape of the Wissenschaftslehre he had offered in lectures fron1 1796 to 1799. The Wissenschaftslehre had been conceived as a practical-theoretical whole. In the reworking of 1801-1802, a "System of the Spiritual World" was added (presumably this is the untitled, second part of the Presentation) in order to insure that the final individuation of the subject is secured by ethical agency alone, within the spiritual context of a community of ends and agents, and not by the concretion and materialization that mark the natural processes. 2 Fichte's edited manuscript shows him in command of a clear idea of his difference with Schelling on the status of nature: Spirit, its agency, its individuality, its moral responsibility, are for him supervenient upon natural being, but toto caelo different from it and hence irreducible to it. For Schelling, however, the conscious process is but a repetition on a higher level (Potenz) of the activities deployed and synthesized in the construction of space and matter. The Presentation manuscript, with its harsh digressions on the dangers of the "new Spinozism," shows an equally sharp appreciation on Fichte's part of the inadequacies of Schelling's logic of indifference. ,With his Darstellung meines Systems (1801), Schelling attempted to explain the relation between the absolute and appearance as ultimate non-difference, Indifferenz. Fichte adamantly rejects this pantheistic turn, though he is not able to offer a clear alternative to it, preferring to stick with the insoluble Spinozistic problem of "deducing" the undeducible conditions of finitude.

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Despite these conceptual advances, the 1801-1802 Wissenschaftslehre fails to resolve the weightiest conflict that surfaces in letters between Fichte and Schelling from November 1800 to October 1801, the question of whether philosophy in the transcendental tradition must originate from a Sein (being) or from a Sehen (seeing). Fichte begins the new Wissenschaftslehre with a resolve to explore the domain of knowing alongside, but dissociated from, the absolute. He acknowledges that knowing includes a being, which, within knowing, is counterpoised to freedom, but this is just a being-ly element within knowing, and not to be identified with the absolute, which stands off by itself alone, unrelated. Plainly Fichte intends to produce an idealistic philosophy, not a realism. 3 Yet by the end of the manuscripfs second part, Fichte invokes an unintelligible, indescribable determination by "absolute being" as the final ground of factical determination; being both individuates and harmonizes the monadologically organized spirit-world. 4 Has Fichte been drawn into Schelling's view that the system-principle must be a being, not a mere seeing? Is the idealism of the Wissenschaftslehre, its grand vision of sight seeing itself, intelligence understanding itself as its own ground, here compromised in favor of some metaphysical antinature or transcendent city of God? The manuscript indicates Fichte loosening his grip on his hitherto basic concern with freedom both as the foundation of metaphysics and as an interpretation of human agency. The Fichte of 1801-1802 is a Spinozist, though some Leibnizean nostalgia for the spiritual is evidenced by the reintroduction of Kantian moral dualism; the intelligence that empirically perceives human agency as sequences of acts and effects also thinks them as corresponding acts of will. This Fichte seems a far cry from the thinker of 1794 who rescued transcendental idealism and mobilized it for the defense of freedom by rejecting the thing-in-itself. In this paper I shall direct attention to three areas of disagreement between Fichte and Schelling in 1801-1802: (1) the status of being in idealistic philosophy, (2) the standing nature has within a transcendental account .of human knowing, and (3) the nature of intellectual intuition and the sort of logic, differential or nondifferential, that links human consciousness to the absolute. Before these topics can be directly addressed, some account of the Presentation must be furnished. Fichte's inability to ready the edited lectures of 1801 for publication in 1802 and his two-year lag in sizing up his own standing in the eyes of his self-appointed improvers, the brethren of the Critical Journal, kept the philosophic public from timely knowledge of their contents. Space will permit only an overview of what Fichte calls the first synthesis; the nature of this synthesis leads directly into Fichte's disagreements with Schelling and Hegel.

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THE FIRST SYNTHESIS

The Method of the Science of Knowing Fichte begins with a description of the concept of Wissenschaflslehre. Knowing is formally defined as intuition, a unifying overview, a comprehension of a manifold of presentation (SW, II, pp. 6-7, 21).5 Wissenschaftslehre is "knowing of knowing," the unitary comprehension of all possible intuitions, one in-seeing gaze; it is not a compilation of propositions or a systematization of different concrete knowledges (SW, II, p. 12). It is not the object of knowing, but the form of knowing: "[I]t is our tool, our hand, our foot, our eye, not even our eye, but just the clarity of the eye" (SW, II, p. 10).

The Possibility of Synthesis After this prefatory bit of conceptual analysis, the Wissenschaftslehre unfolds as transcendental analysis offive (possibly six) syntheses, one packed inside the other like Chinese boxes. Synthesis has material and formal aspects; it is a synthesis of contradictory elements in order to comprehend their togetherness. The first and most general synthesis (the outermost box) comprehends knowing in all its generality.6 There is no generation of this highest synthesis, as in the three originary positings of the Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge (1 794); only transcendental or possibilistic explanations are proffered. 7 The first and comprehensive synthesis, knowledge in general, is possible materialiter because of incompatible elements furnished by the lower syntheses it contains. Opposites branch out underneath it like the root system supporting the photosynthesis and respiration of the visible plant. This pattern of a material integration of direct opposites continues through the subsyntheses or nested boxes. The elements of the last synthesis or inmost box are as contradictory as those of the first; the members of the ethical order are potentially antagonistic individual agent~. Each is both I and world, hence the sole concretion of freedom. But the I appears as already broken into a coordinated plurality of wills, each constrained to perceive the same world and act upon it according. to some general or social agenda. Both its individuality and its coordination into a harmonized order are founded on an ultimate facticity, a determination from without. The appearance of the I as individual will is an unintelligible limitation, says Fichte, for all explanation n1ust stop in this idea of a closed system of inteiligences, each determined to its unique but coordinated point of view by an absolute being or God (SW, II, pp. 152-53). The I ultimately confronts the "that" of its plurality, sociality, and extrinsic determination; knowing rests qn these ultimate hard facts (apparently unified into an onto-theological postulate). Wissenschaflslehre

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can advance to this point in thought, but there it must abandon its proper task of the investigation of I, of freedom. The formal possibility of the most general synthesis is -more difficult to discuss. Knowing, materially a synthesis of being and freedom, is both associated with and dissociated from what Fichte calls "the absolute." Since nothing can be said about the absolute without destroying its absoluteness, no definite assertions can be made about the relation of the absolute (that is, absolute being) and absolute knowing. Says Fichte, The absolute is neither being nor is it knowing, neither the identity of both nor their indifference. It is simply just the absolute. Since we cannot come any closer to it than knowing, either in the Wissenschaftslehre or in any other possible mode of knowledge, the Wissenschaftslehre cannot start with the absolute but must proceed from absolute knowing. (SW, II, pp. 12-13) Knowing is sui generis; Wissenschaftslehre has to take its stance within it and forego any attempts to explain it from the outside. How does one get to or start from absolute knowing? It is undoubtedly present in our intuition as the form ofknowing, so appeal can be made to the thinker's experience (SW, II, p. 13). How do we come to focus on knowing itself in our knowing? By abstraction, in the universality constructed in and through pulling away from the details of particularity and accounting its particularity the less (SW, II, p. 15). The power of abstraction depends on intellectual intuition, the unity of spontaneity/freedom and conditioned knowing that is given inside consciousness (SW, II, pp. 32-33). How is the ground of possibili.ty of intellectual intuition itself to be gauged? Apparently it must be initially assumed that knowing is compounded out of not-knowing, out of the togetherness of freedom and being (SW, II, p. 18). Later, when the free or for-itself character of the philosophic process comes to the fore and itself impels the Wissenschaftslehre's reflection, the assumption can be deemed warranted. 8

Synthesis A. ((Absolute KnowingJ) Knowing, which is both our object and our element, is a synthesis of two absolute qualities: being and freedom. Fichte remarks that this makes Wissenschaftslehre at once a monism and a dualism. On the formal side, it is monism, since knowing is a fusion, a coalescence of the different. On the material side, it is a dualism, since knowing is the coincidence or penetration of freedom and being, each the non-being of the other (SW, II, p. 81). Formally, knowing is unifying penetration, bringing to light, I-ness: thought. Materially, it is a wavering between being and freedom, a flickering unification, but no suspension, of the two that cannot be brought together: intuition. In calling the Wissenschaftslehre's object the identity of thought and

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intuition, Fichte envisions knowledge as an indefinitely dense and detailed structure capable of indefinitely regressive analysis. It is analogous to the complex self-similar structures of fractal geometry and nonlinear mathematics that occupy some contemporary mathematicians and physicists. But it seems unlike the dense order of these systems (which are dubbed "chaotic," although they are generated by simple mathematical functions), for the logic (or nonlogic) of hiatus that Fichte applies both to his absolute and to its expression in knowledge seems to evade all formulation. 9 Reflection undertakes the development of this most general synthesis; it works both material sides of the synthesis, freedom and being, proving them to be transcendental conditions for synthesis precisely by conceptually specifying them. 10 It is difficult to see in the 1801-1802 Wissenschaftslehre exactly why reflection impels the analytic unpacking of these contents. 11 One can generally say that freedom is at work here. It is present materially, as one element of the synthesis. Reflection also seems present, primitively perhaps, in the formal aspect of the synthesis, the hiatus between freedom and being, their contingent identification and separation. Nonetheless, reflection gets posited as an element of the system of knowing only when the for-itself character of freedon1 explicitly comes to the fore in Synthesis B. I shall return to the theme of hiatus in the most general synthesis. First I wish to point out some conceptual debts to Spinoza in Fichte's 1801 rethinking of Wissenschaftslehre. The most global is found in Fichte's presentation of knowing as a first and abiding synthesis; his Wissen translates, in piecemeal and dispersed fashion, Spinoza's compact conception of substantia: that which is in itself and is conceived through itself. 12 One element of knowledge, being, simply is what it is; the other, freedom, simply is because it is (SW, II, p. 16). While for Spinoza substance is causa sui-it is' what it is because it is-for Fichte knowing contingently oscillates between the what and the that, connecting fact and grounding in a manner that permits the why to fly free of any what. Reflection, says he, has its possibility in knowing's necessary union of being and freedom, but "its absolute being is freedom" (GA, II, 6, pp. 175, 30-33). Reflection's dynamic comes from its being substance in flight from substantiality. Another complexity in the conceptual schemes of the 1801-1802 Wissenschaftslehre stems from the incorporation of the Spinozistic contrast between necessity and contingency. Fichte follows Spinoza in conceiving necessity as constraint. Knowing is defined, in terms of its components, as a contingent identification of being and freedom, while it is defined formally as their fusion, even the constitution of a new quality (SW, II, pp. 17-18). Being supplies the characters of substantiality, perdurance, and determinacy to the synthesis of which it is an ingredient, but above all it supplies the feature of constraint (Gebundenheit). Being is grounding perceived from the outside, as

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what is necessitated, constrained. The constraint feature comes to the fore most tellingly in feeling (Gefiihl) (SW, II, p. 64) and in sensible affects (GeJUhle) like red and green, where one and the same body of contents appears doubly or is counted twice over, once internally as "affects," and again externally as "sense-data" (SW, II, pp. 123-25). Being thus appears inside knowing as constraint, as necessitation manifested in the feel of inalterable reality. Fichte also follows Spinoza in conceptualizing freedom as a form of necessitation or constraint. But he is unable to characterize it as the full internal necessitation of substance; it is instead the simultaneous presence and lack of constraint, determinate contingency. Freedom is based, as we have said, in that general feature of grounding, the why. Being just as much a form of -grounding as is constraint, freedom falls inside the same conceptual class as does necessity, being aptly described as "necessitated contingency" (SW, II, pp. 56-57). In sketches for the 1801 system Fichte wrote: "Die Freiheit ist in sich zufallig-u. sie sezt sich diesem zufallig seyn zu folge fiir sich zufallig."13 Freedom is positing in the mode of contingency. All three of these Spinozistic models-substance as self-grounding, freedom as a form of necessitation (namely, determinate contingency), and necessity as constraint-color Fichte's picture of knowing. The contrasting "feels" of constraint and contingency characterize the why or grounding aspects of knowing as a whole. One or the other will predominantly shade each of knowledge's more determinate subsyntheses. In particular, the constrained freedom of determinate contingency will cradle the individual centers of consciousness (and being) whose possibility the Wissenschaftslehre explains. It is as if Fichte kept before his eyes throughout the process of composition the conceptual contrast of Spinoza's seventh definition: That thing is said to be free [liber] which exists solely from the necessity of its own nature and is determined to action by its own self alone. A thing is said to be necessary [necessarius] or rather, constrained [coactus] if it is determined by another thing to exist and to act in a definite way. 14 In the universe of Fichte's knowing (which is perfectly general or categorial, and within which both individual consciousness and Wissenschaftslehre as philosophical analysis will be constructed by reflective analysis), nothing is fully necessary in the sense of simply being, but nothing is fully unconstrained either. Nothing in the concept-world the Wissenschaftslehre constructs is causa sui, yet nothing is without a why. Necessitated contingency is the category Fichte interposes between the dissociated Spinozistic conjuncts of substance, the what and the why. Necessitated contingency will not stay still, however. What the name names dissolves itself, negates itself, explains only in its inexplicability; it

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signals the disappearance of the why of grounding. For Fichte in 1801-1802 this contingency of grounding, the present and vanishing why, is the hiatus interposed between being and freedom, external constraint and selfdetermination. Though knowing is initially presented as an abiding and inalterable synthesis, global and in a sense finished, its logic and reality is a dynamic chasm between these factors. The possibility of consciousness rests on this chasm or hiatus, which makes it always a synthesis not finished but yet to be effected. In a lapidary text in which he announces that, despite the fear of nettlesome logicians, philosophy must face the task of thinking through the contradiction of being and non-being, Fichte explains the alternatives available to philosophy, either to annihilate the oscillating dance of knowing in the sameness of thought (being, strict necessity) or to move within the hiatus characteristic of freedom: Weare here looking for everything inside knowing, for we espouse the· Wissenschaftslehre. So absolute being was absolutely nothing for us, as was absolute thought itself-the constraint and intrinsic rest that cannot escape itself, the absolutely inalterable elerrlent in knowing. In thought, intuition exterminates itself. In our present position, therefore, absolute freedom is absolute unrest, mobility without a fixed point, flight into itself. Here thought annihilates itself-the absolute hiatus and saltus in knowing we mentioned above, which occurs in all cases ofJreedom and coming into being and in all cases of necessitated actuality as well. It is clear that by just such a positive non-being of its self knowing penetrates to absolute being. That,. taken solely and singly, it is nothing is clear and admitted by all, as is the fact that neither of the members [of the absolute synthesis] we advance is anything for itself. This is the crucial point in absolute knowing. (SW, II, p. 53). This text points out the dialectical, spontaneous character of intuition or activity at a categorical stage much earlier than the analysis/deduction of individual consciousness (presentation coupled with focused and reflexive awareness). It ascribes this spontaneous feature generally to the phenomena of constrained consciousness: freedom, decision, encounter with fact. These are all instances of a general event, knowing as chasm, the non-being of being. I t is a distinctive feature of this version of Wissenschaftslehre that Fichte conceives this chasm as a general feature of what is or what happens. It is not just a qualification of some determinate mode of consciousness; instead, consciousness gestates within this movement of nonformulable freedom, this non-being that is knowing. The suggestiveness, abstractness, and obscurity of Fichte's attempt in 1801-1802 to conceive of the metaphysical conditions for the spontaneity and contingency of consciousness is evident. His task is ultimately paradoxical: to elucidate the conditions of spontaneity. I t is at any rate a different approach than the widely known and widely misunderstood

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path of "deductions" from logical principles or extrapolations from empirical psychology that Fichte followed in 1794. FICHTE'S DISPUTES WITH SCHELLING

We turn now to three features of the Fichte-Schelling disagreement that have a bearing on the 1801-1802 Presentation. The history of the dispute stretches froIn the autumn of 1800, when Fichte read what Schelling had made of the Wissenschaftslehre in his System of Transcendental Idealism and General Deduction of Dynamical Processes, through the early months of 1802, when both writers were preparing to make the squabble public, Schelling in his Bruno, Fichte in the manuscript of his recent lectures. Fichte is initially offended by Schelling's substantializing of the metaphor contained in the concept of potentiation-in Schelling's hands, a mapping of identical structures across different levels of phenomena or different stages of their generation. He is more upset at the conclusion this leads Schelling to, the equal reality of nature and consciousness as products of the I's constructive activity (Fichte to Schelling,' 15 November 1800) .15 Further exchanges deepen Fichte's hesitations about the correctness of his protege's path. With the publication of Schelling's Presentation ofMy System in 1801 and the indications (that is, the "My" in the title and the slavish imitation of Spinoza's axiomatic style) of Schelling's departure from the bank of Criticism toward the opposite shore of dogmatism, Fichte denounces the new philosophy to its author as lacking any evidence or epistemological foundation (Fichte to Schelling, 31 May- 7 August 1801).16 By this time Fichte and Schelling had made plain to one another three distinct areas of disagreement: the standing of being in transcendental philosophy, the role of nature in freedom, and the possibility of a logic fit to comprehend the absolute.

The Status of Being in Transcendental Philosophy The status of being in transcendental philosophy is central to the philosophers' controversy. Commenting on Schelling's new and "personal" system, Fichte remarks that the new philosophy has being or an absolute real-ground as its principle, even if that principle bears the name "reason." Philosophy must proceed from a seeing, not a being. If it proceeds from anything other than a living intuition, it is realism and is hence unable to explain freedom, spontaneity, or consciousness (Fichte to Schelling, 31 May7 August 1801).17 Schelling replies (3 October 1801) that the formula that Fichte advances for the principle of idealistic philosophy, "the identity of thought and intuition," designates not just the indifference or identity of philosophy's highest principle, but simultaneously the highest sort ofbeing. The "being" that offends Fichte is being understood as derivative, different,

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posited for itself, finite, and conditioned. Says Schelling, "To you 'being' seems to mean the same thing as 'reality,' even factuality [Wirklichkeit]. But being in the eminent sense has no more opposite, since it is in itself the absolute identity of the ideal and the real.,,18 How does the dispute over being show up in Fichte's 1801 revision of the Wissenschaflslehre? As in the 1794 and 1796-99 versions, which strove to exhibit spontaneity at work inside consciousness's construction of reality, Fichte indeed sets out to work in and from a Sehen, a live intuition, though he somewhat obscures the vitality of his principle by calling it Wissen. 19 Nevertheless, he frames his account of the free-and-constrained nature of knowing with appeal to a transcendent being that cannot be brought within the scope of Wissenschaflslehre: The work commences with the mention of an absolute beyond absolute knowing, an absolute that cannot even be qualified or brought into relation to knowing without destroying its absolute standing (SW, II, p. 13). And the work closes with an inexplicable relating of the whole universe of finite centers of will to an absolute but developing being. This being ultimately locates and individuates a finite agent's perceptions, perhaps by direct determination. This relationship of finite knowing to absolute being, though, cannot come to light in the agent's perception-based cognition, but "must stay hidden to all eternity" (SW, II, p. 150). Both of these texts seem to refer to being as realistically conceived, being that absolutely is what it is (before and without reference to any why). By contrast, the sort of being the Wissenschaflslehre comprehends as an ingredient in knowing-one direction, as it were, of intuition, a gesture of activity toward rest and stability-seems to connote only variable and relative quality, the sort of being that is what it is only to the degree it'is constrained, limited, and determined by another. This relative being, which is properly studied by the science of knowledge as one element in knowing-the being counterpoised to freedom in material freedom, the being counterpoised to freedom in knowing in general-could equally well bear the Spinozistic denomination "necessity." What motivated Fichte's introduction of an apparently transcendent sense of being or brute reality into his philosophy, hitherto dedicated to exploring the moment of spontaneity or agency within human knowing? Several answers seem plausible: The introduction of being serves (1) to limit philosophy's pretensions, (2) to unify the field of explanation, and (3) to justify the "undeducible" moment of finitization or individuation of consciousness. As to the first possibility, perhaps the epistemological modesty of Criticism combined with the more ancient reluctance of negative theology to name or locate transcendence together urge Fichte to specify at the beginning of Wissenschaflslehre where philosophy cannot go and what it cannot explain. Talk of the absolute in the 1801-1802 text might thus serve the same

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function as Kant's more precise simile of the uncharted and unknown seas that surround the populated island of experience. 2o As to the second possibility, perhaps Fichte saw a need to finally anchor the branching antithetical opposites supposedly held in "synthesis" in some asserted but not investigated point of unity. The nonlogic of chasm and hiatus that connects, if that is the proper word, freedom and being together universally in knowing, and specifically within every more concrete form of consciousness such as decision or ethical action, can at least be said to be tamed or domesticated in the postulated absolute or being. 21 In both these cases, the asserted absolute, though a surd within the system, has a sense for the system: absolute limit. As to the third possibility, Fichte has at this system's end a palpable need for an explanation of the factical individuality-cum-sociality of consciousness, just as the 1794 Foundations stood in need of a deduction of the hard and fast character of presentation's contents. This Wissenschaftslehre has no deduction of presentation as the I's self-affection; no singular I plots its own s-q.rprise party in an AnstojJ (check). Instead the I is nonatomic, communal, originally given in plurality, individuated only in and with the interaction of a community of perceiver-agents. A Leibnizean cosmic harmonizer is needed to coordinate all this community's subjects in their perceptions of action and effects and in their denomination of purposes. For unless the monad-subjects redescribe natural sequences of actions as having identical starting and stopping points, as originating in the same intentions, and as accomplishing the same purposes, the community may well be reciprocally conditioned but it will not be ethical (GA, II, 6, p. 279). Fichte boasts that this Leibnizean solution that he offers in 1801-1802 to the questions of individuation, interaction, and the moral significance of actions (primarily determined as physical events) is really quite elegant. It explains all at once the hang and fit among various items of cognition, the concordance of the wills of a multitude offree beings, and even the harmony between the sensible and the intelligible worlds (SW, II, p. 150). Yet Fichte is aware that it is a step into the transcendent, however negatively conceived, and thus an exit from the stance of knowing, that is, from the stance of philosophy itself as the Wissenschaftslehre had at least formerly conceived it. 22

The Role of Nature in Freedom As soon as Schelling started to develop a philosophy of nature under the umbrella of transcendental philosophy in 1797, Fichte became concerned about what role nature could play in a philosophy focused on the freedom and domain of human action. Fichte forcefully expressed these doubts to Schelling after the publication of the System of Transcendental Idealism in 1800; at that time Schelling had not yet come to regard nature and spirit as

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opposite and equal manifestations of the absolute. In Fichte's eyes, however, the System had located the genesis of consciousness inside an already constituted autonomous realm, a "nature in itself," as it were. He undertook to lecture Schelling that the philosopher's task is to show that both worlds, real and ideal, nature and consciousness alike, appear only as constructions of the I's real-ideal activity. Transcendental idealism both can and must posit nature absolutely through a fictional construction from idealistic principles. According to Fichte, Schelling strayed in seeming to grant to nature a real and independent source of activity (Fichte to Schelling, 15 November 1800).23 Schelling's reply notifies Fichte that his concerns are not misplaced. Nature is as real as consciousness, claims Schelling, and philosophy of nature is every bit as valid an enterprise as is philosophy of consciousness, not because nature is just an alternate construction of the path of real-ideal activity, or even a "fictional" construction, as Fichte had suggested, but because nature and consciousness are one and the same thing. The I given in intellectual intuition is but a higher power (Potenz) of the productive activity of nature (Schelling to Fichte, 19 November 1800).24 Schelling seems to regard nature as a stage in the evolution of spirit, a precondition for conSCIousness. Fichte had little patience with this enhancement of nature's status, though he did refrain from displaying his displeasure. A letter written on 27 December 1800, but left unsent, bluntly proclaims that though nature can indeed be explained by analogy with consciousness, consciousness is the prime analog in the comparison; consciousness itself cannot be explained from the basis of nature. 25 His redrafted reply promises that the new Wissenschaftslehre will settle the issue by providing a "system of the intelligible world" (Fichte to Schelling, 27 December 1800).26 The manuscript of the Presentation whose very title (Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre) indicates a reply to Schelling's Darstellung meines Systems, returns time and again to comments on nature that are critical, sometimes even derisive, of Schelling. Nature, writes Fichte, is only the domain of quantifiability, its stuff all alike, incapable of qualitative differentiation. If one can perhaps think of it as originating in some primordial freedom, one will certainly never perceive it as having arisen from freedom (SW, II, p. 82). Nature itself cannot compel the observer to view it as anything higher than a system of mechanical drives, nonlocal forces pervading the whole field and determining every point within it, without being located in individual points and agents. Now such a system of mechanical agency can, if interpreted from the ethical point of view, be viewed as a possible substrate for knowing or a basis for purposive agency, but it carries in itself no spark of knowing or freedom. Fichte underscores the difference between the Wissenschaftslehre's ethical standpoint and Schelling's new naturalism in direct comment:

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At any rate here is one of the points of difference, or better, a consequence of the one point of difference, between the true idealism of the Wissenschaftslehre and the new Spinozistic system. Knowing is supposed to come about as a necessary result of nature, a higher power of nature-taking the term in a sense that stretches all the way to empirical being. But this contradicts the inner nature of knowing, which is to be absolute origination, a coming into being from the substance of freedom, not of being. (SW, II, pp. 130-31) The only role for nature in the Wissenschaftslehre is as a backdrop for the perception of spiritual individuality and community. It is just the infinitely steady, undifferentiated, self-similar domain of quantifiability, open in a purely external way to perceptual chunking into bodies. The very homogeneity of physical nature indicates its inferiority, or rather the incommensurable difference between it and the moral world, whose citizens are both plural and singular in their reciprocal interactions but are not all alike (SW, II, pp. 143-44). It is the "spirit-world" or ethical order in which the agent is finally defined, in which knowing is ultimately concretized into a system of unique individuals. Fichte is emphatic that qualitative significance cannot emerge from the quantitative monotony of nature; agency, purpose, individuality are alien features superimposed on the natural grid of mechanism. Fichte countered Schelling's "new Spinozism" with his own Leibnizean move, the postulation of the spirit-world. The postulate envisions each agent being assigned a point of view in a reciprocal field of communal interaction, a simultaneous endowment of individuality and purposiveness. Fichte seems satisfied that this closes the case on the pretensions of nature; it is mere basis, nonlocalized extended something, a field of plastic reactivity to force, the empty backdrop for knowing. But is he aware of the schism he introduces into the Wissenschaftslehre with this postulate? Has he reflectively faced the possibility that his insistence on the sui generis character of agency and purposiveness in the face of Schelling's naturalism will return his philosophy to onto-theological grounds rather than to transcendental or phenomenological ones? The final stance of the 1801-1802 Wissenschaftslehre seems frankly dualistic. Fichte simply places alongside the domain of mechanical action another order in which responsible action is conceivable. In the one territory, "I do not act, the universe just acts in me" (SW, II, p. 130); in the other, my acts are thought to have larger significance, although I as individual agent-knower can only feel this. I must, as a center of consciousness emergent from feeling, assume that I initiate actions and take responsibility for their effects. The whole necessity for this latter assumption, however, stems from my empirical situation. Can Fichte provide a systematic or philosophically analyzable link to connect mechanical world-states to the morally significant acts that are supposed to be their "intelligible world" redescriptions?

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Fichte is able to explain the workings of agency and ethical responsibility in the "spirit-world" in the limited sense that he can link the individualization of the I as finite will to communal interdetermination. For the freedom of the agent appears or enters the consciousness of that agent only when contrasted to a twofold determination or 111ediation of his or her will: (1) The I's perception offreedom or agency is conditioned by its appearance within a world lacking freedom and self-activity, dead nature; and (2) this consciousness of agency is itself intersubjectively mediated, constituted as individual through interaction with other free agents who together make up the one universal knowing, of which the individuated I, in its cognition and in its deeds, is but one determined part (SW, II, pp. 139-41). The category of community emerges as the final determinant of activity and the defining category of the postulated spiritual world. Reality is, in the final analysis, intersubjective for the Wissenschaftslehre; only the ethical explains the ethical. If the 1801-1802 Wissenschaftslehre rejects Schelling's new naturalism on the basis of a postulated supervention of a sui generis moral order, how far does the "new" Wissenschaftslehre remain faithful to its announced task of investigating knowing from the standpoint of knowing, that is, from freedom and agency? Or how much does it overreach Critical heuristic investigations and, in t4e absence of guiding phenomena, think its way into a metaphysical beyond? Fichte admits he can furnish no properly transcendental or possibilistic account of how a community of free agents codetermine one another to the stance of a plurality of finite agent-knowers. The Wissenschaflslehre proper must end with the transcendentally justified proposition "No ethics, no cognition," since no free entity can come to consciousness alone, without the attendant awareness of the influences of a community of other free beings upon it (SW, II, p. 143). But this final chapter in the heuristic account of cognition or transcendental philosophy· leads to and leaves open questions of a frankly metaphysical character that still seem to very much interest Fichtequestions about the harmony or complementarity of things and cognition, the interworkings of a multitude of free beings, the ultimate harmony of the sensible and the intelligible worlds. The solution to these questions is not available to Wissenschaftslehre, and it is not to be found in the structure of perception, "but in its relation, hidden to all eternity, to absolute being" (SW, II, p. 150). The tone of Fichte's remark suggests not the caution of a good Kantian encountering the limits of explanation at the limits of experience but the willingness of the adept ready to tread eternity's hidden paths.

The Possibility of a Logic Fit to Comprehend the Absolute The central item on which Fichte and Schelling differed in this period was Schelling's newly minted idea of the absolute as an "indifferent" or nondifferentiated union of opposites. Fichte understood that it did not matter whether one called the opposites subjectivity and objectivity or intuition and

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thought; what mattered was the quality of their union or identification. With the concept ofindifference, Schelling claimed to be able to unite radical opposites such as nature and consciousness without canceling their opposition but only suspending it. If opposite orders of phenomena were indifferently related, one could ascend the hierarchy of instances or "powers" of this relation of indifference to an absolute identity, an original principle that indifferently contains all oppositions. 27 Fichte might object to this logic of relation in two ways. He could claim that "indifference" was but a verbal overcoming of differences that really left standing previous polarities such as nature and consciousness, or real and ideal activity. (Were that the case, Schelling's identity-philosophy would offer nothing but a repackaging of disparate empirical contents, empirical psychology overlaid upon mechanistic physics. It would then be pseudo-Spinozisn1, an account offinite bodies and empirical affects, with no mention of power or substance.) Or he could object that -"indifference" abolished differences that cannot or should not be suppressed. Neither Fichte's letters nor the 1801-1802 manuscript indicate that he thought the philosophy of indifference was pseudo-Spinozism; instead he thought identity philosophy was precisely and thoroughly Spinozism. 28 Why should Fichte take identity philosophy for Spinozism? Despite the ponderous appearance of "deductions" and long categorical analyses that burden all versions of the Wissenschaftslehre, Fichte was abidingly aware of the inexplicability of the freedom or spontaneity that was his intense focus of concern. Consequently, he thought that if transcendental philosophy followed Schelling's path, positing nature as a lesser version of the free agent and granting that agent only the standing of an activity emergent from a natural basis, then the whole possibility of spirit or conscious agency would be destroyed. If spirit could be explained by a simple logic of identity or non-difference, the dark knots underlying both cognition and cognition's drive to explain itself as Wissenschaftslehre would be cut. Formal freedom, or the self-contradictory attempt to be self-grounding, that which prods knowing to unfold into more determinate form under the gaze of philosophical reflection, would be undercut if spirit were naturalized a la Schelling. So, too, would the nullity of chasm and hiatus, which shows up in the heart of material freedom, be undercut, as well as the later categories of contingency and spontaneity, and even that of grounding itself, as the 1801-1802 text analyzes them. There would be no necessity for spirit's self-description in Wissenschaftslehre, no possibility of even indicating the way the individual I is rooted in the collective I of the community and its history. Fichte sees clearly that spirit observed is not observed to be spirit. Without the internal and selfgenerated depiction of its own activity, the consciousness that Schelling thinks has been accounted for as an emergent feature of organic nature will

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be just a part of nature. What is for itself must discover in and for itself its own sort of self-originated being. No loans from mechanism can substantiate the flickering presence of intuition. Fichte's rejection of Schelling's logic of indifference seems to be an almost instinctive defense of the uniqueness of freedom; the spontaneity that is phenomenally evidenced in agency, responsibility, and the origination of purposive programs is undercut if it is viewed as an instance of something else that is not essentially spontaneous. Fichte also perceived that following the thread of Schelling's logic would lead transcendental philosophy toward an absolute philosophy whose territory was not lin1ited to the phenomena of consciousness. I suggested above that this latter prospect did not necessarily scare Fichte off. Fichte directly comments on Schelling's indifference schema in two passages of the 1801-1802 manuscript. In the first, Fichte charges that indifference annihilates absoluteness by transmuting quality into mere relation; if opposites are so joined that their opposition is no longer exclusi:ve, the qualitative character of opposition as such vanishes and is replaced, as Schelling rightly says, by a quantitative difference-in-indifference. 29 Fichte is particularly concerned that, in the widest categorial framework, one of the absolute qualities made to so evaporate is freedom. Says Fichte, It is accordingly a great error to describe the absolute as the identity of the subjective and the objective. This description essentially incorporates the old original sin of dogmatism, namely that the objective wrongly enters into the subjective. (SW, II, p. 66) Ficbte goes on to argue that, while it is correct to say that freedom and being are identified in material freedom and that this conjunction of opposites forms one side of knowing, their difference is never simply abolished. Identity philosophy, if it would simply identify them, is nullity philosophy. A later passage recalls this analysis of indifference as equivalent to Spinozism and repeats the charge that the new philosophy confounds the finite with the infinite. The intransitory simply cannot enter the transitory. Fichte goes on to condemn the related mistake of interpreting the world as the expression of or the mirror of the absolute. Schelling did not directly espouse the position Fichte here calls "this half-thought that recurs from age to age" (SW, II, p. 87) until he published his Bruno in 1802, though some statements in the Presentation of My System suggest this view. 30 Fichte corrects this perennially mistaken view: The world is not the expression of the absolute; the world has no expressible relation to the absolute whatsoever. What the world does express is the contradiction at the heart offormal freedom-that knowing self-contradictorily strives to be its own reason and hence incorpo-

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rates the ultimate contradiction, the struggle between being and non-being. Like freedom, the world is for itself alone, a self-enclosed domain alongside being or the absolute (SW, II, p. 82). These criticisms of Schelling's newly minted identity philosophy all center on the danger it poses for the qualitative singularity of freedom or spontaneity. The fact that Fichte rejects it as identity philosophy or Spinozism, while he" is not explicitly critical of Schelling's convoluted logic of indifference, recalls a similar evasion of ordinary logic on Fichte's part, when he installs a chasm, hiatus, or saltus in the core of material freedom. The hiatus signifies a gap in knowing, a point of unrest, mobility, positive non-being; it is in virtue of this gap that knowing penetrates being. The function of this gap is to make the free element in knowing immune to being logically discounted as selfcontradictory. Hiatus is not a logical function and generates no connective; it is not disjunction but nonconnection, empty space, absence of relation. If the opening of such a gap is, as Fichte seems to suggest, an essential moment in the only account of consciousness that philosophy can offer, if only nonrelation can conceptualize the possibility of contingency, then the occurrence and extent of the gap are not subject to calculation. I doubt, however, whether such negative logic is employable in constructing notions of "freedom" and "grounding" useful in elucidating cognitive and ethical contexts. 31 From Fichte's reaction to Schellingean themes of being, nature, and the indifferent character of the absolute, it seems clear that though he wants to offer a system of human cognition and action under the rubric of knowing, Fichte's primary interest is still in defending the spontaneous, for-itself, unconstrained or free moment in knowing. The possibility offreedom is to be defended, even if it involves the suspension or qualification of ordinary logic in the definitions both of material and formal freedom. Fichte also stresses the lived aspect offreedom. Philosophy can but delimit conditions ofpossibility, so freedom must be enacted if it is to be comprehended. Philosophy can conceptually indicate the territory where individuality and communal social determination intersect, but that freedom is only possible in that communal location and must be experienced there alone. But for all this, the 1801-1802 Presentation shows a Fichte closer to dogmatism than the Fichte of 1794, for he acquiesces in locating free knowing alongside a being outside of and inimical to knowing. The absolute being that is the limit, term, and final determiner of consciousness in this system is more foreign to freedom than necessity's constraint; it is a brute positivity that reduces all the play, contingency, or internal nullity of freedom to insignificance. This same absolute being is invoked, at the limit of systematic philosophy, as the final condition of knowing, the ultimate individuater, the final determination. Freedom is bounded by an ultimate facticity. In this version, Wissenschaftslehre succeeds more as metaphysical system than as defense of freedom.

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NOTES

1. For a detailed account of the circumstances of the composition of the manuscript now titled Darstellung des Wissenschaftslehre aus den]ahren 1801-1802 (Presentation of the Science ofKnowing, 1801-1802), see the editors' preface in]. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (hereafter GA) (see page 235), pp. 107-28. 2. See the announcement of the nova methodo lectures, GA, IV, 2, p. 17, for Fichte's description of the holistic practical-theoretical approach. Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism identifies the dynamic structures of nature with the transcendental acts that make up the I, though it goes on to maintain that only as will, individuated within a community of agents constrained by nature and history, does intelligence come to self-intuition; see Schellings Werke, ed. M. Schroter (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1965), vol. 3, pp. 450-54,527-31. Fichte objects to Schelling's procedure in a letter of27 December 1800, and promises to remedy the defect with a "transcendental system of the intelligible world." See FichteSchelling Briefwechsel (hereafter FSBW), ed. W. Schulz (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1968), p. 116. 3. See part 1, §5 of Presentation, which makes plain the difference between knowing, which Wissenschaftslehre can investigate, and the absolute, to which no philosophy has access, in Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte (hereafter SW) (see page 235), II, pp. 12-13. 4. Fichte offers this summary passage: "Lastly, what was the ground of this idea ofa closed system of mutually determined intelligences, determined in the pure thought of reason-intuition, and the perception-thought derived from it? It was absolute being itself, which contains and conditions knowing-and is hence an absolute mutual penetration of the two. The deepest root of all knowing is, therefore, the unreachable union of pure thought and the I's thought we have described, the absolute principle inside perception. This [union] equals the moral law, the most exalted case of all intuition, since it grasps,intelligence as its own absolute real-ground. This union is absolutely not a matter of this or that kind of knowing, but absolute knowing, simply as such. How, within it, one arrives at this or that knowing we shall explain at some point. This union becomes absolute knowing only under the condition of absolute being, even inside knowing itself; just as surely as knowing is knowing does absolute being subsist in it. And in this way absolute knowing and being are united; the former enters the latter and unfolds into the form of knowing, making it absolute. One who understands this is master of all truth; for him there remains nothing inconceivable" (SW, II, p. 153). This and other passages seem to speak of intelligence itself and correlate it with being itself. Whether "intelligence" and "being" are conceived categorically or substantively seems ambiguous in particular texts; the general context of Wissenschaftslehre, however, would rule out any hypostatization of the concepts. 5. All texts cited in parentheses refer to Fichte's Presentation of the Science of Knowing, 1801-1802. Citations in this paper are generally to SW, whose editor filled out abbreviations and inserted connectives to produce a readable version; everything included in SW is reproduced in GA. SW's editor omitted some passages he felt were repetitive; they are restored in GA.

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6. The Presentation comes from Fichte's hand with the following structure: Four prefatory sections are devoted to the concept of the "science of knowing." Part 1 bears the title "Absolute Knowing." It was divided into sections by the author himself to a certain point (§§ 1-15). The younger Fichte and the editors of the GA divide the n1anuscript differently past that point, the latter taking references to daily \'vorking sessions as natural dividing points. Part 2 is untitled, but· culminates in the theory of the spirit-world or ethical world order. The highest and abiding synthesis (Synthesis A, "Knowing") takes up §§5-19 in SW and §§5-16 in GA. SynthesisB ("Quality and Determinancy") occupies §§20-29 in SW and §§17-20 in GA; it contains the most obscure lines of argumentation found in the whole work. Part 1 in fact appears to trail off into directionlessness. The syntheses that comprise part 2 are stated more succinctly, without the ponderous apparatus of a strict transcendental deduction. Synthesis C, which recounts the specification of knowing to the categorial points of "Quantity and Space," takes up §§30-34 in SW, and §§ 1-2 of part 2 in GA. Synthesis D, which elaborates the work of the principle of "Concretion and Discretion" in ongoing determination, takes up §§35-38 in SW, and §§3-5 of part 2 in GA. Synthesis E, which corresponds to the "Deduction of Presentation" in the 1794 Foundations of the Entire Science ofKnowledge, arrives at the determinacy of empirically determined individuality, "Perception" and the upsurge of the "Sensible World"; it occupies §§39-41 in SW and §6 of part 2 in GA. The final stage, which surpasses Fichte's typical fivefold scheme of syntheses, may be viewed either as yet another synthesis (Synthesis F) or just as an alternate point of view upon the sensible world of Synthesis E. This section returns to the theme of individuation in the guise of communal codetermination of agents within an "Ethical World-System"; it also provides meta-comment clarifying the relation between the natural and the intelligible world. This final or alternate synthesis covers §§42-48 in SW and §§7-8 of part 2 in GA. 7. See SW, I, pp. 91-109. The distinction between formal and material e1eme;nts of synthesis, to which Fichte constantly refers in the manuscript of 1801-1802 but which he leaves undeduced and unexplained, might be illuminated by a glance back to the Grundsiitze of the Foundations. The first and third principles are positings and are principles governing all intra-systematic positing; the second principle is a counterpositing and is the principle of all counterpositings. Now in the 1801-1802 framework, let us say we have a synthesis M: Theformal element of M denotes what M is and does, while its material element derives from (and, upon analysis, unpacks into) a contradiction of, or oscillation between, two oppositeTactors, Nand""'"N. If our M is freedom, Fichte says that formal freedom is self-grounding, while material freedom is the coincidence of opposites or the flickering between opposites that is intuition (SW, II, p. 25). That a synthesis, as discussed in 1801-1802, has both formal and material constituents means, therefore, that it has thetic or self-founding components, which make it ultimately substantive or irreducible to other factors, and antithetic components, which allow for progressive elucidation of the conditions of its possibility. Ultimately, Fichte views thetic-synthetic entities or acts (knowing in 1801-1802, freedom in 1794) as their own sufficient conditions; philosophical analysis can discover only series of increasingly fine (and less explanatory) necessary conditions. 8. See the whole argument of §16, SW, II,pp. 32-33. 9. The Mandelbrot Set, the most impressive visual specimen of deep or chaotic order, is generated by the repeated application of the formula Z ~ Z2 + C, where

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Z starts at 0 and c is the point at hand. See James Gleick, Chaos: Making a New

Science (New York: Penguin, 1987), p. 231n. 10. Fichte's method is convoluted in all his various presentations of the Wissenschaftslehre. In the 1801- 1802 Wissenschaftslehre the analytic march of the deductions listed under the heading of the five (or six) syntheses does two things at once: (1) it shows that the material antagonists that are the elements of the syntheses are the only possible candidates for synthesis, and (2) it advances the categorical specification of each of those members. The first task is transcendental deduction, the second categorial deduction ("logic," in Hegel's sense of the term). They are held together not by any methodological elegance on Fichte's part, but because the Wissenschaftslehre demands that he prove that knowing, the ultimate synthesis of being andfreedom, can take place only as a harmonized world ofplural, sometimes antagonistic, individual wills. 11. The abstract categorical approach to the analysis of knowledge in the 1801-1802 manuscript is in surprising contrast to the consciousness-centered reconstruction of the Wissenschaftslehre offered in the nova methodo lectures of 1796 and thereafter. Those lectures stress the origination of the contents of consciousness in activity and the free character of philosophy, while the Kantian sense of freedom as spontaneity and self-causation is absent from the later text. See Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, Einleitung, §§1-8, GA, IV, 2, pp. 17-27. 12. Benedict de Spinoza, Ethics, trans. Gutman (New York: Hafner, 1949), 1: def. 1. 13. "Zur Ausarbeitung der Wissenschaftslehre von 1801/02," GA, II, 6, p. 69. 14. Spinoza, Ethics, 1: def. 7. 15. FSBW, p. 105. 16. FSBW, pp. 124-25. 17. FSBW, p. 126. 18. FSBW, pp. 133-34. 19. I have typically translated Wissen as "knowing" rather than "knowledge" to suggest the Fichtean perspective wherein the cognitive series is first an activity, then an agent or knower, then a something known, and only last and remotely a finished body of cognition or a subject-matter. 20. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A235-36/B294-95. 21. If Fichte wants to make'this move to bracket the antithetical power of hiatus or chasm within a postulated but categorically unexplained transcendent unity, he is either pulled back toward Spin.ozistic metaphysics with its ultimate category contrast of the finite and the infinite or pulled forward toward Schelling's identity philosophy with its preoccupation with identity and difference. The same proplem hovered around the 1794 Foundations, in the contrast between the absolute positing of the first principle and the absolute counterpositing of the second. Fichte solves the problem in 1801-1802 as he did in 1794: Wissenschaftslehre takes its stand in the abiding synthesis of knowing (where synthesis is both chasm and unity) or in the limited positing of the empirical I. Fichte is not assimilated to either Spinozistic or Schellingean metaphysics in 1801-1802 because, as earlier, his commitment to investigate freedom. keeps him phenomenologically focused on individual, worldly, and intersubjective consciousness, even when his transcendental apparatus for explaining it seems, on account of its abstract or categorical approach, to push him beyond experience. 22. See GA, II, 6, p. 279. 23. FSBW, p. 105. 24. FSBW, pp. 107-8.

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25. FSBW, p. 114. 26. Fichte there writes, "I believe I understand you quite well, just as before. Only I don't think these assertions {about the equality of nature and consciousness} follow from the formerly admitted principles of transcendental idealism. Indeed they contradict them.... In a word, there is lacking as yet a transcendental ~ystem of the intelligible world. Your statement that the individual [I said the I; there is a difference] is only a higher power of nature I can count as correct only under the condition not only that I posit this nature not merely as phenomenon [I do just that, on grounds appropriate to my system] but also that I find something intelligible within it. The individual is generically the lower power of this intelligible {world}; something in it stands as a determinable factor toward a determining one which' is its higher power. [This will all be explained shortly.] It is only by means of this system of intelligibles that we can thoroughly understand this and our other differences and come to agreement about them" (FSBW, p. 116. Material in square brackets is by Schelling; my interpolations are in scroll brackets). 27. See Schelling's Darstellung meines Systems der Philosophie (1801), §§ 7-46, for Schelling's reinterpretation of the thetic identity of the Wissenschaftslehre's first principle, A = A, as the quantitative indifference of opposites, symbolized by the line linking opposite poles of a magnet. Schellings Werke, ed. Manfred Schroter (Munich: Beck, 1965), vol. 4, pp. 117-37. 28. I think the charge of pseudo-Spinozism or, more broadly, pseudo':'metaphysics, may be used as a touchstone for all the post-Kantian transcendental systems. Such systems either "solve" philosophically insoluble conceptual paradoxes by sewing James's Principles of Psychology and Newton's Principia into one binding, or else they metaphysically transgress Kantian cautions and engage in philosophically proper but experientially reductive solutions, materialist and spiritualist alike. Philosophers evidently lack Solomon's wisdom. 29. Consider Schelling's proof for Proposition 45 of the Darstellung meines Systems: "There is nothing in itself except absolute identity. But this identity is posited infinitely under the form of subjectivity and objectivity [taking A as subjectivity or as objectivity]. Hence also to infinity (for example, in some definite point) neither subjectivity nor objectivity can be posited for itself, and if quantitative difference (A = B) is posited, it is posited only under the form of a preponderance of one over the other; this holds for the whole as much as for the'part. But there is no reason that one should be posited as preponderant over the other. So both must be posited as prevailing at the same time, and this again is inconceivable unless both reduce to quantitative indifference. Therefore neither A nor B can be posited in itself, but only the identical with subjectivity and objectivity prevailing at the same time and the quantitative indifference of both" (Schellings Werke, vol. 4, pp. 136-37). 30. See Schellings Werke, vol. 4, pp. 122-23. 31. Fichte's hiatus, Schelling's indifference, and the infinity of Hegel's Jena Logic are all attempts to employ negative logic (or, less charitably, nonlogic) to press the discordant texts of matter and mind together onto one palimpsest. Hegel's mature concept of negativity is a more successful logical pan-operator because the basic paradox of relation-that-is-nonrelation has there been psychologized. One wonders, however, if we really understand all things better by pointing to our self, which we do not understand. See G. W. F. Hegel, Jenenser Logik, Metaphysik, undNaturphilosophie, ed. G. Lasson (Munich: Beck, 1967), pp. 31-32.

12

Fichte's Parergonal Visibility WILHELM S. WURZER

My concern in this essay is to show Fichte's radical turn from the cognitive hegemony of the I in the first two periods of the Wissenschaftslehre to an imaginal displacement of the I; specifically, to the I's incontestable link with Being in the third period of the Wissenschaftslehre. What does it mean for the I to be "image of image" and for Being to be exceedingly other than the imaginal I? Several main points emerge in "Die Tatsachen des Bewusstseins," which Fichte delivered at the University of Berlin in 1813. To begin, the I gains a new freedom on the level of a distinctive law that Fichte calls "the law of imaging" (das Gesetz des Bildens, TB, p. 432).1 Clearly, Bilden is neither an optical counterpart to an object effected by the empirical act of a reproductive imagination, nor is it primarily the creative act of a productive imagination. Imaging, in fact, has little to do with forming a given re-presentation. On the contrary, far from being a given image, the law of imaging necessarily exceeds the empirical and logical operations of consciousness in this apparently new itinerary of the I, in which a "seeing of seeing" is inevitably pure thinking (reines Denken). More precisely, then, it seems tl,lat Fichte opens the way for an absolute expansion of the periphery of transcendental philosophy (TB, p. 434). A peculiar, yet quite distinct, maneuver takes place in opening and extending the circle of consciousness in the direction of das Bild des Bildes. Hence, the transcendental task of philosophy is radically challenged. In the first version of the Wissenschaftslehre (1 794- 95), everything was brought under the fundamental principle of the self-reverting absolutely active I. In "Die Tatsachen des Bewusstseins," however, the I is regarded under the condition of the law of imaging in accordance with an ontological otherness. Undoubtedly, this law will not resolve the issue of the synthesis of I and not-I. Still, Fichte is prepared to begin the self-intuition of the I "with a 211

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new image" (TB, p. 432). The infinity and the finitude of consciousness is united by an imaging that ought to be. The I, therefore, posits itself anew in a pure imaging of be-coming. While the I emerges as "image of the image of all appearances,,2 it is yet to form (hilden) an ethical enactment (ein Gehot des Handelns) within a higher reflection of consciousness-in-Being. "It is this power [of imaging, hilden] that determines whether one philosophizes with, or without, spirit."3 In short, the law of imaging, das Gesetz des Bildes, it seems, signifies the "uncircumventable" necessity of spirit in the later Fichte. What is the consequence of this? Beyond the first textuality of German idealism, .an astounding displacement of the subject, a positing of the I, precisely in a radical letting-go of self-consciousness while simultaneously inscribing consciousness into a transcendental imaging or mirroring of Being. These preliminaries aside, the I is not limited by imaging. For imaging here is not an epistemic "filming" of objects but a matter of an infinite practical demand-the demand to form (hilden) what ought to be. 4 "I ought in my thinking to set out fronl the pure I, and to think of the latter as absolutely self-active; not as deternlined by things, but as determining them."s The particular mode of philosophizing, then, depends upon what image one has of the I; indeed, it depends upon the imaginal imperative introduced by Fichte's later writings. Here the imaginal imperative marks the unheard-of center where speculation and moral law merge, where Being lets the I radiantly appear as ethical be-conling. Throughout "Tatsachen des Bewusstseins," Fichte claims that imaging (Bilden) is a modality of pure thinking (Intelligiren), a new positing of the I, a fundamental concept that lifts the I to a "higher see~ng." His genealogy of reflection reveals thinking as intuition of the law of seeing, a law belonging to the autonomous power of Being. Seeing, therefore, exceeds the margins of the given by imaging the ideal and super-real. 6 The law of imaging surmounts images of nature, which Fichte designates as nlerely standing. The I is not a snapshot but the right image (das rechte Bild, TB, p. 444) of what renders the absolute. He concedes that nature itself involves the imaging of images. 7 Nevertheless, 'the image of nature, even as image of inlage, is quite different from the light shining on the transcendental subject in the pure form of imaging. Nature's form of image is closed within itself, resting upon its own standing (stehendes Bild, TB, p. 444). The image of the I, however, steps out of natural consciousness, be-coming what Fichte calls "a practical ethical precept" (ein praktisch sittliches Gehot, TB, p. 444). Here, he speaks of a gigesthai, the I retrieved within a principal imaging beyond~the subject's purely epistemic activity. Clearly, the I itself isa "genesis" both of knowledge and action in the plurality of images above images per se. Fichte considers the subjective law

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of imaging to be "a new side" of the Wissenschaftslehre (TB, p. 445). Quite simply, this law indicates that to become image itselfis not to be an image of appearance, that is, merely an image of reality in the form of understanding or concept. Understanding or concept belongs to cognitive imaging. Regarded in the form of the I, however, image as image exceeds the phenomenal form of appearing as it ventures into a higher genetic intuition. Perhaps a self-shining renders the matter of the reflective subject more accurately so as not to limit the genetic form of the I as image of image to a mere form of appearance in accordance with understanding (Verstand).8 Suitably, "the right knowledge of transcendental idealism," without which the reader is unable to enter the domain of transcendental idealism (TB, p. 447), rests upon the very realm of this distinctive shining and imaging of the I. This means, first of all, that self-shining (Sicherscheinen) is necessarily a be-coming, something to be born, a genesis. Second, and more important, this genesis of the I marks the very essence of ethical freedom. The freedom that marks the very law of imaging above all surmounts self-consciousness and posits Being anew. Setzen (positing) is intimately linked to Bilden, which does not found another epistemic ground as a prerequisite for spirit but lets spirit be within an economy of pure seeing. While it is important to see that self-consciousness is not negated, it is now bound to an imaging that ·lets the positing of Being be. Consequently, more accurately, Being is imaged by the I. The self-imaging is preeminently a stutzen, a leaning-on-Being. This selfshining operation reveals a certain positing of positing in the I' s imaginal direction toward Being. Let us briefly retrace the significance of this imaging, also named seeing. In its inexhaustibly complex sin1plicity, seeing is an inner necessity, a transcendental knowing, a self-glancing that is ultimately the law of the ought. This imaging or pure seeing is neither a product of an arbitrary reflection nor a conception of absolute being. Still, it belongs to the new itinerary of reflection that shows a certain manner of exteriorizing the absolute in an attempt to bring the absolute into view. Thus we encounter the image of pure necessity emanating from Being, a seeing that sees into itself (einsehendes Sehen) without seeing particular images. Exceeding objective re-presenting, seeing is not merely the negation of what is seen but also the negation of the purely epistemic context of seeing. Seeing penetrates its very essence as we wonder what precisely can still be seen. In this singular phase of Fichte's genealogy of imaging, we note a turn from a predominantly interior appearance of knowledge to a radical exteriority. In the negation of self-consciousness, seeing manifests an absolute other, the showing of absolute Being. Undoubtedly, the act of knowing is no longer simply an interior mode of reflecting but a dynamic manifesting of Being. Quite simply, the new act of

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pure seeing, which knows itself as manifestation of the absolute, is the very turn from self-consciousness to Being. But what does this mean? Is imaging itself Being? While there is a pure imaging of Being, Being and imaging are not the same. The image is always dependent upon Being. Being is not regarded primarily epistemologically; nor is it grasped causally or teleologically. It is thought freely by means of the power of twisting reason free from self-consciousness. Hence, Being emerges only in and through the image. Here, it seems Fichte steps outside of German idealism proper, preparing the way for the contemporary philosophical discourse. But let us remain with Fichte's later thought and focus more deeply on the relation between image and Being. What happens to reflection? Suddenly, we see the subject pointing beyond the epistemic work of self-consciousness. We encounter what Kant calls parergon, the "exceptional, the strange, the extraordinary."g And for good reason, since Fichte introduces but does not articulate the condition for the possibility of a Heideggerian discourse. The law of imaging, now the point of departure for thinking, gets right to the heart of the matter, "the nerve of idealism" (TB, p. 431) -again, dieser Blick, a glance that does not say, "it is, but merely and purely-it must be" (TB, p. 431); the silent center, the unheard-ofmidpoint from which the self fascinates. This pivotal seeing is self-luminously trueiand deeply embedded inside the very system of reflection. Without explicitly formulating Fichte's sigetic iO leap into imaging as pure thinking, the Wissenschaftslehre announces the highest possible synthesis of imaging and Being. This novel positing of synthesis beyond epistemic reflection is thought in what is yet to be the I. More precisely, Being, which does not dwell in the realm of final cognition, is solely ex-posed in spirit's new agenda, immeasurably imaginal yet singularly reflective. Fichte, therefore, does not confine Being to Dasein. Nor does he narrow Being to Bilden. Being is always how the image itself ought to be, yet never will be. 11 Equally important, the image is always in the making. And this is so particularly with regard to the utopian gaze of the I. Such "a gaze wants to set things right and it can do this,,12 by seeing that the only solid thing is the power of an unbreakable ought; a sigetic hope, perhaps; nevertheless, for Fichte, an idealistic promise, "a new world of consciousness." In the beginning of his last lecture on the .Wissenschaftslehre, the introductory lectures from the fall of 1813, Fichte writes: "This theory presupposes an entirely new inner instrument of sensibility by means of which a new world is given, not available to the ordinary man." 13 This tool of sensibility is indeed the singular imaginal act of the I on its way to Being. It is a necessary leap into an epistemically unsayable site, no doubt, a sigetic digression within German idealism. This in1aginal going aside looks to spirit with an inner eye that sees what ought to be done. The sciep.ce of knowledge, then, becomes

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primarily a matter of Umbildung, a transformation of the entire human being, making possible infinite images of the self. 14 Demanding "a new development," Fichte highlights an imaginal expansion of the subject. This crucial transformation (Umschaffung) of subjectivity reveals the I's expansion toward an imaginal domain of Being. In effect, Fichte sketches the main components of a disappropriation of the subject that shows the I both as a self-shining of absolute appearance, and, simultaneously, as a "turning upside down" (Umstulpen) of interior reflection. Seeing itself differently, the I surmounts the immediate nature of the subject in the law of a new viewpoint, the very ground of the real, the genesis of imaging with regard to Being. Still, everything comes-to-be reflected. Reflection is bound by a necessary expansion (Erweiterung) and genesis of the I in accordance with a new face of spirit, the law of imaging Being. So knowledge does not concern Being itself but the relation of image to Being. Inevitably, for the later Fichte, the split between knowledge and Being marks philosophy's imaginal point of departure. Accordingly, the law of imaging signifies the irresistible operation of pure thinking advancing toward Being, the main focus of idealism. The last period of the Wissenschaftslehre plays out the parergonal visibility of the not-image (NichtBild). Visibility of the self is ultimately depended upon the invisibility of Being. The image fades into Being's not-image. The force of the I and the not-I in the earlier texts is now supplemented by the constellation of image and not-image (Bild-NichtBild). But how are we to see this "not-image"? Quite simply, as a seeing/ thinking of Being that shines without bringing forth images of beings. Seeing in its absolute imaging is impossible without the not-image. The Bildrichtung or direction of reflection's new "face," therefore, invariably recedes from a specific in1aginal doing or thinking, a programmatic enterprise that reduces the invisible to appearances. It is striking that Fichte gives up (aufgeben) the imaginal for the non-imaginal without negating thinking's visibility. It should be recognized that the later Wissenschaftslehre performs a transcendental dissolve in which the image going out of understanding, be-coming nonimaginal, is coming into Being. This operation is more than a transition frOm the image of the I to the not-image of Being. Visibility and invisibility melt into each other in such a way that spirit and Being become entirely free for each other, at once sacrificing the epistemic hegemony of understanding in thinking's task (Aufgabe) of seeing. From this point of view, a double bind of understanding (Verstand) and pure thinking (Sehen) arises in Fichte's theory of knowledge. Again, this double bind, which is diversionary beyond question for German idealism, is primarily related to Being. Fichte's claim-that pure seeing is not a product of reflection but is free ofre-presentational power-is diversionary. Hence, a digression in the subject's relation to Being manifests itself depending upon

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whether reflection is ascribed to understanding (Verstehen) or to seeing. In the domain of understanding, Being tends to withdraw. It cannot be grasped or brought under a schema. Paradoxically, understanding strives to enframe Being, epistemically delimiting it to image, or, more accurately, imageBeing. Thus, for understanding, imaging is frankly what Being is about. In the realm of understanding, imaging appears to be standing within selfconsciousness (Verstehen), in-formed of Being by consciousness. Being is made to stand in the image as if it were merely a picture of beings. The world of seeing, however, is not exhausted by a definite way of reflecting upon Being and thus it exceeds a Kantian schematism. To this extent, Being is primarily revealed in the domain of seeing or pure imaging. A radical venture or turn to the law of imaging highlights consciousness as a "reflex" of authentic Being rather than grasping being as a "reflex" of a distinct self-consciousness. This turn is indeed a leap to a thinking quite different from German idealism in general and the Wissenschaftslehre as ergon of philosophy in particular. More important, Fichte's strategy is to see the origin of reflection not within a given ontology, as if to posit another metaphysical ergon, but, one might say, within the by-work or parergon of the Wissenschaftslehre, that is, within imaginal fissures of Being ever to be. Indisputably, imaging is not a free play of images but a law, notably, a command derived from the unique relation of the I to Being, now, a relation between an imaginal parergon and an ontological work of reflection. Hence, the I is not free from how it ought to be but is always already the counterimage within the image of inner necessity. In other words, the I is a doing, the imaginal sense of an ethical enactment is relation to Being, ultimately a non-imaginal reality. The whole question of Fichte's sigetic enterprise of Wissenschaftslehre concerns the freedom of the I that arises out of the unresolved relationship of image and Being. In short, this question reveals that the being of image is not the image of Being. While the essence of the law of imaging within the I is Being, Being is more than the image itself. Is Being, then, what the image ought to be but never is? That is, is Being, for Fichte, always the ethical command that is never entirely obeyed, the order that is never entirely established? Is Being something like an infinite deferral? Does it lapse into the mimesis or image of something that cannot be? Is Being the elusive spirit that cannot be captured in an image, that infinitely, precariously eludes the power of the inner camera of self-consciousness, dangerously exceeding beings-in-general? Does Fichte think Being without beings-ingeneral in his ultimate leap toward a new world of seeing? Fichte's final readings of Wissenschaftslehre from 1810-13 show that something entirely new happens to reflection. On its way to Being, reflection lets imaging be. Properly speaking, imaging ought to reveal what Being is about. Yet, imaging is about to let Being be-spirit without the default of a definite

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recourse. Still, Being emerges through images as the ethical design of spirit rigorously revealing the autonomous power of what is yet to become imagefree. The ought is the spiritual force of Being as not-image. Indeed, it is the very alterity of imaging. Genuine freedom of spirit, therefore, is ultimately only possible in Being. Nevertheless, a glimpse of that freedom can be seen in the image closest to Being, in the parergon of thinking pressing against, intervening in the inside of the ergon of spirit. Perhaps Being is a matter of seeing what ought to be seen without ever becoming something actually seen. Therein also lies the practical power of a self that signifies a law of the unsayable, the very law of imaging, a consistently hidden image of the future; for Fichte, no doubt, a radically different subjectivity. By according reflection both a transformation and an expansion, Fichte opens up philosophy, specifically German idealism, to a critique of representation without dissolving it. I believe this operation to be among his most important contributions to modern philosophy. While he withdraws from the epistemic constraints of a re-presentational self-consciousness, thereby deconstructing the cognitive architecture of the Wissenschaflslehre, he does not let go of consciousness per se. In fact, his maneuver involves a reflective intensification of consciousness not from the re-presentational space of selfconsciousness but from a re-presentational nearness to Being. Fichte's turn to an economy of imaging, a surprising strategy of philosophical parergon, supplements dialectical thought. At its beginning and at its end, his philosophy serves to give the I the task of setting bounds to re-presentational thinking within thinking's own expansion of a singular re-presentational capacity, namely, the self-imaging of Being. Philosophizing with spirit, then, organizes itself around the work of pure thinking, an ergon that cannot be performed without re-presentation. Fichte, however, calls into question a certain mode of re-presenting, particularly, the metaphysical operation of re-presenting Being. With regard to seeing consciousness from the standpoint of the image of image, he destabilizes the conscious subject. Dis-placing the I by means of an imaginal advance toward Being becomes philosophically necessary if, to cite Arthur Danto, "we are not passive instruments on which the world plays representational melodies." 15 The subject in question, even though it exceeds the limits of purely empirical and logical reflections, is still the extraordinary question of thought. No longer a monistic principle, the law of imaging reveals a system of many I's-indeed, a plurality of I's-whose power lies in the communal nature of Being itself. To think Being freely, quite simply, as spirit of not-image is to address expressly the context without which Being is n1eaningless-namely, the consciousness of subject individually and socially. This image of unity in the concept of persons is inextricably linked to the power of Being. Fichte, then, does not rehabilitate subjectivity but confers upon it the status of a system of images of

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all subjects (TB, p. 528). Re-presentation is free for re-presentations. There is no fixed position with regard to image or Being. The law that privileges imaging dictates a system of I's, an authentic seeing of freedom in letting spirit be the not-image. "Appearance or the image of (their) true Being is not what I am as singular individual and person, but what we all are in unity.,,16 It goes without saying, then, that society, including all subjects, shows the true image of Being. Still, Being shows more by showing less; paradoxically, by not showing itself at all. In conclusion, the precariousness of articulating Fichte's later philosophy for ethics is quite obvious. Nevertheless, his inauguration of a distinctly imaginal ontology is exemplary in its scrupulous weighing of the formidable possibilities of ethical action ever open to different modalities of seeing, of thinking even within re-presentation. It is hardly to be expected that someone so faithfully wedded to German idealism would question the legitimacy of the power of re-presentation while simultaneously exploring the manner of letting re-presentation be on the way to, and, possibly, finally, away from, subjectivity. In addition to and beyond Heidegger's later texts, it might be fruitful to return to the final versions of Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre in which the question of Being is not raised outside of the practical ethical demand of a self, yet to be what it must be-come.

NOTES

I. TB refers to "Die Tatsachen des Bewusstseins" in Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Einleitungsvorlesungen in die WissenschaJtslehre, die transzendentale Logik und die Thatsachen des Bewusstseins (Bonn: Adolph Marcus, 1834). Consider these synonyms for "Bilden (V., t.): 1. erzeugen, machen, hervorhringen, schaffen; grunden, einrichten (GesellschaJt, Staat);formen, gestalten; sein" (Gerhard Wahrig, Deutsches Worterhuch [Gutersloh: Bertelsmann Lexikon Verlag, 1971], p. 687). 2. Julius Drechsler, Fichtes Lehre vom Bild (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1955), p.349. 3. References are to Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte (hereafter SW) (see page 235), I, p. 284. 4. For a post-Fichtean reading of seeing as thinking see Wilhelm S. Wurzer, Filming and Judgment (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1990). 5. SW, I, p. 467. 6. See TB, p. 444. 7. Fichte's view of nature's imaging is transformed and supplemented in Nietzsche's elucidation of the Apollonian in the Birth of Tragedy. 8. See TB, p. 447.

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9. Jacques Derrida, The Truth in Painting, trans. G. Bennington and I. McLeod (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), p. 58. 10. Derived from the Greek sigan (to be silent). Sigetics, according to Heidegger's Beitriige zur Philosophie, is simultaneously, paradoxically, the pre- and postaesthetic beginning of thinking. It reveals the poetic, imaginal power of language. Originary thinking, philosophy's other beginning. 11. "Das rechte Bild wird nicht, und ruht auf sich selbst," says Fichte (TB, p. 444);. "das Sein ruht auf sich selbst, und wird nicht, sagte Spinoza: richtig" (TB, p. 444). 12. Ernst Bloch, The Utopian Function of Art and Literature, trans. J. Zipes and F. Mecklenburg (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989), p. Ill. 13. Fichte, Einleitungsvorlesungen, 4. 14. Ibid., 6. 15. Arthur C. Danto, Connections to the World (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), p. xi. 16. "Nicht was Ich, dies einzelne Individuum, diese Person bin, sondern was AIle vereint, ich mit eingeschlossen, sind, das ist die Erscheinung, ist das Bild ihres wahren Seins" (TB, p. 528).

13

Tugendhat on Fichte and Self-Consciousness KLAUS BRINKMANN

In his book on Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung, published in 1979 and recently tran.slated into English,l Ernst Tugendhat undertakes to reformulate the concept of self-consciousness within the semantic perspective as developed by the laterWittgenstein. According to Tugendhat, the semantic approach suggests itself preci~ely because all traditional attempts to explicate, and justify the use of, the concept of self-consciousness have so far ended in failure. More important, the most sustained recent efforts at salvaging the traditional post-Kantian idealist conception of self-consciousness undertaken by philosophers such as Henrich, Cramer, and Pothast (Tugendhat also refers to them collectively as the Heidelberg school) have resulted in the loss of the very phenon1enon to be explained. As Tugendhat points out, the renewed attempts by Dieter Henrich to come to grips with the phenomenon have led that author to the conclusion that the notion of selfconsciousness is unintelligible and should be abandoned in favor of the notion of consciousness. 2 We are left, it seems, with the notion of a selfconsciousness without a self, for even though there is no self of which consciousness could become aware, it still remains true that consciousness must at least in some sense be aware of itself, if it is to be conscious at all. Given the fact that this self-awareness of consciousness does not amount to being conscious of a self, Pothast has argued that consciousness must be understood as "a completely 'objective' process, in the sense that no aspect of a knowing self-relation enters into it.,,3 By abstracting from the moment of a conscious self-relation, however, we seem to have lost the defining feature of the concept of self-consciousness. If we follow Tugendhat's analysis, the impass just described is due to a fundamental misconstrual that goes back to Fichte's interpretation of selfconsciousness as subject-object identity or subject-object relation. 4 Tugendhat distinguishes three models that have been used throughout the history

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of modern philosophy to analyze the self-relation involved in self-consciousness: (1) the substance-accident model, (2) the subject-object relation, and (3) the inner perception-or inner intuition~theory.5 I am not sure that the substance-accident model has ever been used in connection with the concept of self-consciousness-in Descartes, the obvious candidate, things are not that obvious at a1l6 -and I would suggest that the usefulness of the three models is rather limited. Indeed, contrary to its intended clarifying effect, Tugendhat's labeling tends to obscure the fact that the concept of self-consciousness, particularly since Kant, plays a special role in the attempt at grounding knowledge, and that it is therefore to be understood as the result of an argument rather than as an isolated phenomenon. In my view, it would therefore have been more appropriate to analyze the concept of self-consciousness within its proper settings as the product of, say, a transcendental, a categorial, or a phenomenological approach. 7 With this methodological caveat in mind, I propose to pursue three tasks in this essay. First, I shall briefly characterize Tugendhat's semantic approach as a backdrop to my summary of his criticism of the subject-object model. Second, I shall try to clarify the issues raised by Fichte's account of the subject-object identity in Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre. Last, I shall return to Tugendhat's semantic rephrasing of the problem and the solution he offers. It should be pointed out that the overall project in Self-Consciousness and Self-Determination is on a much larger scale than would appear from the discussion that follows. Tugendhat's aim is to trace, and argue for, the replacement of the concept of self-consciousness as an epistemic principle by its use as a fundamental practical principle. The common denominator is to be found in the structural characteristic of self-relation, which is shared by both the epistemic and the practical versions of self-consciousness. In this shift from an epistemic to a practical understanding of self-consciousness, Hegel, Heidegger, and Mead play pivotal roles according to Tugendhat, and hence their contributions are discussed extensively. Typically, Wittgenstein's role consists in helping to make the fly realize its basically Fichtean confusion about the nature of the epistemic self-consciousness and thus to get it out of the bottle again; whereas Fichte's positive contribution is seen in his characteristic move to invest self-consciousness with a practical meaning, over and above its foundational role for the Wissenschaftslehre as a whole. 8 U nfortunately, this broader perspective cannot be pursued here.

To understand Tugendhat's crItIcIsm of the subject-object model of selfconsciousness, we have to go back to an assertion made early on in the book

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concerning the interpretation of the structure of consciousness in its relation to that of which it is conscious. Using partly phenomenological, partly semantic terminology, Tugendhat maintains that all intentional consciousness is propositional in the sense that its intentional object invariably is a proposition. When we say that we know, believe, or fear something, this must always be construed as knowing, believing, or fearing that p. Intentional consciousness focuses on, or relates to, propositions; it does not establish a relationship between itself and a thing or configuration of things. This holds true even of acts of perceiving, sensing, and so on, which on the face of them are nonpropositional. In seeing a tree, I am relating to an object, not a proposition. However, drawing on analyses by Brentano, Tugendhat argues that nonpropositional acts of consciousness also presuppose or imply propositional acts, insofar as they are based on the belief that their object exists. The perception of the tree necessarily implies the belief in its existence and hence a propositional attitude. 9 As an epistemological claim, the thesis is significant in that it tries to minimize or even to eliminate the role of intuition in knowledge and thus to avoid the Kantian problem of a hiatus of intuition and concept. 10 And, indeed, this is what Tugendhat's explanation of the possibility of self-consciousness amounts to. Among other things, his semantic approach may also be of interest as a kind offeasibility test concerning the translatability of an epistemological into a semantic phenomenon. On the assumption that self-consciousness consists in or implies knowledge, it, too, will have to be construed as an act (or piece) of propositional consciousness to be expressed in a sentence of the form "I know that p." Self-consciousness is to be viewed as propositional self-knowledge. Characteristically, however, self-knowledge is of two types. I may know myself as an identifiable person with an ascertainable history in space and time. The possibility of such knowledge may be assumed to be unproblematic on the condition that we have a working theory of identifying reference. Knowledge of this kind involves what Tugendhat calls indirect epistemic selfconsciousness (cf. pp. 27 - 28). Indirect epistemic self-consciousness is indirect self-knowledge or, as we might say, knowledge about oneself as object. It is being understood that anything I can know and ascertain about myselfas object, anybody could know and ascertain about myself. Moreover, in indirect epistemic self-consciousness, the means of ascertaining the truth of such knowledge claims or the modes of cognition on which to base their truth are identical for both the first- and the third-person perspectives. On the other hand, persons also typically know about their own feelings, emotions, thoughts, wishes, and so on, and here it seems that they know themselves in a different and unique way. Thus, the fact that I am now rethinking thoughts I have thought before is known to me in a way in which it could not be known by anybody else. As Tugendhat puts it, self-ascription

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of predicates expressing inner states or experiences-also referred to as "cp" states-are based on "immediate knowledge" on the side of the experiencing subject, whereas from the perspective of the third person, the truth (or truthfulness) of utterances of sentences with the form "I cp" can only be ascertained through observation of language and behavior, that is, indirectly. Knowledge of myself as experiencing subject is therefore called "immediate or direct epistemic self-consciousness" (p. 27). I t is epistemically asymmetrical, while indirect episten1ic self-consciousness is epistemically symmetrical, with regard to first- and third-person perspectives (cf. p. 89). Both are veridically symmetrical, however, because the sentence "I cp" is true if and only if "he cp" is also true given identical reference of "he" and "I." The same holds true of sentences expressing indirect epistemic self-consciousness (cf. p. 88). In both the first- and third-person perspectives on immediate self-knowledge, the identical fact is known, or can be known, to be true, but speaker and hearer must base their knowledge on different grounds. So it seems that we must conclude the following. Since the expression of immediate epistemic self-consciousness is a proposition of the form "I cp," when I say "I know that I cp," I must be rnaking a statement about my immediate epistemic self-consciousness. In this sense, my knowledge of the fact that I cp is indeed propositional. But is it immediate? If it is-as Tugendhat indeed believes it is (cf. pp. 133-34) -it will be equivalent to the statement "I cp." Since "I cp" is an expression of immediate self-knowledge, "I know that I cp" introduces a new type of propositional knowledge, namely, immediate propositional knowledge, and it is not at all clear that this constitutes a legitimate epistemological category. Rather than respond to this question at this point, I would like to present Tugendhat's criticism of the Fichtean subject-object model of self-consciousness first and continue next with an inspection of Fichte's own ideas, before we return to the episten10logical problem just raised.

II As mentioned earlier, Tugendhat claims that the semantic version of immediate epistemic self-consciousness must replace the traditional Fichte-type subject-object theories of self-consciousness, because the Fichte-type tradition systematically misconstrued the phenomenon. Instead of an analysis of the relevant Fichtean texts, however, Tugendhat offers a direct criticism only of Henrich's work on Fichte and self-consciousness, on the grounds that Henrich's work constitutes a development of the Fichtean subject-object n10del (p. 53). To begin with, through the introduction of the subject-object model the fact that all self-knowledge is propositional in character is obscured (p. 51). Rather, the problem of self-consciousness now takes the

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form of explaining self-knowledge as that act through which the subject establishes the identity of itself with itself. On Henrich's assumption, the structure of self-consciousness must be explicated as constituting a relation of the self with itself in such a way that the self must necessarily be both different from and identical with itself. For ifit did not distinguish itselffrom itself-and hence posit itself as object-there would be nothing for selfconsciousness to be conscious of. If, on the other hand, the object pole in this relation could not equally be understood as the subject itsel(, we would be talking not about self-consciousness but, rather, about consciousness of an object. According to Tugendhat, this approach leads to two problems that can be avoided only at the price of absurdity. The first problem is one of circularity and was noticed by Henrich himself. This is my paraphrase of the circularity problem. If self-consciousness as consciousness of self is to constitute itself through becoming aware of itself in an act of grasping itself, then prior to grasping itself there could be no self, since the self to be grasped by consciousness would already have to be of the structure of self-consciousness. Otherwise it could not be a self, and the object to be grasped would be an object, not a subject. Ifwe follow Henrich's account, Fichte's introduction of the notion of a self-positing ego was intended as a solution to the circularity problem. Tugendhat considers the idea of a self-positing ego to be unacceptable, because it would commit us to the metaphysical (or "theological") claim that the ego creates itself out of nothing. Indeed, Tugendhat wrongly attributes this reading of the self-positing character of the ego to Fichte himself (cf. p. 63). Granted, however, that the circularity problem can be overcome, another difficulty immediately presents itself. If consciousness is to know that it is self-consciousness, then it seems that consciousness must also be able to recognize the I of which it must be aware as being its own self. Henrich takes this to mean that consciousness must somehow be in a position to know whether the I of which I am aware is truly my own self (cf. p. 69). Tugendhat-correctly, I believe-finds that this question is nonsensical. Self-identification is either tautological or trivial. To know that I am I can be meaningful only in two ways: (1) as stating that "I" is identical with "I" (A = A), in which case we have an expression ofa tautology, and the question of how we know this cannot arise, or (2) as clain1ing that I know that I am the person named X, born on a certain date, and so on, which knowledge can be established by using the normal means of identification and hence presents no problem. However, to say that I know that I am myself is nonsensical, because no context is conceivable in which the first-person pronoun of the "that" clause could be replaced by any other term. What Tugendhat finds most irritating is the fact that again Henrich himself clearly acknowledges

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the meaninglessness of the question, but at the same time believes that it stands in need of an explanation. For Tugendhat, the only logical conclusion to be drawn from the situation is to abandon the subject-object model and to accept the semantic construal as the only viable alternative. However, although I agree that the question of how I know that I am myself is indeed absurd, this may not be an adequate rendering of Henrich's point. As I see it, Henrich's point is a legitimate one, if self-consciousness is consciousness of a self or even only of itself. To use Husserlian terminology, any relation of consciousness to intentional objects involves the distinction between the noetic act and its noema. Whatever consciousness is conscious of must be dimensionally distinct from the act-life itself. In analogy to the famous ontological difference between Being and beings we may call this the phenomenological difference between noesis and noema. Consequently, this dimensional difference must likewise apply in the case of self-consciousness, which is the reason why the question of the identity of consciousness with itself does indeed arise. But it should also be obvious that the solution to this problem-if there is any-cannot be the one suggested by Henrich and Pothast, namely, to cancel the phenomenological difference by dissolving it· into pure noetic activity. Clearly, in this way we would also deprive consciousness of its intentional character. Let us now turn to Fichte and his argument in Versuch einer neuen Darstellung. I choose this text, because it deals explicitly with the problems raised by Henrich and Tugendhat and does so in quasi-phenomenological terms. Fichte first establishes a distinction between two types of noemata, namely, the lor thinking subject as an object of thinking versus everything else that is not of the nature of the thinking subject (cf. SW, I, pp. 521-22).11 He then urges the reader to consider the fact that the noetic act whose noema is the thinking subject is unique in that in it, thinking subject and the object grasped in thought coincide (SW, I, p. 522). The noema here represents a conceptualization of the self. What are we to understand by this self? Emphatically not anything like a sequence of mental states, a stream of consciousness, or bare consciousness, simple noetic activity. Fichtemakes it abundantly clear that the noematic self mirrors or reflects the full intention3.lity structure of the noetic activity, or consciousness, itself. To use his characteristic language together with our phenomenological adaptation, the concept of the self is to be construed not just as a self-positing but as a positing that posits a noema (cf. SW, I, p. 528). - Thus the concept of the self-or what I just called the noematic selfcombines the two aspects of noesis and noema within itself, but it is important to notice that it does so within the phenomenological difference. The concept of the self arises as the intentional object of a noesis, and although it relates the two poles-that is, the noetic and the noematic, or subject and

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object of thought-it does so noematically, or on the side of the noema. This quite naturally leads to the realization that the noematic self is dependent upon a noesis of which it is the noema, and thus presupposes itself as noesis (cf. SW, I, pp. 524-25). What is required now is the construction of the unity, not of noesis and noema in the noematic self, but of noesis and noematic self. As Fichte points out, this cannot be done, as long as we persist in viewing this unity as intentional consciousness. For as long as we think of the unity of consciousness and self as a noematic self, and hence as a noema only, we will be forced into accepting an infinite regress-the noema will forever presuppose the thinking to which it owes its being-thought (cf. SW, I, pp. 526-27). Consequently, the intentional consciousness must be superseded in favor of an original consciousness in which the subject and object poles of intentional consciousness are "absolutely one and the same" (SW, I, p. 527). So far, so good. But how does Fichte go on to explicate this subject-object identity? Here a serious problem arises. We cannot, as Henrich seems to have concluded, give up the initial insight that consciousness is characterized by this phenomenological difference between noema and noesis. Hence the original consciousness must be something other or in excess of mere noetic activity. On the other hand, neither must it exhibit the full intentional structure of consciousness, because in that case the phenomenological difference will make the coincidence of noesis with noema forever impossible. In this situation, Fichte proposes a compromise: Original consciousness must be construed as the zero case of intentional consciousness. In other words, it contains the phenomenological difference within itself, only the object pole is not a noema but is itself a noesis whose noema is in turn the original noesis. Thus original consciousness is "immediate consciousness" (SW, I, p. 528) or "intellectual intuition" (SW, I, p. 530). The result is an acting of consciousness upon itself, a clear indication that Fichte wants to emphasize the noetic character of both poles of the phenomenological difference for original consciousness.At the same time, however, we retain a trace of the noesis-noema distinction in the idea that the intentionality of the noetic act of the original consciousness results in an intuition of itself, and hence in a subject-object distinction within original consciousness itself. Incidentally, although this is most probably not what Aristotle had in mind when he coined the phrase V61l0L~ VO~OEW~, this interpretation of Fichte's intellectual intuition would constitute an explication of the literal meaning of that phrase. 12 If this is an adequate account of the structure of Fichte's concept of self-consciousness, does it also avoid the infinite regress objection and the paradox of self-identification? I think it does, but only at a price that we, and Fichte, may not be willing to accept. Since the noesis-noema distinction is converted into a noesis-noesis distinction, the possibility of a regress may be ruled out. Nor is there a need for self-identification of one noetic act with

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another, since there is only one noetic activity that relates back to itself. It should also be clear that this kind of consciousness is not to be identified with a Pothastian objective process. But neither is this consciousness of a self, because such consciousness would have to be noematic. What, then, is it? Fichte refers to it both as immediate consciousness and immediate selfconsciousness (cf. SW, I, p. 528). This suggests that intellectual intuition is the awareness of consciousness-of-itself; it is self-awareness. It is awareness of itself as intuiting. But now we must ask: What is it that consciousness intuits? And here, it seems, we reach the end of the line, because there is nothing for consciousness to intuit other than its act of intuiting, for original consciousness is just that. Consequently, we lack a noematic content for the intuition, and if that is so, we no longer understand the concept of intuition in this context. For although the idea of being aware of the act of intuiting on the occasion of intuiting something is quite intelligible, the idea of being aware of intuiting the act of intuiting is not. To put it differently, the object in Fichte's subject-object identity is not an intuited subject, but an intuiting subject. The intellectual intuition is frozen in the act of intuiting. Thus the Hegelian solution of explaining self-consciousness as the negation of its own objectcharacter qua consciousness and thus reconstituting its identity is not open to Fichte. As a brief comment on Hegel's solution it may suffice here to point out that in Hegel's categorial reconstruction of the forms of subjective Spirit selfconsciousness comes after, not before consciousness. It emerges from the intersubjective acknowledgment of the freedom and independence of self and other in mutual recognition and develops into "universal self-consciousness" as" the most basic, and abstract, form of the identity of a plurality of selfconscious, rational agents. 13 Self-consciousness is disclosed in categorial progression; it has acquired a genealogy; it is not regressively inferred as a necessary condition of consciousness. Universal self-consciousness constitutes the substantial rationality of the social, political, and spiritual community. With Hegel, self-consciousness has lost its privileged status as a grounding epistemological principle and is placed in the more concrete context of intersubjective relationships. Its identity is accounted for in terms of the negation of the otherness of the other self-consciousness to which it relates as its complement. Self-consciousness' unites with other self-consciousness, and only in this way does it become an independent self. Its identity is the identity of mutual recognition rather than that of self-intuition.

III This brief discussion of Fichte's construction of the concept of selfconsciousness 14 will have made it clear that Tugendhat's concern is with a different kind of problem altogether. While Fichte's argument may be

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characterized as transcendental and as the attempt to explain the possibility of the intentionality structure of consciousness and thus the possibility of empirical knowledge in general, Tugendhat's project can get started only on the assumption that such an argument has already been successfully established. The semantic approach must rely on the nonemptiness of the concept of self:' consciousness without being able to justify its acceptance or, to use a Kantian expression, its "objective validity." This is so, because the semantic approach operates within the framework of identifying reference. But as has been argued by a philosopher who transcended the bounds of semantics, identifying reference-or the possibility of referring to objects, states, and events identifyingly-presupposes a distinction between subjective and objective phenomena that in turn requires the acceptance of some kind of unity of consciousness and thus a conceptualization of a unified self-consciousness as an a priori epistemic condition of knowledge (the reference here is, of course, to P. F. Strawson's The Bounds of Sense). Incidentally, at no point does the question of self-identification arise in Fichte's account, nor is his problem in any way connected with the inner perception theory. Intellectual intuition is a grounding principle whose structure is inferred as a necessary precondition for the possibility of the intentionality of consciousness. Although Tugendhat neglects the problem of the possibility of identifying reference and hence is in no good position to meet a Fichte-type argument on its own ground, the question he raises is still a legitimate one as an epistemological question within, or even outside, the bounds of semantic theory. For a semantic approach in particular, the attempt at justifying the use of the concept of self-consciousness raises difficulties. Since self-consciousness is now to be understood as the possibility of self-ascription of mental states or instances of inner experience, the question arises whether such self-ascription can be true or false, and if so, how. To this end, Tugendhat first tries to show that all intentional consciousness is propositional, and that self-ascription of inner experience, or immediate epistemic self-consciousness, is a case of intentional consciousness and is h~nce likewise propositional. In other words, he denies that the idea of a nonpropositional intentional consciousness is meaningful. As we saw earlier, this amounts to saying not only that it is a case of propositional knowledge for me to claim to know that I am thinking, but that it is also a case of propositional knowledge for me to experience that I am thinking. To be sure, there is a reason for Tugendhat to maintain not only the former but also the latter, and that reason has to do with a deficiency in the later Wittgenstein's account of the possibility of self-ascription of inner experience. Wittgenstein had rejected the idea that utterances of the sort "I cp" constitute a case of knowledge because of the incorrigibility of the experience expressed through them. Where there is no room for doubt, there is no room

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for a true-false distinction. This already makes it difficult to understand what a third-person speaker means to be doing when he does not believe somebody's utterance of an inner experience. For clearly, on this reading, he cannot be doubting the truth of the utterance. To remedy the situation, it has been suggested that such utterances be taken not as cognitive, but rather as expressive sentences. This would make it possible to treat them as utterances that, rather than being true or false, can be used correctly or incorrectly in a given situation. Whichever is the case can then be established by relying on observation of consistency of behavior, linguistic and otherwise. IS The introduction of the category of expressive sentences would supply the missing link for Wittgenstein's analysis to be upheld. In a parallel move, Tugendhat introduces the category of assertoric expressive sentences· (cf. pp. 127ff.). It is one of the highlights of Tugendhat's book that he is able to show convincingly that this explanation is still insufficient in one important respect. For although it explains the possibility of faking inner experiences and thus deceiving others simply by using expressive sentences incorrectly, it cannot establish the untruthfulness involved on the side of the deceiver. In other words, it makes moraljudgment impossible. To restore that possibility, we must indeed assume that utterances of inner experience are not only expressive, and hence noncognitive, but also assertoric, and hence either true or false (cf. pp. 130-31). "I cp" sentences are unique in that they can be true or false despite the fact that they are not verifiable either within the firstperson or the third-person perspectives. While the distinction between a truthful and an untruthful utterance of "I cp" can be maintained only if the speaker in some sense knows that he does or does not experience the relevant sensation or feeling, that knowledge cannot in virtue of its incorrigibility be based on either direct perception or verification. Direct perception would allow for the possibility, here excluded, of error or illusion; verification, on the other hand, would belie the immediacy characteristic of this kind of knowledge. What kind of knowledge, then, are we talking about? Immediate epistemic knowledge, Tugendhat assures us, is knowledge that does not rest on any act of cognition at all. I t is knowledge that need not and cannot be ascertained by referring it to some-logically, ifnot temporallyantecedent act of cognition that would serve as its foundation (cf. p. 133). In this it differs from what Tugendhat now calls direct (empirical) knowledge. Direct knowledge is propositional knowledge based on some evidence or other. It is therefore mediate knowledge, not immediate (cf. p. 134). Mediate knowledge is such that we may always ask for a ground on which to base its truth claim. Direct mediate knowledge is direct, because the evidence that supports it is itself an ultimate ground. Thus I know that the music is playing, because I hear it playing, but my auditory experience is not itself based on anything more fundamental still. And yet, it must be corrigible in

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order to allow for the possibility of error or deception. The fact, then, that direct knowledge is based on an act of cognition that as such does not coincide with the knowledge of the proposition itself makes it mediate knowledge for Tugendhat. Now it seems that on Tugendhat's analysis the corrigibility of direct knowledge must be attributed to the fact that this knowledge is based on, and hence also distinct from, an act of sensory cognition. Its corrigibility thus seems to depend on the relationship between the act of cognition and the knowledge derived from it. The possibility of error with regard to cognitive sentences arises precisely because there allegedly is no "direct correlation" between the assertoric sentence and the state of affairs expressed through it (p. 133). The truth of the assertion must be ascertained; it needs to be supported by an act of sensory cognition. Consequently, immediate epistemic knowledge, that is, knowledge of one's inner experience, must be incorrigible precisely in virtue of the fact that no support for it is necessary or even possible. For someone to be in a state designated by a cp predicate is ipso facto to know that he is in this state. No further evidence is required or imaginable to make sure that this knowledge is always true whenever the experience occurs. Tugendhat's analysis calls for several comments. First of all, the distinction between direct mediate knowledge, on the one hand, and immediate knowledge, on the other, seems to be in need offurther clarification. For in a sense, direct mediate knowledge is just as immediate as immediate knowledge, insofar as they share the same doxic belief in the self-givenness of the' intuited content. To put it differently, the corrigibility of direct-as well as indirect-mediate knowledge is not a descriptive feature of the act of sensory cognition, and to that extent not a phenomenological characteristic of the act, but rather a meta-level qualification describing the epistemological reliability of sense perception as a basis for knowledge claims. If corrigibility were indeed a feature of the perception itself, illusory perception would be difficult to explain. However that may be, it is interesting to note that Tugendhat apparently retains the idea of an intuitional grounding for socalled direct and, of course, indirect epistemic knowledge, although it, too, will eventually be transformed into rules for specifying the conditions for the successful application of perceptual predicates. 16 If, then, to perceive an object is in one respect just as immediate an act of cognition as to experience a feeling or sensation, we still need a way to describe their difference on the phenomenological level, that is, as two different kinds of experience. Here both the Kantian' characterization of phenomena as extensive and intensive magnitudes and the Husserlian distinction between transcendent and immanent intentional objects may be helpful, because they both translate into

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descriptive features of the phenoniena themselves such as spatiality and undisclosed aspects (empty horizons), on the one hand, and intensity and duration, on the other. More important, however, Tugendhat's semantic strategy makes it almost impossible to understand and determine the nature of so-called immediate epistemic knowledge. On the one hand, Tugendhat is far from denying that there simply is no inner experience on which to base immediate knowledge. On the other hand, the act of experiencing a sensation or feeling and the knowledge that one does do not, according to Tugendhat, amount to two distinguishable aspects of inner experience. In other words, they not only coincide, overlap, or occur simultaneously, to all intents and purposes the two become identical and indistinguishable. The thought that one has the experience is no longer distinct from the feeling, or sensation, itself. Although Tugendhat acknowledges the existence of feelings, or sensations, as that which constitutes inner experience, he is not prepared to admit them into the boundaries of his ontology. The semantically redefined ontological framework results in a blank as far as those feelings and sensations are concerned. It is not difficult to see why Tugendhat should end up with this somewhat paradoxical conclusion. It seems to me that his uncritical identification of the inner awareness theory with the inner perception theory sets him on the wrong path from the very beginning. The fact that sensations and feelings cannot be identified in the same way as trees and people can is too easily taken to mean that they cannot be identified at all (cf. p. 87). Following Wittgenstein's private-language argument, the thesis that feelings and sensations cannot be identified is held to be irrefutable without further ado, without regard to the fact that a sentence such as "This headache is unbearable" is a perfectly legitimate as well as meaningful sentence. Obviously, we are able to make a great number of assertions about sensations and feelings (for example, about their intensity, duration, and quality-for instance, whether a sensation feels like burning, piercing, or tearing) that are true of those sensations and feelings and cannot meaningfully be predicated of the person undergoing the experience. To be sure, we do not see, hear, touch, smell, or taste our sensations or feelings. We are nevertheless, aware of them together with their peculiar characteristics. The rejection of the inner perception theory does not commit us to deny the possibility of an awareness of our noetic experience. The result of our discussion holds a certain irony. While Tugendhat started out with a total dismissal of the Fichtean interpretation of selfconsciousness, his explanation of immediate epistemic knowledge, or consciousness of inner experience, now seems to fall into the opposite error. For

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while Fichte's procedure led to the absorption of the noema into its noetic correlate, Tugendhat's results in the absorption of the noetic activity into its noematic correlate. Neither outcome seems desirable.

NOTES

1. Ernst Tugendhat, Self-Consciousness and Self-Determination, trans. Paul Stern (Cambridge, MA and London, England: MIT Press, 1986). All in-text references to Tugendhat are to this book, in the original German version, Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung. Sprachanalytische Interpretationen (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1979), unless otherwise specified. 2. Tugendhat, Selbstbewusstsei,!:, p. 54. 3. Pothast, in U. Pothast, Uber einige Fragen der Selbstbeziehung (Frankfurt a.M.: Klosterman, 1971), as quoted by Tugendhat, Self-Consciousness, p. 42. 4. Cf. Tugendhat, Selbstbewusstsein, pp. 61-75, 303. 5. Cf. ibid., pp. 33-34. 6. The fact that Descartes refers to the cogito as substance may be less significant than the quasi-noetic character also ascribed to it. For a detailed rejection of a substantialistic interpretation of the cogito, see G. H. Frankfurt, Demons, Dreamers, and Madmen (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1987). 7. An approach that steers a middle course between Tugendhat's own and the one suggested above has been developed by Manfred Frank in Die Unhintergehbarkeit von Individualitat (Frankfurt a.M., 1987). Frank uses the terms ReprasentationsModell and Reflexions-Modell as explanatory devices, but, like Dieter Henrich before him, he also distinguishes between egological and non-egological theories (cf. pp. 30ff., 36). 8. See Tugendhat's Vorlesungen zur Einfthrung in die sprachanalytische Philosophie (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1976), pp. 99f.; see also Tugendhat, Selbstbewusstsein, pp. 19-20. 9. For the last point see Tugendhat, Selbstbewusstsein, p. 9. On the other hand, Fichte is credited not only with the practical interpretation of self-consciousness, but also with illegitimately conflating the epistemic and the practical aspects (cf. p.44). 10. Both Hussed and Sartre have developed interesting but different solutions to the problem, the transcendental reduction in Hussed's case and the prereflective cogito in Sartre's. I cannot pursue these alternatives here, however. 11. References are to Fichtes Werke, edited by I. H. Fichte (hereafter SW) (see page 235). 12. My reading of the Aristotelian meaning of v6'Y)aL~ votlaEw~ is categorical rather than phenomenological. As I understand it, Aristotle wants to make the point that the v6'Y)aL~ VO'Y)IlU';WV is both in principle equivalent to and ultimately culminates in a v6'Y)aL~ VotlaEw~. This reading of Met. A 7, 8 can be supported by reference to Aristotle's analysis of voij~ in De Anima. 13. G. W. F. Hegel, Samtliche Werke jubilaumsausgabe, ed. H. Glockner (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1927-30), vol. 10, §§424-39.

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14. Fichte himself acknowledges the constructionist character of his argument in "Zweite Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre" (cf. SW, I, pp. 458,459, 461). 15. Habermas, among others, has developed this argument in Theory of Communicative Action and elsewhere (see, e.g., Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns [Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1981], I, pp. 414ff.). 16. See Tugendhat, Vorlesungen zur EinjUhrung, pp. 407ff.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Compiled by DANIEL BREAZEALE

Part One of the following bibliography lists, in chronological order, all English translations of Fichte's published and unpublished writings, along with full bibliographic citations of the various translations. The German title of each work is also supplied, as well as its location in published editions of Fichte's collected works. In cases where two or more English translations are available, the most recent is listed first. Not included are reprint editions of selections from the various translations. Also omitted from Part One are translations of very brief excerpts from Fichte's writings, including those that appear within secondary works on Fichte. (Thus, for example, there are no references to the many short passages from Fichte's writings translated in the various editions of Smith's Memoir ofJohann Gottlieb Fichte, which is especially rich in excerpts from Fichte's correspondence.) Part Two is an alphabetical listing of literature about Fichte in English, including articles and books translated into English from other languages. Part Two does not include reviews of books by and about Fichte, nor does it list unpublished dissertations and theses on Fichte. The following abbreviations are employed: GA:J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Ed. Reinhard Lauth, Hans Jacobs, and Hans Gliwitzky. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann, 1964ff. PW: The Popular Works ofJohann Gottlieb Fichle. Trans. William Smith. This work went through four editions between 1848 and 1889, though only the first (1848-49) and fourth (1889) were complete, two-volume editions. The original edition was published in London by John Chapman in 1848 (vol. I) and 1849 (vol. II). In 1859 Chapman issued a new, revised edition of the second volume of the original edition, though the first volume was not reissued at this time. A third, abridged and revised one-volume edition of selections from the original two-volume edition was published in London in 1873 by Triibner, under the title Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Popular Works. Finally, in 1889 Triibner issued a revised two-volume edition under the original title. SW:Johann Gottlieb Fichtes siimmtliche Werke. Ed. I. H. Fichte. 8 vols. Berlin: Veit, 1845-46 [= SW, I-VIII]; and Johann Gottlieb Fichtes nachgelassene Werke. Ed. I. H. Fichte.3 vols. Bonn: Adolph-Marcus, 1834-35 [= SW, IX-XI]. Reprint as Fichtes Werke. 11 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY PART ONE: ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF FICHTE'S PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED WRITINGS

1.01

"Diary of the Most Noticeable Mistakes in Education Which Have Come to My Knowledge." Trans. G. H. Turnbull. In G. H. Turnbull The Educational Theory of J. G. Fichte, pp. 137-53. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1926. [Nearly complete translation of the two journals kept by Fichte in 1789. Gi\, II, 1, pp. 165-68, 173-81, 193-95. Not in SW.J 2.01 "Plan for Arranging Exercises in Speaking." Trans. G. H. Turnbull. In Turnbull, The Educational Theory ofJ. G. Fichte [see 1.01J, pp. 119-26. [Translation of the unpublished "Plan anzustellender Rede-Ubungen" (1789). GA, II, 1, pp. 129-34. Not in SW.J 3.01 ["Aphorisms on Religion and Deism."J Trans. Russell Warren Stine. In Stine, The Doctrine of God in the Philosophy of Fichte, pp. 3-6; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1945. [Partial translation of approximately twothirds, of the fragmentary and unpublished "Einige Aphorismen tiber Religion und Deismus" (17QP). GA, II, 1, pp. 287-91. SW, V, pp. 1-8.J 4.01 ["On the Love of Truth."J Trans. Russell Warren Stine. In Stine, The Doctrine of God in the Philosophy ofFichte [see 3.01J, pp. 1-2. [Translation of the opening paragraphs, amounting to approximately one-fourth of the whole, of an unpublished sermon "Uber die Wahrheitsliebe" (1792). GA, II, 2, pp. 151-59. SW, VIII, pp. 259-69.J 5.01 Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation. Trans. Garrett Green. N'ew York: Cambridge University Press, 1978, viii + 186 pp. [Complete translation of Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung (1792; 2d ed. 1793). GA, 1,1, pp. 17-162. SW, V, pp.9-174.J 6.01 "Reclamation of the Freedom of Thought from the Princes of Europe, Who Have Oppressed It until Now. A Speech." Trans. Thomas E. Wartenberg. In What Is Enlightenment? Eighteenth-Century Answers and Twentieth-Century Questions, ed. James Schmidt. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, forthcoming. [Complete translation of Ziiruckforderung der Denkfreiheit von den Fiirsten Europens, die sie bisher unterdriickten. Eine Rede (1793). GA, I, l,pp. 167-92. SW, VI, pp. 3-35.J 7.01 "Review ofAenesidemus." Trans. Daniel Breazeale. In Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings, ed. Daniel Breazeale, pp. 59-78. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988. [Complete translation of "Rezension des Aenesidemus" (1794). GA, I, 2, pp. 41-67. SW, I, pp. 1-25.J 7.02 "Review of Aenesidemus." Trans. George di Giovanni. In Between Kant and Hegel: Texts in the Development of Post-Kantian Idealism, ed. George di Giovanni and H. S. Harris, pp. 136-57. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1985. [Complete translation of "Rezension des Aenesidemus."J 8.01 "Concerning Human Dignity." Trans. Daniel Breazeale. In Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings,ed. Breazeale [see 7.01J pp.B3-86. [Complete translation of Fichte's Zurich lecture "Uber die Wtirde des Menschen" (1794). GA, I, 2, pp. 83-89. SW, I, pp. 412-16.J 8.02 "The Dignity of Man." Trans. A. E. Kroeger. In The Science of Knowledge, ed. A.E. Kroeger, pp. 331-36. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1868. Rpt. London: Triibner, 1889. [Complete translation of "Uber die Wiirde des Menschen."J

Bibliography 9.01

9.02

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10.03

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INDEX

Bourgeois, Bernard, 3 Breazeale, Daniel, 86 Brentano, Franz, 222 Bruno (Schelling), 198, 205

absolute, 38, 41, 191, 192, 194, 198, 199, 203, 205, 213 absolute self, 33, 84 Act (Tathandlung), 8, 27, 29, 32, 84,85, 86,99,224 Addresses on Religion (Schleiennacher), 128 Aenesidemus, 121. See also Schulze, G. E. analytic philosophy, 97, 181 Anstofl, 150, 200 antifoundationalism, 96-113 Apel, Karl-Otto, 109 "Appeal to the Public" (Fichte), 83 appetition, 185- 86 Archimedean point, 100, 109 architectonic, 102 Aristotle, 37, 71, 100, 104, 107, 108, 226 Atheismusstreit, 83, 114 Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (Fichte), 45, 104 Beck, J. S., 103 Being, 211- 18 passim Being and Nothingness (Sartre), 102 Beitriige zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publikums uber die franzosische Revolution. See Contribution toward Cor-recting the Public's judgment of the French Revolution. Bergson, Henri, 2 Bernhardi, August Ferdinand, 114, 124 Bildung, 161-62 Bounds of Sense, The (Strawson), 228

capacity of presentation (Vorstellungsvermogen) , 101 Cart, J.-]., 108 categorical imperative, 159 categories, 20, 31, 32, 38 causality, 14, 81, 164-66 certainty, 42, 43, 77; and conscience in The System of Ethics, 80-83, 87 Chandogya Upanishad, 130 Chisholm, Roderick, 109 circularity: in "Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre," 73-78; extra-systematic, 47-53; Fichte on, 23, 24, 43-113, 151, 224; intrasystematic, 53-60 cogito, 100, 182 concept, 33, 38,44, 146, 149, 151, 213 Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre (Fichte), 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 24, 38, 46, 51, 72, 104 "Concerning the Difference between the Spirit and the Letter within Philosophy" (Fichte), 10, 14 Condillac, Etienne, 115, 117, 118 conscience (Gewissen), 80-83 consciousness, 14, 21, 26, 27, 28, 35, 47,49, 57, 77-78, 83, 84, 86, 87, 99, 102, 109, 121, 131, 133, 144, 146, 148, 149, 197, 199, 201, 204, 212, 216, 217, 220, 222, 224, 226

267

268

INDEX

contradiction, 24, 25, 29, 33, 37, 38 Contribution toward Correcting the Public's judgment of the French Revolution (Fichte), 45, 159-62 Copernican Revolution, 110 Coreth, Emerich, 129, 133, 134 Cramer, Konrad, 220 Creuzer, Georg Friedrich, 45 Critical philosophy, 46, 102, 119, 120 Critique ofjudgment (Kant), 9, 11 Critique of Practical Reason (Kant), 144 . Critique of Pure Reason (Kant), 9, 11, 12, 13, 29, 35,40, 101, 102, 144, 182, 188 Danto, Arthur, 217 Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (Fichte), 18, 19, 20, 150, 191, 201 Darstellung meines Systems (Schelling), 191, 198, 201, 205 deduction, 77; of intersubjectivity, 169; of morality, 82; of representation, 19, 20; transcendental, 19, 26, 38, 148 Descartes, Rene, 72,97, 100, 101, 103, 182, 221 Difference between the Fichtean and the Schellingean System of Philosophy, The (Hegel), 18, 23, 106, 107, 120, 123 Differenzschrift. See Difference between the Fichtean and the Schellingean System of Philosophy, The Dilthey, Wilhelm, 8 divisibility, 34, 36 Dogen, 130 dogmatism, 52, 79, 80, 87, 110, 147, 198, 206 drive (Trieb) , 14, 81, 83, 87, 154 Ebeling, Ernst, 132 ego. See self Einleitungsvorlesungen in die Wissenschaftslehre, die transzendentale Logik und die Thatsachen des Bewusstseins (Fichte), 214, 216 Encyclopedists, 11 7 Enlightenment, 181 epistemology, 71, 72,97, 98, 109, 153, 222 Erhard, Johann Benjamin, 114 Erigena, John Scotus, 130

Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke), 117 experience, 43, 49, 120, 228, 229, 231 feeling (Gefthl) , 14, 84, 231 Fichte bibliography in English, 235-63 Findlay, J. N., 142-43, 146-47 "First Introduction to the Science of Knowledge" (Fichte), 52, 80 first principle, 21,49, 50, 51, 74, 77, 159 Forberg, Friedrich Karl, 114, 115 foundation, 43, 72, 73, 85, 87, 104, 105 foundationalism, 71, 86, 96, 97, 100, 104, 105, 110, III Foundations of Natural Right (Fichte), 11, 55, 56, 113, 119, 144, 146, 153, 155, 162-71,176 Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge (Fichte), 4, 7, 10, 15, 19, 20, 26, 34, 38, 40, 49, 54, 55, 57, 59, 71, 82, 98,99, 104, 105, 113, 150, 182, 191, 193, 200, 211 Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre. See Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge freedom, 52, 79, 83, 84, 86, 87, 88, 133, 144, 145, 150, 151, 152, 163-66, 167, 168, 170, 176, 177, 192, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 227; and nature, 200-206, 213, 217 Frege, Gottlob, 96 Freud, Sigmund, 181 fundamentum inconcussum, 109 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 98 General Deduction of Dynamical Processes (Schelling), 198 Girndt, Helmut, 3 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang, 2 Grimn1, Jacob, 116 ground, 21, 25, 29, 31, 33, 43-70, 74, 108, 164, 197, 221, 230. See also foundation Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftlehre. See Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge Grundlage des Naturrechts. See Foundations of Natural Right Grundriss des Eingentumlichen der

Index Wissenschaftslehre (Fichte), 18, 19, 20, 36, 185 Grundsatz, 44

Habermas, Jiirgen, 98, 109 Hamann, Johann Georg, 103, 116, 119, 120, 121 Hartmann, Nicolai, 128 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 2, 3, 5, 20, 30, 32, 72,98,99, 101, 102, 104,106, 107, 120, 123, 152, 192, 221, 227 Hegel"s CircularEpistemology (Rockmore), 71 Heidegger, Martin, 2, 97, 98, 100, 109, 142,218,221 Heimsoeth, Heinz, 82 Henrich, Dieter, 220, 223, 224,225 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 103, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 124 hermeneutics, 98 historical materialism, 98 Hohler, T. P., 4 Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 114, 124 Hume, David, 5 Husserl, Edmund, 2,4, 72,97, 100, 109, 142, 148 I. See self. I as the Principle of Philosophy" The (Schelling),40 idealism, 2, 51, 52, 59, 79, 80, 86, 97, 107, 143, 144, 146, 148, 151, 152, 155, 192, 198, 202, 212, 213,214, 215, 216, 218 identity, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 34, 50, 54, 55, 56, 104, 153, 204 imagination, 38; dialectical, 7-16 individuality, 158, 162-63, 165-66, 168, 170- 71, 175, 191 Individuals (Strawson), 144 intellectual intuition, 7, 19, 24, 27, 39-41,83-86,87, 101-2, 192,227 Introduction to the Human Sciences (Dilthey), 8 intuition, 15, 19, 21, 24, 38, 85,86, 193, 194, 195, 197, 203, 226 intuitionism, 108, 109

Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich, 103, 116, 119, 142, 143, 146, 150, 151, 155, 188

269

Jalloh, Chernor Maarjou, 4 James, William, 2 Kant, Immanuel, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 21,24, 26, 28-29, 30, 31, 32, 34-35, 37, 38, 3~, 40, 41, 46, 58, 79, 87,96, 97, 98, 99, 101, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 113, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 124, 142, 144, 152, 159, 182, 186, 188, 214 Kierkegaard, S0ren, 2 Kroner, Richard, 18 Lambert, J. H., 118, 119 language: Fichte on, 113-27 Lask, Emil, 2 Lauth, Reinhard, 3, 4, 80, 143 law of imaging, 211, 212, 214, 218 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 25; and Fichte, 181-89 letter and the spirit, 12-13,53,96,99, 103 Letters on Dogmatism and Criticism (Schelling), 80 Levinas, Emmanuel, 142, 145, 148, 151, 155 Locke, John, 115, 117 logic, 35, 37, 38 Lossky, Vladimir, 137- 38 Lukacs, Georg, 2 Maimon, Salomon, 103, 114, 120 manifold, 39 Marx, Karl, 2, 12, 99, 181 Maupertuis, Pierre-Louis Moreau de, 115 Mead, George Herbert, 221 Medicus, Fritz, 128 Meister Eckhardt, 130, 132 Mendelssohn, Moses, 188 Meno (Plato), 53 "Metakritik tiber den Purismum der reinen Vernunft" (Hamann), 119 metaphysics, 188, 189 Metaphysics (Aristotle), 37 method, Fichte's dialectical, 17-42 Mnioch, Johann Jakob, 45 monad, 183-89 Monadology (Leibniz), 183, 184, 187 Moore, G. ~---"-'-_Z

270

INDEX

moral autonomy, 158 moral law, 81,83, 84, 85, 87, 88, 144, 158, 161, 172 morality, 158, 158-80 passim mysticism: Fichte on, 128-41

Nachlass, Fichte's, 2 nature, 11, 200, 201 Neuhouser, Frederick, 4 Niethammer, Friedrich, 114 Nietzsche, 2,47 non-identity, 27 not-I. See not-self not-self, 54, 59, 143, 153, 185, 186, 215 noumenon, 40, 147 Nouveaux essais (Leibniz), 188 Novalis (pseud. Friedrich Leopold), 124 On the Concept of the Science of Knowledge. See Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre "On the Foundations of Our Belief in a Divine Government of the Universe" (Fichte), 83 opposition, 24, 25, 27, 30, 34, 104 Opus Postumum (Kant), 40 other, the: Fichte on, 142-57 Palamas, Gregory, 137, 138 parergon, 214, 217 Pareyson, Luigi, 82 Parmenides, 104 perception, 185 person, concept of, 162, 165, 167, 168, 171,174,176 "Personal Meditations on Elementary PhilosophyIPractical Philosophy" (Fichte), 46, 54, 56, 104 Phenomenology oj Spirit (Hegel), 2, 20, 104, 107 Philonenko, Alexis, 3, 143 Philosophische Aphorismen (Platner), 113, 114,115,118 Philosophisches Journal einer Gesellschaft Teutscher Gelehrten, 113, 114, 116 philosophy of nature, 200 Philosophy of Right (Hegel), 108 Platner, Ernst, 113, 114, 118 Plato, 28, 30, 37, 53, 100, 104, 108 Plotinus, 130, 132

positing (setzen), 26, 148, 213 postmodernism, 97, 109 Pothast, U., 220, 225 practice, 12 prima philosophia, 189 principle, 28, 30, 31, 32, 36, 39, 101 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (Kant), 122, 188 pure I. See absolute self Quine, W. V., 97 realism, 147, 192 reality, 28, 29, 181, 184, 199 reason, 49, 107; as social, 153-55 recognition, 146, 152 reflection, 11, 17,48, 83, 107, 195, 215, 216 Reinhold, Karl Leonhard, 3, 7, 46, 101, 103, 105, 106, 107, 114, 120 Renaut, Alain, 3 representations, 43 "Review of Aenesidemus" (Fichte), 19, 45, 98, 104 right (Recht), 158, 158-80 passim right and morality: Fichte on, 158-80 Rockmore, Tom, 71- 72, 86 Rorty; Richard, 97 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 115, 117, 118 Sankara, 130, 132 Santayana, George, 2 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 2, 12, 102, 142, 145 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph, 3, 5, 18, 20, 23, 32, 36, 38, 39, 40, 80, 101,102,106,116,151-52,153,154, 191, 192; and disputes with Fichte, 198-206 schematism, 216 Schiller, Friedrich, 114 Schlegel, Friedrich, 124 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 128 Schmidig, Dominik, 133, 134-35, 138 Scholz, Heinrich, 128 Schulz, Walter, 3 Schulze, G. E. (pseud. Aenesidemus), 3, 7, 103, 114, 120, 121 Schweben, 9-10, 14 Science of Knowledge, The. See Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge

Index "Second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge" (Fichte), 12, 21, 77, 78-80, 83, 85, 101, 147, 188 seeing (Sehen), 192-93, 198,213,215-18 Selbstbewusstsein und Selbstbestimmung (Tugendhat), 220, 221 self, 11, 54, 58, 59, 82, 87, 88, 102, 142, 143, 148, 150, 151, 181-89, 193,200, 211, 212, 215, 217, 220, 224 self-consciousness, 21, 55, 83, 84, 87 Semiotik (Lambert), 118 Siep, Ludwig, 3, 146 Skeptical Reflections on Free Will (Creuzer),45 skepticism, 100, 110, 188 Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar's Vocation (Fichte), 143, 152, 154 Spinoza, Benedict de, 72, 188, 195--96 spirit, 152, 191,200, 204, 217 spontaneity, 39, 54 Sprachlehre (Berrihardi), 114, 124 Strawson, P. F., 144-45, 228 striving (Streben), 14, 186 subject, 143, 145, 151, 162, 163 subjectivity, 4, 57, 176-77, 215 subject-object model, 220-21, 223, 225, 226 sublime, 11 sufficient reason, principle of, 48 Siissmilch, Johann Peter, 115 System of Ethical Theory, The (Fichte), 52, 72; and conscience and certainty, 80-83,85 System of Ethics According to the Principles of the Wissenschaflslehre, The. See System of Ethical Theory, The System of Transcendental Idealism (Schelling), 18, 19, 20, 38, 191, 198 system, philosophical, 44, 48, 71, 73, 83,87, 96, 102, 105, 106, 108, 147, 158, 183, 189, 191,206 Tat, 26 Tathandlung. See Act Tauache, 26, 29, 30, 84, 145

271

"Tatsachen des Bewusstseins" (Fichte), 151, 152, 211, 212 Tetens, J. N., 119 Thiodicie (Leibniz), 187, 188 theory, 12 thetic judgment, 35-36 thing-in-itself, 21, 142 time, 39 transcendental philosophy, 78, 79, 80, 121, 124, 143, 146, 150-52, 189,201, 203 transcendental unity of apperception, 30, 40, 41, 101, 152, 182 Treatise on the Origin of Language (Herder), 115 Tugendhat, Ernst, 220- 34 Uber den Begriff der Wissenschaflslehre. See Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre understanding, 9, 10, 12, 15, 19 Verstand und Erfahrung (Herder), 120 Versuch einer neuen Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre (Fichte), 18, 221 Vienna Circle, 96 ~ visibility: Fichte on, 211- 19 Vocation of Man, The (Fichte), 4, 134 "Von der SprachHihigkeit und dem U rsprunge der Sprache" (Fichte), 113 Wainright, William, J., 131 Walsh, W. H., 137, 138 Way towards the Blessed Life, The (Fichte), 128, 131, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 139 Weischedel, Wilhelm, 82 Widmann, Joachim, 153 Wissenschaftslehre nfJva methodo (Fichte), 55, 56, 73 Wissenschaflslehre of 1801-1802, 191-210 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 106, 220, 221, 228, 229, 231