Abstract

If ‘the transcendental’ refers to the a priori conditions for the possibility of experience, it must be radically dissimilar to what is found within experience. Can we understand this difference in metaphysical and/or ontological terms? Should transcendental conditions – in Fichte’s case, understood primarily as activity and/or actions – be considered to be real? Early in the Jena period – most visibly, early in the Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre – Fichte appears to articulate a decisively metaphysical idealism that depicts the transcendental (and specifically the absolute I) not only as being real, but even as what is most real or even all that is real. Later in the Grundlage and early in the Novo Methodo, however, Fichte appears to move toward an opposite view, such that only that which is empirical in a strict sense can be called ‘real’. Then, partway through the Novo Methodo, Fichte seems to entertain the possibility that both domains are real in differing respects – at other times, the difference between them seems practically eliminated. At the end of the Nova Methodo, he seems to revert toward a position that asserts both the reality and the priority of the transcendental (and especially pure will). This study traces this development and concludes with a brief analysis of some of Fichte’s reflections on the ‘constructed’ nature of the Wissenschaftslehre and the limits of human reason, which may explain some of the metaphysical ambiguity of the Jena Wissenschaftslehren.