In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.1 (2004) 110-112 [Access article in PDF] Terry Pinkard. German Philosophy, 1670-1860: The Legacy of Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Pp. x + 382. Cloth, $65.00. Paper, $23.00. In one respect, the story related in Terry Pinkard's new book on German idealism is a very old-fashioned one of the "from Kant to Hegel" sort, inasmuch as Hegel's system is (...) here presented as the logical culmination of a single movement of thought, initiated by Kant and carried forward, first by Fichte and then by Schelling; and post-Hegelian philosophy is interpreted as a desperate reaction to the apparent failure of the grand idealist project. In other respects, however, Pinkard offers a welcome variation on this familiar tale by including chapter on less familiar figures and by interpreting the idealist project in the context of some current philosophical concerns.A distinctive feature of this new history is its powerful narrative thrust. Pinkard organizes his tale around a single, central issue, which he calls the "Kantian paradox." The paradox in question is that of self-legislation or self-authorization, a paradox implicit in Kant's claim that one can be bound by laws of which one is also the free author. Though this paradox obviously pertains to Kant's moral philosophy, Pinkard shows that it also extends to the application of any rational norms whatsoever. Pinkard's object is to show how each of the thinkers he discusses responded to this "Kantian paradox," culminating in Hegel's alleged recognition that this paradox is "the basic problem that all post-Kantian philosophies had to solve" (226) and in his effort to provide an essentially social solution to the problem of reason's self-authorization.The book commences with a superb essay on "'Germany' and German Philosophy," examining the relation of "German philosophy" to "Germany" during the period in question, an essay that would be an ideal first assignment for any course on nineteenth-century philosophy. Each of the four major parts of the book begins with a similarly useful, short historical/contextual introduction.Part One is a brilliant summary of the Kantian revolution, not just in epistemology and metaphysics, but also in moral philosophy, aesthetics, and teleology. Without bogging down in unnecessary details or arcane scholarly disputes, Pinkard manages to provide a nuanced account of Kant's arguments and conclusions, emphasizing those tensions and problems in Kant's writings that occupied the attention of the philosophers who followed.Part Two is devoted to the pre-Hegelian "post-Kantians," not just Fichte and the early Schelling, but also Jacobi, Reinhold, Hölderlin, Novalis, Schleiermacher, Frederich Schlegel, and Fries. Pinkard's discussions of these lesser-known figures is welcome and illuminating. The same cannot, unfortunately, be said of his discussion of Fichte. Though the paradox of self-authorization is obviously a central Fichtean concern, Pinkard's account of the Wissenschaftslehre seriously distorts Fichte's project and accomplishments—beginning with Pinkard's failure to distinguish between the Wissenschaftslehre itself, as the name for a complete system of philosophy, and the 1794/95Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre, which is concerned only with the rudimentary foundations of the same. (This leads him to the mistaken view that Fichte's treatises on right and ethics are "revisions" of the Wissenschaftslehre, [End Page 110] rather than systematic branches of the same.) The account of the Foundations is itself skewed, inasmuch as it fails to take account of how Part III of this text provides a "practical" solution to the "theoretical" impasse of Parts I and II. Instead, Pinkard offers an interpretation of Fichte's early system that simply ignores the centrality thereto of willing and striving, makes no mention of the key role of productive imagination, and characterizes Fichtean intellectual intuition as "an insight into the necessary structure of things themselves" (110). Though Pinkard is aware that the overwhelming majority of Fichte scholars reject such an interpretation, he nevertheless advances it, claiming the right to "argue the opposite view." Unfortunately, he keeps his "argument" to himself... (shrink)

IN 1787, six years after the publication of the Critique of Pure Reason, one year before the publication of the Critique of Practical Reason, and three years prior to the appearance of the Critique of Judgment, Duke Karl August of Sax-Weimar was persuaded to establish at the University of Jena the world's first university chair designated for the promulgation and explication of the new Critical Philosophy associated with Immanuel Kant. The first occupant of this chair was Karl Leonhard Reinhold, an (...) Austrian ex-monk, whose main qualification for the new position was his fame as the author of a series of well-received magazine articles promoting the new philosophy. At Jena, however, Reinhold's own "Kantianism" underwent an interesting metamorphosis; in the books and lectures that he wrote during his seven year tenure there he profoundly revised the Kantian system and produced a new version of it which he called "Elementary Philosophy." It is altogether appropriate that when Reinhold finally left Jena his successor should have been an even more innovative follower of Kant and admirer of Reinhold's Elementary Philosophy, J. G. Fichte. Fichte arrived in 1794 and immediately began constructing and laying before the public what is perhaps the most imaginative and remarkable of all the great post-Kantian speculative systems: his Wissenschaftslehre, or "Theory of Scientific Knowledge." Concurrent with the widespread revival of interest in German Idealism generally, interest in Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre has increased remarkably in recent years. Often viewed as the first step "from Kant to Hegel," Fichte's system was in fact not the first attempt to convert Kant's philosophy into a more consistent and thoroughgoingly speculative system. The honor--or onus--of making the "first step" in this direction belongs to Reinhold, and the aim of this essay is to indicate why this is so by surveying the Elementary Philosophy and examining those of its features which most influenced other philosophers, most notably Fichte. Though it may be claiming too much to say that one cannot properly understand Fichte's early presentations of his system without some acquaintance with Reinhold's Elementary Philosophy, it is certainly true that a familiarity with the latter is a tremendous aid to anyone trying to penetrate the former. Though the chief purpose of this survey is to emphasize Reinhold's contributions to the development of German Idealism, an ulterior aim is to introduce contemporary readers, especially English-language readers, to Reinhold's Elementary Philosophy and to suggest reasons why this neglected and all but forgotten system might still merit serious study. (shrink)

The dissertation contrasts Kant's epistemological assertiveness with his ontological skepticism as a central issue in the development of the discourse in German Idealism. Fichte's phenomenological demarche essentially amplifies this problem but, at the same time, allows him to advance a path breaking critique of formal logic and to stress the importance of contradiction. Schelling, by restoring metaphysics, attempts to overcome Fichte's contrast between ontological dualism and epistemological monism. Finally, it is Hegel who directly addresses the need for a non-formal (...) cognitive logic. The author analyzes Hegel's deduction in the Phenomenology, invokes current genetic epistemology, and reads the Science of Logic as a genetic theory of systematic knowledge and as circular epistemology. Emphasizing the unity between the logical and the historical, the distinction between intellectual and rational explanation, and the cognitive importance of contradiction, the dissertation argues for the possibility a coming-to-be totality of reflective scientific reason. (shrink)

Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843) was a nineteenth-century German philosopher, contemporaneous with so-called “German Idealism,” who is best known for his main work, New Critique of Reason (1807/1828–1831).¹ Fries regards Kant’s philosophy as incomplete and tries to revise and renew it. Since he adopts Kant’s spirit of criticism, he emphasises the finitude of human cognition and in this respect he criticises his contemporaneous opponents: Reinhold, Fichte, and Schelling. Fries criticises Kant’s conception of transcendental cognition as follows: Although transcendental cognition (...) concerns cognitions a priori, transcendental cognition itself can be acquired only in an empirical way because human cognition always begins with experience. Hence Kant was in error to regard it as a priori. German Idealists elaborated on Kant’s mistake and interpreted mere inner perception as cognition a priori, which led them to adopt the “synthetic method” as a means of philosophising. Fries corrects them by assuming the “analytical method,” whereby he starts from the standpoint of ordinary experience by analysing “the ordinary opinions (Beurtheilungen) in daily life” in order to reveal the philosophical cognitions constructing the general presuppositions of opinions. He calls such a project “Critique of Reason.” Kuno Fischer (1824–1907), however, contradicts Fries’s approach by defending German Idealists, arguing that the cognition a priori can never be acquired in an empirical way. Otto Liebmann (1840 –1912) also follows Fischer and criticises Fries’s approach as a “retrogression to Locke.” In this article I deal with Fries’s conception of the “Critique of Reason” and respond to the objections above. Fries’s method is an analysis of opinions, which are neither mere experience nor logical judging (urtheilen). The philosophical cognitions constructing the presuppositions of opinions belong to “reason,” which is to be distinguished from “understanding,” which conducts the “analysing” operation by relying on arbitrary reflection. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:J. G. Fichte's Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre and Related Writings, 1794–95 by J. G. FichteIsabelle Thomas-FogielJ. G. Fichte. J. G. Fichte's Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre and Related Writings, 1794–95. Edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 608. Hardback, $145.00.This edition of texts written or taught by Fichte between February 1794 and the winter of 1794–95 is a major editorial (...) event and is destined to become the indispensable working tool for all English-speaking students and researchers interested in Fichte. Daniel Breazeale, one of the greatest Fichte specialists, offers here four essential texts. First, the heart of this edition and of Fichte's philosophy, is Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (literally "Doctrine of Science") of 1794–95. This central text has already been translated into English by Peter Heath and John Lachs under the title Science of Knowledge (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1970), but as Breazeale explains in his preface, he corrected the errors in translation and above all wished to propose a version that was "as broadly accessible as possible" (xi). This is a great challenge, given that this version of the Wissenschaftslehre (henceforth WL) is considered one of the most abstract and difficult texts in philosophy. Let us recall that the term 'WL' qualifies Fichte's entire undertaking and not just one of his works; Fichte thus professed more than fifteen versions of the WL.With this fundamental text, we are also offered a revised translation of two essays (which Breazeale had already edited in 1988): Concerning the Concept of the WL, or of So-Called 'Philosophy' (April–May 1794) and Outline of What is Distinctive of the WL with Regard to the Theoretical Power (winter 1794–95). Finally, Breazeale translates for the first time into English The Zurich WL, the lectures Fichte gave before a small committee from February 24 to April 26 of 1794. With this book, English-speaking readers thus have at their disposal, [End Page 334] in a single volume, some of the most fundamental writings of Fichte's first philosophy. The precision and clarity of this translation will, if not "force the reader to understand," to use a well-known title of Fichte, at least help the reader to appreciate one of the culminating points of idealism.But there is much more to this edition than a precise, fluent, and illuminating translation. It includes, first, an introduction of about one hundred pages that details Fichte's bibliographical, historical, and philosophical journey; then, endnotes that clarify certain moments of the text by placing them in their context, identifying the opponents targeted by Fichte, and restoring the debates of the time; lastly, a German-English and English-German glossary and an index. It is a considerable work, the fruit of a lifetime of research, which will introduce many beginners to Fichte's philosophy and at the same time renew many specialist debates. And it is undoubtedly a strength of this edition that it can be read at several levels, by the beginner as well as by the most experienced researcher.As this review cannot deal with all the rich analyses in Breazeale's introduction, I will give just a few examples. Breazeale first endeavors to reconstruct the genesis of Fichte's questioning. Indeed, the work of the historian of philosophy—as R. G. Collingwood conceived of it—consists first of all in restoring as closely as possible the question to which the text is intended to provide an answer. So, what question or problem was the source of his philosophy that he felt the need to rename WL? Fichte's initial problem was that of the foundation of transcendental idealism. The criticisms of skeptics like Gottlob E. Schulze (also known as "Aenesidemus") or Salomon Maimon had revealed the inadequacy of the foundations laid down by both Kant and Reinhold. As Fichte says and Breazeale reminds us, "The system has to be rebuilt" (4). This rebuilding is the common object of these four translated texts. In this respect, the Zurich lectures (of which only a small part remains) are the witness of this foundation work. Reading these... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Between Kant and Hegel. Lectures on German IdealismDaniel BreazealeDieter Henrich. Between Kant and Hegel. Lectures on German Idealism. David S. Pacini, editor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003. Pp. xliii + 341. Cloth, $62.00.As the author explains, the title of this work is intended to distinguish it from ordinary, Whiggish accounts of the development of German philosophy “from Kant to Hegel.” Instead, Heinrich treats the (...) positions of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel as potentially viable alternatives, none of which must be viewed as aufgehoben by those that followed, and all of which deserve reconsideration by contemporary philosophers.Dieter Henrich is known for two things: first, for championing a minutely-detailed, revisionist approach to the history of post-Kantian philosophy; and second, for his insistence that the central problem of German idealism is that of self-consciousness. Both elements are well represented in this book, which is a revised version of a series of lectures delivered (in English) at Harvard in 1973. The text thus antedates many of the more recent discoveries and claims of Henrich and his student collaborators in the “Jena project,” though some of the results are alluded to in the useful footnotes and apparatus provided by David S. Pacini, who attended the original lectures and has expert knowledge of Henrich’s more recent work.Part 1 commences with a masterful overview of some of the distinctive features of German philosophy in the decades following the publication of Kant’s Critiques, with one lecture devoted primarily to Fichte, another to Kant’s concept of self-consciousness, and a third to the systematic role of freedom in Kant’s system.Part 2 focuses on the earliest reception of Kant’s philosophy and its social, religious, and philosophical context. A lecture on how Kant was criticized by and responded to defenders of direct intuition is followed by two lectures on Jacobi’s criticisms of Kantianism, which contain a wealth of information concerning the influence upon the idealists of Platonism, Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Spinozism, Lessing, and the contemporary “theology of the spirit.” These lectures clearly show why the next generation of idealists saw themselves challenged to construct a “Spinozism of freedom.” Part 2 concludes with two perfunctory lectures on Reinhold’s “Elementary Philosophy,” followed by another on the skepticism of G. E. Schulze (“Anesidemus”), whose critique of Kant and Reinhold was instrumental in making questions of method of central philosophical concern.Part 3 is devoted to Fichte, whose importance for the development of philosophy after Kant can hardly, in Henrich’s view, be overemphasized and whose influence “derived from his uncanny ability to penetrate the intellectual life of an entire epoch, an accomplishment [End Page 330] that even Hegel did not rival” (184). The first of the eight lectures on Fichte provides a detailed analysis of Fichte’s Anesidemus review (1794), in which Henrich discerns evidence of the fateful transformation of transcendental philosophy into an explicit theory of mental activity based upon a method of internal self-awareness and description (“intellectual intuition”). The next two lectures are devoted to a close reading of Fichte’s unpublished manuscript from the same period, “Personal Mediations on Elementary Philosophy,” which, according to Henrich, is where the “dialectical method” first appears in post-Kantian philosophy. Henrich has little to say about the actual content and systematic structure of Fichte’s only full-scale published presentation of his system, in the Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre, offering instead a rather free “reconstruction” of some of its more important doctrines, on time consciousness and the hovering of the imagination. But he does provide an insightful analysis of Fichte’s theory of consciousness as a self-referring and self-explaining activity and a spirited defense of Fichte’s employment of the term ‘setzen’ (“positing”) to describe this activity. The final lecture on Fichte discusses some of the difficulties implicit in Fichte’s “dynamic monism” and how he tried—unsuccessfully, in Henrich’s view—to resolve them in subsequent, unpublished versions of his system, where he moved from his early, more “descriptive” theory of the mind toward a more “explanatory” account, according to which the ground of self-consciousness lies outside the mind itself (in... (shrink)

In this thesis I investigate the notion of experience in German Idealist Philosophy. I focus on the exploration of an alternative to the transcendental model notion of experience through Schelling's insight into the notion of logogrif. The structural division of this project into two sections reflects the two theoretical standpoints of this project, namely the logic and the logogrif of experience. The first section - the logic of experience - explores the notion of experience provided in Kant's Critique of (...) Pure Reason, Critique of Judgement and Fichte's Science of Knowledge. I argue that Kant's fundamental question about the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements succeeds in thematising the aporia of cognitive experience but results in a subject-oriented, representational model which radically confines the notion of experience to the constitutive laws of the understanding or to the normative precepts of Reason. Experience is founded upon a sharp division between faith and knowledge, will and logic, desire and reflection, absolute and finitude. Fichte's endeavour to articulate a non-representational account of experience, does not succeed in extricating itself from the representational model, so long as experience is reduced to the ever-producing deeds of the self-positing ego. Despite the serious differences between Kant's and Fichte's notions of experience, both accounts, so long as they unfold from a transcendental standpoint, attempt to resolve experience into conceptual laws or determinations of the ego's absolute will. Experience is transformed into an object of the subject's cognitive or volitional faculties. The paradoxes of man's interaction with the world are intended to be accommodated either by the law-giving spontaneity of the understanding and the Architectonic of Pure Reason or by the overpowerful primordial act of the self-positing ego. This implies the conceptualisation of the self in terms of constant identity-through-time, or sheer self-determination. However, this conceptualisation remains at the normative or prescriptive level, which in turn is projected upon the world. The latter, though appears as the subject's property, essentially remains alien and opaque, confirming the radical limitations of the ego rather than its order-giving authority. Moreover, this notion of experience is ultimately founded upon a radical expulsion of the divine from the world, the de-spiritualisation of the sensual and the de-sensualisation of the spiritual, the sharp juxtaposition between absolute and finitude. This results in a self-defeating subjectivity, whose firm identity and rule-giving authority does not rescue it from its perennial unattainability to 'organise the conditioned' or 'conquer the unconditioned'. In Kant's and Fichte's thought, however, I detect elements that potentially transgress their transcendental account of experience. These are found in Kant's concept of spontaneity and free play between understanding and imagination, and Fichte's concept of productivity. I argue that these elements lose their potential dynamism, so long as they are absorbed by the transcendental demands for the solution of the aporias of logic. However, these elements point to the need for a radical re-conceptualisation of the notion of experience. This is provided by means of Schelling's logogriflic approach, which constitutes the theme of the second section. The second section - the logogrif of experience - attempts to articulate a different approach towards the notion of experience, through an exploration of Schelling's versatile and provocative thought. This section focuses on Schelling's original insight into the notion and act of logogrif, which opens the dialogue between logos and mythos, cosmic becoming and human soul, cosmic imagination and human reflection, faith and knowledge. This section attempts to illuminate Schelling's fascinating philosophical investigations and discoveries that have been rather overlooked, possibly, due to Hegel's overwhelming critique. This section, after a brief critical examination of the Identity Philosophy, attempts to elucidate Schelling's notion of experience through his middle works, Of Human Freedom, Ages of the World, The Deities of Samothrace, which are treated as a self-developing trilogy. Schelling re-addresses the aporias of logic not as part of Reason's self-interrogation but as part of the cosmic paradoxes and living experiences. In this way, Schelling resets the scene of the debate on the conditions of possibility for cognitive experience by putting on the stage the enigmas of the cosmos and life rather than the Tribunal of Reason. Logic itself is conceived as a potency in the cosmic becoming, and consequently can no longer attempt to establish the transcendental conditions for the possibility of cognitive experience. Cosmic becoming, in which man is an active part, is conceived as the process of the movement, the interaction, the transformations and transmutations of multiple potencies. These, far beyond any mechanical conceptualisation, appear as self-moving and yet interdependent, unknown yet familiar, inscrutable and yet manifest powers, describing the mystery of life itself. The latter is depicted as an ever-recurrent act of longing for self-expression as active unity. Experience is conceived as the lived process of a network of living potencies, which may not only resist rational powers but may also puzzle and seize them. In this context, reflection acquires a plastic dimension, as opposed to its rigidity in the representational model of experience. Reflection depicts cosmic longing's self-formation, whose man is part. This self-bending formation partially illuminates the nature of longing, and from this standpoint is the logic of the longing. However, this formation is movable, transmutable and mostly ineffable, and from this standpoint is the logic of a riddle: a logogrif. Logogrif is the transitive term that attempts to describe the transition of experience from its enacted phase to its allusive conceptual utterance, and in this sense the term itself participates in both phases, as both form of thought and form of life. The logogrific approach to experience in turn transposes us as from the realm of pure concepts to the realm of the mystery of life, from pure thought to acts of longing, from the Architectonic of Pure Reason to Cosmic Theurgy. The latter term attempts to grasp the paradox and dynamism of cosmic and non-cosmic becoming by means of multiple, vanishing and ever-recurring, transmutable potencies, or in Schelling's terms 'the magic of insoluble life'. Schelling's logogrific account consists in a powerful voice for the re-enchantment of the world, the introduction into the notion of experience of the imminence of the divine. This is not suggested in terms of the adoption of old religious doctrines but by means of the discovery and re-discovery of the theurgy of life, through the intensification of our artistic mood, the creative expansion of our deeds. This notion of experience allows for the reconsideration of the notion of the self, in terms of a dynamic, conflictual process between conscious and unconscious powers and the critical revaluation of the accounts of subjectivity which reduce it to the sphere of self-consciousness. The thesis concludes with the need for an investigation into the relation between logos and mythos, which only tangentially has been introduced by the present project. In this context it will be possible to re-appraise the potential that the logogrific approach opens for an alternative to both logical and traditional mythological patterns of thinking. (shrink)

Since Kant, theorists of human consciousness have often made the claim that man's cognitive or theoretical forms of consciousness are rooted in practical forms of consciousness or in one or another form of practice . Although the ancestry of this view can be traced to Rousseau and Kant, it is among the post-Kantian idealists that it first comes to full expression. I examine the emergence of this theme in the first formulations of post-Kantian idealism: the Jena texts of Johann Gottlieb (...) Fichte. ;The first task in understanding Fichte's "primacy of practice" thesis is to understand the general character of his philosophical project. Traditionally, Fichte's philosophy has been thought of as marking the repudiation of Kant's "critical" project in favor of a program of "speculative metaphysics." On this reading, the core of Fichte's thought is a quasi-theological view of the universe as the product of a self-constituting absolute ego. One of my central claims is that this metaphysical reading of Fichte is fundamentally mistaken. Examining Fichte's philosophical aims in their original context , I show that Fichte's central philosophical concern is not a metaphysical but a transcendental issue: the "referentiality" or "objectivity" of consciousness. How, Fichte wants to know, do we come to think of our conscious states as referring to something that we take to exist independently of them? ;At the heart of Fichte's account of referentiality, I argue, is his rejection of naturalistic accounts of subjectivity. If we treat the subject as a natural object in a network of causal relations, he claims, then referentiality remains inexplicable. The first Wissenschaftslehre is then intended to provide an alternative to such naturalism: an account of referentiality that centers on the notion of a self-relating, self-determining subject. It is in this context that the primacy of practice thesis emerges: Any account of theoretical consciousness requires an appeal to an account of human beings as agents. (shrink)

This monograph discusses the importance of A. L. Hülsen's only book for the history of early German idealism. The Wissenschaftslehre is Fichte's "response" to the objections of Schulze-Aenesidemus to Reinhold's early Elementarphilosophie. Hülsen, a Fichtean thinker, restructured many aspects of Reinhold's system which Fichte left intact. In 1797, Fichte recognized Hülsen as a partner in the development of his system, thus acknowledging his contribution to the emergence of German idealism.

Freedom after Kant situates Kant's concept of freedom in relation to leading philosophers of the period to trace a detailed history of philosophical thinking on freedom from the 18th to the 20th century. Beginning with German Idealism, the volume presents Kant's writings on freedom and their reception by contemporaries, successors, followers and critics. From exchanges of philosophical ideas on freedom between Kant and his contemporaries, Reinhold and Fichte, through to Kant's ideas on rational self-determination in Hegel and Schelling, we (...) see Kant's original arguments transformed through concepts of autonomy, freedom and absolutes. The political aspect of Kant's freedom finds further articulation in chapters on Marx and Mill who developed their own notions of political freedom after Kant. Revealing how Kant's concept of freedom shaped the history of philosophy in the broadest sense, contributors chart the development of an ethics of freedom in the 20th century which brings Kant into conversation with Heidegger, Beauvoir, Sartre, Levinas and Murdoch. This line of thinking on freedom signals a new departure for Kantian studies which brings his ideas into the present day and traverses major schools of thought including Idealism, Marxism, existentialism and moral philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 304-305 [Access article in PDF] Wildfeuer, Armin G. Praktische Vernunft und System. Entwicklungsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur ursprünglichen Kant-Rezeption Johann Gottlieb Fichtes. Stuttgart-Bad/Cannstatt : Frommann-Holzboog, 1999. Pp. 596. Cloth, DM 168. The subtitle of this book, a slightly revised dissertation from the University of Bonn (1994), reads: "Investigations into the developmental history of Johann Gottlieb Fichte's original reception of Kant." The work comes (...) to almost 600 pages. The main text is heavily overlaid with detailed footnotes, extensive quotations and supplementary material in smaller print and narrow line spacing. To the reader who is patient enough to face this scholastic mode of presentation, there emerges behind it a valuable contribution to our overall understanding of Fichte's philosophical work in general and its core discipline, the Wissenschaftslehre or first, transcendental philosophy, in particular.In the grand narrative about the development of German idealism Fichte is placed between Kant and Schelling. More precisely, he is typically portrayed as continuing but also revising Kant's work under the double influence of the leading early post-Kantian, Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1758-1823), and the skeptical anti-Kantian and anti-Reinholdian, Gottlob Ernst Schulze (1761-1833), called "Aenesidemus" after the title of his anonymous main work.Wildfeuer's investigations supplement this picture with a detailed consideration of what could be called "Fichte before Fichte": the early development of Fichte's thought, prior to his encounter with Reinhold and prior even to his encounter with Kant (1790). To be sure, Wildfeuer also deals with Fichte's continued philosophical development up through 1794, and he has many interesting things to say about the lasting presence of Fichte's earliest concerns in his more mature work. But the chief merit of the book is the sustained attention it pays to the very beginnings of Fichte's thought.Much of the prehistory of Fichtean philosophy has to be conjectured, given the scarcity of documents about Fichte's years of study (1780-84) and of his work as itinerant tutor (1785-1793). From Fichte's own testimony in his correspondence it is clear that prior to encountering Kant's three Critiques he held a determinist position regarding nature as well as human conduct. Based on some indications in Fichte's later works, Wildfeuer identifies as the chief source of Fichte's determinism the work of Karl Ferdinand Hommel (1722-1781), a professor of law at Leipzig, whom Fichte could have heard as a student and whose pseudonymous treatise Alexander von Joch... On Reward and Punishment According to Turkish Laws (1770) Fichte cites. Hommel (alias von Joch) maintains a deterministic view of human action, while justifying the social practice of punishment and reward. In particular, he maintains the dependence of the will on the intellect and of the latter on sensations or sensory impressions. Wildfeuer refers to this position, as it was temporarily adopted by Fichte, as that of the primacy of the understanding over the will.But Wildfeuer also shows that from early on Fichte's determinist leanings in speculation were counterbalanced by the conviction that feeling, especially feeling in religious matters, is an equally valid source of truth. For Wildfeuer, this early duality of speculation and feeling is the lasting basis of Fichte's life-long concern with reconciling the competing demands of head and heart. In particular this pre-Kantian key concern [End Page 304] in Fichte informs the latter's central systematic occupation with the unity of the mind amidst its differentiation into faculties or kinds of mental activity.Further texts which Wildfeuer examines in pursuit of the pre-Kantian Fichte are his Latin Valedictory Address, given upon graduating from one of Germany's finest secondary schools at the time, the Princely College of Pforta (1780), and the "Aphorisms on Religion and Deism" (1790).On the basis of this material Wildfeuer goes on to reconstruct the distinct reception that each of Kant's three Critiques received by Fichte. According to Wildfeuer, the Critique of Pure Reason originally was read by... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 537 tion of his three dialogues, and of course there are several references to Hume's intern= parable Dialogues. The bibliographic essay is useful with respect to general works and period pieces but unfortunately does little to help those who are seeking further help in understanding an individual writer. Professor France's work is an invaluable guide nevertheless for those who realize that authors, even philosophers, do not write (...) in a cultural vacuum. NICHOLASCAPALDI Queens College, CUNY Die Auseinandersetzung yon ldealismus und Realismus in Fichtes Wissenscha/tslehre. By Ingeborg Schfissler. (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1972. Pp. 182. DM 24.50) For Fichte scholars this closely argued and well organized study of the foundations of Fichte's Wissenscha/tslehre is simply a must. American philosophers generally, however, will not become Fichte enthusiasts after reading this book. But this is not the fault of the authoress, but of Fichte. The key question which Dr. SchiJssler raises is, What role does realism play in Fichte's transcendental idealism? With this question in mind she examines Fichte's "foundation of the entire theory of science" of 1794-1795 and related matters, and the "theory of science" of 1804, together with the lecture of 1813. As Fichte originally saw the task of philosophy it was to explain theoretical, i.e., scientific, consciousness in terms of its own foundation. In 1804, however, the task was conceived as presentation of absolute truth; and in 1813, Fichte tried to understand the theory of science as a theory of appearances. Dr. Schfissler's thesis is that all three approaches are necessary; that, in fact, the changes in Fichte's conception of what a theory of science is or ought to be are grounded in the nature of transcendental philosophy itself. The book is not something one reads for relaxation; its sustained and detailed arguments militate against that. But it is a highly illuminating study, and well worth the effort of careful analysis. W. H. WE~mSTBR Florida State University The Manifold in Perception. Theories of Art.from Kant to Hildebrand. By Michael Pedro. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Oxford-Warburg Studies) This is a survey of theories of art of Kant, Schiller, Herbart, Hildebrand, Schopenhauer and Fiedler. One may question the value of a re-statement of this sort, over simply another reading of the works of the authors themselves. Pedro's answer may be found in the Preface and again in a more extended statement in the conclusion. "German aesthetic theory from Kant through to the end of the nineteenth century seemed to contain valuable critical ideas quite absent from contemporary philosophical writing." Pedro's attempt has been to "re-locate notions in current use, like 'aesthetic detachment', within the sustained systematic discourse of which they were once part. This seemed a way both of uncovering a number of assumptions which have been constraining writing on art for some time, and of clarifying a number of crucial insights of earlier theorists." The author's account is almost entirely expository, its negative critical questions being limited almost exclusively to Herbart. Yet even here, when the author indicates that Herbart's theory of mind "exhibits certain very basic logical difficulties," he adds that... (shrink)

blurb from publisher: "In Apperception and Self-Consciousness in Kant and German Idealism, Dennis Schulting examines the themes of reflexivity, self-consciousness, representation and apperception in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and German Idealism more widely. Central to Schulting’s argument is the claim that all of human experience is inherently self-referential and that this is part of a self-reflexivity of thought, or what is called transcendental apperception, a Kantian insight that was first apparent in the work of Christian Wolff and (...) came to inform all of German Idealism. In a rigorous text suitable for students of German philosophy and upper-level students of metaphysics, epistemology, moral and political philosophy, and aesthetics courses, the author establishes the historical roots of Kant’s thought and traces it through to his immediate successors Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. He specifically examines the cognitive role of self-consciousness and its relation to idealism and places it in a clear and coherent history of rationalist philosophy." . (shrink)

The importance of Gottlob Ernst Schulze's Aenesidemus 1 for the history of German Idealism has been widely recognized. Much as Hume had awoken Kant, Aenesidemus jolted the young Fichte out of his slumbering adherence to Reinhold's formulation of Kant's philosophy, leading him to re-evaluate the claims, methods, and foundations of the Critical philosophy. In his "Review of the Aenesidemus" 2 Fichte set out the results of this re-evaluation, which included his doctrine of intellectual intuition with remarkable and uncharacteristic clarity. (...) 3 According to a widely accepted story about the genesis of Fichte's Jena Wissenschaftslehre, the early Fichte was largely sympathetic to .. (shrink)

Fichte-Studien 49 (2021), edited by David W. Wood, published by Brill/Rodopi, 471pp. -/- Presenting new critical perspectives on J.G. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, this volume of articles in English by an international group of scholars addresses the topic of first principles in Fichte’s writings. Especially discussed are the central text of his Jena period, the 1794/95 Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, as well as later versions like the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796-99) and the presentations of 1804 and 1805. Also included (...) are new studies on the first principles of the particular sub-disciplines of Fichte’s system, such as the doctrines of aesthetics, nature, right, ethics, and history. The volume also contains a number of miscellaneous essays on Fichte research, as well as several book reviews. (shrink)

Reinhold's Letters on the Kantian Philosophy is arguably the most influential book ever written concerning Kant. It provides a helpful introduction to Kant's philosophy and a valuable explanation of how that philosophy can be understood as an appropriate Enlightenment solution to the 'pantheism dispute' which dominated thought in the era of German Idealism. The first edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was slow in gaining a positive reception, but after Reinhold's Letters appeared Kant's Critical Philosophy suddenly attained the (...) central position which it has held to this day. The Letters also brought fame to Reinhold, who developed his own influential 'Elementary Philosophy' and was succeeded by the leading figures of German Idealism: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. This English edition of Reinhold's work includes the original 1786–7 version as well as all the major additions and changes from the 1790 edition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 101-134 [Access article in PDF] Getting Maimon's Goad:Discursivity, Skepticism, and Fichte's Idealism Peter Thielke The image of J. G. Fichte has of late displayed a rather substantial, and even remarkable, transformation. Where before Fichte was viewed—and most often dismissed—as advancing an unpalatable type of metaphysical idealism, in recent years several new perspectives on Fichte have emerged, each claiming to improve on (...) the old, standard picture. 1 The transformation of Fichte's image has been accompanied—or, more precisely, has been made possible—by a renewed interest in the relatively forgotten figures in the interregnum between Kant and Hegel. Fichte's thought is now understood in the context not only of Kant's transcendental idealism, but of, among others, Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie, Aenesidemus-Schulze's skepticism, Jacobi's intuitionism, and Beck's Standpunktslehre. By casting Fichte in this light, a more nuanced understanding of his project has been developed, one that does not simply follow the [End Page 101] traditional view of the Wissenschaftslehre as a full-blown metaphysical idealism in which the world of objects is understood as the product of an Absolute I.But while this 'contextual' approach has led to a renewed appreciation of the Wissenschaftslehre, I will suggest that the new focus on Fichte's historical milieu is incomplete. A lacuna in the current understanding of Fichte can be traced to a neglect of Salomon Maimon, an idiosyncratic and rather obscure critic of Kant. In this paper, I will argue that taking Maimon's skepticism into account when interpreting Fichte's idealism requires a rethinking of Fichte's project. In particular, in order to respond to Maimon's skepticism—an avowed project of the Wissenschaftslehre—Fichte's position must advance an idealist metaphysics, one in which the content of cognition is taken to be constituted by an act of the absolute I. This claim, of course, might seem rash, since it threatens to saddle Fichte with a gratuitous form of absolute idealism. It thus seems to run counter to recent attempts to make Fichte into a figure appealing to modern eyes. Such a concern, however, is I think misplaced. Instead, I will argue that Fichte's idealism, although perhaps ultimately unsuccessful, nevertheless should be of great interest precisely because it stands as an important attempt to provide an answer to a question—the nature of 'givenness'—that remains central to epistemology. 2The paper is divided into five parts. The first presents the historical evidence for Maimon's influence on Fichte. Part 2 offers a discussion of what I call 'Maimon's challenge' to the Kantian notion of 'discursive' cognition, as well as the ways in which this served as a goad to the development of the Wissenschaftslehre. In Part 3 I turn to a close reading of §1 of the Grundlage of 1794, where I try to show how a recognition of Maimon's challenge can help make sense of the foundations of the Wissenschaftslehre's project, and in particular the 'category of reality,' an otherwise highly obscure step in Fichte's argument. Part 4 offers a short discussion of the ways in which a Maimonian-minded account of §1 contributes to the understanding of the Grundlage as a whole. Finally, I conclude in Part 5 with some brief remarks about the broader philosophical implications of Fichte's response to Maimon's challenge: Fichte, I will argue, offers the first (but not the last) attempt at answering a type of Maimonian skepticism that remains viable even today. [End Page 102] 1. The Skeptical Goad Salomon Maimon, perhaps more than any other figure in German philosophy, embodied the Enlightenment notion of a Selbstdenker. He was born in Lithuania in 1753, to a rural Jewish family. 3 After marrying at eleven and becoming a father at fourteen, in his early twenties he fled from his family, after which he wandered the German countryside, until he was finally was able to establish himself in Berlin in 1779. Here he was taken in by Moses... (shrink)

Mock interviews with Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling, Reinhold, Jacobi, Schlegel, and a letter from Schopenhauer.

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is now regarded by many readers and scholars not simply as a poet, historian, or playwright, but as a genuine philosopher in his own right. -/- The following research articles in French and English are devoted to understanding the relationship between Schiller’s philosophy and German idealism, especially some of the chief figures associated with the inception and extended development of this movement: Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Lotze. -/- In the last twenty years in particular, (...) ground-breaking edited collections have appeared on the content and legacy of Schiller’s thought. The present volume of articles, however, is one of the first to attempt a broader investigation of Schiller’s connection to German idealism, in which the contributions have above all been written by scholars of German idealism itself. -/- The aim of this volume is to furnish foundational material for better answering the question: To what extent should Friedrich Schiller be considered a German idealist? Naturally, the response to this question depends on one’s conception of German idealism, a point discussed below. This introduction provides a brief overview of earlier scholarship on this topic and summarizes the findings of our contributors. (shrink)

In twentieth-century Kant scholarship, few have provided an account of the analytic-synthetic distinction and of the problem of the synthetic a priori that takes into consideration the views of Kant's idealist successors such as Maimon, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. I first explain how Kant formulates the analytic-synthetic distinction in terms of the determinate-indeterminate distinction, which, in turn, is based on the distinction between general and transcendental logic. Kant's problem of the synthetic a priori , then, is the problem of showing (...) how the logical forms of judgment can be employed determinately (and not merely indeterminately). I then show that Maimon also formulates the distinction and the problem in the same way, and that his interpretation will shape how Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel each construe and address Kant's question, How are synthetic judgments possible a priori ? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 596-597 [Access article in PDF] Karl Ameriks, editor. The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 306. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $19.95. This recently published volume is a welcome and timely addition to the Cambridge Companion series. The past two decades have witnessed a renewed and now burgeoning interest in post-Kantian German philosophy, (...) notably among philosophers working in the continental and analytic traditions. Contributors to the volume reflect this diversity (actually, most work within the analytic tradition), and all are familiar and veteran scholars of Kant and German Idealism. The essays, as expected, are compact, but are tightly presented and clearly argued. The decision to devote a Cambridge Companion volume to a philosophical movement—a major exception, as most are aware, for the series—seems quite justified given the heretofore unacknowledged importance of the period and the global (at least among Anglo-American philosophers) misunderstanding from which it has suffered until recently. On both scores, this volume is a successful corrective. A short review precludes individual evaluation, however brief, of the essays in this fine collection, so I will limit my comments to a few general points.The essays are organized so as to provide the reader with a thorough introduction to the history of German Idealism construed broadly to include Kant, Hamann, Herder, Jacobi, Maimon, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, the Romantics, and at least the trajectory of post-Hegelianism. The Romantics, particularly Novalis, Schiller, and Hölderlin, receive overdue and careful treatment—Charles Larmore's essay on Hölderlin and Novalis being, in this reviewer's judgment, one of the better contributions to the collection. Some authors retrace themes developed in their earlier scholarly work (especially Pinkard, Wood, Pippin, Beiser, and Bowie); however each essay almost without exception attempts to advance the scholarly discussion of the problems it explores. Paul Guyer's essay, for instance, fits this description: he offers a robust defense of Kantian dualism (e.g., intuition and concept, representation and thing in itself) against Hegelian objections which includes a fine analysis of the genesis of Kant's arguments. On the other hand, Guyer's essay, along with the contributions of Wood, Pippin, Pinkard, Larmore, and Bowie, might be more fruitful for readers more interested in philosophical problems engaged by the Idealists (e.g., moral and political autonomy, rational normativity). The collection begins with Frederick Beiser's skillfully condensed and informative essay on the unresolved tensions within Enlightenment philosophy (and the way in which those tensions, highlighted rather than resolved by the Pantheism controversy, helped set the agenda for what became the tasks of German Idealism) and ends with Karl Ameriks's fine essay on the complex legacy of Idealism in the works of Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard.One of the problems which occupied everyone in this period was rational authority, [End Page 596] namely, what would ground our normative theoretical and practical judgments and to what extent reason would provide either the foundation itself or access to this foundation. Most of the essays address this issue either directly or implicitly and accurately capture the diverse responses to this basic question and its implications for political philosophy—another central theme for the Idealist tradition. The problem of rational authority had been inherited from Rousseau, yet the Idealists explored the issue with an unparalleled thoroughness and urgency in the shadow of the French Revolution. Larmore does an exceptional job of articulating Hölderlin's and Novalis's critique of Fichtean self-consciousness, namely, that judgment itself must presuppose and draw upon a more basic unity (Absolute Being for Hölderlin and the Being of the I antecedent to self-awareness for Novalis) than the self-positing I, a unity which, as Larmore notes, underlies every cognitive attitude. Contributing to this general critique was the aesthetic holism of Hamann, Schiller, and Herder ably sketched by Daniel Dahlstromm. Central to the problem of rational authority is the contribution of Hegel, who took to heart Hölderlin's insistence on a more basic primordial unity... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 596-597 [Access article in PDF] Karl Ameriks, editor. The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 306. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $19.95. This recently published volume is a welcome and timely addition to the Cambridge Companion series. The past two decades have witnessed a renewed and now burgeoning interest in post-Kantian German philosophy, (...) notably among philosophers working in the continental and analytic traditions. Contributors to the volume reflect this diversity (actually, most work within the analytic tradition), and all are familiar and veteran scholars of Kant and German Idealism. The essays, as expected, are compact, but are tightly presented and clearly argued. The decision to devote a Cambridge Companion volume to a philosophical movement—a major exception, as most are aware, for the series—seems quite justified given the heretofore unacknowledged importance of the period and the global (at least among Anglo-American philosophers) misunderstanding from which it has suffered until recently. On both scores, this volume is a successful corrective. A short review precludes individual evaluation, however brief, of the essays in this fine collection, so I will limit my comments to a few general points.The essays are organized so as to provide the reader with a thorough introduction to the history of German Idealism construed broadly to include Kant, Hamann, Herder, Jacobi, Maimon, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, the Romantics, and at least the trajectory of post-Hegelianism. The Romantics, particularly Novalis, Schiller, and Hölderlin, receive overdue and careful treatment—Charles Larmore's essay on Hölderlin and Novalis being, in this reviewer's judgment, one of the better contributions to the collection. Some authors retrace themes developed in their earlier scholarly work (especially Pinkard, Wood, Pippin, Beiser, and Bowie); however each essay almost without exception attempts to advance the scholarly discussion of the problems it explores. Paul Guyer's essay, for instance, fits this description: he offers a robust defense of Kantian dualism (e.g., intuition and concept, representation and thing in itself) against Hegelian objections which includes a fine analysis of the genesis of Kant's arguments. On the other hand, Guyer's essay, along with the contributions of Wood, Pippin, Pinkard, Larmore, and Bowie, might be more fruitful for readers more interested in philosophical problems engaged by the Idealists (e.g., moral and political autonomy, rational normativity). The collection begins with Frederick Beiser's skillfully condensed and informative essay on the unresolved tensions within Enlightenment philosophy (and the way in which those tensions, highlighted rather than resolved by the Pantheism controversy, helped set the agenda for what became the tasks of German Idealism) and ends with Karl Ameriks's fine essay on the complex legacy of Idealism in the works of Feuerbach, Marx, and Kierkegaard.One of the problems which occupied everyone in this period was rational authority, [End Page 596] namely, what would ground our normative theoretical and practical judgments and to what extent reason would provide either the foundation itself or access to this foundation. Most of the essays address this issue either directly or implicitly and accurately capture the diverse responses to this basic question and its implications for political philosophy—another central theme for the Idealist tradition. The problem of rational authority had been inherited from Rousseau, yet the Idealists explored the issue with an unparalleled thoroughness and urgency in the shadow of the French Revolution. Larmore does an exceptional job of articulating Hölderlin's and Novalis's critique of Fichtean self-consciousness, namely, that judgment itself must presuppose and draw upon a more basic unity (Absolute Being for Hölderlin and the Being of the I antecedent to self-awareness for Novalis) than the self-positing I, a unity which, as Larmore notes, underlies every cognitive attitude. Contributing to this general critique was the aesthetic holism of Hamann, Schiller, and Herder ably sketched by Daniel Dahlstromm. Central to the problem of rational authority is the contribution of Hegel, who took to heart Hölderlin's insistence on a more basic primordial unity... (shrink)

After the monumental works of Xavier Leon and Martial Guéroult, the French have again produced a significant piece of Fichte-interpretation. The author advances two radically new theses: Fichte's philosophy is above all centered around the deduction of the other, and even objectivity as such is based upon inter-subjectivity. The Doctrine of Science, instead of being the foundation of an absolute idealism, teaches that the only knowledge which can be had is empirical knowledge, and all logic is rooted in time. Philonenko (...) claims that Fichte's aim was to uphold the adequacy and essential correctness of common everyday knowledge over against the pretensions of metaphysical speculation. This is a magnificent book: the product of a truly amazing scholarship in the history of philosophy, full of ingenious and highly imaginative rapprochements and insights. It is also another welcome manifestation of that recent continental trend in the interpretation of German idealism which realizes that Fichte and Schelling do not simply fill the gap between Kant and Hegel, but are great philosophers in their own right. If any objection can be made at all against the work, it would be the limitation of its argument to the first period of Fichte's creativity. The author's avowed aim is to confine himself to the Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, and, as a matter of fact, we rarely find a quote later than 1798. Indeed, Fichte always claimed that no qualitative change took place in his thought. However, his exposition of it steadily altered, and in view of this, perhaps it is not entirely unjustified to regret that the Wissenschaftslehre of 1804 and the Answeisung zum seligen Leben are not taken into account in interpreting the early Fichte.—M. J. V. (shrink)

German Idealism can be said to have arisen from two main tensions in Kant’s critical philosophy. The first of these concern its epistemological status. Kant had conceived of the Critique of Pure Reason as, at least in part, a “science of ignorance” that clearly delineated what man could count as knowledge from what he could never possibly know. But what was the basis of Kant’s claim to know what can and what cannot count as knowledge? Strictly speaking, the content (...) of Kant’s own philosophy could not be knowledge in the same sense that the findings of the empirical sciences are knowledge, since the “truths” of the critical philosophy are not determined empirically. Rather, Kant arrives at them through an a priori “transcendental deduction” from the “conditions of the possibility of experience.” The critical philosophy would seem to be open to the charge that it represents an arbitrary attempt on the part of one man to dictate what can and what cannot be regarded as knowledge–that, far from being genuinely critical, it was instead an example of the height of dogmatism. For ambitious young admirers of Kant like Reinhold, Fichte, Hölderlin, Schelling, and Hegel, this was unacceptable. (shrink)

This paper addresses debates in German idealism that arise in response to the modal shift in logic, proposed by Kant, from a logic of thinking to a logic of experience. With the Kantian logic of experience arises a problem of radical contingency or 'rhapsodic determination' for logic. While Fichte and Hegel attempt to resolve the problem of contingency by constructing rational systems aimed at established the grounds for logic, I show how Schelling brings into view, in a proto-existentialist movement, (...) the way in which the indeterminacy of the will undergirds rational system construction and, thereby, presents a limiting problem for the question of the value of system-building itself. (shrink)

From the early 1790s until after the turn of the century, a very productive but also controversial exchange took place between Reinhold and Fichte. Though many key aspects of post-Kantian philosophy were discussed, the philosophical confrontation between Reinhold and Fichte is most instructive for the understanding of post-Kantian philosophy. The exchange started when Fichte published his verdict on Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie and disapproved of its fundamental principle. In 1794 Fichte challenged Reinhold by presenting his Wissenschaftslehre. Reinhold was not convinced of (...) Fichte's foundation of philosophy at first, but announced that he accepted the Wissenschaftslehre in 1797. While Reinhold and Fichte officially collaborated in the following three years, tensions concerning fundamental questions were still present. When Reinhold adopted Rational Realism, his relation to Fichte deteriorated and the exchange between the two finally ended. The contributions in the present collection focus on the central systematic issues at the different stages of the confrontation between Fichte and Reinhold, thereby illuminating questions that are essential to the understanding of the evolution of post-Kantian German philosophy. (shrink)

With the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, there emerged two controversies related to the responsibility of philosophical ideas for the rise of German militarism. The first, mainly journalistic, controversy concerned the influence that Nietzsche’s ideas may have had on what British propagandists portrayed as the ruthlessly amoral German foreign policy. This soon gave way to a second controversy, waged primarily among academics, concerning the purportedly vicious political outcomes of German Idealism, from Kant through to (...) Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. During the autumn of 1914, and at the cusp between the two controversies, Moritz Schlick was to deliver a lecture series on Nietzsche’s life and work at the University of Rostock. Responding to both debates, Schlick penned an introduction in which he sought to defend philosophy against all those who would embroil it in warfare. Schlick offers a series of arguments defending Nietzsche against his accusers. He also argues that, though their contributions to the History of Philosophy often amounted to no more than ‘beautiful nonsense’, the German Idealists’ philosophical views cannot be held responsible for the rise of German nationalism. Finally, Schlick mounts a general defense of the search for truth, both in philosophy and in Wissenschaft, as a type of activity which presupposes peace. Though Schlick’s metaphilosophical views change, as this paper shows, he remains constant both in his favourable appraisal of Nietzsche, as well as his separation between politics on the one hand, and both philosophy and Wissenschaft on the other hand. (shrink)

Daniel Breazeale - All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.4 665-667 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Daniel Breazeale University of Kentucky Paul W. Franks. All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005. Pp. viii + 440. Cloth, $49.95. Paul Franks' All or Nothing is in no sense an (...) introduction to or history of German idealism, but an immensely sophisticated philosophical engagement with a specific complex of problems that occupied Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and others—problems they believed themselves to have inherited from Kant's transcendental philosophy, as well as from its criticism by Jacobi, Maimon, Schulze, and others. According to Franks, these thinkers were involved in a common systematic project of "ultimate" or "absolute" grounding, while adopting various strategies to avoid "the Agrippan Trilemma," according to which any effort to justify an ultimate first principle must involve either the purely arbitrary assertion or stipulation of the principle in question, an infinite regress of explanatory principles, or a viciously circular justification of the principle in.. (shrink)

At first, I introduce two different paths, which lead from Husserl’s phenomenology to classical German philosophy : a. Psychologism: from Kant to the Logical Investigations through Fries, Beneke and Herbart; b. Idealism, from Fichte to Husserl’s late conception of philosophy as transcendental idealism). Then, I argue, in the first section, that Husserl’s transcendental turn after the Logical Investigations could be understood as a kind of idealism, deriving from Fichte. The next part deals mainly with phenomenology’s double meaning : as (...) philosophia perennis and as intentional psychology. First Philosophy asunderstood by Husserl is twofold: as Wissenschaftslehre (a science of all possible sciences) and as justification. I argue that phenomenology’s main contributions to philosophy lie in the concepts of justification and evidence and that intentional psychology plays an important role in that context, methodological as well as conceptual. 4. The final section is a discussion of what Husserl calls in the Krisis the “paradox of human subjectivity”, i.e. the relation between transcendental and empirical ego. The paper concludes with two remarks on foundationalism and intuition.J'introduis, dans un premier temps, deux voies différentes qui mènent de La phénoménologie husserlienne à la philosophie allemande classique: le psychologisme (de Kant aux Recherehes logiques), en passant par Fries, Beneke et Herbart; et l’idéalisme (de Fichte à la conception tardive, chez Husserl, de la philosophie en tant qu’idealisme transcendantal). Je soutiens, en premiere section, que le toumant transcendantal de Husserl apres les Recherehes logiques pourrait etre compris en tant qu’idéalisme, tributaire de Fichte. La seconde partie porte principalement sur la double signification de la phénoménologie: comme philosophia perennis et comme psychologie intentionnelle. Husserl entend la philosophie première de deux façons: en tant que Wissenschaftslehre (une science de toutes les sciences possibles) et en tant que justification. Je soutiens que la contribution principale de la phénoménologie se trouve dans les concepts de justification et d’evidence. La psychologie intentionnelle joue un rôle capital dans ce contexte, tant au niveau méthodologique que conceptuel. La troisième section représente une discussion de ce que Husserl appelle le «paradoxe de la subjectivité humaine»dans la Krisis, c’est-à-dire la relation entre l’ego transcendantal et empirique. Je conclus par deux remarques sur le fondationalisme et l’intuition. (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper I consider the significant but generally overlooked role that the French Revolution played in the development of German Idealism. Specifically, I argue that Reinhold and Fichte's engagement in revolutionary political debates directly shaped their interpretation of Kant's philosophy, leading them (a) to overlook his reliance upon common sense, (b) to misconstrue his conception of the relationship between philosophical theory and received cognitive practice, (c) to fail to appreciate the fundamentally regressive nature of his transcendental argumentative (...) strategy, and, ultimately, (d) to seek to deduce his philosophy from a single first-principle, one grounded in the immediate awareness of the subject's mental life. (shrink)

Fichte's reputation at the present time is in some respects a curious one. On the one hand, he is by common consent acknowledged to have exercised a dominant influence upon the development of German thought during the opening decades of the nineteenth century. Thus from a specifically philosophical point of view he is regarded as an innovator who played a decisive role in transforming Kant's transcendental idealism into the absolute idealism of his immediate successors, while at a more general (...) level he is customarily seen as having put into currency certain persuasive conceptions which contributed—less directly but no less surely—to the emergence and spread of romanticism in some of its varied and ramifying forms. On the other hand, however, it is noticeable that detailed consideration of his work has not figured prominently in the recent revival of concern with post-Kantian thought as a whole which has been manifested by philosophers of the English-speaking world. Although his name is frequently mentioned in that connection, one suspects that his books may not be so often read. In part this may be due to his particular mode of expounding his views, which at times attains a level of opacity that can make even Hegel's obscurest passages seem comparatively tractable. It is also true that Fichte's principal theoretical works—if not his semipopular writings—are largely devoid of the allusions to scientific, historical, psychological or cultural matters with which his German contemporaries were prone to illustrate their philosophical doctrines and enliven their more abstract discussions: there is a daunting aridity about much of what he wrote which can raise nagging doubts in the modern reader's mind about the actual issues that are in question. Yet the fact remains that by the close of the eighteenth century his ideas had already made a profound impact, capturing the imagination of a host of German thinkers and intellectuals. The problem therefore arises as to what preoccupations, current at the time, they owed their indubitable appeal and to what puzzles they were welcomed as proffering a solution. If these can be identified, it may become at least partially intelligible that Fichte should have been widely regarded as having provided a framework within which certain hitherto intractable difficulties could be satisfactorily reformulated and resolved. Let me accordingly begin by saying something about them. (shrink)

The received view has it that analytic philosophy emerged as a rebellion against the German Idealists (above all Hegel) and their British epigones (the British neo-Hegelians). This at least was Russell’s story: the German Idealism failed to achieve solid results in philosophy. Of course, Frege too sought after solid results. He, however, had a different story to tell. Frege never spoke against Hegel, or Fichte. Similarly to the German Idealists, his sworn enemy was the empiricism (in his (...) case, John Stuart Mill). Genealogically, this stance is not difficult to explain. Frege grew up as a philosopher in the context of the German Idealists. He was a member of Karl Snell’s “Sunday Circle” of university teachers in Jena. The group was influenced with Schelling and the German romanticists. The first Anglophone scholar to point out what Frege's thought owes to nineteenth-century Germany philosophy, Hans Sluga, argued that Frege followed the philosophical-logical tradition originating with Leibniz and Kant which Trendelenburg and Lotze developed significantly. About the same time, a philosophical historian writing in German, Gottfried Gabriel, did much to bring this tradition to light, casting Frege as neo-Kantian. Advancing beyond Sluga and Gabriel, the present paper reveals that through the mediation of Trendelenburg and especially of Lotze many elements of German idealism found their way into Frege's logic and philosophy. (shrink)

The problem of knowledge in German Idealism has drawn increasing attention. This is the first attempt at a systematic critique that covers all four major figures, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The book offers a fresh and challenging analysis.

"Kant, Kantianism and Idealism" presents an overview of German Idealism, the major movement in philosophy from the late 18th to the middle of the 19th Century. The period was dominated by Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, whose work influenced not just philosophy, but also art, theology and politics. The volume covers not only these major figures but also their main followers and interpreters. These include Kant's younger contemporary Herder, his early critics such as Jacobi, Reinhold, and Maimon, and his (...) readers Schiller and Schlegel - who shaped much of the subsequent reception of Kant in art, literature and aesthetics - as well as Schopenhauer, whose unique appropriation and criticism of theories of cognition later had a decisive influence on Nietzsche. The "Young Hegelians" - such as Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, and David Friedrich Strauss, whose writings would influence Engels and Marx - are also discussed. The influence of Kant and German Idealism also extended into France, shaping the thought of such figures as Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Proudhon, whose work would prove decisive for subsequent philosophical, political, and economic thinking in Europe in the second half of the 19th century. (shrink)

Em resposta ao desafio cético de David Hume, Kant através de sua “Filosofia Crítica” alterou o eixo da “doutrina do conhecimento”, da realidade externa, para as “condições de possibilidade da experiência”. Ele usa deste elemento conceitual afim de constituir uma ideia de objetividade mais avançada que o “racionalismo metafísico” pregresso, especialmente relacionado à noção de “representação”. Como resultado, o fenômeno apreendido corresponde ao objeto do conhecimento crítico e a coisa-em-si, dada como exterior a cognição, é tomada como incognoscível. Mas com (...) isso, restou a cena filosófica subsequente perguntar-se: sendo os dados da cognição “fenômenos mentais” (e através delas, as condições de possibilidade do sujeito) o domínio próprio ao conhecimento, como ele pode estar certo de corresponder ao objeto e satisfazer a demanda do saber científico? Deste nexo problemático Reinhold, Fichte e outros buscaram expor o caráter científico do conhecimento filosófico, partindo das contribuições do projeto crítico de Kant, enquanto outros tentaram dissuadir de vez a filosofia da ideia de se manifestar enquanto ciência. (shrink)

A founding figure of German idealism, Johann Gottlieb Fichte developed a radically new version of transcendental idealism. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Fichte follows his intellectual life and presents a comprehensive overview of Fichte's dynamic philosophy, from his engagement with Kant to his rigorously systematic and nuanced Wissenschaftslehre and beyond. Covering a variety of topics and issues in epistemology, ontology, moral and political philosophy, as well as philosophy of right and philosophy of religion, an international team of experts on (...) Fichte explores his important contributions to philosophy. Arranged chronologically, their chapters map Fichte's intellectual and philosophical development and the progression of his thought, identifying what motivated his philosophical inquiry and revealing why his ideas continue to shape discussions today. Alongside wide-ranging chapters advancing new insights into Fichte, there are topical discussions of conceptions and issues central to his philosophy. Featuring a chronology of Fichte's life, as well as a timeline of his publications and lectures, this is an invaluable research resource for all Fichte scholars and a reliable guide for anyone undertaking a study of Fichte and German idealism. (shrink)

German idealist philosopher J. G. Fichte (1762‐1814), as an heir to Kant, sought to uniformity of reason in his own philosophical system Wissenschaftslehre. However, the political implications of his philosophy have dual aspects. The first is his own political theory presented in accordance with his philosophical principles. The second is a set of political influences concerning his practical position together with his philosophy. By and large it has been the second aspect that Fichte’s nationalistic perspectives were interpreted upon. (...) So the political implications of his philosophy have been frequently reduced as a prophet of ethnic German nationalism and Nazism. But we need to distinguish his systematic theory from the influences resulted from his practical attitudes. Because he proposed an alternative idea of nationalism built on the basis of his philosophical principles. In reference to ‘nationality’, what Fichte has in mind was the activeness of man and the universality of the structure which operates while he or she is acting. For Fichte, activeness of consciousness and life are the one thing. With this presupposition, ‘nationality’ is conceptualized as the phase of commonness and reciprocity that comes into being among the self-forming conscious beings. Therefore his idea of ‘nationality’ couldn’t be grasped all in primordial dimension such as in ethnic nationalism. The original and fundamental base of nationality is man’s acting power working constantly toward perfection of man himself. (shrink)

The paper deals with the meaning of the transcendental imagination in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, comparing it with the productive imagination proposed by Fichte in his Wissenschaftslehre of 1794. It also presents Heidegger’s views concerning both Kant and Fichte. Regarding Kant there is also a discussion of the difference between the first and second editions of the First Critique. It may be noted that Heidegger prefers the first edition to the second, since, in his view, the latter leads (...) into German Idealism. In Fichte’s philosophy the imagination plays a considerably larger role than it does in Kant. And Heidegger early on recognizes the importance of Fichte as a philosopher in its own right, and not just, as was customary in the period, a mere transitional figure between Kant and Hegel. The paper concludes with a critique of Heidegger’s views regarding both Fichte and Kant. Though there is an addendum discussing the function of the imagination in the aesthetics of Kant, in that of Fichte, and a brief comparison with Heidegger’s own aesthetics. (shrink)

In his famous clarification Kant claimed that philosophy of Fichte is „nothing more or less than mere logic". In contrast with this interpretation Fichte from the beginning agreed with Kant and Reinhold on the fact that philosophy and logic are different from each other moreover the classical principles of logic can not be the principles of philosophy as well. However according to Fichte Reinhold did not succeed in explaining the relationship between philosophy and logic sufficiently. Hence Fichte proceeding from the (...) detailed critique of Reinhold laid in Review of Aenesidemus gives a new concept for the principles of both logic and philosophy. Accordingly in Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge he building upon this idea chooses such principle of the logic that possesses material validity and special content to be the absolutely primordial axiom of the science of knowledge. As we have seen the differences from the logic conception of Kant and Reinhold we can conceive better the meaning of the sentence from Fichte: “Everything to which the proposition ‘A = A’ is applicable, has reality, insofar as that proposition is applicable to it.” – This is one of the sentences dragged away from the context could provoked Kant’s ire reasonably.In seiner berühmten Erklärung äußerte Kant, die Wissenschaftslehre sei „nichts mehr oder weniger als bloße Logik“. Dieser Meinung widerspricht Fichtes Selbstinterpretation, weil er von Anfang an mit Kant und Reinhold darin einig war, dass sich Philosophie und Logik voneinander unterscheiden, und die klassischen Prinzipien der Logik nicht als Grundsätze der Philosophie gelten können. Nach seiner Auffassung gelingt es allerdings Reinhold nicht, das Verhältnis von Logik und Philosophie befriedigend zu klären. Ausgehend von einer gründlichen Kritik an Reinhold in der Rezension des Aenesidemus führt Fichte eine neue Konzeption vom Verhältnis der Grundsätze der Logik und der Philosophie ein. In der Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre wählt er einen mit realer Gültigkeit und besonderem Inhalt ausgestatteten Grundsatz der Logik zum absolut ersten Grundsatz der Wissenschaftslehre. Betrachtet man die Veränderungen der Kantschen und Reinholdschen Logikauffassung, wird es verständlicher, wenn Fichte schreibt: „Alles, worauf der Satz A = A anwendbar ist, hat, inwiefern derselbe darauf anwendbar ist, Realität“–einer von vielen Sätzen, die aus dem Kontext herausgenommen mit Fug und Recht Kants Missfallen ausgelöst haben könnten. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 693 between the world of our sense perception and the world of objects "in and for themselves," had suggested that the failure to appreciate this distinction was a "Grundvorurteil" common to all controversies, and, finally, had argued for the need to distinguish between the self revealed in "inner sense" and the self as it is in itself, unknowable to us. In his extremely valuable article, "Funzioni logiche (...) e categorie in Kant," Silvestro Marcucci retlects on a complex of issues surrounding Kant's claim to have discovered some sort of correspondence between the components and structure of a "table" of logical functions and those of a set of"pure concepts" or "categories" for the objective determination of objects through the contents of human sensibility. Of central concern to Marcucci is the error of supposing that what is in question is either a mere parallel between functions of judgment and categories or some sort of real identity between them. What is in question, according to Marcucci, are three "uses" but only two "levels" (piani): the foundational level is that of an operative.judgmental "functionality" by which the categories and the pure forms of general logic are produced. He argues that Kant is appealing here neither to pure logical form nor to logical "functions" that are in some way identical with the categories of understanding, but rather to functions of judgment more fundamental than either. The final two essays deal with two of Kant's immediate heirs, Reinhold and Fichte. In "The Sun of Enlightenment" Nathan Rotenstreich argues that Reinhold's notion of Enlightenment had an important social aspect, which is concerned with the distribution of enlightenment and is distinguished from his systematic view. Claudio Cesa, in "Die Vieldeutigkeit des Begriffes 'Trieb' von J. G. Fichte" traces the development of this important concept from Reinhold's concept "Kraft," which was itself neither sensible nor intellectual but changed depending upon its objects: sensibility, understanding, or reason. Cesa goes on to outline how Fichte developed a more positive notion including the conception of inner purposiveness expressing itself in humans as a form for realizing the I. JANE KNELI.ER Colorado State University RICHARD AQUILA University of Tennessee George J. Seidel. Fichte's "Wissenschaftslehre" of z 794: A Commentary on Part I. Purdue University Series in the History of Philosophy. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press, 1993. Pp. ix + 126. Cloth, $25.00. Paper, $12.95. The recent revival of interest in Fichte is now well entrenched in North America and has begun to yield a fairly diverse harvest: new translations, articles, monographs, and, predictably, conferences and a scholarly society. With this volume, however, we have the first entry in the "commentary" category. Given its notorious obscurity and disarray, Fichte's corpus--particularly his Jena corpus, which has remained the main focus of attention--would seem to be an apt subject for the genre. The work to which Seidel has 694 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER ~995 devoted his attention--the Foundations of the Entire "Wissenschaft~lehre"--particularly invites this sort of undertaking; it is a text which, by Fichte's own account, was intended to be accompanied by elaborations, illustrations and explanations. Seidel focuses on what is certainly the most interesting and important part of the text, the first three sections (about 3~ pages in all) which together make up "Part I" of this version of the Wissenschaftslehre. It is here that Fichte tries to articulate the basic principles that will govern his entire philosophical investigation. He uses as the lever for his enquiry two fundamental logical dicta--the principles of identity and contradiction--claiming to uncover three fundamental principles which underlie them: the principles of selfpositing, counter-positing and limitation. The body of the Wissenschaflslehreitself is an elaborate dialectical attempt to work out the implications of these basic features of human subjectivity--in particular to use them to give a deduction of the fundamental categories of human experience. There are a number of different approaches that a commentary might take to this dense piece of text. At one extreme stands the example provided by Findlay, whose commentary on Hegel's Phenomenology takes the form of a detailed paraphrase... (shrink)

This book offers an important reappraisal of Schelling's philosophy and his relationship to German Idealism. Focusing on Schelling's self-critique in early identity philosophy the author rejects those criticisms of Schelling made by both Hegel and Heidegger. This work significantly redraws the boundaries of metaphysical thinking, arguing for a dialogue between rational philosophy, mythology and cosmology.

Reinhold's Letters on the Kantian Philosophy is arguably the most influential book ever written concerning Kant. It provides a helpful introduction to Kant's philosophy and a valuable explanation of how that philosophy can be understood as an appropriate Enlightenment solution to the 'pantheism dispute' which dominated thought in the era of German Idealism. The first edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was slow in gaining a positive reception, but after Reinhold's Letters appeared Kant's Critical Philosophy suddenly attained the (...) central position which it has held to this day. The Letters also brought fame to Reinhold, who developed his own influential 'Elementary Philosophy' and was succeeded by the leading figures of German Idealism: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. This English edition of Reinhold's work includes the original 1786–7 version as well as all the major additions and changes from the 1790 edition. (shrink)

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) was never Kant's student. But when he, as a private teacher without any university degree, anonymously published his first book, the Kritik aller Offenbarung (Critique of all revelation, 1791), even some of the most prominent German philosophers took it to be Kant's long‐expected philosophy of religion. Three years later he became the successor of one of the most influential Kantian philosophers, Karl Leonhard Reinhold, at the famous University of Jena. There he taught and published his (...) theory of the “Science of Knowledge,” which the famous poet and critic Friedrich Wilhelm Schlegel hailed as among the “greatest influences of the age,” together with the French Revolution and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. It became the origin of post‐Kantian philosophy, later called “German Idealism.” Fichte himself supported the French Revolution and soon got into trouble with conservative student “orders” and with the church authorities (because of his Sunday lectures). In 1798, an article by a friend in his Philosophisches Journal was accused of atheism. Fichte defended it and withdrew from the university in Jena, after troubles with Goethe – the “minister of education” in Weimar – and Herder. (shrink)

This volume comprises systematic as well as historical essays, including contributions intended to give comprehensive overviews of such areas as genetic phenomenology, transcendental phenomenology, philosophy and history of logic and mathematics, Kant, hermeneutics, Hegel, and philosophy of language. The book is addressed to phenomenologists, particularly those who are interested in some or all of the areas mentioned. In his introduction Joseph J. Kockelmans indicates that these diverse areas enter into dialogue in the work of Thomas M. Seebohm, whom the editors (...) and authors wish to honor, and the systematic papers mirror the state of the art of research in the above-mentioned disciplines. (shrink)

This paper explores the question of the unity of Transcendental Idealism at the end of Eighteenth Century German philosophy, given that it circulated in different versions, Kant’s Critique [of humans’ rational powers] and Fichte’ System of Science [Wissenschaftslehre]. Both thinkers take the transcendental turn. They base conceptual investigations not on facts or empirical evidence, but on the possibility of a situation; they are idealists since they look inward to the spontaneity of the agent/knower for explanation, not the environment, (...) stimulus, or sensory given. Reason can fathom only what it has constructed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will by Günter ZöllerDaniel BreazealeGünter Zöller. Fichte’s Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xvii + 169. Cloth, $49.95.The subtitle says it all: “Original Duplicity,” which is to say, interdependent duality, or perhaps “equiprimordiality.” The thesis defended by Günter Zöller in this meticulously documented and elegantly written new book is that (...) the traditional emphasis upon the “primacy of the practical” in Fichte’s thought is seriously misleading and obscures one of the most striking aspects of his highly original transcendental analysis of consciousness and experience.Limiting his exegesis to the period of the “early” or “Jena” Wissenschaftslehre, Zöller carefully explains how “practical” and “theoretical” elements are inextricably linked at every stage of Fichte’s analysis. While it is certainly true that Fichte made a brilliant effort to demonstrate the dependence of “thinking” upon “willing,” of “knowing” upon “doing,” and hence of “theory” upon “practice,” it is no less true that, in doing so, he also established that there can be no “willing” without some prior awareness, and hence some “knowledge,” both of one’s present condition (“what is”) and of some particular goal to be accomplished by free activity (“what ought to be”). The Kantian distinction between “theoretical” and “practical” reason is, therefore, on Fichte’s analysis, simply a reflection of a more fundamental distinction between the “theoretical” and “practical” activities or powers of the I, neither of which can function in the absence of the other. [End Page 374]What Fichte proposes is, in Zöller’s phrase, a truly “integrated theory of reason,” one that begins by positing a pure and original unity of intellect and will in the mere concept of selfhood, that proceeds to a discursive, transcendental analysis of the dynamic and dialectical interplay between “theoretical” and “practical” moments in the constitution of experience (or of empirical self-consciousness), and that concludes by positing, albeit only as a regulative ideal, or as a necessary but unobtainable goal of infinite striving, the final, empirically achieved unity of theory and practice: an ideal of a self that is no longer divided against itself or others and of a world that has been wholly transformed by intellectually guided human activity. As Fichte’s account proceeds, it becomes increasingly clear not only that we must distinguish the will from the intellect—even as we continue to insist upon their systematic interdependence—but that we must also modify our original understanding of both. This conclusion is most unambiguously presented in those works of 1796–99 that collectively constitute the “second” or “revised” version of the Jena Wissenschaftslehre, including the lectures on Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre) nova methodo and the System of Ethics, and it is upon an analysis of these texts that Zöller’s interpretation is chiefly based. According to the latter, an adequate theory of willing must not merely contrast and relate “the will” to “the intellect,” but must recognize that even pure volition contains a certain cognitive core and presupposes some guiding law that is simply integral to the will itself. Similarly, “mere cognition” will always be found to contain within itself, in the form of “feeling,” a certain “practical” dimension of its own.Zöller’s careful account of Fichte’s genetic deduction of the necessary interplay between theoretical and practical elements in the constitution of selfhood and experience is by far the most detailed and accurate one available in English, and forms the core of his book. It is by no means, however, the only topic he discusses. The first two chapters, for example, constitute an excellent general introduction to Fichte’s entire Jena project and include a fine discussion of the relationship between Kantian and Fichtean idealism. Chapter 3, which explicates the key notions of “positing” and “determining,” will be of immense help to anyone trying to understand German idealism in general and Fichte’s philosophy in particular. Like Kant’s ethical theory, Fichte’s is often treated in isolation from his larger system, but Zöller’s Chapter 4 clearly explicates the... (shrink)