Science of Knowledge: With the First and Second Introductions

by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Peter Heath (Editor), John Lachs (Editor)

Considered by some to be his most important text, this series of lectures given by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) at his home in Berlin in 1804 is widely regarded as the most perspicuous presentation of his fundamental philosophy. Now available in English, this translation provides in striking and original language Fichte's exploration of the transcendental foundations of experience and knowing in ways that go beyond Kant and Reinhold and charts a promising, novel pathway for German Idealism. Through a close examination of this work one can see that Fichte's thought is much more than a way station between Kant and Hegel, thus making the case for Fichte's independent philosophical importance.

The text is divided into two parts: a doctrine of truth or reason, and a doctrine of appearance. A central feature of the text is its performative dimension. Philosophy, for Fichte, is something we enact rather than any discursively expressible object of awareness; a philosophical truth is not expressible as a set of propositions but is a spontaneous inwardly occurring realization. Therefore, he always regards the expression of philosophy in words as strategic, aiming to ignite philosophy's essentially inward process and to arouse the event of philosophical insight.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, German Literature, Germany, History, Education, Science

324 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1794

About the author

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a German philosopher. He was one of the founding figures of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, a movement that developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Kant. Fichte is often perceived as a figure whose philosophy forms a bridge between the ideas of Kant and the German Idealist Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Recently, philosophers and scholars have begun to appreciate Fichte as an important philosopher in his own right due to his original insights into the nature of self-consciousness or self-awareness. Like Descartes and Kant before him, the problem of subjectivity and consciousness motivated much of his philosophical rumination. Fichte also wrote political philosophy, and is thought of by some as the father of German nationalism.
His son, Immanuel Hermann Fichte, was also a renowned philosopher.

Reviews

[مسعود حسینی · Rating 5 out of 5]

مطالعه و ترجمه ی این کتاب را تقریبا سه سال پیش شروع کردم و حدودا ۹ ماه است که به پایان رسانده ام و انتشارات حکمت آن را در سال آینده منتشر خواهد کرد. پیش از هر چیز باید گفت که دشوار بتوان کتابی دشوارتر از این در فلسفه یافت! دلیل این دشواری، به عقیده من، یکی این است که فیشته به واقع نخستین بار به اعماق تا آن زمان پنهان آگاهی نفوذ می کند، یعنی به قلمرویی که کمتر فیلسوفی در آن پا گذاشته. دلیل دیگر این است که این کتاب اصلا بنا نبوده منتشر شود، زیرا در اصل جزوه ای بوده برای راحتی کار دانشجویان، جزوه ای که می بایست با توضیحات شفاهی مؤلف تکمیل شود. شاید دلایل دیگری هم در کار باشد، از جمله دشوارنویسی آشکار مؤلف.
کتاب از ۵ بخش تشکیل شده. الف) درآمد اول بر آموزه دانش؛ ب) درآمد دوم~؛ ج) اصول بنیادی آموزه ی فراگیر دانش؛ د) بنیاد دانش نظری؛ و ن) بنیاد دانش عملی. دو بخش نخست در سال ۱۷۹۷ در مجله ای منتشر شده اند، حال آنکه نسخه ی اصلی آموزه ی دانش (به سالهای ۱۷۹۴-۱۷۹۵) متشکل از سه بخش آخر است. درآمد اول خطاب به کسانی که نظامی فلسفی ندارند نوشته شده. درآمد دوم خطاب به کسانی که نظامی فلسفی دارند. بخش ج ناظر است به شرح کمابیش پدیدارشناسانه ای از اصول بنیادی آموزه ی دانش.بخش د ناظر است به بخش نظری بنیادی این آموزه که در آن، به اعتباری، فلسفه نظری، آن گونه که مثلا در بخش هایی از نقد اول مطرح شده، استنتاج می شود، تا جایی که نظر به بن بست می رسد و بدین وجه عمل به نحو استعلایی استنتاج می شود. در بخش ن حیث عملی بنیادی آموزه دانش بررسی می شود.
نکته مهم این است که نظر به معنای کانتی مطالعه طبیعت و عمل به معنای کانتی اخلاق و سیاست، غیر از نظر و عملی است که در دو بخش نهایی آموزه دانش محل بحث قرار می گیرند. از یک منظر، می توان دو بخش نظری و عملی آموزه دانش را شرط امکان فلسفه نظری و عملی به معنای کانتی لحاظ کرد.
فیشته در این کتاب از روش های متفاوتی بهره می برد که مهم ترین شان روش دیالکتیکی، روش استعلایی، روش استنتاجی قیاسی، و روش توصیف پدیدارشناسانه است. لذا چنین نیست که روشی واحد به کار برده باشد.
اما راهبرد اصلی او این است که کل فلسفه را از "من" استنتاج کند. البته اینکه چرا فیشته به این سمت سوق پیدا کرده است، تاریخچه ای دارد که خواندن آن برای فهم فیشته ضروری و بسیار مفید است. این تاریخچه را دنیل بریزیل مثلا در تاریخ فلسفه راتلج که من در دست ترجمه دارم شرح کرده است؛ می توان به فصل فیشته و شلینگ این کتاب رجوع کرد. فیشته می خواهد نشان دهد که چون "شی فی نفسه" در چهارچوب فلسفه نقدی نمی گنجد (البته کانت به هیچ روی با این عقیده سر سازش ندارد) باید کل آگاهی را از من برکشید. زیرا برکشیدن آگاهی از ابژه ها دچار دشواری هایی است؛ از جمله اینکه در سلسله ی علی و معلولی ابژه ها هیچ کجا امکان وقوع یا رخداد آگاهی وجود ندارد. هر ابژه ای ممکن است روی ابژه دیگری اثر بگذارد. اما از صرف اثرگذاری مکانیکی هیچ گاه نوعی آگاهی نمی تواند پدید آید. فیشته با این استدلال، هر گونه نظام دگماتیستی را باطل می شمارد، یعنی هر نظامی را که بکوشد آگاهی را از چیزی مادی و مکانیکی برکشد.
حال جز آگاهی و من چیزی بر جای نمانده. اما، آگاهی همان بازنمود یا تمثل است. و بازنمود خود بر دو قسم است：بازنمودهای مقرون به احساس ضرورت و بازنمودهای مقرون به احساس آزادی. فیشته بازنمودهای نوع دوم را محصول فعالیت آزادانه (خیالی) من تلقی می کند و (چون بنیادشان معلوم است=من) آنها را از دایره بررسی اش کنار می گذارد. (همین بازنمودها در تحلیل پدیدارشناسانه هوسرل از تقویم بدن نقشی کانونی می یابند.) حال، بازنمودهای مقرون به احساس ضرورت همان حیطه تجربه به معنای موسع کلمه است. اکنون فیشته باید نشان دهد که این "ضرورت" برآمده از فعالیت یا کردوکار خود من است، زیرا اگر بپذیریم که برآمده از چیزی است که خود از من مستقل است، با همه دشواری هایی روبرو می شویم که هر نظام دگماتیستی ای با آنها مواجه است. آموزه دانش مصروف اثبات همین مدعاست：ضرورت تجربه و کل تجربه برآمده از فعالیت من است.
نکته مهم دیگر این که آموزه دانش عنوان هیچ کتاب خاصی اژ فیشته نیست. در واقع فیشته این عنوان را به جای عنوان نابسنده "فلسفه" نشانده است. فیشته نسخه های متعدد دیگری از آموزه دانش پدید آورده ولی فقط یکی از آن ها را خود به دست انتشار سپرده است：آموزه دانش به روشی نو به سال ۱۷۹۷. این کتاب را دنیل بریزیل به انگلیسی ترجمه کرده است. ذکر این نکته نیز سودمند است که فیشته بر پایه این نسخه ی اصلی آموزه دانش (به سال های ۱۷۹۴-۱۷۹۵) سایر بخش های نظامش را تکمیل کرد، از جمله نظام آموزه اخلاق و نظام آموزه حق طبیعی.
مقالات متعددی در خصوص این کتاب نوشته شده است. به ویژه مجموعه ای که دنیل بریزیل و تام راکمور منتشر کرده اند فوق العاده است. شرح گونتر تسولر هم بسیار خواندنی است.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Anxiety is about nothing. Nothing is necessary for existence of the self’s Ego because without a not-Ego there is no self. The postulated Ego’s feelings creates reality for the non-Ego and the non-Ego is a necessary and sufficient condition for creating consciousness within ourselves such that the Ego is not its own cause since that would lead to an infinite regress in support of its own ground.

Fitchte doesn’t only limit himself to his big theory about the foundation of knowledge he also contextualizes the Romantic Idealism of his time period with such great quips such as ‘the subjectivist is the idealist who places reality within our minds, and the objectivist is the realist who places reality outside of us’. Fitchte tries to reconcile the substances into a monad with his Science. I used the word substance similar to as Spinoza does, and Spinoza made the consciousness the cause of its own consciousness while Fitchte argues that the Ego and the not-Ego keeps us away from that infinite regress. Thomas Aquinas will make God the ground of all being, and makes the conscious its own first cause as Heidegger makes the conscious the cause of itself within Being and Time.

I felt this book flowed and cohered with just enough repetition to make it fully comprehendible. I had just read the series of essays from the book Fichte, German Idealism, and Early Romanticism and that book made this book easy for me to follow.

I do believe that I once read that Bertrand Russell related Spinoza to Avicenna’s floating man, that is what would happen if a man was born in space and had none of the senses to orient him with experiences or interactions with others. Fitchte does a similar thing when he synthesizes our sense experiences into a whole by creating a not-Ego in order to give relationships.

As for Avicenna’s floating man, I would say contrary to Avicenna his floating man would not have the sense of another and would have no sense of self, and Fichte also relies on experiences, our senses, and others in order for the consciousness to be aware of itself because if there was no not-Ego there could not be an Ego, according to Fitchte. This book also contains two additional essays by Fichte and Fichte has to reassure the reader that he thinks God can be conscious of Himself because it’s possible to understand Fitchte differently than the time period would have allowed.

This is an outstanding philosophy and psychology book. Sartre mixes Fitchte and Hegel and comes up with being and nothingness. Sartre most famous statement is “hell is others”, but little does he realize that without no one else to contribute to who we are it would more aptly be said that “hell would be no others”.

Fichte squares the circle of the mystery of when nature becomes self-aware of itself and outside of itself, and writes a book that gives an explanation with understanding of consciousness which he says does not rely on an infinite regress. For me, there is no more frightful thought than to wake up in a universe with no senses and no others or experiences to latch on to, and Fitchte does demonstrate in some ways why that would be so devastating since anxiety is about nothing and something requires nothing in order to process our place in the universe.

[Billy Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Following the immediate aftermath of the Critique of Pure Reason, I'm inclined to say that this text surpasses Kant's work--whether we take Fichte's system to be absolutely unique or, as he would put it, as a mere rearticulation of Kantian philosophy. If for no other reason than because he addresses certain ambiguities in critical philosophy that left Kant vulnerable to a wide array of criticism with varying levels of misunderstanding or misinterpretation (cf Jacobi's writings on Hume, Reinhold's Elementarphilosophie, and Schulze's Aenesidemus (as well as Fichte's review thereof!), et al). A must read--and certainly not as merely another Kantian or as a stepping stone on the royal road to Hegel. Don't forget Fichte!

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much denser than Fichte's Jena writings, this is a move from transcendental philosophy to what some would call transcendent philosophy. (This is evident despite that fact that Fichte would undoubtedly deny it). Instead of taking the I of (self)consciousness here, he starts with the Absolute and deduces his famous self-positing I of the Jena period. It moves from an ascending (to the absolute), to a descending (to the manifold, etc.) 'dialectic'.
Most mysterious here is his concept of "light" which appears to be the way in which the Absolute reveals itself to the insight. However, for further clarification, there is an interesting essay in the collection "After Jena" that discusses the "light" in more depth.
There's no doubt that this is a magnificent, frustrating text. It is, to the best of my (rather unqualified) estimation, up there with Hegel's Phenomenology in terms of rigor and power.
However, as the above mentioned essay mentions, Fichte's Absolute is most likely what Hegel would call a "pistol-shot Absolute". Of course, Hegel had no knowledge of this text.

[r0b · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would probably give it 4 stars if I was able to understand it better but...I put it aside for about two years...

Skim and slog, skim and slog! 😫🤯

The Preface is great and the two Introductions are a treat, however the rest is anything but.

I would like to find a commentary for this book...or, better yet, a professor of philosophy to hold my hand while slogging through it. I have recently found several videos on YouTube that look pretty good and I’m hoping will help.

I wouldn’t push this book on anybody, it’s relentlessly opaque, page after page of koan-like paragraphs...I can’t really say yet but I think it’s possible Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit might be more enjoyable (even if still also barely comprehensible...).

Here’s one brief example of what I mean:

‘Nevertheless- and this is an important argument- X is something that by the law of determination in general is self-determined, and only in so far as it is so is it actually an object of the postulated intuition. - To be sure, we have so far spoken only of the internal determination of the entity in question; but the external determination of the limit follows immediately from this. X=X, insofar as it is once determinate and determinant, and goes so far, to the extent that it is such, eg., to C....’
It goes on like this for page after page.


That being said, from what I’ve read on and by Fichte in the past few years I think he’s a very underrated philosopher who should probably be right up there with Hegel. I’m hoping my next foray into Fichte (his Early Writings, edited by Breazeale) will be less arduous.


Below are a few more easily understood extracts...
I wasn’t able to make regular updates for some obscure GR reason so I’m putting all my ‘updates’ here in the Review:


‘...[this work] is perfectly in accordance with the teachings of Kant, and is nothing other than Kantianism properly understood.’
p. 43

‘Conviction is that alone which has no dependence on time or change or situation...In the history of philosophy there have been few cases of such shall take account of the greatest thinkers of modern times- Spinoza could not have been in a state of conviction; he could only think his philosophy, not believe it, for it stood in the most immediate contradiction to his necessary conviction in daily life, whereby he was bound to regard himself as free and independent.... if candour, cheerfulness and good humour in life are evidence of unity with oneself: then Leibniz perhaps had conviction, and was the only example of it in the history of philosophy.’
p. 81- 83

‘...if we go beyond the I am, we necessarily arrive at Spinozism (that, when fully thought out, the system of Leibniz is nothing other than Spinozism, is shown in a valuable essay by Solomon Maimon: Über die Progressen der Philosophie, etc); and that there are only two completely consistent systems: the critical , which recognizes this boundary, and the Spinozistic which oversteps it.’
p. 102

‘Twilight is a mixture of light and darkness...Hence, light and darkness are not opposed in principle, but differ only in degree. Darkness is simply a very minute amount of light- That is precisely how things stand between the self and the not-self.’
p. 138

‘Matter and form of the interplay are to determine one another, that is, the mutual annulment, and hence the also the intrusion, the immediate influence, are to follow from the mere opposition; and the opposition is to follow from the mutual elimination. Both are one and the same; they are in themselves set counter to each other, or - they mutually annihilate each other. Their influence and their essential opposition are one and the same.’
p. 166

‘The Science of Knowledge is to be a pragmatic history of the human mind.’
p. 198

[Alex Obrigewitsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the progenitor of German Idealism, Fichte's work is certainly taxing to read, and the prose stylings are far from enjoyable to follow. But this, as with Kant, may be a necessary fault imposed by the transcendental itself - for language is pushed to the limits of its significatory capacities in attempting to speak to its grounds. The empirical familiarites bound to language are twisted and distorted, in the attempt at speaking to that which resides at the very limits. This nacassary fault in readability, in the lack of the pleasantries of style, becomes a style of its own; the stylistics of a strained thought bound, as all language and thought in its presentational, Darstellunglich, positing, to the exigency of the figure or figurative.

The thought expressed through this tortured style remains of the highest interest and import, despite what subsequent figures (such as Hegel, for example) claim regarding its status. That Fichte has largely been misread and misunderstood when he has been read at all remains all too unfortunately true. There are some amazing scholars engaged with his thought, but, for the most part, much of the philosophical tradition has failed to grasp the import of his project.

This particular work bears the mark of its rushed composition, and its status as classroom text to be explicated verbally in his seminars - though this is not to claim that it is beyond the bounds of understanding. It simply suffers from a blatant need for further explication at key moments, especially concerning the check or Anstoß and the role of feeling - two key elements at play in concerning the status of the thing in itself in its placement and displacement within the wissenschaftslehre.

Fichte's thought deserves a much greater treatment than it has heretofore recieved by the philosophical tradition, and not only by those with an interest in German Idealism. Much of the Analytic tradition's theories on consciousness and the mind could benefit from a struggle with Fichte. The time is approaching (it ever has been) for a renewal of the Idealist project, in its multifarious presentations (and, with it, within it, a return of the unending, the unfinished - of Romanticism).

[Leo46 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Late Fichte here proposes an extremely interesting alternative to Hegelian dialectics with a much better possibility of its utilization for an ‘open dialectic,’ as opposed to his early work and even many parts of Hegel. The Science of Knowing (Wissenchsaftslehre) posits one of the few, main departures from Kant’s Noumenal metaphysics with a true maturation of the Transcendental Turn (Hegel and Schelling are a part of this, too). Interestingly, he goes back to Descartes’s cogito as the foundational evidence for his theory of ‘oneness’ or ‘the light.’ Instead of the causal or affective essence of the Hegelian dialectic between two opposing forces, its almost as if the ‘opposites’ of Fichte’s ‘dialectic’ is always-already-in-tension (to use an Althusserian phrasing)—they are reciprocal from the start and thus, Fichte hyper-fixates on the precise tension or ‘oneness’ of the opposing forces. To use a more contemporary example, Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (which is a very Fichtean argument overall) also bases his main opposites (Being vs. Nothingness) on a ‘prereflective cogito.’ The difference is that Fichte starts with the opposition of Being vs. Thinking, which is obviously relevant to his times as the ultimate end of the rationalism vs empiricism debates. In short, he formulates that Being and Thinking are always-already-in-tension as the cogito explains not only the self-evidence of Being through Thinking, but also the idea that Thinking must also be presupposed by Being (this is what he means by the leap from ‘it thinks’ to ‘I think’). The tension and union between Being and Thinking is where consciousness must arise—this is the ‘oneness’ and ‘the light’ where human reality occurs, developing the Transcendental Turn by (what I call) a meta-predication of this fundamental, primary unity of Being and Thinking that is applied to all oppositions in the world. If the Transcendental Turn’s revolutionary aspect is primarily of ‘predication,’ i.e., the predication of Philosophy on primary practices (sciences, ethics, politics, etc.) to become a secondary practice of articulation and clarification, then Fichte makes subjects and their predicates alway-already-in-tension. His upshot then becomes the ultimate unity between the I and the non-I, where ‘I’ is the absolute form of subjectivity (the essence of subjectivity, agency, etc.) that necessarily presupposes ‘non-I,’ but also vice versa. From the self-evident cogito, we know I=I, but within the power of consciousness you can theoretically posit I=non-I that creates the exact contradiction that allows the derivation of both’s existence. I must presuppose non-I and non-I must presuppose I. This simultaneously ameliorates the problems of Kant’s categories that allow for the metaphysical transference of the Noumena to the Phenomena and also Cartesian solipsism. Therefore, the unity of the I and non-I is ‘community’ (in an absolute, general form) where ethical responsibility must be taken into account within it—another maturation of another Kantian notion: the categorical imperative.

However, this argument doesn’t escape many critiques of Cartesianism (which have also been charged on early Sartre), but gives an extremely historically interesting alternative to the neo-Kantian project, especially when thinking about hypotheticals of what would have happened if Hegel did not become the dominant interpretation of the Transcendental Turn.

[Anmol · Rating 2 out of 5]

I try not to say this about usual "tough" books, but this is borderline incomprehensible, and I'm not sure if this is my fault or Fichte's. Note that I'm referring here to the 1794 Wissenschaftslehre which (I can now understand why) was ridiculed as nonsensical by most German philosophers of the time and even Fichte would later say that it was only meant to provide a "foundation" to his system, and would later be reworked. The 2 Introductions and Chapter One would later do this, and quite comprehensibly so, in my view compared to this text. I'm not sure why Fichte never carried out the updated Wissenschaftslehre into a full book. I will now be reading a secondary text on Fichte to sum up my view of his works and then move on to Schelling. It's unfortunate that this text is what is considered "canonical" Fichte, in that this is what most remember him for, when I find The Vocation of Man instead to be his best and most coherent work, which is relatively ignored.

[Campbell Rider]

lmao what if the self conscious self posits itself positing the absolute self relational self positing of the interdetermination of the self's negation posited as the counterpositing of the relational self consciousness's determinateness by relating itself to itself as the position of the absolute self

[Lucas · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having read some of the most enigmatic philosophers ever - Kant, Hegel, Heidegger - and gotten something out of them, I feel qualified to recommend every copy of Fichte’s Science of Knowledge be burnt. This is undoubtedly the most obtuse, enigmatic and possibly incoherent piece of philosophy I have read. While some issues are obviously translation based (the translation at times is just horrendous), even the philosophical moves made are nearly impossible to penetrate. I spend several weeks reading this closely among both a PhD and PhD candidate in philosophy (one of which specializes in German idealism) and still got next-to-nothing from Fichte.

Unless you enjoy pain and suffering, please do not read this book.

[Truls Ljungström · Rating 1 out of 5]

Inte ett enda rationellt argument, så vitt min dåvarande tonårshjärna (som naturligtvis var felfri och hade alla svar) kunde bedöma.

Läs denna med vaksamhet. Den har många och subtila argument, där de senare bygger på de förra. Missar du ett, så blir resten orimliga.

[Hristo Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Basically the rawest of the Big 3 German Idealists. Schelling and Hegel have the bonus of not starting from scratch, while Fichte might be hard even if you've read Kant, since Fiche begins with a very original grounding, that is almost like nothing before him. No analogies are there to help you make some sense of the philosophy he is trying to do at first. No electricity, nature like with Schelling and surely no History, religion or philosophy as concepts to grasp what Fiche is trying to ground as the Subject tries to emerge dialectically in his Science of Knowledge.

Definately only for people who've read other philosophy and even then it's a building-from-nothing philosophy that exhausts the mind so much, that it was necessary for 2 others to add themes and real structure. After this Fiche had more readable books and writings that were for a general audience to awaken the German Volkgeist, which I'd recommend to non-philosophy reads(Speeches to the German Nation)

[Beansism · Rating 5 out of 5]

Typically seen as a bridge between Kant and the absolute idealists Schelling and especially Hegel, Fichte's Science of Knowledge can't be understood as such. When placed in the proper context of Post-Kantianism and its accompanying criticisms, the true genius of this work shines through. Initially very easy to follow, later parts may leave you scratching your head even if Kant's first Critique came easy. Not light reading, but worth it in the end, especially if your goal is to have a thorough understanding of the ideological terrain that shaped Germany in the late 18th to early 19th century.

[Christopher Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wish I had read this a long time ago, it might have helped clarify some concepts I was working on for my thesis on Freud and Husserl. He developed an interesting view on reason as dependent upon drives, feelings, and conditions of exteriority with the "not-self." I am going to have to read Breazeale's translation at some point, especially for the two introductions. Regardless, I rather like Fichte apparently.

[Chris Nagel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The butler did it. Absolutely.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some reason Goodreads has removed my rating and review of this book. I'll reupload it soon.

[Kappa · Rating 3 out of 5]

In generale Fichte, così come tutti quanti i filosofi romantici, basa la propria filosofia su un tentativo di superare i limiti finiti della conoscenza imposti da Kant. La sua Dottrina della Scienza prende ispirazione, nello specifico, dalla Critica della Ragion Pratica, appunto perché in quel caso la realtà noumenica appare sussistente. Il suo noumeno non è un concetto limite come per Kant ma un ente di ragione, un concetto a cui è attribuita un'identità, dunque, un pensiero che tuttavia non è esperibile sensibilmente. Il concetto di io, per Fichte, è quello di un principio agente creatore di sé e di ciò che gli è opposto, la cui azione è quella di superare le contraddizioni dovute al suo stesso creare il non-io, ovvero le contraddizioni stesse. L'io kantiano, invece, è la semplice attività di sintesi. L'io di entrambi comprende il fatto di essere comune all'umanità intera e il fatto di non poter esistere in assenza di elementi esterni (pur essendo interni in Fichte, dato che a crearli è l'io stesso). Infatti lo sforzo umano per cercare di superare le contraddizioni non ha fine, in quanto, in assenza di contraddizioni, neanche l'io esisterebbe, perché cesserebbe l'attività che si muove per superarle. Dunque la vita, per Fichte, e i filosofi romantici in generale, è uno sforzo continuo verso l'infinito che non sarà mai appagato, analogo al tentativo dell'uomo di raggiungere la santità (perfetta adesione all'imperativo categorico).
La creazione dell'opposizione (che è la natura) da parte dell'autocoscienza è, per Fichte, un tentativo dell'uomo di umanizzare il mondo, una probabile interpretazione sbagliata del ruolo dell'immaginazione in Kant, che invece ha il compito di temporalizzare le categorie nella creazione degli schemi per poterle applicare all'oggetto della sensibilità.

[syed ahmar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fichte is an amazing philosopher, Hegel's philosophy is highly affected by Fichte and this book helped me understand both Kant and Hegel better. I was surprised to read the original concepts of self consciousness and the dialectic logic (Thesis/Anti-Thesis & Synthesis) with Ego and Non-Ego as examples. One of my favorite books so far

[Igor Capelari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eu queria dar uma nota maior para esse livro, mas é impossível. É realmente um livro incompreensível, beirando o nonsense. As primeiras 50 páginas são incríveis, mas depois da dedução das categorias de relação o livro se perde completamente. Espero ter uma experiência melhor com o Nova Methodo. Tantos temas aqui nesse livro nunca mais retornam, o que tira o valor de compreendê-lo.

[Earl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finished the whole book with less than half of the stuff there understood (unsurprisingly only his comments on Kant). But still a good read on German Idealism. I have to return to this work when I advance.

[Sadako Yamamura · Rating 2 out of 5]

The origin of the disaster known as Hegelian dialectic, which should more properly be called Fichtean dialectic.

[Karim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crucial for understanding Hegel's Doctrine of Essence. Very interesting reversal of Kant through the primacy of practical reason.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fun way to put this: the first, “ascendant” part is the story of an object (Denken) looking for its desire (i.e. the subject that desires it, makes it be), and the second, “descendant” part is that of a desire (Seyn) looking for its subject/object. The first part is neurosis, the second is psychosis. I know it looks like Zizek, but it’s actually Boehme.

[Leo46 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This foundational text for the completion of Transcendental Idealism is like Berkeley's immaterialism on steroids because of one simple attribute of Fichte's methodology: it is dialectical. The ardently dialectical method Fichte uses in the original edition of the Wissenshaftslehre deserves much more credit for its influence on Hegel. Fichte's self-proclaimed true elaboration of Kant's Transcendental Turn (the 'Copernican revolution' that shifted object-oriented philosophy to that of mind-centered thinking) from the beginning of the text doesn't fall flat without a fight. The two overly verbose introductions give the necessary philosophical context, hilarious jabs at other thinkers, and the most rigorous advocacy for idealism over dogmatism (materialism) in the absolute proof of the self are simultaneously fascinating, enjoyable, and difficult. Here, he starts completely originally on the proof of the self as the ground for all knowledge without relying on a pre-reflective cogito as he does in the 1804 lectures (although it is easier to digest that way). The double presupposition of the self and not-self (or I and not-I) becomes much more clear in the extremely logical proof Fichte sets out in this text by using a purely formal operation of identity in A=A (with A not being an existent at all) to show its validity. This will be the first principle for the Science of Knowledge, which is followed by two more that are much more clear, in contrast to the introductions. The second principle sets forth the fact of opposition or negation, in a purely formal manner, too, in that ~A=~A in the same way as the first principle that can be derived from A is not equal to ~A. The necessary existence of opposition for positing, and vice versa, reveals the central dialectic of mind-centered faculties for Fichte and allows for a counterpositing--that the not-self = self and vice versa. This must function as a dialectical push and pull in which both concepts/realities must exist in the 'absolute self' at all times, which is to be distinguished from the posited self. The 'absolute self' is essentially consciousness, while the posited self is the concept asserted by the subject that is able to be put in comparison to the not-self. Thus, the self and not-self are given the quality of divisibility (since the 'absolute self' is indivisible, it is just the pre-reflective cogito that is simultaneously the proof and the existence of consciousness and existence; see introductions). The third principle is, hence, the unity of the self and the not-self within consciousness under the condition of divisibility. Only from this point forward can the Science of Knowledge truly be carried out--an immanent philosophy that is not predicated on a metaphysical thing-in-itself that the dogmatists rely on and cannot explain or prove the existence of. For theoretical and practical implications of this method, see my review of the lectures or read the Vocation of Man, which was written for the Wissenschaftslehre to be more accessible for the general public. Otherwise, my only critique that will have to see the test of the German Idealist project as a whole is what even distinguishes this ardent self/consciousness-contained world/reality from a phenomenology that collapses onto itself to create just a (dialectical) materialism.

[María Ciancio · Rating 3 out of 5]

"[...] la filosofía ha de indicar el fundamento de toda experiencia."

A partir de este concepto, presenta dos enfoques para el análisis de la experiencia (percepción?), el "idealismo" (abstraer el elemento de la inteligencia o pensamiento de la experiencia ) y el "dogmatismo" (abstrae de la experiencia la "cosa en si", objeto independiente del individuo), dando preferencia al primer enfoque, y en particular al llamado "idealismo trascendental" (Entiendo que a esto se refiere al encadenamiento de causas y consecuencias que comprenden a un concepto determinado, abarcando modos y condiciones de concebirlo... De todas formas en este tema Fichte dice que no fue comprendido por sus congéneres asi que no me voy a matar intentando comprenderlo yo. :P ) Y justifica como (según Fichte) la filosofía Kantiana toma este enfoque.

Me gusta en parte porque va a conceptos muy "de raíz" de donde surge el pensamiento, pero el tipo es demasiado pagado de sí mismo, lo que hace a la lectura bastante densa.

Le vendían bien grafiquitos. :P

[Nathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read and re-read some sections. This book is absolutely crazy. The German Idealists were absolutely wild!

[adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

The lastest selection of the Hegel Reading Group.