Kexuan Yang’s Reviews > The Science of Knowing: J. G. Fichte's 1804 Lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre > Status Update

How does this compare to the Wissenschaftlehre? Does he attempt to modify or simply clarify his system?

Brent wrote: "How does this compare to the Wissenschaftlehre? Does he attempt to modify or simply clarify his system?"

By Fichte's self-explanation he only wanted to find another explanation of what he had already reached in 1794, but up to now Fichte had never mentioned things like "I posits I" and "I posits not-I" that characterise the 1794 presentation. Instead the thoughts that determine the Absolute as the organic oneness between oneness and distinctness can hardly fail to remind one of Schelling's identity philosophy. So a safer explanation might be: Fichte read Schelling and had to make a presentation in reply to the latter. Fichte might consider that he said nothing new (indeed the structure of continuing Kantian critiques - finding an Absolute above Kantian divisions has not changed), but I incline to say that his thoughts did change.