Johann Gottlieb Fichte Totally Explained

Everything about Gottlieb Fichte totally explained

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (May 19, 1762 – January 27, 1814) 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.

Life and work

Fichte was born in Rammenau, Upper Lusatia. In 1780, he began study at the Jena theology seminary. In 1784, without completing his degree, Fichte ended his studies. Fichte worked as a private tutor in Zürich, and in 1790 he became engaged to Johanna Rahn, who happened to be the niece of the famous poet F. G. Klopstock. In 1790, Fichte began to study the works of Kant, which were to have a lasting effect on the trajectory of his life and thought. Not long after meeting Kant in Königsberg, Fichte published his first work, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792), a book that investigates the connections between divine revelation and Kant's Critical philosophy. The first edition of the book was published, without Kant or Fichte's knowledge, without Fichte's name and signed preface; it was thus mistakenly thought to be a new work by Kant himself. Everyone, including the first reviews of the book, assumed Kant was the author; when Kant cleared the confusion and openly praised the work and author, Fichte's reputation skyrocketed: "...the most shocking and astonishing news...nobody but Kant could have written this book. This amazing news of a third sun in the philosophical heavens has set me into such confusion..."
Fichte died of typhus at the age of fifty-two. His son, Immanuel Hermann Fichte, also made contributions to philosophy.

Fichte's philosophical writings

Fichte didn't endorse Kant's argument for the existence of noumena, of "things in themselves", the supra-sensible reality beyond the categories of human reason. Fichte saw the rigorous and systematic separation of "things in themselves" (noumena) and things "as they appear to us" (phenomena) as an invitation to skepticism. Rather than invite such skepticism, Fichte made the radical suggestion that we should throw out the notion of a noumenal world and instead accept the fact that consciousness doesn't have a grounding in a so-called "real world". In fact, Fichte achieved fame for originating the argument that consciousness isn't grounded in anything outside of itself. His student (and critic), Schopenhauer, wrote:

...Fichte who, because the thing-in-itself had just been discredited, at once prepared a system without any thing-in-itself. Consequently, he rejected the assumption of anything that wasn't through and through merely our [[Representation(psychology)

In his famous work Foundations of Natural Right (1796), Fichte argued that self-consciousness was a social phenomenon (normative). A necessary condition of any subjects' self-awareness, he argued, is the existence of other rational subjects. These subjects influence and summons the subject or self into an awareness of itself. This idea is an elaboration and extension of his Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (translated into English as The Science of Knowledge), where he showed that consciousness of the self depends upon resistance or a check by something that's understood as not part of the self. Fichte's famous self/not-self (also called I/not-I) distinction derives from these points and is developed in the Science of Knowledge.
   Fichte also developed a theory of the state based on the idea of self-sufficiency. In his mind, the state should control international relations, the value of money, and remain an autarky.
   Because of this necessity to have relations with other rational beings in order to achieve consciousness, Fichte writes that there must be a 'relation of right,' in which there's a mutual recognition of rationality by both parties.
   In other, earlier, works he called Jews a "state within a state" that would "undermine" the German nation. In regard to Jews getting "civil rights", he wrote that this would only be possible if one managed "to cut off all their heads in one night, and to set new ones on their shoulders, which should contain not a single Jewish idea." Fichte was used by nationalist circles before and during the First World War to enhance national sentiments.

Bibliography

Early Philosophical Writings
Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung, 1793)
Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo, 1796)
The System of the Doctrine of Morals in accordance with the Principles of the Doctrine of Science (Das System der Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaftslehre, 1798)
Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings (1800)
The Vocation of Man (Die Bestimmung des Menschen, 1800)
A Crystal Clear Report to the General Public Concerning the Actual Essence of the Newest Philosophy (Sonnenklarer Bericht an das größere Publikum über das eigentliche Wesen der neuesten Philosophie, 1801)
Characteristics of the Present Age (Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters, 1806)
Addresses to the German Nation (1807-1808)

Secondary Sources

Arash Abizadeh. (External Link

) History of Political Thought 26.2 (2005): 334-359.

Daniel Breazeale. "Fichte's 'Aenesidemus' Review and the Transformation of German Idealism" The Review of Metaphysics 34 (1980/1) 545-68.

Daniel Breazeale and Thomas Rockmore (eds) Fichte: Historical Contexts/Contemporary Controversies. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1997.

Franks, Paul, All or Nothing: Systematicity, Transcendental Arguments, and Skepticism in German Idealism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005

Dieter Henrich. "Fichte's Original Insight" Contemporary German Philosophy 1 (1982) 15-52.

T. P. Hohler. Imagination and Reflection: Intersubjectivity. Fichte's 'Grundlage' of 1794. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1982.

Wayne Martin. Idealism and Objectivity: Understanding Fichte's Jena Project. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.

Frederick Neuhouser. Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Peter Suber. "A Case Study in Ad Hominem Arguments: Fichte's Science of Knowledge

," Philosophy and Rhetoric, 23, 1 (1990) 12-42.

Robert R Williams. Recognition: Fichte and Hegel on the Other. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.

Gunther Zoller. Fichte's Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Rainer Schafer. Johann Gottlieb Fichtes >Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre< von 1794. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006.

Ulrich Schwabe. Indivdiuelles und Transindividuelles Ich. Die Selbstindividuation reiner Subjektivität und Fichtes "Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo". Paderborn 2007.Further Information

Get more info on 'Gottlieb Fichte'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://johann_gottlieb_fichte.totallyexplained.com">Johann Gottlieb Fichte Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.