[Author's note (July 8, 2001): This paper was originally read at the Montreal meeting of the North American Fichte Society on May 13, 1999. It is reproduced here with only slight corrections and modifications.]
Fichte's 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre poses the usual difficulties that his readers encounter in the various versions of the Wissenschaftslehre: the labored writing style, the intricacy that sometimes obscures the larger points, the scarcity of examples, and so on. These are familiar to us, and so perhaps they are not as daunting as they were to his contemporaries. With time we have become accustomed to these features of Fichte's works. A more significant difficulty with the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre is that it never saw publication in Fichte's lifetime, but was instead given as a set of lectures and then published posthumously. As a result, the text that we have is rough and incomplete, and thus was necessarily subjected to a fair amount of editorial intervention before reaching us. Such a difficulty is also familiar to us, and so we can compensate for it. But at least we have a text to read. Fichte's listeners were not so lucky, since, of course, the text was not available to them; therefore, in this regard we have an significant advantage over them.
In one important respect, however, we possess the same disadvantage as his original audience. It was inevitable that Fichte spoke to an audience that was consumed with curiosity about his views in the wake of the atheism controversy. After all, Fichte had recently left Jena under a cloud to resume his philosophical career in Berlin. No doubt his listeners were wondering what he would say about the charges of atheism, which all of them had heard about and which some of them probably took to be true. Fichte's 1801/02 lectures, the first version of the Wissenschaftslehre to appear after the controversy, provided the perfect forum for defending himself against readings of the Wissenschaftslehre that he considered unfair and misleading, which he could do in a more genial environment than the one in which the atheism controversy took place. Despite, however, the excellent opportunity for clarification and rebuttal, Fichte says nothing that explicitly addresses the atheism controversy. None of the major writings from or the chief participants in the controversy are ever discussed, or even mentioned in passing. Anyone reading the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre without any prior knowledge of the atheism controversy would never begin to suspect that it had occurred, much less that it mattered to Fichte in the slightest.
Fichte, of course, might have referred to the controversy in remarks that never made their way into the text of the lectures, but he clearly omitted any discussion of it in the lecture manuscript itself. We should find this omission puzzling. Authors typically answer their critics; certainly, Fichte did so all the time. Why he remained silent on these matters in the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre is a mystery. Yet his overt silence does not immediately imply that he did not in fact respond to the atheism controversy in this work.
Philosophers can reply to their critics without letting on that they are doing so. In Fichte's case, there is general agreement that The Vocation of Man, which preceded the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre, is a response to the atheism controversy, especially to Jacobi's open letter, although Fichte never acknowledged this fact about the work in any explicit fashion. If this is an acceptable way to read The Vocation of Man (and it seems to be uncontroversial that it is appropriate to do this), then there is precedent in Fichte interpretation for reading the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre as I propose to do in this paper. That is, I hope to show with some degree of plausibility that the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre is informed by Fichte's experience in the atheism controversy, and that it advances views that not only conform to his earlier thinking on these matters, but also somehow extends them, even if not all of the problems in his views (or perhaps just in my understanding of them) are thereby solved. In particular, I think that he manages to defend his views against Jacobi's charge of nihilism in an interesting way. My attempts to fulfill these goals, given the state of Fichte's text, will necessarily be speculative and unsatisfying to some degree. I think, though, that it is important to make the effort, if only to convince ourselves that the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre is a worthy addition to Fichte's overall philosophical project.
Fichte had a keen sense of his audience, more so than many philosophers; therefore, he routinely tried to adapt his writing style and terminology for the readers or listeners he expected to address in the work at hand. Since there is no reason that I am aware of to think that this sense of audience deserted Fichte in the case of the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre, we can assume, at least at the outset, that the presentation of that work is somehow intended for a post-controversy audience.
It seems, therefore, that we should view the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre as a continuation of the Jena Wissenschaftslehre, and thus not as a radical departure from it. If Fichte had intended a radical revision – perhaps even a recantation of earlier views – then we can reasonably assume that he would have said that one was in the offing in his lectures. No such declaration is to be found in the text. Much of his audience would have been eager to hear Fichte recant his earlier views, at least as they concerned God; and Fichte, in the spirit of the intellectual honesty that he often extolled, would have dutifully announced a retraction, if he had been in the process of making one.
Another reason for reading the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre as a continuation of the Jena Wissenschaftslehre is that Fichte's lectures employ the reflective methodology of the earlier writings. We might call this procedure 'phenomenology' for lack of a better term. Fichte repeatedly expresses this methodological commitment throughout the lectures, especially in the introduction concerning the concept of a Wissenschaftslehre (§§1-4). He routinely characterizes the lectures as knowledge of knowledge [ein Wissen vom Wissen], which proceeds by means of intuition [Anschauung], and is the grasping of a manifold [ein Zusammenfassen eines Mannigfaltigen] in a single glance [mit Einem Blike]. This manifold, however, is not simply a heap of parts arranged in some arbitrary fashion; instead, says Fichte, it is grasped in its organic unity [organische Einheit] or, as he sometimes puts it, as a fusion [eine Verschmelzung], which seems to suggest that the manifold in question, whatever it may be, possesses an intelligible structure open to rational reflection.[1]
But what is being intuited here? What is the intuited object of the Wissenschaftslehre? (I use the term 'object' as vaguely as possible, since Fichte always insists that the Wissenschaftslehre is not about objects, at least in the sense or senses of the term that he deems inappropriate for his philosophical project.) The object is reason itself.[2] The intuiting task of the Wissenschaftslehre is thus summarized as follows: "For in the intuition, which the Wissenschaftslehre consists of, reason, or knowing, should be fully understood in a glance."[3] Knowing of this sort, i.e., the non-empirical or a priori kind, is typically, though not always, referred to as absolute knowing [absolutes Wissen] in the lectures.
Absolute knowledge is absolute, presumably because it is unconditioned in the sense of being free in some significant sense (while perhaps being unfree in some other sense). The manner of its unconditioned existence is hinted at in the fact that Fichte typically claims that absolute knowledge is the interpenetration [das sich Durchdringen] of being and freedom. This interpenetration, says Fichte, the Wissenschaftslehre labels I-hood [Ichheit].[4]
These terminological issues could be pursued in greater detail, but what I have presented so far should give us reason to see the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre as a continuation of the Jena project. Fichte never insisted that his philosophy had to be discussed using a fixed set of terms – witness the differences between the Grundlage and the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo – what mattered was that the terminology, whatever it happened to be and for whatever audience it was intended, be effective in producing the thoughts or intuitions that Fichte believed reveal to us what we are. The task of the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre is similar, and he expresses it as follows: ". . . the business of the Wissenschaftslehre is not acquiring or producing something that is new, but rather only the transfiguration of what was there eternally and what we ourselves have been eternally."[5] The point is thus not to produce new facts about ourselves, but rather to understand what is already present in us but only dimly understood, if at all.
We might say that Fichte, in good Cartesian fashion, is inviting us to meditate along with him, as he develops the thoughts of the Wissenschaftslehre, regardless of what version we happen to be reading at the time. In this fashion we shall produce the Wissenschaftslehre for ourselves, which, he claims, is "the only possible doctrine of life" [die einzig mögliche Lebenslehre].[6] Not only is the Wissenschaftslehre a doctrine of what we are, of what sort of life we lead, namely, one of reflective rationality, it is also a doctrine of the sort of life that we should lead, since the doctrine has a practical aspect in its emphasis on freedom and morality.
It is at this juncture that we can better begin to see how the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre might be addressing issues left unresolved by the atheism controversy. (This is not to say, of course, that they are only discussed here: these issues arise elsewhere as well.) In the Kantian tradition (and Fichte is clearly some sort of Kantian), it is typical to view rationality as a kind of freedom. Kant and Fichte refuse to see freedom simply as doing what one pleases or is impelled to do by inclination. Instead, we can be said to be free insofar as we rationally reflect on our inclinations, set ends for ourselves, and then develop and pursue the appropriate means to those ends. If we act in this fashion, then we are not simply giving into the blandishments of inclination, and thus are not moved by it in the way that other non-rational creatures are. We do not ordinarily attribute to such creatures the sort of freedom that we take to be most fitting for human beings (or other rational creatures sufficiently similar to us).
Naturally, more could be said about this account of freedom, in particular about how rational nature understood as a kind of freedom is invoked as the source of value that is supposed to ground morality in general. (This is how Kant attempts to ground the categorical imperative in sections II and III of the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and I suspect that Fichte tries something similar in his ethical writings as well. But this issue must be set aside for some other time.) This account of freedom as reflective rationality is open to a skeptical challenge that Fichte's notion of absolute knowledge in the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre is designed to defuse.
The challenge can be put as follows. Transcendental philosophers like Kant and Fichte routinely argue for the claim that there is necessity in nature. That is, the antecedent history of the universe, in conjunction with the laws of nature (said to operate with strict necessity that allows no exceptions), determines what will happen in the sensible world. If this is the case, then the capacity to do otherwise (often taken to be the form of freedom required for responsibility), the capacity for free action, is an illusion. If we are determined by natural necessity in the sensible world, then, so the challenge goes, we are not free. This is supposed to induce anxiety in us, as all skeptical challenges to something we hold dear are supposed to do.
Fichte does not deny the claim of natural necessity. In the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre he frequently speaks of Naturgesetz, indicating that he believes in natural necessity.[7] In the same breath, however, he also speaks of Freiheitsgesetz without thinking that he has thereby contradicted himself. That is, Fichte argues that natural necessity and freedom are compatible. An empirical example might help to illustrate his claim. Assume for the moment that I am here presenting this paper as a result of the causal history of the universe in conjunction with natural necessity. Would this dispel my sense of my own freedom? Would I take this claim, if shown to be true to my satisfaction, as a skeptical threat to my freedom? If I came here as a result of the influence of the ordinary aspects of rational agency – desire, deliberation, choice, etc. – then I see no grounds for anxiety in the face of the skeptical challenge. I am doing what I want to do on the basis of rational reflection; my actions are not alien to me, nor are they the product of some force outside of myself which I disavow. They might be the product of the antecedent events in a universe ruled by causal necessity, but this fact, if it really is a fact, fails to disturb me. As long as I act on the basis of the will that I want to have as a result of rational reflection, I see the action as my own. No anxiety arises in me that natural necessity threatens something that I value. The absence of anxiety is a sign, though, of course, not an infallible one, that the skeptical challenge has been met successfully.
Fichte's doctrine of absolute knowledge, the interpenetration of being and freedom, expresses in different terms the response to the skeptical challenge that I just offered. Being and freedom as they are found in creatures such as ourselves are, says Fichte, one and the same thing seen from two different points of view [Ansichten].[8] We are free because we are rational, and rationality itself, the capacity to step back and reflect, is itself grounded on freedom, that is to say, is a form of freedom.[9]
Another way that Fichte expresses these claims about absolute knowledge is by means of the more traditional distinction between the sensible world and the intelligible world, or, equivalently, between nature and freedom. At one point he says, ". . . I necessarily have some natural plan [Naturplan] and an end, which, however, I follow in the form of and in accordance with the law of a rational being."[10] This passage lends some support to the idea that Fichte is arguing that I can be determined by nature yet also be free if rational agency is functioning properly.
One potential problem with this account of the reciprocity of rationality and freedom is that it does not seem to allow for any failures of freedom. If I must see my actions in light of these two points of view, i.e., being and freedom, then it seems that any action that I perform under the influence of a law of nature must also be free, if nature and freedom are simply two points of view on the same thing. But certainly there are times when I fail to have the will I wish to have upon reflection, when I fail to act as rationality dictates to me, all for natural causes. I hesitate to attribute this error to Fichte, since it strikes me as too obvious a problem for him to have overlooked. So I leave it as a potential objection to my reading of the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre.
Fichte's discussion of absolute knowledge I take to be a philosophical clarification of the standpoint of life that is compatible with our ordinary sense of ourselves as rational agents. If this is the case, then we can see the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre as an implicit response to the charge of nihilism made by Jacobi.[11] Not only has the Wissenschaftslehre not reduced the world to nothing, to the play of representations, it has robustly defended, if not always with the greatest amount of obviousness and clarity, our ordinary view of the world. This is a valuable achievement, one that Fichte needed to perform to restore credibility to the basic doctrines of the Wissenschaftslehre.
But, of course, the atheism controversy involved more than Jacobi's charge of nihilism. Jacobi also claimed that the Wissenschaftslehre, though not Fichte himself, was atheistic.[12] The 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre explicitly says very little about this issue, which is peculiar, as I mentioned earlier. How might he be addressing it in his lectures?
Fichte refers to God only in passing in a few places in the lectures, and none of his remarks would comfort his critics. Fichte simply should have admitted that his concept of God was not an orthodox one, and that his critics were right in maintaining that he was not an orthodox believer. The 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre continues this heterodoxy by identifying God with being simpliciter [Sein schlechthin],[13] but not it seems with the being that makes up one half of the organic unity of absolute knowledge. The being appropriate to God is what Fichte calls the absolute, which he elsewhere glosses as "the true intelligible ground of the entire world of appearances" [der wahre intelligible Grund der ganzen Erscheinungswelt].[14] Fichte says little that would help us to interpret this provocative phrase, but it hardly sounds like the conception of God favored by his critics, although it might well be compatible with it.
The philosophical difficulty here is not so much Fichte's conception of God – one has to get used to the fact that it was not the ordinary person's conception of God – but rather his ground for adopting this concept and giving it a place in his thought. Kant's defense of belief in God was always based on the claim that belief in God was one of the conditions of the possibility of the realization of the concept of the highest good. According to Kant, God is to act as the guarantor of our ability to attain the highest good in the less than ideal circumstances presented to us in the empirical world. Fichte, as the "Divine Governance" essay claimed, and as the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre perhaps claims as well (the text is not determinate enough to say for sure), identified God with the moral world order that guaranteed the successful pursuit of our duties. While it may be the case that there is such an order, the empirical evidence is against it. And so how can Fichte plausibly claim that there is one? The reflective method of the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre, as I have presented it, does not seem powerful enough to generate and defend such a conception of God. If so, then the claim is merely ad hoc and without justification.
It is true that the 1801/02 Wissenschaftslehre is not meant to be a full, or even a partial statement of Fichte's theological views. Yet I find it difficult not to read the lectures without a sense of disappointment, but this may simply be a result of my having merely idiosyncratic interests in certain aspects of Fichte's thought as opposed to others. I leave this disappointment, which is ultimately grounded on the reading of the lectures that I have offered in this paper, as a possible reason for rejecting my reading, or at least for beginning a critical response to my interpretation that would make better sense of Fichte's intentions and achievements in these lectures.
[Abbreviation: GA = J. G. Fichte: Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Ed. Reinhard Lauth, Hans Jacobs, and Hans Gliwitzky. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann, 1964ff.]
1. These terms are used repeatedly in §§1-4. See GA, II/6, pp. 135-143.
2. GA, II/6, pp. 137-138; see also p. 212.
3. GA, II/6, p. 147.
4. GA, II/6, p. 150.
5. GA, II/6, p. 143.
6. GA, II/6, p. 132.
7. See GA, II/6, pp. 210, 263-264, 301.
8. This claim is found in many places. See, e.g., GA, II/6, p. 164.
9. See, e.g., GA, II/6, p. 187.
10. GA, II/6, p. 299.
11. F. H. Jacobi, Werke, ed. F. Köppen and F. Roth (Leipzig: Gerhard Fleischer, 1812-1825; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968), vol. III, p. 44.
12. Ibid., p. 46.
13. GA, II/6, p. 193.
14. GA, II/6, p. 319.
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Last modified on October 10, 2001.