This review originally appeared in The Owl of Minerva 28 (1996): 81-88.
The author would like to thank Professor Ardis Collins, editor of The Owl of Minerva, for her kind permission to reproduce this review. Except for some minor typographical corrections, it has been reprinted without modification.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre) nova methodo (1796/99). Edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. x + 494.
Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings (1797-1800). Edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994. xlix + 213.
After the publication of the Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (1794/95) was greeted with largely uninformed and hostile criticism, Fichte claimed that the presentation of his ideas in this work had been deficient and thus resolved to recast them in a new and more intelligible form. Many of the works written during the rest of his years in Jena, which ended with his resignation in 1799, were intended to overcome the difficulties involved in understanding the original version of the Wissenschaftslehre.
The two books under review contain Daniel Breazeale's latest efforts in translating writings from Fichte's Jena period. The Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo is a translation of two student transcripts of a lecture course, given three times between 1796 and 1799, in which Fichte offered his first revised presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre. Since Fichte's own manuscript is no longer extant, we must rely on the two student transcripts for our knowledge of this course. The first is known as the Krause transcript, named after a student who had attended Fichte's lectures in the winter semester of 1798/99. The second is known as the Halle transcript because it was discovered in the university library in Halle. Its date is disputed, but Prof. Breazeale argues that it can be reliably traced back to the lectures of 1797/1798. His translation skillfully interweaves the two transcripts, offering a complete translation of the Krause transcript supplemented by many helpful passages from the Halle transcript.
Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre is an anthology of short essays, several of which are drawn from the writings of the atheism controversy of 1798-1799, plus a translation of An Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (1797/98), an aborted revision of the Wissenschaftslehre which contains the two lengthy introductions familiar to readers of the Heath-Lachs translation of the Foundations and a chapter (hitherto untranslated) about the self-positing activity of the I.
Of the two, the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo is certainly the greater philosophical event, offering as it does a revision of the Wissenschaftslehre over twice the length of the Foundations. Although it is the usual Fichtean stew of obscurity and insight, Fichte succeeds more often than not, and more frequently than in the Foundations, in getting his ideas across to his audience. This is due in part to the "new method" employed in his lectures. The Foundations begins with the three principles of the entire Wissenschaftslehre: the pure I posits itself; the not-I is posited in opposition to the I; and in the I a divisible not-I is coposited with a divisible I. Unfortunately for Fichte's readers past and present, these principles are more than a little obscure, as are Fichte's efforts to elucidate them and to remove the contradictions which follow from them. There can be little doubt that these difficulties have been largely responsible for the misunderstandings which have plagued the Foundations over the years.
But the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo begins quite differently. Instead of starting with an involved discussion of abstract principles, here Fichte commences by asking his audience simply to think of any object, say, the wall in the lecture hall. He then proceeds to think about thinking of the wall, asking after the conditions for the possibility of thinking in general. This leads to an investigation into the structure of the I, the subject responsible for thinking.
This simple act of reflecting on the thought of an object quickly becomes anything but simple. Fichte proceeds to build up a complicated account of subjectivity which ranges from the knowledge of objects in the sensible world to knowledge of the realm of rational beings in which the I finds itself, i.e., to the intelligible realm of freedom.
In §§1-13 Fichte recounts how the knowledge of objects is at the same time knowledge of the I. All consciousness, he says, requires self-consciousness, for the thought of any object also includes the thought of the I which thinks the object. The thought of an object is attributed to a thinker, to a point of view from which the object is known. In Fichte's language, the I "posits" itself in the act of thinking of an object.
This notion of the self-positing activity of the I is Fichte's interpretation of the Kantian notion of autonomy as applied to both theoretical and practical matters. The I is always active, says Fichte. It freely determines itself to act by undergoing a transition from what is determinable to what is determinate, from potentiality to actuality. The I in its empirical manifestation is embodied in space and time, and by means of the will it chooses an object from among the infinitude of possible objects in the empirical world and brings it to cognition. Thus all cognition presupposes the concept of a goal which the I freely sets for itself. But in §13 Fichte says that the I finds itself trapped in a circle. Setting a goal for oneself is a form of activity. The ability to set a goal for oneself presupposes cognition for its possibility. But cognition, like all forms of activity, requires a goal. Activity requires cognition which requires activity. Hence the circle of consciousness.
How does the I escape this circle? Since we successfully cognize the world, there must be a way out of the circle, and for Fichte the way out lies in the pure will, in the intelligible realm of freedom. He argues that there must a non-deliberative willing which provides its own object and is prior to all empirical willing and cognition. This pure will is characterized as an "ought," as a categorical demand for action. But what is the object which accompanies the pure will? Fichte is not clear about this. Simply to characterize the pure will in terms of a bare "ought" fails to tell us which object this will sets for itself.
At this point Fichte's audience might plausibly interpret his remarks about the pure will as a demand that we rationally engage the world, in both a theoretical and a practical fashion. Our empirical willing and cognition would thus be seen as the sensible manifestation of our freedom, for rational engagement with the world is the object which the I imposes on itself. Thus the "ought" of the pure will is Fichte's interpretation of Kant's notion of autonomy, extended beyond the realm of practical reason to that of theoretical reason. Furthermore, the claim that the pure will is prior to all empirical cognition helps to explain what Fichte means by the primacy of practical reason. Empirical cognition presupposes for its possibility the concept of a goal set for it by the pure will. No pure will, no empirical cognition. Hence the primacy of practical reason.
In §§14-19 Fichte discusses the relationship between the empirical and intelligible realms and the place of the I within them. In its engagement with the world around it, the I encounters not merely nature, the not-I, but also other I's, other rational beings. In its practical form as the categorical imperative, the pure will imposes the task of self-limitation on the I. Furthermore, in fulfilling this task, the I discovers within itself the summons to act freely. But a summons requires a summoner, and thus there must be other free beings outside of the I. The summons to act freely, however, is not one to act in a arbitrary fashion: it is a summons to act according to the dictates of the pure will in its practical form as the categorical imperative. The I realizes that other rational beings expect something of it: namely, that their freedom be respected.
Thus by §19 (the final section of the book) the initial reflection on thinking an object has been developed into a complex theory of the place of the I in the world around it. The world for the I is not simply to be understood as the realm of nature (to be cognized) but also as the realm of rational beings (to be respected). The I's engagement with both realms is an expression of its freedom, and thus its fundamental orientation towards the world is one of an autonomous being which is attempting to fulfill the demands which it imposes on itself.
This brief summary should give the reader an idea of the purpose and content of the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo as a whole. Besides the main line of argument outlined above, it also contains many interesting remarks about a number of Fichte's other concerns. There are, for example, enlightening passages about the notion of the Thathandlung with which the Foundations begins (pp. 109-110), the various forms of the synthetic method (pp. 248-249), and the position of aesthetics in the system of the Wissenschaftslehre (pp. 472-474). Finally, the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo sheds floods of light on the Foundations, and will no doubt serve to guide many readers through the thickets of that difficult and obscure work.
The greatest merit of the work, however, does not lie simply in its ability to clarify many of the obscurities of the Foundations, which it certainly does, but rather in its dramatic success in revealing the details of Fichte's transformation of the Kantian notion of autonomy from a seemingly ancillary idea in the Critical philosophy into the fundamental content of the Wissenschaftslehre. Fichte always claimed that his philosophy was a system of freedom, but the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo demonstrates that he was correct in this claim. It also suggests that Kant's Critical philosophy was itself a system of freedom, and thus that Fichte was truly philosophizing according to the spirit of the Kantian philosophy.
Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre is notable for several reasons. First, it contains a translation of the entire New Presentation, and thus completes Prof. Breazeale's task of translating the heretofore untranslated versions of the Wissenschaftslehre from Fichte's Jena period. (Strictly speaking, these works are not the Wissenschaftslehre, i.e., the system as a whole, but rather the foundations of the system, which Fichte constantly rewrote. But for the sake of brevity in this review I have simply referred to the foundations as the Wissenschaftslehre.) The two famous introductions need no comment, since they are already familiar to Fichte's readers. But the single chapter of this work is an especially lucid discussion of the self-positing activity of the I, which clearly shows the influence of the revised presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo. Taken together, the introductions and the single chapter of the New Presentation provide an accessible and compact introduction to Fichte's thought.
The rest of the book consists of short essays, three of which stem from the atheism controversy. The first of these is the well-known essay "On the Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World" (1798). This was a response to an essay by F. K. Forberg on the moral world order, both of which Fichte published in the Philosophisches Journal (for which he served as co-editor along with F. I. Niethammer). In it Fichte applied the ideas of the Wissenschaftslehre to the philosophy of religion, especially to the question of the relationship of morality to belief in God. His ideas were hardly orthodox and, to no one's surprise but Fichte's, brought down upon him the accusation of atheism. In the other two essays drawn from the controversy (and in others which remain untranslated in his collected works) Fichte attempted to defend himself before his accusers and the authorities whom he had atagonized with his views.
The ordinary believer, says Fichte, claims that the world is the creation of a being who governs it according to the laws of morality. That is, providence is at work in the world. But how do we arrive at our belief in a divine governance of the world? We do not do so, he maintains, by means of the ordinary standpoint of natural science. From this point of view the sensible world is a self-regulating whole, operating according to the laws of the natural sciences. Yet these laws are not formulated in the language of either morality or teleology; therefore, the ordinary standpoint gives us no grounds to believe in a moral world order created by a intelligent and purposeful being.
The origin of our belief in a moral world order, Fichte claims, lies instead in the transcendental standpoint. From this point of view we discover ourselves to be free, moral beings who pursue a "necessary goal" of reason (p. 147). But we are assured that we will attain it, for the moral world order guarantees that this goal will be realized:
The sensible world proceeds peacefully along its own path, in accordance with its own eternal laws, in order to constitute a sphere for freedom. But it exercises not the least influence upon morality or immorality, and it has no power at all over a free being. Autonomous and independent, the latter soars above all nature. The goal of reason can be actualized only through the efficacious acting of a free being; moreover, in accordance with a higher law, this goal will quite surely be achieved through such acting. It is possible to do what is right, and thanks to this higher law, every situation is arranged for this purpose. In consequence of this same arrangement, an ethical act infallibly succeeds and an unethical one infallibly fails. (p. 149)
But what is the relationship between this moral world order and God? Did God create it? No, says Fichte, it was not created by God. It is God. He succinctly formulated this claim in what was perhaps the most inflammatory statement of the controversy: "This living and efficaciously acting moral order is itself God. We require no other God, nor can we grasp any other" (p. 151).
Such a conclusion was certain to draw the fire of Fichte's contemporaries and the expected charge of atheism. In many respects the atheism controversy was simply an encore to the pantheism controversy of the early to mid-1780's, brought on by F. H. Jacobi's claim that Lessing, in a conversation shortly before his death in 1781, had confessed to Jacobi that he was a Spinozist (and thus, given the common understanding of Spinoza at that time, a pantheist and an atheist). Lessing had the good fortune to die before his confession became public--but Fichte did not. He vigorously defended his views and unsuccessfully petitioned the authorities in an effort to retain his position, which he lost in March of 1799. Afterwards he moved to Berlin and spent most of the rest of his life there until his death in 1814.
Once we leave aside the historical facts of the controversy and return to the philosophical views therein, we can see that Fichte's position in these essays is unsatisfactory. There is no characterization of the content of the necesary goal of reason (much like the lack of a discussion of the content of the object of the pure will in the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo). Nor does Fichte offer a justification for the claim that there is a moral world order which guarantees that the necessary goal of reason, whatever it may be, will be realized. It is this second difficulty which reveals how far beyond the letter and the spirit of the Kantian philosophy Fichte has gone.
Fichte's position in these essays is obviously indebted to Kant's moral theology. In the Critique of Practical Reason and elsewhere Kant had argued that the highest good, the perfect proportion of happiness and virtue in which we are happy only insofar as we are virtuous and such that our virtue causes our happiness, is an end which is also a duty. Rationality demands that the ends of our actions be possible; it is simply irrational to pursue something which we believe to be impossible. But the highest good does not seem to be a possible end of human action alone. It is a possible end only on the assumptions that there is a God and that we are immortal. These two assumptions are the postulates of practical reason.
Unfortunately for Kant, however, the postulates have often been misinterpreted. They have been read as conclusions of a "moral proof" which succeeds where traditional natural theology has failed, especially in the wake of the criticisms of the Transcendental Dialectic of the first Critique. But Kant clearly maintains, though perhaps not frequently enough to prevent misunderstandings of his position, that the postulates are not assertions of God's existence and the immortality of the soul; rather, they are claims that God's existence and the immortality of the soul are real possibilities. Since they are real possibilities (and not merely logical possibilities), it is rational of us to pursue the highest good: that is, the conditions for its possibility are themselves possible, and thus it is a possible end of our actions. So we are assured that our efforts to realize it are not in vain, although we are not assured that they will succeed.
Thus we see how radically Fichte's position about the moral world order differs from Kant's views about moral theology. Fichte claims that our efforts to realize the necessary goal of reason are guaranteed to succeed. In contrast, Kant more modestly maintains that our efforts are neither irrational nor doomed to failure. Furthermore, Kant never identifies God with the world as it will be if and when the highest good is realized. For Kant, God exists apart from it and acts to proportion happiness and virtue as described earlier. Fichte, however, simply identifies God and the moral world order. This violates not only the letter of the Kantian philosophy, but also its spirit, for Kant never claims that we can have the kind of knowledge of the intelligible world which Fichte purports to have. This significant modification of the Critical philosophy points towards Fichte's writings from the Berlin period, starting with The Vocation of Man (1800), in which his thought takes a more decidedly religious turn. Prof. Breazeale's translations of three essays from the atheism controversy will certainly stimulate interest in this later period of Fichte's career, long overlooked in the English speaking philosophical world.
Prof. Breazeale's translating and editing are up to his usual high standards. Each volume comes with a thoughtful introduction, a glossary of terms, and many helpful footnotes. The lucid revision of the Wissenschaftslehre in the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo will greatly deepen our insight into Fichte's thought and awaken new interest in his work. Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre will no doubt become the essential text for those first hazarding the perils of Fichte's thought. Prof. Breazeale has done us all a great favor, and we owe him a debt of gratitude.
Curtis Bowman |
University of Pennsylvania |
Copyright © 1996 by Curtis Bowman.
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