fichte's idealism

8/13/2019 Fichte's Idealism

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North American Philosophical Publications

Fichte's IdealismAuthor(s): John LachsSource: American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Oct., 1972), pp. 311-318Published by: University of Illinois Presson behalf of the North American Philosophical PublicationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20009458.

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?American Philosophical QuarterlyVolume 9, Number 4, October 1972

IV. FIGHTE'S IDEALISMJOHN LACHS

T^ICHTE is usually classified as an idealist, yet* the precise nature of his idealism is rarelyexamined. Idealism is frequently taken as the viewthat only minds and their states are real. Thetemper of our times is such that this theory appearsto need no refutation. The suggestion that theOhio Turnpike is nothing but a state of your mindor mine, or even of some supermind, no less thanthe Leibnizian idea that it consists of an infinitecollection of harmonized souls, seem to us to be

manifestly absurd and to warrant serious exam?ination only of the persons who are so deluded as tosuppose them true.It would, of course, be wrong to classify Fichteas an idealist in any such popular or easy sense. Hedoes maintain that there is a watershed questionfor all of philosophy: the answer to this determinesthe total complexion of one's philosophicalthought. The question is whether or not objectsexist independently of the self. There are only twopossible answers to this question, and of the twoonly one is right. The dogmatist, incorrectly,asserts the absolute and independent existence ofthe world of objects. The idealist, by contrast,maintains that no object can exist independently ofsome self.

Fichte does not think that the world of objects,what we normally call the physical world, is in anysense the creature of some finite individual self,group of selves, or the infinite individual we callGod. Such might be the view of dogmatic orabsolute idealism which, by Fichte's own pro?fession, is in sharp contrast with what he calls hiscritical idealism. According to the critical idealistboth finite individual selves and the correlativeworld of physical objects are the resultants of asingle, unconditioned self. Much of the interest ofFichte's metaphysics derives from his fundamentalclaim that the undifferentiated primordial beingthat is the source of all is actually a self. Theplausibility of his idealism hinges entirely on hisability to substantiate this claim.

The central concept in Fichte's thought, then,is that of the self.What does he conceive to be thenature of selfhood ?Without a reasonable accountof this, his idealism is certain to remain vacuous.In attempting to determine his position on thisand a variety of other issues I shall be relyingprimarily on the 1794 version of the Wissenschaftslehre, the first complete English translation ofwhich was published last year.1

The most convenient and most obvious startingpoint in developing Fichte's thoughts on the selfmay well be his famous aphorism, Was f?r sichnicht ist ist kein ich ?what is not conscious ofitself is no self.2 Self-consciousness is a necessarycondition of selfhood: nothing that lacks the abilityto reflect on itself can qualify as a self. Fichteaffirms in a variety of places and in a variety of

ways his conviction that self-consciousness pre?supposes consciousness of objects. This view maywell be open to argument, but it is not my presentpurpose to dispute it. I shall merely note that aself must be or at least must have the ability to beconscious of both objects and itself. But even thisis not enough for full-fledged selfhood: the in?tellectual, attentuated property of consciousnesscan never be enough to constitute the essence of areal being.

What, then, are the conditions both necessaryand sufficient for a given existent's being a self?Are they to be consciousness and creativity? Orcognition along with a certain organization orstructure of the elements of the being? Or thepresentational and reflective activity of conscious?ness in conjunction with the purposiveness of allthe activities of the being and the purposiveness oftheir union? Characteristically, Fichte has givenample thought to the problem, and equallycharacteristically he infuriates his readers by notdisclosing his answer in any systematic orstraightforward manner.The magnitude of the reader's frustration may beevident from the fact that perhaps the best place

3

1Johann G. Fichte, The Science ofKnowledge, ed. and tr. by Peter Heath and John Lachs (New York, 1970). Science hereafter.*Science, ibid., p. 98.


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for relevant hints on the nature of the self is in thechronically obscure Part III ( Foundation of the

Knowledge of the Practical ) of the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794. There Fichte discusses theactivities of the absolute self in their purity; theactivities and features that pertain to thisprimordial ego must be reflected, to a greater orlesser degree, in all finite individuals. The absoluteself, Fichte maintains, has two divergent butinterdependent fundamental drives. The twodrives give rise to two divergent lines of activity;and since it is impossible to distinguish agent fromactivity on this level, the self is properly said to beconstituted of these two sets of non-temporal acts.The first activity of the self is its striving to fillout infinity. The practical drive urges the self on toinfinite self-expansion, to an affirmation of itselfand its own law without limit. The second activityis that of reflection or self-consciousness. Thetheoretical drive urges the self on to know itselfas a unitary, self-expansive being. Using Fichte'sphysical model we could conceive the practicalactivity of the self as a line stretching outwardfrom a center to infinity. By contrast, theoreticalactivity may be conceived as a line reverting backto the center; but throughout it is important toremember that the center is not to be thought ofas any substantial or substantive being. The twoactivities are interdependent: reflection pre?supposes the outgoing activity which it restrictsand turns back upon the self, while the effusiveactivity of self-assertion relies on the other todefine its direction and to present it with theobstacles it must overcome.

These two closely interrelated activities definethe nature of the self. Anything that is both selfassertive and reflective must be a self; nothingthat lacks these characters can qualify as one.Reflectiveness is nothing but what I have previouslyreferred to as self-consciousness and identified as a

necessary condition of selfhood. If we combine itwith expansive or assertive activity, we have thenecessary and sufficient conditions of selfhood asFichte conceives it. And this, incidentally, alsogives us the clue to why Fichte thinks that, atleast primordially, self-consciousness and theconsciousness of objects are necessarily connected.The explanation is simple ifwe bear inmind thathe thinks of reflection as an activity that restrictsthe infinite outgoing act of the self and drives itback upon itself. Since both activities are pri?

mordial, neither can overwhelm the other: nosooner is the assertive activity restricted than it

renews itself, and the ensuing oscillation(Schweben), in a manner of speaking outside theself, yet totally dependent on it, is what Fichtecalls the imagination. It is in this field ofimagination that the presentations of which theempirical world consists are generated. Theunavoidable conflict of the primordial activitiesmanifests itself to the self in the form of the feelingof frustration and inability. These, in turn, are thesource of the feeling of necessity or constraintwhich accompanies, in our experience, thepresentation of external objects. In this way, theself's consciousness of itself is inseparable from theconsciousness of external objects : the very activityof reflection is the cause, or at least a part of thecause, of the generation of objects.What we have laboriously disentangled from theobscure parts of Fichte's work can also be foundstated by him with the greatest clarity. Unfortu?nately, however, even the clearest and mostelegant Latin is lost on the man who never learnedthe language. The meaning of some of Fichte'splainest statements becomes evident only after onehas gone through some of his obscurest deductions:their clarity after one has understood them is oftenno less annoying than their vagueness had beenbefore the light dawned. In a variety of placesFichte reminds us that the self iswhat it does, thatit consists of nothing beyond its activities in theirdialectical relation. If we add to this his oftrepeated statement that the self posits itself andposits itself as positing, we have in an embryonicform everything that we have said so far. Forpositing is nothing but the self-assertive activity ofthe self; and to posit the self as positing is to thinkit, to reflect on it, to know it as engaged incharacteristic activity. The very essence of theself, therefore, is summed up by saying that it issomething that both posits and knows that it does.But have we helped clarify by introducing theconcept of positing ?Not if we can give no betteraccount of the mysterious activity it stands forthan the few commentators who have written onFichte in English. Possibly the problem is one oftranslation :no English word captures the richnessof the German original. The German word

setzen is ordinarily translated as to set,to place, or to establish. Its root significance iscreative activity, an activity that can show itself invarious modalities. It may be the simple physicalact of placing an object in some location, thebiological activity of bringing children into theworld (Kinder in die welt zu setzen), or the


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exceptionally complex socio-political action ofraising some person to the throne (auf den Thronsetzen). What we have in each case is practicalactivity that is productive or creative; it is alwayspurposive and often voluntary.

The activity setzen denotes, however, is notonly practical. The word may be used to expressagreement and opposition (sich auf etwas, wideretwas setzen), as well as the propositional attitudesof supposing and affirming. Its connection with theintellectual and the intelligible is further confirmedby the overtone we find of it in the German wordfor law, Gesetz. The richness of setzen isdue precisely to this amphibious character: it isequally at home in the realms of theory andpractice. Fichte takes advantage of the ambiguity :he uses the word to denote an activity that is bothcognitive and creative and represents the unity ofreason and will, the theoretical and the practical.The word positing is, therefore, at oncerevealed as inadequate to expressing what isconveyed by the word setzen. Affirmation andassertion come close to capturing the volitionalelement in the activity Fichte refers to, andself-affirmation is certainly a central part ofwhat he means when he says that the self setztitself. But both the creativity and the cognitiveaction implied or suggested by setzen are lostin the word affirmation, and we can safely saythat there is no word in ordinary or, for that

matter, in extraordinary English that comes anycloser. What Fichte designates by this difficultword, then, is a fundamental cognitive-conativeactivity. It is a purposive and productive act, anact whose creativity is the source of all that is real.If we keep this inmind, it comes as no surprise thatFichte thinks the organ of positing is reason itself.Reason in its primordial unity is thus conceived asthe infinite and intelligent source of all, totallyabsorbed in its creative, all-encompassing act. Forlack of a better substitute, I shall continue to usethe word posit to stand for Fichte's setzen.But it is important to remember that I shall referby this word to the cognitive-conative activitywhose nature I have briefly indicated.

Positing is a non-temporal act. Its model nodoubt is the Aristotelian concept of activity orenergeia in which process and product, agent,

act, and deed indistinguishably coincide. Thisconcept of activity appears in Spinoza, whomFichte frequently praises as the greatest and most

consistent of dogmatists, as the infinite potency-inact that is his all-creative Substance. Vieweddynamically, from the standpoint of the act,Substance or God is Natura naturans, an indeter?minately infinite creative agency. Viewed statically,from the point of view of the deed, Substance orGodisNatura naturata, an infinitely determinate, eternalmodal order. Since productive act and completeddeed are indistinguishable in the primordial,infinite potency-in-act and since no temporal lagseparates activity from its end, creative energy andcreated world are inseparably one.3I do not wish tominimize the difference betweenFichte and Spinoza. But I also do not wish tooverlook or underplay instructive similarities.Positing, as the absolute ego's primordial activity,is clearly analogous to what in Spinoza I havecalled potency-in-act. And the relation of Spinoza'sGod as creative act to God as created modal orderhas a clear analogue in the relation, in Fichte, ofthe absolute ego to the empirical world of subjectsand objects. The progression from indeterminateinfinity to infinite determinateness is present inboth systems: it is by this gradual determinationthat, in both, finite fragmented beings aregenerated. And there is agreement that theprogressive self-determination of the absolute is anecessary consequence of its nature. The twothinkers are in consonance even on the funda?mental neo-Platonic dictum that determination isnegation: the self-determination of the absolute,by its application to itself of ever more specificpredicates, is at once a self-negation and selflimitation.

We may view Fichte's interesting theory ofthetic judgments in the light of its relation to theemanation scheme that is one of his neglected, orat least little understood, versions of the generationof everything finite from the infinite ego. A theticjudgment, according to him, is one that consistsof the affirmation of the existence of a subjectwithout any reference to a predicate. The primeexample he gives is the judgment I am. Now it isclear that the being of the absolute self would haveto be affirmed in a thetic judgment, and thepeculiarity of such a judgment is that it leaves theconcept of its subject unrelated to any otherconcept, and thus totally indeterminate. This is theinfinite indeterminacy of the absolute ego; yet onsooner is the indeterminacy ascribed to the selfthan it becomes inapplicable. Even as general a3 I acknowledge my indebtedness for this interpretation of Spinoza to H. F. Hallett's excellent Benedict de Spinoza (London1957)


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predicate as indeterminateness limits anddetermines; the very indeterminateness of theprimordial self constitutes the first step toward itsinevitable total determination. The finite world ofempirical selves and physical objects naturallyflows from the necessary self-determination of theabsolute ego, and in Part II ( Foundation ofTheoretical Knowledge ) of the Wissenschaftslehreof 1794 Fichte displays considerable ingenuity intracing this dialectical development.An obvious dissimilarity between Fichte andSpinoza, of course, is due to the historical fact ofthe presence of Kant between them. Spinozastrove to deduce the eternal modal order from theactivity of his primordial substance. By contrast,Fichte no longer wishes to deduce an infinity ofbeings, but only the structures and categories ofexperience. Iwill not stop to explore this interestingpoint; it is peripheral to my main purpose here. Ihave set out to examine the nature and to deter?mine the tenability of Fichte's critical idealism,and I have now managed to reach a stage wherehis terms have been, I hope, adequately clarified,and where we can set him a fundamental and, I

think, disastrously destructive question.Fichte spends considerable effort in deducingthe categories, conceived as principles of unity inexperience, from the self-postulation of theabsolute self. It should be evident, therefore, thatthe primordial self itself is sub-categoreal or

pre-categoreal. We cannot say of it, for example,that it is a substance, even though we must thinkof it as, in a sense, non-temporally enduring. Nopredicate that is applicable in the world of ex?perience is applicable to it univocally; in itsprimordial being, which may be affirmed in athetic judgment, no predicate is applicable to it atall. I shall not discuss here Fichte's apparentviolation of this principle in conceiving of theabsolute self as the cause of the world of objects.Spinoza at least realized a part of the limitationon what we may predicate of the primordialbeing and conceived his infinite potency-in-act asneither mental nor physical, although in a sensethe source of both. The question fundamental forFichte's idealism that thus arises is the following:What conceivable reason can we offer for thinkingof the primordial agency-activity as a self? Ifthere is good reason for thinking of it that way, it

may be difficult to escape Fichte's critical idealism;if there is none, his central views will surely appearas unwarranted dogmas.

To say, as Fichte does repeatedly, that theabsolute ego is not in any sense an individualperson does not eliminate the question. On thecontrary, it only raises the additional problem ofhow anything could be a self without displayingat least some of the determinate tendencies,attitudes, and intentions that are the hallmarks ofindividual personality.I think I can detect in Fichte three major lines ofargument for his idealistic conclusion. Nowheredoes he develop these arguments in detail. Theiroutlines, however, are clear enough and he hintsat them in a variety of places. I shall consider themin turn.

The first argument starts from the premiss thatthe task of philosophy is to give an account of theorigin and nature of experience. Fichte appears tobe of the opinion that this can be attempted inonly two ways. In the first attempt we proceedfrom the side of the object or unthinking thing, inthe second from the side of the subject or self.

Accordingly, as he insists in the First Introductionto the Wissenschaftslehre, there are only two possiblephilosophical positions: dogmatism, which at?tempts to deduce experience from a world ofindependently existing things or things-inthemselves, and idealism, which attempts to displayexperience as the result of the operation of anactive self.4 The two theories are contradictory:at most one of them can be true and at least one ofthem must be. Fichte makes no secret of the factthat he thinks we can never account for livedexperience by reference to things or objects alone.In some places he goes so far as to assert that adogmatism which attempts such an account isdemonstrably false. If only two attempts atexplanation are possible, the two are contradictory,and one of them is demonstrably inadequate, theother must clearly be correct. For this reason,idealism is the only tenable philosophy and theprimordial existent must be a self.

This argument appears to me to have no merit.First of all, even ifwe grant that one of the tasks ofphilosophy is the relatively vague one of explainingthe nature and origin of experience, we havereason to doubt the remarkable claim that thiscan be done in two ways only: either by solereference to things and their laws or by reducingall to selves and their operations. This is surely agross simplification and excludes by edict far morephilosophical views than it permits. It is thisoversimplified picture that leads Fichte to the4Science, op. cit., pp. gff.


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pain it causes, nor the brain of Shakespeare a pageof manuscript. The vast majority of the causalsequences we know involve the creation of like byunlike; what are we to do with a maxim thatdecrees all this impossible ?

Let me, however, forget all that has been said:let us suppose that Fichte has proved, as he has not,that the source of every self is itself or another.Would this be adequate to show that the ultimateexistent must be an ego? Clearly not. This byitself leaves the door wide open, once again, todualism: it is perfectly compatible with the viewthat there are two ultimate existents, say, atranscendental ego and a transcendental object.Fichte thus needs an additional principle, viz., theone that maintains that all is to have a singlesource. Yet why should we accept this principle?Surely not because unity is boldly asserted to be ademand of reason. This may well be the demandof reason in a tight little mind perpetually at workimposing discipline on his children or the world,but it is surely no demand of universal reason. Andeven if it were, would it not be a begging of the

question, an unwarranted assumption of theidealist principle that reason shapes the world?thevery principle under examination?if we were tosay that its demands are invariably met?I now come to Fichte's third argument. This isnever explicitly stated by him, but it appears tometo be behind what he says in a number of passages.We start with the assertion that the primordialbeing must engage in creative activity. Such anactivity, since it is essentially self-assertive andexpansive, resembles far more closely the activity ofa self than that of some thing or not-self; selfassertiveness is in fact, as we noted, one of themarks of the ego. If the argument were correct, itwould not of course prove that the ultimate sourceof all is actually a self. It would, however, showthat such an unconditioned being must resembleselves far more closely than it resembles un?conscious or inactive things?and this may con?ceivably be all that Fichte needs to establish hisidealism.This argument hinges on a fundamental un?justified assumption, namely that the activities ofthe self are the paradigm of creative activity. Fichteclearly wants to stop short of the extreme positionof asserting that only selves can engage in causallycreative endeavor; since he does, he has to justifyhis taking the dialectical self-expansive/selflimiting activity of the self as the model of allcreative agency. Why should we say that the

primordial creative act is more like the selfexpansiveness of a self than like the selfexpansiveness of a gas or of a healthy tree ?Wesearch in vain for Fichte's answer to this question.It is clear that reference to the self's voluntary orintelligent self-assertiveness is of no avail: theabsolute ego's expansiveness is unavoidable andthe self-expansion of a tree is law-governed andpurposive. Similarly, there is little merit in theapproach that professes to see in each tree'sgrowth a pale replica of the ego's actions. Theseactivities are different, and either one can beconsidered a pale or imperfect version of the other,depending on what features we select for emphasis.Fichte loads the dice by using the word setzenfor the primordial activity: this suggests, withoutbeing evidence for, the view that the activityproperly belongs in the sphere of the self. But whatreason have we to suppose that the activity isself-like or self-connected and that setzen is not

merely a misleading or question-begging name forit? As best I can see, none at all.I must conclude, therefore, that Fichte's

arguments for the view that the primordial beingis a self fall altogether short of establishing theirconclusion. As we have seen, each suffers from avariety of faults, but most blatantly the first failsbecause it presupposes an unprovided demon?stration, the second because it must rely on anunacceptable maxim of causation, and the thirdbecause it begs the question by a prejudicedselection of the paradigm of activity. Does thisleave Fichte entirely without defense? I do notthink so. It would be open to him to use a versionof his third argument, if not to attempt to show thatthe ultimate being is a self, then at least to justifysupposing it to be that for the sake of increasing ourknowledge. This regulative version of the argumentis well known in the history of idealism, and thelikely reason why Fichte made no reference to it isthat he thought it both valid beyond all reasonabledoubt and inextricably intertwined with theentire enterprise of Kantian and post-Kantiantranscendental philosophy. The usual argument isthat since we know the self and its structures andactivities best of all, we must use them as our modelfor understanding everything else. Fichte, however,

might subscribe to a somewhat stronger version.His acceptance of Kant's theory that all intelligiblestructure is due tomental activity might lead himto the view that all we ever know is the self, itsstructures and activities and therefore have in factno choice but to use them as our models.


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Now I can find nothing wrong with using theself as our model in the attempt to see how far itwill take us and what important or unsuspectedinsights it might provide. One can have one'sopinions about the ultimate value of this model,but when all is said and done there is no substitutefor the actual full-scale attempt to push theidealist program as far as it will go. Surely this isall the justification Fichte needs for havingattempted a deduction of the finite world ofsubjects and objects from a primordial self. It is aninteresting and important fact that such a de?duction is possible, and his having managed tocomplete it is a tribute to his dialectical skill. Butthe possibility of the deduction is one thing, itstruth or bearing on the real world another. It iswell worth keeping inmind that the way we choosebetween two deductions, say those of Spinoza andFichte, is normally not by finding logical ordialectical slips in the one and none or fewer inthe other. Philosophers notoriously have morelogical than good sense, and though an idealistdeduction proceeding on the basis of the regulative

principle under discussion is clearly possible, itmay well be severely at odds with reality.So much for the weaker version of the regulativeprinciple. The stronger version, according towhich our only models for understanding the worldare the cognitive, conative, and affective activitiesof the self appears, by contrast, excessive andquestion-begging.

It assumes, without good reason,that all forms, structures, and activities are mental.By according such pre-eminence to the self andthinking of it as the source of all order, if not of allreality, were we not tacitly affirming idealism?And if such tacit affirmation is disavowed, whatreason could conceivably be proposed for sayingthat the activity of gravitation or the orderliness inthe growth of poison ivy reveal somehow the marksof intellect ?

Let me conclude with some remarks on acharacteristic, though typically exaggerated, claimof Fichte's. Acceptance of ultimate philosophicalpositions is a matter of personal inclination orinterest, he maintains. Now, his argument con?tinues, the highest and most exalted interest ofevery ego is that of self-affirmation or the freeexercise of the intelligent creative powers of theself. This activity of self-creation and self-develop?ment is the source of all morality and goodness.

But an activity of this sort presupposes a free andindependent ego. The highest interest of man, the

very possibility of morality demands, therefore,the primacy of the ego and its total primordialindependence of determination by objects. This

makes idealism, and with it belief in the primacy ofthe self, a demand of morality, Fichte concludes.But he refuses to stop even here and indicates thatwhoever does not acknowledge and exercise hisfreedom does not truly or for long possess it. Andnot to possess freedom is not to be a self, but amerething. For this reason, failure to subscribe toidealism is not merely a theoretical error: it is apractical act which disqualifies one from member?ship in the kingdom of ends. The dogmatist is not aperson who is simply wrong; he is simply not aperson.It is difficult to think that this argument isanything but nonsense. It is a peculiar sort of

morality indeed that sees the greatest requirementimposed on every man as self-assertion or theexercise of his native powers. But this peculiarity isnothing when compared to the singular claim thatpractical life determines or should determine one'sbeliefs about what is, and that a single wrongopinion can strip us of selfhood and turn us intothings.The ultimate problem here, however, is the easyconfusion between the absolute ego and the finiteselves of individuals. Fichte devotes considerableattention to the deduction of the world of objects,but almost none at all to the deduction of finitesubjects. To establish his idealism, he would haveto prove that the unconditioned being is a self.Showing, as he attempts to, that the demand of

morality is to think of individual selves as un?conditioned and free does not in the least contributeto proving this. Good sense impels us to believe inthe existence of a variety of finite selves; but ifthere are more than one of them, none can serveas the primordial unity from which all flows. If,

however, all individual selves are to share a singletranscendental ego, the analogy, central to Fichte'sentire enterprise, between our finite selves and thisprimordial ego inevitably collapses. And even ifthis near disaster could be averted, what accountshould we give of the relation, so peculiar on thisview, of transcendental to individual self? To thisquestion, though not to this alone, Fichte providesno answer.

Vanderbilt University Received October 28, igyi


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BIBLIOGRAPHYFichte's works are readily available in German. His son, I. H. Fichte, brought out an edition of his collected works

in 1845-1846 {S?mmtliche Werke. 8 vols. Berlin, Veit). This has now been supplanted by the variorum Gesamtausgabeof the Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften {Werke. Stuttgart-Bad Gannstatt: F. Fromann, 1964- ). Thereis a readily available reprint o? Grundlage der Gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1794) by F. Meiner Verlag, 1961. No Englishedition of the collected works exists. A substantial number of Fichte's epistemological and metaphysical writingsremain, in fact, untranslated. An incomplete and inaccurate rendering of the Grundlage appeared in 1889 (TheScience of Knowledge. Translated by A. E. Kroeger. London, Tr?bner). A new, complete translation (J. G. Fichte,Science of Knowledge, edited and translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts,

1970) incorporates also the First and Second Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre.There is a substantial body of scholarly and critical literature on Fichte in German. The following list is a selection

from those most interesting or most relevant to the thesis of this article.Friedrich Dannenberg, Der Begriff und dieBedeutung derErfahrung in derFichteschenPhilosophie.Weida i.Th. :Thomasand Hubert, 1910.

Julius Drechsler, Pichetes Lehre vom Bild. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1955.Kuno Fischer, Geschichte der neuern Philosophie. Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1897-1904. Vol. 6.Dieter Henrich, Fichtes urspr?ngliche Einsicht. Frankfurt a.M. :Klostermann, 1967.

Willy Kabitz, Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte der Fichteschen Wissenschaftslehre aus der Kantischen Philosophie. Darm?stadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968.

Dietrich H. Kerler, Die Philosophie des Absoluten in der Fichteschen Wissenschaftslehre. Ansbach: C. Br?gel, 1917.Richard Kroner, Von Kant bis Hegel. T?bingen: Mohr, 1961.Johann H. Loewe, Die PhilosophieFichtes :Nach demGesummtergebnisse hrerEntwicke lungund in ihremVerh?ltnisse zur

Kant und Spinoza. Stuttgart: W. Nitzschke. 1862.Fritz Medicus, J. G. Fichte: Dreizehn Vorlesungen. Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1905.

Baldwin, Noll, Kants und Fichtes Frage nach dem Ding. Frankfurt a.M.: Klostermann, 1936.In English there is very little critical literature on Fichte's metaphysics that is worth reading. The following four

books may be consulted, though without any great hope of enlightenment :Robert Adamson, Fichte. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood, 1881.Charles C. Everett, Fichte's Science of Knowledge: A Critical Study. Chicago: Griggs Philosophical Classics, 1892.Ellen B. Talbot, The Fundamental Principle of Fichte's Philosophy. New York: Macmillan, 1906.

?Anna B. Thompson, The Unity of Fichte's Doctrine of Knowledge. Boston: Grinn & Co., 1895.Among histories of philosophy in English, by far the most adequate account of Fichte is in F. H. in Coppleston, AHistory ofPhilosophy (Garden City: Doubleday, 1965.Vol. 7,Part I).The article inP. Edwards' Encyclopedia ofPhilosophy

is virtually useless. The most recent and most interesting English treatment of the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794 is anunpublished doctoral dissertation (Walter E.Wright, Self andAbsolute in thePhilosophy ofFichte, Vanderbilt University,

WOI shall mention only two recent works in French :

Xavier L?on, Fichte et son temps. 2 vols. Paris: ?Armand Colin, 1954.A. Philonenko, La Libert?Humaine dans laPhilosophie deFiente. Paris: Vrin, 1966. (A very thoughtful work.)On the whole, however, one who is interested in Fichte's systematic philosophy will do best by proceeding to the

texts directly. A remarkable scholar of the stature of Kuno Fischer can help to put Fichte in the proper historicalperspective. But, alas, in dealing with the text one seeks in vain the aid of even one commentary as careful andsustained as exist in droves on the work of other major thinkers.

fichte's idealism

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