modern philosophy final paper
TRANSCRIPT
Early Modern Philosophy Term Paper
Allen, Brandon J
NOVEMBER 28, 2014
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Doing this paper has to be the hardest paper that I have done so far. This is because I am
doing my paper on Fichte’s Determinism. Fichte is a philosopher during the end of the Early
Modern Philosophy era whom was right after Kant. A lot of people associate Fichte with Kant
due to being a Transcendental Idealist. Fichte is well known for his Political Philosophy and
Ethical Philosophy. Due to this, people have focused on his work on Wissenschaftslehre.
However, due to Kant being an intellectual powerhouse in the field of Transcendental Idealism,
it seems as if not many Americans focus on Fichte’s philosophy. Even Fichte has claimed that
only one person could truly understand his whole system of Philosophy and this is Kant. What I
hope to do in the best of my analyzation skills is to go over Fichte’s text The Vocation of Man
and to look at the differences that have resulted since his work compared to his Early Modern era
counterparts (i.e. Descartes, Leibnitz, Hume, etc.). Sadly, I have not even reached the brink of
understanding fully Fichte’s Philosophical system even after dedicating my time and efforts into
reading the Vocation of Man twice over plus supplementary texts totaling over 250 pages of
philosophical text. However, I have grown to at least understand some of Fichte’s concepts with
the self-identity of individuals by doing what Fichte says to put themselves as the character of
the person going through the text.
In the first book of Fichte’s Vocation of Man we see that he holds the Cartesian system
by labeling his book calling it Doubt. According to Beardsley, the shortest summary that one
can give of this book is that “Fichte holds a contrast between the individual’s inward conviction
of his own freedom of will and the ridged determinism that intellect finds in Nature”. (490) I
have received a very high sense of determinism while reading Fichte’s first book Doubt. This is
because Fichte purposes that all of our attributes that a man has is bestowed upon us from
Nature. Fichte states, “The time at which my existence commenced and the attributes with which
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I came into being, were determined by this universal power of Nature…” (Fichte 6) Since
individuals are determined by Nature, Fichte claims the following:
“ Everything that actually exists has a determinate number of all possible attributes of actual existence. And each of these in a determinate measure, as surely as it exists, although I may
admit my inability thoroughly to exhaust all the properties of any one object or to apply them to any standard of measurement.” (3)
As we see from this line of text, Fichte believes that Nature bestows upon every object a finite
amount of attributes at a specific point in time and location in space. On page 3, we also see the
importance of once again refuting Barkley from the very get-go. This is due to the fact that our
consciousness (which Fichte gets to way later about consciousness being the main function of
our being which is way later, in book 2 called Knowledge.) imagines objects, such as a general
tree. However, this tree does not exist outside of our thought because the general tree does not
have a definite number of leaves, and humans cannot define the number of branches. As Fichte
puts in his Foundations of the Entire Science of Knowledge, “People should be able to say that an
object as itself should exist as itself and not some other different representational form of its pure
existence.” (Fichte 99) Thus, we have to reject that the idea of a general tree should exist.
However, in putting this in respect to Barkley, we see that God can perceive of the idea of a
general tree because whomever can perceive of that specific object, in our case a general tree,
then one can conceive of the idea of a general tree. (Slowik 8) We now see the dividing line
between Barkley and Fichte where everything just does not resort down to Barkley’s Idealism
with Fichte. Now that I have gone over on the creation of people through determinism of Nature
I will now move onto Fichte’s definition of substance.
Fichte defines substance as the following:
“I find their substance to be this—that in every stage of progress an antecedent is necessarily supposed, from which and through which alone the present has arisen; in every condition a
previous condition, in every existence another existence and that from nothing, nothing whatever can proceed.” (Fichte 4)
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Substance, according to Fichte, is ever changing in which has a connection with the history of
itself throughout time. However, these properties are not in us, but Nature itself, because humans
are a derivation of Nature. However, when comparing this against Descartes and Spinoza’s
version of substance, we see that the definition of what a substance is has radically changed over
the course of time. According to Descartes, substance is just the body (objects that have
extension out in the universe) and mind which perceives of objects. Spinoza on the other hand
just puts that there is one substance and this is God. (Slowik) When reading Fichte’s work I
thought he would be more concerned with Barkley since Kant was as well and Fichte idolized
Kant’s works. However, it comes apparent time and time again that Fichte puts forward that he is
not like Spinoza because God could just be the fundamental root of the transformation of
substances whom is disguised as Nature. Spinoza presents a system in which separates the pure
and empirical consciousness. The first is reserved in God whom has no conscious of himself,
because pure consciousness can never obtain true consciousness according to Fichte, not even
God. The second are in the modifications of the deity in which bestows upon life to objects in
our universe. With the two parts of consciousness unified, Fichte states that Spinoza’s definition
of substance is wrong, because it just pertains to and ideal that can never be obtained even by the
most ultimate God that humans can imagine because God cannot achieve having true
consciousness as a whole in Spinoza’s system. (Fichte 101) Now that we have gone over how
Fichte’s system of substance is different from the Spinozism and Cartesian systems we shall
move onto a point which must be examined and that is how can a substance change from one
state to another.
We see Fichte in a massive struggle with determinism that is accruing next from his
definition of substance. It may not be the case that our world is preordained even though the
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result of who I was initially was a chain of events from Nature itself. However, Nature instills in
me, according to Fichte, what he calls an active power. This active power is a part of me and
constitutes myself and no other beings that exist outside of myself. The active power inside
myself sets itself in motion as it sees fit and will unite with the outward circumstances that are
outside of myself to produce a change to my consciousness and being. When an action is not
being done in respect to the exterior world of my consciousness it is considered to be an inactive
power because I know the effect that proceeds from it. Fichte gives an example of both active
and inactive power in respects to a flower. When I water and give a certain amount of sunlight to
a flower that I perceive it’s being to be a flower there I have an innate power within myself in
which can say that that flower with a certain properties as I have experienced before will result in
growth of the flower. There are certain capabilities in my mind in respect to innate power in
which one can reflect on. Fichte goes over this as well with his stances on limitation on page 111
of Foundations of Scientific Knowledge. However, the active power is within the flower itself
and unites itself with the water and sunlight in order for its growth to happen because there are
certain laws that are preordained by Nature or has been transmographied throughout the process
of its being. As a result of the unity of the exterior world and the flower’s active power, we
perceive a change in the flowers being according to its perceived extension. Now that I have
gone over this in respect to flower’s being we can see this in accordance with the human being.
When reflecting upon the above argument further, we are phased by the continuity of
Fichte’s idea of active and innate power with Locke’s concept of personal identity. However,
there arises yet again a difference between Fichte and Locke in retrospect that the soul just
doesn’t exist in Fichte’s system, at least for what I have read over my course of studying Fichte.
(Locke, 372) For Fichte the consciousness does not have a soul attached to it. However, there
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does resonate the feeling that human individuals and things around us are composed out of a
continuum of time which constitutes who a person is in respect to their character. Now we shall
move onto what Fichte calls the man-forming power.
Man-forming power is a bit easier to understand than the powers that I have stated before.
Because man is a creation given by Nature with a finite amount of attributes, including thought.
Fichte puts that Nature has instilled in human beings the function of thought-power. Thought-
power is as follows:
“Its existence is absolute and independent: as the formative power of Nature exists absolutely and independently. It is in Nature for the thinking being arises and develops himself according
the laws of Nature; therefore thought exists through Nature… I am not what I am because I think so, or will so, nor do I think and will it, because I am so; but I am, and I think, both absolutely; --
both harmonize with each other by virtue of a higher cause” (Fichte 7)So now we see that thought is something that is independent of Nature even though
created by it with Fichte because Nature somehow lets go of it even though it installs information
about the what the consciousness can have. We think what we think due to our inner laws being
the way that they are, not because I will my thoughts to think of something. Even if we try to will
our thoughts to think of something that is also part of our being in which are part of the laws that
we follow. When thought happens, we see in ourselves a restructure of our whole entire essence
and the laws that we following in accordance to the self. My man-forming power of thought,
active and inactive powers are seen as independent of Nature then I seem to be free as long as
I’m not restrained and limited by Nature. (Fichte 8) However, Fichte gives an example of a tree
that is banded against the wall and still performs its law which is intrinsic to itself, which is
growing. The tree is still free in the sense that it still gets to perform all of its functions such as
growing and producing fruit like other trees. However, it doesn’t have true freedom in which the
tree is not constrained by anything else. However, everything is constrained by the laws that they
hold which constitute their personal identity, and thus nothing can really have true freedom.
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(Fichte 9) Due to laws having cause and effect relationships it is important to go over Fichte’s
view on the principle of causation.
According to Fichte, there is a way to look at the principle of causation. The principle of
causation according to Fichte shows what a person’s consciousness can understand the outside
world around myself. The principle of causality was first inferred by Hume in which put forward
that sometimes a cause does not really produce an effect out there in world. We just conjoin both
the cause and effect together in order to describe two events in our world. However, for Fichte,
everything is mostly considered internal because information is processed in the self. The
principle of causality also holds that it subjects the transition between the self to a universal
particular which lies beyond myself. The two different ways that the principle of causality is
obtained in an individual is by immediate perception of what is happening where my
consciousness immediately picks up on the relation between the two objects, or through
inference where my mind will have to make logical deductions to arrive to the cause effect
relationship that has just occurred. The principle of causality also holds that it subjects the
transition between the self to a universal particular which lies beyond myself. However, there is
one way that the individual may have freedom in respect to themselves and that is their will.
(Fichte 10)
The will, according to Fichte, is what takes into effect contending issues in which we are
filtering through our own consciousness to decide which one is more right to believe in. When
reflecting back onto what Fichte has said about the telos of man we see that we want to become
the most fully conscious and to be as free as possible. However, isn’t this just the laws which
govern our being which our law can just be determined from Nature by the get-go? It must be,
unless we have some processing power in our thought in which can change our being gradually
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or dramatically. And once again we are stuck at ground zero with trying to get out of the free-
will determinism problem of Fichte. Since we see that Determinism is a problem let’s look over
the accusation of Fichte’s philosophy being considered to be just deterministic solipsism.
There have been people whom have argued that Fichte philosophy is just Solipsism all
over again. This is due to people seeing Fichte’s work to be very focused on the self and how the
self perceives of the world through themselves. We may see Solipsism from his quote stating:
“Thus far I remain within myself and upon my own territory; everything that has an existence for me unfolds itself purely and solely from myself; I see everywhere only myself and no true
existence outside of myself. But in this my world I admit, also, the operations of other beings, separate and independent of me, as much as I of other beings, separate and independent of me, as
much as I do of them. How these beings can themselves know of the influences that proceed from them may easily be conceived; they know them the same way I know my own. But how I can know of them is absolutely inconceivable, just as it is inconceivable how they can possess
that knowledge of my existence, and it’s manifestations, which never the less I ascribe to them.”(Fichte 529)
However, Fichte does believe that there does exist other individuals in the world and that
they are each different from one another. To understand Nature fully there would have to be an
infinite amount of individuals in the universe. With what has been stated we see the school of
thought of Perspectivism of Aguste Comte is blooming out of Fichte’s philosophy. (Fichte 10)
Perspectivism is the school of thought where we gain a better insight onto on object based on
how many people perceive that object and the position we are in determines our perception of an
object. We see Fichte stating more importantly that people may think in a different manner than
any other individual does in accordance to understanding certain aspects about the world. But
there can be other individual consciousness’s that are out there that do think and contrive of
concepts out there in the world. To note here I have been using the self, me, and I as individual
statements of stating what Fichte calls the ego. Also, according to Unity of Fichte’s Doctrine of
Knowledge by Thompson, states that “Fichte’s Ego is universal consciousness in its fullest
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conceivable extent, that the individual is only a member of the true Ego and subject to its laws,
that he does not create but finds a world of fixed fact, and that he is forced to know the
multiplicity of egos as a condition of knowing self.” (3) The origin of many individuals stems
from the reflection of the Absolute Ego. The Absolute Ego according to Fichte is the opposition
of through the subject and object, thus dialectically evolves the universe. (SEP) Thus through
this reflection we see that there is a multitude of egos that come into the world with their own
individual identity and existence. (Unity of Fichte’s Doctrine of Knowledge 47) We see here that
Fichte’s system isn’t Solopstic because the absolute ego differs the subject and the object in
respect to their counter parts. So if there exists me who is happy there must have been someone
who has existed who was sad, if there was me who couldn’t rationalize about mathematical
concepts there exists someone else that does. Now that I have extensively looked over the
determinism in Fichte’s work, I will now attempt to evaluate Fichte.
One thing that was blatantly obvious when reading his works is that God seems to be
non-existent in the first two books. We see that God is very much implemented into the third
book of the Vocation of Man however how the world is formed and how objects are formed
seems to be nonexistent of a God. Bringing in Leibniz into the picture we saw that God formed
the world into the best of all possible worlds even though there was sin in it the outcome would
be overall good for the world. It seems for Fichte though that Nature itself is the designator of
the being and what laws they do follow. When we talk about laws we are talking about following
the laws of gravity and things in our moral consciousness as well. We see a beautiful example of
this in Fichte’s third book stating:
“I cannot say that in the material world my hand, or any other body which belongs to that world
and is subject to the universal law into operation; these bodies themselves stand under this law,
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and only in so far as that body, by virtue of this law, partakes in the universal power of Nature.”
(Fichte 526)
I feel as if though that these laws do though change over the course of time in
consciousness of human beings though. This is because humans evolve into a greater and even a
smarter society than in the previous chain of time. This can be seen in correlation with Fichte’s
view of the personal self in which people are supposed to reach a higher virtue than before with
their consciousness and being than in previous states of time. Contrasting Fichte’s view of the
telos of the world compared to Leibniz’s world we see that the world is not always perfect but in
retrospect to Fichte’s philosophy we see there is a progress of at least the individual trying to
become perfect in the universe. However, there is one point that has been bugging me with
Fichte.
I do have an instance in which I am uncomfortable agreeing with Fichte in respect to his
views on death. Fichte states: “The same circumstances can never return unless the whole system
of Nature should retrograde and two Natures arise instead of one: hence the same individuals
who have once existed, can never again come into actual being.” What happens when someone
dies and comes back to life though? There have been many occurrences of this happening but
they retain their same being as they did before. Nature does not retrograde when you die and
come back alive since your being though. I could see Fichte stating that Nature instils in the
person again what attributes they have had before but now they are a different person because
they have a different attribute to themselves due to their experience of death that can be added
into the individual. However, if we look at the Locke’s way of describing personal identity then
we see that the person may have maintained the same ideas that were there before thus a
transformed human being in which was greater and contains the past self. However, for Fichte he
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is telling the patient who awoke from death that they are now a totally different person with
totally different attributes and laws confided in themselves than previously before even though I
think of myself as the same person in the past.
Therefore, I conclude that Fichte’s arguments are not like his previous counter parts in
which we have encountered in class. I have distinguished him from many other philosophers that
we have discussed in class and have stated his deterministic philosophy of the world. I have also
presented an argument for and also against Fichte’s philosophy based on rigorous reading of his
texts and contemplation of Fichte’s philosophy in The Doctrine of Knowledge. This paper is
mostly focused on the first third of the book and is already seen as complicated as stated before.
Maybe I have not understood Fichte fully, but trying to understand this guy is just a feat in itself
to be proud of.
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BibliographyAriew, R., & Watkins, E. (2009). Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Indanapolis:
Hackett Publishing Company.
Beardsley, M. (1799). The European Philosophers From Descartes to Nietzsche. In J. Fichte, The Vocation of Man: Faith (pp. 491-531). New York: Random House Inc. .
Fichte. (1799). The Vocation of Man. Sophia Project. Retrieved from http://www.sophia-project.org/uploads/1/3/9/5/13955288/fichte_vocation.pdf
Kaufmann, B. &. (n.d.). 19th Century Philosophy. Fichte.
Thompson, A. B. (1895). The Unity of Fichte's Doctorine of Knowledge. Boston: Ginn & Company.