the truth who new creates it in himself, independently and in his own way.
Thus Fichte's system contains the same view of the matter as the critical
system--the author is aware, runs the preface to the programme, _On the
Concept of the Science of Knowledge_, 1794, "that he never will be able to
say anything at which Kant has not hinted, immediately or mediately,
more or less clearly, before him,"--but in his procedure he is entirely
independent of the Kantian exposition. We shall first raise the question,
What in the Kantian philosophy is in need of completion?
and, secondly,
What method must be adopted in completing it?
Kant discusses the laws of intelligence when they are already applied to
objects, without enlightening us concerning the ground of these laws. He
derived the pure concepts (the laws of substantiality, of causality, etc.)
from (logic, and thus mediately from) experience instead of deducing
them from the nature of intelligence; similarly he never furnished
this deduction for the forms of intuition, space and time. In order to
understand that intelligence, and why intelligence, must act in just this
way (must think just by means of these categories), we must prove, and not
merely, with Kant, assert, that these functions or forms are really laws of
thought--or, what amounts to the same thing, that they are conditions of
self-consciousness. Again, even if it be granted that Kant has explained
the properties and relations of things (that they appear in space and time,
and that their accidents must be referred to substances), the question
still remains unanswered, Whence comes the matter which is taken up into
these forms? So long as the whole object is not made to arise before the
eyes of the thinker, dogmatism is not driven out of its last corner. The
thing in itself is, like the rest, only a thought in the ego. If thus
the antithesis between the form and the matter of cognition undergoes
modification, so, further, the allied distinction between understanding and
sensibility must, as Reinhold accurately recognized, be reduced to a common
principle and receptivity be conceived as self-limiting spontaneity. In
his practical philosophy also Kant left much unfinished.
The categorical
imperative is susceptible of further deduction, it is not the principle
itself, but a conclusion from the true principle, from the injunction to
absolute _self-dependence on the part of reason_; moreover, the nature of
our consciousness of the moral law must be more thoroughly discussed, and
in order to gain a real, instead of a merely formal, ethics the relation of
this law to natural impulse. Finally, Kant never discussed the foundation
of philosophy as a whole, but always separated its theoretical from its
practical side, and Reinhold also did nothing to remove this dualism. In
short, some things that Kant only asserted or presupposed can and must be
proved, some that he kept distinct must be united. In what way are both to
be accomplished?
Since correct inferences from correct premises yield correct results, and
correct inference is easy to secure, everything depends on the correct
point of departure. If we neglect this and consider only the process and
the results of inference, there are two consistent systems: the dogmatic
or realistic course of thought, which seeks to derive representations from
things; and the idealistic, which, conversely, seeks to derive being from
thought. Now, no matter how consistently dogmatism may proceed (and when it
does so it becomes, like the system of Spinoza, materialism and fatalism or
determinism, maintaining that all is nature, and all goes on mechanically;
treats the spirit as a thing among others, and denies its metaphysical and
moral independence, its immateriality and freedom), it may be shown to
be false, because it starts from a false principle.
Thought can never be
derived from being, because it is not contained therein; from being only
being can proceed, and never representation. Being, however, can be derived
from thought, for consciousness is also being; nay, it is more than this,
it is conscious being. And as consciousness contains both being and a
knowledge of this being, idealism is superior to realism, because idealism
includes the latter as a moment in itself, and hence can explain it, though
it is not explicable by it. Dogmatism makes the mistake of going beyond
consciousness or the ego, and working with empty, merely formal concepts. A
concept is empty when nothing actual corresponds to it, or no intuition
can be subsumed under it (here it is to be noted that, besides sensuous
intuition, there is an intellectual intuition also; an example is found in
the ego as a self-intuiting being). Philosophy, indeed, may abstract and
must abstract, must rise above that which is given--for how could she
explain life and particular knowledge if she assumed no higher standpoint
than her object?--but true abstraction is nothing other than the separation
of factors which in experience always present themselves together; it
analyzes empirical consciousness in order to reconstruct it from its
elements, it causes empirical consciousness to arise before our eyes, it
is a pragmatic _history of consciousness_. Such abstraction, undertaken in
order to a genetic consideration of the ego, does not go beyond experience,
but penetrates into the depths of experience, is not transcendent, but
transcendental, and, since it remains in close touch with that which is
intuitable, yields a real philosophy in contrast to all merely formal
philosophy.
These theoretical advantages of idealism are supplemented by momentous
reasons of a practical kind, which determine the choice between the two
systems, besides which none other is possible. The moral law says: Thou
shalt be self-dependent. If I ought to be so I must be able to be so; but
if I were matter I would not be able. Thus idealism proves itself to be the
ethical mode of thought, while the opposite mode shows that those who favor
it have not raised themselves to that independence of all that is external
which is morally enjoined, for in order to be able to know ourselves free
we must have made ourselves free.[1] Thus the philosophy which a man
chooses depends on what sort of a man he is. If, on the other hand, the
categorical imperative calls for belief in the reality of the external
world and of other minds, this is nothing against idealism. For idealism
does not deny the realism of life, but explains it as a necessary, though
not a final, mode of intuition. The dogmatic mode of thought is merely an
explanation from the standpoint of common consciousness, and for idealism,
as the only view which is both scientifically and practically satisfactory,
this explanation itself needs explaining. Realism and idealism, like
natural impulse and moral will in the sphere of action, are both grounded
in reason. But idealism is the true standpoint, because it is able to
comprehend and explain the opposing theory, while the converse is not the
case.
[Footnote 1: Cf. O. Liebmann (_Ueber den individuellen Beweis für die
Freiheit des Willens p, 131. 1866)_ "Here we discover the noteworthy point
where theoretical and practical philosophy actually pass over into each
other. For this principle results: In order to carry out the individual
proof for the freedom of the will, I must do my duty."]
The nature, the goal, and the methods of the Science of Knowledge have now
been determined. It is genuine, thoroughgoing idealism, which raises the
Kantian philosophy to the rank of an evident science by deducing its
premises from a first principle which is immediately certain, and by
removing the twofold dualism of intuition and thought, of knowledge and
volition, viz., by proving both contraries acts of one and the same ego.
While Reinhold had sought a supreme truth as a fundamental principle of
unity, without which the doctrine of knowledge would lack the systematic
form essential to science, while Beck had interpreted the spirit of the
Kantian philosophy in an idealistic sense, and Jacobi had demanded the
elimination of the thing in itself, all these desires combined are
fulfilled in Fichte's doctrine, and at the same time the results of the
Critique of Reason are given that evidence which Aenesidemus-Schulze had
missed in them. As an answer to the question, "How is knowledge brought
about?" (as well the knowledge of common sense as that given in the
particular sciences), "how is experience possible?", and as a construction
of common consciousness as this manifests itself in life and in the
particular sciences, Fichteanism adopts the name _Science of Knowledge_,
being distinguished from the particular sciences by the fact that they
discuss the voluntary, and it the necessary, representations or actions of
the spirit. (The representation of a triangle or a circle is a free one, it
may be omitted; the representation of space in general is a necessary one,
from which it is impossible for us to abstract.) How does intelligence
come to have sensations, to intuit space and time, and to form just such
categories (thing and property, cause and effect, and not others quite
different)? While Kant correctly described these functions of the intuiting
and thinking spirit, and showed them actual, they must further be proven,
be shown necessary or deduced. Deduced whence? From the
"deed-acts"
(_Thathandlungen_) of the ego which lie at the basis of all consciousness,
and the highest of which are formulated in three principles.
%(b) The Three Principles.%--At the portal of the Science of Knowledge we
are met not by an assertion, but by a summons--a summons to
self-contemplation. Think anything whatever and observe what thou dost,
and of necessity must do, in thinking. Thou wilt discover that thou dost
never think an object without thinking thyself therewith, that it is
absolutely impossible for thee to abstract from thine ego. And second,
consider what thou dost when thou dost think thine
"ego." This means
to affirm or posit one's self, to be a subject-object.
The nature of
self-consciousness is the identity of the representing
[subject] and
the represented [object]. The pure ego is not a fact, but an original
doing, the act of being for self (_Fürsichsein_), and the (philosophical,
or--as seems to be the case according to some passages--
even the common)
consciousness of this doing an intellectual intuition; through this we
become conscious of the deed-act which is ever (though unconsciously)
performing. This is the meaning of the first of the principles: "The _ego_
posits originally and absolutely its own being," or, more briefly: The ego
posits itself; more briefly still: I am. The nature of the ego consists in
positing itself as existing.[1] Since, besides this self-cogitation of
the ego, an op-position is found among the facts of empirical
consciousness (think only of the principle of contradiction), and yet,
besides the ego, there is nothing which could be opposed, we must assume
as a second principle: To the ego there is absolutely opposited
a _non-ego_. These two principles must be united, and this can be
accomplished only by positing the contraries (ego and non-ego), since they
are both in the ego, as reciprocally limiting or partially sublating
one another, that is, each as _divisible_ (capable of quantitative
determination). Accordingly the third principle runs:
"The ego opposes in
the ego a divisible non-ego to the divisible ego." From these principles
Fichte deduces the three laws of thought, identity, contradiction, and
sufficient reason, and the three categories of quality--
reality, negation,
and limitation or determination. Instead of following him in these labors,
we may emphasize the significance of his view of the ego as pure activity
without an underlying substratum, with which he carries dynamism over from
the Kantian philosophy of nature to metaphysics. We must not conceive the
ego as something which must exist before it can put forth its activities.
Doing is not a property or consequence of being, but being is an accident
and effect of doing. All substantiality is derivative, activity is primal;
_being arises from doing_. The ego is nothing more than self-position; it
exists not only for itself (_für sich_), but also through itself (_durch
sich_).
[Footnote 1: The ego spoken of in the first of the principles, the ego as
the object of intellectual intuition and as the ground and creator of all
being, is, as the second _Introduction to the Science of Knowledge_ clearly
announces, not the individual, but the I-ness _(Ichheit)_ (which is to be
presupposed as the prius of the manifold of representation, and which is
exalted above the opposition of subject and object), mentality in general,
eternal reason, which is common to all and the same in all, which is
present in all thinking and at the basis thereof, and to which particular
persons stand related merely as accidents, as instruments, as special
expressions, destined more and more to lose themselves in the universal
form of reason. But, further still, a distinction must be made between the
absolute ego as intuition (as the form of I-ness), from which the Science
of Knowledge starts, and the ego as Idea (as the supreme goal of practical
endeavor) with which it ends. In neither is the ego conceived as
individual; in the former the I-ness is not yet determined to the point of
individuality, in the latter individuality has disappeared, Fichte is right
when he thinks it remarkable that "a system whose beginning and end and
whole nature is aimed at forgetfulness of individuality in the theoretical
sphere and denial of it in the practical sphere" should be "called egoism."
And yet not only opponents, but even adherents of Fichte, as is shown by
_Friedrich Schlegel's_ philosophy of genius, have, by confusing the pure
and the empirical ego, been guilty of the mistake thus censured. On the
philosophy of the romanticists cf. Erdmann's _History_, vol. ii. §§ 314,
315; Zeller, p. 562 _seq_.; and R. Haym, _Die Romantische Schule_, 1870.]
The actions expressed in the three principles are never found pure in
experience, nor do they represent isolated acts of the ego. Intelligence
can think nothing without thinking itself therewith; it is equally
impossible for it to think "I am" without at the same time thinking
something else which is not itself; subject and object are inseparable.
It is rather true that the acts of position described are one single,
all-inclusive act, which forms only the first member in a connected system
of pre-conscious actions, through which consciousness is produced, and the
complete investigation of whose members constitutes the further business of
the Science of Knowledge as a theory of the nature of reason. In this the
Science of Knowledge employs a method which, by its rhythm of analysis and
synthesis, development and reconciliation of opposites, became the model of
Hegel's dialectic method. The synthesis described in the third principle,
although it balances thesis and antithesis and unites them in itself, still
contains contrary elements, in order to whose combination a new synthesis
must be sought. In this, in turn, the analytic discovery and the synthetic
adjustment of a contrariety is repeated, etc., etc. The original synthesis,
moreover, prescribes a division of the inquiry into two parts, one
theoretical and the other practical. For it contains the following
principles: The ego posits itself as limited by the non-ego--it functions
cognitively; and: The ego posits itself as determining the non-ego--it
functions volitionally and actively.
%(c) The Theoretical Ego.%--In positing itself as determined by the
non-ego, the ego is at once passive (affected by something other than
itself) and active (it posits its own limitation). This is possible only as
it posits reality in itself only in part, and transfers to the non-ego so
much as it does not posit in itself. Passivity is diminished activity,
negation of the totality of reality. From reflection on this relation
between ego and non-ego spring the categories of reciprocal determination,
of causality (the non-ego as the cause of the passion of the ego), and
substantiality (this passion merely the self-limitation of the ego).
The conflict between the causality of the non-ego (by which the ego is
affected) and the substantiality of the ego (in which and the activity of
which all reality is contained) is resolved only by the assumption of two
activities (or, rather, of two opposite directions of one activity) in the
ego, one of which (centrifugal, expansive) strives infinitely outward while
the other (centripetal or contractile) sets a bound to the former, and
drives the ego back into itself, whereupon another excursus follows, and a
new limitation and return, etc. With every repetition of this double act
of production and reflection a special class of representations arises.
Through the first limitation of the in itself unlimited activity
"sensation" arises (as a product of the "productive imagination"). Because
the ego produces this unconsciously, it appears to be given, brought about
by influence from without. The second stage,
"intuition," is reached when the ego reflects on sensation, when it opposes to itself something foreign
which limits it. Thirdly, by reflection on intuition an
"image" of that
which is intuited is constructed, and, as such, distinguished from a real
thing to which the image corresponds; at this point the categories and the
forms of intuition, space and time, appear, which thus arise along with
the object.[1] The fourth stadium is "understanding,"
which steadies the
fluctuating intuition into a concept, realizes the object, and looks upon
it as the cause of the intuition. Fifthly, "judgment"
makes its appearance
as the faculty of free reflection and abstraction, or the power to consider
a definite content or to abstract from it. As judgment is itself the
condition of the bound reflection of the understanding, so it points in
turn to its condition, to the sixth and highest stage of intelligence,
"reason," by means of which we are able to abstract from all objects
whatever, while reason itself, pure self-consciousness, is that from
which abstraction is never possible. It is only in the highest stage that
consciousness or a representation of representation takes place. And at the
culmination of the theoretical ego the point of transition to the practical
ego appears. Here the ego becomes aware that in positing itself as
determined by the non-ego it has only limited itself, and therefore is
itself the ground of the whole content of consciousness; here it apprehends
itself as determining the non-ego or as acting, and recognizes as its chief
mission to impress the form of the ego as far as possible on the non-ego,
and ever to extend the boundary further.
[Footnote 1: The object is a product of the ego only for the observer, not
for the observed ego itself, to which, from this standpoint of imagination,
it appears rather as a thing in itself independent of the ego and affecting
it. Further, it must so appear, because the ego, in its after reflection
on its productive activity, and just by this reflection, transforms the
productive action considered into a fixed and independent product found
existing.]
The "deduction of representation" whose outline has just been given was the
first example (often imitated in the school of Schelling and Hegel) of a
_constructive psychology_, which, from the mission or the concept of the
soul--in this case from the nature of self-consciousness--deduces the
various psychical functions as a system of actions, each of which is in
its place implied by the rest, as it in turn presupposes them. This is
distinguished from the sensationalistic psychology, which is also genetic
(cf. pp. 245-250), as well as from the mechanical or associational
psychology, which likewise excludes the idea of an isolated coexistence of
mental faculties, by the fact that it demands a new manifestation of the
soul-ground in order to the ascent from one member of the series to
the next higher. It is also distinguished from sensationalism by its
teleological point of view. For no matter how much Fichte, too, may speak
of the mechanism of consciousness, it is plain to the reader of the
theoretical part of his system not only that he makes this mechanism work
in the service of an end, but also that he finds its origin in purposive
activity of the ego; while the practical part gives further and decisive
confirmation of the fact. The danger and the defect of such a constructive
treatment of psychology--as we may at once remark for all later
attempts--lies in imagining that the task of mental science has been
accomplished and all its problems solved when each particular activity of
the ego has been assigned its mission and work for the whole, and its place
in the system, without any indication of the means through which this
destination can be fulfilled.
%(d) The Practical Ego.%--The deduction of representation has shown
how (through what unconscious acts of the ego) the different stages of
cognition, the three sensuous and the three intellectual functions of
representation, come into being. It has proved incapable, however, of
giving any account of the way in which the ego comes at one point to arrest
its activity, which tends infinitely outward, and to turn it back upon
itself. We know, indeed, that this first limitation, through which
sensation arises, and on which as a basis the understanding, by continued
reflection constructs the objective world, was necessary in order that
consciousness and knowledge might arise. If the ego did not limit its
infinite activity neither representation nor an objective world
would exist. But why, then, are there such things as consciousness,
representation, and a world? From the standpoint of the theoretical ego
this problem, "Whence the original non-ego or opposition (_Anstoss_),
which impels the ego back upon itself?" cannot be solved, since it is
only through the opposition that it itself arises. The
"deduction of the
opposition," which the theoretical part of the Science of Knowledge did
not furnish, is to be looked for from the practical part. The primacy of
practical reason, already emphasized by Kant, gives us the answer: _The
ego_ limits itself and _is theoretical, in order to be practical_. The
whole machinery of representation and the represented world exists only to
furnish us the possibility of fulfilling our duty. We are intelligence in
order that we may be able to be will.
Action, action--that is the end of our existence. Action is giving form to
matter, it is the alteration or elaboration of an object, the conquest of
an impediment, of a limitation. We cannot act unless we have something
in, on, and against which to act. The world of sensation and intuition is
nothing but a means for attaining our ethical destiny, it is "the material
of our duty under the form of sense." The theoretical ego posits an
object (_Gegenstand_) that the practical ego may experience resistance
(_Widerstand_). No action is possible without a world as the object of
action; no world is possible without a consciousness which represents it;
no consciousness possible without reflection of the ego on itself; no
reflection without limitation, without an opposition or non-ego. The
_Anstoss_ is deduced. The ego posits a limit (is theoretical) in order (as
practical) to overcome it. Our duty is the only _per se (Ansich)_ of