The Bloomsbury Handbook of Fichte

Marina F. Bykova

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781350375673
• eBook ISBN: 9781350036628
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

A founding figure of German idealism, Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) developed a radically new version of transcendental idealism. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Fichte follows his intellectual life and presents a comprehensive overview of Fichte's dynamic philosophy, from his engagement with Kant to his rigorously systematic and nuanced Wissenschaftslehre and beyond. Covering a variety of topics and issues in epistemology, ontology, moral and political philosophy, as well as philosophy of right and philosophy of religion, an international team of experts on Fichte explores his important contributions to philosophy. Arranged chronologically, their chapters map Fichte's intellectual and philosophical development and the progression of his thought, identifying what motivated his philosophical inquiry and revealing why his ideas continue to shape discussions today. Alongside wide-ranging chapters advancing new insights into Fichte, there are topical discussions of conceptions and issues central to his philosophy. Featuring a chronology of Fichte's life, as well as a timeline of his publications and lectures, this is an invaluable research resource for all Fichte scholars and a reliable guide for anyone undertaking a study of Fichte and German idealism.

Part One

Fichte in Context and His Path to Transcendental Idealism

1

Fichte’s Life and Rise to Philosophical Prominence

Marina F. Bykova

Introduction

Only a few thinkers have lived more remarkable lives than Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814), whose career began with an incredible ascent from rural poverty into academic celebrity, and whose journey was filled with challenge, conflict, failure, and ultimately triumph. Despite the abstract nature of his philosophical ideas and the difficulty involved in grasping the dynamics of his thought, it is possible to notice some important parallels between Fichte’s highly technical “philosophy of striving” and his personal striving to establish himself professionally and socially, to position himself within the philosophical field, and, most importantly, to have an effect upon his contemporaries and the troublesome age he found himself in through his work. Exploring links between Fichte’s career, philosophy, and specific intellectual context is the primary goal of this chapter. What I hope to accomplish is to draw a portrait of the thinker and his intellectual interactions with his world and surroundings.

However, drawing an intellectual portrait of a philosopher is a difficult task, for a true philosopher is one for whom the practice of doing philosophy is intimately related to their way of life. In a genuine philosopher, professional desiderata coincide with philosophical traits and constitute a mode of existence. Thus, even the most masterfully painted portrait of a philosopher will inevitably be a sketch, rather than a finished composition.

Furthermore, when considering the origins and sources of someone’s ideas and thoughts, it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint exact occurrences and denote the most valuable among them, for one’s ideas are inevitably tied to one’s unique perceptions and experiences of the world. Still, we are all products of our time. No matter how much we try to avoid it, we see and contemplate the world through the lens of our culture, current situation, and intellectual surroundings. Thus, in order to form a proper understanding of Fichte’s philosophical ideas, we must contextualize his scholarly development and explore him and his philosophy in the context of the social and intellectual discourse that influenced him—both personally and professionally.

The main assumption that guides this exploration is that the meaning of philosophical ideas and philosophical texts can be recovered contextually as a product of a particular time and place. This undertaking is an attempt to bridge what is usually called intellectual history, which is mainly a prerogative of historians interested in historical facts, and the history of philosophy, which is practiced by philosophers concerned with the critical examination of previous thoughts, ideas, and arguments, both in their historical setting and in their relevance to ongoing philosophical inquiry.

Interestingly, Fichte himself firmly advocated for a timeless philosophy; he urged his readers not to take the “letter” of his philosophical texts too seriously, but instead to discover the infinite “spirit” of transcendental idealism that is revealed over time. Thus, perhaps Fichte would contend with the contemporary biographer that his life is one that must be understood not in context, but through the lens of timeless philosophical truths. I leave it to the reader to decide how to interpret such an insight, for my attempt is to articulate an expository analysis of the rudiments and origins of Fichte’s tremendously efficacious and prolific life.

This chapter consists of three parts: the first focuses on the early stage of Fichte’s intellectual development (mainly from 1790 to 1793), the second covers the Jena period (1794–1799), and the third addresses Fichte’s philosophical evolution during the late period of his life, which was mostly spent in Berlin (1800–1814). What I attempt to show is that Fichte’s radically revised and rigorously systematic version of transcendental idealism, which is known as the Wissenschaftslehre, is more than just a response to Kant and the challenges of Kant’s Critical philosophy, as it is usually interpreted. The main aims and conclusions of Fichte’s transcendental idealism only become clear when they are considered in the historical and social context that shaped his mind. While it is implausible to interpret the thinker’s philosophical system as the direct and contingent product of a specific historical context, we have to recognize that his philosophical arguments cannot be properly understood without contextualizing his intellectual development. Bringing this context to light and showing how it influenced Fichte’s philosophical work is the main goal of this chapter.

Early Life and Sudden Rise to Prominence (1762–1793)

Throughout his eventful and controversial life, Fichte was acutely sensitive about his humble origins.¹ While his ascent from obscurity into the realm of the philosophical elite was not unique,² there was something very stunning about it. Fichte was born on May 19, 1762, in the rural village of Rammenau (Saxony), whose inhabitants depended primarily on ribbon weaving for their livelihood. His parents—Christian Fichte and Johanna Maria Dorothea—were no exception. While not the poorest among the villagers, they had a small ribbon-weaving home business and a little farm that was just big enough to support the family. The first—and the father’s favorite—of their nine children, Johann Gottlieb Fichte was probably also destined for the weaver’s career. However, his life took a sudden and largely miraculous turn one Sunday in 1770, when the local pastor, Johann Gottfried Dinndorf, brought the young Fichte before Baron Ernst Hauboldt von Miltitz and had the boy recite the day’s sermon verbatim to the Baron, who had missed it due to a traveling delay. Impressed by then nine-year-old Fichte’s intellectual gift, the Baron extended his financial support toward the bright boy’s academic future. In an unexpected twist of fate, Fichte found himself in the unfamiliar setting of the Miltitz estate on the Elbe river only a few days later.

The Baron had arranged for him first to attend the Stadtschule in Meiβen, and four years later, in 1774, the privileged Schulpforta near Naumburg. After graduating from the elite boarding school, known for its great academic tradition and strong religious orientation, Fichte entered university with the intention of studying theology and eventually joining the clergy. He studied in Jena, Wittenberg, and Leipzig, yet by graduation he no longer wanted to be a pastor. By the time he entered the university his sponsor had died, and a few years later the widowed Baroness suspended his financial support after noticing Fichte’s declining interest in becoming a clergyman.

Left without any academic career prospects and desperate to find prospective employment elsewhere, between 1785 and 1794 Fichte sustained himself by serving as a live-in tutor for wealthy households (a job commonly left to “poor intellectuals” of similarly humble origins) in Zurich, Krakow, and Leipzig. It was the almost ironic culmination of the previous fifteen years of his life. Extracted from his rural village at a young age, and thus separated from his family, he struggled to find his place among the academic (or any other) hierarchy of the Prussian intelligentsia. This further perpetuated his nearly infinite sense of solitude and victimization, which was especially intense in the late 1780s (see La Vopa 2001, 32–4).

The only respite from the estrangement Fichte felt so keenly was his growing friendship with Friedrich August Weiβhuhn (1759–1795),³ a former schoolmate from Schulpforta, with whom Fichte studied together at the University of Leipzig from 1781 to 1784. Fichte valued the “sweet hours of soft warmth and of tender outpourings of the heart” that the two shared in the winter of 1787–88 (GA III/1:119). Aside from Weiβhuhn, Fichte also had a strong friendship with two other young men: Johann Friedrich Fritzsche,⁴ another schoolmate from Schulpforta, and Henrich Nikolaus Achelis,⁵ a fellow tutor in Zurich. These friendships, which transcended the social differences between Fichte and other academics, were his only refuge during the trying times of his late twenties. These bonds provided him with dearly needed personal attachment, intellectual stimulation, and emotional openness. Contrary to the politesse broadly practiced by the elite hierarchy of German society, these relationships were highly egalitarian, but as a result, they added to Fichte’s growing disdain at being lost between both worlds; that of his humble upbringing and the exclusive hierarchy of the Prussian intelligentsia.

Perhaps this isolation was the reason for Fichte’s uneasy feeling toward his unsettled relationship with Johanna Marie Rahn, whom he had met at twenty-eight years old while travelling between tutoring positions in Zurich, where she lived. The daughter of Johann Hartmann Rahn, a textile manufacturer and city official, Johanna was thirty-five at the time of their introduction. The two became very close friends almost immediately. As Fichte wrote in one of his letters, “at first sight, at the first conversation, my entire heart was open for [her]” (GA III/1:51, no. 21). Despite their age difference, the two became informally engaged only a few months into their relationship. Yet it was not until October 1793 that Fichte and Johanna were wed, after numerous breaks and delays on both sides of the relationship. Much of the troubles and initial distance between them was socially motivated. The Rahn family, which had been in the lower rungs of politics for generations, exemplified a kind of political elite, while Fichte’s family origins were much more modest. Another, perhaps more pivotal reason for Fichte’s hesitation and uneasiness about that relationship was his lack of career prospects, which would make his engagement to Johanna, if formally established, one of money-chasing in the eyes of the public around them. Only when Fichte finally managed to establish a circle of scholarly contacts and—not without Kant’s input—rise from his marginal status to become a celebrity, did he feel that he was in a position to enter “an entirely new mode of being” and finally marry Johanna (GA III/1:115, no. 43). Although Fichte was financially dependent on his spouse to a large degree, especially in the early years of their bond, their marriage nonetheless provided the warmth, affection, and psychological and emotional support that Fichte needed. At the same time, it further intensified his determination to prove himself, which for him would mean not only securing his place as a scholar and “public figure,” but also eliminating his financial dependence on Johanna, which caused him much anxiety and was damaging to his pride.

Fichte, with a “restless urge to expand” and an increasingly ambitious sense of purpose, specifically a desire to “have an effect upon his age,” was still in search for his calling in the late 1780s and early 1790s (GA III/1:170, no. 64). Recognizing that his condition as a commoner prevented him from developing fully due to being constricted to specialized labor, Fichte had to devise a way to find a professional career while practically earning a livelihood. This naturally led him to pursue the pulpit, though he quickly realized that the ecclesiastical hold of the church’s orthodoxy forced him to restrain his natural openness and intellectual passion.

Around that time he had completed two sermons — one on Resurrection and another one on Annunciation — and a longer essay, “Some Aphorisms on Religion and Deism” (1790) (GA II/1:283–92), where he articulated his thoughts on the arbitrary nature of social power. Carefully balancing his views between the warring rational (Neologist) and natural (Rousseauian) theism of the day, Fichte developed a form of synthesis that took place within human subjectivity as a “bond” between emotion and reason, thus perfecting the nature of man. His theory of providence, laid out in the second sermon, was his early attempt to respond to the Pantheism controversy, a major intellectual and religious concern of the time that served as a ground for much wider theological and philosophical debates. Perhaps this is where he became attuned to Spinozism, which he would develop later. Yet in his early age, Fichte adhered to a form of natural determinism that—in spite of a declared attempt to avoid collision with subjectivity and free will—was at odds with human freedom. He had interpreted God as the natural order and individual free will as the self-imposed limitation required for obeying providence.

At the end of the 1780s Fichte was still moving from one tutoring job to another, unable to solve his serious financial problems or satisfy his passionate nature. Only in the summer of 1790 in Leipzig, when he agreed to tutor a university student in Kant’s philosophy (which he did not know at the time) and first read and studied the Critique of Pure Reason, did he finally find a true inspiration for his passion. This encounter decisively influenced Fichte, both personally and philosophically. Personally, Fichte discovered a way to elevate himself from his utter self-pity and wallowing due to a lack of purpose brought about by his previous feelings of forced alienation. Around that time, he wrote to his then fiancée, Johanna Rahn: “I have finally acquired a most noble morality and instead of concerning myself with the external things, I am devoting myself to my own inner self. Thus I have been experiencing the peace of mind which I have never before experienced and am living a very happy life” (GA III/1:170–1, no. 64; see also GA III/1:172–3; 186–7, nos. 63, 68).⁶ Finally, he was able to resolve his youthful crisis and shift his focus to the autonomous self and its manifestation.

Philosophically, Fichte took his spiritual liberation as the ground for his own philosophical investigation. He reported to his close friend Weiβhuhn that upon finishing Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason, the concept of absolute freedom had been irrevocably proven to him.⁷ Furthermore, he realized that a morally free will does not do what it wants to do, but what it ought to do. Its freedom lies in fulfilling its duty, despite constraints of the natural self. In this sense, freedom is a necessary condition of any moral action and for morality in general. In November of 1790, Fichte shared this insight with his friend Achelis:

The influence that this [Kantian] philosophy, especially its moral part (though this is unintelligible apart from a study of the Critique of Pure Reason), has upon one’s entire way of thinking is unbelievable—as is the revolution that it has occasioned in my way of thinking in particular … I now believe wholeheartedly in human freedom and realize full well that duty, virtue, and morality are all possible only if freedom is presupposed. ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Contents 
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Notes on Sources and Key to Abbreviations
• Introduction: About the Volume, Its Content, and Structure
• Part 1: Fichte in Context and His Path to Transcendental Idealism
• Part 2: The Jena Period (1794–1799) and the Jena System of Transcendental Idealism
• Part 3: The Berlin Period (1800–1814) and the Systematic Development of the Transcendental Philosophy
• Part 4: Substantive and Interpretative Questions and Key Concepts
• Part 5: The Reception and Influence of Fichte’s Philosophy
• Part 6: Timeline and Chronology
• Index
• Imprint