Abstract

This paper employs Žižek’s essay “Fichte’s Laughter” to examine and defend the merits of Fichtean subjectivity. Lacan’s formulae of sexuation are used as a framework for the discussion. Having these formulae in mind not only makes the difference between Fichte’s and Kant’s subject readily visible, but also considerably eases the effort to work through the three propositional stages of the Wissenschaftslehre in which the doctrine of the Anstoß plays a central role. Although Fichte’s philosophical system never reaches a full speculative identity in which the feminine and masculine logics are experienced together, because of Žižek’s insight into the homology between the Anstoß and the Lacanian objet a, Fichte’s I nevertheless remains relevant to our modern notion of subjectivity