The goal of this paper is to interpret Fichte’s terminology of ‚light‘ and ‚imaging‘ in the WL-1804-ii as a rendition of transcendental principles. This analysis is intended as a contribution to the discussion concerning the theoretical status and methodology of the later doctrines of science. i begin with an exposition of four criteria for transcendentally constitutive principles: 1. presuppositional character, 2. constitutivity, 3. categorial difference between conditions and conditioned, 4. immanent justification. The systematic function of ‘light’ is exemplarily reconstructed according (...) to these criteria. The focus of analysis lies on the fourth criterion, which is framed as the philosophical problem which Fichte’s conception of a ‘law of imaging’ in the 24th and 25th lectures answers to. The ‘law of imaging’ is reconstructed as a special form of performative self-validation which is intended to satisfy the criterion of immanent justification. A further upshot of this reading is a reappraisal of Fichte’s treatment of light’s perpetual ‘objectivization’. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungDas Verhältnis zwischen Fichtes WL und Schleiermachers Reden wurde heftig diskutiert. Dieser Aufsatz hält den Einfluss von Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre auf Schleiermacher für nicht stichhaltig. Es wird darauf hingewiesen, dass es verschiedene Modelle der Beziehung zwischen dem Gefühl und dem Absoluten bei Fichte und bei Schleiermacher gibt: Fichte betrachtet das „Gefühl der Abhängigkeit“ vom Absoluten oder vom absoluten Sein als eine Selbstvernichtung der formalen Freiheit, während Schleiermacher zufolge das Individuum mit dem Absoluten im Gefühl vereinigt wird.

Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre läßt sich sicherlich nicht unter den klassischen Begriff der Affektenlehre bringen, schon weil sie eine systematische Grundlegung des gesamten Wissens enthält und nicht nur eine Lehre von der Ordnung und der Regelung der Affekte, die ja nur den Bereich der Ethik betrifft. Es soll auch hier gar nicht versucht werden, sie so zu interpretieren. Vielmehr geht es um einen neuen Sinn von Affektenlehre, wenn im Titel davon die Rede ist, die Wissenschaftslehre könnte sich in ihr vollenden.

Spinoza exerted a strong pull on many of the German idealists. This paper explores the evidence of Spinoza's influence on Fichte in the latter's 1804 lectures on his Wissenschaftslehre (the second series). Fichte explicitly mentions Spinoza's names only three times, and each of these references is critical of Spinoza. However, there are other important resonances connecting the thinking of these two philosophers, each of whom faced charges of atheism. These include the priority each grants to practical reason, the accounts each (...) gives of what is genuinely ultimate, and their views about how human beings come into relation with the ultimate. (shrink)

Words and Life (= WL) is a bulky collection of 29 essays, edited and introduced by James Conant. Pragmatism: An Open Question (= P) is a much thinner collection, dedicated to Conant, of just three lectures. Taken together, the two books constitute an argument for pragmatism as a viable option in contemporary philosophy, and a new (pragmatic) basis for what remains viable in the philosophical and political ideals of the Enlightenment. As in a previous collection of essays (Putnam 1990), Conant’s (...) role appears to be more than just editorial. In his own lengthy introductions, he gives Putnam’s work an interpretive ‘spin’, of which Putnam, for his part, seems to approve. Together, Putnam and Conant develop a strain of pragmatism which is well worth looking into.1 Putnam’s pragmatism is best captured by the quote from Cavell (1979: p. 125) which appears as the motto on the title page of the 1994 collection, and from which its title – ‘Words and Life’ – is derived. It is the view that although philosophy is an open ended practice of reflection, rather than a purely contemplative theory of one kind or another, the practice in question is at one and the same time a part of culture (immanence) and a step beyond it (transcendence). In Cavell’s language, the task of such reflection (‘philosophizing’) is ‘to confront culture with itself, along the lines in which it meets in me’, where the self in question – the individual qua philosopher – appears to be engulfed by culture even as he is confronting it from the outside. On this interpretation, Putnam’s appeal to practice in philosophy is part of an attempt to keep its transcendent, or critical, dimension alive, even while recognizing philosophy’s radical embeddedness in culture and tradition, and the futility of seeking some God’s-eye view from which reality as such is to be viewed.2 The question is whether, and how, these two perspectives can be held together. If our standards of rational criticism transcend any particular culture in terms of their scope and authority, how can they also be embedded in culture and immanent to it? Can pragmatism offer a coherent synthesis of these two dimensions.. (shrink)

In seiner WL nova methodo charakterisiert Fichte die Aufgabe der Transzendentalphilosophie wie folgt: »die Bedingungen des Bewußtseins nach den schon bekannten Regeln zusammen zu setzen, und das Bewußtsein vor unseren Augen zu construieren«. Dieses Zitat bringt das Herzstück der frühen Fichteschen WL zum Vorschein und vermag auch das Grundanliegen der GWL präzise zu charakterisieren. Die WL strebt nach der genetischen Einsicht des wirklichen Bewußtseins und kann daher nicht vom Bewußtsein ausgehen; sie muß hinter das Bewußtsein zurückgehen, um es vor unseren (...) Augen konstruieren zu können. Fichtes Konzeption der produktiven Vernunft hat, wie im folgenden gezeigt werden soll, das Programm einer genetischen bzw. konstruktiven Deduktion des Bewußtseins erst möglich gemacht. Denn die von Fichte gedachten produktiven bzw. schlechthin setzenden Handlungen der Vernunft stellen ein systematisches Gefüge dar, aus dem eine vollständige Totalität von Produkten hervorgeht. Für die Genese des wirklichen Bewußtseins und Selbstbewußtseins erweist sich jener Wendepunkt als entscheidend, an dem die Produktion selbst den Charakter der Reflexion annimmt, nämlich der Reflexion auf ihre eigenen Produkte. Und weil die ursprüngliche Reflexion einer noch ursprünglicheren Produktion entspringt, hat sie selbst produktiven Charakter, ist sie re-produktiv; sie setzt gleichsam noch einmal, was bereits gesetzt ist. Die Reflexion bringt auf diese Weise neue Produkte mit sich, die das produzierend-reflektierende Ich zunächst ebenfalls nicht als seine eigenen Produkte erkennt, weshalb die Reflexion, wie gezeigt werden soll, eine ebenso ursprüngliche Projektion ist. Das systematische Wechselspiel von Reflexion und Projektion macht, ab einem gewissen Reflexionspunkte, Gegenstands- und Selbstbewußtsein für das Ich unterscheidbar und damit als solche erst möglich. (shrink)

For Kant as for Hegel method is not a structure or procedure imported into philosophy from without, as, e.g. a mathematical demonstration in modern physics or in the proof-structure of philosophies such as Spinoza’s or Wolff’s. For both Hegel and Kant method is the arrangement that reason gives its contents and cognitions; for both, that is, method and object do not fall asunder, unlike in all disciplines other than philosophy. For Kant method is the design and plan of the whole, (...) the scientific form that guides the organization of cognitions (KrV A 707/B 736, Ak 24, 780). Likewise, Hegel writes that method is the consciousness of the form of its inner movement (WL 1, 49, SL 53, W 3 47, PhS 28). Unfortunately, Hegel never considers Kant an example or a precursor or a positive role model. It is important to ask why Hegel never takes seriously Kant’s Doctrine of Method. Why, if he shares so many central points with the Architectonic of the first Critique, does he never acknowledge Kant as a possible ally? Why does he misunderstand Kant on analysis and synthesis as he does? These are some of the questions I plan to discuss in this paper. (shrink)

Im Zentrum seines Werkes steht Fichtes WL, die er siebenmal bearbeitete. Die zweite Darstellung, die Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre , in der er das Wissen von Tatsachen von den Prinzipien der Gegenstandserfahrung aus erörtert, ist die einflußreichste geblieben. Fichte hat in der Gegenstandserfahrung nicht nur die praktischen, sondern auch die theoretischen Prinzipien aufgezeigt und damit die Verbindung von theoretischer und praktischer Vernunft nachgewiesen. Sein Werk wurde durch diese Leistung Ausgangspunkt des deutschen Idealismus.

In §12 of his 1837 magnum opus, the Wissenschaftslehre, Bolzano remarks that “In the new logic textbooks one reads almost constantly that ‘in logic one must consider not the material of thought but the mere form of thought, for which reason logic deserves the title of a purely formal science’” (WL §12, 46).1 The sentence Bolzano quotes is his own summary of others’ philosophical views; he goes on to cite Jakob, Hoffbauer, Metz, and Krug as examples of thinkers who held (...) that logic abstracts from the matter of thought and considers only its form. Although Bolzano does not mention Kant by name here, Kant does of course hold that “pure general logic”, what Bolzano would consider logic in the traditional sense (the theory of propositions, representations, inferences, etc.), is formal. As Kant remarks in the Introduction to the 2nd edition of Kritik der reinen Vernunft , (pure general) logic is “justified in abstracting – is indeed obliged to abstract – from all objects of cognition and all of their differences; and in logic, therefore, the understanding has to do with nothing further than itself and its own form” (KrV, Bix).2. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that in order to secure some of his system’s key commitments, Fichte employs argumentation essentially patterned after the technique of practical postulation in Kant. This is a mode of reasoning that mobilizes a distinctly Kantian notion of nonepistemic justification, which itself is premised upon a broadly Kantian conception of the nature of reason. Succinctly stated, such argumentation proceeds essentially as follows. (1) By the basic nature and operations of rationality, every rational being is, as such, (...) committed to E as an ultimate end (final purpose, highest goal). (2) E can be understood as actually attainable only if descriptive proposition P is assented to. (3) We cannot, in principle, possess genuine evidence for or against P; therefore, (4) while we do not have (and never could have) good epistemic grounds for assenting to P, we do have (and always will have) perfectly sufficient rational grounds for doing so. While this assent has no basis in pertinent evidence, it nonetheless has an unshakeable foundation in the basic operations and requirements of rationality. This is so because this assent (a) sustains a commitment integral to rationality as such, and (b) affirms a proposition that no evidence could ever discredit. I proceed to discuss what I take to be two instances of this sort of argumentation in Fichte: first, The Vocation of Man's unusual argument for belief in the real existence of a world transcendent to human representations, and second, the same work's subsequent depiction of that world as strictly mentalistic (immaterial, intellectual, teleological) in its true constitution. VM portrays both positions as decisive determinants of the overall upshot of the Wissenschaftslehre (WL), and explicitly casts them as articles of “faith” or “belief” (Glaube), grounded in unshakeable ethical conviction, by contrast with items of “knowledge” (Wissen). (shrink)

The most popular concepts of happiness among psychologists and philosophers nowadays are concepts of happiness according to which happiness is defined as " satisfaction with life as a whole ". Such concepts are " Whole Life Satisfaction " concepts of happiness. I show that there are hundreds of non-equivalent ways in which a WLS conception of happiness can be developed. However, every precise conception either requires actual satisfaction with life as a whole or requires hypothetical satisfaction with life as a (...) whole. I show that a person can be "happy" at a time even though he is not actually satisfied with his life as a whole at that time. I also show that a person can be "happy" at a time even though it is not correct to say that if he were to think about his life at that time, he would be satisfied with it as a whole. My thesis is that if you think that happiness is the Good, you should avoid defining happiness as whole life satisfaction. (shrink)

In this paper we study the variety \(\textsf{WL}\) of bounded distributive lattices endowed with an implication, called weak Lewis distributive lattices. This variety corresponds to the algebraic semantics of the \(\{\vee,\wedge,\Rightarrow,\bot,\top \}\) -fragment of the arithmetical base preservativity logic \(\mathsf {iP^{-}}\). The variety \(\textsf{WL}\) properly contains the variety of bounded distributive lattices with strict implication, also known as weak Heyting algebras. We introduce the notion of WL-frame and we prove a representation theorem for WL-lattices by means of WL-frames. We extended (...) this representation to a topological duality by means of Priestley spaces endowed with a special neighbourhood relation between points and closed upsets of the space. These results are applied in order to give a representation and a topological duality for the variety of weak Heyting–Lewis algebras, i.e., for the algebraic semantics of the arithmetical base preservativity logic \(\textsf{iP}^{-}\). (shrink)

In this article I criticize the non-consequentialist Weighted Lottery (WL) solution to the choice between saving a smaller or a larger group of people. WL aims to avoid what non-consequentialists see as consequentialism's unfair aggregation by giving equal consideration to each individual's claim to be rescued. In so doing, I argue, WL runs into another common objection to consequentialism: it is excessively demanding. WL links the right action with the outcome of a fairly weighted lottery, which means that an agent (...) can only act rightly if s/he has actually run the lottery. In many actual cases, this involves epistemic demands that can be almost impossible to meet. I argue that plausible moral principles cannot make such extreme epistemic demands. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:J. G. Fichte's Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre and Related Writings, 1794–95 by J. G. FichteIsabelle Thomas-FogielJ. G. Fichte. J. G. Fichte's Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre and Related Writings, 1794–95. Edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 608. Hardback, $145.00.This edition of texts written or taught by Fichte between February 1794 and the winter of 1794–95 is a major editorial event and (...) is destined to become the indispensable working tool for all English-speaking students and researchers interested in Fichte. Daniel Breazeale, one of the greatest Fichte specialists, offers here four essential texts. First, the heart of this edition and of Fichte's philosophy, is Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (literally "Doctrine of Science") of 1794–95. This central text has already been translated into English by Peter Heath and John Lachs under the title Science of Knowledge (New York: Appleton Century Crofts, 1970), but as Breazeale explains in his preface, he corrected the errors in translation and above all wished to propose a version that was "as broadly accessible as possible" (xi). This is a great challenge, given that this version of the Wissenschaftslehre (henceforth WL) is considered one of the most abstract and difficult texts in philosophy. Let us recall that the term 'WL' qualifies Fichte's entire undertaking and not just one of his works; Fichte thus professed more than fifteen versions of the WL.With this fundamental text, we are also offered a revised translation of two essays (which Breazeale had already edited in 1988): Concerning the Concept of the WL, or of So-Called 'Philosophy' (April–May 1794) and Outline of What is Distinctive of the WL with Regard to the Theoretical Power (winter 1794–95). Finally, Breazeale translates for the first time into English The Zurich WL, the lectures Fichte gave before a small committee from February 24 to April 26 of 1794. With this book, English-speaking readers thus have at their disposal, [End Page 334] in a single volume, some of the most fundamental writings of Fichte's first philosophy. The precision and clarity of this translation will, if not "force the reader to understand," to use a well-known title of Fichte, at least help the reader to appreciate one of the culminating points of idealism.But there is much more to this edition than a precise, fluent, and illuminating translation. It includes, first, an introduction of about one hundred pages that details Fichte's bibliographical, historical, and philosophical journey; then, endnotes that clarify certain moments of the text by placing them in their context, identifying the opponents targeted by Fichte, and restoring the debates of the time; lastly, a German-English and English-German glossary and an index. It is a considerable work, the fruit of a lifetime of research, which will introduce many beginners to Fichte's philosophy and at the same time renew many specialist debates. And it is undoubtedly a strength of this edition that it can be read at several levels, by the beginner as well as by the most experienced researcher.As this review cannot deal with all the rich analyses in Breazeale's introduction, I will give just a few examples. Breazeale first endeavors to reconstruct the genesis of Fichte's questioning. Indeed, the work of the historian of philosophy—as R. G. Collingwood conceived of it—consists first of all in restoring as closely as possible the question to which the text is intended to provide an answer. So, what question or problem was the source of his philosophy that he felt the need to rename WL? Fichte's initial problem was that of the foundation of transcendental idealism. The criticisms of skeptics like Gottlob E. Schulze (also known as "Aenesidemus") or Salomon Maimon had revealed the inadequacy of the foundations laid down by both Kant and Reinhold. As Fichte says and Breazeale reminds us, "The system has to be rebuilt" (4). This rebuilding is the common object of these four translated texts. In this respect, the Zurich lectures (of which only a small part remains) are the witness of this foundation work. Reading these... (shrink)

The inquiry into the nature of truth plays an important role in Fichte's thought, especially following his departure from Jena, and indeed in the WL-1804-ii the doctrine of truth emerges as the centerpiece of the WL. The following paper argues that the conception of truth evolves significantly after the WL-1804-ii, and that, in such texts as the Erlanger Metaphysik, the Spekulation zu Koppenhagen, and the 1812 WL, Fichte, building on the account of the hiatus in the WL-1804-ii while moving away (...) from its notion of absolute truth, seeks to understand truth in terms of freedom, or indeed, as what »yields to freedom«, wherein freedom, through the negativity of the concept, produces an emptiness, a clearing, that is »fulfilled« with truth. Anticipating the phenomenological account of truth yet without abandoning a strong sense of normativity, Fichte’s alethology remains a compelling alternative to contemporary positions. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate the developments of the notion of “transcendental apperception” in Fichte’s writings of the period 1811-1813. I pay particular attention at the second lessons on transcendental Logic, as well as at the lessons on the WL 1812 and 1813 and at the diarium 1813. I follow and closely examine the philosophical work Fichte does regarding the concept of apperception, which is at the core of Kant’s transcendental deduction in the Critique of pure reason. Claiming that Kant’s (...) notion of apperception was a mere factual one, Fichte aims at providing the genetic foundation of apperception, in order to avoid Kant’s shortcomings. I argue that Fichte submits therefore the concept of apperception to a double revision and that this entails the re-organization of his own transcendental-philosophical project. On the one hand, he carries out an epistemological revision of Kant’s thinking on apperception, by means of establishing the priority of the analytic unity over the synthetic unity and changing the formulation notoriously used by Kant for the explanation of apperception. On the other hand, Fichte’s work consists in grounding apperception ontologically. The issue I will focus on regarding this ontological foundation is the relation between apperception and life, which on my view proves to be key for the last exposition of Fichte’s transcendental-philosophical thought, despite the fact that Fichte could not complete and organize his reflection on this point, due to his death occurred in 1814. In the course of the paper I insist on the systematic link between Fichte’s epistemological and ontological re-elaboration of apperception and the self-reflection of transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

A surprising explosion of interest in J. G. Fichte's system of transcendental philosophy--the so-called Wissenschaftslehre or "Theory of Scientific Knowledge"--has occurred in recent decades. Whereas previous interest in Fichte centered primarily upon the early works which he published while in Jena and was concerned to establish his position on the mythical stairway stretching from the Critique of Pure Reason to the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, the most interesting recent work focuses upon his later, often unpublished, writings and makes large (...) claims concerning the originality and contemporary relevance of the WL. Despite a blizzard of new monographs and essays, a general overview of Fichte's entire work from the perspective of current research has been lacking. This lack is now remedied with the publication of this new Introduction to Fichte's thought by a noted exponent of the prevailing "Munich school" of Fichte interpreters, Joachim Widmann, who is best known for his highly original and rigorously formal study of Fichte's spring 1804 lectures on the WL. (shrink)

The Court of Appeals of New York held, in Council of the City of New York u. Giuliani, slip op. 02634, 1999 WL 179257, that New York City may not privatize a public city hospital without state statutory authorization. The court found invalid a sublease of a municipal hospital operated by a public benefit corporation to a private, for-profit entity. The court reasoned that the controlling statute prescribed the operation of a municipal hospital as a government function that must be (...) fulfilled by the public benefit corporation as long as it exists, and nothing short of legislative action could put an end to the corporation's existence.In 1969, the New York State legislature enacted the Health and Hospitals Corporation Act, establishing the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation as an attempt to improve the New York City public health system. Thirty years later, on a renewed perception that the public health system was once again lacking, the city administration approved a sublease of Coney Island Hospital from HHC to PHS New York, Inc., a private, for-profit entity. (shrink)

Während des Studiums des Zweiten Vortrags der WL 1804 und meiner Arbeit an der italienischen Übersetzung dieses Textes wurde mir klar, daß Fichte in dieser Phase dem Skeptizismus und damit der philosophischen Infragestellung des systematischen Denkens noch viel Aufmerksamkeit schenkte.

Während des Studiums des Zweiten Vortrags der WL 1804 und meiner Arbeit an der italienischen Übersetzung dieses Textes wurde mir klar, daß Fichte in dieser Phase dem Skeptizismus und damit der philosophischen Infragestellung des systematischen Denkens noch viel Aufmerksamkeit schenkte.