Fichte's life and works

Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born on May 19, 1762 in Rammenau, Saxony (in the eastern part of today's Germany). He studied theology and law at Jena, Wittenberg and Leipzig without taking a degree (1784–1788) and served as a private tutor in several families in Saxony, Prussia and Switzerland (1784–1793). In 1790, upon studying Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and Critique of Practical Reason (1788), he became an enthusiastic adherent and supporter of Kant's Critical philosophy. Indeed, when his first publication, Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792) appeared anonymously, it was widely assumed to be a work by Kant himself. Kant publicly declared Fichte to be the author of the latter work and thereby launched Fichte's meteoric philosophical career. He was offered a professorship at the University of Jena, where he began teaching in the Summer Semester 1794. During his five years at Jena, Fichte's widely attended lectures and numerous publications exercised a tremendous influence on German philosophical and literary culture.

Fichte's major works from his Jena period are Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre (1794), Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (1794–1795), Foundation of Natural Right (1796–1797), Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (1797–1798), and The System of Ethics (1798). His lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796–1799), which are preserved only in student transcripts, are also central documents for any informed understanding of Fichte's early system.

First section [of ethics in the proper sense of the term]: Formal conditions for the morality of our actions

The will in particular

I could turn immediately to a synthetic–systematic statement of the formal conditions for the morality of our actions. But since formal morality, or what is generally meant by “morality” [Moralität], is also called good will, and since I myself intend to characterize it in this way, I first have to provide an account of my concept of the will [iv, 158].

To be sure, everything that pertains to this elucidation has already been presented under another name; but it is still necessary to address this subject explicitly under this name [i.e., “will”], in order to indicate the connection between my presentation of the same and the way it has usually been dealt with hitherto.

An act of willing [Wollen] is an absolutely free transition from indeterminacy to determinacy, accompanied by a consciousness of this transition. This action has been sufficiently described above. – One can distinguish the objective I, which undergoes a transition from indeterminacy to determinacy, and the subjective I, which intuits itself in this transition. In willing, however, these two are united. The will [Wille] is neither the drive nor the longing nor the desiring. In the case of a drive there is a propensity and an inclination; in the case of desiring there is, in addition, consciousness of the object of the inclination, but instead of any determinacy of the active I there is only indeterminacy.

Preliminary remark concerning this deduction

It is claimed that the human mind finds itself to be absolutely compelled to do certain things entirely apart from any extrinsic ends, but purely and simply for the sake of doing them, and to refrain from doing other things, equally independently of any extrinsic ends, purely and simply for the sake of leaving them undone. Insofar as such a compulsion [Zunötigung] is supposed to manifest itself necessarily in human beings just as surely as they are human beings, this constitutes what is called the moral or ethical nature of human beings as such.

Human cognition can relate to this, its moral nature in a twofold manner. On the one hand, a human being may find the above-mentioned inner compulsion through self-observation, as a fact – and then it is of course assumed that this fact can certainly be found through attentive self-observation. In this case, one sticks with the sheer fact as such and is satisfied to have found that this is simply how things are, without asking how and on the basis of what grounds they become what they are. One might even decide, freely and from one's own inclination, to attach unconditional faith to this inner compulsion: i.e., one might decide actually to think that one's highest vocation is what is represented to one as such by this inner compulsion and to act unfailingly in accordance with this faith.

Preliminary remark concerning this deduction

To say that a concept possesses reality and applicability means that our world – that is to say, the world for us, the world of our consciousness – is in some respect determined by this concept. The concept in question is one of those concepts through which we think objects; and, because we think objects by means of this concept or in this manner, the object possesses certain distinctive features [Merkmale] for us. To seek the reality of a concept thus means to investigate how and in what way it determines an object. – I will clarify this by means of several examples.

The concept of causality possesses reality, because it is through this concept that a determinate connection arises among the manifold objects of my world. In consequence of this concept, thinking proceeds from one thing to another, and one can infer from an effect, as such, to a cause [iv, 64] or from a known cause to an effect. The act of thinking of the one is already included in a certain respect in the thought of the other. The concept of right possesses reality.

First Period: North America From Benedict Spinoza to the French Revolution

As our Master appeared, Christ has triumphed. And once again, a period has come to the end of its cycle. The history of revelation of God the Son – or the knowledge of God in the feelings of the soul – which has until now dominated the earth, has been fulfilled and closed. With our immortal Teacher, the foundations of the new age have been laid; with him began the history of revelation of God [as] the Holy Spirit, or the purest knowledge of God. When Spinoza was fully formed [ausgebildet], he united once again, like his ancestors Adam and Christ, the conflicts of his age in his divine soul into a living whole. And once again, he saw more than his predecessors and deeper than his contemporaries; for he recognized God who is Life. For God revealed himself to him not in the feelings of the soul, but in the bright light of reason. He who was full of his spirit, was lifted beyond the old quarrels of opinion about the letter of the Gospel, because he comprehended God purely spiritually and honoured him through truth.

[First published in Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung (German Brussels Gazette), 31 October 1847 (Second article).]

In order to be clear about the consequences of such a revolution, we should first acquaint ourselves with its pre-conditions. Let us then recapitulate them.

As we have seen, it is Big Industry which ultimately possesses all the means for the overthrow of the existing social organization that rests on private industry, private commerce, and private property. It is that which creates the revolutionary class and creates unity against the bourgeois class. It is that which makes it subjectively possible for the proletariat to cast off its yoke, by providing it with a consciousness of its situation. Finally, it is Big Industry which also brings about the objective material means for a social upheaval, by creating such a surplus of unutilized instruments of production that it is extremely easy to produce through them abundantly all that we require, once the obstacles which today hinder production at every turn are removed.

What is it which now hinders production? The commercial crises. How do these commercial crises arise? Through over-production. Why is more being produced today than can be consumed? Do all members of society possess a surplus of what they require? No: most do not have even the very necessities of life, much less all that a human being needs for the development of the totality of his inclinations, capacities, and powers; on the contrary, much more will have to be produced in order to satisfy all needs and the needs of all.

First Period: India. From Adam to the Deluge

Adam was the last and most noble product of the earth after it stopped bearing fruit. And the fruit which it brought forth into the world multiplied and became ever more noble, each according to its own art. But Adam was the kernel of the spirit, which would reach its perfection in his descendants. His soul was whole; he lived in the Eden of his innocence and bliss. But the time arrived when he felt a discord within himself, as ill-balanced passions arose in him, which put him in conflict with his own self and exiled him from his Eden. So began the apex and the glory of his life, after which he faced his death. This, however, was caused by love, which pushed him to seek his spouse. Because man is only half a life, and his spirit is unfulfilled until he is again united with the woman, which was in the beginning one with him, but later appeared separated from him. So when the two spouses found each other, they loved each other.