Idealism and Objectivity: Understanding Fichte’s Jena Project

Abstract

The theoretical writings from Johann Gottlieb Fichte's short tenure at Jena (1794-99) are among the most difficult and influential works of classical German philosophy. This book offers a new interpretation of Fichte's Jena system, focusing in particular on the problem of the objectivity of consciousness. The Jena system, the author argues, set out to develop an account of the constitutive structures of subjectivity in virtue of which conscious states have objective content. It is in the context of this project that Fichte's central philosophical innovations must be understood: his account of the acts of "self-positing" and "opposing"; his attack on the thing in itself; the development of a dialectical strategy in transcendental inquiry; and his bold assertion of the "primacy of practice." Fichte's investigations of objectivity find their center of gravity, it is argued, in two powerful insights. First, the theory of objectivity must be idealistic rather than naturalistic or "dogmatic." That is, it must transcend the conception of human beings as simply complex mechanisms determined by their causal transactions with the world. Second, the theory of objectivity must find its basis in an account of the practical character of human beings - our character as agents, comporting ourselves teleologically in a world in which we find resistance. Fichte's Jena project is of direct relevance to contemporary debates in both analytic and continental philosophy.

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