Fichte's critics argued that his mimicry of Kant's difficult style produced works that were barely intelligible. On the other hand, Fichte acknowledged the difficulty, but argued that his works were clear and transparent to those who made the effort to think without preconceptions and prejudices. Fichte did not endorse Kant's argument for the existence of "things in themselves", the supra-sensible reality beyond direct human perception. Fichte saw the rigorous and
systematic separation of "
things in themselves" and things "as they appear to us" (
phenomena) as an invitation to
skepticism. Rather than invite skepticism, Fichte made the radical suggestion that we should throw out the notion of a world-in-itself and accept that
consciousness does not have a grounding. In fact, Fichte achieved fame for originating the argument that consciousness is not grounded in outside of itself. The phenomenal world as such, arises from consciousness, the activity of the I, and moral awareness.
Central theory In
Foundations of Natural Right (1797), Fichte argued that
self-consciousness is a social phenomenon. For Fichte, a necessary condition of every subject's self-awareness is the existence of other rational subjects. These others call or summon (
fordern auf) the subject or self out of its unconsciousness and into an awareness of itself as a free individual. Fichte proceeds from the general principle that the I (
das Ich) must posit itself as an individual in order to posit (
setzen) itself at all, and that in order to posit itself as an individual, it must recognize itself to a calling or summons (
Aufforderung) by other free individual(s) — called to limit its own freedom out of respect for the freedom of the others. The same condition applies to the others in development. Mutual recognition (
gegenseitig anerkennen) of rational individuals is a condition necessary for the individual I. The argument for
intersubjectivity is central to the conception of selfhood developed in the
Foundations of the Science of Knowledge (
Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre, 1794/1795). According to Fichte, consciousness of the self depends upon resistance or a check by something that is not self, yet is not immediately ascribable to a particular sensory perception. In his later 1796–99 lectures (his
Nova methodo), Fichte incorporated this into his revised presentation of the foundations of his system, where the summons takes its place alongside original feeling, which takes the place of the earlier
Anstoss (see below) as a limit on the absolute freedom and a condition for the positing of the I. The I posits this situation for itself. To posit does not mean to 'create' the objects of consciousness. The principle in question simply states that the essence of an I lies in the assertion of self-identity; that is, consciousness presupposes self-consciousness. Such immediate self-identity cannot be understood as a psychological fact, or an act or accident of some previously existing substance or being. It is an action of the I, but one that is identical with the very existence of this same I. In Fichte's technical terminology, the original unity of self-consciousness is an action and the product of the same I, as a "fact and/or act" (
Thathandlung;
Modern German:
Tathandlung), a unity that is presupposed by and contained within every fact and every act of empirical consciousness, although it never appears as such. The I can posit itself only as limited. It cannot even posit its own limitations, in the sense of producing or creating these limits. The finite I cannot be the ground of its own passivity. Instead, for Fichte, if the I is to posit itself, it must simply discover itself to be limited, a discovery that Fichte characterizes as an "impulse," "repulse," or "resistance" (
Anstoss; Modern German:
Anstoß) to the free practical activity of the I. Such an original limitation of the I is, however, a limit for the I only insofar as the I posits it as a limit. The I does this, according to Fichte's analysis, by positing its own limitation, first, as only a feeling, then as a sensation, next as an intuition of a thing, and finally as a summons of another person. The
Anstoss thus provides the essential impetus that first posits in motion the entire complex train of activities that finally result in our conscious experience both of ourselves and others as empirical individuals and of the world around us. Although
Anstoss plays a similar role as the
thing in itself does in
Kantian philosophy, unlike Kant, Fichte's
Anstoss is not something foreign to the I. Instead, it denotes the original encounter of the I with its own finitude. Rather than claim that the not-I (
das Nicht-Ich) is the cause or ground of the
Anstoss, Fichte argues that not-I is posited by the I in order to explain to itself the
Anstoss in order to become conscious of
Anstoss. The
Wissenschaftslehre demonstrates that
Anstoss must occur if self-consciousness is to come about but is unable to explain the actual occurrence of
Anstoss. There are limits to what can be expected from an a priori deduction of experience, and this, for Fichte, equally applies to Kant's transcendental philosophy. According to Fichte, transcendental philosophy can explain that the world must have space, time, and causality, but it can never explain why objects have the particular sensible properties they happen to have or why I am this determinate individual rather than another. This is something that the I simply has to discover at the same time that it discovers its own freedom, and indeed, is a condition for the latter.
Dieter Henrich (1966) proposed that Fichte was able to move beyond a "reflective theory of consciousness". According to Fichte, the self must already have some prior acquaintance with itself, independent of the act of reflection ("no object comes to consciousness except under the condition that I am aware of myself, the conscious subject"). This idea is what Henrich called
Fichte's original insight.
Views on women Fichte has been criticised by modern scholars for his views on women. Christopher Clark, in his book
Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947, makes the following claim: "The patriot philosopher Fichte had been arguing since the late 1790s that active citizenship, civic freedom and even property rights should be withheld from women, whose calling was to subject themselves utterly to the authority of their fathers and husbands." Clark here does not quote Fichte directly or in paraphrase and provides no primary or secondary sources for his claim. Additionally, Marion Heinz, in her chapter "Love and Recognition in Fichte and the Alternative Position of de Beauvoir" in Boyle and Dinzel's book
The Impact of Idealism: The Legacy of Post-Kantian German Thought critisises Fichte's view. She argues, "If the measures developed to defend the value and dignity of woman require their sexual, legal and political subjection, then we are dealing with sheer hypocrisy, for the fundamental postulate of equality has been violated both in the exposition of the problem and in the proposed solution." Fichte states that women cannot hold public office. He gives two possible reasons. First, she would not be fully subjugating herself to her husband which "is contrary to her female dignity." Second, she is sufficiently devoted to her husband in essence making him the public official instead of her.
Nationalism Between December 1807 and March 1808, Fichte gave a series of lectures concerning the "German nation" and its culture and language, projecting the kind of national education he hoped would raise it from the humiliation of its defeat at the hands of the French. Having been a supporter of Revolutionary France, Fichte became disenchanted by 1804 as Napoleon's armies advanced through Europe, occupying German territories, stripping them of their raw materials and subjugating them to foreign rule. He came to believe Germany would be responsible for carrying the virtues of the
French Revolution into the future. Disappointed in the French, he turned to the German nation as the instrument of fulfilling it. These lectures, entitled the
Addresses to the German Nation, coincided with a period of reform in the Prussian government under the chancellorship of
Baron vom Stein. The
Addresses display Fichte's interest during that period in language and culture as vehicles of human spiritual development. Fichte built upon earlier ideas of
Johann Gottfried Herder and attempted to unite them with his approach. The aim of the German nation, according to Fichte, was to "found an empire of spirit and reason, and to annihilate completely the crude physical force that rules of the world." Like Herder's German nationalism, Fichte's was cultural, and grounded in aesthetic, literary, and moral principles. This reading of Fichte was often bolstered through reference to an unpublished letter from 1793, ''Contributions to the Correction of the Public's Judgment concerning the French Revolution'', in which Fichte expressed anti-Semitic sentiments, such as arguing against extending civil rights to Jews and calling them a "state within a state" that could "undermine" the German nation. However, attached to the letter is a footnote in which Fichte provides an impassioned plea for permitting Jews to practice their religion without hindrance. Furthermore, the final act of Fichte's academic career was to resign as rector of the University of Berlin in protest when his colleagues refused to punish the harassment of Jewish students. While recent scholarship has sought to dissociate Fichte's writings on nationalism with their adoption by the Nazi Party, the association continues to blight his legacy, although Fichte, as if to exclude all ground of doubt, clearly and distinctly prohibits, in his reworked version of
The Science of Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge (see
§ Final period in Berlin) genocide and other crimes against humanity: : If you say that it is your conscience's command to exterminate peoples for their sins, [...] we can confidently tell you that you are wrong; for such things can never be commanded against the free and moral force.
Economics Fichte's 1800 economic treatise
The Closed Commercial State had a profound influence on the economic theories of
German Romanticism. In it, Fichte argues the need for the strictest, purely guild-like regulation of industry. The "exemplary rational state" (
Vernunftstaat), Fichte argues, should not allow any of its "subjects" to engage in this or that production, failing to pass the preliminary test, not certifying government agents in their professional skills and agility. According to
Vladimir Mikhailovich Shulyatikov, "this kind of demand was typical of
Mittelstund, the German petty
middle class, the class of
artisans, hoping by creating artificial barriers to stop the victorious march of big capital and thus save themselves from inevitable death. The same demand was imposed on the state, as is evident from Fichte's treatise, by the German "factory" (
Fabrike), more precisely, the manufacture of the early 19th century". Fichte opposed
free trade and unrestrained capitalist industrial growth, stating: "There is an endless war of all against all ... And this war is becoming more fierce, unjust, more dangerous in its consequences, the more the world's population grows, the more acquisitions the trading state makes, the more production and art (industry) develops and, together with thus, the number of circulating goods increases, and with them the needs become more and more diversified." The only means that could save the modern world, which would destroy evil at the root, is, according to Fichte, to split the "world state" (the
global market) into separate self-sufficient bodies. Each such body, each "closed trading state" will be able to regulate its internal economic relations. It will be able to both extract and process everything that is needed to meet the needs of its citizens. It will carry out the ideal organization of production. Fichte argued for government regulation of industrial growth, writing "Only by limitation does a certain industry become the property of the class that deals with it". ==Final period in Berlin==