Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (May 19, 1762 - January 27, 1814) has significant importance as one of the progenitors of German idealism and as a follower of Kant.

Fichte believed that Kant was mistaken to argue for the existence of noumena, of things as they are, not just as they are perceived through the categories of human reason. Fichte saw the rigorous and systematic separation of "things as they are" (noumena) and things "as they appear to be" (phenomena) as an invitation to skepticism.

Rather than invite such skepticism, Fichte made the radical suggestion that we should throw out the notion that there is a noumenal world and instead accept the fact that consciousness is not grounded in a so called "real world." In fact, Fichte is famous for originating the argument that consciousness is not grounded in anything outside of itself. This notion eventually becomes the defining characteristic of German Idealism and is thus essential to understanding the philosophy of Hegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer, though they both reject Fichte's notion that human consciousness is itself sufficient ground for experience, and therefore postulate another "absolute" consciousness.

In 1806, in a Berlin occupied by Napoléon, he made a series of Addresses to the German Nation which became an incentive for German nationalism. Here, Fichte indirectly continues his anti-Semitic argumentation from his early works on religion and the French Revolution.

His son Immanuel Hermann Fichte was also a philosopher.

At age 51 he died of typhus.

Bibliography

Primary Sources:

Early Philosophical Writings Edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988

Foundations of the Transcendental Philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre) Nova Methodo (1796-1799) Edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992

Introduction to the Wissenscaftslehre and Other Writings (1797 - 1800) Edited and translated by Daniel Breazeale. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994

Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (1792,93) Translated by Garret Green. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1978

Science of Knowledge with the First and Second Introductions Translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982

Addresses to the German Nation Edited by George Armstrong Kelly. Translated by R F Jones and George Henry Turnbull. New York: Harper & Row, 1968

Foundations of Natural Right Edited by Frederick Neuhouser. Translated by Michael Baur. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000

The Vocation of Man Translated by Peter Preuss. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987

Secondary Sources (English):

Daniel Breazeale. "Fichte's 'Aenesidemus' Review and the Transformation of German Idealism" The Review of Metaphysics 34 (1980/1) 545-68.

Daniel Breazeale and Thomas Rockmore (eds) Fichte: Historical Contexts/Contemporary Controversies. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1997.

Frederick Neuhouser. Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

Robert R Williams. Recognition: Fichte and Schelling on the Other. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.

Gunther Zoller. Fichte's Transcendental Philosophy: The Original Duplicity of Intelligence and Will. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.