History of Modern Philosophy · Chapter 30%part II. From Kant to the Present Time.% (9)
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Besides the perspicuity which would have prevented these misunderstandings, Fichte misses something further in Kant's work. Considered as a system Kant's expositions were incomplete; and, on his own confession, his aim was not to furnish the science itself, but only the foundation and the materials for it. Therefore, although the Kantian philosophy is established as far as its inner content is concerned, there is still need of earnest work to systematize the fragments and results which he gives into a firmly connected and impregnable whole. The Wissenschaftslehre takes this completion of idealism for its mission. It cannot solve the problem by a commentary on the Kantian writings, nor by the correction and addition of particulars, but only by restoring the whole at a stroke. He alone finds the truth who new creates it in himself, independently and in his own way. Thus Fichte's system contains the same view of the matter as the critical system—the author is aware, runs the preface to the programme, On the Concept of the Science of Knowledge, 1794, "that he never will be able to say anything at which Kant has not hinted, immediately or mediately, more or less clearly, before him,"—but in his procedure he is entirely independent of the Kantian exposition. We shall first raise the question, What in the Kantian philosophy is in need of completion? and, secondly, What method must be adopted in completing it?
Kant discusses the laws of intelligence when they are already applied to objects, without enlightening us concerning the ground of these laws. He derived the pure concepts (the laws of substantiality, of causality, etc.) from (logic, and thus mediately from) experience instead of deducing them from the nature of intelligence; similarly he never furnished this deduction for the forms of intuition, space and time. In order to understand that intelligence, and why intelligence, must act in just this way (must think just by means of these categories), we must prove, and not merely, with Kant, assert, that these functions or forms are really laws of thought—or, what amounts to the same thing, that they are conditions of self-consciousness. Again, even if it be granted that Kant has explained the properties and relations of things (that they appear in space and time, and that their accidents must be referred to substances), the question still remains unanswered, Whence comes the matter which is taken up into these forms? So long as the whole object is not made to arise before the eyes of the thinker, dogmatism is not driven out of its last corner. The thing in itself is, like the rest, only a thought in the ego. If thus the antithesis between the form and the matter of cognition undergoes modification, so, further, the allied distinction between understanding and sensibility must, as Reinhold accurately recognized, be reduced to a common principle and receptivity be conceived as self-limiting spontaneity. In his practical philosophy also Kant left much unfinished. The categorical imperative is susceptible of further deduction, it is not the principle itself, but a conclusion from the true principle, from the injunction to absolute self-dependence on the part of reason; moreover, the nature of our consciousness of the moral law must be more thoroughly discussed, and in order to gain a real, instead of a merely formal, ethics the relation of this law to natural impulse. Finally, Kant never discussed the foundation of philosophy as a whole, but always separated its theoretical from its practical side, and Reinhold also did nothing to remove this dualism. In short, some things that Kant only asserted or presupposed can and must be proved, some that he kept distinct must be united. In what way are both to be accomplished?
Since correct inferences from correct premises yield correct results, and correct inference is easy to secure, everything depends on the correct point of departure. If we neglect this and consider only the process and the results of inference, there are two consistent systems: the dogmatic or realistic course of thought, which seeks to derive representations from things; and the idealistic, which, conversely, seeks to derive being from thought. Now, no matter how consistently dogmatism may proceed (and when it does so it becomes, like the system of Spinoza, materialism and fatalism or determinism, maintaining that all is nature, and all goes on mechanically; treats the spirit as a thing among others, and denies its metaphysical and moral independence, its immateriality and freedom), it may be shown to be false, because it starts from a false principle. Thought can never be derived from being, because it is not contained therein; from being only being can proceed, and never representation. Being, however, can be derived from thought, for consciousness is also being; nay, it is more than this, it is conscious being. And as consciousness contains both being and a knowledge of this being, idealism is superior to realism, because idealism includes the latter as a moment in itself, and hence can explain it, though it is not explicable by it. Dogmatism makes the mistake of going beyond consciousness or the ego, and working with empty, merely formal concepts. A concept is empty when nothing actual corresponds to it, or no intuition can be subsumed under it (here it is to be noted that, besides sensuous intuition, there is an intellectual intuition also; an example is found in the ego as a self-intuiting being). Philosophy, indeed, may abstract and must abstract, must rise above that which is given—for how could she explain life and particular knowledge if she assumed no higher standpoint than her object?—but true abstraction is nothing other than the separation of factors which in experience always present themselves together; it analyzes empirical consciousness in order to reconstruct it from its elements, it causes empirical consciousness to arise before our eyes, it is a pragmatic history of consciousness. Such abstraction, undertaken in order to a genetic consideration of the ego, does not go beyond experience, but penetrates into the depths of experience, is not transcendent, but transcendental, and, since it remains in close touch with that which is intuitable, yields a real philosophy in contrast to all merely formal philosophy.
These theoretical advantages of idealism are supplemented by momentous reasons of a practical kind, which determine the choice between the two systems, besides which none other is possible. The moral law says: Thou shalt be self-dependent. If I ought to be so I must be able to be so; but if I were matter I would not be able. Thus idealism proves itself to be the ethical mode of thought, while the opposite mode shows that those who favor it have not raised themselves to that independence of all that is external which is morally enjoined, for in order to be able to know ourselves free we must have made ourselves free.[1] Thus the philosophy which a man chooses depends on what sort of a man he is. If, on the other hand, the categorical imperative calls for belief in the reality of the external world and of other minds, this is nothing against idealism. For idealism does not deny the realism of life, but explains it as a necessary, though not a final, mode of intuition. The dogmatic mode of thought is merely an explanation from the standpoint of common consciousness, and for idealism, as the only view which is both scientifically and practically satisfactory, this explanation itself needs explaining. Realism and idealism, like natural impulse and moral will in the sphere of action, are both grounded in reason. But idealism is the true standpoint, because it is able to comprehend and explain the opposing theory, while the converse is not the case.
[Footnote 1: Cf. O. Liebmann (Ueber den individuellen Beweis für die Freiheit des Willens p, 131. 1866) "Here we discover the noteworthy point where theoretical and practical philosophy actually pass over into each other. For this principle results: In order to carry out the individual proof for the freedom of the will, I must do my duty."]
The nature, the goal, and the methods of the Science of Knowledge have now been determined. It is genuine, thoroughgoing idealism, which raises the Kantian philosophy to the rank of an evident science by deducing its premises from a first principle which is immediately certain, and by removing the twofold dualism of intuition and thought, of knowledge and volition, viz., by proving both contraries acts of one and the same ego. While Reinhold had sought a supreme truth as a fundamental principle of unity, without which the doctrine of knowledge would lack the systematic form essential to science, while Beck had interpreted the spirit of the Kantian philosophy in an idealistic sense, and Jacobi had demanded the elimination of the thing in itself, all these desires combined are fulfilled in Fichte's doctrine, and at the same time the results of the Critique of Reason are given that evidence which Aenesidemus-Schulze had missed in them. As an answer to the question, "How is knowledge brought about?" (as well the knowledge of common sense as that given in the particular sciences), "how is experience possible?", and as a construction of common consciousness as this manifests itself in life and in the particular sciences, Fichteanism adopts the name Science of Knowledge, being distinguished from the particular sciences by the fact that they discuss the voluntary, and it the necessary, representations or actions of the spirit. (The representation of a triangle or a circle is a free one, it may be omitted; the representation of space in general is a necessary one, from which it is impossible for us to abstract.) How does intelligence come to have sensations, to intuit space and time, and to form just such categories (thing and property, cause and effect, and not others quite different)? While Kant correctly described these functions of the intuiting and thinking spirit, and showed them actual, they must further be proven, be shown necessary or deduced. Deduced whence? From the "deed-acts" (Thathandlungen) of the ego which lie at the basis of all consciousness, and the highest of which are formulated in three principles.
%(b) The Three Principles.%—At the portal of the Science of Knowledge we are met not by an assertion, but by a summons—a summons to self-contemplation. Think anything whatever and observe what thou dost, and of necessity must do, in thinking. Thou wilt discover that thou dost never think an object without thinking thyself therewith, that it is absolutely impossible for thee to abstract from thine ego. And second, consider what thou dost when thou dost think thine "ego." This means to affirm or posit one's self, to be a subject-object. The nature of self-consciousness is the identity of the representing [subject] and the represented [object]. The pure ego is not a fact, but an original doing, the act of being for self (Fürsichsein), and the (philosophical, or—as seems to be the case according to some passages—even the common) consciousness of this doing an intellectual intuition; through this we become conscious of the deed-act which is ever (though unconsciously) performing. This is the meaning of the first of the principles: "The ego posits originally and absolutely its own being," or, more briefly: The ego posits itself; more briefly still: I am. The nature of the ego consists in positing itself as existing.[1] Since, besides this self-cogitation of the ego, an op-position is found among the facts of empirical consciousness (think only of the principle of contradiction), and yet, besides the ego, there is nothing which could be opposed, we must assume as a second principle: To the ego there is absolutely opposited a non-ego. These two principles must be united, and this can be accomplished only by positing the contraries (ego and non-ego), since they are both in the ego, as reciprocally limiting or partially sublating one another, that is, each as divisible (capable of quantitative determination). Accordingly the third principle runs: "The ego opposes in the ego a divisible non-ego to the divisible ego." From these principles Fichte deduces the three laws of thought, identity, contradiction, and sufficient reason, and the three categories of quality—reality, negation, and limitation or determination. Instead of following him in these labors, we may emphasize the significance of his view of the ego as pure activity without an underlying substratum, with which he carries dynamism over from the Kantian philosophy of nature to metaphysics. We must not conceive the ego as something which must exist before it can put forth its activities. Doing is not a property or consequence of being, but being is an accident and effect of doing. All substantiality is derivative, activity is primal; being arises from doing. The ego is nothing more than self-position; it exists not only for itself (für sich), but also through itself (durch sich).
[Footnote 1: The ego spoken of in the first of the principles, the ego as the object of intellectual intuition and as the ground and creator of all being, is, as the second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge clearly announces, not the individual, but the I-ness (Ichheit) (which is to be presupposed as the prius of the manifold of representation, and which is exalted above the opposition of subject and object), mentality in general, eternal reason, which is common to all and the same in all, which is present in all thinking and at the basis thereof, and to which particular persons stand related merely as accidents, as instruments, as special expressions, destined more and more to lose themselves in the universal form of reason. But, further still, a distinction must be made between the absolute ego as intuition (as the form of I-ness), from which the Science of Knowledge starts, and the ego as Idea (as the supreme goal of practical endeavor) with which it ends. In neither is the ego conceived as individual; in the former the I-ness is not yet determined to the point of individuality, in the latter individuality has disappeared, Fichte is right when he thinks it remarkable that "a system whose beginning and end and whole nature is aimed at forgetfulness of individuality in the theoretical sphere and denial of it in the practical sphere" should be "called egoism." And yet not only opponents, but even adherents of Fichte, as is shown by Friedrich Schlegel's philosophy of genius, have, by confusing the pure and the empirical ego, been guilty of the mistake thus censured. On the philosophy of the romanticists cf. Erdmann's History, vol. ii. §§ 314, 315; Zeller, p. 562 seq.; and R. Haym, Die Romantische Schule, 1870.]
The actions expressed in the three principles are never found pure in experience, nor do they represent isolated acts of the ego. Intelligence can think nothing without thinking itself therewith; it is equally impossible for it to think "I am" without at the same time thinking something else which is not itself; subject and object are inseparable. It is rather true that the acts of position described are one single, all-inclusive act, which forms only the first member in a connected system of pre-conscious actions, through which consciousness is produced, and the complete investigation of whose members constitutes the further business of the Science of Knowledge as a theory of the nature of reason. In this the Science of Knowledge employs a method which, by its rhythm of analysis and synthesis, development and reconciliation of opposites, became the model of Hegel's dialectic method. The synthesis described in the third principle, although it balances thesis and antithesis and unites them in itself, still contains contrary elements, in order to whose combination a new synthesis must be sought. In this, in turn, the analytic discovery and the synthetic adjustment of a contrariety is repeated, etc., etc. The original synthesis, moreover, prescribes a division of the inquiry into two parts, one theoretical and the other practical. For it contains the following principles: The ego posits itself as limited by the non-ego—it functions cognitively; and: The ego posits itself as determining the non-ego—it functions volitionally and actively.
%(c) The Theoretical Ego.%—In positing itself as determined by the non-ego, the ego is at once passive (affected by something other than itself) and active (it posits its own limitation). This is possible only as it posits reality in itself only in part, and transfers to the non-ego so much as it does not posit in itself. Passivity is diminished activity, negation of the totality of reality. From reflection on this relation between ego and non-ego spring the categories of reciprocal determination, of causality (the non-ego as the cause of the passion of the ego), and substantiality (this passion merely the self-limitation of the ego). The conflict between the causality of the non-ego (by which the ego is affected) and the substantiality of the ego (in which and the activity of which all reality is contained) is resolved only by the assumption of two activities (or, rather, of two opposite directions of one activity) in the ego, one of which (centrifugal, expansive) strives infinitely outward while the other (centripetal or contractile) sets a bound to the former, and drives the ego back into itself, whereupon another excursus follows, and a new limitation and return, etc. With every repetition of this double act of production and reflection a special class of representations arises. Through the first limitation of the in itself unlimited activity "sensation" arises (as a product of the "productive imagination"). Because the ego produces this unconsciously, it appears to be given, brought about by influence from without. The second stage, "intuition," is reached when the ego reflects on sensation, when it opposes to itself something foreign which limits it. Thirdly, by reflection on intuition an "image" of that which is intuited is constructed, and, as such, distinguished from a real thing to which the image corresponds; at this point the categories and the forms of intuition, space and time, appear, which thus arise along with the object.[1] The fourth stadium is "understanding," which steadies the fluctuating intuition into a concept, realizes the object, and looks upon it as the cause of the intuition. Fifthly, "judgment" makes its appearance as the faculty of free reflection and abstraction, or the power to consider a definite content or to abstract from it. As judgment is itself the condition of the bound reflection of the understanding, so it points in turn to its condition, to the sixth and highest stage of intelligence, "reason," by means of which we are able to abstract from all objects whatever, while reason itself, pure self-consciousness, is that from which abstraction is never possible. It is only in the highest stage that consciousness or a representation of representation takes place. And at the culmination of the theoretical ego the point of transition to the practical ego appears. Here the ego becomes aware that in positing itself as determined by the non-ego it has only limited itself, and therefore is itself the ground of the whole content of consciousness; here it apprehends itself as determining the non-ego or as acting, and recognizes as its chief mission to impress the form of the ego as far as possible on the non-ego, and ever to extend the boundary further.
[Footnote 1: The object is a product of the ego only for the observer, not for the observed ego itself, to which, from this standpoint of imagination, it appears rather as a thing in itself independent of the ego and affecting it. Further, it must so appear, because the ego, in its after reflection on its productive activity, and just by this reflection, transforms the productive action considered into a fixed and independent product found existing.]
The "deduction of representation" whose outline has just been given was the first example (often imitated in the school of Schelling and Hegel) of a constructive psychology, which, from the mission or the concept of the soul—in this case from the nature of self-consciousness—deduces the various psychical functions as a system of actions, each of which is in its place implied by the rest, as it in turn presupposes them. This is distinguished from the sensationalistic psychology, which is also genetic (cf. pp. 245-250), as well as from the mechanical or associational psychology, which likewise excludes the idea of an isolated coexistence of mental faculties, by the fact that it demands a new manifestation of the soul-ground in order to the ascent from one member of the series to the next higher. It is also distinguished from sensationalism by its teleological point of view. For no matter how much Fichte, too, may speak of the mechanism of consciousness, it is plain to the reader of the theoretical part of his system not only that he makes this mechanism work in the service of an end, but also that he finds its origin in purposive activity of the ego; while the practical part gives further and decisive confirmation of the fact. The danger and the defect of such a constructive treatment of psychology—as we may at once remark for all later attempts—lies in imagining that the task of mental science has been accomplished and all its problems solved when each particular activity of the ego has been assigned its mission and work for the whole, and its place in the system, without any indication of the means through which this destination can be fulfilled.
%(d) The Practical Ego.%—The deduction of representation has shown how (through what unconscious acts of the ego) the different stages of cognition, the three sensuous and the three intellectual functions of representation, come into being. It has proved incapable, however, of giving any account of the way in which the ego comes at one point to arrest its activity, which tends infinitely outward, and to turn it back upon itself. We know, indeed, that this first limitation, through which sensation arises, and on which as a basis the understanding, by continued reflection constructs the objective world, was necessary in order that consciousness and knowledge might arise. If the ego did not limit its infinite activity neither representation nor an objective world would exist. But why, then, are there such things as consciousness, representation, and a world? From the standpoint of the theoretical ego this problem, "Whence the original non-ego or opposition (Anstoss), which impels the ego back upon itself?" cannot be solved, since it is only through the opposition that it itself arises. The "deduction of the opposition," which the theoretical part of the Science of Knowledge did not furnish, is to be looked for from the practical part. The primacy of practical reason, already emphasized by Kant, gives us the answer: The ego limits itself and is theoretical, in order to be practical. The whole machinery of representation and the represented world exists only to furnish us the possibility of fulfilling our duty. We are intelligence in order that we may be able to be will.
Action, action—that is the end of our existence. Action is giving form to matter, it is the alteration or elaboration of an object, the conquest of an impediment, of a limitation. We cannot act unless we have something in, on, and against which to act. The world of sensation and intuition is nothing but a means for attaining our ethical destiny, it is "the material of our duty under the form of sense." The theoretical ego posits an object (Gegenstand) that the practical ego may experience resistance (Widerstand). No action is possible without a world as the object of action; no world is possible without a consciousness which represents it; no consciousness possible without reflection of the ego on itself; no reflection without limitation, without an opposition or non-ego. The Anstoss is deduced. The ego posits a limit (is theoretical) in order (as practical) to overcome it. Our duty is the only per se (Ansich) of the phenomenal world, the only truly real element in it: "Things are in themselves that which we ought to make of them." Objectivity exists only to be more and more sublated, that is, to be so worked up that the activity of the ego may in it become evident.—The same ground of explanation which reveals the necessity of an external nature enables us to understand why the one infinite ego (the universal life or the Deity, as Fichte puts it in his later works) divides into the many empirical egos or individuals, why it does not carry out its plan immediately, but through finite spirits as its organs. Action is possible only under the form of the individual, only in individuals are consciousness and morality possible. Without resistance, no action; without conflict, no morality. Individuality, it is true, is to be overcome and destroyed in moral endeavor; but in order to this it must have existed. Virtue is a conquest over external and internal nature.
A gradation of practical functions corresponding to the series of theoretical activities leads from feeling and striving (longing and desire) through the system of impulses (the impulse to representation or reflection, to production, to satisfaction) up to moral will or the impulse to harmony with self, which stands opposed to the natural impulses as the categorical imperative. The practical ego mediates between the theoretical and the absolute ego. The ego ought to be infinite and self-dependent, but finds itself finite and dependent on a non-ego—a contradiction which is resolved by the ego becoming practical, by the fact that in ever increasing measure it subdues nature to itself, and by such increasing extension of the boundary draws nearer and ever nearer to the realization of its destination, to become absolute ego.
%2. The Science of Ethics and of Right.%
The moral law demands the control of the sensuous impulse by the pure impulse. If the former aims at comfortable ease and enjoyment, the latter is directed toward satisfaction with one's self, to endeavor and self-dependence. (Enjoyment is inevitable, it is true, as satisfaction where any impulse whatever is carried out; only it must not form the end of action.) Morality is activity for its own sake, the radical evil—from which only a miracle can deliver us, but a miracle which we must ourselves perform—is inertness, lack of will to rise above the natural determinateness of the impulse of self-preservation to the clear consciousness of duty and of freedom. For the moral man there is no resting; each end attained becomes for him the impulse to renewed endeavor, each task fulfilled leads him to a fresh one. Become self-dependent, act autonomously, make thyself free; let every action have a place in a series, in the continuation of which the ego must become independent. To this formal and universal norm, again, there is added a special injunction for each individual. Each individual spirit has its definite mission assigned to it by the world-order: each ought to do that which it alone should and can do. Always fulfill thy moral vocation, thy special destination.[1] Or both in popular combination: Never act contrary to conscience.
[Footnote 1: Although Fichte was justly charged with surpassing even the abstractness of the Kantian ethics with his bald moral principle, the self-dependence of the ego, he deserves praise for having given ethics a concrete content of indisputable soundness and utility by his introduction of Jacobi's idea of purified individuality.]
The elevation to freedom is accomplished gradually. At first freedom consists only in the consciousness of the natural impulse, then follows a breaking away from this by means of maxims, which in the beginning are maxims of individual happiness. Later on a blind enthusiasm for self-dependence arises and produces an heroic spirit, which would rather be generous than just, which bestows sympathy more readily than respect; true morality, however, does not arise until, with constant attention to the law and continued watchfulness of self, duty is done for its own sake. No man is for a moment secure of his morality without continued endeavor. In order to deliverance from the original sin of inertness and its train, cowardice and falsity, men stand in need of examples, such as have been given them in the founders of religions, to construe for them the riddle of freedom. The necessary enlightenment concerning moral conviction is given by the Church, whose symbols are not to be looked upon as dogmatic propositions, but only as means for the proclamation of the eternal verities, and which, like the state (for both are institutions based on necessity), has for its object to make itself unnecessary as time goes on.
The system of duties distinguishes four classes of duties on the basis of the twofold opposition of universal (non-transferable) and particular (transferable) duties, and of unconditional duties (directed to the whole) and conditional duties (directed toward self). These four classes are the duties of self-preservation, of class, of non-interference with others, and of vocation. The lower calling includes the producers, artisans, and tradesmen, whose action terminates directly on nature; and the higher, the scholars, teachers of the people or clergy, artists, and government officials, who work directly on the community of rational beings. Fichte's thoughtful and sympathetically written discussion of marriage is in pleasant contrast to the bald, purely legal view of this relation adopted by Kant.
Natural right is for Fichte, as for Kant, whose theory of right, moreover, appeared later than Fichte's, entirely independent of ethics, and distinguished from the latter by its exclusive reference to external conduct instead of to the disposition and the will. The rule of right gains from the moral law, it is true, new sanction for conscience, but cannot be derived from the law.—The concept of right is to be deduced as a necessary act of the ego, i.e., to be shown a condition of self-consciousness. The ego must posit itself as an individual, and can accomplish this only by positing itself in a relation of right to other finite rational beings; without a thou, no I. A finite rational being cannot posit itself without ascribing to itself a free activity in an external sense-world; and it cannot effect this latter unless (1) it ascribes free activity to other beings as well, hence not without assuming other finite rational beings outside itself, and positing itself as standing in the relation of right to them; and unless (2) it ascribes to itself a material body and posits this as standing under the influence of a person outside it. But, further, Fichte considers it possible to deduce the particular constitution both of the external world and of the human body (as the sphere of all free actions possible to the person). In the former there must be present a tough, durable matter capable of resistance, and light and air in order to the possibility of intercourse between spirits; while the latter must be an organized, articulated nature-product, furnished with senses, capable of infinite determination, and adapted to all conceivable motions.