Johann Gottlieb Fichte
German philosopher
born May 19, 1762, Rammenau, Upper Lusatia, Saxony [now
in Germany]
died Jan. 27, 1814, Berlin
Main
German philosopher and patriot, one of the great
transcendental idealists.
Early life and career
Fichte was the son of a ribbon weaver. Educated at the
Pforta school (1774–80) and at the universities of Jena
(1780) and of Leipzig (1781–84), he started work as a tutor.
In this capacity he went to Zürich in 1788 and to Warsaw in
1791 but left after two weeks’ probation.
The major influence on his thought at this time was that
of Immanuel Kant, whose doctrine of the inherent moral worth
of man harmonized with Fichte’s character; and he resolved
to devote himself to perfecting a true philosophy, the
principles of which should be practical maxims. He went from
Warsaw to see Kant himself at Königsberg (now Kaliningrad,
Russia), but this first interview was disappointing. Later,
when Fichte submitted his Versuch einer Kritik aller
Offenbarung (“An Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation”)
to Kant, the latter was favourably impressed by it and
helped find a publisher (1792). Fichte’s name and preface
were accidentally omitted from the first edition, and the
work was ascribed by its earliest readers to Kant himself;
when Kant corrected the mistake while commending the essay,
Fichte’s reputation was made.
In the Versuch, Fichte sought to explain the conditions
under which revealed religion is possible; his exposition
turns upon the absolute requirements of the moral law.
Religion itself is the belief in this moral law as divine,
and such belief is a practical postulate, necessary in order
to add force to the law. The revelation of this divine
character of morality is possible only to someone in whom
the lower impulses have been, or are, successful in
overcoming reverence for the law. In such a case it is
conceivable that a revelation might be given in order to add
strength to the moral law. Religion ultimately then rests
upon the practical reason and satisfies the needs of man,
insofar as he stands under the moral law. In this conclusion
are evident the prominence assigned by Fichte to the
practical element and the tendency to make the moral
requirements of the ego the ground for all judgment on
reality.
In 1793 Fichte married Johanna Maria Rahn, whom he had
met during his stay in Zürich. In the same year, he
published anonymously two remarkable political works, of
which Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urteile des Publikums
über die französische Revolution (“Contribution to the
Correction of the Public’s Judgments Regarding the French
Revolution”) was the more important. It was intended to
explain the true nature of the French Revolution, to
demonstrate how inextricably the right of liberty is
interwoven with the very existence of man as an intelligent
agent, and to point out the inherent progressiveness of the
state and the consequent necessity of reform or amendment.
As in the Versuch, the rational nature of man and the
conditions necessary for its realization are made the
standard for political philosophy.
The philosophy of Fichte falls chronologically into a
period of residence in Jena (1793–98) and a period in Berlin
(1799–1806), which are also different in their fundamental
philosophic conceptions. The former period is marked by its
ethical emphasis, the latter by the emergence of a mystical
and theological theory of Being. Fichte was prompted to
change his original position because he came to appreciate
that religious faith surpasses moral reason. He was also
influenced by the general trend that the development of
thought took toward Romanticism.
Years at the University of Jena.
In 1793 there was a vacant chair of philosophy at the
University of Jena, and Fichte was called to fill it. To the
ensuing period belongs his most important philosophical
work. In this period he published, among other works: Einige
Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten (1794; The
Vocation of the Scholar), lectures on the importance of the
highest intellectual culture and on the duties that it
imposed; several works on the science of knowledge
(Wissenschaftslehre), which were revised and developed
continually throughout his life; the practical Grundlage des
Naturrechts nach Prinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre (1796;
The Science of Rights); and Das System der Sittenlehre nach
den Prinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre (1798; The Science of
Ethics as Based on the Science of Knowledge), in which his
moral philosophy, grounded in the notion of duty, is most
notably expressed.
The system of 1794 was the most original and also the
most characteristic work that Fichte produced. It was
incited by Kant’s critical philosophy and especially by his
Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788; Critique of Practical
Reason . . .). From the outset it was less critical,
precisely because it was more systematic, aiming at a
self-sufficient doctrine in which the science of knowledge
and ethics were intimately united. Fichte’s ambition was to
demonstrate that practical (moral) reason is really (as Kant
had only intimated) the root of reason in its entirety, the
absolute ground of all knowledge as well as of humanity
altogether. To prove this, he started from a supreme
principle, the ego, which was supposed to be independent and
sovereign, so that all other knowledge was deduced from it.
Fichte did not assert that this supreme principle was
self-evident but rather that it had to be postulated by pure
thought. He followed, thereby, Kant’s doctrine that pure,
practical reason postulates the existence of God, but he
tried to transform Kant’s rational faith into a speculative
knowledge on which he based both his theory of science and
his ethics.
In 1795 Fichte became one of the editors of the
Philosophisches Journal, and in 1798 his friend F.K.
Forberg, a young, unknown philosopher, sent him an essay on
the development of the idea of religion. Before printing
this, Fichte, to prevent misunderstanding, composed a short
preface, “On the Grounds of Our Belief in a Divine
Government of the Universe,” in which God is defined as the
moral order of the universe, the eternal law of right that
is the foundation of all man’s being. The cry of atheism was
raised, and the electoral government of Saxony, followed by
all of the German states except Prussia, suppressed the
Journal and demanded Fichte’s expulsion from Jena. After
publishing two defenses, Fichte threatened to resign in case
of reprimand. Much to his discomfort, his threat was taken
as an offer to resign and was duly accepted.
Years in Berlin
Except for the summer of 1805, Fichte resided in Berlin from
1799 to 1806. Among his friends were the leaders of German
Romanticism, A.W. and F. Schlegel and Friedrich
Schleiermacher. His works of this period include Die
Bestimmung des Menschen (1800; The Vocation of Man), in
which he defines God as the infinite moral will of the
universe who becomes conscious of himself in individuals;
Der geschlossene Handelsstaat (also 1800), an intensely
socialistic treatise in favour of tariff protection; two new
versions of the Wissenschaftslehre (composed in 1801 and in
1804; published posthumously), marking a great change in the
character of the doctrine; Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen
Zeitalters (1806; lectures delivered 1804–05; The
Characteristics of the Present Age), analyzing the
Enlightenment and defining its place in the historical
evolution of the general human consciousness but also
indicating its defects and looking forward to belief in the
divine order of the universe as the highest aspect of the
life of reason; and Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben, oder
auch die Religionslehre (1806; The Way Towards the Blessed
Life). In this last-named work the union between the finite
self-consciousness and the infinite ego, or God, is handled
in a deeply religious fashion reminiscent of the Gospel
According to John. The knowledge and love of God is declared
to be the end of life. God is the All; the world of
independent objects is the result of reflection or
self-consciousness, by which the infinite unity is broken
up. God is thus over and above the distinction of subject
and object; man’s knowledge is but a reflex or picture of
the infinite essence.
Last years
The French victories over the Prussians in 1806 drove Fichte
from Berlin to Königsberg (where he lectured for a time),
then to Copenhagen. He returned to Berlin in August 1807.
From this time his published writings were practical in
character; not until after the appearance of the
Nachgelassene Werke (“Posthumous Works”) and of the
Sämmtliche Werke (“Complete Works”) was the shape of his
final speculations known. In 1807 he drew up a plan for the
proposed new University of Berlin. In 1807–08 he delivered
at Berlin his Reden an die deutsche Nation (Addresses to the
German Nation), full of practical views on the only true
foundation for national recovery and glory. From 1810 to
1812 he was rector of the new University of Berlin. During
the great effort of Germany for national independence in
1813, he lectured “Über den Begriff des wahrhaften Krieges”
(“On the Idea of a True War”).
At the beginning of 1814, Fichte caught a virulent
hospital fever from his wife, who had volunteered for work
as a hospital nurse; he died shortly thereafter.
Richard Kroner
