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Fichte and Schelling

This document discusses two German philosophers from the period between Kant and Hegel: Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. It describes Fichte as developing his own system of transcendental philosophy called Wissenschaftslehre that built upon Kant's work in an original way. It also discusses how Fichte constantly revised his formulations to challenge readers and make them better philosophers. For Schelling, it notes he was influential in German Idealism and explored Naturphilosophie, anti-Cartesian accounts of subjectivity, and critiques of Hegel that influenced later thinkers.

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118 views

Fichte and Schelling

This document discusses two German philosophers from the period between Kant and Hegel: Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. It describes Fichte as developing his own system of transcendental philosophy called Wissenschaftslehre that built upon Kant's work in an original way. It also discusses how Fichte constantly revised his formulations to challenge readers and make them better philosophers. For Schelling, it notes he was influential in German Idealism and explored Naturphilosophie, anti-Cartesian accounts of subjectivity, and critiques of Hegel that influenced later thinkers.

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Strange Eren
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Erendira Ordaz Rebollo

Seminario de Investigacin Literaria


Philosophy of Fichte & Schelling
20.02.14
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte is one of the major figures in German philosophy in the period
between Kant and Hegel. Initially considered one of Kants most talented followers, Fichte
developed his own system of transcendental philosophy, the so-called Wissenschaftslehre. Today,
however, Fichte is more correctly seen as an important philosopher in his own right, as a thinker
who carried on the tradition of German idealism in a highly original form.
Fichtes has sometimes been seen as a mere transitional figure between Kant and Hegel,
as little more than a philosophical stepping stone along Spirits path to absolute knowledge. This
understanding of Fichte was encouraged by Hegel himself, and no doubt for self-serving reasons.
Nowadays, however, Fichte is studied more and more for his own sake, in particular for his theory
of subjectivity, i.e., the theory of the self-positing I, which is rightly seen as a sophisticated
elaboration of Kants claim that finite rational beings are to be interpreted in theoretical and practical
terms. The level of detail that Fichte provides on these matters exceeds that found in Kants
writings. This fact alone would make Fichtes work worthy of our attention. Yet perhaps the most
persuasive testament to Fichtes greatness as a philosopher is to be found in his relentless
willingness to begin again, to start the Wissenschaftslehre anew, and never to rest content with any
prior formulation of his thought. Although this leaves his readers perpetually dissatisfied and
desirous of a definitive statement of his views, Fichte, true to his publically declared vocation,
makes them into better philosophers through his own example of restless striving for the truth.
Fichtes remarks about systematic form and certainty in Concerning the Concept of the
Wissenschaftslehre give the impression that he intends to demonstrate the entirety of the
Wissenschaftslehre from the principle of the self-positing I through a chain of logical inferences that
merely set out the implications of the initial principle in such a way that the certainty of the first
principle is transferred to the claims inferred from it. (The method of Spinozas Ethics comes to
mind, but this time with only a single premise from which to begin the proofs.) Yet this hardly seems
to be Fichtes actual method, since he constantly introduces new concepts that cannot be plausibly
interpreted as the logical consequences of the previous ones. In other words, the deductions in the
Foundations of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre are more than merely analytical explications of the
consequences of the original premise. Instead, they both articulate and refine the initial principle of
the self-positing I in accordance with the demands made on the idealist who is attempting to clarify
the nature of the self-positing I by means of reflection.
Work Cited: Bowman, Courtis. Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. A peer-reviewed
academic resource. WEB. http://www.iep.utm.edu/fichtejg/#SH2b.

Philosophy of Shelling.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (17751854) is, along with J.G. Fichte and G.W.F.
Hegel, one of the three most influential thinkers in the tradition of German Idealism. Although he is
often regarded as a philosophical Proteus who changed his conception so radically and so often
that it is hard to attribute one clear philosophical conception to him, Schelling was in fact often an
impressively rigorous logical thinker. In the era during which Schelling was writing, so much was
changing in philosophy that a stable, fixed point of view was as likely to lead to a failure to grasp
important new developments as it was to lead to a defensible philosophical system. Schelling's
continuing importance today relates mainly to three aspects of his work. The first is his
Naturphilosophie, which, although its empirical claims are largely indefensible, opens up the
possibility of a modern hermeneutic view of nature that does not restrict nature's significance to
what can be established about it in scientific terms. The second is his anti-Cartesian account of
subjectivity, which prefigures some of the best ideas of thinkers like Nietzsche, Heidegger, and
Jacques Lacan, in showing how the thinking subject cannot be fully transparent to itself. The third is
his later critique of Hegelian Idealism, which influenced Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger,
and others, and aspects of which are still echoed in contemporary thought by thinkers like Jacques
Derrida.

Work Cited: Bowie, Andrew, "Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling". The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Winter 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), WEB.
http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2010/entries/schelling/.

First published Mon Oct 22, 2001; substantive revision Fri Oct 15, 2010 .

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