Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings (1797-1800) (Hackett Classics)

By Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Book Overview

These selections provide a brief but comprehensive introduction to Fichte's philosophical system and his place in the history of German Idealism. In addition to some of Fichte's most influential texts, such as the First and Second Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and The Basis of Our Belief in a Divine Governance of the World, Breazeale has translated, for the first time into English, several other writings from the same period, including Attempt at a New Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre, Other short essays, including Fichte's replies to the charge of atheism, extend the discussions of the Introductions and respond to criticisms. Breazeale's substantial Introduction supplies the context needed for a sound appreciation of Fichte's enterprise and achievement.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872202399
• ISBN13: 9780872202399
• Release Date: July 1994
• Publisher: Hackett Pub Co
• Length: 264 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.5" x 0.5" x 5.5"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant

This work is a much clearer exposition of Fichte's 'Wissenschaftslehre,' when one compares it to his later work. Although overlooked today, Fichte's Idealism is a truly significant development in post-critical philosophy. Fichte attacks the Kantian opposition between the critical and dogmatic in his disavowal of the thing in itself. Fichte wants to locate the absolute in the structure of self-consciousness itself, in the I am I formulation. This work should be read as more than a mere stepping stone to Hegel; it also is the source of considerable developments in German Romanticism, from Schelling, Holderlin and Novalis. Though flawed, the 'Wissenschaftslehre' is indispensable to the history of epistemology.

Clearly marks a break between philosophy and theology.

All it took to get Fichte to collapse into a claim that he was merely a philosopher by 1800, when he wrote a few of his defenses in this book, was the charge that he was being atheistic in his faith in a moral world order rather than the kind of proofs of God that Kant had found unconvincing. His ideas about a moral world order make more sense to me as a philosophy than the concepts that make up more of this book. In our time, being considered an atheist has its defenders among those who consider themselves as respectable as other people, so I can't sympathize with those educated people who believe that God can't be defined in a moral way. There still is a tendency to condemn individuals for clinging to their own views, and Fichte's admission that any minister who declared from the pulpit that Fichte now has it right, while the church has been wrong all these years, could be removed from his pulpit for official incompetence. Philosophy is not really being defended against much when the main defense is that it is just a philosophy. The moral world order may be even less believable now, since Kafka and Walter Kaufmann in EXISTENTIALISM FROM DOSTOEVSKY TO SARTRE declare that the moral order is based on a lie. Fichte is lucky he didn't try saying that in 1800.

A lucid translation of Ficthe's difficult work.

Breazeale,perhaps the foremost Fichte scholar in the English speaking world, gives a lucid translation of Fichte's classic, but sadly, underexamined work. Most notably, Breazeale's informative introduction provides the reader with a synopsis of Fichtean thought and the historical background in which it developed. Will be of interest to anyone interested in German philosophy after Kant. Highly recommended.