Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (May 19th 1762, Ramenau in Lusace - January 27th 1814, Berlin) is a German Philosophe of the 19th century.

Origin

Fichte was born in Saxony and comes from a family to the relatively modest incomes. It leaves to Iéna where it launches out in theological studies which will lead it to discover philosophy. Not having been retained in the clerical functions, it is made tutor with Königsberg and thus exempts courses, in particular on the Kantian philosophy which it will study with enthusiasm. He was also a disciple of Lessing. Professor with Iéna, it became in 1811, vice-chancellor of the university of Berlin. He owes its first success with a misunderstanding:
  • its first test Essai of a criticism of any revelation (1792) is published anonymously and the public allots it to Emmanuel Kant.

The French revolution

It takes share with the debates concerning the French revolution in the years 1793-1794 when will be published:
  • Request with the princes in restitution of freedom to think ;
  • Contributions to rectify the judgment of the public on the French revolution .

These texts will support the French events and will in addition underline the dignity of the man, his rights, and the faculty which the constitution of the country has the people to modify to which it belongs. That is opposed to comfortable ease that the clergy and the nobility had ensured themselves, since the privileges can be abolished by the will of the people, in accordance with the principle of social contract .

Philosophy

It became in 1793 professor of philosophy to Iéna, where it excited a great enthusiasm by its eloquence, like by the innovation of its ideas.

While its lavished courses with Iéna become famous, he writes:

  • in 1794 Lesson on the destination of the scientist ;
  • in 1796 Bases of natural rights (second part of the book published in 1797)
  • in 1798 System of ethics .

Reality is anything else only the effort of Ego absolute to take self-awareness like freedom. With this intention, it must be opposed to itself a limit, a non-ego. Also any reality must be deduced, i.e. exposed like requirement of this awakening. For as much, one could not arrive at the suppression of very limiting, the man continues to progress after his death, like wanted it Kant in his postulates of the practical Reason.

In the Base of the natural Right , Fichte discovers the Intersubjectivité, the call of another me that me like condition of my own conscience of myself. Thus others are less that which limits me, makes me become aware that I am not absolute, that I am not God, that which causes me with the infinite freedom which I am carrying! It assimilates this call to education (Fichte knew the Swiss pedagog Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi). In this direction, Fichte can be regarded as the founder of the Philosophie of modern education, and undoubtedly of all the post-Kantian philosophy, haunted by the question of others. It theorizes the possibility of influencing others without subjecting it to a constraint. The Right is however distinct from Ethics. It is born from the possibility that has the subject not to recognize others like another me. A constraint should then be opposed to him. Lastly, if education has as an end freedom, it supposes an absolute sovereignty of the parents on their offspring.

In 1798 one proposes in Fichte a position in a new type of central school with Mainz. Fichte then outlines the project of a purely scientific teaching institute but he does not answer this invites.

In 1799 it is shown of Athéisme and is seen attacked enemies who do not share his sights on the Revolution. It must thus resign and leave the town of Iéna.

It publishes in 1800 the commercial State closed then completes four years later what it had begun in 1797 under the title of Doctrine of science .

He teaches with Berlin where he becomes at the same time vice-chancellor of the university. But, he does not forsake therefore the philosophical reflection. Its recognition however did not resist the success of its contemporary Georg Hegel.

The Nation and the State

During the invasion of the French in Prussia, he pronounced his Discours with the German nation , who highly revived the public spirit against France. He was in addition freemason. Disappointed by freemasonry, he opposed to reality freemasonry of his time the ideal freemason, namely that of an elite whose mission is to propagate the model of a new organization of humanity.

For Fichte, the Nation is determined in an objective way by the culture, the history and the language. Certain nations knew to preserve during the ages the original language their ancestors, they are the “nation-mothers”. The German people, supposed to have preserved his language since antiquity are thus one of these nation-mothers, in opposition to the nations of Latin languages, since those forgot the Latin ancient for the benefit of new derived languages. The German people must unify. Fichte is thus one of the first thinkers pangermanists.

The Nation is incarnated in the State, which represents and decides “the orientation of all the individual forces towards the finality of the species”. The State must be democratic, ensuring the freedom of each one, and the possibility for each one of having a happy and advantageous life, by ensuring an equitable distribution of the richnesses. The man “must work without anguish, with pleasure and joy, and to have time of remainder to raise his spirit and his glance with the sky for the contemplation of which it is formed… It is its right there since finally he is man”.

Doctrines of science

With an aim of supplementing the system of Kant and of giving a base inébranlable to human knowledge, Fichte imagined a theory which it calls the doctrines of science: on the basis of the only idea of ego, he claims to make some leave the notion of the world and that God even. This system is known under the name of idealism transcendental. It modified it itself considerably in the continuation, and fell into a species from Panthéisme. He recognized finally the vanity of the speculation and the need for referring to the natural convictions conscience of it.

The contemporary commentators, like Alexis Philonenko, however tend to rather underline the deep unity of the thought of Fichte. Its reversals would be apparent than real. He dies in 1814 of the Typhus.

Epilog

It is especially known in France to be the conceptualisator of the theory of the German Nation , founded on the right of blood. In that he is traditionally opposed to Ernest Renan (which is attached to the right of the ground). Its Discours with the German Nation also contains a teaching program. He made his speeches during the invasion of the French in Prussia. He was also one of the initiators of the movement pangermanist.

Fichte had a great number of disciples, inter alia Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, which became then its adversary.

See too

List its works

  • Idea of the Doctrines of science , 1794;
  • Basic principles of the Doctrines of science , 1794;
  • Destination of the man of letters , 1794 (translated by Michel Nicolas, 1838);
  • natural Right , 1796 and 1797;
  • System of morals , 1798;
  • Destination of the man , 1800 (translated by Auguste Theodore Hilaire Barchou de Penhoën, 1832);
  • the commercial State closed , 1800 (translated by Daniel Schulthess, 1980);
  • Theory of the religion , 1806;
  • Method to arrive at the happy Life (translated by Bouilher, 1845);
  • Speech with the German nation ( Reden andie deutsche Nation ), 1807-1808.
  • " Freedom of penser" (translated by Jules Barni, revised by Cyril Morana), Thousand and One Nights, 2007

It moreover exposed its opinions in a philosophical Journal , published in Iéna starting from 1797. A Vie of Fichte was published in 1830 by his/her son, Immanuel Hermann von Fichte, professor in Bonn, which also published its complete works , Berlin, 1845 - 1846, 8 volumes in-8.

Paul Grimblot translated his selected works , 1843: one finds there the Doctrine of Science .

Articles

  • philosophical Teaching:

1. 52ème year, n° March 4th, th and th - April 2002, p. 35 - 55: Fichte file

Christine Christmas: " Fichte and right to the travail" (p. 35) and Olivier Lahbib: " Education at Fichte according to the Speech with the German nation " (p. 47)

2. 57ème year, n° September 1st, th and th - October 2006, p. 13-28 Henri Dilberman, " Education between freedom and constraint, according to the Base of the natural right of Fichte"

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