Johann Fichte - German philosopher: biography, main ideas

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Fichte is a famous German philosopher, today considered a classic. His basic idea was that a person forms himself in the process of activity. The philosopher influenced the work of many other thinkers who developed his ideas.

Biography

Fichte Johann Gottlieb is a philosopher, an outstanding representative of the direction of German classical philosophy, who was also engaged in social activities. The Thinker was born on 19.05. 1762 in the village of Rammenau in a large family engaged in peasant labor. With the assistance of a we althy relative, after graduating from a city school, the boy was accepted to study at an elite educational institution intended for the nobility - Pfortu. Then Johann Fichte studied at the Universities of Jena and Leitsipg. Since 1788, the philosopher has been working as a home teacher in Zurich. At the same time, the thinker met his future wife, Johanna Ran.

Introduction to Kant's ideas

In the summer of 1791, the philosopher attends lectures by Immanuel Kant, which were then held in Koenigsberg. Acquaintance withconcepts of the great thinker predetermined the entire further course of the philosophical work of J. G. Fichte. Kant spoke positively of his work en titled An Essay on the Critique of All Revelation. This essay, whose authorship was initially erroneously attributed to Kant, revealed to the scientist the possibility of obtaining a professorship at the University of Jena. He began working there in 1794.

The biography of Johann Fichte continues with the fact that in 1795 the thinker begins to publish his own journal, called the Philosophical Journal of the Society of German Scientists. It was during that period that his main works were written:

"Fundamentals of General Science" (1794);

"Fundamentals of natural law according to the principles of science" (1796);

"First Introduction to Science" (1797);

"Second introduction to science for readers who already have a philosophical system" (1797);

"A system of teaching about morality according to the principles of science" (1798).

These works influenced Fichte's contemporary philosophers - Schelling, Goethe, Schiller, Novalis.

Departure from Jena University, recent years

In 1799, the philosopher was accused of atheism, which was the publication of one of his articles. In it, Fichte said that God is not a person, but represents a moral world order. The philosopher had to leave the walls of the University of Jena.

Since 1800, Fichte has been living and working in Berlin. In 1806, after the defeat in the war with Napoleon, the Prussian government was forced to move to Konigsberg. Fichtefollowed his compatriots and took up teaching at the local university until 1807. After some time, he again moved to Berlin, and in 1810 became rector of the University of Berlin.

His lectures, which were read after the defeat of the Prussian troops at Jena, urged the German townspeople to resist the French occupiers. These speeches made Fichte one of the main intellectuals of the then resistance to the Napoleonic regime.

The last days of the philosopher passed in Berlin. He died on January 29, 1814, due to infection with typhus from his own wife, who was then caring for the wounded in the hospital.

Fichte's relation to Kant

The scientist believed that Kant in his works shows the truth without demonstrating its foundations. Therefore, Fichte himself must create a philosophy like geometry, the basis of which will be the consciousness of the "I". He called such a system of knowledge "scientific learning". The philosopher points out that this is the ordinary consciousness of a person, acting as torn off from the individual himself and elevated to the Absolute. The whole world around is a product of "I". It is active and active. The development of self-consciousness occurs through the struggle of consciousness and the surrounding world.

Fichte believed that Kant did not complete several aspects of his teaching. First, by declaring that the true meaning of each "thing in itself" is unknowable, Kant could not eliminate the external world given to the individual and, without any rigorous evidence, insisted that it was real. Fichte, on the other hand, believed that the very concept of a “thingin itself" should be recognized as the result of the mental work of the "I" itself.

Secondly, Kant considered the structure of a priori forms of consciousness quite complex. But at the same time, Fichte believed that this part of metaphysics was not sufficiently developed by his colleague, because in his works he did not derive a single principle of knowledge, from which various categories and intuitions would follow.

Other famous works by Fichte

Among the well-known works of the scientist, the following works should be highlighted:

"On the appointment of a scientist" (1794);

"On the Appointment of Man" (1800);

“Clear as the sun, a message to the general public about the true essence of the latest philosophy. An attempt to force readers to understand” (1801);

“The main features of the modern era” (1806).

The main ideas of Johann Fichte were outlined in a series of works published under the general title "Scientific Teaching". Like Descartes, the philosopher recognizes the fact of self-consciousness as the center of everything that exists. According to Fichte, already in this sensation are all those categories that Kant deduced in his works. For example, "I am" is equivalent to "I am I". Another philosophical category follows from this concept – identity.

The idea of freedom

In the philosophical works of Johann Fichte, two main periods are distinguished: the stage of the concept of activity and the stage of the concept of the Absolute. Under the activity of consciousness, the philosopher primarily understood the moral behavior of a person. Finding freedom and achieving activity that can overcome any obstacles is the moral duty of every person.

The philosopher comes to the most important conclusion that a person can come to the realization of freedom only in certain historical conditions, at a certain stage of the development of society. But at the same time, Johann Fichte believed that freedom itself is inseparable from knowledge. It can be acquired only with a high level of development of the spiritual culture of the individual. Thus, culture, together with morality, makes possible the whole work of the individual.

Practical activity in the work of a thinker

One of the most valuable ideas of Fichte's philosophy is the consideration of activity through the prism of removing intermediate goals with the help of various means. In the process of human life, practical contradictions are inevitable and arise almost constantly. That is why the process of activity is an endless overcoming of these conflicts, incompatibilities. The philosopher understands activity itself as the work of practical reason, but at the same time, the question of activity makes philosophers think about their nature.

One of the most important achievements of Fichte's philosophy is the development of the dialectical method of thinking. He says that everything that exists is contradictory, but at the same time, opposites are in their unity. Contradiction, the philosopher believes, is one of the most important sources of development. Fichte considers categories not just as a set of a priori forms of consciousness, but as a system of concepts. These systems absorb the knowledge that a person acquires in the course of his activity."Me".

A question of freedom

The freedom of the individual, according to Fichte, is expressed in the work of voluntary attention. A person, the philosopher writes, has absolute freedom to direct the focus of his attention to the desired object or to distract it from another object. However, despite the desire to make a person independent of the external world, Fichte still recognizes that the very primary activity of consciousness, through which it is separated from the external world (separated "I" and "Not-I"), does not depend on the free will of a single individual. human.

The highest goal of the “I” activity, according to Fichte, is to spiritualize the “Not-I” opposing it, and raise it to a higher level of consciousness. At the same time, the realization of freedom becomes possible provided that the “I” is surrounded not by soulless objects, but by other free beings similar to it. Only they can show an arbitrary, and not predictable, reaction to the actions of the "I". Society is a mass of such beings, constantly interacting with each other and encouraging them to collectively overcome such an external influence of “Not-I”.

Subjectivism of the philosopher

Briefly Johann Fichte's subjectivism can be defined by his famous phrase:

The whole world is me.

Of course, this philosopher's expression should not be taken literally. For example, the main idea of another philosopher - David Hume - was the idea that the whole world around us is a set of sensations experienced by a person. This provision is not interpreted literally, but is understood in the sense that the entire surrounding reality is given to people through their sensations, and no one knows what it really is.

The problem of ontology

The philosopher was also interested in the question of what ontology is. The definition of this concept is as follows: ontology is a system of knowledge of a metaphysical nature, revealing the features of the category of philosophical understanding of being. Fichte introduces a new concept into science - the ontology of the subject. This being is a dialectical process of the cultural-historical activity of the entire human civilization. In the process of revealing its essence, the “absolute Self” contributes to the limitation of a certain empirical individual, and through it cognizes itself.

Activity of "I" is revealed in reasonable intuition. It is she who represents the guiding thread that helps to move from the status of an empirical subject through practical activity to an absolute subject. Thus, the question of what ontology is, Fichte is considered in the context of the historical and cultural activity of the individual and the transformations that occur to him in the process of this activity.