The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. A Presupposition-free Epistemology and Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre

[ 1 ] We have established the idea of cognition in our previous remarks. This idea is now directly given in human consciousness, insofar as it behaves in a cognitive way. The "I" as the center ^{28need hardly be said} of consciousness is directly given external and internal perception and its own existence. The ego feels the urge to find more in this given than what is immediately given. The second world, that of thinking, opens up to it in relation to the given world, and it connects the two by freely realizing what we have established as the idea of cognition. Herein lies a fundamental difference between the way in which in the object of human consciousness itself the concept and the directly given are united to form total reality, and the way in which they are valid in relation to the other contents of the world. With every other part of the world-picture we must imagine that the connection is the original, necessary thing from the outset, and that only at the beginning of cognition has an artificial separation occurred for cognition, which, however, is finally abolished again by cognition, in accordance with the original nature of the objective. It is different with human consciousness. Here the connection only exists when it is carried out in real activity by consciousness. With every other object, the separation has no meaning for the object, but only for cognition. Here the connection is the first, the separation the derivative. Cognition only carries out the separation, because in its own way it cannot put itself in possession of the connection if it has not previously separated. But the concept and the given reality of consciousness are originally separate, the connection is the derivative, and that is why cognition is constituted as we have described it. Because the idea and the given necessarily appear separately in consciousness, therefore the whole of reality is divided into these two parts for it, and because consciousness can only bring about the connection of the two elements mentioned through its own activity, therefore it only arrives at full reality through the realization of the act of cognition. The other categories (ideas) would also necessarily be connected with the corresponding forms of the given if they were not included in cognition; the idea of cognition can only be united with the given corresponding to it through the activity of consciousness. A real consciousness only exists when it realizes itself. With this we believe we are sufficiently prepared to expose the fundamental error of Fichte's "Wissenschaftslehre" and at the same time to provide the key to its understanding. Fichte is the philosopher who, among Kant's successors, felt most keenly that a foundation for all the sciences could only consist in a theory of consciousness; but he never came to realize why this was so. He felt that what we call the second step of the theory of knowledge, and to which we give the form of a postulate, must really be carried out by the "I". We see this, for example, from his following words: "The science of science, in so far as it is to be a systematic science, arises, therefore, just as all possible sciences, in so far as they are to be systematic, from a determination of freedom, which latter is here especially determined to raise to consciousness the mode of action of intelligence in general; ... Through this free action, something that is already form in itself, the necessary action of intelligence, is now taken up as content into a new form of knowledge or consciousness..." ^{29On the Concept of the Doctrine of Science or so-called Philosophy. Sämtliche Werke, Berlin 1845, Vol. I, p.71 f.} What is to be understood here by the mode of action of "intelligence", if what is darkly felt is expressed in clear terms? Nothing other than the realization of the idea of cognition that takes place in consciousness. If Fichte had been fully aware of this, he would simply have had to formulate the above sentence as follows: The doctrine of science has to elevate cognition, insofar as it is still the unconscious activity of the "I", to consciousness; it has to show that in the "I" the objectification of the idea of cognition is carried out as a necessary action.

[ 2 ] Fichte wants to determine the activity of the "I". He finds: "That whose being (essence) consists merely in the fact that it sets itself as being, is the I, as absolute subject".^{30Foundation of the entire Wissenschaftslehre. Sämtl. Werke 1, p.97.} For Fichte, this positing of the I is the first unconditioned act that "underlies all other consciousness". ^{31Sämtliche Werke I, p.91.} Thus, in Fichte's sense, the ego can only begin all its activity through an absolute decision. But for Fichte it is impossible to help this activity, which is absolutely set by the ego, to any content of its action. For he has nothing towards which this activity should be directed, towards which it should determine itself. His ego is supposed to perform an action; but what is it supposed to do? Because Fichte did not establish the concept of cognition that the ego is to realize, he struggled in vain to find any progression from his absolute action to the further determinations of the ego. Indeed, he finally declares, with regard to such a progression, that the investigation of this lies outside the limits of theory. In his deduction of the imagination he proceeds neither from an absolute activity of the ego nor of the non-ego, but from a determination that is at the same time a determination, because nothing else is or can be directly contained in consciousness. What determines this determination again remains completely undecided in the theory; and it is through this indeterminacy that we are driven beyond the theory into the practical part of the doctrine of science. ^{32Sämtliche Werke I, p. 178.} Through this explanation, however, Fichte destroys all cognition in general. For the practical activity of the ego belongs to an entirely different realm. It is clear that the postulate we have laid down above can only be realized through a free action of the ego; but if the ego is to behave cognitively, it is precisely a matter of its resolution to realize the idea of cognition. It is certainly true that the ego can accomplish many other things of its own free will. But it is not a characterization of the "free", but of the "cognizing" I that is important in the epistemological-theoretical foundation of all sciences. Fichte, however, allowed himself to be overly influenced by his subjective inclination to place the freedom of the human personality in the brightest light. Harms rightly remarks in his speech on Fichte's philosophy (p.15): "His view of the world is a predominantly and exclusively ethical one, and his theory of knowledge bears no other character." Cognition would have absolutely no task if all areas of reality were given in their totality. But since the ego, as long as it is not inserted by thinking into the systematic whole of the world view, is nothing other than an immediate given, a mere demonstration of its action is not at all sufficient. Fichte, however, is of the opinion that with the ego everything is already done with the mere searching. "We have to seek out the absolute-first, absolutely unconditional principle of all human knowledge. It cannot be proven or determined if it is to be the absolute first principle." ^{33Sämtliche Werke I, p.91.} We have seen that proof and determination are out of place solely in relation to the content of pure logic. But the ego belongs to reality, and there it is necessary to establish the existence of this or that category in the given. Fichte did not do this. And this is the reason why he gave his Wissenschaftslehre such a misguided form. Zeller remarks,^{34Geschichte der deutschen Philosophie seit Leibniz, München 1871 bis 1875, p.605.} that the logical formulas through which Fichte wants to arrive at the concept of the I only poorly conceal the fact that he actually wanted to achieve the already preconceived purpose of arriving at this starting point at all costs. These words refer to the first form that Fichte gave to his Wissenschaftslehre in 1794. If we hold on to the fact that Fichte, according to the whole structure of his philosophizing, could indeed have wanted nothing more than to have science begin through an absolute power statement, then there are only two ways in which this beginning can be understood. One was to take hold of consciousness in any of its empirical activities and, by gradually peeling away everything that does not originally follow from it, to crystallize the pure concept of the ego. The other way, however, was to begin with the original activity of the "I" and to reveal its nature through self-reflection and self-observation. Fichte took the first path at the beginning of his philosophizing; in the course of it, however, he gradually moved on to the second.

[ 3 ] Following on from Kant's synthesis of "transcendental apperception", Fichte found that all activity of the ego consists in assembling the material of experience according to the forms of judgment. Judgment consists in linking the predicate with the subject, which is expressed in a purely formal way by the proposition \(a = a\). This sentence would be impossible if the x that links the two a's were not based on a capacity to set per se. For the proposition does not mean: a is, but: if a is, then a is. So there can be no question of an absolute positing of a. In order to arrive at an absolute, absolutely valid proposition, nothing remains but to declare the proposition itself to be absolute. While the a is conditional, the positing of the a is unconditional. But this positing is an act of the ego. The I thus has the ability to posit absolutely and unconditionally. In the proposition a = a, the one a is only posited by presupposing the other; namely, it is posited by the ego. "If a is posited in the I, then it is posited." ^{35Sämtliche Werke I,p.94.} This connection is only possible on the condition that there is something in the ego that always remains the same, something that passes from one a to the other. And the x mentioned above is based on this constant. The I that posits the one a is the same as the one that posits the other. But that is called I I I. This sentence expressed in the form of the judgment: If I is, then it is - has no meaning. The I is not posited under the presupposition of another, but presupposes itself. This means, however, that it is absolute and unconditional. The hypothetical form of judgment, which is inherent in all judgment without the presupposition of the absolute I, is transformed here into the form of the absolute existential proposition: I am absolutely. Fichte also expresses this as follows: "The I originally posits its own being." ^{36Sämtliche Werke I , p.98.} We see that this whole derivation by Fichte is nothing but a kind of pedagogical argument to lead his readers to the point where the realization of the unconditional activity of the I dawns on them. The action of the I is to be brought clearly before their eyes, without the accomplishment of which there is no I at all.

[ 4 ] We will now look back once again at Fichte's train of thought. A closer look reveals that there is a leap in it, one that calls into question the correctness of the view of the original act. What is really absolute in the positing of the ego? It is judged: If a is, then a is. a is posited by the ego. There can therefore be no doubt about this positing. But even if it is absolute as an activity, the I can only posit something. It cannot posit the "activity in and of itself", but only a certain activity. In short: the positing must have a content. But it cannot take this content from itself, for otherwise it could only ever posit positing. There must therefore be something for the positing, for the absolute activity of the I, which is realized through it. Without the I reaching for a given that it posits, it can posit "nothing" at all, consequently not." This is also shown by Fichte's sentence: The I posits its being. This being is a category. We are back to our proposition: The activity of the I is based on the fact that the I sets the concepts and ideas of the given out of its own free decision. Fichte arrives at his result only because he unconsciously sets out to prove the ego as "being". If he had developed the concept of cognition, he would have arrived at the true starting point of epistemology: The I posits cognition. Since Fichte did not clarify what determines the activity of the I, he simply described the positing of being as the character of this activity. In doing so, however, he also limited the absolute activity of the I. For if only the "positing of being" of the ego is unconditional, then everything else that proceeds from the ego is conditional. But every path is also cut off to get from the unconditioned to the conditioned. If the I is only unconditioned in the direction indicated, then the possibility for it to posit something other than its own being through an original act immediately ceases. Thus the necessity arises to give the reason for all other activity of the ego. Fichte searched in vain for such a ground, as we have already seen above.

[ 5 ] He therefore turned to the other of the above-mentioned ways of deriving the ego. As early as 1797, in the "First Introduction to the Theory of Science", he recommended introspection as the right way to recognize the ego in its very own character. "Pay attention to yourself, turn your gaze away from everything that surrounds you and into your inner self - this is the first demand that philosophy makes of its apprentice. It is not talking about anything outside yourself, but only about yourself." ^{37Sämtliche Werke 1, p.422.} However, this way of introducing the doctrine of science has a great advantage over the other. For self-observation does not in fact present the activity of the ego in a one-sided way in a particular direction; it does not merely show it as a being-setter, but shows it in its all-round unfolding, as it seeks to comprehend the directly given content of the world through thinking. Self-observation shows the ego as it constructs its world view from the combination of the given and the concept. But for those who have not gone through our above consideration - for those who do not know that the ego only comes to the whole content of reality when it approaches the given with its forms of thought - the process of cognition appears as a spinning out of the world from the ego. For Fichte, the world view therefore becomes more and more a construction of the ego. He emphasizes ever more strongly that what matters in the doctrine of science is to awaken the sense that is capable of eavesdropping on the ego in this construction of the world. Those who are able to do this appear to him to be on a higher level of knowledge than those who only see the constructed, the finished being. Those who only see the world of objects do not recognize that they are first created by the ego. But he who looks at the ego in its construction sees the ground of the finished world picture; he knows how it came to be, it appears to him as a consequence for which the preconditions are given to him. Ordinary consciousness only sees what is set, what is determined in this or that way. It lacks insight into the presuppositions, into the reasons: why it is set just so and not otherwise. According to Fichte, imparting the knowledge of these presuppositions is the task of a completely new sense. I find this most clearly expressed in the "Introductory Lectures to the Theory of Science. Read aloud in the autumn of 1813 at the University of Berlin": "This doctrine presupposes a completely new inner sensory tool, through which a new world is given, which does not exist at all for the ordinary person." Or: "The world of the new sense and thus it itself is clearly determined for the time being: it is the seeing of the propositions on which the judgment: it is something, is based; the ground of being, which, precisely because it is this, is not itself again and is a being." ^{38J. G. Fichte's posthumous works. Edited by J. H. Fichte, vol. 1, Bonn 1834, p.4 and p.16.}

[ 6 ] However, Fichte also lacks a clear insight into the content of the activity carried out by the ego. He never got through to it. For this reason, his Wissenschaftslehre could not become what it should otherwise have become according to its entire structure: a theory of knowledge as a basic philosophical science. For once it had been recognized that the activity of the ego must be set by the ego itself, it was obvious to think that it also receives its determination from the ego. But how can this be done other than by giving content to the purely formal activity of the ego? But if this content is really to be placed by the ego in its otherwise quite indeterminate activity, then it must also be determined by its nature. Otherwise it could at most be realized by a "thing in itself" lying in the ego, whose tool is the ego, but not by the ego itself. If Fichte had attempted this determination, however, he would have arrived at the concept of knowledge that is to be realized by the ego. Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre is proof that even the most perceptive thinking does not succeed in having a fruitful effect in any field if one does not arrive at the correct form of thought (category, idea) which, supplemented with the given, gives reality. Such an observer is like a person who is offered the most marvelous melodies and does not hear them at all because he has no feeling for melody. Consciousness, as a given, can only be characterized by those who know how to put themselves in possession of the "idea of consciousness".

[ 7 ] Fichte once even comes very close to the correct insight. In 1797, in the "Introduction to the Theory of Science", he states that there are two theoretical systems, dogmatism, which separates the ego from things, and idealism, which allows things to be determined by the ego. In his view, both are established as possible world views. Both the one and the other allow a consistent realization. But if we surrender to dogmatism, then we must give up the independence of the ego and make it dependent on the thing in itself. We are in the opposite situation if we pay homage to idealism. Which of the systems the one or the other philosopher wants to choose, Fichte leaves merely to the discretion of the ego. But if the ego wants to preserve its independence, it should abandon its belief in things outside us and surrender to idealism.

[ 8 ] Now it would only be necessary to consider that the ego cannot arrive at any real, well-founded decision and determination if it does not presuppose something that helps it to do so. All determination from the ego would remain empty and devoid of content if the ego did not find something substantial, thoroughly determined, which makes it possible for it to determine the given and thus to choose between idealism and dogmatism. But this thoroughly substantive is the world of thought. And determining the given through thinking means recognizing. We may touch Fichte wherever we like: everywhere we find that his train of thought immediately gains hand and foot when we think of the completely gray, empty activity of the ego as filled and regulated by what we have called the process of cognition.

[ 9 ] The fact that the ego can set itself into activity through freedom makes it possible for it to realize the category of cognition out of itself through self-determination, while in the rest of the world the categories prove to be linked through objective necessity with the given that corresponds to them. Investigating the nature of free self-determination will be the task of ethics and metaphysics based on our epistemology. These will also have to discuss the question of whether the ego is also capable of realizing other ideas besides cognition. That the realization of cognition occurs through freedom, however, is already clear from the above remarks. For if the directly given and the corresponding form of thought are united by the ego in the process of cognition, then the unification of the two elements of reality, which otherwise always remain separate in consciousness, can only occur through an act of freedom.

[ 10 ] However, our explanations shed light on critical idealism in a completely different way. To anyone who has studied Fichte's system in depth, it appears to be a matter close to the heart of this philosopher to uphold the proposition that nothing can enter the ego from outside, that nothing occurs in it that is not originally posited by it. But now it is beyond question that no idealism will ever be able to derive from the ego that form of world-content which we have called the directly given. This form can only be given, never constructed out of thinking. Just consider that even if the whole of the remaining color scale were given to us, we would not be able to complete even one shade of color merely from the ego. We can form a picture of the most distant regions of the world, which we have never seen, if we have once experienced the elements individually as given. We then combine the picture according to given instructions from individual facts we have experienced. But we will strive in vain to spin out of ourselves even a single perceptual element that was never within the realm of what was given to us. Another, however, is the mere knowledge of the given world; another is the recognition of its essence. The latter, although it is intimately connected with the content of the world, does not become clear to us without our constructing reality from the given and thinking itself. The actual "what" of the given is determined for the ego only by the latter itself. But the ego would have no reason at all to place the essence of a given in itself if it did not first see the thing in a completely undetermined way. What is therefore posited by the I as the essence of the world is not posited without the I, but through it.

[ 11 ] It is not the first form in which reality approaches the ego that is its true form, but the last form that the ego makes of it. That first form is of no significance at all for the objective world and has such a form only as a basis for the process of cognition. Thus it is not the form of the world that the theory of it gives that is the subjective, but rather that which is first given to the ego. If, according to Volkelt and others, we want to call this given world experience, then we must say: science supplements the world picture that appears in subjective form, as experience, as a result of the establishment of our consciousness, to what it essentially is.

[ 12 ] Our theory of knowledge provides the basis for an idealism that understands itself in the true sense of the word. It establishes the conviction that the essence of the world is conveyed in thinking. Through nothing other than thinking can the relationship of the parts of the content of the world be shown, whether it is the relationship of the heat of the sun to the heated stone or of the ego to the outside world. In thinking alone is the element given that determines all things in their relations to each other.

[ 13 ] The objection that Kantianism could still raise would be that the determination of the essence of the given characterized above is only such for the I. To this we must reply, in the sense of our basic conception, that the division of the ego and the external world only exists within the given, so that this "for the ego" has no meaning in relation to thinking contemplation, which unites all opposites. The ego as something separate from the external world is completely lost in the thinking view of the world; it therefore no longer makes any sense to speak of determinations only for the ego.