The Rudolf Steiner Archive

6. Epistemology without Presuppositions and Fichte's Theory of Science

[ 1 ] We have now ascertained what the idea of knowledge is. This idea is directly “given” within human consciousness insofar as consciousness acts cognitively. For the “I,” as the center of consciousness, outer and inner perception and the “I's” own existence are directly “given.” (It need hardly be said that we do not mean here to connect any theoretical view about the nature of consciousness with this term “center,” but are using it only as a stylistic abbreviation for the total physiognomy of consciousness.) The feels the urge to And more in this “given” than what is directly “given.” When the “I” is confronted by the “given” world, there arises for it a second world, that of thinking, and the “I” unites these two worlds by realizing in action, out of a free decision, what we have ascertained the idea of knowledge to be. Herein lies a fundamental difference between the way concept and directly “given” prove to be united into total reality when human consciousness is made an object of knowledge, and the way applicable to the rest of world content. With every other part of the world picture we must picture to ourselves that the union is the original state and necessary from the beginning, and that only at the beginning of our activity of knowing does there occur, for knowledge, an artificial separation; this separation, however, is finally nullified again through knowing activity, in accordance with the original being of the objective world. With human consciousness this is different. Here the union is present only if effected by consciousness in real activity. With every other object the separation has no significance for the object, but only for knowledge. There, union is primary, and separation is derivative. Our knowing activity effects the separation only because by nature it cannot possess the union if it has not first performed a separation. But the concept and the “given” reality of consciousness are originally separated; their union is derivative, and therefore our knowing activity is of the nature we have described. It is because idea and “given” necessarily arise as separate within consciousness that total reality splits itself for consciousness into these two parts; and, because consciousness can effect the union of the above two elements only by its own activity, it can attain full reality only by accomplishing the act of knowledge. The other categories (ideas) would still be connected necessarily with the corresponding forms of the “given,” even if they were not taken up into knowledge; [but] the idea of our activity of knowing can be united with the “given” corresponding to this idea only by the activity of consciousness. A real consciousness exists only if it realizes itself in action. These reflections should enable us to see the basic mistake in Fichte's Theory of Science ^{1Wissenschaftslehre} and also provide us with a key for understanding his Theory. Fichte is that philosopher who, of all Kant's followers, felt most keenly that a basis for all the sciences could consist only in a theory of consciousness; but he never arrived at a knowledge of why this is so. He felt that what we call the second step of epistemology and give the form of a postulate ^{1Please see Chapter IV p.30, of this book: “Within the region of the 'given, there must be something where our [own] activity does not hover in empty air, but where the content of the world itself enters into this activity. -Translator.} must actually be carried out by the “I.” We can see that this is so, for example, in the following words: “The theory of science arises, therefore, insofar as it is meant to be a systematic science, in exactly the same way as all possible sciences, insofar as they are meant to be systematic: through establishing what free inner activity (Freiheit) is; and this last is particularly supposed to lift to consciousness the way intelligence in general acts;... through this free act (freie Handlung) something, which in itself is already form — the necessary action of intelligence — is now taken up as content into a new form of knowing or of consciousness...” (On the Concept of the Theory of Science or of So-called Philosophy, Berlin, 1845). What is meant here by “the way intelligence acts” when one expresses in clear concepts what Fichte dimly felt? Nothing other than realizing in action, within consciousness, the idea of our activity of knowing. If Fichte had been clearly conscious of this, he would have had to formulate the above sentence like this: The task of the theory of science is to raise our activity of knowing, insofar as it is still an unconscious activity of the “I,” into consciousness; it has to show that within the “I" the objectification of the idea of our activity of knowing is carried out as a necessary act.

[ 2 ] Fichte wants to determine what the activity of the “I” is. He finds: “The ‘I’ as absolute subject is something whose existence (being) consists solely in its positing itself as existing” (Foundation of the Total Theory of Science). For Fichte, this positing of the “I” is the primal unconditional action that “underlies all the rest of consciousness.” In Fichte's sense the “I" can therefore begin its activity only through an absolute decision. But for Fichte it is impossible to help this activity, which is absolutely posited by the “I,” to find any content for what it does. For he has nothing upon which to direct this activity and by which this activity could determine itself. His “I” is meant to carry out an action; but what should it do? Because Fichte did not set up the concept of knowledge that the “I” is meant to realize, he struggled in vain to And any kind of progression from his absolute act to further characterizations of the “I.” In fact, with respect to such a progression, he finally declares that investigation of it lies outside the boundaries of the theory. In deducing what the mental picture is, he takes his start neither from any absolute activity of the“I” nor of the “not-I,” but rather from something being determined, which is at the same time a determining, because nothing else is directly contained in consciousness nor can be contained in it. What in turn determines this determining remains totally undecided in the theory; and by not determining this we are driven out of and beyond the theory into the practical part of the theory of science. By this declaration, however, Fichte totally annihilates all knowing. For, the practical activity of the “I” belongs in a completely different region. It is indeed clear that the postulate ^{3Please see pages 30f. and 43 of this book. —Translator.} we set up above can be realized only through a free act of the “I”; but when the “I” is to carry out the activity of knowing, the whole point is precisely that the purpose of the “I's” decision is to realize the idea of our activity of knowing. It is certainly true that the “I” can carry out many other things out of a free decision. But in laying an epistemological foundation for all the sciences, the point is not to establish that the “I” is free but rather that it is knowing. Fichte allowed himself to be influenced far too much by his subjective inclination to place the free inner activity (Freiheit) of the human personality in the spotlight. Harms, in his address “On the Philosophy of Fichte” (p. 15), rightly states: “His world view is predominantly and exclusively an ethical one, and his epistemology bears only this character.” Our activity of knowing would have absolutely no task if all regions of reality were given in their totality. But now since the “I,” as long as it has not been inserted by thinking into the systematic totality of the world picture, is also nothing other than a directly “given,” it by no means suffices merely to show what it does. Fichte, nevertheless, is of the view that in the case of the “I,” mere seeking already accomplishes everything. “Our task is to seek out the absolutely first, altogether unconditional principle of all human knowing. It cannot be either proven or determined if it is to be the absolutely first principle.” We have seen that it is simply and solely with respect to the content of pure logic that proving and determining are out of place. The “I,” however, belongs to reality, and there it is necessary to determine the presence of this or that category within the “given.” Fichte did not do this. And that is why he gave his theory of science such a mistaken form. Zeller remarks (History of German Philosophy since Leibniz, Munich, 1871 to 1875, p. 605) that the logical formulations by which Fichte wants to arrive at his “I”-concept barely conceal the fact that he wants at any price to achieve his predetermined purpose of arriving at this starting point. These words apply to the first form Fichte gave to his theory of science in 1794. When we realize that Fichte, in accordance with the whole predisposition of his philosophizing, could want nothing other, in fact, than to have science begin with an absolute decree, then there are indeed only two ways to make this beginning appear comprehensible. One way is to grasp consciousness in one or another of its empirical activities, and, by gradually peeling away everything that does not originally spring from it, to crystallize out the pure concept of the “I.” But the other way is to start directly with the original activity of the “I,” and to demonstrate its nature by self-reflection and self-observation. Fichte took the first way at the beginning of his philosophizing; in the course of it he nevertheless went over gradually to the second.

[ 3 ] In connection with Kant's synthesis of “transcendental apperception,” Fichte found that all activity of the “I” consists in combining the material of experience in accordance with the forms of our judgment. Judging consists in joining the predicate with the subject, which in a purely formal way can be expressed with the statement: a = a. This sentence would be impossible if x, which joins the two a's, did not depend upon an ability to posit absolutely. For the statement does not in fact mean: a is, but rather: if a is, then so is a. Therefore it cannot be a question of an absolute positing of a. So, in order to arrive at all at something absolutely and utterly valid, there is nothing else to do but declare positing itself to be absolute. Whereas a is conditional, the positing of a is unconditional. This positing, however, is an act of the “I.” The “I” must thus be credited with the ability to posit simply and unconditionally. In the statement a = a, the one a is posited only through the fact that the other a is posited beforehand; and it is in fact posited by the “I.” “If a is posited in the ‘I,’ then it is posited.” This connection is possible only under the condition that in the “I” there is something that always remains the same, something that leads from the one a over to the other. And the x mentioned above depends upon this something that remains the same. The “I” that posits the one a is the “I” that posits the other. That means, however: “I” = “I.” This statement makes no sense when expressed in the form of the judgment: If “I” is, then it is. The “I” is not posited by presupposing another “I,” but rather it presupposes itself. That means, however: It simply and unconditionally is. The hypothetical form of a judgment, which is the only form one can attribute to any judgment unless the absolute “I” is presupposed, transforms itself here into the form of the absolute existential statement: I simply am. Fichte expressed this also in the following way: “The ‘I’ originally and simply posits its own existence.” We see that this whole line of thought of Fichte's is nothing but a kind of pedagogical argument, to bring his readers to the point where the knowledge of the unconditional activity of the “I” dawns on them. The purpose is to bring clearly before them this deed of the “I” without which there would be no “I” at all.

[ 4 ] Let us look back over s*Fichte train of thought once more. On closer inspection a gap appears in it, a gap, in fact, that calls into question the correctness of Fichte's view of the original deed of the “I.” What is it then actually that is absolute in the positing of the “I”? The judgment is made: If a is, then a is. The a is posited by the “I.” About this positing, therefore, no doubt can prevail. But even if this activity is unconditional, the “I” can only posit something or other. It cannot posit “activity in and for itself,” but only a particular activity. In short: Positing must have a content. But it cannot take this content out of itself, for otherwise it could do nothing more than eternally posit the activity of positing. Thus for positing, for the absolute activity of the there must be something that is realized through this activity. If the “I” does not take hold of some “given” that it posits, then it can posit nothing at all and consequently cannot posit. This is also apparent in Fichte's statement: The “I” posits its existence. This existence is a category. We are back again at our statement: The activity of the “I” depends upon the fact that the “I,” out of its own free decision, posits the concepts and ideas of the “given.” Fichte comes to this result by unconsciously setting out to show the “I” as “something existing.” If he had developed the concept of our activity of knowing, he would have arrived at the true starting point of epistemology: The “I” posits knowing activity. Since Fichte did not make clear to himself the determinants of the “I's” activity, he simply designated the character of this activity to lie in the positing of existence. By doing so, however, he limited the absolute activity of the “I.” For if only the “I's” “positing of existence” is unconditional, then everything else that goes forth from the “I” is conditional. But every path by which to go from the unconditional to the conditional is also cut off. If the “I” is only unconditional in the direction just described, then the “I” immediately loses all possibility of positing, by an original act, anything other than its own existence. Thus the necessity arises of indicating the basis for all the other activity of the “I.” Fichte sought in vain for such a basis, as we have already seen above.

[ 5 ] Therefore he turned to the second of the two ways described above in order to derive the “I.” In 1797 already, in his First Introduction into the Theory of Science, he recommended self-observation as the right way to know the “I” in its essential character. “Pay attention to yourself; turn your gaze away from everything that surrounds you and direct it into your inner being: this is the first demand philosophy makes upon its student. It is not a question of anything outside yourself, but solely of yourself." This way of introducing the theory of science, to be sure, has a great advantage over the other. For, self-observation does not in fact give us the “I's” activity one-sidedly in any one particular direction; it does not show the “I's” activity to lie merely in positing existence; but rather it shows the “I's” activity unfolding in all directions, seeking to comprehend in thinking the directly "given" content of the world. The “I” reveals itself to self-observation, showing how it builds up the world picture by combining “given” and concept. But for someone who has not looked with us at the above considerations — who therefore does not know that the “I” arrives at the complete content of reality only when, with its thought-forms, it approaches the “given” — for him the process of knowledge seems to be a spinning forth of the world out of the “I.” For Fichte the world picture therefore becomes more and more a construct of the “I.” He emphasizes more and more strongly that, in the theory of science, the point is to awaken the sense that can catch sight of the “I” while it is constructing the world. Fichte considers a person who can do this to be at a higher stage of knowledge than someone who sees only what has been constructed, sees only an existence already achieved. Someone who looks only upon the world of objects does not know that they are first created by the "“I.” But someone who looks upon the “I” while it is constructing sees the foundation of the finished world picture; he knows how it has become what it is; it appears to him as the result of something whose preconditions are given to him. Ordinary consciousness sees only what is posited, what is determined in one way or another. It lacks insight into the antecedents, into the reasons why it is posited in precisely this way and not in another. To mediate knowledge of these antecedents is for Fichte the task of a completely new sense. I find this to be most clearly expressed in “Introductory Papers on the Theory of Science” read in the autumn of 1813 in the Berlin University: “This theory presupposes a completely new inner sense instrument through which a new world will be given that is not present for the ordinary person at all.” Or: “The world of the new sense, and through it the sense itself, is for the moment clearly determined: it is the seeing of the antecedents upon which the judgment is based: ‘It is something’; the ground of existence, which just because it is the ground of existence is not again itself and an existence” (J.G. Fichte's Posthumous Works, published by J.H. Fichte, Vol. I, Bonn, 1834, pp. 4 and 16).

[ 6 ] But here too Fichte lacks any clear insight into the content of the activity carried out by the “I.” He never penetrated through to it. Therefore his theory of science could not become what otherwise, in accordance with its whole potential, it would have had to become: an epistemology as the philosophical, basic science. For if one has recognized that the “I's” activity must be posited by the “I” itself, one is close to thinking that the “I” also determines what this activity is to be. But how can this occur in any way other than by giving a content to the purely formal action of the “I”? If the content is really to be placed by the into the “I's” otherwise entirely undetermined activity, however, one must also determine what the nature of this content is. Otherwise this content could at most be realized by a “thing-in-itself” lying within the “I,” whose instrument the “I” is, but not by the “I” itself. If Fichte had attempted to determine what this content is, he would have arrived at the concept of knowledge that is to be realized in action by the “I.” Fichte's theory of science is proof of the fact that even the most penetrating thinking cannot succeed in working fruitfully into a field if one does not arrive at the right thought-form (category, idea) which, when complemented by the “given,” yields reality. Such a person is like someone who is offered the most wonderful melodies, yet does not hear them because he has no feeling for melody. Consciousness, as “given,” can be characterized only by someone who knows how to put himself into possession of the "idea of consciousness."

[ 7 ] At one point Fichte is even quite close to the correct insight. In 1797, in his Introduction to the Theory of Science, he finds that there are two theoretical systems: dogmatism, which believes the "1“ to be determined by the things, and idealism, which believes the things to be determined by the “I.” In his view, both stand there as possible world views. Both can be worked through consistently. But if we give ourselves over to dogmatism, we must give up the independence of the “I” make the “I” dependent upon the thing-in-itself. We are in the opposite situation if we embrace idealism. Fichte leaves it entirely up to the preference of the “I” which of the two systems one or another philosopher will choose. But if the “I” wants to preserve its independence, it will give up its belief in the things outside us and give itself over to idealism.

[ 8 ] Now all that was needed would have been the reflection that the “I,” in fact, cannot arrive at any real, well-founded decision or determination if it does not presuppose something that helps it along. Anything the determined out of itself would remain empty and without content if the “I” did not find something with more content, something thoroughly determined, that made it possible for the “I” to characterize the “given” and thereby to make the choice between idealism and dogmatism. This something thoroughly full of content, however, is the world of thinking. And characterizing the "given” by thinking is called knowing. No matter where we take up Fichte's work, we find that it acquires hands and feet if we think of the activity of the “I,” which for him was entirely gray and empty, as filled and regulated by what we have called the process of knowledge.

[ 9 ] Through inner freedom the “I” can activate itself; this enables it — out of itself, by self-determination — to realize the category of knowing activity, whereas in the rest of the world the reveal themselves as connected by objective necessity with the “given” corresponding to them. To investigate the nature of free self-determination will be the task of an ethics and metaphysics based upon our epistemology. These will also have to deal with the question whether the “I” can realize other ideas besides knowledge. But that the realization of our activity of knowing occurs through inner freedom is already clear from the above discussions. For, when the directly “given” and the thought-form belonging to it are united by the “I” in the process of knowledge, this union of the two elements of reality, which otherwise always remain separated within consciousness, can occur only through an act of inner freedom.

[ 10 ] But our considerations also shed light upon critical idealism in a completely different way. To anyone who has occupied himself deeply with Fichte's system it seems to be a heart's concern of this philosopher to uphold the principle that nothing can come into the "T from outside, that nothing arises within it that is not originally posited by the “I” itself. But it is unquestionably the fact that no idealism will ever be able to derive from the “I” that form of the world content which we have called the directly “given.” This form can indeed only be never constructed out of thinking. Consider only the fact that, even if all the rest of the color scale were given us, we would still not be able, merely from the “I,” to add even one nuance of color. We can make a picture for ourselves of the most distant regions of the earth that we have never seen, if we have ever once experienced its individual elements as “given.” If guidance is given us we then construct the picture out of the individual facts we have experienced ourselves. But we will strive in vain to spin out of ourselves even one single element of perception that never lay in the realm of what is “given” us. But, merely being acquainted with the “given” world is one thing; and knowing its essential being is another. This essential being, in spite of the fact that it is deeply connected with the world content, does not become clear to us unless we ourselves build up reality out of the “given” and thinking. The actual “what” of the “given” is posited for the “I” only through the “I” itself. But the “I” would have absolutely no cause to posit within itself the essential being of a “given” if it did not first see the thing confronting it free of all characterizations. What is therefore posited by the “I” as the essential being of the world, is not posited without the but rather through the “I.”

[ 11 ] It is not the first form in which reality approaches the "I” that is its true one, but rather the final one that the “I” makes out of the first. That first form has no significance at all for the objective world and has that form only as a basis for the process of knowledge. Therefore, it is not the form of the world given it by knowledge that is subjective, but rather the first form “given” to the “I” that is so. If, like Volkelt and others, we call this “given” world “experience,” then one must say: Science restores the world picture — which, owing to the constitution of our consciousness, appears in subjective form, as experience — to what it essentially is.

[ 12 ] Our epistemology provides the basis for an idealism that understands itself in the true sense of the word. It gives a foundation for the conviction that in thinking the essence of the world is conveyed. The relations of the parts of the world content cannot be revealed by anything other than by thinking, whether it be the relation of the sun's warmth to the warm stone or of the “I” to the outer world. In thinking alone the element is given that determines all things in their relations to each other.

[ 13 ] An objection that Kantianism could still make is that what we have characterized above as the determining of the essential being of the “given” is such only for the “I.” To this we must reply, in the sense of our basic conviction, that in fact even the split between “I” and outer world has existence only within the “given,” and that therefore this restriction, for the “I,” has no significance in the face of thinking contemplation which unites all opposites. The “I” as something separated from the outer world disappears entirely within thinking contemplation of the world; it therefore no longer makes any sense at all to speak of determinations merely for the “I.”