To which philosophical direction does the teaching of Fichte belong? Philosophy of Johann Fichte

Fichte is a famous German philosopher, today considered a classic. His basic idea was that a person shapes 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 involved in social activities. The Thinker was born on May 19. 1762 in the village of Rammenau in a large family engaged in peasant labor. With the assistance of a wealthy relative, after graduating from a city school, the boy was accepted to study at an elite educational institution intended for nobles - Pfortu. Johann Fichte then studied at the Universities of Jena and Leizipg. Since 1788, the philosopher has worked as a home teacher in Zurich. At the same time, the thinker met his future wife, Johanna Rahn.

Introduction to Kant's ideas

In the summer of 1791, the philosopher attended lectures by Immanuel Kant, then held in Königsberg. Acquaintance with the concepts of the great thinker predetermined the entire further course of I. G. Fichte’s philosophical work. Kant responded positively to his work entitled “An Essay on the Critique of All Revelation.” This essay, the authorship of which was initially erroneously attributed to Kant, revealed to the scientist the possibility of obtaining 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 began 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 scientific teaching” (1796);

“The First Introduction to the Study of Science” (1797);

“Second Introduction to the Study of Science for Readers Already Having a Philosophical System” (1797);

“A system of teaching about morality according to the principles of scientific teaching” (1798).

These works influenced the philosophers of Fichte's contemporaries - Schelling, Goethe, Schiller, Novalis.

Leaving the University of Jena, final years

In 1799, the philosopher was accused of atheism, which was prompted by 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 lived and worked in Berlin. In 1806, after defeat in the war with Napoleon, the Prussian government was forced to move to Königsberg. Fichte followed his compatriots and began teaching at the local university until 1807. After some time, he moved to Berlin again, and in 1810 he became rector of the University of Berlin.

His lectures, which were given after the defeat of the Prussian troops at Jena, called on German townspeople to resist the French occupiers. These speeches made Fichte one of the main intellectuals of the then resistance to Napoleon's regime.

The philosopher's last days were spent in Berlin. He died on January 29, 1814 due to typhoid infection from his own wife, who was then caring for the wounded in the hospital.

Fichte's attitude towards 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 teaching.” The philosopher points out that this is the ordinary consciousness of a person, acting as detached from the individual himself and elevated to the Absolute. The entire world around us is a creation of the “I”. It is effective, active. The development of self-awareness occurs through the struggle between consciousness and the surrounding world.

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

Secondly, the scientist considered the structure of a priori forms of consciousness in Kant to be 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 of Fichte

Among the famous works of the scientist, the following works should be highlighted:

“On the appointment of a scientist” (1794);

“On the Purpose of Man” (1800);

“A message as clear as the sun to the general public about the true essence of modern philosophy. An attempt to force readers to understand" (1801);

"The Main Features of the Modern Age" (1806).

The main ideas of Johann Fichte were presented in a series of works published under the general title “Science”. The philosopher, like Descartes, recognizes the fact of self-consciousness as the center of all things. According to Fichte, this sensation already contains all the categories that Kant derived in his works. For example, “I am” is equivalent to the expression “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. By 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 development of society. But at the same time, Johann Fichte believed that freedom itself is inseparable from knowledge. It can be achieved only with a high level of development of the spiritual culture of the individual. Thus, culture, together with morality, makes all the work of an individual possible.

Practical activity in the works of the thinker

One of the most valuable ideas of Fichte's philosophy is the consideration of activity through the prism of removing intermediate goals using all kinds of means. In the process of human life, practical contradictions are inevitable and arise almost constantly. That is why the process of activity represents an endless overcoming of these conflicts and incompatibilities. The philosopher understands activity itself as the work of practical reason, but at the same time the question of activity forces philosophers to 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 the opposites are in their unity. Contradiction, the philosopher believes, is one of the most important sources of development. Fichte considers categories not simply as a collection 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 “I” activity.

A question of freedom

Personal freedom, 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 the personality independent of the external world, Fichte still recognizes that the very primary activity of consciousness, through which it is separated from the external world (the “I” and “Not-I” are separated), does not depend on the free will of an individual person.

The highest goal of the activity of the “I,” according to Fichte, is to spiritualize the opposing “Not-I” 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 external influences of the “Not-Self”.

Philosopher's subjectivism

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

The whole world is Me.

Of course, this expression of the philosopher should not be taken literally. For example, the main thought of another philosopher, David Hume, was the idea that the entire world around us is a collection of sensations experienced by a person. This position 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.

Ontology problem

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 that reveals the features of the category of philosophical understanding of being. Fichte introduces a new concept into science - the ontology of the subject. This existence is a dialectical process of cultural and historical activity of all human civilization. In the process of revealing its essence, the “absolute I” contributes to the limitation of a certain empirical individual, and through him knows himself.

The activity of the “I” is revealed in rational intuition. It is precisely this that represents the guiding thread that helps to move from the status of an empirical subject through practical activity to an absolute subject. Thus, Fichte considers the question of what ontology is 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.

Fichte

Biographical information. Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) was a German public figure and philosopher. Born into a peasant family, thanks to the help of Baron von Militz, he entered the gymnasium, and after graduating, in 1780, he entered the theological faculty of the University of Jena. In 1792, under the influence of Kant’s works, he wrote “An Experience in the Criticism of All Revelation.” This work was approved by Kant and, at his request, published. Since the work was published anonymously, many mistook it for the work of Kant himself. After Kant named the true author of this work, Fichte immediately became famous. In 1794, on the recommendation of Goethe, he was invited to the position of professor at the University of Jena, but in 1799, for a number of careless statements, he was accused of promoting atheism and dismissed from service. From 1800, Fichte mainly lived and worked in Berlin, and in 1810 he became the first elected rector of the University of Berlin. In 1814, he died of typhus, having become infected from his wife, who was caring for wounded and sick soldiers in the hospital.

There are two main periods in Fichte's work - before and after 1800. In the first period, Fichte's philosophy is closer to subjective idealism, in the second - to objective idealism.

Main works. “An Experience in the Criticism of All Revelation” (1792), “Fundamentals of General Scientific Teaching” (the first version was published in 1794, this book was refined and revised throughout Fichte’s life, more than 15 of its editions are known), “Discourses on the appointment of a scientist” ( 1794), “Fundamentals of Natural Law” (1796), “The System of the Doctrine of Morality” (1798), “The Purpose of Man” (1800), “The Main Features of the Present Epoch” (1806), “The Path to the Blessed Life” (1806), "Speeches to the German Nation" (1808).

Philosophical views. First period. At this time, Fichte built his concept based on the concept of the absolute “I”. It is this part of Fichte's teaching that is most interesting and original.

At the forefront, Fichte put questions that are under the jurisdiction of “practical reason” - the study of morality and the state-political structure, and the most important place for him is occupied by the problems of freedom, duty, moral behavior, etc. But at the same time, he (like Kant) believes that “ practical reason" must rest on a solid foundation of "theoretical reason", and therefore begins its research precisely with it.

Scientific teaching. Philosophy, as Fichte believed, should be the basis, the foundation for all other sciences, i.e. “the science of science,” therefore Fichte’s main treatise, “Fundamentals of the General Study of Science,” is devoted specifically to the problems of science. The fundamental feature of science is that it systematic: in it, some ideas are derived from others, any newly introduced thesis must be justified with the help of others - previously proven. Consequently, science must be based on a single set of true and self-evident propositions, or even one initial proposition. But what is more obvious to a person than his own consciousness, his “I”? The existence and activity of our consciousness (“I”) is undeniable for each of us; Moreover, making our “I” the object of reflection, we always remain within the boundaries of this “I”. Therefore, it is with the study of consciousness that philosophy should begin. However, when setting this task, you can take different approaches to choosing an object of study.

Types of "I". To understand the meaning of Fichte's teachings, it is necessary to step back for a while from the presentation of his philosophy and distinguish between several types of consciousness ("I").

For any researcher of consciousness, the first and most obvious object of study is his personal, individual, empirical “I”. But besides my consciousness, there are also consciousnesses (“I”) of other people. So my “I” is included in many human “I’s”. Both Kant and Fichte proceed from the assumption that all human “I”, differing from each other “in small things,” are similar (and even identical) in their essential fundamental properties.

At the same time, Fichte postulates the existence of a certain Absolute consciousness - " I“, which, as it were, “lies” behind all human “I”, determining their essential properties. This Absolute consciousness practically acquires the status of Divine consciousness in Fichte (Diagram 124).

Scheme 124.

And the initial object of study in Fichte’s philosophy turns out to be precisely not his personal “I”, not an arbitrary human “I” or the multitude of all human “I”s, but Absolute consciousness - “ I".

Fichte divides all philosophical teachings into two groups: criticism and dogmatism. Following Kant, Fichte calls teachings that begin research with consciousness criticism; and teachings that begin with the study of the world (external to consciousness) - dogmatism. Thus, the main difference between criticism and dogmatism is the direction of movement of thought (from consciousness to the external world or from the external world to consciousness). He classifies Kant’s teaching and his own as criticism, and all the rest as dogmatism (Diagram 125).

Scheme 125.

Fichte saw the advantage of criticism over dogmatism in the fact that based on inert, motionless matter, it is impossible to deduce and explain active consciousness, whereas based on active consciousness, inert matter can be deduced and explained.

The meaning of this statement will become clearer when we take into account that what materialists and objective idealists consider to be the external, really existing material world, and Kant calls the “thing-in-itself” (recognizing its existence outside and independently of consciousness), Fichte turns out to be just the content of consciousness (" I"), And as such, unlike the Kantian “thing-in-itself”, it turns out to be in principle cognizable for consciousness.

The doctrine of consciousness. The active, active nature of consciousness is manifested primarily in the fact that consciousness is not given, but given. This means that it cannot be considered as ready-made, complete, which we can only contemplate (as it was with Descartes). Consciousness in its activity generates, creates itself, and goes through a number of stages of development (Diagram 126).

At the first stage the acting, active subject intuitively sees himself and realizes his self-identity, i.e. I = I.

At the second stage development in its activity, the “I” also generates its negation - “not-I”. This creation of the “not-I” is not recognized by ordinary thinking - the human “I”; it is largely unconscious, i.e. content that does not reach consciousness, and therefore the products of this activity (the content of the “not-I”) are accepted by ordinary thinking as things that supposedly exist on their own - outside consciousness. At the same time, the “I” experiences a certain “push” from the “not-I”. Through the concepts with which consciousness operates, we cannot understand the nature of this push or how it acts on our “I”, but this action is felt by us. The orientation of the “I” towards the “not-I” means that the “I” acts as subject, i.e. acting, cognizing consciousness, and “not-I” – in the role object, i.e. consciousness, which is the subject of knowledge. In this case, the subject opposes himself to the object, and that is why the object acts as a “not-I” in relation to the “I”-subject.

At the third stage there is a “synthesis” of the first and second, consisting in determination, mutual limitation and, accordingly, the definition of “I” and “not-I”. “I” at the same time realizes itself as everything that is not “not-I”, as everything that is opposite to “not-I” - within the framework of a single, original, Absolute “I”.

Scheme 126. Dialectics "I" and "not-I"

At the third stage of development, the human empirical “I” appears. Since the creation of things, objects that make up the content of the “not-I”, is carried out by the original Absolute “I” unconsciously, unconsciously, all these objects appear for our “I” as something different from the “I”. Our “I” gets to know them step by step – through sensations and reason. And it seems to our common sense that all these objects exist on their own - outside and independent of us. Whereas in fact they are all a product of the “I” - pure self-consciousness. Again, only individual people - philosophers - can do this. And it is they who set themselves the goal of getting closer to understanding this “I” as an absolute limit. However, one can only constantly approach it, but cannot achieve it. For to achieve it means to abolish it, i.e. to do away with consciousness as such.

Ethical and socio-political views. The concept of “freedom” occupies a central place in Fichte’s ethical teachings. And the main problem of ethics is the contradiction between freedom and necessity.

If in theoretical-cognitive activity the “not-I” influences the “I” as an object of knowledge, then in moral and practical terms the “not-I” produces a certain push on the “I”, which causes opposition from the "I" side. In this case, the “not-I” plays the role of an obstacle that the “I” seeks to overcome: the activity of the “not-I” turns out to be a stimulus for the activity of the “I”, which seeks to expand its boundaries at the expense of the area of ​​the “not-I”. But since both the “I” and the “not-I” are infinite, then only an infinite expansion of the “I” area is possible, but not the completion of this process (diagram 127).

For man to be free- this means make yourself free, i.e. in your empirical “I” (individual human consciousness) push back the boundaries of “not-I”. And this activity of a person (a finite being) is a necessary component of the activity of the infinite Absolute in its process of self-knowledge. Hence, freedom turns out to be in Fichte (unlike all previous philosophers - see Table 82) the activity of the “I” in recognizing necessity and reducing the area of ​​“not-I”.

Table 82

Understanding freedom in modern philosophy

Philosophers	Understanding freedom
	Everything in the world is determined, so true freedom does not exist. But a person can recognize necessity and live in accordance with the known laws of existence. Freedom is a recognized necessity
	Man is born free and to be free is a natural human right In the process of development of human society, some people are enslaved by others (taking away their freedom). The goal of fair legislation (social contract) is to achieve maximum freedom for all citizens
	Human subordinated to necessity as a phenomenon ("thing-for-us") among other phenomena Human free as a transcendent entity, those. as a "thing-in-itself"
	To be free means to make yourself free Freedom is the activity of recognizing necessity, and the activity of relative increase in the area of ​​“I” at the expense of the area of ​​“not-I” within the framework of a single Absolute

Therefore, the worst form of human behavior is inactivity, since in this case a person remains at the level of a thing, “not-I,” and refuses to realize his highest destiny. There are many people (empirical selves), each of whom has his own personal goals and ideals, which inevitably leads to conflict between them. In this conflict, the victory of the better, more moral is inevitable, since this corresponds to the state of affairs in the divine world (in the Absolute).

Progress in the development of human society consists of increasing freedom, and in different historical periods there are different degrees of freedom.

The plurality of people inevitably leads to the emergence of law and the state. Every person is endowed with freedom, but living among other people, he must limit his freedom, recognizing the freedom of others; thus, law is born. In addition, everyone should live from the fruits of their labor, having the right to property. The state arises through a social contract and must provide all citizens with a normal life, i.e. incompetent citizens - existence, and capable citizens - work and fair payment

The fate of the teaching. Fichte's ideas influenced primarily his student Schelling, and through him, Hegel. Fichte's influence on the German romantics of the 19th century was significant, and in the 20th century. One can note the similarity of a number of Fichte’s ideas with the ideas of phenomenology, psychoanalytic philosophy and some other movements (Diagram 128).

Scheme 128.

• Explicitly or not explicitly, but at that time the geometry of Euclid served as an example of the rigor of constructing any scientific theories, where a set of self-evident provisions (axioms or postulates) is identified, and a number of theorems are derived from them. Descartes considered his thesis “I think, therefore I exist” as such a self-evident position (postulate for philosophy). An attempt to systematically and consistently construct a philosophical doctrine modeled on Euclid's geometry took place in the philosophy of Spinoza.
• At the same time, Fichte follows Kant, who also began with the study of “theoretical reason”, its boundaries, structure and possibilities.
• Strictly speaking, with this approach, the teachings of Leibniz, Berkeley and Hume can also be classified as criticism.
• In terms of modern logic, one could say that in Fichte, the original Absolute “I” acts as a universe, over which a dichotomous division is made into two opposite, mutually exclusive parts. Moreover, the “I” that arose as a result of division is a complement to the “not-I” that arose as a result of division, and vice versa.
• In the 17th–18th centuries, when numerous anti-feudal revolutions took place (the First and Second English Revolutions, the Great French Revolution, etc.), the problem of freedom occupied an important place in philosophy. It was actively discussed in the philosophy of Spinoza, Rousseau, and also Kant (Table 82).
• This scheme is not entirely adequate to Fichte's ideas; it illustrates only the process of expanding the sphere of “I” at the expense of the sphere of “not-I”, but cannot convey (like any other graphic diagram) the main thing: the spheres of both “I” and “not-I” are infinite, therefore the process of expansion of the “I” is endless.

An important step in the revision of Kant’s teaching was taken by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), pointing out the contradictory nature of the concept of “things in themselves” and the need to eliminate it from critical philosophy as a relic of dogmatic thinking. According to Fichte, not only the form of knowledge, but also its entire content must be derived from the “pure I” of transcendental apperception. And this means that the Kantian transcendental subject thereby turns into the absolute beginning of all things - the “absolute I”, from whose activity the entire fullness of reality, the entire objective world, called by Fichte “not-I”, must be explained. Thus understood, the subject essentially takes the place of the divine substance of classical rationalism (it is known that in his youth Fichte was interested in the philosophy of Spinoza).

To understand Fichte’s concept, it should be borne in mind that he proceeds from Kant’s transcendentalism, that is, he discusses the problem of knowledge, not being. The main question of Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”: “how synthetic a priori judgments are possible,” that is, how scientific knowledge is possible, remains central in Fichte. Therefore, Fichte calls his philosophy “the doctrine of science” (scientific doctrine). Science, according to Fichte, differs from non-scientific ideas due to its systematic form. However, systematicity is, although a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for the scientific nature of knowledge: the truth of the entire system is based on the truth of its original principles. This last, says Fichte, must be immediately certain, that is, obvious.

Just as Descartes, in search of the most reliable principle, turned to our ego, so does Fichte. The most reliable thing in our consciousness, he says, is self-consciousness: “I am,” “I am I.” The act of self-awareness is a unique phenomenon; according to Fichte, he is an action and at the same time a product of this action, that is, the coincidence of opposites - subject and object, for in this act the I generates itself, posits itself.

However, despite all the similarities between Fichte’s original principle and the Cartesian one, there is also a significant difference between them. The action by which the I gives birth to itself is, according to Fichte, an act of freedom.

Therefore, the judgment “I am” is not simply a statement of some existing fact, such as, for example, the judgment “The rose is red.” In reality, it is like a response to a call, to a demand - “Be!”, become aware of your Self, create it as a kind of autonomous reality by an act of awareness-generation, and thereby enter the world of free, and not just natural, beings. This requirement appeals to the will, and therefore the judgment “I am I” expresses the same autonomy of the will that Kant laid as the basis of ethics. The philosophy of Kant and Fichte is the idealism of freedom, an ethically oriented idealism.

However, Fichte does not have the dividing line that Kant drew between the world of nature, where necessity reigns, lawfulness, studied by science, and the world of freedom, the basis of which is expediency. In Fichte's absolute self, the theoretical and practical principles coincide and nature turns out to be only a means for the realization of human freedom, losing the remainder of the independence that it had in Kant's philosophy. Activity, the activity of the absolute subject becomes for Fichte the only source of everything that exists. We accept the existence of natural objects as something independent only because the activity with the help of which these objects are generated is hidden from our consciousness: to reveal the subjective-active principle in all objectively existing things - such is the task of Fichte’s philosophy. Nature, according to Fichte, does not exist in itself, but for the sake of something else: in order to realize itself, the activity of the I needs some obstacle, overcoming which it unfolds all its definitions and, finally, fully realizes itself, thereby achieving identity with itself. myself. Such an identity, however, cannot be achieved in a finite time; it is an ideal to which the human race strives, never fully achieving it. The movement towards such an ideal constitutes the meaning of the historical process.

In his teaching, Fichte, as we see, in an idealistic form expressed the conviction that a practical-active attitude towards an object lies at the basis of a theoretical-contemplative attitude towards it. Fichte argued that human consciousness is active not only when it thinks, but also in the process of perception, when, as the French materialists (and partly also Kant) believed, it is influenced by something outside of itself. The German philosopher believed that to explain the process of sensation and perception one should not refer to the action of “things in themselves,” but it is necessary to identify those acts of self-activity of the Self (lying beyond the borders of consciousness) that form the invisible basis of “passive” contemplation of the world.

Although the German idealists, including Fichte, did not go as far in practical political issues as the ideologists of the French Revolution, in terms of philosophy proper they turned out to be more revolutionary than the French enlighteners.

Fichte's dialectic

Already in Kant, the concept of a transcendental subject does not coincide with either the individual human subject or the divine mind of traditional rationalism. No less complex is the original concept of Fichte's teachings - the concept of "I".

On the one hand, Fichte means the Self, which each person discovers in the act of self-reflection, and therefore the individual, or empirical Self. On the other hand, this is a certain absolute reality, never completely accessible to our consciousness, from which, through its self-development and self-discovery, is generated the entire universe and which therefore is the divine, absolute Self. The Absolute Self is an endless activity that becomes the property of individual consciousness only at the moment when it encounters some obstacle and is limited by this latter. But at the same time, having encountered a boundary, a certain non-I, activity rushes beyond the boundaries of this boundary, then again encounters a new obstacle, etc. This pulsation of activity and its awareness (stopping) constitutes the very nature of the Self, which, thus, is not infinite and not finite, but is the unity of the opposites of the finite and infinite, human and divine, individual Self and absolute Self. This is the original contradiction of the Self. , the unfolding of which, according to Fichte, constitutes the content of the entire world process and, accordingly, the teaching of science reflecting this process. The individual I and the absolute I in Fichte sometimes coincide and are identified, sometimes they fall apart and differ; this “pulsation” of coincidence-disintegration is the core of Fichte’s dialectic, the driving principle of his system. Along with self-consciousness (“I am”), its opposite is also posited - non-I. The coexistence of these opposites in one Self is possible, according to Fichte, only by limiting each other, that is, by partial mutual destruction. But the partial mutual destruction of opposites means that the Self and the non-Self are divisible, for only the divisible consists of parts. The entire dialectical process aims to reach a point at which the contradiction is resolved and the opposites - the individual Self and the absolute Self - coincide. However, the complete achievement of this ideal is impossible: all human history is only an endless approximation to it. It was this point of Fichte's teaching - the unattainability of the identity of opposites - that became the subject of criticism by his younger contemporaries - Schelling and Hegel. This criticism was carried out by both from the standpoint of objective idealism, which, however, they justified in different ways.

Fichte Johann Gottlieb(1762-1814), German philosopher, representative of German classical philosophy.

Fichte's own philosophy began with the development of the philosophical ideas of Immanuel Kant. But in his work, Fichte tried to overcome Kant’s dualism, which separated by an impassable abyss the objectively existing world, concrete things (noumenon, matter) and ideas that reflect this world (phenomenon, the subjective world of man). Fichte strengthened the idealistic side of Kant's philosophical views in the direction of monism and objective idealism. Fichte discarded existence (being) and focused exclusively on the only undoubted “I” thinking. Along with Descartes’ “existence,” Fichte also rejected the Kantian “thing in itself.” “I” in Fichte is that which manifests itself in all acts of human thinking, feeling and will; “I” cannot cause anyone to doubt its existence. It, the “I” is not only the basis and the only point of the human vision of the world, the “I” is the only essence of the world itself. Starting from this “I”, Fichte undertakes to create a system of scientific, absolutely reliable and absolutely true philosophy.

First position his Fichte's teachings formulated this way: “I believe to myself.” “I” does not depend on anything, is not conditioned by anything. It creates (posits) itself. It is! Fichte tries to convince the reader that only a philosophically immature individual could fail to realize this position.

Second position his Fichte's teachings formulated this way: “I posits non-I.” The second position, as we see, is a continuation and antithesis of the first position and says that the world external to a person is the creation of his spirit, his own “I”. The essence of knowledge lies, according to Fichte, in the knowledge of the relationship between the “I” and the “not-I”, in the process of which genuine knowledge is achieved not only of the seemingly external world, but also of the “I” itself (myself).

Third position his Fichte's teachings formulated this way: “I posits the non-I and myself.” This position is a synthesis of the previous two provisions - the thesis (“I posits itself”) and the antithesis (“I posits the non-I”) as a result of which, according to Fichte, a transition is made to the understanding of the absolute subject, the absolute I, as something completely unconditional and nothing not determined by the highest.

Unlike Kant, who depicted the established aspects of consciousness, Fichte includes development in his philosophy, speaks of contradiction as the source of this development, in other words, develops philosophical dialectics.

Fichte called his system of philosophy Science. This is how he called his main work, which he supplemented and improved all his life; In further development of the ideas contained in it, the work “Science”, he wrote a number of books and articles, some of which were published after the death of the philosopher.

Fichte (1762) - great German philosopher. He presented works of a socio-historical and ethical nature. In his writings, he tried to determine the goals and objectives of practical action, people in the world and society. Fichte proceeded from Kantian ethical rigorism and activism.

Fichte argued that Kant's genius reveals the truth to him without showing its foundations, therefore Fichte creates philosophy like geometry, the starting point of which is the consciousness of the “I”. This is the ordinary consciousness of a person, torn from him and turned into an absolute. The entire external world is “not-I” - a creation of “I”. The “I” produces “not-I” as its opposite in order to find a use for its activity.

Philosophy for Fichte is scientific introspection of the creative and ethical activity of the personality “I,” which is why he called his philosophy “scientific teaching.”

Fichte established three activities of the Self:

1) I posit myself.

2) The I posits the non-I.

3) I contrasts the divisible I with the divisible non-I.

For Fichte, the self is the concept of spirit, will, morality, and faith of the non-self. I am the concept of nature and matter. Initially, there is only absolute activity - the Self. We see things outside of us because the Self sublates the reality in itself and posits this sublated reality in the non-Self, which is also the “activity” of the Self. The belief that the consciousness of the material world is outside of us it is nothing other than the product of our own faculty of representation that at the same time gives us the idea of ​​freedom.

By the activity of the Self, Fichte understands the moral behavior of the subject. Man's moral duty is to become free. Fichte concludes that a person can achieve a state of freedom only at a certain stage of development. Freedom is inalienable from knowledge only at a high moral and spiritual level of a person. One of Fichte's brilliant ideas is to consider the process of activity through the removal of intermediate goals using various means. Practical contradictions arise constantly, and therefore the process of activity is an endless elimination of these internal practical contradictions.

The activity itself is understood as the activity of practical reason, i.e. subjectively idealistic. The problem of the activity of the subject makes contemporaries and subsequent philosophers think. The dialectical way of thinking is the highest achievement of Fichte's philosophy. Everything that exists is contradictory, and Fichte views contradiction as a source of development. In practical philosophy, Fichte develops the doctrine of morality, state and law.

Fichte's teaching was influenced by the revolutionary events in France (1789-1794). When considering issues of ethics, law and state, Fichte paid the greatest attention to the concept of freedom. Freedom is the subordination of a person to laws with an awareness of their necessity;

All human history is a process of the spread of freedom, the path of its triumph. Law is the voluntary submission of a person to established laws. The state is the guarantor of peace and protection of property. The state is an organization of owners. This position of Fichte confirms the guess about the economic and social nature of the state.

Fichte's philosophy contains a number of fruitful ideas that had a strong influence on the development of classical German philosophy and subsequent philosophical thought. This is the doctrine of the development of consciousness, an attempt to systematically derive categories, the dialectical method of their analysis, the assertion of the right of reason to theoretical knowledge, the doctrine of freedom as voluntary submission and historical necessity, based on the knowledge of this necessity, the study of the structure of human activity -sti.