Fichte's System in the 1794 "Foundation of the Entire Science of Knowledge"

The purpose of this blog post is to get into the nuts and bolts of Fichte’s argument in his 1794 Foundation of the Entire Science of Knowledge (hereafter Foundation). I want to do this for two reasons. First, it will allow us to bring the high level argument from the previous blog post regarding negation closer to Fichte’s text. In the previous blog post, we tried to stay out of the weeds of Fichte’s formulations, choosing instead to describe largely in our own terms, how the Theoretical Part of the Foundation moves from a theory of qualitative negation to quantitative negation, and finally to Fichtean negation. Now we want to look at the specific terms Fichte introduces to complete this argument and thereby make it easier for the reader to follow this argument in Fichte’s text. Second, the Theoretical Part of the Foundation is a very systematic text that follows a very specific architecture. Strangely enough, there is no account in the secondary literature that does justice to Fichte’s architecture, that displays it in its proper clarity.¹

Fichte’s architecture

Fichte concieves of the Foundation as operating similarly to Euclid’s Elements or Spinoza’s Ethics. The idea is simple: the system begins with a few self-evident propositions and builds insights, theories, explanations, etc. solely on the basis of these begining propositions. In Fichte’s 1794 Foundation there are exactly three propositions from which the entirely of his system is meant to unfold. These three propositions are the three principles that Fichte introduces in paragraphs 1, 2, and 3, respectively, of the Foundation, namely:

1. “The Self posits originally and absolutely its own being.” “Das Ich setzt ursprünglich schlechthin sein eigenes Sein.” (Foundation 18)
2. “A Not-Self is posited as absolutely opposed to the Self.” “…dem Ich [wird] schlechthin entgegengesetzt ein Nicht-Ich” (Foundation 24)
3. “The Self as well as the Not-Self are posited partially.” “Ich sowohl als Nicht-Ich wird teilbar gesetzt” (Foundation 20)

Are three of these principle combine to form one single “formula”, which we can call the basic formula of the entire 1794 system:

I posit in myself a divisible Not-Self, as opposing the divisible Self.

Ich setze im Ich dem teilbaren Ich ein teilbares Nicht-Ich entgegen. (Foundation 30)

According to Fichte, the entirety of his philosophical system lies within this basic formula. The remainder of the Foundation consists merely in unfurling the meaning that is contained implicitly within this formula. This act of unfurling has two moments: an analytical moment and a synthetic moment. The idea is that the formula can be taken apart into smaller, apparently conflicting components - this is the analytical moment - and put back together, by showing how these confliciting components that implicitly make use of the basic formula in fact can be reconciled, so that in the end one returns to the original unified formula with which one began (described in the opening of §4).

Fichte starts unfurling his system by identifying the two contradictory principles that he claims are contained within the basic formula of his system, namely, the founding principle of theoretical knowledge:

The Self posits the Not-Self as limited by the Self.

Das Ich setzt das Nicht-Ich, als beschränkt durch das Ich. (Foundation 47 )

and the founding principle of theoretical knowledge:

The Self posits itself as limited by the Not-Self.

Das Ich setzt sich selbst, als beschränkt durch das Nicht-Ich. (Foundation 47)

The practical principle describes the human capacity to act in the world: I “limit” or “determine” the world by acting on it. Exploring the practical principle means exploring how it is that humans act in the world. Similarly, the theoretical principle describes the human capacity for objective judgements. My knowledge of the world, i.e. the sum of my judgements, follows the state of affairs in the world. The “Not-Self” here “limits” my judgements insofar as their objectivity, their being true, is determined not by myself, but by their holding in the world.

We can sketch Fichte’s system thus far as follows:

Based on what we said earlier about the complementary process of analysis and synthesis, we can expect that the practical and theoretical principles will somehow be reconciled, which is to say, shown to be mutually reinforcing, or dependent on one another like so:

Fichte does sketch out a plan similar to this. His plan is show that the Theoretical Principle reveals an unresolvable contradiction, a dilemma between realism and idealism, which the Practical Principle then reconciles in favor of the practical idealist view (Foundation 77):

In order to follow through on this plan, he introduces three new concepts that he claims are contained in the Theoretical Principle, the first of which is “interdetermination” (Wechselbestimmung), which he later refers to as an “exchange of activity and passivity” (Wechsel-Tun und Leiden), and sometimes simply as “exchange.” The concept of “exchange” is a further specification of the Theoretical Principle. It attempts to capture the fact that, in its theoretical capacity, the Self is both “determined” and “determining.” It is determining because it “posits itself as…”, and it is determined because it posits itself “as limited”, i.e. as determined. As I argued in my previous blog post, we can think of this in terms of self-correcting objective judgement. Judgement is active, since it consists in the act of judging, and judgement is also passive, since it must follow, or answer to, be determined by, the objective state of affairs. The passivity, or external determination, of judgement, becomes to the fore in the act of correcting an incorrect judgement. It is in the moment of correction that the determining power of objectivity makes itself felt the most, even it is always also present in every objective judgement.

The next two concepts Fichte introduce provides an analysis, i.e. a splitting into two, of the concept of “exchange”, and since “exchange” is merely a further specification of the Theoretical Principle, the two new concepts are an analysis of the Theoretical Principle itself. These two concepts are 1. causality, and 2. substance. As Fichte sees it at this point, causality describes the “realist” horn of the theoretical dilema, and “substance” the idealist horn. If “exchange”, or objective judgement, is seen as a case of causality, then the Self is seen as a causally determined being, whose judgements are merely part of the universal nexus of efficient causality. Light hits the retina, which travels activates the optical nerve, and then, somewhere within the casacde of neuronal firings, the brain accomplishes that mental pheonomenon known as a judgement of what it sees. In the case of “substance”, the Self is seen as encompassing “the entire absolutely determined realm of all realities”, meaning that all objective judgements are made by the judging subject, and that the Not-Self therefore only exists for the Self as the sum of his or her judgements. The causal view is “dogmatic realism”, which Fichte also equates with “material spinozism”, while the substantial view is “dogmatic idealism”, which Fichte equates with a version of Leibniz’s idealism (Foundation 76, 69). We can see in the juxtaposition of causality and substance, as Fichte presents them at this point, two distinctions that Fichte will develop more fully later one. These are 1) the setting of realism and idealsim against one another, and 2) the move distinction between the qualitative view of negation and the quantitive view of negation. Fichte tells us that the “causality” view of “exchange” understands the negation of the Self as something qualitative, the “substantial” view of “exchange” as something quantitative. As we have seen in the previous blog post, the difference between “qualitative” and “quantitative” negation lies in the relationship between a judgement “p” and its negation “not-p”. The qualitative view sees these two judgements as separate, unrelated judgements. The quantative view sees “not-p” as always already connected and made possible by “p”. In this latter case of quantitative judgement, “not-p” is dependent on “p”, and, thus the correction of “p” to “not-p” does not see the judging activity of the Self as eliminated, but rather reduced, i.e. “as a mere reduction of the activity”. In other words, the Self is still judging, and still using “p”, only it is doing it in a corrected manner, and hence the quantitative judgement is a ‘reduction of [its] activity’. (Foundation 76). Later on, Fichte will decouple the “qualitative” and “quantitative” views of negation from the realist and idealit horns of his theoretical dilemma, but at this point, we have idealism and quantitative negation on one side of the theoretical dilemma, and realism and qualitative negation on the other side. Following Kant very closely, Fichte claims that in the Theoretical Part, this dilemma is undecidable, so that we have the following sketch of Fichte’s theoretical philosophy:

At this point, i.e. up to and including §4.D, Fichte’s theoretical philosophy looks a lot like Kants. Similar to Kant’s Third Antimony, it pits idealism and realism against one another, only to conclude that, in a critical philosophical system, one cannot decide between the two.². It also promises to go beyond Kant, by showing how the Practical Principle offers a resolution to this conflict. However, Fichte never makes good on his promises here. Instead, he embarks on a new series of analyses and syntheses that eventually bring him to a entirely new philosophical account of negation, that of internal negation and imaginative openness that we outlined in the previous blog post.³

Fichte’s Architecture Corrected

Having sketched Fichte’s original plan to ‘analyze’ the Theoretical Principle into a dilemma, we can now see what Fichte actually ends up doing in the further course of the Theoretical Part of the Foundation.

First, Fichte revises the concept of the “exchange.” Rather than a further specification of the Theoretical Principle, he now, i.e. in §4.E., claims that it is one of two concepts that together constitute an analysis of the Theoretical Principle. Its counterpart he calls “independent activity”, which is that “activity” of mind that is not affected by the exchange, and hence “independent” from it. In our terms, we can say that while the “exchange” is the act of negation a previous judgement, the “independent activity” involved in judgement refers to that upon which a judgement and its negation depend in general, namely the subject who makes the judgement and the world that impinges on, or corrects, the subject’s incorrect judgement. The subject is “independent activity” because it not only makes the judgements ‘p’ or ‘Not-p’, but also does things like ascribe these judgements to itself and maintain a continuity of mind such that it knowledge that one judgement, ‘Not-p’, is, for example, a revision of a previous judgement ‘p’. Similarly, the world is also “independent activity” because it is somehow influencing, or causing, the the subject’s judgements. Together, the subject and the world comprise the “independent activity”, or better independent activities that form the basis of this or that negated judgement.

Thus Fichte has a new analytical pair, negation and what we can call the frame of judgement. This analytical pair Fichte now subordinates to the analytical pair “causality” and “substance”, so that negation, under the concept of causality, looks different from negation under the concept of substance. And the frame of judgement under the concept of causality looks different from the frame of judgement under the concept of substance:

Finally, Fichte introduces the analytical pair of “form” and “matter”. “Form” refers to the act of judgement, matter to what is judged, i.e. to the state of affairs in the world. The form/matter distinction provides a further specification of causal negation, substantial negation, causal judgement in general, and substantial judgement in general, so that we now have the following eight-fold division of the Theoretical Principle:

The Theoretical Principle thus breaks up into eight different components, which pair up into four different form/matter contradictions that need to somehow be reconciled, or synthesized. Here is an overview of how this process of synthesis works:

The process of reconciliation, or “synthesis”, consists in putting forth two competing theories, i.e. the two “horns” of a dilemma, which consist, respectively, in the claim that the form “determines” the matter, and the matter “determines” the form. The synthesis is then completed by showing that neither horn of the dilemma is correct, and that form and matter mutually determine each other. The syntheses of form of the frame of judgement with the matter of the frame of judgement follow the blueprint that Fichte’s lays out in his initial plan to synthesis causality and substance: each horn of the dilemma produces a version of idealism and realism, and their reconciliation produces a version of critical idealism. In the case of the syntheses of the form and matter of negation, no general theory of mind, i.e. no idealism or realism is put forward. The reason for this is that the syntheses of negation have a very limited scope, namely only the moment of the negated judgement, and therefore do not say anything about judgement in general, and what a judgement, in turn, depends on. In the next, and final step, the results from the synthesis of the frame of judgement and the synthesis of negation are pitted against one another in a new process of synthesis. It is this final synthesis that, in the case of causality, leads us to quantitative negation, and in the case of substance, leads us to Fichtean negation.

The Analyses and Syntheses examined in detail

Now that we have a general map of the architecture of Fichte’s argument, we can elucidate the substance of Fichte’s argument by going through each and every step of the analyses and syntheses, quoting Fichte’s language, and then translation that into own language of negated judgement:

Analysis and Synthesis of the form and matter of the frame of judgement concieved as a causal phenomenon

• Fichte’s formuation: (‘Die zum Behuf der Möglichkeit des im Begriffe der Wirksamheit postulierten Wechsels vorauszusetzende Tätigkeit…der bloßen Form [bzw. Materia - ML] nach’).[^foundation_91-92]
• The form of the frame judgement: “a transference” (“ein Übertragen”) (Foundation 83, 122). “The Self transfers activity into the Not-Self, from the Self” (Foundation 83-4). This refers to the act of judgement as determining objective reality. Because it is the subject who judges, it is thus his or her ‘judging activity’ which is determining the world. The world that the subject percieves is the sum of his or her own judgements, reflected back to itself.
• The material of the frame of judgement: “an independent activity of the Not-I”. This refers to the world that is impinging on our organs of perception and our cognitive capacity in general.
• The horns of the dilemma: Our (objectivity, empirical) judgements concerning the world have one of two origins: either the self (dogmatic idealism) or the world (dogmatic realism).
• The reconciliation of the dilemma: Critical idealism. Our judgements are neither strictly the result of the Self, nor the Not-Self. It is up to the Practical Part of the Foundation to further clarify this situation (Foundation 98).

Analysis and Synthesis of the form and matter of negation concieved of as a causal pheonomenon (‘Die Form [bzw. Materie - ML] des bloßen Wechsels im Begriffe der Wirksamkeit)(Foundation 98):

• The form of negation: “a becoming through a disappearing” (“ein Entstehen durch ein Vergehen”). This refers to negation as an act of judgement, which makes the previous assertion “disappear” and its negation “become”. It is the act of negating a previous judgement “p”, i.e. going from “p” to “Not-p”.
• The material of negation: “being essentially opposed (incompatibity in terms of quality).” This refers to the semantic content of the affirmation and the negation, i.e. the state of affairs to which they refer. While the form of negation says that “p” and “Not-p” cannot both be the case purely on the basis of the operation of “Not”, and regardless of the content of “p”, the material of exchange looks at the specific meaning of “p” and “Not-p”, such as “This is a cube” and “This is not a cube”, and concludes that they contradict one another, i.e. they are ‘incompatible in terms of quality’.
• The horns of the dilemma: at issue is what states can be said to contradict one another. The ‘form of negation determines the matter of negation’ says that two states are only in contradiction if they are judged to be so. The states “p” and “Not-p” only contradict one another insofar as a judging subjects takes them up in consciousness as judgements. Before the subject takes such states up in consciousness as a fully determined judgement, it could be that two states seem to contradict one another, but are not sufficiently determined. For example, if could be that a cube being red and a cube being not red do not contradict one another, if at one point in time the cube is red, and then someone paints it blue. However, the subject, by judging the cube to be red or not, and thereby determining the cube in time and space, guarantees, through the power and determinations of objective judgement, that “the cube is red” and “the cube is not red” in fact cannot coexist, because as objective jdugement, they refer to the same cube at the same place in space and time.⁴ ‘The matter of negation determines the form of negation’ says that only if two states really are incompatible, can they then fit the judgements “p” and “Not-p.” The question is thus what is prior: the state or the judgement. Are two judgements incompatible because they describe two incompatible states, or are the states incompatible because they fit the form of contradictory judgements.
• The reconciliation of the dilemma: The reconciliation occurs by arguing that there is no way to determine which is prior, because the sphere of possible states, and the sphere of all possible judgements, overlap perfectly. There is no state in the world that couldn’t be described by a human through judgement, i.e. there are no ineffable states, and similarly, there are no irrefutable objective judgements⁵, i.e. no judgements about the world to which the world doesn’t have an answer about whether they hold or not. The following Venn Diagram shows the various possibilities: The claim here is that there in no objective judgement without negation, and no ineffable state, so that the sphere of all possible judgements “I think p” and “I think Not-p” exactly perambulates the sphere of all possible states “p” and “Not-p”: In other words, there is a perfect fit between all the possible states of the world, all the p’s, and all the possible judgements ‘I think/judge p’. Every judgement “I think p” is answerable to the world. This is the ubiquity of negation discussed in the the previous blog post. Likewise, the world consists (for us at least) of nothing more than all possible judgements of the form “I think/judge p”. Objectivity is only that which can be determined through judgement, and nothing more. Since all judgement is, in turn, negatable, the world consists, for us rational beings, of refutable judgements. In Fichte’s concise formulation: “We are denying the possibilty of differentiating being in itself from being in exchange” (Foundation 101). Fichte also acknowledges that it might appear to common sense that the sphere of judgements “p and “Not-p” is smaller than the sphere of objective states “p” and “Not-p”:

“If actual negation [i.e. judgement and and its negation - ML] is merely placed in the sphere of states and their contradiction, and said merely to not exhaust that sphere, but rather to determine a smaller sphere that contains the additional requirement of actual influence [i.e. a negatable judgement - ML]: that everyone would agree to this principle without reservation. (Foundation 100)

This point can be captured by the observation that there is a difference between talking about possible versus actual judgements. Namely, for many states “p” and “Not-p”, the subject simply has no judgement, i.e. has considered neither “p” nor “Not-p”.⁶

Synthesis of the frame of judgement with negation, concieved of as causal phenomena

In this synthesis, Fichte takes up again the idealism/realism dilemma from the synthesis of the form and matter of the (causal) frame of judgement, and respecifies it using the insight from the synthesis of causal negation regarding the ubiquity of negation. When the ubiquity of negation is taken into account, then one can define a quantiative realism and a quantative idealism, in contrast to the ‘dogmatic’ or ‘qualitative’ idealism and realism defined earlier. I find Fichte’s pattern of defining horns of a dilemma based on which concept ‘determines’ the other not so useful here, and speaks to the larger articiality of Fichte’s structure. Why, for example, should the previous synthesis of judgement, which itself contained a balance between realism and idealism, now stand for the determining factor in the idealist side of the dilemma? Similarly, the previous synthesis of causal negation also contained idealist aspects (the judgement ‘I think Not-p’) and realist aspects (‘Not-p’), yet here, it is supposed to be the ‘determining’ factor in the realist dilemma. Given these caveats regarding the artificially of Fichte’s structure, we can nevertheless outline the content of Fichte’s argumenty.

• “In der Wirksamkeit bestimmen sich gegenseitig die Tätigkeit, als synthetische Einheit gedacht, und der Wechsel, als synthetische Einheit gedacht, und machen selbst eine synthetische Einheit aus.”[^foundation_101]:
• The frame of judgement as synthetic unity: “a mediate positing” (“ein mittelbares Sezten”). Fichte’s point here is that the Self and the Not-Self perfectly exclude one another, i.e. there is no “positing of reality” (“ein Setzen der Realität” (Foundation 101)) in one without a corresponding loss of reality in the other, and visa versa, no negation of reality in one, without a positing of reality in the other. This means that the “Not-Self” is only present insofar as the Self makes an objective judgement, i.e. lets its, i.e. the Self’s, reality be ‘determined’ and thus ’negated’ by the world. The reality of the world is only determined through the negation of the Self, which is to say the Self’s objective judgements. Similarly, the Self’s ability to determine its reality is only measured by its ability to act in the world. Another way to say this is that there is no aspect of the Self and the Not-Self that exist independently from one another. There is no ‘world in itself’, since the world is only available through judgement. Nor is there a ‘subject in itself’, since the subject is only present in the world. In Fichte’s terse formulation: “no subject, no object, no object, no subject” (Foundation 103). We can observe here that Fichte’s reformulation of the previous synthesis of the frame of judgement seems to take up the observation from the synthesis of negation concerning the ubiquity of negation and apply it, not to judgement, but to Self and world.
• Negation as synthetic unity: “the identity of essential opposition with real negation”, i.e. the ubuiquity of negation in objective judgement.
• The horns of the dilemma: Quantitative Idealism and Quantitative Realism (see the previous blog post for more).
• The reconciliation of the dilemma: Fichte calls the reconciliation of these views “critical quantitative idealism”, but doesn’t explain if and how it might be different from the “critical idealism” of the previous synthesis of the frame of causal judgement (Foundation 110).

Analysis and Synthesis of the form and matter of the frame of judgement concieved as a substantial phenomenon

• Fichte’s formuation: “Die Tätigkeit der Form und der Materie” (Foundation 111). And then for the form side of the analysis Fichte has this formulation: “…der bestimmte Charakter der formalen Tätigkeit bei der Wechselbestimmung durch Substantialität” (Foundation 112)

• The form: an “exclusion” (“ein Ausschließen”) (Foundation 112) That which is excluded by any judgement “p” is the judgement “Not-p”. This is the first time that Fichte clearly addresses the unity of a judgement with its negation. In judging “p”, I am thereby excluding its attendant judgement “Not-p”. Fichte also distinguishes the unity argument of substance, from the ubiquity argument of causality:

It [that which is not posited] thus shouldn’t be entirely eliminated, as in the exchange of causality; rather only excluded from a determined sphere.

Es [das Nichtgesetzte] soll demnach nicht überhaupt vernichtet werden, wie im Wechsel der Wirksamkeit; sondern nur ausgeschlossen werden aus einer bestimmten Sphäre. (Foundation 111)

• The material: “positing a…higher sphere, that comprises both the determined and the undetermined sphere” (Foundation 112). The “determined sphere” is the sum of my judgements “p”. The “undetermined sphere” is “merely negatively determined, als the sphere Not-A”, i.e. the sum of “Not-p” that corresponds to my judgements “p”, the ‘dual’ of my judgements, so to speak. The “matter” comprises both of these spheres. This is the matter because, we will remember, matter always specifics in Fichte’s system the reference of a judgement, i.e. that to which the judgement refers. Objective judgements are about the objective world, and the objective world is that to which I refer my judgement “p”, when determining it to be true or not true. Fichte’s concept of substance always takes the first-person, in contrast to the concept of causality, which views that judgement subject from the third-person perspecive, from the outside, as it were. Thus when I make a judgement “p”, it might not be true. The world out there has the last say if it is true. However, the world out there, doesn’t exist for me, except in terms of my judgements. It is strictly undetermined, it is only the principle that my judgement may be wrong. The matter of substantial judgement is therefore the objective world, which might or might not correspond to my judgement ‘p’. It is the ‘higher sphere’ that, for the moment, as far as I, the judging subject know, contains both my judgements ‘p’ and their negation ‘Not-p’. Objectivity is both my judgement ‘p’, and the holding open of the possibility that my judgement ‘p’ is incorrect.
• The horns of the dilemma: The form determining matter yields quantitative idealism, the matter determining the form yields qualitative realism. We will remember that in quantitative idealism, as in qualitative idealism, the judging subject fully determines its objective world. However, the quantitative view distinguishes itself from the qualitative view, by allowing for the principle of correction - i.e. the judging subject fully determines its objective world, but all of its determinations are left open for revision. The matter determining the form yields qualitative realism because, in this analysis, the “matter” of judgement just is the objective world, albeit seen from the subject’s perspective. We will remember that the claim of qualitative realism is that the world determines the subject through and through.[^fichte_could_have_argued_quantitative]
• The reconciliation of the dilemma: “critical idealism”. (Foundation 115)

Analysis and Synthesis of the form and matter of negation concieved of as a substantial phenomenon :

• Fichte’s formulation: “Die Form [bzw. Materie -ML] des Wechsels in der Substantialität”(Foundation 115)

• The form of negation: In our terms, the form of substantial negation is the unity “p” and “Not-p” that dwells within, or shadows, the judgement “p”. In Fichte’s words it is the “mutual exclusion of the members of the exchange from an absolute totality” (Foundation 115).⁷ In order to get from Fichte’s formuation to ours, we have to specify what Fichte means by “members of the exchange”. The one member is simply the judgement “p”, while the other member is the unity or undecidability between the judgements “p” and “Not-p”. Fichte calls the former the “determined sphere”, and the latter the “undetermined, but determinable sphere.” (Foundation 115) We can illustrate this as follows:

The formal aspect of substantial negation is the unity and difference, i.e. “mutual exclusion”, of the simple judgement “p” and the contradictory pair “<p, Not-p>”.⁸ It is their difference because the judgement “p” is different from not knowing whether “p” or “Not-p”, i.e. the “determined sphere” and the “undetermiend sphere” “exclude” each other. It is their unity because when one makes the judgement “p”, the alternative judgement “Not-p” is in some way implied as accompanying it, i.e. it is a potential inflection of, or application of, the judgement “p”. “Not-p” is always available within the judgement “p”. In other words, the negation is ‘syncategoremic’.⁹ In Fichte’s terms, because the exclusion between ‘p’ and ’either p or not-p’ is mutual, each side of the difference also implicates the other, and that is their unity.

• The material of negation: “The determinability of the totality.” (Foundation 116) In our terms, the matter of negation is the objective state of affairs, which the subject may or maybe not have judged. When substantial negation is seen from this perspective, there is a strict difference between ‘p’, on the one hand, and <p, not-p> on the other. Everything the subject has judged belongs in a subsphere of all possible judgements. The world has an answer to every question ‘p, or Not-p?’, but the subject has only answered some of those questions. The matter of negation points out that for every possible state “p” in the world, the subject either has made a determination regarding ‘p’ or has not made a determination. We can represent this state of affairs as follows:
• The horns of the dilemma: The horns of the dilemma consist simply in arguing which of these two views, the formal view of negation, or the material view of negation, are correct.
• The reconciliation of the dilemma: The two views can be reconciled by observing that both the material and the form view are missing something. In the material view, there is a misguided rigidity in the notion that there exists a sphere of determined judgement. In fact, no judgement is infallible. In Fichte’s terms “in substance, nothing can be concieved as fixed, but rather there is mere flux/negation” (“in der Substanz [ist] gar nichts Fixiertes zu denken, sondern ein bloßer Wechsel”).(Foundation 123) Thus we can revise the material view to look like this: The shortcoming of the formal view is that it exhibits an uncanny indifference between ‘p’ and ‘Not-p’, which does not do justice to the actual state of affairs, which always demands difference, i.e. always demands that one judge “p” or “Not-p”. However, this problem disappears when we remember that, although there is a world out there, it is only available in the form of judgement. In Fichte’s terms: “substance, when analyzed, gives the accidents, and after a complete analysis of substance, there is nothing left over but the accidents.” (Foundation 124). Here, “substance” signifies both the sum total of all the subjects judgements, as well as the world to which those judgements refer. “Accidences” signifies both the various states that apply or don’t appply in the world, as well as the subject’s taking up those states in judgement. Once we accept this complete and total overlap between thought and world, we are left with the follow diagram: Every judgement “p”, might also turn out to be “Not-p”, i.e. it is fallable, so that the sphere of ‘p’ and the sphere of ‘<p, Not-p>’, from the perspecitve of judgement, coincide. Similarly, from the perspective of the world, the world is only present to the subject through judgement, and so the sphere of the subject’s judgements ‘p’ and the sphere of those judgements’ possible corrections ‘<p, Not-p>’ also coincide.

Synthesis of the frame of judgement with negation, conceived of as a substantial phenomena

• Fichte’s formulation: “Die Thätigkeit [unter dem Begriff der Substantialität - ML], als synthetische Einheit, und der Wechsel, als synthetische Einheit, sollen sich wechselseitig bestimmen, und selbst eine synthetische Einheit ausmachen.” (Foundation 124)

Similar to the causal synthesis of the frame of judgement with negation, this synthesis is about using the insight from the previous synthesis of substantial negation to respecify the conflict between idealism and realism. Whereas its causal counterpart incorporated the ubiquity of negation into the conflict between idealism and realism, this synthesis now incorporates the unity of negation into the dilemma of idealism and realism. The reconciliation of idealism and realism leads here to an entirely new perspective. In the causal synthesis, Fichte follows, in Kantian fashion, a negative line of description, saying merely that “the result of this proposed synthesis [of quantitative idealism and quantitative realism] is that both are wrong…” (Foundation 110). In the substantial synthesis, meanwhile, the reconciliation concludes with Fichte’s original story of a blind ‘activity’ that ‘goes out into the infinite’, encounters a check, and comes to consciousness through the ‘hovering’ of the imagination (Foundation 133, 136).

• The frame of judgement as synthetic unity: “an absolute fastening and holding together of opposites” (“Zusammenfassen und Festhalen Entgegengesetzter”), and later “the positing of a border”, and later still, the positing of “an infinite border” (Foundation 124, 132, 136). We can distinguish between two different concepts of a “border” at work in this synthesis, and Fichte slides between the two as it suites him. The first is the ‘border’ between “p” and “Not-p”, or the unity of the contradictory pair. The second is the border between “p” and “p or Not-p”. This is the border between having a view on “p” and not hanging a view on “p”. This second meaning of the “border” comes more to the fore at the reconciliation of the horns of the dilemma.

• Negation as synthetic unity: “a coming together of the components of the exchange” (“Zusammentreffen der Wechselgleider”), also: “the border” (“Grenze”), and finally “a check on the activity of the [Self]” (Foundation 128, 132, 132-3 ).

• The horns of the dilemma: the new formulations of idealism and realism, what we are calling ‘Fichtean’ idealism and ‘realism’, because they represent Fichte’s settled position (or almost settled position, because he revises them again in the reconciliation), now incorporate the concept of the unity of ‘p’ and ‘Not-p’. For idealism, this means that the act of judgement is a spontaneous act, and, by virtue of the internality of negation to all judgement, also capable of correction. The spontaneity of the judgement is the “subjective”, and the correction of the judgement, should it be needed, is the “objective”. Fichtean idealism says they are “posited by one and the same act of the I” (Foundation 128). The new formulation of realism describes the “Anstoss”, often translated in English as “check”, on the Self’s activity. Understanding the notion of the “Anstoss” is tricky, and involves understanding the various usages of the term. The first thing to note is that the term itself takes up the duplicity of idealism and realism, thereby paving the way for the reconciliation of realism and idealism. An “Anstoss” can mean an “offence”, in the sense of “taking offence at something” (“Anstoss an etwas nehmen”), and indeed Fichte’s first use of the word “Anstoss” occurs much earlier in the text, in an unrelated passage, and employs exclusively this meaning (Foundation 101). This meaning of “Anstoss” is idealist, and Fichte also plays off of it when saying the the check “gives it [the I] the task/assignment (Aufgabe) of limiting itself” (Foundation 130); it operates in the morally inflected realm of transgression, offence, duty, umbrage, etc and fits comfortably into talk of judgements and thought in general. On the other hand, “Anstoss” can also signify a physical act of two things colliding, as when champagne glasses collide. So much of Fichte’s language follows this physical model: the “activity” of the self gets “driven back” (Foundation 131), it “encounters resistance” (Foundation 134), etc. This meaning fits into the realist idea of the mind as a “mechanism” (Fichte uses the formulation the “mechanism of the human mind” more than once in his text, Foundation 128 ##), as having a pathway through which the world as a nexus of efficient causes determines thought, and it is remarkable that Fichte makes such repeated use of this inflection of the term ‘Anstoss’, all the while insisting that this is not a case of Kantian affection (that would be in Fichte’s terms a “determination” by the Not-I), but rather the “assignment for a determination that the I undertakes itself) (Foundation 130). There is a third inflection of “Anstoss”, which refers to the initial trigger, or impulse, that gets everything going. We can call this the originary inflection of “Anstoss.” The idea here is that, within every judgement, the ‘Anstoss’ is somehow already, always there. It is the precondition for judgement in general. It is in terms of this last inflection that we can see that ‘Anstoss’ is negation. Negation is baked into the structure of judgement, it is always there as part of the judgement “p”. Negation also incorporates the ideal, for it is part of judgement, and the real, because it is through negation that our judgements achieve the weight of objectivity.

• The reconciliation of the dilemma: The reconciliation of idealism and realism introduces a new concept, that of the “infinite”, which has the role of bringing out the insufficiency of the idealism and realism suggested thus far in the horns. Neither the idealism or realism posited thus far does justice to the foreignness, or strangeness of objective knowledge. In realist terms, this strangeness consists in the way objective knowledge takes something ‘out there in the world’ and transforms form it into an object of knowledge, into a mental act. On the idealist side, the strangeness consists in the spontaneous, self-determining aspect of mental life that Fichte believes should, in and of itself, admit of no limitation, and yet, in the case of objective judgement certainly does. The solution to both of these deficits is to point to the border between the known and the unknown, between all judgements of the form “p”, that would be the known, and then all possible judgements on which the subject has no opinion, namely “p or Not-p”, which is the great unknown. It is by way of touching the unknown, of always appropriating that which is not known into that which is known, that the subject gets a feeling both for its own limitation and its own ‘infinitude’. In Fichte’s terms, there exists an “infinite border” between, on the one hand, the subject that judges, and, on the other hand, that which, “in terms of its existence lies entirely outside of consciousness, and is merely posited for the purpose of explaining the necessary limitation [of the I - ML]” (Foundation 135). Another way to see this is to understand the view that Fichte is working against. One might think, namely, that conscious beings develop some mental model of the world and then evaluate the correctness of this mental model against the world out there. Something like this occurs in science, via the scientific method, where one has a theory about how things work, and then, by testing that theory in the realm of experience, one sees if it holds up to scrutiny. However, such a model does not describe consciousness. There is, namely, no ‘world out there’ to which I can compare my judgement to evaluate its correctness, because my judgement of the world already constitutes the world, it is my only source of access to the world. Thus, when we speak of objective judgment ‘referring’ to the world, we are ignoring the fact that the world, outside of our knowledge, is completely inaccessible to us. There is nothing to refer to outside of our judgement.¹⁰ This is why, just as the spontaneity of judgement is a mystery, i.e. it just happens, so, too, is the negation, or correction of this or that judgement also a mystery. And yet, it works. As conscious beings we are always expanding our knowledge, pushing forward into the frontier of the unknown.

Such a dynamic between knowledge and the unknown recalls Descartes’s account of our understanding of God:

…on peut savoir que Dieu est infini et tout-puissant, encore que notre âme étant finie ne le puisse comprendre ni concevoir ; de même que nous pouvons bien toucher avec les mains une montagne, mais non pas l’embrasser comme nous ferions un arbre, ou quelque autre chose que ce soit, qui n’excédât point la grandeur de nos bras ; mais pour savoir une chose, il suffit de la toucher de la pensée.¹¹

In a fully secularized appropriation of Descartes’ idea of ’touching’ something larger than we can comprehend, we can say that our knowledge of the (natural) world is this process of expanding our frontier of knowledge, of touching the unknown along the frontier of knowledge. For Fichte, who is a critical idealist wanting to unite the theorectical realm with the practical, the infinite, the beyond of knowledge, turns out, in the Practical Part of the Foundation, to be our moral calling. Within the theoretical realm the strangeness of pushing out into the frontier, the “hovering” our imagination that Fichte alludes to, gives way to an ordered realm of judgement and reason. As another commentator noted, no longer has Fichte opened up his language into a language of the infinite and the unknown, then he quickly closes it again into a staid theoretical philosophy on the world as knowable through reason.¹² In Fichte’s words:

Long, i.e. longer than a moment…the imagination cannot endure this [hovering]; reason steps in…and determines it [the imagination] to take up B [the undetermined] into the determined A (the subject)” (Foundation 136). Lange, d. i. länger, als einen Moment…hält die Einbildungskraft dies nicht aus; die Vernunft tritt ins Mittel und bestimmt dieselbe, B in das bestimmte A (das Subject) aufzunehmen… The unknown then reappears in the Practical Part of the Foundation in the form of the moral striving of the imagination, Fichte’s reformulation of Kant’s notion of the moral imperative.

Closing remarks on Fichte’s synthesis

Interestingly, Fichte does not synthesize substance and causality as he promised to do in his initial blueprint. In closing, I want to suggest why this is the case. I believe that the Theoretical Part of the Foundation is working under a basic tension between, on the one hand, faithfulness to Kant, and, on the other, a new theory of idealism that is Fichte’s and Fichte’s own. Fichte sees himself as the inheritor and clarifier of Kant’s philosophy , so that in one sense he is merely repeating Kant’s main teachings, putting them in a more systematic, unified form¹³. This is clearest in his initial blueprint, in which he plans to end the Theoretical Part with the unresolved antimony between idealism and realism. On the other hand, the theory of the “Self” that emerges at the end of the Theoretical Part with its talk of a Self that “goes out into the infinite” and that “encounters a check”, breaks very sharply in terms of langauge and method from Kant’s philosophy (Foundation 133). In place of Kant’s careful reasoning and perambulation of the limits of reasons, comes a theory that, certainly in terms of its rhetoric, seems dramatically allusive and even mythical.

This tension between faithfulness to Kant, on the one hand, and a new philosphy, on the other, is, in more general terms, the tension between dualism and monism. Dualism and monism is also the central distinction at work in Fichte’s distinction between causality and substance. Kant posits a transzendental subject that stands over and against the Thing-in-Itself. This is a dualistic conception of objectivity that is also represented in Fichte’s employment of causality to explain the Theoretical Principle: there is a Not-Self acting on, i.e. affecting a Self.¹⁴ The concept of substance, meanwhile, begins with the assumption that there is only the Self, and nothing outside of it:

Insofern das Ich betrachtet wird, als den ganzen, schlechthin bestimmten Umkreis aller Realitäten umfassend, ist es Substanz.

In so far as the Self is viewed as encompassing the entire, absolutely determined ambit of all realities, it is substance. (Foundation ##)

The monist idealist puzzle is to explain how, from this monist conception of mind, is at all possible to have objectivity, i.e. the notion of a world out there, to which the Self refers. Ultimately, Fichte’s aim in the Theoretical Part is not faithfulness to Kant, but rather the solution of his monist puzzle, and this is where the concepts of imagination, and the unity of affirmation and negation come into play. Fichte doesn’t feel a need to synthesize the concepts of causality and substance because the concept of substance gives him everything he needs to present his final view on theoretical knowledge.