Foundation of the Entire

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 J. G. Fichte: Foundation of the Entire
Wissenschaftslehre and Related Writings
(1794–95)
J. G. Fichte: Foundation
of the Entire
Wissenschaftslehre
and Related Writings
(1794–95)
Edited and Translated by
DA N I E L B R E A Z E A L E

1
 1
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 To Viv,

Summoner and Sustainer

 Table of Contents

Preface xi

Editor’s Introduction 1
Genesis and First Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (1793–95) 1
Contents and Outlines of Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre
and Outline of What is Distinctive of the Wissenschaftslehre with
Regard to the Theoretical Power48
Notes on the Translation 98
German-English Glossary 105
English-German Glossary 114
Bibliography and Guide to Further Study 127
Key to Abbreviations and Annotation 144

TEXTS

I. CONCERNING THE CONCEPT OF THE

W I S S E N S C HA F T S L E H R E , O R O F S O - C A L L E D
“P H I L O S O P H Y ”
Preface to the First Edition (1794) 152
Preface to the Second Edition (1798) 154
First Part: Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre as Such 157
§ 1. Hypothetically Proposed Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre157
§ 2. Development of the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre162
Second Part: Explication of the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre170
§ 3. 170
§ 4. To What Extent Can the Wissenschaftslehre Be Sure
That It Has Exhausted Human Knowledge as Such? 171
§ 5. What Is the Boundary Separating the Universal Wissenschaftslehre
from the Particular Sciences Based Upon It? 175
§ 6. How Is the Universal Wissenschaftslehre Related to Logic
in Particular? 178
§ 7. How Is the Wissenschaftslehre Related to Its Object? 181
Third Part: Hypothetical Division of the Wissenschaftslehre189

I I . F O U N DAT IO N O F T H E E N T I R E
W I S S E N S C HA F T S L E H R E
Preface to the First Edition (1795) 196
Forward to the Second Edition (1802) 199
viii Table of Contents

Part One: Foundational Principles of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre200

§ 1. First, Purely and Simply Unconditioned Foundational Principle 200
§ 2. Second Foundational Principle, Conditioned with Respect
to its Content 207
§ 3. Third Foundational Principle, Conditioned with Respect to its Form 210
Part Two: Foundation of Theoretical Knowledge 225
§ 4. First Theorem 225
A. Determination of the Synthetic Proposition to be Analyzed 226
B. General Nature of the Synthesis of Terms Posited in
Opposition to Each Other as Such in the Indicated Proposition 228
C. Synthesis by Means of Reciprocal Determination of the
Contradictions Implicit in the First of the Two Propositions
Posited in Opposition to Each Other 230
D. Synthesis by Means of Reciprocal Determination of the Opposing
Propositions Contained in the Second of the Two Propositions
Posited in Opposition to Each Other  235
E. Synthetic Unification of the Oppositions Occurring between
the Two Indicated Types of Reciprocal Determination 240
Deduction of Representation 306
Part Three: Foundation of the Science of the Practical 320
§ 5. Second Theorem 320
§ 6. Third Theorem: In the Striving of the I There Is Posited at the Same
Time an Opposed Striving of the Not-I, which Counterbalances
that of the I 346
§ 7. Fourth Theorem: The Striving of the I, the Opposed Striving of
the Not-I, and the Equilibrium between Them Must Be Posited 347
§ 8. Fifth Theorem: Feeling Must Itself Be Posited and Determined 350
§ 9. Sixth Theorem: Feeling Must Be Further Determined and Delineated 354
§ 10. Seventh Theorem: Drive Itself Must Be Posited and Determined 357
§ 11. Eighth Theorem: Feelings Themselves Must Be Capable of Being
Posited in Opposition to Each Other 374

I I I . O U T L I N E O F W HAT I S D I S T I N C T I V E O F T H E
W I S S E N S C HA F T S L E H R E W I T H R E G A R D
T O T H E T H E O R E T IC A L P OW E R
§ 1. The Concept of the Particular in the Theoretical Wissenschaftslehre382
§2. First Theorem: The Indicated Factum Is Posited through
Sensation, or, Deduction of Sensation 384
§3. Second Theorem: The Sensing Subject Is Posited through
Intuition, or, Deduction of Intuition 388
§ 4. The Intuition Is Determined in Time; What Is Intuited Is
Determined in Space 423
Concluding Remark 436
 Table of Contents ix

Appendix: “The Zurich Wissenschaftslehre” 437

J. K. Lavater’s Transcription of the First Five Lectures 439
Jens Baggesen’s Notes on the Zurich Wissenschaftslehre 456
Concluding Lecture: Concerning Human Dignity (privately printed) 458

Endnotes 461
Index 569
 Preface

Early in 1801, having taken refuge in Berlin in the wake of the “Atheism Controversy,”
which led to the loss of his professorship in Jena, and convinced that his system of
philosophy, the so-called “Doctrine of Scientific Knowledge” or Wissenschaftslehre,
had been universally misunderstood, Fichte issued a Crystal-Clear Report on the
Most Recent Philosophy, which bore the plaintive subtitle “an effort to force the reader
to understand.” This has served — with equal poignancy — as my personal motto
over the several years I have labored over this translation and edition.
Having for many years studied, taught, and written about the texts translated in
this volume, I remained only too well aware of how far I still was from truly
“­understanding” them, and I wanted to do something to remedy that situation.
Fichte constantly challenged his own students and readers “to think the
Wissenschaftslehre” for themselves and in their own way, and he added that only by
doing so could anyone ever really succeed in “thinking it” — that is, the
Wissenschaftslehre — at all. For me, that meant thinking it in English. Hence my
decision to tackle a work described by a recent commentator as “the most difficult
text to comprehend of all of those that have been produced in the history of philoso-
phy since antiquity.”1
This new English translation of the 1794/95 Foundation of the Entire
Wissenschaftslehre is my effort to force myself to understand it, while at the same time
helping others do the same. Accordingly, I have tried to produce an English version
that is not only as accurate as I can make it but is as broadly accessible as possible.
For this reason, I have supplemented my translations with rather extensive annota-
tion and commentary, as well as with detailed outlines of the contents and structure
of the Foundation and Outline. It is my hope that the latter will help orient readers
who — like myself — sometimes find themselves rather lost in the wilderness of
Fichte’s complex “derivations.”
After completing my translation of the Foundation, I realized that it really should
appear, as Fichte himself had insisted, along with the shorter companion treatise of
1795, Outline of What is Distinctive of the Wissenschaftslehre with Regard to the
Theoretical Power, as well as with the shorter Concerning the Concept of the
Wissenschaftslehre, which Fichte published in May of 1794 as an introduction to his
project for prospective students at the University of Jena. Though I first translated
both of these texts more than thirty years ago,2 they have been translated anew for

1 Émil Jalley, “Présentation,” in Fichte, La Doctrine de la science (1794), Vol. 2, Naissance et devenir de
l’impérialisme allemand (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2016), p.49.
2 Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988). I have subsequently
translated and edited three more volumes of Fichte’s writings: Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy
(Wissenschaftslehre) nova methodo (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992); Introductions to the
Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1994) and, with Günter Zöller, System of
Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
xii Preface

this volume, which also includes, as an Appendix, a translation of the transcriptions

of the surviving portions of Fichte’s lectures in Zurich during the first months of
1794. It was in these “Zurich lectures” that he made his very first effort to formulate
and to articulate the system he would soon be presenting in printed form in his lec-
tures in Jena.
I wish I could report that my experiment was a complete success and that I now
truly understand every facet of this, Fichte’s first and most influential presentation of
the Wissenschaftslehre. I can make no such claim, however, though work on this
project has certainly advanced my understanding of this remarkable thinker and of
these challenging but rewarding texts. My sincere hope is that it may do the same for
readers of this volume.
I first encountered these writings in graduate school, when I dropped out of a
seminar on Fichte and Schelling taught by Miklos Vetö, because the key texts were
then unavailable in English and because my German was not up to the challenge of
reading the Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre. I had more success with
Alexis Philonenko’s French translation, but even that was insufficient. I was therefore
delighted when, shortly thereafter, Peter Heath published his English translation of
the Foundation, in a volume that also included John Lachs’ English version of
Fichte’s 1797 “Introductions” to the Wissenschaftslehre.3 I have used Heath’s transla-
tion in my graduate and undergraduate classes for many years, supplemented by an
extensive list of “corrections and omissions,” prepared and privately distributed by
Fritz Marti.
Like many others, I have profited from Heath’s work, as well as from Philonenko’s,
though I am not unaware of certain shortcomings in each. There are undoubtedly
shortcomings in these new translations as well, though I hope they will not be debili-
tating. After completing the first drafts of my new translations, I compared them
carefully and profitably with Heath’s and Philonenko’s versions, which allowed me to
catch numerous errors and to improve my own translations. Regarding matters of
translation, I also consulted with Joseph O’Neill, Erich Fuchs, and David W. Wood.
An invaluable resource for the annotation has been the comprehensive
­“commentary” on the Foundation prepared by Wolfgang Class and Alois Soller.4 I
have also benefited enormously from the substantial scholarly literature devoted to
the Foundation and associated works, as indicated in the bibliography to this volume,
as well as from the many scholarly conferences and symposia devoted to the early
Wissenschaftslehre in which I have had the good fortune to participate over the
years.
I am especially grateful to Reinhard Lauth, who fostered my budding interest in
Fichte, and to Erich Fuchs, who has been a constant and reliable source of informa-
tion and inspiration, as well as a dear friend. I am grateful too to my fellow Fichte
scholars and friends around the world, with whom I have engaged for so long and

3 The Science of Knowledge, trans. and ed. Peter Heath and John Lachs (NY, NY: Meredith, 1970; rpt.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982). There was also an earlier nineteenth-century translation,
The Science of Knowledge, trans. and ed. A. E. Kroeger (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1868; rpt. London:
Trübner, 1889); however, the less said about this well-intended but utterly unreliable effort the better.
4 Wolfgang Class and Alois K. Soller, Kommentar zu Fichtes Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre
(Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004).
 Preface xiii

from whom I have learned so much. These include Tom Rockmore, Günter Zöller,
Wayne Martin, Michael Vater, Fred Neuhouser, Claude Piché, Ives Radrizzani, Marco
Ivaldo, Jacinto Rivera de Rosales, Mário Jorge de Carvalho, Jürgen Stolzenberg.
Helmut Traub, Halla Kim, Violetta Waibel, Alois Soller, Faustino Fabianelli, Michael
Gerten, Steven Hoeltzel, Jeffery Kinlaw, George Seidel, Marina Bykova, Alain
Perrinjaquet, Yukio Irie, Elizabeth Millán Brusslan, Benjamin Crowe, Owen Ware,
Gabriel Gottlieb, Kevin Zanelotti, Arnold Farr, Joseph Trullinger, Brett Fulkerson-
Smith, Janet Roccanova, Yolanda Estes, and Carolyn Buchanan.
I would also like to thank my colleagues in the College of Arts and Sciences and
Department of Philosophy at the University of Kentucky, who have granted me free
reign to pursue my scholarly interests for half a century now, as well as to the gen­er­
ations of students who have gamely followed my instructions “to think the person
who is thinking the wall.” These students, many of whom were exposed to and helped
improve earlier “beta versions” of these translations, were the readers I envisioned as
I prepared these translations and notes.
I am indebted as well to the institutions and agencies that have generously sup-
ported my study of Fichte over the decades: the University of Kentucky, the National
Endowment for the Humanities, and the Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung.
I am also grateful to Viviane Breazeale and David W. Wood for their diligent
proofreading of this material and for their many valuable suggestions for improving
both the accuracy and the readability of these texts.
I must also mention the highly professional editorial and production team at
Oxford University Press, including the philosophy editor, Peter Momtchiloff, the
project manager, Chandrasekaran Chandrakala, the copy-editor, Joy Mellor, and the
proofreader Michael Janes—with all of whom it was a pleasure to work.
Thanks are due as well to Mitchell Nolte for his generous permission to reproduce
his portrait of Fichte on the cover of this volume.
As a final thought regarding the daunting challenges of translating, understanding,
and interpreting the original Wissenschaftslehre, allow me to misappropriate Fichte’s
own words:

Let us rejoice over the immense prospect that is ours to cultivate! Let us rejoice,
because we feel our own strength—and because our task is endless!5

Lexington, Kentucky
2020

5 These are the concluding words of Fichte’s fourth lecture concerning the vocation of the scholar,
delivered in Jena in June of 1794 (EVBG, GA, I/3: 68; SW, VI, p. 346; EPW, p. 184).
 Editor’s Introduction

Genesis and First Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (1793‒95)

In the summer of 1793, following the quite astonishing success of his first book,
Attempt at a Critique of all Revelation,1 and after publishing (anonymously) the
“First Installment” of his even more controversial Contribution toward Rectifying
the Judgment of the Public concerning the French Revolution, Fichte returned to
Zurich, where he had previously spent a tumultuous year and a half as a private
tutor, while also becoming engaged to Johanna Rahn, daughter of a well-to-do local
official.2 Having finally achieved a measure of public success and professional
­recognition, he was preparing to marry his fiancée later that year and looking
forward to spending an extended period of time living with her in her father’s
house, while pursuing his burgeoning philosophical projects at a deliberate pace.
Fichte had been an enthusiastic admirer of Kant’s philosophy ever since the
moment of his first exposure to the same in the summer of 1790, and, on the
strength of his treatise on revelation, he was already being hailed in some influen-
tial quarters as a new, rising star in the firmament of Kantian (or “Critical”)
­philosophy. He was therefore invited to become a contributor to one of the more
important organs associated with this new philosophical movement, the
Allgemeine Literatur Zeitung (A.L.Z.), which was edited and published in Jena, the
city and university most closely associated with these new advancements. Indeed,
K. L. Reinhold, the best-known exponent of the effort to “improve” Kant’s
­philosophy by providing it with a more systematic form and a deeper, more
secure foundation, was a professor at Jena. An essential part of this endeavor,
upon which Reinhold conferred the name Elementarphilosophie (“Elementary
Philosophy” or “Philosophy of the Elements”), was Reinhold’s effort to demonstrate

1 Fichte had previously lived in Zurich from September of 1788 through March 1790.
The first edition of VKO was composed during his stay in Königsberg in the summer and early fall
of 1791 and published—minus both its preface and the name of its author—in the spring of 1792. An
expanded second edition, which included an important new “Doctrine of the Will,” was prepared in
Danzig during the winter of 1792–93 and appeared in April of 1793, a few months prior to Fichte’s
triumphal return to Zurich.
For the fascinating story of how Fichte’s inaugural work happened to be published without the
name of its author and the incalculable consequence this had for Fichte’s reputation and career, as well
as for additional information on Fichte’s activities and writings up to 1800, see “Fichte in Jena,” EPW,
pp. 1–49.
2 Beitrag zur Berichtigung der Urtheile des Publikums über die französische Revolution. The “First
Installment” of Part One was composed in Danzig during the first months of 1793 and published
(anonymously) in April of that year. Fichte wrote the “Second Installment” of Part One during the
summer of 1793, immediately following his arrival in Zurich and prior to his marriage to Johanna
Rahn (October 22, 1793). This “Second Installment” was published (also anonymously) in the first
months of 1794. Under pressure from the authorities in Weimar and on the advice of friends, Fichte
subsequently abandoned his plans to compose and to publish the projected Part Two of this work.
2 Editor’s Introduction

how the cognitive powers of intuition and understanding are both grounded in
and hence derivable from a single, more fundamental mental power, the “power
of representation” or Vorstellungsvermögen. This effort took the concrete from of a
philosophical system in which all the results of the first Critique could allegedly be
derived from a single, foundational principle: the so-called “Principle of
Consciousness,” according to which, in every state or moment of consciousness,
the conscious subject distinguishes a mental representation both from itself and
from the object to which that representation refers, while at the same time relat-
ing it to both the subject and the object. But Reinhold’s project was even more
ambitious; he also envisioned unifying Kant’s theoretical and practical philoso-
phy in the same way, by deriving both from a single foundational ­principle,
though he did not manage to accomplish this before abandoning his own
Elementary Philosophy for something even newer and more radical—namely, the
system proposed by his successor in Jena, J. G. Fichte.
In the fall of 1793, however, there was as yet no “Fichtean” system of phil­oso­phy.
Instead, he was preoccupied, first with defending and then with re-thinking his
own allegiance not only to Kant, but also to Reinhold, of whose recent writings he
had also become a sincere admirer and advocate. The re-examination in question
was occasioned by a series of aggressive attacks upon the philosophies of both
Kant and Reinhold. Of these criticisms, the ones that most affected Fichte were
not those launched by defenders of older, now-threatened systems of ­philosophy,
which he believed had already been adequately addressed by Kant himself.
Instead, what profoundly shook Fichte’s new philosophical commitments were
the skeptical objections to the Critical philosophy raised by such authors as
F. H. Jacobi, Salomon Maimon, and G. E. Schulze (a.k.a., “Aenesidemus”).3
Writing in 1795, he observed that “anyone who has not yet understood Hume,
Aenesidemus (when he is correct), and Maimon and has failed to come to terms
with himself concerning the points they raise, is not yet ready for the
Wissenschaftslehre. It answers questions for him that he has not posed; it b ­ andages
him, where he has suffered no wound.”4 In contrast, Fichte’s earlier commitment
to transcendental idealism was indeed “wounded” in the second half of 1793, and
he spent the rest of his life applying the bandage.
At the very moment that Fichte’s philosophical commitments were being
challenged, he found himself committed to reviewing three books for the A.L.Z.

3 In the appendix to his 1797 work, David Hume über den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus,
Jacobi had criticized Kant’s notion of “things in themselves” as incoherent and incompatible with his
own transcendental idealism. Maimon’s first book, Versuch über die Transcendentalphilosophie (1790),
subjected Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to a withering examination and re-interpretation. Among
other things, Maimon criticized Kant for having failed to demonstrate that pure, a priori concepts
actually can and do—in fact—apply to sensible experience. Schulze’s anonymously published work,
Aensidemus oder über die Fundamente der von dem Herrn Professor Reinhold in Jena glieferten
Elementar-Philosophie (1792), launched a full-bore skeptical attack not only upon both Kant’s the­or­­
etic­al and practical philosophy, but also upon Reinhold’s “new and improved” version of the same. For
an excellent account of these skeptical assaults upon Kant and Reinhold, see chs. 2, 9, and 10 of
Frederick C. Beiser’s The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1987).
4 Wer Hume, Aenesidemus, wo er Recht hat, u. Maimon noch nicht verstanden, GA, II/3:389. This is
a short unfinished manuscript from the spring of 1795.
 Genesis and First Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (1793‒95) 3

The first two of these books were contributions to a then-raging debate concern-
ing the implications of Kant’s practical philosophy, especially regarding freedom
of the will and the imputability of immoral actions. The first of these reviews, a
review of Leonhard Creuzer’s Skeptical Reflections on Free Will, was published
anonymously (as was the custom at the A.L.Z.) October 30, 1793, with the sec-
ond, a review of F. H. Gebhard’s On Ethical Goodness on the Basis of Disinterested
Benevolence, appearing in the next day’s issue.5 Taken together, these two reviews
reveal how preoccupied Fichte was at this point with interpreting the Critical
­philosophy in a way that would permit him to reconcile the noumenal freedom of
the will with empirical necessity, a project he now realized would require some-
thing still absent from the writings of both Kant and Reinhold: namely, a demon-
stration that reason is indeed practical, or capable of determining the will a
priori.
The third volume was one that Fichte himself had originally requested to
review, an anonymously published treatise by a self-proclaimed “Humean s­ keptic”
entitled Aenesidemus, or Concerning the Foundations of the Elementary Philosophy
Propounded in Jena by Professor Reinhold, including a Defense of Skepticism
against the Pretensions of the Critique of Reason.6 Fichte was at this point already
acquainted with Jacobi’s criticism of the kind of dogmatic Kantianism that affirms
things in themselves, as well as with Salomon Maimon’s more profound question-
ing of the quid facti supposedly underlying Kant’s project of justifying the a priori
application of pure forms of intuition and thinking to the sensory manifold. And
he was, of course, quite familiar with (and already involved in) the debate
­surrounding the relation of free will to both natural determinism and moral
­obligation. But now he found his allegiance to Kant and Reinhold even more
directly challenged by “Aenesidemus.”7 As he explained to the long-suffering
­editor of the A.L.Z., “I have been thrown into an unforeseen labor by Aenesidemus’
skepticism.”8

5 Crev and Grev. See Wayne Martin, “Fichte’s Creuzer Review and the Transformation of the Free
Will Problem,” European Journal of Philosophy 26/2 (2018): 717–29.
6 Though Aenesidemus was published anonymously, Fichte was aware of its author’s identity, the
same person he believed to have been the author of an anonymous and quite sarcastic review of VKO:
namely, G. E. Schulze (1761–1833), Professor of Philosophy at Helmstedt and a former classmate of
Fichte’s at Pforta and Leipzig.
7 For a detailed account of Fichte’s encounter with and reply to such skepticism, see Breazeale, “The
Aenesidemus Review and the Transformation of German Idealism,” Ch. 2 of TWL; and “Reinhold/
Schulze/Fichte: A Re-Examination,” in Krankheit des Zeitalters oder heilsame Provokation?
Skeptizismus in der nachkantischen Philosophie, ed. Martin Bondeli, Jiří Chotaš, and Klaus Vieweg
(Paderborn: Fink, 2016), pp. 161–79.
8 Fichte to C. G. Schütz, December 14, 1793, GA, III/2: 26. Fichte volunteered to review
Aenesidemus early in 1793, and in a letter of May 25, 1793 to Schütz, editor of the A.L.Z., he promised
to submit his review “within a short time.” In fact, he did not submit it until mid-January of the fol-
lowing year, and it finally appeared in the February 11 and 12, 1794, issues of the A.L.Z. Insight into
the “unforeseen labor” mentioned by Fichte is provided by his correspondence during this period.
See, for example, the draft of his November 1793 letter to L. W. Wloemer, GA, III/2: 4–17 and his
mid-December letter to Henrich Stefani, GA, III/2: 27–9; EPW, pp. 370–1. See too his letters of
November–December 1793 to J. F. Flatt, GA, III/2: 17–18; EPW, pp. 366–7, of December 6, 1793, to
F. I. Niethammer, GA, III/2: 19–22; EPW, pp. 367–9, and of January 15, 1794, to H. V. Reinhard, GA,
III/2: 39–41; EPW, pp. 372–4.
4 Editor’s Introduction

It was while working on this review that Fichte turned from simply questioning
the adequacy of Kant’s and Reinhold’s presentations of transcendental p
­ hilosophy
to attempting to construct his own, radically new presentation of what he still
took to be basically the same philosophical system. As he wrote in November
of 1793, “I immediately began a book by a resolute skeptic, which led me to the
clear conviction that philosophy is still very far from being a science. I was
therefore forced to abandon my previous system and think of a tenable one.”9
He appears to have begun working seriously on the Aenesidemus review just
after returning from his honeymoon in late October and to have con­tinued
working on it through the first few weeks of 1794. At the same time, and in
close conjunction with his work on the Aenesidemus review, he began compos-
ing a long manuscript with the dual title “Personal Meditations on Elementary
Philosophy/Practical Philosophy”—a work the editors of the new edition of
Fichte’s complete works describe as “a Wissenschaftslehre in statu nascendi,”10
even though its author had at that point not yet decided upon that name for
his ­emerging system.
By mid-December he had made great strides in developing his new ideas and
could boast to his friend Heinrich Stephani that:

[Aenesidemus] has overthrown Reinhold in my eyes and made me suspicious of

Kant. It has overturned my whole system from the ground up. One cannot live
under the open sky. It cannot be helped; the system has to be rebuilt. And this is
just what I have been doing for the past six weeks or so. Come celebrate the
harvest with me! I have discovered a new foundation, out of which it will be easy
to develop philosophy in its entirety. Kant’s philosophy is correct as such—but
only with respect to its results, not its reasons. This singular thinker looks more
marvelous to me every day. I believe he possesses a genius that reveals to him
the truth without showing him why it is true. In short, I believe that in a few
more years we shall have a philosophy that will be just as self-evident as
geometry.11

When the Aenesidemus review finally appeared, in mid-February of 1794,

Fichte’s reservations concerning certain aspects of both Reinhold’s Elementary
Philosophy and Kant’s Critical philosophy became public, along with the first tan-
talizing hints of his audacious new strategy for re-establishing transcendental
idealism on a new, more secure foundation, one that would be immune to skeptical
challenges, while at the same time resolving the controversies concerning the
reality of human freedom and its relationship to dutiful action. This new founda-
tional principle would be even deeper (or, if one prefers, even higher) than

9 Fichte to L. W. Wloemer, November 1793 (draft), GA, III/2: 14.

10 GA, II/3: 19. Eigne Meditationen über ElementarPhilosophie/Practische Philosophie, GA, I/3: 21–266.
According to the editors of GA this manuscript was begun in early November 1793 and finished in
mid-January 1794. See Reinhard Lauth, “Die Entstehung von Fichte’s ‘Grundlage der gesammten
Wissenschaftslehre’ nach den ‘Eignen Meditationen über ElementarPhilosophie,” in Transzendentale
Entwicklungslinien von Descartes bis zu Marx und Dostojewski (Hamburg: Meiner, 1989), pp. 155–79.
11 Fichte to Stefani, mid-December 1793, GA, III/1: 28; EPW, p. 371.
 Genesis and First Presentation of the Wissenschaftslehre (1793‒95) 5

Reinhold’s “Principle of Consciousness” and would be capable of grounding the

practical as well as the theoretical part of the entire system. Unlike Reinhold’s
Principle of Consciousness, Fichte’s new principle would not be grounded in
empirical reflection upon “facts (Tatsachen) of consciousness”; instead, it would be
based upon an intellectual intuition of that original act by means of which the I
first posits itself for itself, an act which Fichte dubbed a Tathandlung or “F/Act.”
The new system would begin with a foundational principle asserting that “the I is
what it is” purely and simply “because it is.”12
Near the conclusion of the Aenesidemus review, while responding to Schulze’s
objections to Kant’s moral theology and his effort to ground belief in God upon
the alleged primacy of practical reason, Fichte provides his readers with what
amounts to the first, rough public blueprint of the system he himself would spend
the next few years expounding—first before a circle of friends and patrons in
Zurich, next before his students in Jena, and then in a series of groundbreaking
books based upon those same lectures.

If, in intellectual intuition, the I is because it is and is what it is, then it is, to that
extent, self-positing, absolutely independent and autonomous. The I that is pre-
sent in empirical consciousness, however, the I as intellect, is only in relation to
something intelligible, and is, to that extent, dependent. But the I that is thereby
posited in opposition to itself is supposed to be not two, but one—which
is impossible, for dependence contradicts independence. Since, however, the
I cannot relinquish its absolute independence, this engenders a striving: the
I strives to make what is intelligible dependent upon itself, in order thereby to
bring the I that entertains representations of what is intelligible into harmony
with the self-positing I. This is what it means to say that reason is practical. In
the pure I, reason is not practical; nor is reason practical in the I as intellect.
Reason is practical only insofar as it strives to unify these two. [. . .] Far from
practical reason having to recognize the superiority of theoretical reason, the
entire existence of practical reason is founded on the conflict between the self-
determining element within us and the theoretical-knowing element, and prac­
tical reason itself would be abolished were this conflict to be eliminated.13

At the time he wrote this outline of the basic strategy for the foundational por-
tion of his new version of transcendental philosophy, Fichte had still not yet hit
upon the term “Wissenschaftslehre” and was continuing to refer simply to “my
­elementary philosophy,” or, on one occasion, to his “philosophy of striving.”14
And of course he was still a long way from being able to provide a complete and
­adequate articulation—or, as he would put it, “presentation” (Darstellung)—of
this new “philosophy of striving.” Indeed, he fully expected to be spending the
next few years in Zurich, patiently nourishing the seed planted in the Aenesidemus
review. That, however, was not what happened.

12 See RA, GA, I/2: 46–8 and 57; SW, I, pp. 9–10 and 16–17; EPW, pp. 64–5 and 70–1.
13 RA, GA, I/2: 65–6; SW, I, pp. 22–4, EPW, pp. 75–6.
14 StrebungsPhilosophie. EM, GA, II/3: 265.
Another random document with
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you are trying to hide.”
“This box? Oh, do not ask me for this. This will make my father rich
and happy. Oh, no, not this! It is full of beautiful pearls.”
“Pearls! Well, then, give them to me. For them, and for them only,
shall I grant your request. No?” he asked, as Pinocchio shook his
head. “Very well, then. Good-by.”
“Come back! Come back!” cried Pinocchio. “Only hasten to save
Marsovino!”
Without a word more he handed his precious pearls to the narwhal,
and then quick as a flash was back at Marsovino’s side.
“Marsovino! Marsovino! Open your eyes, dear friend! You are
saved!”

He had not finished speaking when with a crash a great piece of rock
fell. Another crash, and the hole widened; another, and the hole was
wide enough for Marsovino to pass through. The water from the sea
flowed in. Marsovino opened his eyes at the great noise. He was so
surprised that he felt almost entirely well.
“What is it?” he asked feebly.
“Come, Marsovino, come! Try to drag yourself this short space, and
you’ll be in the water again. Come!”
Pinocchio helped him all he could. He
lifted the heavy treasure boxes off the
poor dolphin’s back. He smoothed the
sand. He cleared away the stones. Still
poor Marsovino’s body was all torn and
bleeding before the short trip was
finished.
Finally, with a great sigh of relief,
Marsovino was again in the cool water.
Pinocchio was as happy as a boy can
be. When he saw Marsovino safely in
the water again he ran back to get the
boxes. He dragged and dragged and pulled, and at last he had them
both on Marsovino’s back again.
“It was lucky he didn’t know anything about these, otherwise—” said
Pinocchio to himself.
“He? Whom are you talking about?” asked Marsovino, who was now
well again.
“Yes, he, the one who helped me save you. He had a long white
tooth, and he made a hole in the rock with it.”
“A narwhal! You must be talking about a narwhal! Do you mean to
tell me that you asked a narwhal to help you and that he did?”
“I suppose so.”
“But how did you ever get him to do it?”
“That’s my secret. Now that you are rested, let us go home to
Tursio.”
“Very well. But still I should like to know why that narwhal was so
very obliging.”
With a laugh Pinocchio jumped on the dolphin’s back, and they were
off.
Without stopping anywhere, the two friends traveled straight to the
coral island. And as soon as they reached it, they turned straight to
the place where Beluga lived. They found every one healthy and
happy and overjoyed to see them.
Tursio asked Pinocchio to tell him all his adventures, and the boy
was only too happy to please him. He told of the seals, of the old
ship, of the meeting with the octopus, of the battle on the high seas.
But of his last adventure and of the loss of his pearls he said never a
word.

“And then? Is that all?” asked Tursio.

“Yes; what else should there be?”
“You had a very pleasant voyage, then, after all.”
“Yes, a splendid voyage.”
“With no very unpleasant adventures?”
“No, none—well, yes, one; but it has been forgotten long ago.”
Pinocchio was beginning to learn the value of truth.
“And what was that?”
“But it has been forgotten.”
“I want to know about it,” said Tursio, in a voice that had to be
obeyed.
“Very well,” and Pinocchio told him.
“And if it had not been for a kind narwhal passing by just then,
Marsovino would now be dead,” he finished.
“A kind narwhal? What did he do?”
“I asked him to help me, and he did.”
“But what did you give him in return for his kindness? A narwhal is
not kind for nothing.”
“I just gave him something, that’s all.”
Pinocchio finally told him.
“Well done, my boy. You were certainly courageous, and you
deserve to be forgiven for your disobedience. And, remember,
Pinocchio, you shall be rewarded for your act of kindness.”
The next day the four friends traveled far, and by sunset they came
to a strange land.
“Well, good-by, my boy,” said Tursio, turning to Pinocchio. “Our
journey is finished. I hope you have learned something. You must go
back to the world now.”
“Are you going to leave me here alone?”
“You shall not be alone very long. Do not be afraid. Walk a short
distance inland. You’ll come to a little house. There you will find
some one waiting for you.”
“Not only did he find his Father, but he also found a
Beautiful Little Home, and a Comfortable Happy Life
waiting for Him.”
“My father!” cried Pinocchio, overjoyed. “At last! Hurrah!”
The marionette then thanked his kind friends and jumped on land.
The dolphins shook their fins in good-by, and then swam away.
“Good-by, Tursio! Good-by, Marsovino! Good-by, Globicephalous!”
screamed Pinocchio, watching the sea until the three had
disappeared.
“Well, now for my father!” and turning toward the land, he started to
run.
All happened as Tursio had told him.
Not only did he find his father, but he also found a beautiful little
home, and a comfortable happy life waiting for him.
He remembered then Tursio’s words, “You will be rewarded.”
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Transcriber’s Notes.
1. Silently corrected simple spelling, grammar, and typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
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