Fichte's Science of Knowledge: A Critical Exposition |
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abso absolute activity abstract accomplished according affirms antinomy antithe assumed become called categorical imperative Categories causality CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT consciousness considered contradiction Critical Idealism deduced demand dependent Descartes determined elements end of eternity existence external fact feeling Fichte's finite force foreign Hegel Herbert Spencer idea ideal illustrated imagination infinite striving infinitude involves judgment Kant's Kuno Fischer limit lutely manifests matter meaning ment merely mind moral law mutually nature ness never Noumenon objective activity objective world ontology ourselves outward world passivity perception philosophy possible postulate practical reason predicate principle problem produced proposition pure activity reached Realism reality recognize reflected regard relation represent result Sämmtliche Werke Schopenhauer sciousness seek seen self-consciousness self-reflection sensation sense simply soul Spinoza spirit stand statement Stoicism synthetic proposition system of Fichte system of Kant theoretical thing Thing-in-itself thought of Fichte tion understanding unity wholly words
Popular passages
Page 151 - ... may always move in the direction of infinitude. It may always be becoming infinite. This is a goal toward which it may ever press. It is, however, a goal that can never be reached. It may ever press the limit further and further, but not till the end of eternity can the limit ever be wholly escaped. In this fact, Fichte finds, as he repeatedly insists, the basis of faith in immortality.* The I has this impulse to infinitude. It is conscious of an infinite activity. The very term, conscious of...
Page v - German philosophy. The aim in each case will be to furnish a clear and attractive statement of the special substance and purport of the original author's argument, to interpret and elucidate the .same by reference to the historic and acknowledged results of philosophic inquiry, to give an independent estimate of merits and deficiencies, and especially to show, as occasion may require, in what way German thought contains the natural complement, or the much needed corrective, of British speculation.
Page 76 - ... which are not indeed relations between feelings, but which, if they are matter of experience, must have their being in consciousness. If there is such a thing as a connected experience of related objects, there must be operative in consciousness a unifying principle, which not only presents related objects to itself, but at once renders them objects and unites them in relation to each other by this act of presentation; and which is single throughout the experience. The unity of this principle...
Page 76 - The unity of this principle must be correlative to the unity of the experience. If all possible experience of related objects— the experience of a thousand years ago and the experience of today...
Page 56 - The process is exactly parallel to that by which Newton proved that the force which keeps the planets in their orbits is identical with that by which an apple falls to the ground. It was not incumbent on Newton to prove the impossibility of its being any other force ; he was thought to have made out his point when he had simply shown, that no other force need be supposed. We know the existence of other beings...
Page 273 - The world is the projection of human spirits, and represents the stage which they have reached. God is practically recognized as an ideal, and may thus be seen in absolute beauty and completeness. One can doubt His reality and His perfection no more than one can doubt his own being.
Page 152 - ... finds the limits give way. They seem, for the moment, to fall off from it. As soon, however, as it has tasted the joy of freedom, it finds itself again oppressed. The limit has been only pushed to a little greater distance, but it is there, as real and as solid as at the * Sammtliche Werke, I, 270. first. Again and again must this process be repeated with the same result. This is the very nature of the soul. It must continue the process till the end be reached. But not till eternity be exhausted...
Page 103 - ... to the other proposition, X is like Y. This implies that X is not Y, otherwise the two would not be compared. There must, then, be points of difference by which alone the resemblance can be made possible. On the other hand, it is equally true that all statements of difference imply a resemblance. No one would be so foolish as to deny what no one could have the slightest temptation to affirm. If I say, then, that X is not Y, I imply that there are certain elements in A', by which, if they were...
Page 63 - I wish to make it clear that, so far as we are concerned, the effect would be the same if there were no past, if only there remained the mental condition that we regard as representing the past.
Page 273 - His perfection no more than one can doubt his own being. At the same time, it is affirmed, from the beginning, that it is by the Divine Life within it that the spirit presses on toward the Divine Ideal. In regard to this impulse within us, there can be as little doubt as in regard to the ideal toward which it points. God is thus recognized as the most certain of realities. The ideal to which the soul aspires is infinite. So soon as one form has been attained, another and higher takes its place. In...