The Methodical Singularity of the First Fichte

Abstract

This chapter is structured around three key points, each of which demarcate different spheres in philosophical thinking:

• 1. The structure of the “für sich” (“for itself”) as a feature of subjectivity, a feature shared by German classical idealists (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel) that acts as their central philosophical principle and method; it is for this reason they are called “idealists.”

• 2. The finitude, which distinguishes the transcendental method of thinking of Kant, as well as Fichte in his Jena period, from the more speculative approach of Schelling and Hegel. The Fichte of Berlin should also be included to a greater extent in the latter.

• 3. The method of synthetic-genetic deduction, common to Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, thanks to which we are able to unite them under the term German idealism and separate them from Kant or from idealistic phenomenology.