Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Deductions

Even more than with the judgements, Fichte’s account of deductions is clearly influenced by Hegel’s Logic, although there are some differences in the details and especially where Fichte is heading from the deductions. Just like Hegel, Fichte is starting from the traditional Aristotelian framework, where all deductions are set up mostly as syllogisms or relations of three concept: the minor, the major and the middle term, where the minor is usually the most individual and major usually the most universal term and the middle term mediates the relation between them in the sense that we can justify the minor having the major as the predicate, because the minor is known to have the middle term as predicate and the middle term is known to have the major as predicate. Usual example of such a syllogism would be Caius (minor) being mortal (major), because he is human (the middle term) and humans are mortals.

Just like with judgements, Fichte starts by looking at such deductions at the barest level of consciousness possible. In other words, he looks at deductions that begin from a given contingent individual, find a property immediately observed as belonging to that individual and derive from this a further property, which is not directly given with the individual. Thus, he points out, an immediate type of deduction differs from an immediate type of judgement, which does not go beyond immediately given: “leaf is green” is a factual truth, at least for a while, but but deriving from this that the leaf is still living, because green leaves tend to be alive, extends our knowledge beyond experience. Due to the positive conclusion of the deduction, Fichte calls this a positive deduction.

Fichte at once notes that although a positive deduction has externally a correct form, it is internally faulty because of its contingency and arbitrariness. This means, firstly, that the middle term is related to the subject in an immediate positive judgement with all its faults, such that every affirmation is from another standpoint a negation. Furthermore, Fichte continues, the middle term is arbitrarily chosen or subjective and could be something else, and this contingent, modifiable and therefore thoroughly ambiguous middle term is just as arbitrarily connected to a new predicate, restricted only by an arbitrary personal choice. Thus, if I wanted to prove from the fact that it has rained that there will be good harvest, this might be true in some conditions, but not e.g. if the rain has made the soil too moist. More generally, Fichte says, an isolated detail does not reveal the big picture, where other details might modify the events. Fault in the immediate deduction is thus to take conditional as absolute and universal: form of deduction demands universality and necessity, but its content does not correspond to this.

The traditional Aristotelian syllogisms were divided into four figures, dependent on the position of the three terms in the deduction, and just like Hegel, Fichte considers these different figures at this most immediate level. Unlike Hegel, he ignores what in Aristotelian tradition was called the second figure, where for the middle term was taken the most universal term that worked as predicate for both the other terms: so, if in the first figure the terms were arranged as A (minor) – B (middle term) – C (major), in the second they would have been arranged as A–C–B or as B–C–A (the order of the other terms doesn’t matter here). An example of such a deduction would be: butterflies fly, wingless animals cannot fly, thus, butterflies are not wingless animals (the conclusion is here always negative). Fichte explains his choice by noting that the negative conclusion could always be turned into a positive judgement (e.g. butterfly has wings), and so the second figure does not present anything new.

Instead, Fichte tries to find the next type or figure of deduction by looking at what is lacking in the first type. Here the fault lies, Fichte thinks, not in the relation of the minor and the middle terms, because this should be based on an actual, even if contingent connection (for instance, we see that it is actually raining now). Thus, it must lie in the relation of the middle term to the major (it is based on many other conditions whether rain makes the soil fruitful). This relation must then be proven, and since we now are checking only the three terms in question, the connection must be based on the minor: the two general predicates must be connected by an individual, immediate fact (rain makes soil fruitful, because in this particular case or these particular cases of rain it does so).

This new type of deduction is roughly what Aristotelians called the third figure of syllogism, where the terms would be arranged as B–A–C or as C–A–B (again, the order of the other terms doesn’t matter here). As is apparent, its conclusion might not be universally valid, but perhaps only in particular cases: thus, Fichte calls it a particular deduction. This is just as it should be, Fichte assures us, because the point of this deduction is to bring explicitly forward the contingency and arbitrariness of the first type of deduction.

Aristotelians spoke also of a fourth kind of figure of syllogism, where the terms would be arranged in the reverse form from the first figure, that is, as C–B–A. Fichte thinks that this must be the next development from the particular deduction, because we can get to it from the particular deduction by taking one of its extremes and placing it instead as the middle term of the other two terms. The result is what Fichte calls a negative particular deduction, since its conclusion must always be negative particular judgement: for instance, if lifting heavy weights is not a thing that poor athletes can do and at least some students are poor athletes, then some students are not able to lift heavy weights. Fichte notes that this is thus far the most intricate form of deduction, but also the most emptiest, since just like infinite judgements, it doesn’t really tell us anything. It is thus most useful as a symbol for not being satisfied with deductions based on nothing more substantial than mere contingent and arbitrary facts.

The problem with the first forms of deduction was that the middle terms used were just contingent properties. Just like in judgements, Fichte says, progress comes from taking as a middle term a predicate that collects all the individuals under the same kind. The third term should then be a predicate that belongs essentially and universally to all members of this kind. The contingency of the earlier deductions is avoided, because the predicate is supposed to belong to all individuals, no matter how they are modified. An example of such a universal deduction, as Fichte calls it, would be: all green things look nice, this is one of those green things and therefore looks nice.

Problem in such a universal deduction is similar as in universal judgement, Fichte insists, since both try to confuse collection of all individuals with true conceptual universality. That is, we can never be sure whether the property we want to conclude truly holds for all or only some individuals of the same kind, that is, whether there are exceptions that we have not just experienced. We need thus a further justification for saying e.g. that all green things look nice. This justification can at first be only going through every individual, which Fichte calls induction.

In induction we then have again individuals as middle term, Fichte explains, but the set of individuals is now understood to exhaust all individuals of the same kind. Although the induction thus resembles the earlier, immediate forms of deduction, the allness of individuals raises it above the level of mere individual perceptions to real experience. Yet, it is still problematic, Fichte admits, because collecting all individuals of the same kind is an infinite, unending task. The only way to progress, he adds, is to leap over all these individuals by finding a universal already embodied in or represented by a single individual, which could then be used as a middle term of a new form of deduction or analogy.

Analogy is thus based, Fichte says, on an object that is individual, but also represents its whole kind. Thus, when we notice another individual of the same kind as the representative individual, we should be able to conclude that this new individual has all the same properties as the first one: because Venus is also a planet, it should also have denizens just like the only planet we can immediately experience, or Earth. The word “should” is here important, Fichte thinks, because it shows that the supposed conclusion is only problematic, since we cannot say how far the similarity of the two individuals goes. Still, according to Fichte, the analogy at least complements induction: while induction tries to derive knowledge of universals from knowledge of individuals, analogy attempts to derive knowledge of correspondence of some properties from known correspondence of other, more essential properties and thus, in a sense, particulars from universal.

Analogy is no real deduction, since its conclusion is only problematic. Still, Fichte thinks, it shows development over universal deduction, where the problematic nature of the conclusion is not even recognised, and over induction, where this problematic nature is shown only obscurely. In fact, Fichte underlines, analogy reveals the faultiness in the whole attempt to base universally valid conclusions on single or collection of individuals representing universals. The true line of progress, he insists, is to just leave behind these individuals, which induction is already trying to do, and jump straight to what is universal and eternal in them.

In the new form of deduction, Fichte says, the mediating middle term should be an a priori concept, which still has its concrete side, namely, individuals that are nothing else, but embodiments of this concept. Thus, instead of basing universal concept on a collection of individuals, Fichte highlights, the individuals should instead be based on this universal ground, which is their essential species (say, the triangles). The species also has essentially some universal characteristic (like a certain sum of the angles), which then is the characteristic of any individual embodying this species. Following his account of judgement, Fichte calls such a deduction categorical.

Now, categorical deduction, as based on a priori relations, should require no further justification, Fichte insists. Still, we should still be able to develop it, he continues, but only by complementing it. Although concrete individuals are expressed as mere embodiment of their universal species in a categorical deduction, they still retain some accidentality in the sense that it is arbitrary which individual we choose to use in a categorical deduction (in the example of a triangle, it doesn’t matter whether we are talking of acute-angled, right-angled or obtuse-angled triangle).

Consciousness of this contingency is highlighted, Fichte suggests, in a hypothetical deduction of the form: if A is, then B is, A is and therefore B is also. Here, Fichte states, the first, hypothetical judgement expresses an ideal, a priori relation between two concepts, but does not yet state anything about what actually is. This contingent fact of actuality is then discovered – A is – and now this previously ideal relation is actualised, Fichte notes, and we see that this a priori ideal law rules the contingent actuality, since the existence of B follows from the existence of A. Thus, hypothetical deduction explicitly separates the concepts from the actuality and shows how the latter is subservient to the former.

Another need of complementation in the categorical deduction, Fichte continues, lies in that this form of deduction shows only one way to embody the concept and the necessary interactions of these embodiments. This internal richness is also lacking in hypothetical deduction, he thinks, but it is shown in disjunctive deduction, where we see concept or species divided into its subspecies. Furthermore, these subspecies or subconcepts are necessarily related in the sense that where one is actualised, the other is not: A is either B or C, but it is now B, so it is not C. Concept is here, according to Fichte, not just a ruler over actuality, but also contains an internal richness of possibilities, of which anyone can be actualised.

Fichte goes on a long digression, where he notes that we are now in a position to deduce categories – a favourite pastime of German philosophers since Kant. Fichte emphasises that his method of deduction is essentially to follow the development of consciousness thus far and point out categories as abstractions of important turning points in it. Fichte speaks explicitly of the development of whole consciousness, including even perception as having its own categories, although categories were usually understood as forms of thinking: his justification is that perception is just an unconscious and undeveloped form of thinking. He also points out that at this moment the categories hold merely of our self-consciousness, since that is literally the only thing we have been studying. The question about applying categories beyond our subjective consciousness is left later, and as he will thus go on deducing categories in a different setting and in more detail, we can skip this digression for now.

What is still left to do, Fichte notes, is to state that we have now reached the high point in the development of both deduction and thinking. What the last types of deduction and especially the disjunctive deduction should reveal, in Fichte's opinion, is the power of universal over contingent individuals. This universal is not anymore an abstraction, but is now what Fichte earlier called an idea: a stable essence that is embodied in concrete individuals and rules over them, so that these individuals seem not anymore independent.

Now, up to this point, Fichte continues, we have regarded thinking as only a formal activity, with no natural content assigned to it. This might make us assume that content is something externally added to thinking. Yet, Fichte at once adds, consciousness does have content, starting from perceptions, which it then has developed into concepts, judgements and deductions. It is still indifferent what particular characteristics this content now has, but it is definitely not anything outside consciousness, and indeed, Fichte emphasises, only this forming of its own content makes consciousness, perceiving and thinking actual. Such thinking filled with its own content or knowledge is the topic of the next chapter.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Judgements

If at the previous stage consciousness merely abstracted emptier and emptier concepts from its perceptions and representations, now, according to Fichte, it is meant to connect these abstractions to something more concrete, like when we say that a concrete rose we perceive is or falls under the abstraction of colour red. In a manner first suggested by Hegel, Fichte goes through a progression of different forms of judgement, which outwardly resemble parts in Kantian 3 times 4 -classification of judgements: only outwardly, since the Kantian classification is meant to be read as every judgement having four dimensions with three possible characteristics, while with Hegel and Fichte the twelve forms are all distinct from one another.

Although Fichte appears to follow the same route as Hegel, there is the clear difference that Hegel relates the different modes of judgement to ontological categories, which is something that Fichte cannot do, since he hasn’t yet developed these categories. This creates some differences in their accounts, the most obvious being that Fichte picks different titles for his groups of judgements. More subtle difference is that the development of Fichtean judgement, unlike Hegel’s, does not involve more and more complex properties of things, but instead, more and more delicate knowledge that we have of things.

Judgements, Fichte begins, like everything else in consciousness, start developing from what is immediately given. In other words, the first type of judgement starts from some immediately given and contingent individual or subject and points out an equally contingent given property or predicate of it: fruit is ripe. Such judgement, which Fichte calls positive, has an air of contingency: fruit might not be ripe tomorrow. Thus, like everything contingent, positive judgement is variable and changes into its opposite: a contingent individual has a contingent property, but might as well have a different one. Fiche also notes that a positive judgement has a particular predicate, which cancels others. In conclusion, positive judgement is always bound to some negative judgement.

Negative judgement as a mere inversion of positive judgement, Fichte suggests, makes even more poignantly explicit the contingency of affirmative predicating: fruit was ripe, but now is not. Just like positive judgement implicitly contains negative judgement, similarly negative judgement always contains implicitly a positive judgement. In other word, when negative judgement negates a determined predicate, it still presupposes a sphere of possible determinations of which the subject has one: rose is not red means that it does not have this specific colour, but must have the more general concept of being coloured.

The notions of positive and negative judgements are thus separated just contextually, since a positive judgement implies a negative judgement and vice versa. Fichte points out that we could try to form negative judgements that did not imply anything positive: examples of such infinite judgements include statements like “stone is not happy”, where the predicate has no discernible relation to the subject: saying that stone is not happy says really nothing, since stones are not things that even could be happy. Similarly, Fichte says, we could make a very abstract affirmation that e.g. a stone is – a stone – in other words, an identical judgement, which doesn't deny anything. Neither of these types of judgements, according to Fichte, are real judgements, because they do not literally say anything.

The result Fichte wants us to learn is that finding a mere contingent predicate of an individual subject is not that satisfying. The next task is then to find a predicate that belongs to more than one individual. The former positive and negative judgements, Fichte says, can now be called singular judgements, meaning just that we are conscious of the need to find more than this individual having the predicate in question.

We should then find several individuals having a certain property, which brings us to what is called a particular judgement. Such a judgement, Fichte insists, cannot refer to a completely contingent property any more, but approaches a universal judgement, where all individuals of a certain kind share some predicate: “all bodies are heavy” designates a property based on the essence of the concept of body. Yet, Fichte notes, we have the problem that we can never really go through all individuals, since there is at least a potential infinity of individuals and all of them can never be accounted for.

If we are then to have true universal judgements, Fichte suggests, we cannot base them on empirical collecting of all individuals, but on internal universality of concept: all bodies are heavy, only if it lies in the nature of the body to be heavy. Making this change, the subject is not anymore an individual or even a collection of individuals, but a determined genus, and the predicate expresses a property belonging to subject as this concept, while the connecting “is” or copula expresses an internal link and unity of the subject and the predicate or their a priori synthesis.This is categorical judgement, where thinking of concept A posits thinking of concept B.

The conceptual connection is still left implicit in categorical judgement, Fichte remarks, since the statement is expressed in the same form as in previous judgements. The dependence of the two concepts is highlighted in a hypothetical judgement: if A is, B is also (or if A is not, B is not; if A is, B is not etc.). A hypothetical judgement does not indicate whether A or B is, just the absolute combination or synthesis in thought that existence or non-existence of B follows from the (hypothetical) existence or non-existence of A. Here thinking has vindicated the power to posit being of something from being of another or deduce immediately one from the other, Fichte thinks: because A and B are internally one in thought, they are posited as one in being so that certainty of the being of one makes the being of the other immediately certain, which Fichte indicates as the principle of all a priori synthesis.

In Fichte’s opinion, both categorical and hypothetical judgement highlight only one predicate or consequence of the subject, although it should contain more possible predicates. This richness of connections is expressed in a disjunctive judgement: A is either B or C, where the form “either-or” presupposes that all connections contained in A are expressed and no alternative is left out. Disjunctive judgement presents then exclusive opposites that are united in completing the whole subject: in other words, they exclude not just one another, but also any other option.

Fichte notes that the disjunction can be expressed in the “either-or” form, but also in the “both-and” form. He means that the extension of the subject of disjunctive judgement comprehends the extension of both alternative predicates. In this sense, the subject is a unity behind the opposites, although it is determined as neither of them: in Schellingian and Hegelian terms, it is the indifference or identity of opposites. Yet, Fichte adds, saying “A is both B and C”, is not literally true, since the subject could not be determined as both sides of the disjunction. The indifference or unity that the subject is, Fichte concludes, is then just the possibility that A could be B as well as C. We have thus arrived at a problematic judgement.

In a problematic judgement “A can be B or C”, we are left with an abstract possibility, where the subject and therefore also the predicate is left undetermined. The next step, Fichte thinks, is then to determine the subject, leading us to an assertoric judgement: A as determined in this manner is B. Here the differentiating characteristic, in comparison with e.g. categorical judgement is that the judgement is based on the very constitution of the subject. Furthermore, an assertoric judgement expresses also a progression of thought from mere possibility and indeterminateness to determinateness. In other words, Fichte suggests, true assertoric judgement is always related to a previous problemitisation.

Fichte admits that an assertoric judgement contains something more than what the form of the judgement shows, because its predicate is not just contingently actual, but necessitated by the constitution of the subject. On basis of an assertoric judgement is then always an apodictic truth: A as x is necessarily B. In other words, the very character of A to be x is the very ground of its being B. This form of judgement is, according to Fichte, the goal of the whole development of judgements, since in apodictic judgement to a determined concept because of its determinacy is linked another concept as absolute and universally valid. Here individual and concrete, Fichte says, has lost its independent and contingent existence and is now understood as an expression of universal: an apodictic judgement “person or action of certain nature is necessarily virtuous” shows that virtue is embodied by individual persons and actions of certain kind.

At the same time, Fichte adds, an apodictic judgement is already something more than just a judgement. While a judgement in general relates something concrete to a universal concept, in apodictic judgement the concrete side of the equation has been divided into a concrete individual (e.g. action) and its determined characteristic (the nature of the action), which then connects the individual to a higher universal (virtuous). Such a three-membered relation, Fichte continues, is deduction, the topic of the next post.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Concepts

Although Fichte appeared to move fom representations to thinking through the use of language, he now appears to ignore the role of language and emphasise the role of analysis. When a representation has been analysed into its parts, these parts are now universal in the sense that they can be attached to different individual representations in different contexts, which then appear particular in relation to this universal. Such a universal representation, Fichte says, is called concept (Begriff), when it is consciously connected to particular representations it comprehends. Concept in this sense does not then materially differ from representation, and for instance, a representation of red becomes a concept when it is connected to particulars, that is, when we become conscious of a plurality of representations in which red can appear as a sign.

Development of a concept has then three stages, Fichte continues. We are first conscious of particular perceptions and representations that contain something common or fall under the same universal. This is essentially what happened at the stage of pattern recognition: we must have had an immediate awareness of a concept, before we consciously developed it. Because of this pre-awareness, Fichte thinks, we can say that the concepts are not mere subjective inventions, but something we just discover in things.

After the stage of recognition or comparison, Fichte notes, the different representations with similarities are analysed and commonalities are distinguished from differences. The move to the analytical phase is natural, since we must have already been aware of there being such commonalities. Analysis just emphasises this immediate consciousness by clearly distinguishing universality from all individual perceptions and representations and their differences.

The final result of the analysis is for Fichte the ignoring of or abstracting from particulars, leaving only the common unity or universality, which is then an abstract concept. Abstraction is a negative condition for the formation of the abstract concept, while its positive condition is an already occurring collection of similar perceptions and representations and their comparison and the connection of the abstract concept to this manifoldness. Abstract concept is then, Fichte says, in a sense universal, because all the differences of individual representations have disappeared in it – or at least we are not actively conscious of them. In another sense, he immediately adds, it is the unity that combines all the different representations comprehended under it: while the conceptual abstraction sets the differences aside, it still leaves awareness of a relation to that from which the abstraction is made.

With concept, in Fichte’s opinion, consciousness has arrived at the level of thinking. Thus, he thinks, we have found the solution to the first task set in the introduction to philosophy, since we have seen how immediate consciousness or perception develops into thinking. Now, the perception was described as knowing of contingent or variable, which consciousness tries to overcome by taking away the contingent and variable, in order to know what is universal and eternal in them – in other words, to know the truth in its appearance. Fichte notes that even in its lowest stages consciousness has tried to bring out from immediately given perceptions the constant universal which the individual perceptions are recognised to fall under. Thinking is then not just a particular capacity besides e.g. perceiving and representing, but it has already been present and active in these, that is, all consciousness is thinking, just more or less developed.

When eternal is known, Fichte suggests, what is individual and immediate stops being contingent, because it can then be derived from eternal and we understand what appears to us. Full understanding of what is eternal must thus contain understanding of manifoldness comprehended under it. The eternal is then not just universal, but also a concrete unity of a manifold of determinations, which as a whole present perfectly its essence. Fichte calls such a concrete universal or eternal an idea.

Yet, Fichte remarks, at first we are not yet conscious of any idea, but only of abstract universals or concepts. Individual perceptions and representations are then comprehended under a concept, but in addition to this particular concept they fall also under other conceptual universalities. There are thus many external abstractions or concepts, in which the first layer of contingence has been taken away from individual representations, but we haven’t discovered their idea or essential universality. In comparison, the universality of abstract concepts does not concern the internal essence of things, because they have been just put together from external comparison of given perceptions and representations.

Even if concept means just external universality, according to Fichte, it does not contain mere external signs for knowing an individual, but the collection of commonalities of similar individuals at least points to their idea or essence: for instance, if the concept of tree has signs common to most or all trees, we presuppose that these signs are based on the idea of tree. Knowing a concept we thus have a hunch of an idea without being express conscious of it, and even the content of the idea can be present in the concept, although the justification of that content is missing. Fichte hence thinks it a correct advice that we should begin from determined concepts that contain also essential determinations presaging the idea.

Fichte then starts with such abstractions from individual given perceptions or with determined concepts as the immediate result of the previously described process of concept formation. These concepts are made on the basis of the whole expanse of perceptions, he says, and their possible content is thus limited by nothing. Still, as determined concepts they must have some content, because they comprehend a particular manifold of individual perceptions. This content, or as we would call it, intension of the concept gives it also extension or a set of individual perceptions falling under it. Intension and extension thus presuppose one another, but in an inverse relation: the greater the extension, the poorer the intension, and the richer the intension, the smaller the extension.

Both intension and extension of a concept are variable, Fichte continues, in the sense that we can arbitrarily add or remove signs from it: thus taking a sign away from the concept of the bird of prey makes it the concept of the bird, while adding one makes it the concept of eagle. In other words, a determined concept does not refer to any essential distinction, but to a mere provisional stopping point in the process of abstracting, which could be continued, leading to a new concept. Concept, Fichte concludes, is then essentially in a relation to other concepts both under and above it.

Fichte now introduces two relations between concepts – subordination and superordination – which are essentially just converses of one another: a more abstract concept or genus superordinates a more concrete one or species, which is in its turn subordinated to the genus. Fichte thinks that these relations are arbitrary, because they are based on mere arbitrary choice of how much to abstract. Now, finding a genus of something does not tell very much, he thinks, and we try to fill this emptiness by finding what species belong to a certain genus. Such species of the same genus are then coordinated concepts.

Somewhat confusingly, Fichte suggests that coordinated concepts come in two varieties. The first variety would not actually be a case of coordination as Fichte appears to describe it, since it consists of a collection of concepts making explicit what determinations are comprehended in the content or intension of the “higher” concept”: thus, Fichte says, in the concept of humanity we could find further concepts of organic, living, ensouled and rational. What Fichte is here describing is an analysis or definition of a concept.

The second variety Fichte brings forward seems, on the other hand, a true case of coordinated concepts. In this case, these concepts divide the extension of the “higher” concept into mutually exclusive opposites (e.g. when angles are divided to acute, right and obtuse angles). This division then complements the definition, because the former presents fully the extension of a concept and the latter the intension.

All of these conceptual relations, Fichte insists, are still based on the arbitrary nature of abstraction. Question is whether the abstraction does have any essential limits, that is, whether there is any highest genus or lowest species. Fichte thinks that insofar as we are still speaking of concepts, it is always possible to point out further species under it, because otherwise we wouldn’t be speaking of a concept, but of an individual perception or representation. Then again, he adds, the highest genus must be reachable, because abstraction must eventually run out of determinations to take away. Fichte calls this final result of abstraction Ur-Begriff, which we might translate as the root concept: it is the most abstract concept with the emptiest intension and the greatest extension.

Now, the root concept should be an abstraction from all content and therefore purely undetermined. Still, as a concept it should still contain at least an implicit reference to all the qualities it has been abstracted from: it could be determined in any manner whatsoever. Fichte thinks that this pure void of determinations is thus contradictory: as a concept in general, it should be determined in some manner, but the only determined thing about it is that it has no determinations.

This somewhat empty result of concept formation, Fichte thinks, points out that we cannot be satisfied with mere concepts. If we go too high on the conceptual hierarchy, the emptier our concepts become, but if we go too low, the more inessential the determinations become. Universal and particular ends of the conceptual hierarchy fall thus always apart. What is now required, Fichte suggests, is to put the two in essential relation, which happens in the next stage of the development or judgement.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Language

Move to language is clearly an important stage for Fichte in the development of consciousness, because it does not refer directly to things of the sense world, but to our different modes of consciousness of these things, whether they be sensations, perceptions or representations. Thus, he says, language is required for us to become conscious of the order of our representations, by fixing words and their connections. Indeed, he underlines, internal thinking would be impossible without speaking our thoughts in our mind. In language, consciousness becomes for the first time an object to itself and raises its unconscious functions to consciousness: language gives fleeting representations stability.

Despite this importance, Fichte’s account of how language is formed is somewhat sketchy and he is satisfied by saying that the development of language mirrors the development of consciousness. First, language expresses individual sensations, intuitions and representations. At its lowest level, language produces images in sounds, in other words, the first words are tonal images, or as we would nowadays say, they are onomatopoietic: Fichte goes even so far as to assign individual sounds a natural meaning. While the first words are nouns, expressions of movement, activity and change develop into verbs. These natural onomatopoietic and semantic relations form what Fichte calls Ur-Sprache or original language: not the historically first language, but the concept or a paradigmatic model of language, which should work as the ideal foundation of all concrete languages.

While the words are originally very tied to sensations and images derived from sensations, in the course of time they are used more and more metaphorically, Fichte notes, and their original sensuous meaning is ignored. A further development occurs, when the words are related to one another and ordered according to a grammar: the words are inflected, verbs are especially determined temporally and modally, nouns and verbs are combined to sentences and conjunctions are used to connect sentences to further wholes. All of this grammar, Fichte insists, is already an unconscious expression of thinking, and language can thus be seen as containing logic in it, with words corresponding to concepts, sentences with judgements and periods of sentences with deductions. The next step is then that we become conscious of these unconsciously used forms in our language and move from mere representations to the level of thinking.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Imagination

Fichte’s ordering of the stages thus far considered – intuition or perception, internalisation or memory and imagination – has been clearly influenced by Hegel’s psychology. The difference is that while for Hegel these stages form nothing more than a clear progression in an ideal development of consciousness (first perceiving external world, then internalising it or forming images resembling the external world and finally modifying these images), Fichte also sees here a progression of finding deeper and deeper foundations for consciousness. Thus, he calls imagination (Einbildung) a turning point in his discussion, as he at this stage finds what he already at the introduction of the book named as the very centre of consciousness, which in addition to imagination, he also calls the capacity of representation (Vorstellung). In other words, he has now discovered that the essence of consciousness consists in creating representations (at this point we might imagine him to be speaking of mental images).

Although Fichte speaks of a capacity of representation, he is quick to point out that this does not mean that representing would be just one activity of consciousness beside, say, feeling and desiring. Instead, he wants to say that consciousness is by nature always representing. In this, representing corresponds to living in the unconscious functions of our organic body: living is not just one thing our body does, but our body lives always (at least as long as it is our body). Now, these two sides – conscious representing and unconscious living – are linked in sensation, which is both the pinnacle of organic life, but also the starting point of consciousness. We represent as soon as we start to sense, Fichte says, but the sensation does not produce our capacity of representation or consciousness, as sensualists had said, but merely awakens it.

Now, imagination as a separate level in the progression of consciousness is for Fichte the purest expression of the capacity of representation. This capacity did appear in the previous stages, where consciousness recognised similarities between past and present perceptions through unconsciously formed representations of universal patterns. At the point we have reached, the consciousness can create these representations consciously, having thus in a sense liberated itself from mere acceptance of sensations as such. Yet, he at once adds, consciousness can never be completely liberated from sensations, because its creations must always be rooted in sensations, and even the most abstract concepts like being and nothing must be something that can be developed out of sensations. Thus, Fichte admits, sensualists were right at this point, although they then failed to understand the need for the activity of consciousness that assimilates and works on sensations.

All our perceptions are combinations of a manifold of sensations, and since our first representations are reproductions of perceptions, all of them must also contain several partial representations, Fichte notes. Now, because we have been able to reproduce perceptions as representations, we must have at first analysed the perceptions to their parts, reproducing first the partial representations. This activity – or indeed, the wider activity of disassembling not just perceptions, but also representations – Fichte calls analysing imagination. This analysis does not expand nor change the content of the given representation, but separates and brings into distinct consciousness what formerly was given in unification with others. Thus, it at least can unfold at least formally new representations, all the way to the level of absolutely simple representations that cannot be analysed further.

The analytical imagination, Fichte suggests, is a precursor of analytical thinking, which is used to analyse concepts. Now, analytical thinking, he thinks, is closely connected to the capacity of abstraction, which regards the results of analysis (say, a colour of a rose) as separate from its original context (in the just mentioned example, as a colour that could belong to other entities in addition to the rose). Similarly, in Fichte’s opinion, analytical imagination is linked to reflection, whereby an individual representation can be taken as a sole object of our attention. Indeed, he notes, even the very act of reflecting something can be taken as a new object of reflection, leading to an indefinite series of ever more abstract reflections.

Reproduction of representations or reproductive imagination consists then in combining the results of the analysis back to a unity in a synthesis. Yet, Fichte notes, this reproductive synthesis is only one modification of synthetic imagination. In other words, we can also speak of a truly productive imagination that connects partial representations in a novel fashion. This combination, Fichte thinks, can happen in an unconscious manner and then we are speaking of creative phantasy. Phantasy does follow some conceptual pattern, but we are not just aware of it when creating. Fichte even suggests that a real poet (and by poets he also refers to musicians, painters, and indeed, artists of any kind) can follow an insight into a speculative truth about the divine and the world. He goes further and suggests that everyone of us has such hunches or divine leaps of thought, but only a poet can express them, although even they cannot control the coming of such inspirations.

It is natural to assume that in addition to such unconscious use of productive imagination there would also be conscious use of it. Fichte agrees with the assumption and notes that such a conceptual synthesis is what essentially governs synthetical thinking, and more precisely, judgement and deduction.

What imagination produces is internal images – indeed, sensations, perceptions, memories and even thoughts are all something within consciousness. Yet, Fichte notes, we have a tendency to externalise these internal representations (Vorstellung) and make them presentations (Darstellung). The aforementioned phantasy of poets usually involves such externalisation in the shape of a drive to artistic presentation that strives to make images of one’s imaginations in some external material. Beyond art, Fichte points out that all humans do this externalisation when they express their representations in the form of sounds. Indeed, language use will be the next step in our progress.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Memory

Until now, Fichte has been studying perception, in which consciousness appears to be quite passive and to just receive sensations without any input of its own. Yet, he notes, this is not completely true, since even perceptions are, albeit unconsciously, constructed by the consciousness from parts of the flow of sensations. Even more of such unconscious activity is present in pattern recognition, which would be impossible, if the perceptions vanished at the same time as the original sensations. In such a case, consciousness would be blind in the fullness of its perceptions. Even mere indefinite repetition of the very same perceptions does not induce recognition, if the consciousness has no way to make a comparison that the same perception recurs.

Thus, Fichte concludes, possibility of perception and recognition presupposes not just receptivity, but also a capacity to preserve perceptions. Following Hegel, Fichte takes the opportunity to use the German word Erinnerung, which means simply memory, but where the phrase suggests that we are internalising something external. What is here internalised, he says, is not the sensation or impression as such, but the perception or Anschauung based on sensations: the patterns that we ourselves have unconsciously combined from the small elements of the flow of sensations. In internalisation we just consciously renew this activity, but without the sensuous elements. Thus, Fichte points out, these internalised perceptions are less vivid than perceptions as such, but the pattern – say, general contours of a tree – remains clearly in our mind. Indeed, he concludes, they are not anymore to be called perceptions, but representations (Vorstellung) or images (Bild).

Now, while this internalisation happens still somewhat blindly, we can do this same reproduction of perceptions also expressly and consciously. This, Fichte says, we call reminiscence and also memory (Gedächtnis), although the latter also means the unconscious possession of such preserved perceptions. The strength of memory varies, he notes, and is actually dependent on our own activity, as we can more easily recollect perceptions that we have actively attended to. Indeed, Fichte adds, the best way to memorise a difficult topic is to actively conceptualise, think it through and understand it, while meaningless series of e.g. numbers are very difficult to memorise.

Fichte notes that beyond recollection, the process of pattern recognition, in which current and past perceptions are compared and noted similar to one another, requires still something more. In other words, the two perceptions must be first related to a presupposed unity that works as a background for both, although it is not itself explicitly attended to as an object. This common background, Fichte insists, must then be their common subject or a self-perception or self-intuition of the consciousness. This self-perception is then something that is presupposed even at the level of perception, because through it we can distinguish ourselves from what we sense. Despite being something presupposed by every state of consciousness, it is something that we usually are not even conscious of. In this, Fichte suggests, this original self-perception is like consciousness of divinity, which our own lives presupposes, although we are rarely aware of it.

In addition to this self-perception, Fichte continues, internalisation still requires something more. As such, internalisation seems to require a previous perception that it then copies. Yet, he suggests, this copying is just a modification of a more general activity of producing representations. While internalisation and memory produces just images of previous perceptions, the same activity should be capable also of freely producing completely new representations, Fichte concludes. This new capacity or imagination is the next level in the process of consciousness.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Pattern recognition

During the last couple of posts, we have seen Fichte describe the development of perception. He began from the immediate state of consciousness, where a stream of sensations overwhelmed us. Then, the consciousness started little by little to distinguish this stream into individual sensations and collect these individual sensations into perceptions of things. Finally, it also distinguished itself from all these perceived things.

What is still lacking from perception, Fichte says, is perceiving things as something (say, as a tree or a rose). What such “perceiving as” still requires is that we recognise an individual perceived thing as resembling a familiar pattern that we have already perceived (like that of a rose). Of course, such recognition is possible only if we have already perceived several similar things (other things) and formed a general notion of what it is to be such a thing.

This pattern recognition perfects the phase of perception, Fichte says. By perfecting Fichte does not mean just that it is the most intricate mode of perception we have met thus far. Indeed, Fichte wants to say that pattern recognition already points toward mental activities beyond the level of mere perception, if only in an unconscious manner. Thus, pattern recognition already involves something like memory, since it requires preservation of mental images of perceived things. Furthermore, it also presages language, where we can explicitly indicate e.g. that what we have perceived is a tree. Finally, pattern recognition is a precursor of concept formation (one type of thinking), which involves consciousness creating a general representation, under which individual representations can be subsumed.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. First division: knowledge as self-knowledge – Constitution of perceptions

Last time we saw Fichte define the starting point of philosophy: the assumed barest state of consciousness, in which a flow of sensations is just passively received, without any further development. Fichte presumes that the development starts, when this flow of sensation begins to be distinguished. First, individual senses are separated from one another: we note e.g. that visual sensations differ from auditory sensations. Then, distinctions begin to be made between sensations of one kind of sense. Some of these distinctions are qualitative – for instance, when we differentiate blue from green – while some are qualitative – when we differentiate more intensive shade of blue from less intensive.

In addition to distinctions among sensations, a completely different sort of sensation appears, that is, the flow of sensations stimulates the consciousness to sense itself as separate from all the other sensations. This separation, Fichte states, is a necessary result of making distinctions within sensations in general: while conscious of different sensations, we are also conscious of ourselves as attached to all these different sensations.

Now, Fichte suggests, with this first sensation of ourselves we also start to act on sensations. In other words, we do not just distinguish sensations from one another, but we also combine these sensations into further unities, which Fichte calls by the word Anschauung – a difficult word to translate, and while in the tradition of Kant scholarship intuition has often been used, we might as well speak of perceptions in this context. Fichte notes that this unifying activity resembles judgements, in which we combine concepts to one another. The difference is that this unifying activity is unconscious.

What Fichte is describing here is the process by which we, for instance, first separate our field of vision into individual visual sensations and then perceive certain combinations of these sensations as unified things. Similar processes occur e.g. with auditory sensations, when we first distinguish individual sounds in an auditory stream and then perceive a certain series of sounds as melody. Indeed, a process of this kind might even involve different senses, such as when we perceive a certain collection of visual, olfactory and tactual sensations as a rose.