Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Extensive and intensive magnitude

The result of the previous chapter was that the limitation of magnitudes was seen to depend on the qualitative contents measured by the magnitudes, or as Fichte also puts it, quality was shown as the source of quantitative. Thus, we are not anymore dealing with the empty continuity of counting formal, indifferent units into infinity nor with a positive or negative relation of magnitudes measured by this mutual relation. Instead, Fichte emphasises, the content forms the foundation of limits and relations of a magnitude that is derived from this content.

The first form of this magnitude, Fichte says, is an extensive magnitude. Often by an extensive magnitude, Fichte admits, is meant simply any limited quantity in general. Yet, he is here using the term in a special meaning, where the content is recognised as the foundation of this limitation: the content alone extends itself into a determined quantity against other contents and does not just receive a limit from outside. Thus, the content is by its own nature extended and limited from others.

Extensive magnitude is limitation, Fichte clarifies, but only with the distinction that it is the qualitative determination that limits itself and divides into a manifold of quantitatively distinguishable parts. There are thus two aspects, outward and inward, in any extensive magnitude. Outwardly, Fichte begins, extension is related to something else, since limitation implies in general an opposition. Here the opposition is not anymore formal opposition of different amounts, but a determined opposition, where the content itself determines its own extension opposed to other similar extensions (you might picture here a sort of force field). Just like earlier, we might speak of the relations that the numeric expressions of these extensions have to one another.

Inwardly, Fichte adds, extension is an infinitely divisible or distinguishable manifold sharing a continuous, unified quality. Here we meet again the opposition of continuous and discrete magnitude, but now finally balanced. Thus, Fichte notes, we have a similarly continuing extension, and if we formally ignored the content that determines the limits of this extension, it would seem to be able to continue in infinity. Such a return to earlier stages of quantity, Fichte explains, is caused by the one-sidedness of the concept of continuity. Conversely, the extension as a magnitude in general is an internally distinguishable, discrete manifold. Just like with continuity, taking this discreteness one-sidedly would lead us to an infinity – this time to infinite divisibility. Yet, Fichte points out, both continuity and discreteness are by themselves untrue and presuppose one another or their common unity. This unity, he says, is just the extensive magnitude or the determined content quantifying itself and giving itself its own extension and thus showing itself as both a continuous quantity and a discrete plurality of parts.

Fichte notes that an extensive magnitude appears to also contain the opposed conceptual moment of intensity. He begins his argument from the notion of extension as a limited and determined continuous quantity that rejects from its extension everything opposing its determination. In other words, Fichte suggests, the outward limitation of the determination of the extensive magnitude is necessarily connected with a positive self-assertion of this determination within these limits. Now, at the level of quantity, this self-assertion must also have a measure, which is then its force or intensity, in opposition to mere extension or outward limitation.

The intensive magnitude, Fichte continues, is the simple, undivided determination, not yet as a pure quality, but as a quantitative measure. In other words, it is still a magnitude, but not a manifold of parts (that would be an extension). It is more like the grade of the content, designating its inner energy or its strength and weakness. The grade, Fichte suggests, is a simple measure of a simple content, but it can be designated through the general expression of all quantities, that is, through number. Thus, the increase or decrease of intensity can be expressed through determined numbers, but these numbers do not designate any sum of individuals or no amount of grades. Instead, Fichte says, a numerically expressed grade shows a certain position in a scale of grades.

It shouldn't be surprising that Fichte manages to again introduce here the opposition of continuous and discrete. While intensity remains same as to its content, he says, it can be thought as continuously strengthening or weakening in infinity, whereby the grade of intensity seems indifferent. In other words, the content itself should remain the same, no matter how great or small of an intensity it has.

In addition to the indifferent continuum of strengthening or weakening in infinity, Fichte says, the intensity also contains the aspect of discreteness as a quantitative determination. In other words, an intensity has a determined grade and is locked within certain limits of strengthening and weakening, but only in a series of other grades that give the continuum of strengthening and weakening internal distinctions that reproduce the moment of discreteness. The measure of intensity, Fichte thinks, is only in relation to others, and a determined intensity can be called great or small and strong or weak only when it is compared to other similar intensities, and so the same grade can appear at the same time great and small according to different comparisons and relations. Grade, Fichte concludes, is thus the highest mediation of the oppositions of quantity.

The intensity, Fichte notes, on the one hand, limits itself outwardly in relation to other intensities by having a different grade than them. On the other hand, it also limits itself internally by allowing the determination of its content remain the same within the limits of strengthening and weakening. This means, Fichte suggests, that intensity must give itself an equally determined extension, which leads us to the mediation between extension and intension. This mediation, in Fichte’s opinion, is a particular application of the more general principle that qualities must also have a quantitative determination.

The result of Fichte’s investigation has been that extensive and intensive magnitudes are reciprocally conditions of one another. Since both thus by themselves move to the other, their truth is only their unity, which is then also the truth of the third stage of quantity. This unity of both, Fichte suggests, is the quantitative determination appearing from qualitative content that gives itself an appropriate and specific quantity with determined intensity in itself and in determined extension toward other self-quantifying qualities. In relation to itself, such self-quantifying quality can be increased or decreased, but this changeability remains locked within determined limits. Beyond these limits, the content itself changes, and thus this qualitative determination can be thought only within a series of such determinations and limited by them. At the same time, Fichte notes, the concept of quantitative is thus raised to a new and higher meaning, since it receives a qualitative sense.

The mere formal continuity of infinite increase and decrease of magnitude, Fichte thinks, has received a limit and a deeper meaning by becoming an expression of the content. On the other hand, the content has its specific, fundamental character in a series of magnitudes, within which it can grow or diminish, but beyond which it will immediately become something else. Mere quantitative difference has thus become qualitative, and continuity of quantitative increasing and decreasing is thereby limited: what is just quantitatively changed in an unremarkable fashion suddenly leaps over the limit of its changeability and becomes qualitatively different, breaking the series of quantitative graduality. Quantitative in general, Fichte suggests, is absorbed by qualitative and assimilated as a mere moment in it. Quantity is nothing in itself, but only the expression of qualitative and even in its formal limitation it shows itself as dependent and subsumed to the content that places in these quantitative limits qualitative distinctions.

Fichte concludes with a summary of the development of the concept of quantity. Its journey began with the notion of this (Dieses) that was formally, but not really distinguished from other these. This first concept of quantity developed into the notion of a limited quantity or magnitude, which was expressed or determined as a countable number, as a measure, and finally, as a determined grade of extension and intensity. Through this development of quantity, the notion of qualitative determination protruded more and more forcefully: something has to be qualitatively determined or has to have a content, in order to be quantified. In other words, Fichte states, quantity presupposes in general the quality as determining and governing it. Transition into quality, he adds, is, like every dialectical step forward, also a return to more essential or a conscious highlighting of an implicit presupposition. Quality is therefore not deduced from quantity, since this would mean deriving more full and real from the empty and abstract. Instead, Fichte insists, the new concept appears, when something hidden in the earlier conceptual context is raised to consciousness by showing how the earlier concept in its purity and isolation leads to the next concept. Because of this isolation, Fichte ends the chapter, the new thought is at first still the negation of the previous, until the following conceptual level mediates both and collects them in a common higher expression.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Measure

Last time, Fichte had reached the concept of allness, by which he meant a certain determined collection of ones. Such all, he continues, is then externally limited: it is these ones we are talking about, not those others. Internally the ones collected together are still left undetermined, but they are still distinguished from other ones through an external limitation within the whole field of quantity. Indeed, the essential character of such an external limitation, Fichte says, is that the limiting distinction of quantities does not arise from any internal qualities. Just like all quantities, this quantitative limitation can also be described as continuous, and then it could be called, Fichte suggests, a measure. This measure, he insists, should be taken as a determination of something: measure as the determination gives something its limitation, but the limitation is here understood just externally or quantitatively.

Measure, Fichte begins, is at first completely indifferent toward any qualitative distinctions of what is measured. In other words, the measured content is in general just continuous and undistinguished. Fichte's examples of such a measure are an hour of time and a quarter of a foot, where it is indifferent what period of time or length is measured and the distinction of this time and length from others seems completely arbitrary. Measure is thus an arbitrary quantitative limit for something that remains similar or continuous, because any possible qualitative distinctions have been ignored. Measure, Fichte continues, is one of the most comprehensive, but also most abstract determinations of thinking, because it leaves the measured content undetermined. It is a comprehensive determination, he explains, because having a limited magnitude is an essential condition for being something. Thus, just like everything is numerical in the sense of being at least one, everything has also essentially a limit or measure and having this measure makes something into this. At this stage, Fichte notes, all determinations appear completely quantitative, thus, here all qualitative remains still beyond.

Fichte reminds us that all previous quantitative determinations have shared an indifference toward content and thus did not just limit things, but also immediately cancelled this limit. In other words, all quantities could be increased or decreased. Now, Fichte notes, same is true also of measure: every given measure could again be cancelled or made more or less, just because there is no internal limitation through a specific content. When such an abstractly thought measure is increased or decreased without any limit, or more precisely, by cancelling every given limit, Fichte says, it becomes its own opposite or measureless. Thus, it becomes more and more evident that the concept of measure must be complemented with some internal determination.

In the superficial increasing or decreasing of measure, Fichte thinks, is still found the contradiction that a relation to the content is ignored. Measure is cancelled through such external increasing or decreasing and reduces to more abstract determination of magnitude in general. On the other hand, determination of content would limit the increasing and decreasing and make measure more stable. This means, Fichte explains, that only a specific something should have a determined measure that cancels all increasing and decreasing. So, in the concept of measure, we for the first time have determined and not abstract magnitudes.

A determined measure cannot then be arbitrarily changed without any limit. This does not mean that it cannot be changed at all, Fichte explains, but only that it cannot be increased or decreased without changing the measured content. Change is still an essential moment of this concept, because it remains a quantity and the positing and cancelling of limits forms the character of quantitative. Compared with the previous levels, here the change of measure is linked to something lying beyond merely quantitative or to the content. This content, Fichte thinks, itself cancels its measure and so finds through its own internal progress another measure. In other words, change of measure is only the quantitative expression of this internal development. Indeed, Fichte points out, since quantity in itself is meaningless, the highest and most developed forms of quantity are mere expressions of something else.

By introducing determination to quantity, Fichte remarks, we encounter again the familiar relation of opposition of determined against its other and here especially against otherwise determined measures: every thesis of a determination is inevitably combined to an antithesis. This opposition means, Fichte explains, firstly, that the determined measure is determined only as a negation against another determined measure beyond it, and similarly this other measure is just a negation of the first. Secondly, as a variable measure it is also a negation of itself, that is, it has a tendency to change into a different measure and thus in a sense oppose itself. Indeed, Fichte points out, the change of measure shows both forms of opposition: a changing measure is opposed to both itself and to other determined measures.

What could distinguish a measure from another – or in case of a changing measure, from itself – is the content, Fichte says, but we still abstract here from it. Thus, we have only a quantitative difference that can appear merely by comparing quantities with one another or by putting them in relation. Hence, Fichte argues, measure is determined only in a synthetical relation to other, equally determined measures. This synthesis behind the determined measures is the common sphere of measures comparable to one another. With this comparison of determined measures, Fichte suggests, returns the distinction or the discreteness of magnitudes, because the synthetic element or the measure for comparing and so distinguishing measures is once again number (Zahl), or at this stage, amount (Anzahl). This amount, he explains, is the same measure, but now understood as a discrete collection of units: determinations and changes of measures can be compared to one another only according to numeric relations.

The basis of amount, Fichte continues, is one or unit that is used as a common yardstick for all measures, and the different ones or units are collected into the amount. This sounds like what happened in collecting ones into a number, but Fichte finds a difference: for abstract numbers, the content is completely indifferent or anything that could be just abstractly distinguished could also be numbered. Amount, on the other hand, is expressly connected to the content, that is, its ones or units are all expressly similar to one another: only things that can be regarded as similar can be collected into an amount. Thus, Fichte emphasises, just like the predominantly continuous determined measure contains a moment of discreteness, similarly the predominantly discrete amount contains a moment of continuity – because the units comprehended in the amount are similar, we can regard the amount also as continuous or as determined measure, just like a determined measure can be thought or measured only as numbered or as amount. Determined measure and amount are thus only one another complementing expressions of the same limited magnitude.

Determined measure and amount, Fichte reminds the reader, are to be thought as determined only in relation to other equally determined measures or in a system of measures and numbers. Thus, he argues, limited magnitude is not like it appeared at first: it cannot be arbitrarily increased or decreased, because every limitation expresses a determined relation to other magnitudes, which measure or quantitatively determine one another in a reciprocal relation and only thus gain their limit or determination. Such a relation to a system of other measures, Fichte thinks, is infinite, but not anymore in the superficial sense that every posited limit can be cancelled or that every division of a quantity can be divided further. Instead, he calls it a positive infinity that lies in the relation of numbers in general: just like this is this only as opposed to an infinitely different this, similarly every determined magnitude is determined only as opposed to every other magnitude.

Fichte has argued that it is the relation between magnitudes that determines these magnitudes and makes them more than just abstractions. This means, he suggests, that determinations that the magnitudes have in this relation to one another should remain the same, although the numeric expressions of the magnitudes and their determinations would change. Fichte is evidently speaking here of the mathematical notion of a variable being a function of another variable: the function should remain the same, no matter what numeric expressions the variables should have. In an uncareful fashion he suggests that all these relations or functions are reducible to six basic calculations that form three pairs of oppositions: in the first pair, magnitudes are taken as collections of units that are either combined (in addition) or separated (in subtraction), in the second pair, either a new magnitude is assembled by using a given magnitude as a unit for the amount corresponding to another magnitude (in multiplication) or such an assembled magnitude is disassembled (in division), and finally, in the third pair, either one and the same number is taken as both a unit and an amount of multiplication (in exponentiation) or the original number for the result of such exponentiation is searched for (in taking roots).

Every determined magnitude could now be called a quantitative thesis, Fichte says, in the sense that these magnitudes as mutually measuring one another are at first placed in a positive relation with one another, expressed through some equation like x + y = 5 or 2x = y (Fichte explicitly speaks only of additions and subtractions or magnitudes having a determined result and of cases where one magnitude is multiplied with a number to form the other magnitude). Now, every thesis should lead to a further antithesis, by which Fichte here means cases where the two magnitudes are in a converse relation of the sort xy = a, where the increase of x leads to y decreasing and vice versa. Indeed, he points out, the position and negation are immediately connected, when we note that there are three magnitudes that we are speaking of: in equation xy = a, y is in a direct, “positive” relation to a (when y increases, a increases also), but in a converse, “negative” relation to x.

No thesis and antithesis without a synthesis, Fichte is eager to point out. Indeed, the synthesis should already be implicitly contained in the antithesis and thus needs only to be made explicit for the consciousness. This happens, Fichte suggests, when we make a magnitude have both a positive and negative relation to itself: in other words, when in the equation xy = a we assume that x = y. In effect, we are now moving to equations involving exponentiation, which as the phase of synthesis should then be the highest expression of numeric relations. What Fichte sees in exponentiation – and here he is closely following Hegel – is a case where a variable magnitude that despite being increased or decreased still retains a more qualitative relation to another variable magnitude (one could think here of quantities of different dimensions). We thus now enter the final stage in Fichte’s study of quantities, which is concerned of magnitudes and their variability as governed not just by their quantitative relations to other magnitudes, but by their own internal determination.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Number

Last time, Fichte had ended with the concept of this (Dieses) that was empty or lacked all positive content and that was related to an equally empty this, and because they both lacked any content, they were not internally distinguished from one another. This concept, he continues, opens up a new field of thinking, where we have an infinite series of such “these” that have no internal, but only formal distinction and are thus unlimited in their similarity. Here, it is left expressly undetermined what internal relations the various “these” have to each other and whether they correspond or differ in some respect: they are just formally not same and are thus vanish in an infinity that is not separated by any content or qualitative difference. This being formally distinguished and qualitatively not distinguished, Fichte suggests, is the fundamental concept of quantity. Quantity, he adds, is the most formal or most abstract determination that still also leaves everything undetermined, since it does not yet point to any internally distinguishing quality.

Quantity is thus, for Fichte, the first of all proper categories or the most abstract manner of distinguishing beings. The basic characteristic of the quantity, he suggests, is the highest contradiction of abstraction where, on the one hand, we expressly affirm difference, but on the other hand, also expressly deny it again and resolve it into an unbroken, abstract similarity. This is the most formal level of thinking that does not yet determine anything, but still already tends toward determining and prepares for it the form of distinction. Fichte goes even so far as to suggest defining quantity as the unification or synthesis of formal distinguishing – indeed, of a possibility of infinite distinction – and of non-distinguishing, where internal distinctions are not permitted. To put it shortly, in quantity we can posit a limit, which is then immediately cancelled.

Fichte clarifies that what he has described here is especially the concept of pure quantity, which can then be regarded from different viewpoints, according to whether manifoldness or similarity is highlighted. This pure quantity, he suggests, should then be differentiated into determined quantities or magnitudes, which differ from pure quantity only insofar as they are results of determining quantity. In other words, magnitude still shares the general character of quantity that it is indifferent toward how it is determined. Therefore, Fichte explains, magnitude precisely negates the manner in which it is determined, as he thinks can be seen in the mathematical definition of magnitude: it is something that can be infinitely increased or diminished. Determined and pure quantities should thus contain the same contradiction that they are both determined and left undetermined.

Fichte reminds us that the universal meaning of all categories is to serve as fundamental determinations of the absolute. Thus, he notes, absolute could be defined in a very undeveloped manner as the pure quantity that infinitely comprehends or determines everything quantitative. While the pure quantity thus gives everything its quantity, it is not itself determined according to magnitudes or relations of quantity, but contains all of these as moments in itself. In other words, Fichte clarifies, the absolute is the unlimited that limits or measures everything else quantitatively, while itself it is measureless or infinite in the crudest sense of the word. He also suggests that we could give a more detailed meaning to this definition of absolute by relating it to the quantitative forms of intuition or space and time. Thus, Fichte continues, while absolute or God is thought as positing and filling space and time, as the universal essence it is not itself in space and time.

Fichte also suggests that we can  anticipate here the notion of indifference that is the one of the emptiest determinations of the absolute. Thus, the absolute as pure quantity should already be the abstraction from everything finite, including both quantitative and qualitative distinctions. In other words, absolute in this sense is the universal sphere and internal limit for distinctions, but is itself indifferent to these distinctions. Yet, Fichte notes, this notion of indifference is still just an anticipation, since we have not yet consciously discovered anything qualitative.

After these preliminary considerations, Fichte goes on to study in more detail magnitude as the first and thus the most universal form of all thinking of quantity: everything that is quantitative is at first to be determined by a magnitude, but abstractly and not as magnitude of any kind (e.g. not as magnitude of space or time). Now, Fichte continues, there is no internal distinction that would form any proper limits to the magnitude, or if there is such, it is expressly ignored. Thus, this immediate form of magnitude grasped is an unbroken, inseparable series or a continuous magnitude. What this continuity means, Fichte explains, is internal similarity or negation of any distinction posited in the magnitude formally: it is an infinite manifoldness that is immediately again united and resolved into similarity. Hence, continuous magnitude contains manifoldness only as a possibility, which could still be actually distinguished and separated into further magnitudes.

Continuous magnitude contains no distinction, but everything in it melts into a similar togetherness of what is distinguished, although still distinguishable. Fichte thinks that all external limitations must therefore also seem indifferent to the continuous magnitude: within and without the continuous magnitude, there is nothing qualitative that could limit its continuity that always remains the same. Thus, he notes, continuity is outwardly unlimited or infinite in the sense that it is a series that could be indifferently lengthened, while inwardly it is endlessly distinguishable or divisible, since its internal similarity allows an infinite possibility of distinctions.

Fichte notes that we can also emphasise the other side or multiplicity in the determination of magnitude or make distinguishability its prevalent characteristic. This leads us to the concept of a discrete magnitude. Discreteness, Fichte explains, is the formal separation of one (Eins) from another one, while this separation had vanished in the continuity. Fichte thus takes one as the fundamental element of concrete magnitudes. He also points out that discrete and continuous magnitudes are not two different kinds of magnitudes, but only complementing viewpoints on the same quantity. In other words, in magnitude taken as continuous, every distinction is extinguished into a similar, unbroken togetherness, while the same magnitude as discrete highlights multiplicity or infinitely distinguishable ones.

We have thus formally separated many ones, Fichte points out, but they also appear internally undistinguishable or similar. Thus, the moment of continuity is reproduced in discrete quantities, he thinks. Series of ones can be arbitrarily limited, but every limitation is again cancelled, just like in continuous magnitude. Difference between both notions of quantity is just that the one emphasises the internal multiplicity, while the other asserts the similarity, because multiplicity is just formal and not qualitative manifoldness.

Continuous and discrete magnitudes are, according to Fichte, only different viewpoints on quantity in general and on quantitative magnitudes in particular. Every quantity can thus be determined in this dual manner: on the one hand, we can grasp only its internal indistinguishability and make it a continuous quantity, on the other hand, we can highlight the possibility of infinite distinguishing and grasp it as discrete quantity splintered into an infinity of ones.

Fichte thinks that we can find a common expression for such a quantity that is from one respect similarity, from another respect distinguishability. This common expression, he suggests, is the number that flows into a continuity of endless multiplicity or an infinite series of similar ones, but also again collects these ones into discrete units in individual sets of ones. Number, Fichte describes, is the most comprehensible abstraction that formally emphasises distinction that at once becomes fully indifferent. Such a speculative category can exist, according to Fichte, only in the world of pure, abstract thinking. It is still the most effortless and easiest to handle, he adds, since it overlooks everything difficult and deep in thinking. Number encloses and governs every determination of thought and being, because it is the universal form of all determining and distinguishing. While we have not yet developed any internal distinction of things, Fichte emphasises, we can at least distinguish them according to numbers, and this opens up the road to the sphere of qualitative fundamental distinctions.

Fichte suggests that the principle of dialectics for numbers, leading to all numeric relations, is the opposition of continuity and discreteness that goes through everything quantitative and finds its most immediate reconciliation in numbers. Thus, all numeric relations appear from the double viewpoint, where numbers are regarded, on the one hand, continuous, on the other hand, discrete: either the multiplicity of internally similar ones can be again collected together and raised to a higher unity, or the ones are expressly fixated in their separation and enumerated as distinguishable.

In the further chapters, Fichte reveals, numbers will develop into more qualitative forms. As the common expression for all these further determinations of quantity, he explains, number can, despite its abstract position in the whole series of categories, still be a paradigmatic expression for properly qualitative relations or any determinations where it is not the question about merely quantitative. Thus, Fichte muses, if a symbol should be chosen to designate the eternal form of all determinations, the most fitting would certainly be the number, because it posits every distinction expressly as indifferent and can designate what is externally most formal in it.

Fichte returns from these general considerations of the nature of numbers to its further development. He points out that what was formerly designated as this (Dieses) is in its quantitative relation to others a mere one (Eins) related to other ones. This one, Fichte explains, is an empty abstraction that is still opposed to another, equally empty one. “One” is the simplest determination under the categories of quantity, he thinks, since everything in general can at least be called one, which can be thought only in relation to another one. Just like something (Etwas) was the fundamental concept of all determining, Fichte states, one as the quantitative expression of something is the fundamental element of numbers, which is determined only in relation to other ones.

With one, its relation to another one is already posited, Fichte continues: just like earlier developing the concept of something posited another, developing one leads to other ones. These other ones, Fichte explains, do not just appear contingently and form a plurality from an aggregate of externally collected units, but one is by its own nature comprehended in and beside other ones. Still, we at first see only the loosest, most external relation of ones to one another or an indeterminate, numeric multiplicity in general that can be increased and decreased. This plurality or “many”, Fichte emphasises, is the result of thoughtless not-counting or of unlimited and undetermined quantifying in general. Thus, it is the vaguest category of quantity.

Next, Fichte states, thinking proceeds to comprehend this empty manifold in allness: many are combined into a unity. One is thus comprehended not just in many ones, but in totality of ones that forms a synthesis to thesis of one and antithesis of many. Allness in in this sense also completely relative, Fichte thinks, since it is all just in relation to this particular set of combined similar ones. Therefore this relative allness is to be distinguished from absolute or conceptual allness, which, according to Fichte, we haven’t yet reached in relations of quantity.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Relation

Last time, we saw how the pure being of the beginning of ontology was determined to something and then opposed with others. Fichte continues by noting that in this opposition is also expressed the absolute relation of the opposed. In other words, he is suggesting that opposition isn’t the final truth, but at least implies that all positing of something and putting the something against another is possible only within the common sphere where both are reciprocally related. Thus, both previous categories develop into a third: affirmative positing and negative opposing are just one-sided expressions for positing or placing in a relationship. Fichte insists that this relatedness is the only true Ur-category, while the two first Ur-categories are just its interconnected moments or constituents. In other words, all determining is at the same time opposing, while this is just placing in a relation. Thus, Fichte notes, while earlier the original activity of thinking was seen to hover between affirmation and denial, we now find out that within this hovering movement, thinking relates the affirmative and negative members reciprocally to one another. In this sphere or space of relations, he declares, all thinking moves. Thus, all further categories and even all determined thoughts could be seen as mere further development of this Ur-category of relatedness.

Fichte describes the first three Ur-categories also with terms borrowed from his father: thesis, antithesis and synthesis. What he stated could then also be expressed by saying that the thesis and the antithesis led to synthesis, which is then something that could be discovered dialectically in all further oppositions. We thus find Fichte discovering the method of his ontology, which begins by noting how every position or thesis is one-sided and limited by its opposite of antithesis. He also points out that this is where the unspeculative thinking stops: it either fixates on one of the opposites, ignoring the other, or then it becomes aware of the opposition, but then just sceptically denies both positions. On the other hand, speculative thinking tries to solve these oppositions, even if it is not always aware of doing this or works only instinctually. Thus, speculative thinking should lead to the unification of opposites in something higher.

Fichte calls the result of uniting something (Etwas) synthetically with its opposite as this (Dieses). Fichte’s point appears to be that by determining something and relating it to other we can point out to it as one specific individual among many individuals, all of which are in the same space of relation and differentiation. Thus, he admits, opposition has not completely vanished, but the reciprocal exclusion of individuals goes on to infinity: even if we literally united two individuals together into a unity, this unified individual would have then to be determined in comparison to yet another individual etc. Fichte promises to return to this point later and continues to point out that every individual thus always reflects the sum of all individuals, because being determined by its relation to the other individuals, just like this sum or “all” reflects each single individual. This original synthesis of everything being in everything will then be developed further in the later parts of the ontology, he reveals, and should find its final form in the relation of the original personality or God to infinity of creations.

An important conclusion of the ontology so far, Fichte thinks, is that everything that is is determined as an individual. Thus, universal abstractions are not in the proper sense of the word, but are at most the unactual ontological foundation of the individual. This conclusion, together with the earlier one that everything reflects everything else, are, according to Fichte, truths that are just implicitly present in the Ur-categories and that must be developed in more detail through the course of the ontology. Then again, he assures us, if the development is done by following the dialectical method of mediation of opposites, the result cannot be different, no matter who is using this method: Fichte’s philosophy should just bring about what is already contained in its first principles.

Although Fichte adopts the three-level schema so often used in the German philosophy of his times, the origin of which he sees in Kantian idea that in all triplets of categories the third is the synthesis of the first two, but especially in the first presentation of his father’s Wissenschaftslehre, he warns the reader that by itself it does not exhaust the whole ontology. Instead, Fichte says, it is just the most empty or most abstract expression of the truth that will be found again in all more detail later. Only the highest synthesis will be the final truth, and each previous synthesis, including the original Ur-synthesis, are just more or less abstract preconditions of the highest synthesis.

Fichte recapitulates that the original being, which was still nothing, was determined as something and thus as a certain individual against other individuals. Now, in the category structure presented in a summarised fashion in his theory of knowledge, Fichte continued forward to space and time as the forms of perception or intuition, because we determine individuals through their positions in space and time. Ontology, on the other hand, should be involved only with pure thinking, not yet touched by perception and intuition, and thus this way of proceeding should not be open to it. Instead, Fichte continues by noting that describing an individual merely as this does not really tell us what it is and how it is different from other individuals: it is both distinguished and also not distinguished from them. Tantalisingly, Fichte just suggests that this contradiction leads us to the notion of quantity, but his point might be that at this stage the division of the infinity of everything into individuals is completely arbitrary: we might as well say that a set of individuals were combined instead of distinguished. As Hegel had already pointed out, such an arbitrary assignment of limits characterises in fact quantities, since e.g. a length of 6 metres could be divided into two lengths of 3 metres, but also to lengths of 4 and 2 metres.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Something and something else

Fichte began his ontology with a thought of being that had as yet nothing determined in it, although there was a need to find a further determination. The next obvious step is then to determine this being at least in some manner. The simplest way to determine the beginning, Fichte says, is to take it as something (Etwas): it is just thought as somehow determined, although as yet there is no further information how it is determined. The result, Fichte says, is that we are not thinking of anything completely indeterminate, but something recognised as having some determination, although we do not know yet what determination it should be.

By being determined, Fichte continues, this something is distinguished from something else. Thus, he notes, relation to determination and becoming something implies also a relation to other beings, in comparison of which it is determined as being this and not those. In other words, something is something only as opposed to what is something other: if you want to determine something, you have to distinguish it, but this is possible only by placing it opposite to another. Thus, if the first thought could be called positing (Setzen), the second thought is then opposing or positing against (Gegensetzen). Fichte is here following the lead of his father, who used these two terms as the starting steps in the first version of his Wissenschaftslehre, but unlike there, Fichte is here suggesting that opposition is not an unnecessary addition to position, but positing must lead to opposing. All thinking, he says, hovers between affirmation and negation, and just like affirmation of something implies negation of another, so does negation of something imply an affirmation of something else.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology (1836)

In the last post we saw the end of the first part of Fichte’s Grundzüge zum Systeme der Philosophie that dealt with the epistemological question of can we know anything beyond ourselves to exist. This first part, Fichte states, serves as an introduction to the three years later published second part concerning ontology, which would thus require no introduction of its own. Instead, Fichte uses the opportunity to reflect more on the relation of ontology to the first and the later parts of philosophy.

Fichte begins by summarising the results of the first part, where we saw consciousness beginning in intuition, where it was immersed in a naive unity with its object. Bit by bit, consciousness started to free itself in representation and thinking and finally moved to its highest subjectivity, where reflection and scepticism left the consciousness being certain only of itself. Knowledge was thus restricted, Fichte says, from its widest extension to mere formal self-knowing, where only consciousness was true and all else mere appearance. This subjective highpoint of reflection, Fichte reminds us, was at the same time a turn from the emptiness of knowledge to its fullness. Consciousness, to which everything else seemed a mere illusion, was led to self-contradiction, because it knew itself as not being absolute, but a mere derived image of something else that revealed itself in consciousness. Consciousness became thus an examination of an unavoidable reality or absolute, which, according to Fichte, was not anymore external objectivity opposed to consciousness, but revealed itself to consciousness.

This insight, Fichte continues, leads us to the highest principle reconciling all the previous oppositions. The concept of absolute as revealing itself in consciousness, Fichte explains, correctly describes the living actuality that mediates everything. In other words, this absolute actualises itself infinitely by creating oppositions that it then combines inti a unity. Thus, absolute is not colourless indifference swallowing oppositions or an empty formal concept of universality, but an infinite power affirming itself eternally in oppositions. This absolute, Fichte says, is the common object of all the following parts of philosophy, just like it is the only true being or the beginning and end of all things. Fichte admits that this is just the most general description of the new standpoint of knowledge, because all the determinations used to describe the absolute still require further justification. In other words, when absolute is provisionally defined as the original actuality revealing itself in everything actual or as the identity of infinite oppositions, these oppositions are not in itself clear nor still demonstrated. Thus, Fichte concludes, we have to develop in thinking the provisional concept of absolute in order to become certain of the truth contained in it.

Fichte insists that we must not rest with the general result of the first part and that neither is it enough to search in multifarious experience the confirmation of absolute as the infinitely positive. Instead, he thinks, the task lies in the middle of the general concept of absolute and the experience: we should understand the concept of the infinite self-actualisation of the absolute by thinking it and so dialectically develop thoughts lying in this seemingly simple notion. This points to a need for the second fundamental science in the whole system of philosophy, which expressly abstracts from the positive content of the divine actuality and tries to know pure thoughts or absolute form of it. Ontology, Fichte continues, has thus as its task to ask what actuality in itself means, expressly ignoring all its further determinations or content. If at the end of the ontology will be shown that truly actual is just a free subject or that God is also personal, this particular result is then based on a dialectical completion of the formal concept of actuality.

The necessary counterpoint to the purely actual by itself, Fichte explains, is what actualises itself qualitatively in the actual, or to put it somewhat more clearly, being cannot be thought without what is in the being or without the substantial content of the absolute. This absolute, Fichte explains, is both eternal content and eternal form of being, and the content and the form are distinguished only in pure thinking. It must also expressly recognise this distinction as untrue and so point beyond itself to something else than pure thinking. Thus, Fichte concludes, while ontology is the science of eternal form in an express opposition to all content, this opposition must also be set aside, since it shows the form as incapable of existing by itself. Here the characteristic standpoint of ontology is revealed and also its relation to the following parts of philosophy: ontology is complete in itself, but through its completion it points to a complementing counterpoint in another type of investigation.

The identity of form and content in the concept of absolute was designated as the common object of all following parts of philosophy: just like the theory of knowledge followed the living self-development of consciousness, Fichte notes, similarly in ontology and in the following parts of the whole system this living substantial unity is the infinitely self-actualising and self-revealing absolute. He thinks that we can in all earnest, and not just allegorically, speak here of self-movement of this absolute. On the other hand, purely formal as in itself unactual and dead has no such driving impulse and no power to go through oppositions and mediate them in unity, except as an arbitrary fiction. Just like absolute itself is the acting force that produces from its internal infinity oppositions and extends them into a universe, speculative thinking of this absolute becomes the image of this original activity in creation, Fichte suggests: in ontology, speculation grasps the formal side of this self-actualisation, and in concrete parts of the system, the more qualitative side. Yet, he warns the reader, we shouldn’t regard this dialectical completion of absolute in thinking as awakening of divinity into self-consciousness, since confusing our dialectical thinking with the divine is just the same error as confusing real with formal.

In the fundamental knowledge that we have reached at the of the theory of knowledge, Fichte says, all dualisms are completely cancelled, both the opposition between eternal and finite and also the separation of subjective and objective: human spirit and natural world appear no more as a duality, but both present the unity of divine actuality and divine thinking. Insofar as this divine thought of the world must still be developed through investigations of the ontology and the more concrete parts of philosophy, this result of the theory of knowledge is anticipation of the later parts of philosophy, which must be illuminated and justified in more depth through the dialectical progress of speculation. In this dialectical progress, Fichte suggests, the mere anthropocentric standpoint of consciousness is raised to a theocentric standpoint, because through it, the consciousness comprehends itself in all its levels and shapes as the knowing of this divine self-actualisation: consciousness is itself in God, because it in general is. Similarly, what consciousness knows is only divine, because only the actual is knowable: nothing is merely subjective or meaningless, and even in error the force of truth is present. The divine presence, according to Fichte, drives from now on all philosophical investigations and shows itself as the only true viewpoint of philosophy.

Fichte now regards himself to have justified the general need to move from the study of consciousness and knowledge to ontology and further parts of the philosophy. His next task will be to explain in more detail the relations of these different parts of philosophy. Objective and particularly ontological knowing, he begins, has not destroyed the previous subjective standpoint. Instead, Fichte thinks, the completed self-knowing illuminates the process of the later parts of philosophy, justifying in advance all its turning points. Thus, the theory of knowledge should prefigure all the following parts of philosophy, which must still fill this preliminary foreshadowing with evidence and internal richness. We might say, Fichte suggests, that every part of the philosophy both points forwards to the next and in its turn receives its own meaning from those later parts. Still, he emphasises, theory of knowledge has the advantage that like a compass it shows a fixed centrepoint of truth that orients us through all hazards of investigation. Thus, the whole system of philosophy could be likened to an organism, in which previous stages already contain an undeveloped model of all the following. Fichte also notes that because the two final parts or the philosophies of nature and spirit engage with experience and its infinity of material, they can never be completed, while the theory of knowledge and the ontology can be.

Ontology has then a very limited task to solve, Fichte muses, as it must complete pure thinking. In its specific content, it is a science of eternal forms, in which everything concrete must appear. Pure thinking of ontology is not the empty logical abstraction, because such would for all eternity remain empty. Instead, ontology has as its topic the certainty of the absolute as simply actualising itself in oppositions, the concept of which it has received from the theory of knowledge. Making an exhaustive survey of this concept in its dialectical moments is the only content of ontology.

How can ontology reach the absolute form in separation from everything concrete? Fichte looks back at the theory of knowledge. Pure thinking has abstraction as a moment in itself. In other words, pure thinking has followed the path of abstraction and distinguished between that from which we can abstract in a certain context and that from which we cannot abstract in that context or between contingent and necessary. It then found out what cannot be abstracted from in any context or what is absolutely necessary in all being and thinking. In the theory of knowledge, these necessary elements were called categories, which Fichte takes as forms of both thinking and being. The categories as a whole can be called the system of absolute forms of actuality, distinguished from their possible content.

Fichte suggests that just like the theory of knowledge modelled the fullness of pure thinking through the speculative intuition of the absolute, the ontology in its part models the more concrete philosophies of nature and spirit, to which ontology has to introduce us. It is thus a characteristic of ontology that it is presented as a separate science, but it has to also show its one-sidedness. In other words, the purely a priori content of ontology is not the highest, but the simply first and most universal truth and precondition of all concrete knowing that desires to be speculative. The forms of ontology cannot exist by themselves, Fichte explains, but this is just the dialectical life driving them from one level to another until the highest or absolute form. Ontology thus relates to later parts of philosophy like pure science to applied sciences. Thus, Fichte concludes, speculative knowledge about objectively real or God, nature and spirit comes in two kinds. Firstly, there is the quantitatively limited knowledge of their pure a priori forms. Secondly, there is the infinite knowledge of experience of these objects that is shot through with a priori concepts, but goes further than them. This imperfection of ontological forms must be revealed in the ontology itself.

From the overall structure of philosophy, Fichte moves on to describe the structure of ontology itself. He notes that while until now he could look back on the results already achieved in the theory of knowledge or their immediate consequences, from here on he is going to give a preliminary look on things he will properly justify in the ontology itself. An important point in the structure of ontology, Fichte explains, is the distinction between concepts and ideas, where ideas are more complex forms than categories and refer to actual entities. He also makes the crucial point that due to the limited space of the book, he will not be dealing with ideas here, leaving that part of ontology to a later publication.

Fichte also quickly describes his method of organising ontology, which unsurprisingly works in three steps of position, opposition and synthesising mediation. In other words, at every point of the development of the concept we begin with something that has the character of immediacy and is therefore a negation of something. Due to it being a negation, it can then be placed against its opposite. Finally, both are united in the third member, which contains in itself the opposites as reconciled in relation. Although this trivision seems rather formulaic, Fichte assures us that it is derived from the characteristics of the topic investigated. Since we are dealing here only with concepts appearing from a dialectical process of thinking, the content of ontology is only consciousness of form, and because ontology applies the just described dialectical method, it uses this form also as a method. Thus, in ontology, the method is derived strictly from the nature of the topic, or the form and content of the ontology go inseparably together. Fichte notes that this is true only of ontology, because the form and content cannot coincide in any science that requires empirical impulses, therefore not even in the concrete parts of philosophy.

Fichte connects his description of the dialectical method with the distinction between categories and ideas by noting that the characteristic of all categories and also their dialectically further driving principle is that all of them appear as mere members or one-sided moments of a higher conceptual totality or idea. In other words, only in ideas do the categories find their truth. System of isolated categories consists therefore of ideas differentiated into their moments. Thus, all of these moments as isolated are constrained by the contradiction of not being in totality. This contradiction, Fichte explains, drives them ever higher until full completion in the reproduced idea. In other words, through contradictions driving it further, ontology raises itself over all one-sided concepts until something real is found that isn’t anymore affected with contradiction. The result or the ideas, Fichte says, are fundamental forms and paradigms of actuality. When ontology turns into a theory of ideas, there is no contradiction to lead it further, but even here dialectical progress does not stop, Fichte insists, but receives a new, positive meaning.

Ideas as principles of actuality, Fichte thinks, express in their relations toward one another at the same time real relations. Progress within theory of ideas models the real processes of the world, and the ideas in their mutual relation present the eternal forms of the world, while this must be completely denied of categories in their isolation. Categories are in general to be thought merely as conceptual moments of ideas and are not enough for actuality, while ideas show themselves shaping and moving the actuality. Fichte hints that the dialectical progress will show that all ideas return to the idea of spirit and personality and only in this find their full truth. Thus, the meaning of the world process is that all reality tries to push itself to consciousness, spirit and personality, and in the universe, like in ontology, God remains the highest idea solving all contradictions.

Study of ideas becomes then in its highest truth speculative theology, Fichte explains. In this end, all contradictions are resolved and all categories and ideas comprehended and explained. Thus, Fichte concludes, the only true or absolute idea is the idea of absolute personality, which is then also the only complete definition of God. The goal and result of ontology is then absolute theism, and ontology is therefore an attempt to lead all other, more imperfect ways to understand God to theism as their absolute truth. Every category and every idea, Fichte thinks, is a subordinate definition of the concept of God and thus corresponds to some religious or speculative consciousness of God, and therefore ontology should also contain the principles of an internal history of religions and philosophies from an ontological standpoint, just like the theory of knowledge contained principles of all philosophies from the standpoint of self-consciousness. Each lower conception of God is then just a confused opinion lacking final evidence, while with the highest religion, Fichte insists, we also reach the standpoint of true philosophy.

Fichte notes that theory of knowledge as the foundation of ontology could be called a proof of God’s existence. Similarly, he argues, ontology must be understood as a demonstration of God’s essence. Still, he admits, even here ontology is just a science of forms and the highest idea of the divine personality is also just a form, although it is the highest form. Like all ideas, it corresponds to the positive, infinitely filled actuality of divine person, but unlike many other ideas, it can be realised only once, which Fichte suggests as the formal proof of the unity of God.

When we move from ontology to speculative theology, Fichte thinks, the a priori necessity of negative dialectics is completed, but just because of this also destroyed. Behind all more abstract categories and ideas we find the idea of personality or freedom as the only truth without any contradiction. Since thinking of the highest idea is free of all contradictions, the validity of negative dialectics ends, because it could move forward only through contradictions. A higher method of knowledge is thus required, Fichte says, and this method has to use a different methodological principle: unlike Hegel thought, Fichte points out, negative dialectics cannot be the absolute method of knowledge. Just like it was the character of negative dialectics to return from categories as one-sided parts to their totality, from here on the valid methodology has to be completely opposite. This positive dialectics, as Fichte calls it, is then progressive and descends from the height of the absolute idea, and here the leading principle is the development and unfolding of what is already implicitly present.

Just like in negative dialectics the contradiction in every subordinate concept was the impulse to search for something truer and more essential, Fichte continues, in positive dialectics the principle is ever fuller confirmation of what is in itself already real, or more shortly, its life and freedom. In the sphere of speculative theology and concrete systems of natural and spiritual philosophy, he explains, all the moments shown by positive dialectics can be actual, that is, not affected by self-negation of contradiction. Yet, he at once adds, since there is no contradiction forcing these moments to exist, it is completely free whether they do. Thus, there is no dialectical contradiction in that God would not reveal itself in creation or that God would just be the world creator, but not a redeemer in world history. That God is more is thus no necessity in God, but a free act that cannot be derived from God with negative, but only with positive dialectics. Similarly, Fichte continues, nature could exist without human spirit and this would lead to no logical contradiction, but spirit still is the truth of nature. Shortly, it is not an abstract necessity that lies behind the creation and the development of the world, and positive knowledge of the world cannot be derived from a necessary chain of mere a priori conceptual moments. Content of positive dialectics, Fichte concludes, lies in thinking about the process of life and spirit, not a priori, but by dialectically working through experience as the actualisation of these powers.

This addition of positive dialectics, Fichte believes, changes the whole manner of philosophical investigation. Creation of nature and spirit becomes a history of divine revelation through the will of God, which finally assists speculation out of its abstract spinning in itself. Such an abstract fixation on a priori is overcome, firstly, by complementing negative dialectics with and by lifting it to positive dialectics, which ontologically finds its realisation in the speculative theology. Then again, here the validity of a priori completely ends, because the field of freedom begins. Thus, positive revelation of the personality of God or God’s actions can be experienced only in the actual things. The a priori is then complemented for the second time, Fichte suggests, by a transition into speculative empiricism that knows the world as a creative act of God and as an artwork of divine understanding and will. This infinitely concrete, natural and spiritual universe is also the counterpoint that confirms the reality of the eternal ideas of ontology: just like ideas are forms of God’s actuality, the concrete infinite world is the fulfilled actuality of divine revelation. Ontology thus ends with complete self-awareness of ending, because it has recognised its own, necessary limits.

Fichte goes back from these fancy preliminary speculations to the more pressing question where and why should ontology begin. He returns to the simple result of the theory of knowledge: absolute is. Thinking of this simple result, he says, is pure thinking. We have to think through the absolute, that is, to separate the differences contained in its seeming simplicity. This separation should also raise categories to consciousness in their necessary, dialectical connection.

First step in this thinking of absolute, Fichte explains, is to ignore all the indeterminate representations that the provisional thinking of absolute suggests semi-unconsciously. Indeed, he insists, all provisional thinking should be completely forgotten and all its valid results should be demonstrated from the beginning of pure thinking. Just like consciousness at the end of the theory of knowledge finally broke through all oppositions and found the knowledge that absolute is, it provisionally harbours in this thought of absolute many concepts (it is the eternal in all change, highest mediating of all oppositions, absolute power over everything etc.). True, Fichte admits, this thought of absolute can be regarded from different viewpoints, but even more so a deeper justification of this synthesis is crucial. In other words, it hasn’t been yet shown why specifically this set of concepts is found in the absolute nor is it solved how the unity of the absolute in general suffers a manifold of properties. Similarly, from other predicates involved in the thought of absolute should be evoked a series of problems or contradictions that thinking should work through. We are thus left with the task of showing how all these concepts or categories within the thought of absolute reciprocally determine one another.

All this, Fichte points out, takes us back to the provisionally drawn field of investigation. Just like the theory of knowledge left us at the end the thought of absolute, so the provisional thinking through of this thought shows the necessity of investigating it systematically. Thus, Fichte insists, we must return to the absolute beginning of thinking that is also the absolute beginning of being, since the opposition of objective being and subjective thinking is not valid here. The theory of knowledge gave us the insight that absolute is, as simply evident and certain truth. Then again, thinking the absolute reveals a series of problems, and only their full solution justifies the universal certainty of this insight. Here, Fichte thinks, we have described the task of ontology from a new angle. He also notes that we could now completely separate ontology from the first part of the system. If we do this, knowledge of the being of absolute remains a presupposition that as self-justifying should be placed at the start of the ontology.

Returning to the absolute beginning or the first act of thinking, Fichte suggests, we have to search for the most universal principle of this activity. This universal principle, he thinks, is positing of something as still thoroughly undetermined. The aim of this positing, Fichte thinks, is to move from this indeterminateness to determination and fix what we are thinking as something that is placed within a universal sphere of distinctions, where one in general is determined as not something else. Thus, he points out, determining always relates to denying something else, and this relation connects positing and denying: both are just opposed to one another, but therefore also united in a relation. Only this relating is their truth, not their isolation, since they are what they are only in this relation. Going through all the different forms of this relating of distinctions Fichte takes as a new way to describe the task of ontology. He also thinks that the unity of these three moments should not yet be counted among the proper categories. Indeed, he calls them the Ur-categories or the general field for all further categories. It should thus not be possible to express any determined thoughts in them, but ontological thinking must begin with them.

Even before going to this trinity of related opposition, Fichte insists, we must still isolate its absolute beginning, expressly separating from its both other moments, although it is irresistible to move further from this beginning. In relation to thinking, he says, the beginning is to be designated only as positing of a formal starting point for further determinations. This could also be expressed as mere being or “is” without any further addition: logically, Fichte explains, we could take it as the empty, indeterminate subject of a judgement that has not yet developed to its copula and predicate. Since this mere being is just purely determinable, it is not yet even something that is: it is or has no predicate, but is only absolute predicability. We can determine this absolute indeterminacy, Fichte explains, only when we move to further members of the Ur-categories. Its contradiction is then simply that we try to remain in it, when it expresses its absolute determinability and the need to move to determining.

In this first and simplest thought, Fichte thinks, we inevitably recognise the identity of thinking and being or of form and content: this beginning of all determining is only in thinking, but it still leads to all proper being or or real determinations. In other words, Fichte explains, because this beginning develops further into real determinations or ideas it cannot be merely subjective, but because as the beginning of all determining it completely lacks all concrete determinations, it cannot be called objective. From this first source, he describes, flow out all distinctions of thinking and being, but here thinking completely penetrates being, so that nothing is obscure or impenetrable for thinking. Similarly, this abstract being is completely placed in the light of consciousness, so that the highest a priori immersion of content and form is reached.

Fichte recognises that this pure beginning has been poignantly called being that is still just nothing. This properly means, he explains, that being as beginning is simply still undetermined or the negation of all further determination, hence, still nothing. This does not really mean, Fichte thinks, that nothing would be added as a predicate to being, since being in present context is more likely the absolutely predicateless, but the first thought is just described in its essential self-negation: being is expressly determined as still nothing, as simply not determined or as contradiction against itself. Then again, Fichte adds, it is completely impermissible to believe this proposition to be universally valid even beyond the beginning of the still lacking determining, as he thinks undeniably happens in the expressions like “being and nothing are same”. Here, he explains, being is more properly called actuality, and the predicate “nothing” directly cancels the first thought, because actuality directly negates nothing.