Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Capacity and realisation

Fichte begins a new section of his ontology by pointing out how to move forward from the just investigated relation: content should be not just seen as passive filling of empty forms, but should contain in itself the principle from which alone the forms are derived and actualised. Thus, he suggests, the content should be seen as a capacity (Vermögen). This capacity is not, Fichte insists, an empty abstraction, because it has been derived from content. What the concept of capacity adds to the concept of content is the notion of power over forms: capacity means determined content with the power to bring it forward as its consequence.

Fichte distinguishes three aspects in the concept of capacity. Firstly, he begins, capacity has content, but not anymore opposed with its forms. Secondly, capacity is the power over all its consequences that might arise from it. Finally, capacity can realise these consequences, but it also might not. Capacity is thus in a sense indifferent to its realisation, Fichte notes, and although what the realisation would be like is determined by the capacity (unlike the forms in their original stage that had little to do with their content), the realisation might still fail to exist. Fichte identifies this indifference as the essential failure in the concept of capacity.

Capacity is opposed to its realisation, Fichte explains, in the sense that it is not irresistibly realised, that is, it does not make its consequences automatically actual with it. In this sense, capacity still resembles internal and content, leaving its content locked within its interiority. Fichte notes that in earlier times such inactive capacity was called resting and points out that something further is required to awaken this capacity to its realisation. Thus, he says, the realisation process of a capacity consists of three members: the resting capacity, an inciting external and the final realisation.

Fichte points out that this required external incitement leads the concept of capacity into a contradiction. In other words, he explains, capacity as determined by something outside it seems not anymore an active capacity, but a mere dead content, or while the content belongs to the capacity, the activity seems not. Fichte notes that we have returned not just to the notion of content, but even further, to the concept of being for another: capacity is determined to realisation in a system of infinitely many others. Yet, he adds, this being for another must be also complemented by the moment of self-assertion. Indeed, Fichte explains, the influence of the others does not so much determine the capacity, but just gives it an opportunity to react against them and thus to realise its own essence.

Fichte enumerates the self-determination of the capacity into activity as the second moment in its concept. In other words, the capacity maintains its own identity through its conflict with others and thus leads to a corresponding realisation. Capacity does not then produce something new from itself, but realises what is present in it as resting. Capacity is then an independent source of its realisations and a power determining their content. Fichte describes this notion as real capacity and considers it to be a mediation of the previous conceptual moments: real capacity is an internal ground with content that determines itself to express itself in exterior forms.

Fichte notes that a real capacity is not exhausted by a single act of realisation, but proceeds into a series or a system of connected realisations, the whole course of which through each other complementing moments can only be the full realisation of the content of the capacity. He points out that we are effectively returning to the notion of the same interior being expressed in many different manners externally or the same content being developed in a system of several forms. Similarly here the original determination of the capacity is not locked in an absolute simplicity, but asserts itself by performing many different realisations, when related to a number of others.

Fichte suggests that we are now heading toward a third and final moment in the concept of capacity. The capacity is in its relation to others determined into an immediate system of self-realisations. This means, according to Fichte, that the supposed separation between the capacity and its realisation completely disappears, together with the notion of a passive resting capacity. Instead, we have discovered the thought of a real capacity that simply realises or actualises itself, which Fichte suggests to lead us to the concept of actuality as the next category. Hence, every capacity simply actualises itself, and everything actual is only the self-actualisation of an internal or ideal capacity. Actuality is thus, for Fichte, this complete interpenetration of ground and consequence or the living and undisturbed self-realisation of capacity, while anything not penetrated by ideality down to the final point of its existence is not actual. Fichte concludes that therefore every notion of a dead material, enlivened only by something external, must be completely rejected.

In Fichte’s opinion, while the concept of capacity as such has been developed completely, something still needs to be said about its original relation to essence. In other words, he explains, capacity is in its realisation related to infinitely many other capacities and is therefore finite. Yet, Fichte reminds us, even in the first book of the ontology everything finite was shown to refute itself. Now, the capacity as finite is separated into a system of its realisations and is therefore not at all an independent individual capacity, but to be thought only as part or member in a system of capacities, in which it only receives its truth and internal infinity. All thoughts of isolation must be rejected here, Fichte concludes, and we must return to the concept of internal, all comprehensive infinity, which is not just dead ordering of individual capacities, but a living unity, or to phrase it differently, the finite capacity is only a moment or part of infinitely self-realising and in a system of such moments unfolding Ur-capacity.

At the beginning of the second book, Fichte described the absolute as the essence and then soon as the Ur-ground. At this point he notes that these definitions were abstract and empty, while now through the further investigations at least a part of this abstraction has been put aside. The absolute was further determined as ideal power, as a content giving to itself infinite forms and finally as absolutely self-realising capacity. Thus, Fichte says, the absolute is not merely internal, but also infinite self-actualisation that contains in its essence everything actual. Furthermore, he adds, this infinity also does not remain abstract or empty, but develops into a system of completely determined, individual self-realisations, which correspond to what earlier were called original qualitative positions. Here begins, Fichte concludes, a new circle of conceptual relations, the middle point of which is the just discovered concept of actuality.

Before entering this new phase. Fichte once more summarises the conceptual moments of the beginning of the second book, showing how the essence has through these moments reached the concept of its actuality. At first the essence placed itself against the inessential that only seemed to be. Then its dialectic showed the essence to be more of a ground of its opposite or consequence. Still separated from its consequence, ground was understood merely as interior against external, ideal against real and content against form. All these oppositions were refuted and found their final solution in the concept of simply self-realising and self-actualising capacity. The final result was, Fichte reminds us, that the essence is the ground, the interior and the content, but also the consequence, the external and the form in the same undivided unity that in general actualises itself. The essence or the ground is then not behind and beyond the actuality, but actuality is only the essence: actuality shows nothing that would not be in essence and in essence is nothing that would not actualise itself.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Content and form

The outcome of the previous phase in Fichte’s ontology was that the two sides dealt with – the more essential ground, or as it is now called, the content (Gehalt), and its less essential consequence or form – cannot exist or be thought of without the other. In other words, the content, or as Fichte also calls it at the beginning, the matter (Stoff) must become visible and thus take on a form, while this form is dependent on the content and hence in comparison inessential, contingent and changeable. In the previous section, he reminds us, the interior of the essence made a manifold of appearances actual without being necessarily related to any single one of them, and here also the form seems external to the content, although with the difference that the form is inseparable from the content that assumes some shape. Thus, all forms require a content and would not exist without such, while the content, although it must have a form, can change it into a different form without losing what is essential to it.

This indifference of content toward its form is the first characteristic sign of the new conceptual relation, Fichte says, but just like earlier, in case of essence and inessential or of internal and external, a further mediation between the two opposites is required. At this stage, he continues, their relation appears contradictory, because they are both opposed, but also inseparable: content must be formed, and form presupposes content, but also content is indifferent toward its form and the form is contingent or changeable. In fact, Fichte notes, we have as yet barely progressed from the previous relation between internal and external.

Since the content requires a form in general, but not any determined form, Fichte argues, both are in a sense independent of one another: content could assume many forms, but form also many kinds of content. In this sense, the content is a mere foundation or substrate for the form, since the content could be abstracted from any particular form without destroying the content itself. In this reproduction of the relation between internal and external, the content seems, just like Fichte hinted, mere matter that could be shaped in various manners. This matter remains the same, no matter what appearance it has, and this appearance or form adds only inessential determinations to the matter. Thus, when this form is removed, these additional determinations vanish from the matter.

To lead us away from this notion of content and form, Fichte suggests that their opposition has already appeared to us, albeit in a more abstract shape. What we know about the content is that it is qualitatively determined and has thus some characteristics that make it finite, negative toward others and changeable. Because of these features, the content must exist in a system of infinite determinations and assert its place in this system as internally infinite. Fichte has thus returned the notion of content to the categories of quality: such as permanent position in a system of qualitative determinations is precisely a content that does not vanish when it is formed or that is more essential than its inessential form. What then this form is, beside something inessential compared to the qualitative content? Fichte reminds us that the categories of quality appeared originally from the refutation of the categories of quantity, which was revealed to be a mere manner how a quality expressed itself, both extensively and intensively.

What Fichte is implying is that the relation between quality and quantity is the same relation that occurs between content and form or that the form is the quantitative expression for the content. This explains, he adds, how form can in a sense subsist separately from the content, but is also in itself without any meaning and only an expression of another, or how the content and form are both different, but still absolutely unified. The content is the qualitative side that gives itself a specific quantitative determination or a form corresponding to it, in other words, the qualitative content quantifies itself in a manner appropriate to its own determination or produces a specific form corresponding to this specific content. Fichte notes that this is a second, more complete expression of this conceptual relation, where the content posits itself in this specific form that is not in general inseparable from content. Thus, he explains, it is not anymore the case that the content is just matter that can assume any form and that can even change between many forms without losing its own qualitative specification. Instead, only a certain form completely corresponds to this content and is its only quantitative expression. Form and content are therefore identical, because form is nothing in itself and in its isolation leads to a contradiction, but, Fichte adds, just because of this dependency, form is also not identical with content that should be essential in comparison.

The form can then be determined, Fichte summarises, as both inessential to the content and also its absolute consequence expressing its essence in a quantitative element. Form itself has no power over its content, while content is the absolute power over or the principle of its form. Still, Fichte emphasises, this relation of dependence does not cancel the eternal difference between form and content, but instead, reproduces this difference and establishes the power of the content. At the same time, he adds, all mere formalism and purely a priori is shown to be of limited validity, in comparison to the study of infinite content. On the other hand, the form is also shown to be separable from its content, at least in speculative consideration, which makes a pure science of form possible. Indeed, Fichte explains, form as a presentation of content in a quantitative element can be taken as an independent topic that develops into a complete system of forms transitioning into each other. Ontology has thus proceeded into an explanation of the possibility of itself and all other sciences dealing with forms, solving thus a task given in the very introduction of this work. Fichte also classifies the various sciences of forms by saying that mathematics studies merely quantitative forms and especially forms of space and time, while philosophy contains, beside the ontology as the science of the forms of being, epistemology as the science of the forms of thinking, although, he admits, the latter has also an empirical foundation, since it has to develop these forms of thinking from preceding states of consciousness.

All the ontological categories have been set out as mere forms in abstract emptiness, Fichte argues, thus, they point to an essence or content. Still, this common essence has also a corresponding category, and indeed, Fichte insists, all proper categories explicitly show a relation to this essence, which happens in the relational concepts of the second part of ontology. Thus, every relational category has two sides, one of which designates what is real – e.g. essence, ground, internal and content – while the other designates what is formal – e.g. inessential, consequence, external and form. Furthermore, Fichte emphasises, since all the categories and thus also the categories belonging to the side of the real or content are valid only in this sphere of ontology, we can only prove ontologically that there is an infinite content that goes through the whole ontological system of forms, but we cannot say what are the more specific determinations of this content – indeed, ontology has to itself prove its own limits.

Content is completely determined and unique, Fichte reminds us, thus also its form can be only individualised: specific content posits its specific form. This means, firstly, that with the relation of content and form are again established all the categories in the dialectics of qualitative determinations. Thus, the determined content is finite, that is, it both negates others and asserts itself in this negation. As is familiar, Fichte continues, this leads us to the notion of internal or positive infinity, where something is, on the one hand, in a system of infinite determinations infinitely related to one another, but on the other hand, contains in its individuality an internal infinity reflecting these relations. These determinations refer to the content, thus, Fichte sets out as a task, we have to find out what this means for the form.

Fichte begins answering this question by noting that content and form are first negations or others toward one another, but with this reciprocal negation they also posit one another. Furthermore, he continues, the second concept of negation reappears, that is, that of changeability. This means that because content is determined, it is subject to becoming something else. Here, Fichte explains, the form appears as the changeable side and the content as what remains the same in becoming: the content is identical with itself, but in the becoming or change it transforms itself by varying its forms.

When a content takes on its specific form, Fichte underlines, it behaves freely toward and subjugates this form, which then has no subsistence of its own. When content then transforms itself, this transformation is nothing foreign to the content, but just expresses its essence and especially the connection to others that is inseparable from its determination. Thus, Fichte summarises, the content with its stable determination transforms itself through the system of its forms, and it remains the same throughout this transformation, insofar as the same determined individual content is present in all these forms. On the other hand, the content also does not remain the same, since its varying forms develop its aspect of being something else, although they do not add anything opposed to the stable content.

This account of the change or transformation of concept, Fichte adds, is at once connected to the relation that a determined content has to other determinations. In fact, he explains, the determined content varies its relation to its own forms only through its place in the system of all determinations, where it both negates as well as posits other determinations and also asserts itself through these relations. This means that the variation of the forms of content derives not only from the content itself, but also from its necessary reciprocal relation to the infinity of other kinds of content. In other words, according to Fichte, the change of the form of any determined content means combination with another content and its form and dissolution of a previous similar combination. Just like the variation of forms is then a variation of different combinations, the form in general is the relation, which the content has to the infinity of other determinations.

The result is, Fichte notes, that neither the determined content nor the system of its variable forms subsist in themselves. Instead, every qualitative determination is only a moment in the system of an infinity of determinations – this is the already familiar notion of internal infinity. Furthermore, the system of its forms is not derived merely from the content, but also from the necessary reciprocal relation between individual contents. The forms thus consist only in the infinitely varying combining and dissolving of these relations, while the content asserts always its original quality, but varying its forms and relations, and with these also its characteristics. In these characteristics, Fichte concludes, content and form combine with each other, while both characteristics and the form are an immediate combination of the relation to others and the self-assertion.

Fichte has discovered the form to be identical with the relation to the infinity of others, since both appear through the variation of characteristics. Still, he immediately adds, the concept of form is still not perfectly clear. We do know, Fichte reminds us, that the form is the quantitative expression for the content. Thus, when we say that the specific content corresponds to a specific form, this means also that the content is quantitatively determined or limited and has its own extension and intensity. Fichte notes that in terms of more concrete parts of philosophy this means that when a content receives a form, it is determined in time and space, that is, it fills space and time in a completely specific manner.

Space and time are, Fichte concludes, the common element, in which qualitative determinations can enter in actual relation to one another. They form the common sphere, in which all actual things meet each other and transform in their mutual relations. Just like all quantities, space and time are indifferent toward what individual qualities they have, although they cannot be completely without qualitative determinations. This indifference, Fichte explains, makes these fundamental forms seem independent, but actually, like all quantities, they are mere forms for real qualities and thus dependent on content. Then again, as every content is in reciprocal relation to others, it must fill some specific time and space, so that there is no empty time or space, just like categories are not actual without any content. Thus, Fichte notes, content is spatial and temporal, but is also independent of them in the sense that it is not exhausted with its temporal and spatial determinations.

The relation of content and form is almost at the end of its development, Fichte states, with the exception of the highest synthesis that just has to be recognised. A specific content, he begins the search for this synthesis, taking a specific form, is specific only in opposition to other specifications, and indeed, it can be thought only as having its qualitative specification in a positive infinity. The same dialectical step engaged us already at the level of quality, Fichte reminds us, as we raised ourselves from the internal infinity of every individual determination into a positive infinite that creates and orders individual determinations (this was the first proper definition of absolute), At this new stage, he explains, we could further describe the absolute as the ground that posits the infinite content, specifies this content infinitely and differentiates it into a system of mutually qualitative Ur-determinations. The actual content of the absolute is this qualitatively filled infinity. Yet, Fichte notes, just like every specific content has its specific form, the absolute gives to this qualitative infinity also its eternal form, which is also a necessary aspect of the absolute.

The form has two sides, Fichte notes. Firstly, there is the eternal, simply universal form of infinite content that is an in itself completed system of mutually each other determining formal concepts or categories. On the other hand, because the content specifies itself infinitely, this eternal world of forms must be also infinitely specified. Thus, Fichte summarises, the categories must because of their necessary link to content be thought only as specified, that is, actually united with their content as specific spatial and temporal quantities. All categories are therefore, he concludes, infinitely specified, and their abstract eternity receives in this manner movability that prepares the transition from ontology into more concrete parts of philosophy.

Fichte envisions a twofold result impacting, on the one hand, the ontology itself, and on the other hand, its position in relation to more concrete parts of philosophy. The absolute creates first its content or the infinite Ur-positions, with the system of categories as containing the first and therefore abstract forms. Then the specific characteristic of content specifies the categories, Fichte explains, and these specifications are actualised forms of the content, which are not anymore abstract, but only specified. Fichte points out that we now meet the concept of individual in its most general meaning: it is the specific content of a determined Ur-position actualising itself in its specific form. His conclusion is that everything actual is individual, since actualities have completely specified content and form down to their most individual determinations. The abstract general forms, on the other hand, are only an unactual, negative foundation of this actualisation.

Everything merely general and abstract has now been cancelled in finite entities, Fichte insists, and abstractions have been shown in their thoroughgoing voidness. Individuals, on the other hand, should take the place of categories as principles shaping the actual world. Fichte’s statement is an explicit criticism of Hegelian philosophy, which Fichte thinks has to endorse the characteristic proposition that only the categories form what is truly actual and unchanging in all things. Fichte suggests that the direct opposite of this supposedly Hegelian proposition has been ontologically justified: individual or completely specified is actual and nothing else. This principle of individuality, Fichte argues, should be extendable to absolute behind all content. Earlier the absolute was thought merely as an Ur-essence, and now it is specified as grounding in itself an infinity of specific determinations.

Concept of the form is now fully understood, Fichte states, and we have proven that form is an independent topic, but in itself empty. Thus, the system of categories is in its abstract generality, partly because categories are in general only forms of something else (the infinite content), partly because even filled by content and in this sense actual they still cannot present as such what is real, but still require more specific temporal and spatial determinations. Fichte suggests that this reveals the relation of ontology to more concrete parts of philosophy in a different light. He reminds us that the ontology as a study of absolute form can be in itself closed and separate from the other parts of philosophy, but also has to demonstrate a transition into a more speculative method covering both form and content and thus the whole actuality. According to Fichte, the starting point for this demonstration has now been discovered: the ontology has to merely show and strictly remain within this limitation that the categories must be actualised through what is real and become specific spatio-temporal quantities.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte: Outline of a system of philosophy. Second division: Ontology – Internal and external

A completely new chapter in Fichte's ontology has begun. For the first time, the viewpoint of finite entities has been fully discarded. More likely, Fichte adds, it has dialectically destroyed itself, since the finite has shown itself as merely sustained by infinity. The positive infinite or absolute has cancelled the finite in its separation, but also raised it into a true reality. This is, Fichte thinks, the correct foundation for the ontology, and it properly begins only here, when the standpoint of ontology has become one of synthesis or one of absolute. If the task of philosophy is to consider things in their relation to truth, Fichte insists, this means knowing them from this standpoint, and specifically in ontology, according to absolute form. The first part of the ontology, he explains, is then only an ontological justification of this true speculative high point, just like the first part of the whole system was an epistemological proof of it.

Now that the absolute is determined as essence, Fichte continues, it is inevitably involved with relation, which is supposed to be the characteristic of all concepts of this second part. Thus, he insists, the essence must be defined only in opposition to what is not essential, while the inessential can be understood only in relation to the essence. Fichte admits that we did find examples of such reciprocal determining already in the previous book, and indeed, one might even think that this new opposition means a relapse into similar antithesis. The difference is, he explains, that at the level of essence the opposition does not appear from outside, but is posited with the original concept. Thus, in order that an essence can be an essence, it has to have in itself implicitly the other that it then actualises into an opposition with itself and divides thus itself into a fundamental duality that still is unity.

The first and most formal determination of this concept, according to Fichte, is that the essence is the true being that remains always the same, while against it lies something infinitely self-destroying and changeable that is not being, but only seems to be or even is an illusion (Schein). Such a seeming being is not just nothing, he explains, just like essence is not merely being. Instead, essence is against other and even itself becomes something else, but also asserts itself and persists in unity with this difference and change. Similarly, the merely unessential or merely seeming to be shows in itself only what seems to be the essence. Here the infinite and finite become again separated, because the essence excludes what just seems to be from itself. Still, Fichte emphasises, what is purely nothing cannot seem to be anything. The seeming is then caught in the contradiction, he notes, that it seems even an appearance (Erscheinung) of essence, but then it would not be mere seeming.

Despite this self-refutation, Fichte says, the notion of seeming provides the starting point for all speculation: the absolute alone is truly the essential, while the finite sense world is in comparison only seeming. Thus, the absolute remains eternally the same or invariable throughout the variation of the finite world, and just like what seems to be still shows the essence, variation can also exist only through the invariable. The finite world is thus not ejected out of the absolute, as if the world would exist outside the absolute in any sense, but its independent existence is in general denied.

The essence appeared as the opposite of inessential that therefore was designated as what just seems to be. This seeming then annihilated itself and was proven to be just the appearance of essence. Thus, Fichte states, the inevitably shifting distinction or the infinite seeming is derived from the essence, and only because of this derivation is the essence not empty or just quantitative abstraction, but the qualitative fullness of positive infinity. The inessential or the seeming is fully eradicated, or it has changed itself into the fullness or the infinity of essence. In other words, Fichte explains, all that seems uncovers the essence, which presents its fundamental basis or ground (Grund) in what seems to be. Thus, the essence is to be next determined as a ground of its infinitely seeming distinctions.

Seeming distinctions are thus grounded in the infinity of essence itself, Fichte summarises. Just like the essence cannot be without grounding distinctions, all distinctions also appear only as unveiling or appearance of the hidden ground, thus, he concludes, the essence is complete only in both the ground and in its infinite unveiling, since only with this relation it is not anymore empty or abstract. Fichte points out that the word ground has here, and indeed, in the common use of language, two meanings. Firstly, ground refers to the foundation (Grundlage) that lies hidden under what appears. In this sense ground is contradictory, because it expresses itself in appearance, but also doesn’t. This contradiction leads, Fichte thinks, to the second meaning of the word, according to which ground is the sufficient reason or the explanatory principle (ratio) of an appearance. With such a ground, the appearance should immediately appear from it as its consequence, and only in combination with its consequence the ground is fully thought of.

From the essence immediately appears something else without any particular assistance, through the mere characteristics of the essence. What follows from the essence, Fichte suggests, could be called the absolute characteristic of the essence itself. By having this something or consequence follow from it, the essence becomes ground, and indeed, wouldn’t otherwise be a ground. Thus, Fichte concludes, ground and consequence are simply inseparable, and they reproduce the relation of finite and infinite in a more fundamental level. The difference is that the finite and the infinite are still more in the shape of opposition, while the unity of the ground and the consequence is already more intimate. The consequence appears from the invariable nature of ground, like it would flow out of or emanate from the unmoving rest of its being.

Fichte finds here a new definition for the concepts of finite and infinite. The finite should be determined as not a ground of itself, but a consequence of something else, while the infinite or the essence is, on the contrary, in general a ground, thus also a ground of itself. Fichte calls the infinite even the Ur-ground or absolute ground, which grounds itself and everything else: the absolute is through itself, while the finite is through the absolute. Then again, when we look at an individual or determined finite, he points out, it has to have a ground outside itself, and in this context the ground can be found only in other determined individuals. This returns us to the already familiar relation of other against other, but in a new form, where the different individuals are grounds and consequences of one another.

Thus, a determined individual is taken as a ground of another individual with a different quality. Indeed, Fichte says, ground must always be in some sense different from consequence, or if they would be thought as having identical determinations, they wouldn’t be thought as ground and consequence. He points out that such a relation must be based on an implicit and unjustified axiom that something can be generated as a consequence from a ground, although it is not present in this as such. This means that not just the being of the individual consequence, but also its characteristics should appear from its ground and that this wouldn’t be a ground, if both couldn’t be explained from it. Fichte takes this as the common philosophical understanding of this relation, expressed in the so-called proposition of sufficient reason, where an individual is not to be arbitrarily taken as a ground of another, but only if the being and the determination of this other can be sufficiently or completely explained from it.

Fichte thinks that the proposition of sufficient reason can be refuted through a familiar endless regression into the empty or negative infinite. In other words, in order to explain a determined individual b through another individual a, the a as a determined individual has to be again explained through a third x, which is again only an individual further to be explained, and so backwards in infinite. Each individual, Fichte concludes, would require for its grounding an infinite regress, or the sufficient reason is never achieved, because it would require endless individual grounds. The mistake, he thinks, is to attempt explaining an individual from an individual, since nothing individual can be a sufficient ground or reason for another, just as little as an individual can be a mere consequence of another individual.

The sufficient ground of an individual can lie only in an infinity, which was just presented in a mere quantitatively endless series of individual grounds. Yet, Fichte insists, this infinity should be understood positively and in its fulfilment. He suggests that this touches the earlier question, how from a ground can appear something other as its consequence, which is not contained in the ground. A ground should bring forth from itself what it itself is not, and similarly a consequence is neither the corresponding ground nor its part. Indeed, precisely this difference makes one the consequence and the other its ground, or if something had generated just itself, it itself would not be a ground nor would what appears from it be its consequence. Yet, Fichte insists, this bringing forward something that is not contained in the ground is a contradiction that should find its dialectical solution.

According to Fichte, the contradiction lies again in taking individuals as grounds and their negations as corresponding consequences. Finite individuals have already appeared as void and cancelled in the positive infinity, and indeed, it should be the characteristic of the current standpoint to not admit finite as final truth, thus, it would be foolish to remain with individual grounds. In other words, Fichte explains, there are no individual grounds or individual consequences, but every consequence is an infinite complex of grounding, just like conversely it itself is not just a consequence, but in another context again a ground. When all these one-sided notions are cancelled, we find the true, positive infinity, which is now understood as the sufficient and complete ground in all seemingly individual relations of grounds and consequences. This sufficient ground is once again the absolute essence.

Absolute is not just an Ur-essence, which could still be understood as remaining beyond and outside the inessential, Fichte insists, but an Ur-ground that uses the opposition of determinations to reproduce its internal infinity. If the finite was earlier opposed to essence as what only seems to be, here it is the inseparable consequence of essence or its immediate externalisation (Äusserung). This makes, Fichte says, Ur-essence into Ur-ground, which is thus not abstract and empty, but contains the infinite fullness of such externalisations. In Ur-ground the seeming becomes expressly the appearance of essence, since the absolute brings out its hidden essence into an infinitely unfolded externalisation. Fichte calls this a genuinely speculative worldview, although it still uses very abstract categories, which must be enlivened with symbolic expressions. It is a step forward, he thinks, because the finite world is not separate from the Ur-ground that reveals its essence in the immediacy of finite things, but unsatisfying, because the supposed revelation of hidden seems still just a nonsensical expression.

Ground and consequence can be comprehended only through one another. This means, Fichte explains, that when our understanding of one side changes, the other side must also be expressed differently. The immediate way to understand their opposition, he continues, is to see the ground as the inner core of the externalised consequence. Ground as internal is the hidden and invisible foundation that does allow a manifold of appearances to flow out from itself, but always retains a remainder that is not uncovered. Thus, Fichte argues, the externalisation of the essence can never adequately match its interior. The current standpoint asserts a separation between both halves, where the essence expresses itself in its externalisation only imperfectly, leaving behind an unexpressed interior, but the exterior is still not completely detached from the essence as a seeming illusion without any reality. The relation between internal and external is so one of ambiguity, where the internal appears in external and does not or the both are opposed and also not. Despite this ambiguity, Fichte insists, this relation is a necessary conceptual moment in the development of ontology, and indeed, used in other sciences (for instance, psychology of his time spoke of the interior of human mind being expressed imperfectly in their external behaviour).

When the internal essence and its externalisation are kept strictly opposed, Fichte suggests, their relation is shown to be contradictory. Essence as a ground determines itself in general into external and therefore its interiority is inseparable from its external side. In fact, Fichte says, the essence is the common element, while internal and external are only inseparable moments of the same essence as ground. Thus, he argues that the internal side cannot be called more essential than the external side, since the ground is equally present in both. We have thus managed to mediate the opposition of internal and external, but they still remain also distinguished.

The invisible internal is understood as determining itself into visible external. Fichte thinks that this relation corresponds to the common opposition of supersensuous and sensuous or ideal and real. In other words, everything external, immediate or given in the visible world should have an invisible internal ground lying beyond this immediacy. Essence is thus at this stage purely ideal, Fichte underlines, but as a ground it infinitely determines and realises itself in immediate actuality, and indeed, it is the original source of everything actual. Yet, he points out, the distinction between the ideal interior and the real exterior is becoming more and more non-existent, therefore, the ideal should itself be real and not unreachable beyond. The ideal should also be the only principle of actuality, Fichte adds, and especially sensuous individuals are not their own principles.

The relation of internal, hidden and invisible ground and external consequence has highlighted the side of separation, although ground does become visible in its externalisation. Still, Fichte assures us, internal and external are not anymore completely separated, but more like two sides of the same coin and they just have to be mediated. Indeed, he explains, internal and external are not separated, but only distinguished from one another. Thus, Fichte concludes, the absolute inseparability of both sides should be expressed more clearly: the internal ground is to be seen as the qualitative and ideal content that is shaped by the external consequence or form and thus made visible.

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

The latest result of Fichte’s ontological studies has been the concept of limitation, by which he means a positive quality that appears only through negation, that is, in opposition to all other qualities that it complements. Thus, he thinks, all finite entities should limit one another and so determine their characteristics: they maintain themselves precisely through this mutual negating and by being absolutely inseparable from others. In this category, Fichte thinks, converge all the previous concepts that are summarised in it in a new and higher manner. Thus, all synthesis should have its proper truth in the limitation: everything determined is only in such a way that it is connected to infinity of others and thus asserts itself with a completely particular characteristic belonging only to it. All isolation, Fichte suggests, is simply cancelled and everything antithetical is in general resolved into synthesis, and even further, the synthesis itself is infinitely unifying: everything is absolutely linked with everything else.

The conceptual level of limitation, Fichte thinks, should correspond to both position and negation. Thus, the beginning of limitation should somehow combine in itself both the determination (the beginning of position) and nothing or negativity (the beginning of negation). In other words, Fichte concludes, we should begin with a determination tainted with the negation of something else, which means, according to him, just a relation to this something else or other. The relation to others, he suggests, as the first and most immediate expression of the concept of limitation, means that everything is generally able to be determined by others. In other words, nothing is without any relation or nothing is isolated, and since it is determined or quantitatively and qualitatively limited, it is also open for receiving influences from others, but also has influence on these others. This concept, Fichte suggests, is the truth of both distinction and change, which could be thought as holding between absolutely isolated entities, while here we expressly understand that these entities are mutually determinable.

Relation to something else, Fichte argues, is the most comprehensive concept for the finite in general. Finite entities are in their determination still completely dependent and only moments for something else, thus, being for another or being determinable is the essential meaning of finite. Indeed, Fichte emphasises, this relation to something else is not accidental to the finite, that is, finite cannot fail to have it, but the quantitative and qualitative limit of the finite determination and therefore its fundamental character consists in being in its own being also only for something else.

The relation to something else means, firstly, Fichte suggests, the negation of the exclusive isolation of finite in general: finite is only for another. This concept of “for another”, he thinks, is here regarded abstractly, ignoring all the following categories complementing it. Then the finite exists only for another, but is nothing in itself and thus becomes only what seems to be for this other. The other, Fichte argues, must thus be called the true being or the thing in itself, while the existence of the finite is possible only by assuming a consciousness representing it. This idealistic insight could mean, he suggests, that the finite entities are real only in divine spirit, so that the creation of the world would be only a divine self-representation and perhaps also a partial representation of individual spirits. Fichte thinks that this theory is partially – but only partially – true, because it understands the notion of creation through the notion of divine consciousness. A second manner to understand the idealistic insight, Fichte continues, is that the concept of finity is limited only to natural things, while the spirits should be eternal and substantial realities: here, the sense world would be just delusion. Yet, both ways to grasp the idealistic insight, and indeed, all forms of idealism, Fichte insists, suffer from the mistake that they understand the concept of relation to others in an isolated fashion, ignoring the relative independence of the finite entities. Then again, what is true in them, according to Fichte, is the idealism of finite, according to which anything finite can exist only by letting the other shine through or realise itself in this finite.

Secondly, Fichte assures us, the concept of being for another retains also the positive meaning that in this outward limitation the finite also manages to confirm its own internal determination: the finite is related to or for itself or asserts itself. This does not mean that the relation to other would be completely unrelated, but instead, that this being creates its power to exist from its conflict with others. This self-relation or being for itself is therefore the same as the simple position, Fichte notes, but only unified with a relation to others that it complements. Self-assertion of something continuously reappears from threats to its independence that make it into a living activity.

The category of being for itself, in Fichte’s opinion, is the centre for all categories of quality. Just like simple determination changed into negative and just like from negativity appeared the absolute limited relation of everything to everything, all of these categories have now been collected in their proper result or in the infinitely self-reproducing assertion. Positive is not anymore just an abstraction without relation, but determined only in infinite relation to others. Furthermore, this relation is not external or quantitative, but internal reciprocal determinability. Finally, positive is not just a result of externally arriving determinations and nothing else, but it posits these determinations as appropriated and governed by itself. In conclusion, Fichte states that precisely by facing the infinite negation from others, the determined being receives its positive character, asserting permanently its place in the system of these negations.

The categories of relation to another and of self-assertion, Fichte continues, are now immediately combined: relation to another is the source of self-assertion, and the self-assertion again leads to infinite relation of everything to everything. This combination, he suggests, moves to a mediating unity of a position that is limited by an infinity of othera or asserts itself in infinity of reciprocal relations. According to Fichte, this synthetic concept of limitation is a new category of internal infinity that is distinct from the earlier externally endless process into infinity.

Fichte distinguishes within this internal infinity three moments. Firstly, every determined or finite being is in its self-assertion also for an infinitely other. In other words, each of the determined entities maintains itself against an infinity of others, while it also itself influences this infinity. Thus, both the self-assertion and the relation to others contain an infinity of moments that could be called the external side of the internal infinity. Fichte sees here embodied the proposition that every individual part of the universe is in connection with all others, being open to their influence and influencing them in turn. He notes that later we will see that the individual things are not externally connected into this system of reciprocal influence, but they themselves are derived from this infinity.

The second moment that Fichte emphasises is that every finite being contains this infinity in itself ideally: each is the middle point of infinite radii converging in it. He points out that this notion of internal infinity was already expressed in the Leibnizian idea that a monad reflects in itself the whole universe. Furthermore, Fichte recognises this notion also in the early Schellingian philosophy, which asserted the presence of an actual infinity or reason in the most individual and smallest details of the world. Fichte also thinks that if this thought would have been dialectically developed to its proper conclusion, it would have led to the insight that this absolute reason can only be an absolute spirit or the highest personality.

The second moment unites infinity immediately with determination that arises from its relation to a system of infinite determinations related to each other. Thus, Fichte suggests, the concepts of relation to another and self-assertion are fully balanced: in asserting itself, an individual retains and asserts also its other, and conversely, the infinite system of relations simply ascertains the self-assertion of each individual. Each determinate individual points, according to Fichte, over itself to an infinitely creative, but also ordering and harmonising power.

This creative and harmonising power is, for Fichte, the third and highest moment in the concept of infinity. The finite determinations can be thought only as comprehended in the infinite that always surpasses them by having more finite entities to be related to each other. Here we find again a case of external infinity, and Fichte admits it is a necessary part of this concept, but only as regulated by the internal infinity. Indeed, he insists, this externally infinite system can only exist through a positive comprehension or relating of finite to an infinity of others, whereby the finite is both destroyed and also retained.

Fichte takes this infinity that actively creates and relates finite entities as the first proper definition of absolute. It contains, in Fichte’s opinion, the previous definitions that the absolute is quantifying and qualifying, and the unity of these previous definitions is precisely the concept of an infinite, qualitatively determining and also qualities relating power. This absolute negates the finite, but also posits it at the same time. Thus, Fichte emphasises, although finite both is necessarily opposed to others and also itself becomes something else, in addition, the finite is also affirmed through the infinite or absolute. In other words, the finite has as its basis a determined original quality going through all its facets, which is provided by the absolute in inserting this finite into the system of reciprocally related determinations. This original quality remains one and the same both in being related to others and in becoming itself something else.

Fichte considers the just developed principle of an infinite qualification by the infinite absolute as the mediation of all previous categories and thus as the true internal infinite. The absolute creates infinitely many finite original positions and orders them into a system of reciprocally complementing, but therefore itself changing relations that assert themselves as essential and as necessary members of this reciprocal system. Earlier, Fichte reminds us, these original positions were called finite, but this has now been shown to be only a negative designation. Finite is to be recognised as finite, that is, as negative, he states, only in regard to its external distinctions and changes. Yet, both distinction and change just require complementing from the positive relation and the self-assertion. From an absolute or positive viewpoint, Fichte states, finite is infinite, firstly, because infinity of positive relations converge in it, and secondly, because even in becoming something else it still always remains the same. Fichte calls this the true or positive finity, because as positive it carries in itself also the moment of infinity.

Fichte thinks that the concept of positive finity fills a gap in the category of becoming or change. It solves a contradiction that pure becoming involved both an identity remaining same and an otherness distinguished from itself. The positive, unchangeable original determination, Fichte states, is the principle of unity that remains the same throughout the changing relations to other determinations and that still changes its characteristics and so involves also the opposed principle of changeability. This unity combines the otherwise separated moments of otherness into becoming, so that what does not otherwise become can in another sense become (Fichte thinks that Hegel’s notion of becoming lacks this unity and is thus the most contradictory of all concepts).

Fichte suggests that we have found the correct and the highest mediation between the infinite and finite. Finite is not anymore the merely negative or eternally disappearing moment in infinite, which would make infinite into a mere formal or negative process of such eternally posited and eternally disappearing moments. This negative process is, according to Fichte, the high point of Hegelian philosophy that does not expressly recognise the principle of an infinite qualification in finite. Speaking against Hegel, Fichte insists that the absolute should be the creator of infinite original positions that it also orders into a system of relations. In other words, the absolute posits a finite as originally determined against others, but also again cancels its mere finity and sustains it as enduring in change.

Fichte calls this process the truthful unity of infinite and finite, which is not just a formal unity, where the opposites would be balanced only dialectically. Instead, the infinite is the real, all fulfilling presence in finite, and the unity of both has appeared from the notion of the infinity of finite itself, since negating the finite negates only its negative side. Thus, Fichte says, the finite is not just endlessly vanishing, but an image of infinite. He explicitly opposes Hegel’s negative philosophy, according to which there is nothing finite, in which does not lie a contradiction that cancels it. In opposition to this standpoint, Fichte insists that contradiction or negativity means only one-sided formality, while the finite and limitation is internally infinite, since it is positive, original determination and not tainted with the contradiction, but sustained by the divine harmony and unity.

In these final concepts, Fichte thinks, the mediation of thesis and antithesis has found a completely new and higher expression. Earlier it might have seemed, he explains, as if the synthesis resulted only from a combination of the previous members, but here the case is completely opposite: the synthesis is the most original, creative and comprehensive, through which and in which the opposites only exist. Thus, the synthesis is the absolute that creates the opposites and relates them to one another, and here particularly it creates and orders the infinity of original positions. This opens up for us a new field of investigation, Fichte suggests. Earlier we were involved only with simple concepts that did change into one another and were related, but only in an external manner. Here, on the other hand, for the first time the concept is duplicated in itself into a higher or comprehensive and a lower or comprehended member. Thus, Fichte gives an example, the finite is only in the infinite that is a power positing and governing it. He suggests calling the relation between infinite and finite the original or absolute relation, since all further relations will be only further development of it.

The first part of ontology has thus led into a second part investigating relational concepts. Fichte considers this transition important, because it moves ontology from mere preliminary concepts to the proper task of speculation. Thus, the earlier fundamental determinations of absolute were always in opposition to predicates of finite, and it meant unmistakably a conflict between both conceptual spheres, if we designated the absolute as being without quantity, but also as quantifying everything, as indifference, but also as comprehending all finite differences or as identity, but as governing all finite distinctions. Fichte notes that it was earlier a problem how these two sides of the absolute could be combined, but it had to be passed over, because it could only be dealt in the sphere of relational concepts. The earlier definitions were then only provisional and elementary, while here, on the other hand, the principle of distinction has been found in the absolute itself: the second member or the created, finite world has appeared from it, which expresses the original relation of absolute to itself that the ontology tries to establish.

Before moving to this new field of investigation, Fichte summarises the first part. The task of ontology was to solve the question what actuality means or what are its universally valid forms. We began with the Ur-categories, which showed a paradigmatic structure for all categories: a thesis is possible only in relation to antithesis and both are comprehended in a synthesis as the true, perfect form of actuality, while thesis and antithesis are only its moments, parts or members, without any truth or meaning by themselves. Thus, everything actual was revealed to be a this (Dieses), absolutely mediating these oppositions, but because it was at first just empty this, it could be determined only quantitatively. Quantity was hence the first category or the most abstract form of actuality, with no particular content, but expressly grasped as an independent concept. The further divisions of quantity – number, measure and grade – were only in relation to other quantities, which led to the synthesis of all comprehending quantitative infinity: every number, every measure and every grade existed only in a system of infinite mutually determining quantitative relations.

The whole level of quantity refuted itself, Fichte continues summarising, and quantity was revealed to be a mere form of a quality. This simply qualified determination is the finite, which again was positive only antithetically or in opposition to another and in changing its characteristics to something else. Thus, this position inevitably had a negative side both in distinctions and in changeability. Although seemingly threatened with annihilation, it still maintained itself through a true synthetical relation, where the finite is grasped as really positive or as internal infinity, which in change appeared as the presence of a stable reality. These negative concepts are thus completed by a mutually affirming relation, and from this positing of limited original positions appeared as the highest result in this circle of categories the concept of truly creative infinite or absolute, in which and through which alone the finite is.

The concept of finite proves its own dependence in all instances, Fichte states, and it finds its truth only when raised in the synthetical unity. Thetic this, limited quantity and qualitative determination have all refuted themselves in isolation, but at the same time they have also refuted the negation or antithesis of their own levels. Present in everything, Fichte concludes, is the positively filling and also infinitely relating absolute, and the former categories have all appeared as mere forms of actualisation of the absolute. Thus, when the finite is thought in isolation or when someone wants to isolate it, it remains contradictory in the true sense of the word, but this attempt to isolate refutes itself: the finite is not at all by itself, but only in absolute.

It is thus possible to distinguish two results in the first part, Fichte suggests. Firstly, concerning the formal side, at all stages we have advanced from abstract to concrete, and every individual conceptual moment has been more concretely determined than the previous one. The beginning or something was the emptiest notion, Fichte reminds us, and we have raised ourselves to the concept of absolute, which is not just the most concrete concept possible in this sphere of ontology, but in general the principle of everything concrete. Secondly, concerning the content, the performed synthesis, that is, the complete thinking of all antithetical relations has refuted all the forms of finite (thesis-antithesis) and shown them as mere moments of infinite that actualises itself in them. The original synthesis or the absolute has appeared from all these opposites as the only true and actual, but also infinite being, which according to thus far investigated forms of actuality could even be called both quantitatively and qualitatively infinite. This absolute is not just a formal, empty actuality, which would make it again just a quantity, Fichte insists, because everything merely formal has always refuted itself. Instead, the absolute has appeared as a principle of reality that, on the one hand, is beyond the confines of ontology, but on the other hand, has forms that can be fully investigated by the ontology and that are in essential parts already known, although how or as what absolute actualises itself remains completely inaccessible to ontology.

Fichte states that he has already provisionally confirmed the basic characteristic of his ontology that it considers an absolute, which in itself is not merely formal, only in regard to its forms. Indeed, he thinks to have shown that in the self-realising act of the absolute is to be found the principle of these forms. This leads us to a higher concept of absolute as infinitely self-realising and self-forming: absolute is not anymore just a lifeless infinite being, but a living, creative unity that gives itself both infinite form and actuality. This completely new concept can be designated at first and in most general manner only as essence, which means defining the absolute as the infinite essence.

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

Fichte has arrived at the concept of negation that he describes as a simple denial, difference or opposition and thus in general a more abstract expression for the concept of qualitative relation. In other words, because something is precisely a specific this, it is not something else, which similarly is not the first something: by being distinctly determined they at the same time mutually deny one another and are thus generally related, although at first only in a negative manner. The concept of relation has reappeared, Fichte notes, although it had seemed to disappear in the simple determination of quality. In fact, he emphasises, nothing qualitatively determined and characterised can subsist or be thought in such a simplicity or it must be distinguished from something else. Finite determinations move away from their isolation and take part in negation. Furthermore, Fichte continues, just like nothing positive is possible without being tainted with negation, it will be also shown that denial has positive as its necessary counterpoint and both concepts move then to the common third concept of relation in general.

At first, Fichte begins, this negation or “nothing” (Nichts) is to be grasped only as a negation of some determination or as a determined nothing that is related to the denied determined quality. Such a denial is found in another positive: every positive is at the same time the denial of another and every denial is itself something positive. The negativity or determined nothing is then, Fichte thinks, one of the most comprehensive categories, since it goes through all qualitative determinations as a hidden moment that taints everything.

Secondly, Fichte continues, the nothing can be understood as a negation of all qualities or as purely undetermined and not-qualitative. This is the most abstract meaning of nothing, which, according to Fichte, characterises all categories before quality, which could be collectively designated as not yet qualitative or nothing. This means, he explains, that these previous categories are contradictory in that they are supposed to be sustained by themselves and still are nothing in themselves, but only as related to something qualitatively determined. Thus, they are not unrelated to quality, but demand and presuppose a qualitative principle that could take them beyond the contradiction of their emptiness. The nothingness in general is, hence, only the most general expression for the contradiction of the lacking dialectical complement, Fichte suggests, and every abstraction sinks constantly to nothing. Indeed, he emphasises, the whole field of categories consists only of forms for reality, but is nothing in itself. Real could then be partly defined as the negation of this mere nothingness of forms, he suggests, but partly it is a positive filling or a creative principle behind these formalities. Thus, Fichte concludes, only in the original reality or in absolute can be found both the principle of this formal nothingness and also its eternal cancellation of nothing.

Thirdly, Fichte states, the nothingness or negativity implies a relation to something else. In other words, what is finite is nothing or negative, because it is only in a negative relation connecting it to something else: finite is finite, because it is otherwise than anything outside it or because it can be distinguished from everything else. Determined nothing, Fichte suggests, can therefore be expressed as distinction or difference (Unterschied), which means qualitative, reciprocal negation of something else or qualitative non-identity. Everything finite is then partly different from others, but partly is itself other to these others. Because this reciprocal negating continues infinitely, Fichte argues, distinction is an infinitely continuing separation and relation of finite entities or infinite negative relativity, and this distinction is the truth of negation or nothing. Thus, Fichte says, in the very concept of finite lies an infinite relation to everything else.

At first, Fichte says, the distinction or difference between the finite entities is just an abstract, simple non-identity (Verschiedenheit): a finite entity just formally differs from everything else, without any regard to its particular content. As Fichte notes, this most abstract or formal distinction is valid everywhere, but it is still a superficial category, just like the categories of abstract determination and negativity. Indeed, the abstract difference unites both abstract determination and abstract negativity as a determination that negates everything else by being distinguished from them. Thus, the relation of difference does hold between all finite entities and therefore continues in infinity. Still, Fichte points out, such an abstract difference remains only at the surface of qualitative distinction, since it does not make explicit how nor how much the finite entities differ.

Abstract difference requires conceptual development, Fichte states, since the different moments related to one another are not just formally different from each other. Similarly, he notes, sameness or similarity expresses also just formally the negation of a distinction between related moments. According to Fichte, difference and sameness are only concepts that can be permuted with one another: same qualities a and b can in one specific regard be similar or same and still also dissimilar or different. The concepts of sameness and difference are just external and completely relative determinations, and the most inessential fact that can be asserted of two things is that they are similar or dissimilar with one another. Such a statement leaves completely undetermined their essential characteristic, and Fichte suggests that superficial comparing of individual things springs from one-sided application of the formal sameness and difference.

Mere difference therefore becomes opposition, Fichte insists. In other words, every determined entity is not just formally distinguished from something else, but this other has also a different determination: what a is, it is only in negative relation to b and vice versa, or both are opposed to one another. True distinction consists thus only in reciprocal negative relation to one another. The opposition, Fichte argues, is therefore never simple, but has in itself the double aspect that each side of the opposition can be only negatively toward what the other is positively and both are thinkable only in relation to one another and not as isolated moments or indifferent to one another.

The third moment of distinction after abstract difference and opposition, Fichte states, is specific difference. This means that something qualitative receives its own determination only in internal opposition to other determinations. Hence, Fichte thinks, qualitative determination is not just dissimilar to other determinations, but it is posited as this qualitative determination only through its opposition to others. Reciprocal negation of qualitative determinations therefore is not just external exclusion, but also their reciprocal positing in their mutual opposition, that is, each determination receives its own character only from its relation to other determinations. Abstract opposition has thus become a specific, self-determining distinction, which should be the truth of all previous categories of negation. Determinations are therefore to be thought as specific differences against others, that is, in both negative and positive relation to them within a system of related distinctions, all of which assert their character at this determined place in relation to others.

All determination is thus inseparable from the concept of specific difference, which completely removes the notion that there could be any isolated finite determination, Fichte insists. Instead, finite determinations need a system of qualities mutually bounding and thus determining each other. Fichte adds that the specific difference is not just the truth of negative categories, but has also a positive meaning, since it produces the positive side of negation, just like earlier positive determination transformed into a negative characteristic. Here both the opposite sides are at first fully united, he thinks, and the negative-positive character of each determination in a system of qualities is emphasised. Fichte makes the comparison that just like in the sphere of quantity the abstract relation of magnitudes became a determined and therefore specific magnitude, the concept of quality has finally developed itself into a specific difference within a system of qualities.

The negative relation between entities developed into a specific difference, Fichte continues, and now it will turn back to each of these finite entities. In other words, the character of otherness is common to all of the finite entities, and they resemble each other by being completely governed by it and only through otherness their similarity should be reproduced. This means, Fichte insists, that a finite entity is not other just outwardly or in relation to something else, but also toward itself: it is now this, but can also become something else.

We have thus arrived at a new concept of change or becoming. Fichte points out that what he refers to as becoming (Werden) is not the unity of being and nothing, like in Hegelian philosophy, but refers to the more developed thought of a transition from something to something else or other. In this becoming, something changes, but also remains the same, thus, Fichte suggests, what becomes should also be thought as not becoming, but being unchangeably. Becoming or changing therefore immediately combines the opposed and formally contradicting moments of sameness and distinction. Without similarity, the becoming would shatter into absolutely separated and external opposites and would not anymore be becoming. Furthermore, without true change between different moments, we would have just a rigid lack of movement that would not even be a unity, but just the former abstraction of empty something.

The becoming, defined as the formal identity of opposed moments of unity and non-unity or similarity and non-similarity, Fichte states, seems to be a contradictory concept. Even more, he adds, it is the highest expression of contradiction in the categories of negation. The contradiction in general, according to Fichte, is a form of negation and should thus be handled here. Earlier we found apparently contradictory insights that the positive carries in itself also the opposite or negation and that the determination is in another context the nothing. Now, the contradiction seems greatest in the concept of becoming, which as the formal identity of similarity and non-similarity is itself the absolute contradiction. Thus, Fichte argues, contradiction must be meaningful, even if not in the concrete actuality, still at least in the ontological consideration of pure concepts.

The fundamental proposition of contradiction, Fichte reminds the reader, asserts the absolute non-actuality of contradictions: contradictory cannot exist. He asserts that contradictory should not be defined as the unthinkable, since in order that we can assert it as not thinkable, it must be actually thought. Instead, Fichte makes the correction, contradictory as self-cancelling should not be thought as actual, because the self-cancellation is precisely the denial of actuality. Showing contradiction in our thoughts can mean two things, Fichte adds. Firstly, the contradictory might lack a moment that is necessary for its actuality and then its concept is not perfect and therefore also not actual: this he calls formal contradiction. Secondly. it could contain a moment that does not allow the actuality of the asserted concept, that is, positively cancels it: this he calls material contradiction.

If we stop at the general result that the contradiction in the formal or material sense designates in general a non-being, Fichte suggests, the ontology has to exclusively do with contradictions of the formal kind, since such a formal contradiction points to the lack of moments that are necessary for existence of something. The nearest solution of this ontological contradiction is then adding what is lacking and continuing to search for these necessary complements, until the contradiction is resolved and the concept is complete and able to be actual. Fichte suggests that this resolving of contradiction, which he has earlier called the negative dialectics, goes through the whole ontology, since every subordinate category can be brought to contradiction, because they require being complemented through the following concept. Indeed, he adds, even more generally the whole world of categories falls prey to contradiction, because it cannot be actual in itself, but only in the reality complementing it. This means, Fichte thinks, that contradictions have only ontological and not real validity, which gives ontology its characteristic position that it has to transition into a speculative discipline that will give ontology its truth. Ontology itself does not yet fully resolve contradictions insofar as its categories and concepts as a whole are tainted with self-negation, which makes it necessary to complement them through actuality.

Returning to the notion of pure becoming, Fichte notes that it is one of those contradictory concepts and even the most contradictory of all that we have seen thus far, since the opposition of position and negation condenses here to its sharpest expression. Its contradiction means just that pure becoming must be denied any actuality, that is, we still require other ontological and real moments, in order to be able to think what is becoming as actual. It is the task of ontology to find the ontological conditions for this, Fichte explains, and it is the task of the gradual process through the following categories to perfect this concept ontologically. At the same time, he adds, ontology also demonstrates negatively which real moments the becoming still lacks and what therefore still remains for real philosophy to do, in order that we can think this concept as actual.

Changeability means continuing self-negation or transition from one moment to another, thus, Fichte argues, it splinters into opposed moments of generation (Entstehen) and destruction (Vergehen) or beginning and end. He immediately adds that the isolated opposition of these two concepts is one-sided and untrue: beginning is already end and generation is also destruction. In other words, we can distinguish beginning and end only by arbitrarily separating one moment in the flow of unbounded becoming, where this isolated moment can be regarded as the end of the previous moments, just as well as the beginning for the following. Generation or beginning is a completely relative concept, Fichte suggests, or there is no absolute beginning in the continuity of becoming that always remains the same. Similarly destruction or end breaks the series of becoming, but this break just transitions to something new and the supposed end is actually a beginning.

The separation of the beginning by itself and the end by itself is untrue and one-sided, Fichte insists: same moment of change is both a beginning to what appears from it and an end to what lies behind it. He notes that it has been one of the easiest and one of the earliest known ontological propositions that generation and destruction, abstractly understood, belong only to what seems. In other words, ontologically regarded nothing is generated and nothing is destroyed, but something continually becomes something else. Then again, Fichte adds, each determined entity is just a finite moment of this infinite becoming and these finite moments are both generated and destroyed. Thus, he concludes, we must join the two, each other complementing propositions – nothing is truly generated and nothing is truly destroyed – with the third proposition that everything determined is both generated and destroyed.

The changeability flows out into an endless series of individual moments of varying determinations. Fichte notes that this endless series corresponds with what Hegel called the bad infinity, although Fichte suggests calling it the external infinity. What is properly true and remains the same in this changeability, he adds, is the omnipresent, infinite relation of all these individual moments to one another. Every finite individual from the series of becoming is driven over their isolation to a positive relation with everything else. Such an individual is not just negatively related to the others, Fichte explains, as happened in the earlier relation of infinite otherness. Instead, the becoming of a moment from and to other moments makes their interrelation more positive, and Fichte calls this positive mutual bounding of the finite entities limitation.

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

Fichte’s set of categories consist of many pronouns. He began with something (Etwas), then noted it was this (Dieses) distinguished from others, and while at first this distinction seemed just quantitative, now something has been revealed as internally determined or such (Solches), which is opposed to others that are not similarly determined (not-such). Fichte summarises this development with the rather bad German pun that Et-was must be Was, in other words, we have to be able to say of any something what it is. In other words, the formerly quantitative distinction has been shown to be qualitative. Just like quantity was the first of the proper categories, Fichte suggests, quality is its essential complement and therefore necessarily the second in the series of categories. This means, he adds, that individual stages of quality complement the individual determinations of quantity. Unlike quantity, Fichte explains, quality is a source of a true and not merely formal distinction between something and something else. As signifying what something is, he adds, quality is to be still separated from the notion of reality or actuality: even if we know how something would be determined, we still do not know whether such something exists.

Just like at the beginning of the stage of quantity, Fichte considers how the new notion could be used in defining the absolute. From the standpoint of quality, he suggests, this means that the absolute or God comprehends in itself all possible determinations of content or realities, as they were traditionally called, and could thus be called the most real being that also grants to each existent its determined quality. In the case of quantities, absolute grants all beings their quantitative measures, but has no particular quantity itself. Similarly, Fichte thinks, absolute can be ascribed no individual quality, just because it comprehends all qualities in itself. Indeed, the absolute should be purely indifferent and without any properties, and thus the concept of most real being turns into an empty negation. This does not reveal just how abstract and unsatisfying for determining the absolute these first categories are, Fichte says, but also more importantly it shows that all determinations, even in God, are inseparable from negation: absolute or God cannot be just the most universal being, but it must also be a completely determined individual. If we only look at the first viewpoint of universality, he notes, nothing is said about God when they are called the most real being, but this concept can have a positive meaning, when understood as a creative source of qualitative oppositions.

The first stage of quality, Fichte begins, is position: a simple, in itself determined quality. In order to grasp this first stage in its abstraction, he says, all further relations to others should be ignored, and these relations should then be developed from this simple beginning. Fichte reminds us that categories of quality should complement those of quantity, thus, position should correspond to the category of magnitude as both are the starting points of their own series. Hence, he suggests, position could also be designated as qualitative magnitude, which really means nothing else than that the further relations of this qualitative position must be set aside.

Position is thus at first a mere simple quality or determination (Bestimmtheit) without any further relation, or if it is related to something else, Fichte adds, this is seen as something external and contingent. This determination is therefore an affirmation (thesis) of a completely simple and unrelated quality. Fichte calls it one of the poorest categories, because it is only a transitional moment for future concepts. All distinctions and especially all quantitative limitations or magnitudes have been cancelled, as this pure, abstract quality should be still just the direct negation of the previous level: it is the qualitative one or atom of Herbartian philosophy. Furthermore, Fichte continues, the concept of simple determination corresponds also formally with the concept of identity: what is completely determined is similar only to itself. This category could then be stated in the form of an isolated proposition: A = A or the fundamental proposition of identity. Fichte notes that just like the category of simple determination, the proposition of identity is only one-sided and immediately connected to the opposing proposition of contradiction.

A determination can remain simple, Fichte insists, only because it is immediately distinguished from everything else. In other words, just like quantitative one was only in relation to other ones, so a qualitatively determined one is such, because it is externally related to otherwise determined ones: quality of one is its own characteristic (Beschaffenheit). This characteristic, Fichte explains, means otherwise the same as determination, but with the added consciousness that in the determination lies a moment of being distinguished from others. The simple determination is thus at least externally driven outside itself, at least to being beside others with different characteristics.

The simple determination or characteristic becomes qualitative restriction, Fichte insists: we have a series of characteristics or qualities, each of which acts as a boundary to others. Furthermore, he adds, only this qualitative restriction can make anything determined or characterised, thus, the determinations are qualitatively restricted or finite. The concept of finiteness brings forth even more the negative side of determinations. Indeed, finite is only negatively related to anything else that is also finite or they exclude one another in complete isolation, Fichte suggests. Therefore, from the standpoint of the other finite ones the first finite one simply would not be – or at least it would be something else.

Finite asserts itself or sets up boundaries against others, but these boundaries are immediately cancelled, because they are not recognised by the other finite beings. The concept of finite implies thus also its own self-negation, Fichte suggests, and the finite contains an implicit connection to not-finite. Finite and non-finite or infinite are at first only opposed moments that exclude one another: finite is such that cannot be raised to infinity, while the infinite cancels the finite. In this sense, Fichte thinks, finite is the internal boundary of quality, which appears to be governed by something else that turns the finite into its own opposite or lets alteration devour the finite from within: determinations appear, but they also vanish. Finite is thus something contradictory, since while it seems to assert itself, it also negates itself.

The concept of finite with its relation to infinite points to a further progression that should solve the fundamental contradiction involved with finite, Fichte continues. Finite disappears, only to lead into an endless series of further finite beings. This notion of endless seems the only infinite we have here, although Fichte identifies it with what Hegel called mere negative infinity: the finite ones vanish in this endless and infinite abyss, and thus infinite appears as a blind fate that allows everything to be both generated and destroyed. Instead of this negative infinity, Fichte insists, the proper truth of the previous developments is the concept of negation. What is finite goes beyond itself just because it is seemingly isolated and thus negated by the others. The finite ones are thus not just externally related to one another, but they are in a state of reciprocal negation, which is the following stage of quality.