Johann Gottlieb FICHTE (1762-1814)
§ 2 - AM POSTALAID-LEANTANAIS ANN AN COINCHEAP ÙR IDÈAL NA PEARSANTACHD AGUS TÙS NA FEALLSANACHD DAOILEACTAICH SA CHIAD "THEORETISCHE WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE" AIG FICHTE (1794).
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§ 2 - THE CONTINUITY-POSTULATE IN THE NEW CONCEPTION OF THE IDEAL OF PERSONALITY AND THE GENESIS OF THE DIALECTICAL PHILOSOPHY IN FICHTE'S FIRST "THEORETISCHE WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE" (1794).
The "Naturding an sich" with the doctrine (attached to it by KANT) of the matter of experience, altogether passively received by the sensory function of consciousness, had become the butt of the most effective criticism, in the first controversy that developed about the new critical transcendental-philosophy. Above all, the gross form which KANT's disciple REINHOLD had given to the doctrine concerning the "Affizierung" (affection) of the subjective sensibility by the mysterious "Ding an sich" had sharply exposed the antinomy inherent in it. REINHOLD conceived this "Affizierung", in fact, as a "causal process" and this conception fell prey to the annihilating attack which GOTTLIEB ERNST SCHULZE, oriented to HUME'S psychologistic criticism, in his anonymously published writing Aenesidemus directed against the "presumptions" of the "Critique of Pure Reason". According to KANT, the category of causality is restricted to the sensory aspect of experience. How then could it be related to the "Ding an sich" beyond all experience?
MAIMON had given the sharpest form to the problem of the relation of sensibility and reason, matter and form of knowledge. In his first work he had set the requirement of explaining also the origin of the matter of experience from the "transcendental consciousness" itself. He had further ventured a first attempt at giving a veritable genetic system of the "pure forms of the consciousness" with the aid of the origin-principle.
All this was only a preparation for the dialectical development which the transcendental freedom-idealism was to undergo after KANT.
The ground-motive of FICHTE's first "Wissenschaftslehre". The creative moment in the personality-ideal.
Not until FICHTE's first Wissenschaftslehre (doctrine of science)(1) of the year 1794, does this dialectical development take its start from the transcendental reflection upon the Idea of freedom as an hypothesis even of the science-ideal.
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(1) This is the translation of "Wissenschaftslehre" in D. D. RUNES' Dictionary of Philosophy (1951). The terms: "Grammar of Science", "Philosophy of science" and "Science of science" usually do not have the meaning intended by FICHTE. The German term will often be abbreviated as W.L.
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The metaphysical concept of the "Naturding an sich" (before KANT, the basic denominator for the rationalistic science-ideal, in KANT's system itself a threat to both the science- and personality-ideal) was completely abandoned. As the basic concept of "dogmatic realism", it must be abolished in the "Wissenschaftslehre" which, as the self-reflection of reason upon its own activity, refers all functions of consciousness, even the receptive sensory one, to their absolute, transcendent root, viz. the self-consciousness as absolutely free ego, determined by nothing else.
That ego is not itself a being; it is no more a given super-individual, universally valid logical unity of consciousness, as in KANT, but it creates itself in a free activity determined by nothing, by means of a free "Tathandlung" ("practical act").
This absolute ego, creating itself in free activity, is not found among the "empirical" (read "psychological"!) determinations of our consciousness and cannot he found among them, but is at the basis of every consciousness (which it alone makes possible)(2).
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(2) Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (in J. J. FICHTE's Sämmtl. Werke, Bnd. I, hrg. v. J. H. FICHTE), p. 91. I cite henceforth this edition of FICHTE's works, consulted by me.
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This ego is no longer the fundamental static form of all synthetic thought, as was KANT's "transcendental unity of apperception". As absolutely free thesis, it is necessarily thought of as the dynamic totality of activity, in itself still undifferentiated, out of which our entire cosmos must originate through a series of further acts of consciousness (3).
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(3) Op. cit., p. 99: "Auf unseren Satz, als absoluten Grundsatz alles Wissens hat gedeutet KANT in seiner Deduction der Kategorien; er hat ihn aber nie als Grundsatz bestimmt aufgestellt." ["KANT, in his deduction of the categories, has hinted at our proposition as absolute principle of all knowledge. But he has never established it definitely as a principle."]
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Nature can possess no independent root in contrast with this absolute thetic ego. Necessity itself in the causal coherence of nature can be understood only as a product of the free activity of the absolute I.
The Archimedean point in FICHTE's transcendental ground-Idea.
What is this "absolute ego" which FICHTE makes the basis of his entire philosophy, in the first and highest principle of his "Wissenschaftslehre": "Das Ich setzt sich selbst" (the ego posits itself)?
For a moment we might suppose, that here the deepest religious root of the whole temporal cosmos was discovered, and, as religious apriori, was made the starting-point of philosophy.
This might be supposed all the more readily, since FICHTE, in his treatise, Über den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre (1st ed. 1794, 2d ed. 1798), expressly declares that his doctrine of science, with its absolute thetic principle, is not determined by logic, but, rather the reverse, provides the basis of the latter (4).
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(4) W.W. I, p. 68: "die Wissenschaftslehre wird nicht durch die Logik, aber die Logik wird durch die Wissenschaftslehre bedingt und bestimmt. Die Wissenschaftslehre bekommt nicht etwa von der Logik ihre Form, sondern sie hat sie in sich selbst und stellt sie erst für die mögliche Abstraction durch Freiheit auf." ["The doctrine of science is not conditioned and determined by logic, but rather logic by the doctrine of science. The doctrine of science does not in any way obtain its form from logic, but has it in itself and only plans it through freedom for the sake of the possible abstraction."]
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Thus even theoretical logic, the "organon" of all hypostatizing in the immanence-philosophy, is subjected to the doctrine of science.
The transcendental synthesis of the "ego" must itself be understood to be the origin of the analytic principles — a thesis, which KANT had posited in all its sharpness, if taken in a merely transcendental-logical sense, but to which he became unfaithful in his deduction of the categories from the analytical forms of judgment.
MAIMON had accepted a mutual dependence of analysis and synthesis, but in the material sense he likewise recognized the transcendental-logical synthesis as a condition of the analytical. FICHTE, however, was the first to reduce the origin of the analytic in the last analysis to the absolute "ego", which appears to be elevated above all logical determination.
But it soon turns out that in the first "Grundsatz" (principle) of the doctrine of science there is nothing embodied but the proclamation of the absolute sovereignty of "practical reason", in the sense of the Humanist ideal of moral freedom.
The first absolute "Thathandlung" (practical act) of reason originates, as FICHTE himself explains, from the thinking of itself on the part of the absolute ego. "This necessitates a reflection on that which in the first place might be taken for it, and an abstraction from all that which does not really belong to the same" (5).
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(5) Op. cit. I, u. 91: "Dies macht eine Reflexion über dasjenige, was man etwa zunächst dafür halten könnte, und eine Abstraction von allem, was nich wirklich dazu gehört, nothwendig."
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He further grants: "The laws (of general logic) according to which that activity must be thought of absolutely as the basis of human knowledge, or — what is the same — the rules, according to which that reflection is executed, are not yet demonstrated to be valid, but they are tacitly pre-supposed, as known and established. Only below will they be derived from the principle whose formulation is correct only on condition of their correctness. This is a circle; but it is an unavoidable circle" (6).
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(6) Ib. I, p. 92: "Die Gesetze (der allgemeinen Logik), nach denen man jene Thathandlung sich als Grundlage des menschlichen Wissens schlechterdings denken muss, oder — welches das gleiche ist — die Regeln, nach welchen jene Reflexion angestellt wird, sind noch nicht als gültig erwiesen, sondern sie werden stillschweigend, als bekannt und ausgemacht, vorausgesetzt. Erst tiefer unten werden sie von dem Grundsatze, dessen Aufstellung blosz unter Bedingung ihrer Richtigkeit richtig ist, abgeleitet. Dies ist ein Cirkel; aber est ist ein unvermeidlicher Cirkel."
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It will have to be granted to LASK, that the "absolute ego", thus gained by abstraction and reflection, cannot be otherwise qualified than as an "hypostatizing of the universal concept "ego" as the totality of reason" (7).
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(7) LASK, Gesammelte Schriften I, p. 88: "Hypostasierung des Allgemein-begriffs „Ich" zur Totalität der Vernunft."
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FICHTE's "absolute ego" as origin and totality of all cosmic diversity of meaning is nothing but the hypostatization of the moral function.
The "absolute ego" in FICHTE is the absolutely unlimited free activity of the moral function, hypostatized in the ideal of personality. As sovereign function of reason, it has the infinite task to create from itself the cosmos as the product of freedom.
The continuity-postulate inherent in the Humanist science-ideal as it was conceived of in pre-Kantian rationalism had required that mathematical thought should produce a cosmic order after its own pattern.
Similarly the postulate of continuity, implied in the religious freedom-motive and first discovered by KANT in the Humanist ideal of personality, moves philosophic thought to exceed the modal boundaries of the different aspects of the cosmos and to elevate the moral function of human personality to a basic denominator of the modal diversity of meaning. To this end, natural necessity must be interpreted as a product of the hypostatized moral freedom in the "reflexive" thought of the "Wissenschaftslehre".
"Theoretical reason", "practical reason" and "faculty of judgment" may no longer remain mutually isolated "departments of reason". They must be related to the root of self-consciousness, viewed by FICHTE as freely creative moral activity.
This was the boundary before which KANT had halted in the interest of maintaining the science-ideal. There loomed up, in his Critical philosophy, the antinomy between moral freedom hypostatized in the Idea of the homo noumenon, and the science-ideal, based on the "Critique of Pure Reason", which found the scepter of its sovereignty in the category of natural causality. In the critical dialectic he tried, though fruitlessly, to "mummify" this antinomy by relegating "theoretical" and "practical reason" each within its limits.
KANT would have the understanding bow under the logical principle of contradiction. The transcendental Idea of freedom may not be related as a category of the understanding to sensory experience and thereby to nature, as little as the category of natural causality may be related to the practical Idea of the "homo noumenon".
With FICHTE, dialectical thought begins to overpass these critical limits, in order to make the cosmos originate from the free activity of the "absolute ego", from the supposed radical unity of reason itself : "There may be indicated something from which every category is itself derived: the ego as absolute subject. Of everything else to which it possibly may be applied, it must be shown that reality is transferred from the ego to it: — that it must be, insofar as the ego is" (8).
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(8) W.W. I, p. 99: "es läszt sich etwas aufzeigen, wovon jede Kategorie selbst abgeleitet ist: das Ich als absolutes Subject. Für alles mögliche übrige, worauf sie angewendet werden soll, musz gezeigt werden, dass aus dem Ich Realität darauf übertragen werden: — dass es seyn müsse, wofern das Ich sey."
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FICHTE's attempt at a transcendental deduction of the Kantian forms of thought from the self-consciousness.
In the first place, the logical principle of identity is derived from the first principle of the doctrine of science. According to FICHTE, it is nothing but the form of the conclusion from "being posited" to "being" ("vom Gesetztsein auf das Sein"), which has been abstracted from the fundamental proposition "I am", by elimination of the content implied in the ego. In the logical judgment "A is A", no possible A can be anything other than an A created and activated in the ego. As surely as the ego itself is not a static datum, but an infinite activity, so surely is identity not merely an immobile logical form, but an infinite task in the process of the synthetic determination of the cosmos in the course of reason's becoming self-conscious.
The "mode of activity of the human mind in general" ("Handlungsart des menschlichen Geistes überhaupt"), which discloses itself in the logical form of the judgment of identity, is the category of reality. "All that to which the proposition A = A is applicable, has reality, insofar as this proposition is applicable to it. That which is posited by the mere positing of anything at all (i.e. posited in the Ego) is reality in it, is its essence" (9).
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(9) "Alles, worauf der Satz A = A anwendbar ist, hat, inwiefern derselbe darauf anwendbar ist, Realität. Dasjenige, was durch das blosze Setzen irgend eines Dinges (eines im Ich gesetzten) gesetzt ist, ist in ihm Realität, ist sein Wesen."
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The category of reality, to KANT one of the categories of the class of quality, which he simply derived from the various forms of the logical judgments, is thus reduced by FICHTE in the logical judgment of identity to the absolute ego, as actual origin of all reality. Its relationship to sensory experience can no longer be grounded in the "natural thing in itself" which affects our sensibility. Rather it is based entirely upon the "absolute ego" as the source of all reality created freely in self-consciousness. After the logical judgment of identity has received this basis, the logical judgment of contradiction (non-A is not A) is also referred to the first principle of the doctrine of science.
The first-mentioned as well as the second logical principle is found among the "facts of empirical consciousness" and must in the doctrine of science be subjected to the ultimate justification which logic itself cannot offer. In the logical judgment of the antithesis (non-A is not A), the question: "Is then the contrary of A posited, and under what condition of the form of the mere act is it then posited?" (10) remains entirely unanswered.
The logical antithesis is an absolute act of the ego. "Opposition as such is posited merely by the Ego" (11).
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(10) W.W. I, p. 102: "Ist denn, und unter welcher Bedingung der Form der blossen Handlung ist denn das Gegentheil von A gesetzt?"
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(11) W.W. I, p. 103: "Das Entgegengesetzsein überhaupt ist schlechthin durch das Ich gesetzt."
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This act of consciousness which is enacted in the anti-thesis is possible only on condition of the unity of consciousness in its thesis and antithesis. If the consciousness of the first act did not hang together with the consciousness of the second, the second "positing" (the antithesis) would be no "counter-positing", but a thesis and nothing else. Only by virtue of its relationship to the absolute thesis does it become an anti-thesis. [De bewustzijnshandeling, welke zich in de anti-thesis voltrekt, is slechts mogelijk onder voorwaarde van de eenheid des bewustzijns in zijn thesis en antithesis. Hing het bewustzijn der eerste handeling niet met het bewustzijn der tweede samen, dan zou het tweede ‘Setzen’ (de antithesis) geen ‘Gegensetzen’ zijn, maar een thesis zonder meer. Eerst door zijn betrokkenheid op de absolute thesis wordt het een anti-thesis. (WdW p 390)]
Originally nothing is posited but the ego. Therefore all opposition must be made with reference to the latter. But the antithesis of the ego is the non-ego. Thus a non-ego is set in opposition to the ego, as certainly as the absolute evidence of the logical judgment, "non-A is not A", is found among the facts of empirical consciousness.
By abstraction from the content of the ego, FICHTE derives the logical principle of contradiction from the material judgment, "To the ego a non-ego is opposed." Finally, if total abstraction is made from the act of judgment and attention is directed solely to the form of the conclusion from the antithesis to non-being, KANT's second category of quality, that of negation, originates. This category also has its true origin in the free, infinite activity of the ego; it is not merely a static logical form. It is to be understood, just as all other categories of thought, only as a dialectical point of transition through which the ego becomes conscious of itself as infinite free activity.
Now there is included in the second "principle of the doctrine of science" ("Grundsatz der Wissenschaftslehre") an overt antinomy. For the non-ego (i.e. nature), as appears from the first principle, is to be posited only in the ego as absolute totality, but at the same time, as antithesis, it cancels the ego. "Thus the second principle is opposed to itself and cancels itself" (12).
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(12) W.W. I, p. 106: "Also ist der zweite Grundsatz sich selbst entgegengesetzt, und hebt sich selbst auf."
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Yet, in the absolute thesis of the first principle there is implied the demand that the ego and the non-ego be thought together in the absolute ego. Thesis and antithesis thus require their synthesis, which is contained in the third principle: "The ego posits in the ego the non-ego by limitation of itself." If abstraction is made from the definite form of this judgment (i.e. that it is founded upon a basis of distinction or relation) and attention is paid only to "the universal feature of the mode of action — the limitation of the one by the other", there originates the category of determination (in KANT, that of limitation): "Namely, a positing of quantity in general, whether it be quantity of reality or that of negation, is called determination" (13).
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(13) t.a.p. 122/3: "Nemlich ein setzen der Quantität überhaupt, sey es nun Quantität der Realität oder der Negation, heiszt Bestimmung."
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Dialectical thought, dominated by the ideal of personality, usurps the task of the cosmic order.
What occurs in this synthesis is clear. Dialectical thought usurps the task of the cosmic order, which regulates the relationship of the modal law-spheres in the cosmic continuity of time. As we demonstrated in Part I, the cosmic order of time grounds and at the same time relativizes the sphere-sovereignty of the modal law-spheres, by bridging over their boundaries. Consequently, if logical thought in the line of speculative dialectic is set in place of the cosmic order, that thought must relativize the boundaries of the modal spheres. But since logical thought in its very principium contradictionis requires a strict maintenance of these boundaries, it can take upon itself this impossible task only by a false logical relativizing of its basic laws.
Logical thought, conscious of its boundaries, can never come to the point of making the meaning of the pre-logical aspects of reality — conceived of in theoretical abstraction as "nature" — originate from the moral function of free personality. Dialectic thought, however, supposes it can accomplish this magical deed by conceiving the absolutized moral aspect as an unlimited totality, from which by division (cf. the division of a geometrical straight line, an image to which FICHTE appeals again and again!) the limited, finite functions are to originate: "We have united the opposed ego and non-ego through the concept of divisibility" (14).
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(14) W.W. I, 110: "Wir haben die entgegengesetzten Ich und nicht-Ich vereinigt durch den Begriff der Theilbarkeit."
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The limited ego and the limiting non-ego of the antithesis have both originated by quantitative division or self-limitation of the absolute ego, in which, naturally, a spatial division is not to be thought of. Thus in the synthesis, finite "nature" and finite "freedom", sensibility and finite reason, matter and form, are thought together, after moral freedom is hypostatized by a first theoretical synthesis as a basic denominator for both! This basic denominator is again viewed rationalistically as the moral law!
FICHTE himself has formulated the moral function of law as basic denominator for temporal reality in his pronouncement: "Our world is the material of our duty, rendered sensible; this is the authentically real in things, the true basic matter of all appearance" (15).
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(15) W.W. V, 211: "Unsere Welt ist das versinnlichte Material unserer Pflicht; dies ist das eigentlich Reelle in den Dingen, der wahre Grundstoff aller Erscheinung."
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But the absolutized moral freedom of action of the ego cannot serve as a basic denominator for the theoretical synthesis of meaning. By hypostatization it is torn out of the cosmic temporal coherence of the modal aspects, and becomes an abstract meaning-less form and no totality of meaning.
In FICHTE's "Wissenschaftslehre" of the year 1794, according to KRONER's excellent observation, "ethics is raised to the position of metaphysics".
Speculative dialectic, which was not to be elaborated consistently until the system of HEGEL, demands that the thesis, the "absolute ego", should not be posited as absolute in the sense of really falling outside the dialectical system. It requires that both thesis and antithesis should be viewed only as momenta of the synthesis which determine and mutually limit each other. But although FICHTE laid the foundations of modern speculative dialectic, his moralism prevented him from accepting this consequence.
The absolute ego of the thesis is separated by him from the limited ego of the antithesis.
To FICHTE the "absolute ego" remains outside the dialectical system. The Idea of the absolute ego as ethical task.
The dialectical system which the doctrine of science develops, does not concern the absolute ego of the thesis (which does not itself reflect as does the finite ego), but only the finite ego, which originates through the creation of the antithesis in the ego. [En het dialectisch systeem, dat de wetenschapsleer opstelt, gaat niet het absolute ik der thesis (dat zelve niet, gelijk het eindig ik, reflecteert), maar slechts het eindige ik, dat door de schepping der antithesis in het ik ontspringt, aan. (WdW p 390)]
The absolute synthesis, the return of the absolute ego into itself, remains a task never to be realized.
Here the Idea of the absolute ego as ethical "task" makes its entrance into FICHTE's dialectic: "So far as the predicate of freedom can hold for man, i.e. so far as he is an absolute Subject, and not one that is represented or capable of being represented, he has nothing in common with the natural being, and is therefore not even opposed to it. In accordance with the logical form of the judgment which is positive (namely: Man is free from natural necessity), both concepts should, nevertheless, be united. Not, to be sure, in any concept, but merely in the Idea of an ego, whose consciousness is not determined by anything outside itself, but which rather determines everything outside itself by its mere consciousness. But this very Idea is not thinkable, inasmuch as it contains a contradiction. Nevertheless, it is set up for us as the highest practical goal. Man should more and more approximate infinitely the freedom which in itself is unattainable" (16).
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(16) W.W. I, p. 117: "der Mensch, insofern das Prädicat der Freiheit von ihm gelten kann, d.i. insofern er absolut und nicht vorgestelltes noch vorstellbares Subject ist, hat mit dem Naturwesen gar nichts gemein, und es ist ihm also nicht entgegengesetzt. Dennoch sollen laut der logischen Form des Urteils, welche positiv ist (scl. Der Mensch ist frei von Naturnotwendigkeit), beide Begriffe vereinigt werden; sie sind aber in gar keinem Begriffe zu vereinigen, sondern blosz in der Idee eines Ich, dessen Bewustseyn durch gar nichts ausser ihm bestimmt würde, sondern vielmehr selbst alles ausser ihm durch sein blosses Bewusstseyn bestimmte: welche Idee aber selbst nicht denkbar ist, indem sie für uns einen Widerspruch enthält. Dennoch aber ist sie uns zum höchsten praktischen Ziele aufgestellt. Per Mensch soll sich der an sich unerreichbaren Freiheit ins Unendliche immer mehr nähern."
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Therefore, in the development of the dialectical system, the final antinomy may not be reconciled logically. In the process of thought, too, it may only be solved ethically. Therefore, FICHTE writes that, in the antitheses which are united through the first synthesis, thought has to seek after new antinomies, in order to unite them through a new synthesis, "until we come to opposites, which can no longer be perfectly united and we thereby pass over into the realm of the practical part" (17).
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(17) W.W. I, p. 115: "bis wir auf Entgegengesetzte kommen, die sich nicht weiter vollkommen verbinden lassen, und dadurch in das Gebiet des praktischen Theils übergehen."
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KRONER rightly compares the first absolute principle in FICHTE's first sketch of the "Wissenschaftslehre" with KANT's categorical imperative and calls the proposition of the self-creative absolute ego "the basic law of pure practical reason in its speculative use." The production of the synthesis in the dialectic is set in perfect analogy with moral activity. It is viewed as moral activity continuing itself in thought and become speculative (18).
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(18) KRONER I, 398.
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Thus FICHTE's observation may be explained: "We accordingly begin with a deduction and go with it as far as we can. The impossibility of continuing it will doubtless show us the point where we have to break it off and to appeal to that unconditioned authoritative dictum of reason, which will result from the task" (19).
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(19) W.W. I, p. 106: "Wir heben demnach mit einer Deduktion an, und gehen mit ihr, so weit wir können. Die Unmöglichkeit sie fortzusetzen wird uns ohne Zweifel zeigen, wo wir sie abzubrechen, und uns auf jenen unbedingten Machtspruch der Vernunft, der sich aus der Aufgabe ergeben wird, zu berufen haben."
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FICHTE attempts to give an account of the possibility of theoretical knowledge by referring the latter to the selfhood. Why this attempt cannot succeed on FICHTE's immanence-standpoint.
Even in the "Wissenschaftslehre" of 1794 FICHTE ventured a serious attempt to clear up the problem of synthesis in epistemology, a problem which KANT had not really solved. To this end he will relate the theoretical synthesis to the root of the self-consciousness (20).
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(20) op. cit., p. 114: "The celebrated question which KANT set at the apex of the Critique of Pure Reason: How are synthetic judgments possible a-priori? is now answered in the most general and satisfactory fashion. We have in the third principle performed a synthesis between the opposed ego and non-ego, by means of the posited divisibility of both, about the possibility of which nothing further may be asked, nor may a ground for the same be adduced. It is simply possible, one is authorized to it without any further ground. All other syntheses that are to be valid must be implied in it. They must at once be performed in and with it. And thus, as this is demonstrated, the most convincing proof is provided that they are valid even as the former." ["Die berühmte Frage, welche KANT an die Spitze der Kritik der reinen Vernunft stellte: vie sind synthetische Urteile a priori möglich? — ist jetzt mil die allgemeinste und befriedigendste Art beantwortet. Wir haben im dritten Grundsatze eine Synthesis zwischen dem entgegengesetzten Ich und nicht-Ich, vermittelst der gesetzten Theilbarkeit beider, vorgenommen, über deren Möglichkeit sich nicht weiter fragen, noch ein Grund derselben sich anführen lässt; sie ist schlechthin möglich, man ist zu ihr ohne alien weiteren Grund befugt. Alle übrigen Synthesen, welche gültig seyn sollen, müssen in dieser liegen; sie müssen zugleich in und mit ihr vorgenommen seyn: und so, wie dies bewiesen wird, wird der überzeugendste Beweis geliefert, das sie gültig sind, wie jene."]
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On the immanence-standpoint of FICHTE's Humanistic cosmonomic Idea, however, this problem proves to be insoluble, notwithstanding FICHTE's penetrating philosophical vision. The elevation of the moral noumenal man (homo noumenon) as root of the self-consciousness has only the effect of rooting the synthesis in the antinomy, which is always the token of a breaking through the modal boundaries of meaning by hypostatizing thought!
The antithetical relation of theoretical thought here becomes a logical contradiction, in the dialectical sense! [De ‘Gegenstand’ van het zin-verbindend denken wordt hier in dialectischen zin tot het logisch-tegenstrijdige! (WdW p 393)]
FICHTE derives the Kantian categories of quantity (21) and quality by abstraction from the absolute ego (as origin of the Kantian forms of consciousness as well as of the sensory matter of experience).
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(21) By setting the ego and the non-ego in the third "Grundsatz" as limited parts of the absolute ego, according to FICHTE, both are united by quantity (vid. § 3 of the "Wissenschaftslehre"). "Just as there (viz, in § 3) the ego was first simply posited as absolute reality according to quality, so here something, i.e. something determined by quantity, is simply posited in the ego, or the ego is simply posited as determined quantity" (I, 205). ["So wie dort" (viz, in § 3) "zuvörderst das Ich, der Qualität nach als absolute Realität schlechthin gesetzt wurde; so wird hier etwas, d.h. ein durch Quantität bestimmtes, schlechthin in das Ich gesetzt oder das Ich wird schlechthin gesetzt als bestimmte Quantität."]
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Transcendental deduction of the Kantian categories of relation from self-consciousness. The science-ideal is here derived from the ideal of personality.
In the further dialectical development of his system, FICHTE tries to deduce in this manner the Kantian categories of substance and inherence, causality and interaction. The synthesis between reasonable freedom (of the ego) and sensory nature, posited in the third principle, is the starting-point for this deduction. Here we shall not follow in the wake of this dialectical development, but shall simply fix our attention upon the fact that FICHTE actually sought to derive the Humanist ideal of science — which found its focus in the category of causality — from the ideal of personality. To this end his thought followed the way of dialectical continuity, contained as a postulate in KANT's practical Idea of freedom. In FICHTE's dialectic this domination of the continuity-postulate implied in the freedom-motive finds its clear expression in the transcendental deduction of the natural-scientific categories of relation (substance, causality and interaction). Here FICHTE observes: "The independent activity (as synthetic unity) determines the change (as synthetic unity) and vice versa, i.e. they determine one another reciprocally, and are themselves united synthetically. The activity, as synthetic unity, is an absolute transition (Übergehen); the change, an absolute intrusion (Eingreifen) entirely self-determined. The former determines the latter, would mean: only by virtue of the transition, is the causal intrusion of the changing terms posited; the latter determines the former, would mean: as the terms interpenetrate, the activity must necessarily pass over from the one to the other... All is one and the same. — The whole, however, is absolutely posited; it bases itself upon itself" (22).
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(22) I, 169: "Die unabhängige Thätigkeit (als synthetische Einheit) bestimmt den Wechsel (als synthetische Einheit) und umgekehrt, d.i. beide bestimmen sich gegenseitig, und sind selbst synthetisch vereinigt. Die Thätigkeit, als synthetische Einheit, ist ein absolutes Uebergehen; der Wechsel ein absolutes durch sich selbst vollständig bestimmtes Eingreifen. Die erstere bestimmt den letzteren, würde heiszen: blosz dadurch das übergangen wird, wird das Eingreifen der Wechselglieder gesetzt: der letztere bestimmt die erstere, würde heissen: so wie die Glieder eingreifen, muss nothwendig die Thätigheit von einem zum anderen übergehen... Alles ist Eins und Ebendasselbe. — Das Ganze aber ist schlechthin gesetzt; es gründet sich auf sich selbst."
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And a little later: "Thus the activity returns into itself by means of the change; and the change returns into itself by means of the activity. Everything reproduces itself, and there is no hiatus possible there; from any single term one is driven to all the rest" (23).
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(23) I, 170: "Also die Thätigkeit geht in sich selbst zurück vermittelst des Wechsels; und der Wechsel geht in sich selbst zurück vermittelst der Thätigkeit. Alles reproducirt sich selbst, und es ist da kein hiatus möglich; von jedem Gliede aus wird man zu allen übrigen getrieben."
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The domination of the continuity-postulate of the ideal of personality. The Humanist transcendental ground-Idea in its transcendental monist-moralistic type.
It would be unfair to disregard the deep philosophical tendency that is present in this entire process of thought: the search for the radical unity of philosophical reflection in a selfhood beyond the theoretical diversity of syntheses and the insight into the continuous coherence of meaning of the cosmos. But this insight is directed into wrong channels by FICHTE's Humanistic cosmonomic Idea. It is by means of dialectical logical thought that the Humanistic ideal of personality attempts to carry the continuity of the freedom-postulate, which tolerates no hiatus, through all cosmological thought and in this attempt multiplies the basic antinomy between the ideals of science and of personality in each new synthetic phase of the dialectical thought-process.
With FICHTE, the antinomy cannot he solved by thought, because he makes the categorical (i.e. the hypostatized) moral law the basis of his "Wissenschaftslehre", in its theoretical as well as in its practical part, and because — in the line of the Kantian practical Idea — he proclaims the absolute synthesis of nature and freedom to be an eternal "task" for human personality. The limits which reason sets to itself in each new antithesis, in each new antinomy between ego and non-ego, between moral freedom and natural necessity, do not lie to FICHTE in a cosmic order set by God in his creation and not to be transgressed by reason, but they rest upon free self-limitations of reason itself. Therefore, theoretical reason in the dialectical system can also again and again annul the limits and in each new synthesis attempt to carry through the continuity-postulate of the freedom-idealism, until, of itself, it brings to light the fact that the absolute synthesis should be effected ultimately by the hypostatized ethical thought of "practical reason", by a "Machtspruch der Vernunft" alone.
Productive imagination is to FICHTE the creative origin of sensory matter.
Which function of reason, however, achieves this absolute synthesis, which is thought of, otherwise than in KANT, as a material productive synthesis, as a synthesis that creates form and content alike (though it be in the infinite task through which the ego becomes self-conscious as a productive capacity)? This function is to FICHTE the "power of productive imagination" ("productive Einbildungskraft"), which he — again different from KANT - proclaims as the free creative origin of sensory matter. It is a theoretical as well as a practical function. KANT could not really subject the sensory "matter of experience" to a transcendental deduction; rather he excluded it as the "contingent" and "empirical" from the transcendental inquiry and, for the explanation of this matter, he again appealed to the affection of our senses by the "natural thing-in-itself".
FICHTE's absolute thesis, however, requires the deduction even of sensory matter as the product of the freely creative ego, and as comprehended in the absolute ego.
To this end, he introduces the productive imagination, which in a transcendental sense had for KANT only the function of achieving a synthesis between the given sensory matter and the "pure forms of thought". In KANT this synthesis is performed by means of the "schematizing" of the categories in time as a "form of intuition", by the creation of a "transcendental pattern" for all empirical "Gegenstände".
The dialectical process was described by FICHTE as a transition from the free ego into its opposite (the non-ego) that limits the former and as the synthetic reduction of this non-ego to the absolute ego through the mutual determination and limitation of the two momenta: the limited ego and the limiting non-ego, both posited by and in the absolute ego.
The determining theoretical thought, however, that posits rigid conceptual boundaries, cannot bring about the highest synthesis. It remains confined in the final antinomy between the free infinite ego and the finite ego limited by the non-ego, two egos reciprocally excluding each other.
The opposed terms of the final theoretical antithesis can be synthesized only in the concept of mere determinability (Bestimmbarkeit), not in that of determination (Bestimmung); and here FICHTE clearly exhibits the influence of MAIMON'S "principle of determinability": "For if the boundary set between the opposites (one of which is the very element that creates the opposition, while the other, in respect of its existence, lies entirely outside the consciousness and is posited merely in view of the necessary limitation) is posited as a hard and fast unchangeable limit, then both elements are united by determination, but not by determinability; then, however, the required totality in the change of substantiality would not be fulfilled either... Accordingly, that limit must not be accepted as a fixed limit" (24).
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(24) I, 216: "Wird nemlich die zwischen die Entgegengesetzten (deren eines das entgegensetzende selbst ist, das andere aber seinem Daseyn nach völlig ausser dem Bewusstseyn liegt, und blosz zum Behuf der notwendigen Begrenzung gesetzt wird) gesetzte Grenze als feste, fixierte, unwandelbare Grenze gesetzt, so werden beide vereinigt duch Bestimmung, nicht aber durch Bestimmbarkeit: aber dann wäre auch die in dem Wechsel der Substantialität geforderte Totalität nicht erfüllt... Demnach muss jene Grenze nicht als feste Grenze angenommen werden."
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The final theoretical synthesis is thus attainable only by relativizing the boundaries which determining thought sets between the finite ego and the finite non-ego in the infinite ego. Dialectical thought can grasp this final synthesis only as "determinability", as "the Idea of determination which is not attainable in this way." (I, 216) : "The ego is only that which it posits itself to be. That it is infinite, is to say that it posits itself as infinite: it determines itself through the predicate of infinity, thus it (the ego) limits itself, as substratum of infinity; it distinguishes itself from its infinite activity (both of which are one and the same in themselves). And this must be the state of affairs if the ego is to be infinite. This activity going on to infinity, which distinguishes it (i.e. the ego) from itself must be its own activity; it must be ascribed to it: consequently, simultaneously in one and the same undivided act which allows no further distinctions, the ego must also again take up this activity into itself (determine A + B through A). But if it takes this activity up into itself, the former is thus determined and consequently not infinite: however, it should be infinite, and thus it must be posited outside the ego."
"This change of the ego in and with itself, inasmuch as it posits itself as finite and infinite at the same time, is the faculty of imagination. It is a change which consists, as it were (!), in a conflict with itself, and thereby reproduces itself, in that the ego seeks to unite that which is incapable of being united, and at one moment seeks to take up the infinite into the form of the finite, and at another, driven back, posits it again outside of the same, and in the same moment again seeks to take it up into the form of finiteness" (25).
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(25) I, 214, 215: "Das Ich ist nur das, als was es sich setzt. Es ist unendlich heisst, es setzt sich unendlich: es bestimmt sich durch das Prädicat der Unendlichkeit; also es begrenzt sich selbst (das Ich) als Substrat der Unendlichkeit; es unterscheidet sich selbst von seiner unendlichen Thätigkeit (welches beides an sich Eins und ebendasselbe ist); so musste es sich verhalten, wenn das Ich unendlich seyn sollte, — Diese ins Unendliche gehende Thätigkeit, die es von sich unterscheidet, soll seine Thätigkeit sein; sie soll ihm zugeschrieben werden: mithin muss zugleich in einer und ebenderselben ungetheilten und unzuunterscheidenden Handlung das Ich diese Thätigkeit auch wieder in sich aufnehmen (A + B durch A bestimmen). Nimmt es sie aber in sich auf, so ist sie bestimmt, mithin nicht unendlich: doch aber soll sie unendlich seyn, und so muss sie ausser dem Ich gesetzt werden. "Dieser Wechsel des Ich in und mit sich selbst, da es Lich endlich und unendlich zugleich setzt — ein Wechsel der gleichsam (!) in einem Widerstreite mit sich selbst besteht, und dadurch sich selbst reproducirt, indem das Ich unvereinbares vereinigen will, jetzt das unendliche in die Form des endlichen aufzunehmen versucht, jetzt, zurückgetrieben, es wieder ausser derselben setzt, und in dem nemlichen Momente abermals es in die Form der Endlichkeit aufzunehmen versucht — ist das Vermögen der Einbildungskraft."
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FICHTE conceives of the productive imagination as an unconscious function of reason.
This productive imagination (in its thetic, antithetic and synthetic activity) does not consciously produce the content of representations. It is rather the case that it alone makes consciousness possible. Only reflection raises it to the level of consciousness. It is a free act not determined by any grounds. In the deduction of the power of imagination the theoretical doctrine of science reaches its highest synthesis. Imagination is operative prior to all reflection, as pre-conscious activity, and in its antithetic activity it sets no fixed limits at all. It is only reflection that sets fixed limits, inasmuch as it is first to fix the power of imagination: "The power of imagination is a faculty which hovers between determination and non-determination, between the finite and the infinite... This very hovering indicates the power of imagination by its product; the latter is produced by imagination, as it were during its hovering and by means of its hovering" (26).
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(26) I, 216f. "Die Einbildungskraft ist ein Vermögen, das zwischen Bestimmung und nicht-Bestimmung, zwischen Endlichen und Unendlichen in der Mitte schwebt... Jenes Schweben eben bezeichnet die Einbildungskraft durch ihr Produkt; sie bringt dasselbe gleichsam während ihres Schweben, und durch ihr Schweben hervor."
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So, in order to solve the basic antinomy in his "Wissenschaftslehre", FICHTE withdraws behind reflective analysis toward a "pre-conscious" — by which is apparently meant pre-theoretical — productive imagination. He supposes that, after having arrived at this point, he has overcome all antinomies. He keenly recognizes that the antinomies arose through thought which overpassed its boundaries. The productive imagination, however, sets no fixed limits, since it has "no fixed standpoint", but in its hovering nature keeps the mean between definiteness and indefiniteness, finitude and infinitude. And then FICHTE supposes he can conclude: "All the difficulties which presented themselves are removed in a satisfactory manner. The task was that of uniting the opposites, ego and non-ego. They can be completely unified through the power of imagination which unites contradictories" (27).
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(27) op. cit., p. 218: "Alle Schwierigkeiten, die sich uns in den Weg stellten, sind befriedigend gehoben. Die Aufgabe war die, die entgegengesetzen Ich und nicht-Ich, zu vereinigen. Durch die Einbildungskraft, welche widersprechendes vereinigt, können sie vollkommen vereinigt werden."
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The "productive power of imagination" explicitly qualified by FICHTE as "Faktum" (i.e. present before all reflection in the human mind), is expressly announced by him as a synthesis and at the same time is expressly called a "Funktion des Gemüths" (function of feeling) (28).
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(28) op. cit., p. 226: "The absolute opposites (the finite subjective and the infinite objective) prior to the synthesis, are a mere object of thought and, in the sense in which we have always taken the word, ideal. As they ought to be unified by the power of thought but cannot, they acquire reality through the hovering of the feeling (Gemüth) which, in this function, is called the power of imagination, since by means of it they become intuitable: i.e. they acquire reality as such; for there is and can be no other reality than that which is mediated by the intuition." ["Die absolut entgegengesetzen (das endliche subjektive und das unendliche objektive) sind vor der Synthesis etwas bloss gedachtes, und, wie wir das Wort immer genommen haben, ideales. So wie sie durch das Denkvermögen vereinigt werden sollen, und nicht können, bekommen sie durch das Schweben des Gemüths, welches in dieser Funktion Einbildungskraft genannt wird, Realität, weil sie dadurch anschaubar werden: d.i. sie bekommen Realität überhaupt; denn es gilt keine andere Realität, als die vermittelst der Anschauung und kann keine andere geben."]
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Here it clearly appears that in his "Wissenschaftslehre" of 1794 FICHTE was still deeply involved in KANT's functionalistic way of thinking, although in his conception of the productive imagination he deviated fundamentally from his master. KANT had attempted to solve the problem of apriori synthesis by his doctrine concerning the transcendental productive imagination in which understanding and sensibility are united. In the last analysis, however, it was the transcendental logical function from which the apriori synthesis should issue. FICHTE saw clearly that this could not be a real solution of the problem, because the synthesis between understanding and sensibility requires a faculty which exceeds the antithetic relation of theoretical thought. But, instead of focusing his reflection towards the supra-theoretical ego, he seeks only a "pre-logical" function of the ego as a connecting link, not yet involved in the rigid antithetical relation of the theoretic attitude of thought. Obviously he supposes that he appeals here to the pre-theoretic attitude of naive experience. This, however, is a fundamental error.
In his concept of the productive imagination, FICHTE does not penetrate to pre-theoretical cosmic self-consciousness but remains involved in KANT's functionalistic view of knowledge.
A synthetic function of consciousness in its isolation can never be independent of theoretical thought, and certainly can never bridge the theoretical antithesis implied in the "gegenstand-relation".
Only the cosmic self-consciousness (to be examined later in the discussion of the problem of knowledge) can grasp the deeper unity of all aspects of reality, because in the transcendent root of the selfhood it transcends all its modal functions, which are interwoven in the cosmic order of time (29).
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(29) That self-consciousness remains an abstraction just as much to FICHTE as to KANT, should appear from the following passage (I, 244): "Das Ich aber ist jetzt als dasjenige bestimmt, welches, nach Aufhebung alles Objects durch das absolute Abstraktionsvermögen, übrig bleibt... (Dies ist denn auch wirklich die augenscheinliche, und nach ihrer Andeutung gar nicht mehr zu verkennende Quelle des Selbstbewustseyns.Alles,von welchem ich abstrahieren, was ich wegdenken kann... ist nicht mein Ich und ich setze es meinem Ich blosz dadurch entgegen dass ich es betrachte als ein solches, das ich wegdenken kann)..." ["But the ego is now determined as that which is left after the removal of every object through the absolute faculty of abstraction... (This is therefore really the apparent source of the self-consciousness which is no longer to be disregarded after it has been indicated. All from which I am able to abstract, all that I am able to think away... is not my ego, and I set it in contrast to my ego, merely by considering it as something that I can think away.)"]
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But how can a "function of feeling", prior to all logical reflection, accomplish an obviously inter-functional synthesis, and in this synthesis guarantee the unity of functions that are theoretically opposed to each other, and which consequently cannot be derived the one from the other?
In the "productive imagination" the basic antinomy of FICHTE's dialectic lies open and clear before us. Being pre-logical, it would make fluid all boundaries fixed by thought between "nature" and "freedom" and thereby "unify the contradictory".
The cosmic order imposed by God's sovereign creative will is set aside by the ὕβρις (pride) of "sovereign reason". The boundaries of the law-spheres in the realms of "nature" and "freedom" become a creation of reason itself and can therefore again be cancelled by the same reason.
Since by FICHTE the tension between the ideal of science and that of personality is itself conceived of as an infinite ethical task (30), he rejects without hesitation the attempt at a solution of the antinomy by dialectical thought.
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(30) See I, 156.
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Rather he raises this antinomy to the position of condition and basis of the whole "Wissenschaftslehre", as a necessary result of an ungrounded, preconscious act of the free personality bound to no laws: "We see, how that very circumstance which threatened to annihilate the possibility of a theory of human knowledge here becomes the only condition for the building of such a theory. We did not see, how we could ever unify absolute opposites; here we see, that an explanation of the occurrences in our mind could not at all be possible without absolute opposites; since that very faculty on which all those occurrences rest, i.e. the productive power of imagination, would not at all be possible, unless absolute opposites which cannot be synthesized appeared as fully unsuited to the power of apprehension... It is from this state of absolute opposition that the entire mechanism of the human mind issues; and this entire mechanism may not be explained otherwise than by a state of absolute opposition" (31).
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(31) op. cit., p. 226: "Wir sehen, dass gerade derjenige Umstand, welcher die Möglichkeit einer Theorie des menschlichen Wissens zu vernichten drohte, hier die einzige Bedingung wird, unter der wir eine solche Theorie aufstellen können. Wir sahen nicht ab, wie wir jemals absolut entgegengesetzte sollten vereinigen können; hier sehen wir, dass eine Erklärung der Begebenheiten in unserem Geiste überhaupt gar nicht möglich seyn würde ohne absolut entgegengesetzte; da desjenige Vermögen, auf welchem alle jene Begebenheiten beruhen, die produktive Einbildungskraft gar nicht möglich seyn würde, wenn nicht absolut entgegengesetze, nicht zu vereinigende, dem Auffassungsvermögen des Ich völlig unangemessene vorkämen... Eben aus dem absoluten Entgegengesetztseyn erfolgt der ganze Mechanismus des menschlichen Geistes; und dieser ganze Mechanismus lässt sich nicht anders erklären, als durch ein absolutes Entgegengesetztseyn."
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In this manner, FICHTE supposes that he has cancelled dogmatic idealism as well as dogmatic realism in a higher critical idealism.
The first formal-dialectical part of the "Wissenschaftslehre" (1794) begins with the absolute principles ("Grundsätze") and ends thus with the deduction of the "productive imagination".
In the second part, described only schematically in the W.L. of 1794, and further elaborated in his Grundrisz des Eigentümlichen der W.L. in Rücksicht auf das theoretische Vermögen of 1795, FICHTE follows the very reverse method. The starting-point is here the "fact" of consciousness. He tries to show how the ego which originally experiences only sensory impressions, can rise to that philosophical abstraction and reflection with which the philosopher begins the theoretical doctrine of science. In the second part it appears still more clearly that FICHTE's absolute ego cannot be the supra-temporal totality of the temporal diversity of meaning (32).
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(32) From the following passage — in which he attempts to conceive the synthesis between form and matter as an interaction between ego and non-ego — it may appear that FICHTE in fact understands the totality of the ego as a relative one: "Neither of the two" (namely form and matter) "is to determine the other, but both are to determine each other reciprocally, means: — to come to the point in few words — absolute and relative ground of the totality-determination are to be one and the same; the relation is to be absolute and the absolute is to be nothing more than a relation" (I, 199). ["Keins von beide" (viz. Form und Materie) "soll das andere, sondern beide sollen sich gegenseitig bestimmen, heisst: — um ohne lange Umschweifungen zur Sache zu kommen — absoluter und relativer Grund der Totalitäts-bestimmung sollen Eins und Ebendasselbe seyn; die Relation soll absolut, und das absolute soll nichts weiter seyn, als eine Relation."]
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The schema of FICHTE's train of thought is namely as follows: The ego unifies in itself two conflicting, irreconcilable momenta; it must distinguish itself from itself, it must set itself in opposition to itself as something foreign and contradictory — i.e. as "nature", as non-ego. Inasmuch as it produces itself, it must produce this non-ego by imagination, it must create sensory images, it must undergo perceptible sensory impressions (the Kantian "Empfindung"). But since the consciousness which discloses itself in the perceptible impression is only a part of the ego itself, the ego must find itself in it. That is to say, it must transcend the sensory function, it must make the sensory perception its own. This activity cannot cease until the selfhood has come to the consciousness that the ego has produced the non-ego in itself. Since consciousness proceeds continuously in this way, the original mere sensation is changed into the object of intuition and experience, which in turn becomes the transcendentally conceived "Gegenstand" of epistemology, until finally the ego becomes conscious of itself as the transcendental consciousness or as "theoretical reason", which itself creates this "Gegenstand" (33).
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(33) cf. KRONER I, 487.
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In other words, the "Wissenschaftslehre" rests entirely upon the Kantian position with respect to reality, i.e. upon the view of empirical reality as phenomenality of nature, constituted in a synthesis of sensory and logical functions, but with definitive elimination of the "natural thing-in-itself". The "impulse" ("Anstosz"), which the non-ego gives to the ego, and which FICHTE continues to consider necessary for the explanation of the mental representation, is explicitly referred to the hypostatized moral function of the free personality: "Only the question how and whereby the impulse to be assumed for the explanation of mental representation is given to the ego, is not to be answered here; for it lies beyond the limits of the theoretical part of the "doctrine of science" (34).
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(34) Grundl. der ges. Wissenschaftslehre, Werke I, 218: "Blosz die Frage wie und wodurch der für Erklärung der Vorstellung anzunehmende Anstosz auf das Ich geschehe, ist hier nicht zu beantworten; denn sie liegt auszerhalb der Grenze des theoretischen Theils der Wissenschaftslehre."
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FICHTE's doctrine of the productive imagination and HEIDEGGER'S interpretation of KANT.
It is remarkable that FICHTE, in this second part of the theoretical W.L., makes the categories, along with the sensory objects in their apriori sensory forms of space and time, arise dialectically from the productive imagination (35).
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(35) FICHTE points (I, 387) expressly to KANT's view of the matter, without however, like HEIDEGGER, ascribing his own view to KANT: "KANT, der die Kategorien ursprünglich als Denkformen erzeugt werden läszt, und der von seinem Gesichtspuncte aus daran völlig Recht hat, bedarf der durch die Einbildungskraft entworfenen Schemata, um ihre Anwendung auf Objecte möglich zu machen; er läszt sie demnach eben so wohl, als wir, durch die Einbildungskraft bearbeitet werden, und derselben zugänglich seyn. In der Wissenschaftslehre entstehen sie mit den Objecten zugleich, und, um dieselbe erst möglich zu machen, auf dem Boden der Einbildungskraft selfst." ["KANT, in whom the categories are produced originally as thought-forms and who, from his own point of view, is fully entitled to do it, was in need of the schemata projected by the power of imagination, in order to make their application to objects possible; accordingly, just as we do, did he have them fashioned by the power of imagination and made them accessible to the same (power). In the "doctrine of science" they originate along with the objects, and on the soil of the imagination itself, in order to make the objects possible."]
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That is remarkable, since MARTIN HEIDEGGER, though from an altogether different train of thought, in his interpretation of KANT's critique of knowledge (to be dealt with in vol. II), likewise supposes that he has found in this productive imagination the root of the two sources of knowledge, the understanding and sensibility.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part 2/ Chapt 5/§2 pp 413-435)
