"Manfred air an Jungfrau" le Ford Madox BROWN (1842)
CAIBIDEIL VI
BUAIDH A' CHOINCHEIP MHI-RÀISEANTAICH AIR A' CHOINCHEAP RÀISEANTACH DEN GHRUNND-IDÈA DHAONNAIREACH THAR-CHEUMNAIL. IDÈAL NA PEARSANTACHD NA TIONNDADH MI-RÀISEANTACHAIL ANN AM FEALLSANACHD NA BEATHA.
§ 1 - AM MÙTHADH GU MI-RÀISEANTACHAS SAN TREAS CEUM AIG FICHTE FO BHUAIDH A' GHLUASAID "STURM UND DRANG" ("STOIRM IS STREAS").
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CHAPTER VI
THE VICTORY OF THE IRRATIONALIST OVER THE RATIONALIST CONCEPTION OF THE HUMANISTIC TRANSCENDENTAL GROUND-IDEA. THE IDEAL OF PERSONALITY IN ITS IRRATIONALIST TURN IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE.
§ 1 - THE TRANSITION TO IRRATIONALISM IN FICHTE's THIRD PERIOD UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE MOVEMENT OF "STURM UND DRANG" ("STORM AND STRESS").
FICHTE's development did not stop with the standpoint of the first edition of the Wissenschaftslehre. EMIL LASK especially deserves credit for having sharply analysed the various phases in this development since 1797. We are here not so much interested in FICHTE's second period, characterized by the "Second Introduction into the Doctrine of Science" (Zweite Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre) of 1797. In this phase we can only observe a return to and a completion of the critical transcendental philosophy in a teleological system of "the pure forms of reason". It does not open new viewpoints in respect to the dialectical development of Humanistic thought. Therefore, we shall now focus our attention on FICHTE's third period, in which, under the strong influence of JACOBI's philosophy of feeling, a new irrationalistic trend gained ground in the Humanistic personality-ideal.
FICHTE's relation to "Sturm und Drang".
FICHTE's relations with the so-called "Sturm und Drang" have recently been examined in detail by LEON (1), BERGMANN (2) , GELPCKE (3) and others.
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(1) XAVIER LEON: Fichte et son temps 2 vols. Paris 1922.
(2) ERNST BERGMANN: Fichte und Goethe (Kantstudien 1915, Vol. 20).
(3) ERNST GELPCKE: Fichte und die Gedankenwelt des Sturm und Drang (Leipzig 1928).
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GELPCKE sees from the very beginning in FICHTE the influence of such typical representatives of this movement as LAVATER, HAMANN and JACOBI operative, even before he was taken up with Kantian critical idealism. The titanic activity-motive, the strong voluntaristic tendency, characteristic of FICHTE's philosophy, in all the phases of its development, and which signally differentiates it from the more static Kantian system, shows indeed a veritable congeniality of spirit with the deepest motives of "Sturm und Drang", glorifying the "activity of genius". The activistic ideal of personality permeates all expressions of this transition-period and concentrates itself, as it were, in GOETHE's Faust, with its typical utterance: "Im Anfang war die Tat ("In the beginning was the deed").
"Sturm und Drang", as GELPCKE observes, finds its artistic form of expression in the "ego-drama". Activity and selfhood are the two poles in this world of thought. The ideal "ego" is absolutized in a limitless subjectivism and becomes elevated to the rank of genius possessing in itself the perfectly individual moral measure of its action, bound to no general norm. In the foreword to his "Räuber", SCHILLER has given the following expression to this ingenious subjectivism: "The law did not yet form a single great man, but freedom hatches colossosses and extremities" (4).
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(4) "Das Gesetz hat noch keinen groszen Mann gebildet, aber die Freiheit brütet Kolosse und Extremitäten aus."
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In his "Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten" (1759)(5) HAMANN expressed the same idea in the following form: "What replaces in HOMER the ignorance of the rules of art which an ARISTOTLE invented, and what in a SHAKESPEARE the ignorance or violation of these critical laws? Genius, is the unanimous answer" (6).
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(5) "Socratic Memorabilia."
(6) "Was ersetzt bei HOMER die Unwissenheit der Kunstregeln, die ein ARISTOTELES nach ihm erdacht, und was, bei einem SHAKESPEARE die Unwissenheit oder Uebertretung jener kritische Gesetze? Das Genie ist die einmütige Antwort."
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Only in the very deed can this selfhood of genius render itself objective. A true enthusiasm and optimism of the deed characterizes the period of "Sturm und Drang", sharply distinguishing its basic tone from the preponderatingly pessimistic one of ROUSSEAU, nothwithstanding all its dependence upon ROUSSEAU's philosophy of sentiment.
The irrationalist view of the individuality of genius. The irrationalist turn in the ideal of personality.
This entire movement was still bound to ROUSSEAU by the naturalistic view of the personality-ideal expressed in the watchword, "natural forming of life". But for the rationalism of the time of the Enlightenment the "natural" was identical with what was "conceived in terms of natural laws". In contrast the "Sturm und Drang" movement ran to the other extreme: it absolutizes the subjective individuality in nature: the genius must realize himself in the completely individual expression of his psychical drives.
The true reality is sought in the completely irrational depths of subjective individuality and these depths of subjective reality are to be grasped not by the analysing understanding, but by feeling. This irrational philosophy of feeling, predominating especially in HAMANN, the young HERDER and JACOBI, and of which GOETHE makes his Faust the mouth-piece in the utterance: " Gefühl ist alles", is the true Humanistic counter-pole of the rationalistic line of thought characteristic of the "Enlightenment".
The philosophy of life of the "Sturm und Drang" period finds its culminating point in the demand for subjective ethical freedom. This new Humanistic postulate of freedom is averse to all universal rational norms. GELPCKE characterizes it as follows: "The regained concept of freedom becomes a dogma. It is freedom against every rule, every authority, every compulsion of the wrong society. Consequently, it implies unconditional freedom of feeling from all dependence, just as the Enlightenment had preached the unconditional freedom of reason" (7).
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(7) GELPCKE, op. cit., p. 27: "Der neu gewonnene Begriff der Freiheit wird zum Dogma. Es ist die Freiheit gegen die Regel, gegen die Autorität, gegen den Zwang der verkehrten Gesellschaft. Freiheit also des Gefühls schlechthin von aller Abhängigkeit, wie einst die Aufklärung Freiheit der Vernunft von aller Abhängigkeit gepredigt hatte."
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Tension between the irrationalist conception of freedom and the science-ideal in its Leibnizian form in HERDER, The antinomy is sought in "life" itself. The Faust- and the Prometheus-motive.
The Humanistic ideal of personality discloses itself here in an irrationalist type, still oriented to the aesthetic view of nature, but exhibiting all the more strongly its polarity with the rationalistic science-ideal from which "Sturm und Drang", despite its passionate protest against deterministic rationalism, never was able to liberate itself definitively. This is especially evident in HERDER's philosophy of history, with its naturalistic concept of development derived from LEIBNIZ. Antinomy is not shunned, but rather sought for in the very reality of life.
"Faust" and "Prometheus" become the favourite problems of this period. Faust contends with nature, from which he wished to wrest her deepest secrets, in a boundless striving toward power and infinity. Prometheus is the stormer of heaven, who in Titanic pride brings fire from heaven to earth. KLOPSTOCK has given to his Prometheus-motive the following pregnant expression: "Forces of the other world are contained in the Idea of God, but man feels like a second Creator, able to reflect the Idea of the universe" (8).
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(8) JANENSNY, Lavater, p. 2: "Kräfte jener Welt hat der Gedanke an Gott, aber wie ein zweiter Schöpfer fühlt sich der Mensch, der die Idee des Universums nachzudenken vermag."
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The irrationalist Idea of humanity and the appreciation of individuality in history.
The new ideal of humanity did not spring from mathematical thought, but from the irrational depths of feeling. It displays itself in a boundless reverence for all that man is, and, as such, possesses irrational creative individuality. It further displays itself in an appreciation of historical individuality in people (Volk), nation and state, usually strange to the time of the Enlightenment.
The conception of "Sturm und Drang" about individuality has indeed no longer anything in common with the atomistic individualism of the time of the Enlightenment. It is an irrationalist view that gains ground here, and that seeks everywhere after the irrational relations by which the individual is a part of the totality of an individual community. It is this very view which is characteristic of the philosophy of history of a HERDER, who tries to understand the voice of history by way of empathy, by feeling himself into the spirit of historical individualities. HERDER unhesitatingly accepts the polarity, the inner antinomy between this irrationalist view and the determinist conception of development, which he had taken over from LEIBNIZ. Necessity of nature and creative freedom of the irreducible individuality come together in history and render impossible KANT's attempt at a separation of the two realms. In this philosophy of history, the science-ideal of the "Aufklärung" still discloses its influence, insofar as historical development is thought of as subject to natural laws. In accordance with LEIBNIZ' lex continui, development is here conceived of in increasingly complicated and more highly ordered series, as passing in a continuous transition from inorganic matter to organic life and human history, and as disclosing a steady progress in the evolution of culture. But this naturalistic cultural optimism is entirely pervaded and refined by the new humanity-ideal of the "Sturm und Drang". The impulse toward a sympathetic understanding of every individuality in the cultural process protected this view of history from the rationalistic construction of world-history after the manner of VOLTAIRE.
FICHTE's third period and the influence of JACOBI. Transcendental philosophy in contrast with life-experience. The primacy of life and feeling.
In what way then did the influence of the irrationalist philosophy of life, briefly sketched above, find expression in FICHTE's third period, of which his writings: "Die Bestimmung des Menschen", 1st ed., 1800, and his Sonnenklarer Bericht an das grössere Publikum über das eigentliche Wesen der neuesten Philosophie, are most strikingly charactistic?
This influence discloses itself in the sharp cleavage, which FICHTE here sets between theoretical knowledge and real life, identifying the latter with feeling, desire and action (9), and placing the full accent of value upon life in opposition to philosophical speculation.
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(9) W.W. V, p. 351.
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In his Rückerinnrungen, Antworten, Fragen (Remembrances, Answers, Questions), an unpublished writing of the year 1799, FICHTE observes: "Now the goal is life, and in no way speculation, the latter is only a means (an instrument) to form life, for it resides in an entirely other world, and what is to influence life, must itself have originated from life. It is only a means to know life" (10).
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(10) Ibid., p. 342: "Nun is das Leben Zweck, keinesweges das Speculieren; das letztere ist nur Mittel, das Leben zu bilden, denn es liegt in einer ganz anderen Welt, und was auf das Leben Einflusz haben soll, musz selbst aus dem Leben hervorgegangen sein. Es ist nur Mittel, das Leben zu erkennen."
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A little further on we read: "Life in its true essence is not-philosophizing; philosophizing in its true essence is not-life... There is here a complete antithesis, and a point of juncture is as surely impossible, as the conception of the X that rests at the foundation of the subject-object ego..." (11).
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(11)"Leben ist ganz eigentlich Nicht-Philosophieren; Philosophieren ist ganz eigentlich Nicht-Leben... Es ist hier eine volkommene Antithesis und ein Vereinigungspunct ist ebenso unmöglich, als das auffassen des X, das dem Subjekt-Objekt Ich, zu Grunde liegt..."
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The opposition between his own philosophic standpoint and that of his opponents who accused him of atheism (EBERHARD and others), is here formulated as follows: "The true seat of the conflict between my philosophy and the opposed doctrines, which are more or less aware of this situation, concerns the relation between (mere, objectively directed) knowledge and life (feeling, appetitive power and action). The opposed systems make knowledge the principle of life: they believe that through free, arbitrary thought they can originate some knowledge and concepts and implant them in man by means of reasoning and that thereby would be produced feelings, the appetitive power would be affected and thus finally human action determined. For them knowledge is consequently the higher, life is the lower and absolutely dependent on the former... Our philosophy, on the contrary, makes life, the system of feelings and appetitions the highest and allows to knowledge everywhere only the looking on" (italics are mine) (12).
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(12) "Der wahre Sitz des Wiederstreites meiner Philosophie und der entgegengesetzten Lehren, welche letztere sich dieses Umstandes mehr oder weniger deutlich bewusst sind, ist über das Verhältniss der (blossen, auf Objecte gehenden) Erkenntniss zum wirklichen Leben (zum Gefühle, Begehrungsvermögen und Handeln). Die entgegengesetzte Systeme machen die Erkenntniss zum Prinzipe des Lebens: sie glauben, durch freies, willkürliches Denken gewisse Erkenntnisse und Begriffe erzeugen und dem Menschen durch Räsonnement einpflanzen zu können, durch welche Gefühle hervorgebracht, das Begehrungsvermögen afficirt und so endlich das Handeln des Menschen bestimmt werde. Ihnen also ist das Erkennen das Obere, das Leben das Niedere und durchaus von jenem Abhängende... Unsere Philosophie macht umgekehrt das Leben, das System der Gefühle und des Begehrens zum Höchsten und lässt der Erkenntniss überall nur das Zusehen." Vol. V, pp. 351/352.
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HEGEL as opposed to the philosophy of life and feeling.
In order to realize the polar distance which separates FICHTE's philosophic thought in this period from HEGEL's identity-philosophy, it is only necessary to compare these utterances as to the relation of the dialectical concept and the reality of life (seized immediately in feeling) with HEGEL's following pronouncement in his Encyclopaedia: "It is wrong to suppose that the things which form the contents of our representations were first, and our subjective activity which through the earlier mentioned operation of abstracting and synthesizing of the common characteristics of the objects, produces the concepts of the same, would come only afterwards. The concept is rather the true first" (13).
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(13) HEGEL's Werke VI, p. 323: "Es ist verkehrt, anzunehmen, erst seien die Gegenstände, welche den Inhalt unserer Vorstellungen bilden, und dann hinterdrein komme unsere subjective Tätigkeit, welche durch die vorher erwähnte Operation des Abstrahierens und des Zusammenfassens des den Gegenständen Gemeinschaftlichen die Begriffe derselben sind. Der Begriff ist vielmehr das wahrhaft Erste..."
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KANT's sensory matter of experience is now the "true reality" to FICHTE.
KANT's irrational "sensory matter of experience", which in the "Critique of Pure Reason" played only the negative role of a limit for the transcendental possibility of knowledge, acquired in FICHTE's third period the positive meaning of "true reality". Only the "material of experience" accessible to immediate feeling, not yet "logically synthesized" and deeply irrational, can claim to be reality.
In the impressive conclusion of the second book of the writing Die Bestimmung des Menschen (The Vocation of Man), the "spirit" says to the "ego" that wished to come to knowledge of reality through the "Wissenschaftslehre": "All theoretical knowledge is only image, and there is always something required in it which corresponds to the image. This demand cannot be satisfied by any theoretical knowledge; and a system of science is necessarily a system of mere images, without any reality, significance and aim... Now you seek after all something real which resides outside the mere image... and another reality than that which was destroyed just now, as I know likewise. However, it would be in vain, if you would try to create it through and from your knowledge and to embrace it with your science. If you have no other organ to grasp it, you shall never find it. However, you do possess such an organ. Vivify it only and warm it: and you shall come to complete rest. I leave you alone with yourself" (14).
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(14) V, 246 f: "Alles Wissen (aber), ist nur Abbildung, und es wird in ihm immer etwas gefordert, das dem Bilde entspreche. Diese Förderung kann durch kein Wissen befriedigt werden; und ein System des Wissens ist nothwendig ein System bloszer Bilder, ohne alle Realität, Bedeutung und Zweck... Nun suchst du denn doch etwas, ausser dem blossen Bilde liegendes Reales... und eine andere Realität, als die soeben vernichtete, wie ich gleichfalls weiss. Aber du würdest dich vergebens bemühen, sie durch dein Wissen, und aus deinem Wissen zu erschaffen, und mit deiner Erkenntniss zu umfassen. Hast du kein anderes Organ, sie zu ergreifen, so wirst du sie nimmer finden. Aber du hast ein solches Organ. Belebe es nur, und erwärme es: und du wirst zur vollkommensten Ruhe gelangen. Ich lasse dich mit dir selbst allein."
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In agreement with JACOBI, FICHTE now seeks this other organ in belief, which he, together with this philosopher of feeling, views as the diametrical opposite of cognitive thought. JACOBI had taught that the "unconditional Being" could not be demonstrated theoretically, but could only be felt immediately. And he had not restricted the truth-value of immediate feeling to the bounds of sense perception, but had proclaimed as its second basic form the certainty of supra-sensory belief. In like manner, FICHTE, too, now teaches that the true reality is discovered only by belief, rooted in the immediate feeling of the drive to absolute, independent activity (15).
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(15) W.W. II, p. 249 fl.
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JACOBI supposed his view to be based upon naïve experience when he identified the latter with the function of feeling. FICHTE follows suit in teaching that naïve man, even without being aware of it, grasps all reality existing for him, only by faithful feeling: "We all are born in belief; who is blind, follows blindly the secret and irresistible drive; he who sees, follows seeing; and believes because he wants to believe" (16).
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(16) "Wir werden allen in Glauben geboren, wer da blind ist, folgt blind dem geheimen und unwiderstehlichen Zuge; wer da sieht, folgt sehend; und glaubt, weil er glauben will." Cf. the entire sensualistic conception of naïve experience explained in the context of the cited passage (p. 255).
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This faith is no longer the a-priori practical reasonable faith of KANT, that elevates abstract noumenal Ideas to a practical reality "in itself". It is rather JACOBI's emotional faith, that this thinker set again, in the old nominalist manner, in opposition to the understanding in his famous expressilon: "Heathen with the head, Christian with the heart" (17).
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(17) "Heiden mit dem Verstande, Christen mit dem Gemüt."
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It must, however, be borne in mind that JACOBI supposed he found true Christianity in the well-known postulates of the Humanistic ideal of personality: belief in the personality of God, in moral freedom and autonomy, and in the immortality of human personality, whereas FICHTE, who identified the Deity with the "moral order of the universe", abandoned the belief in a personal God. It was this that brought upon him the charge of atheism.
The relationship which FICHTE here accepts between "faith" and reflective thinking also diverges diametrically from that which he accepts between the two in his Staatslehre of 1813.
In the last mentioned work all progress in history is seen as a methodical victory of the understanding over faith "until the former has entirely destroyed the latter and has brought its content into the more noble form of clear insight" (18).
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(18) IV, p. 493: "so lange bis der erste den letzten ganz vernichtet und seinen Inhalt aufgenommen hat in die edlere Form der klaren Einsicht." Essentially the same motive of thought is to be found in the Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters, (1804-5) VII, pp. 1-15 and passim.
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Yet a great mistake would be made, if the agreement between the philosophy of feeling and FICHTE's standpoint in his third period were interpreted as a complete surrender to the former.
Even LASK, who for the most part clearly indicates the points of difference, goes too far in imputing to FICHTE a radical depreciation of the "Wissenschaftslehre" in his third period (19).
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(19) LASK, op. cit., pp. 105/6: "Genauer konnte des Glaubensphilosophen JACOBI Beurteilung der Wissenschaftslehre nicht bestatigt werden." ["The judgment of the doctrine of science by the philosopher of faith JACOBI could not be affirmed in a more precise manner."]
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He has overlooked that the same writing in which FICHTE ascribes the discovery of true reality to vital feeling alone — allowing to philosophy only the "Zusehen" (looking on) — concludes with a veritable eulogy of the "Wissenschaftslehre": "In short: by the acceptance and universal propagation of the doctrine of science among those to whom it is appropriate, the whole of mankind shall be freed from blind chance and fate shall be destroyed for the same. All mankind becomes its own master under the control of its own concept; it makes henceforth itself with absolute liberty into everything, into which it can only want to make itself" (20).
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(20) Sonnenklarer Bericht, p. 409: "Mit einem Worte: durch die Annahme und allgemeine Verbreitung der Wissenschaftslehre unter denen, für welche sie gehört, wird das ganze Menschengeschlecht von dem blinden Zufall erlöst, und das Schicksal wird für dasselbe vernichtet. Die gesammte Menschheit bekommt sich selbst in ihre eigene Hand, unter die Botmässigkeit ihres eigenen Begriffes; sie macht von nun an mit absoluter Freiheit Alles aus sich selbst, was sie aus sich machen nur wollen kann." Lask has apparently paid no attention to this whole dithyramb on the "Doctrine of Science".
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JACOBI was never able to recognize the value of the "doctrine of science" (Wissenschaftslehre). To FICHTE, on the contrary, even in his closest approach to the philosophy of feeling, it remained the only way to conceive the full consequences of the freedom-motive, just as, even at this time, he never abandoned the transcendental moralistic standpoint and never fell into the aestheticism of the philosophy of life and feeling (21).
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(21) In all writings of this period "feeling" and "drive" remain oriented to the activistic and moralistic consciousness of duty.
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Recognition of the individual value of the empirical as such. FICHTE's estimation of individuality contrasted with that of KANT. Individualizing of the categorical imperative.
In this period the recognition of the value of "empirical" individuality goes hand in hand with the recognition of "feeling" as an immediate source of knowledge of reality. In his frequently cited writing LASK has given a keen analysis of the fundamental difference between KANT's transcendental-logical concept of "empirical" individuality and the conception developed by FICHTE in his third period concerning the epistemological individual value of the "empirical" as such.
KANT was not able to ascribe any value to empirical individuality as such, and could qualify it only as contingent in contrast with the norms of reason which alone have value. For FICHTE, on the contrary, empirical individuality has now acquired an inner value as being rooted in the individuality of the moral ego itself. Even in FICHTE's System der Sittenlehre (System of Ethics) of 1798 this recognition of the value of individuality discloses itself in his supplement to the formal principle of Ethics. KANT's "universally valid" categorical imperative is individualized. It comes now to read as follows: "Act in conformity with your individual destination, and your individual situation" (22).
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(22) IV, p. 166: "Es ist daher für jeden bestimmten Menschen in einer jeden Lage nur etwas bestimmtes pflichtmässig..." ["Therefore for every individual man in every (individual) situation there is only some individual conduct in conformity with duty"].
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The individuality of the empirical world, incomprehensible in a theoretical way, acquires practical significance for the personality, insofar as the material of our individual duty discloses itself in it (23).
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(23) This motive continues to be maintained even in FICHTE's fourth metaphysical-pantheistic period. Cf. Die Thatsachen des Bewusstseyns (1810-1811) II, 641: "Nur in der individuellen Form ist das Leben praktisches Prinzip" (Life is a practical principle in the individual form only).
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In each individual act of perceiving and knowing is concealed a "practical" kernel of feeling, in spite of its theoretical function (24).
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(24) IV, 166/7.
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In this connection, too, the estimation of individuality is fastened to the immediate evidence of feeling: "whether I doubt or am sure, it does not originate from argumentation... but from immediate feeling... this feeling never deceives" (25).
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(25) IV, 169.
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In the Wissenschaftslehre of 1801 the principle of individuation (principium individuationis) is explicitly sought in feeling as the concentration-point of knowledge (Konzentrationspunkt des Wissens) (26).
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(26) II, 112.
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No radical irrationalism in FICHTE's third period.
Thanks to the influence of the transcendental critical line of thought, which never completely disappeared from the "Wissenschaftslehre", there never was, in the case of FICHTE himself, a complete victory of an irrationalist philosophy of feeling. The moralistic law of reason is not abrogated, even where, in his third period, the recognition of the value of what is individually experienced in feeling makes itself increasingly operative in his moralistic and activistic ideal of personality. FICHTE seeks only to individualize its content within the cadre of its universally valid form.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part 2/ Chapt 6/§1 pp 451-461)
