Fichte's Vocation of Man

Description

Written for a general audience during a period of intense controversy in the German philosophical community, J. G. Fichte's short book The Vocation of Man (1800) is both an introduction to and a defense of his philosophical system, and is one of the best-known contributions to German Idealism. This collection of new essays reflects a wide and instructive variety of philosophical and hermeneutic approaches, which combine to cast new light upon Fichte's familiar text. The contributors highlight some of the overlooked complexities and implications of The Vocation of Man and situate it firmly within the intellectual context within which it was originally written, relating it to the positions of Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Schlegel, Jacobi, and others. In addition, the essays relate the text to issues of contemporary concern such as the limits of language, the character of rational agency, the problem of evil, the relation of theoretical knowledge to practical belief, and the dialectic of judgment.
Key to Abbreviations
Preface

Introduction: The Checkered Reception of Fichte’s The Vocation of Man
Daniel Breazeale

1. “An Other and Better World”: Fichte’s The Vocation of Man as a Theological-Political Treatise
Günter Zóller

2. Fichte’s Philosophical Bildungsroman
Benjamin Crowe

3. Bestimmung as Bildung: On Reading Fichte’s Vocation of Man as a Bildungsroman
Elizabeth Millán

4. Knowledge Teaches Us Nothing: The Vocation of Man as Textual Initiation
Michael Steinberg

5. J. G. Fichte’s Vocation of Man: An Effort to Communicate
Yolanda Estes

6. “Interest”: An Overlooked Protagonist in Book I of Fichte’s Bestimmung des Menschen
M. Jorge de Almeida Carvalho

7. The Dialectic of Judgment and The Vocation of Man
Wayne Martin

8. The Traction of the World, or Fichte on Practical Reason and the Vocation of Man
Tom Rockmore

9. Fichte’s Conception of Infinity in the Bestimmung des Menschen
David W. Wood

10. Intersubjectivity and the Communality of Our Final End in Fichte’s Vocation of Man
Kien-How Goh

11. Evil and Moral Responsibility in The Vocation of Man
Jane Dryden

12. Jumping the Transcendental Shark: Fichte’s “Argument of Belief” in Book III of Die Bestimmung des Menschen and the Transition from the Earlier to the Later Wissenschaftslehre
Daniel Breazeale

13. Determination and Freedom in Kant and in Fichte’s Bestimmung des Menschen
Angelica Nuzzo

14. “There is in nature an original thinking power, just as there is an original formative power.” On a Claim from Book One of The Vocation of Man
Violetta L.Waibel

15. Erkenntnis and Interesse: Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism and Fichte’s Vocation of Man
Michael Vater

16. Faith and Knowledge and Vocation of Man: A Comparison between Hegel and Fichte
Marco Ivaldo

17. The Vocation of Postmodern Man: Why Fichte Now? Again!
Arnold Farr

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie moderne
• Philosophie moderne
• Philosophie générale
• Philosophy
• History of philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 28 octobre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438447650
• Langue: English

Extrait

Fichte’s Vocation of Man
Fichte’s Vocation of Man
New Interpretive and Critical Essays
Edited by
Daniel Breazeale
and
Tom Rockmore
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2013 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY www.sunypress.edu
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fichte’s Vocation of man : new interpretive and critical essays / edited by Daniel Breazeale and Tom Rockmore.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4763-6 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1762–1814. Bestimmung des Menschen. 2. Human beings. 3. Faith. I. Breazeale, Daniel. II. Rockmore, Tom, 1942–
B2844.B53.F45 2013
128—dc23
2012037139
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Key to Abbreviations
Preface
Introduction: The Checkered Reception of Fichte’s Vocation of Man
Daniel Breazeale
1 “An Other and Better World”: Fichte’s The Vocation of Man as a Theologico-Political Treatise
Günter Zöller
2 Fichte’s Philosophical Bildungsroman
Benjamin Crowe
3 Bestimmung as Bildung : On Reading Fichte’s Vocation of Man as a Bildungsroman
Elizabeth Millán
4 Knowledge Teaches Us Nothing: The Vocation of Man as Textual Initiation
Michael Steinberg
5 J. G. Fichte’s Vocation of Man : An Effort to Communicate
Yolanda Estes
6 “Interest”: An Overlooked Protagonist in Book I of Fichte’s Bestimmung des Menschen
Mário Jorge de Carvalho
7 The Dialectic of Judgment and The Vocation of Man
Wayne Martin
8 The Traction of the World, or Fichte on Practical Reason and the Vocation of Man
Tom Rockmore
9 Fichte’s Conception of Infinity in the Bestimmung des Menschen
David W. Wood
10 Intersubjectivity and the Communality of Our Final End in Fichte’s Vocation of Man
Kien-How Goh
11 Evil and Moral Responsibility in The Vocation of Man
Jane Dryden
12 Jumping the Transcendental Shark: Fichte’s “Argument of Belief” in Book III of Die Bestimmung des Menschen and the Transition from the Earlier to the Later Wissenschaftslehre
Daniel Breazeale
13 Determination and Freedom in Kant and in Fichte’s Bestimmung des Menschen
Angelica Nuzzo
14 “There is in nature an original thinking power, just as there is an original formative power.” On a Claim from Book One of The Vocation of Man
Violetta L. Waibel
15 Erkenntnis and Interesse : Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism and Fichte’s Vocation of Man
Michael Vater
16 Faith and Knowledge and Vocation of Man : A Comparison between Hegel and Fichte
Marco Ivaldo
17 The Vocation of Postmodern Man: Why Fichte Now? Again!
Arnold Farr
Index
Key to Abbreviations AA Immanuel Kants gesammelte Schriften (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1902 ff.) AD J. G. Fichte and the Atheism Dispute (1798–1800) , ed. and trans. Curtis Bowman, ed. and commentary by Yolanda Estes (Burlington, VT, and Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2010) BM Fichte, Die Bestimmung des Menschen (1800) BM(pb) Fichte, Die Bestimmung des Menschen , ed. Fritz Medicus and Erich Fuchs (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1979) BWL Fichte, Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre (1794) EPW Fichte: Early Philosophical Writings , ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988) FiG Fichte in Gespräch , ed. Erich Fuchs (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog. 1980) FNR Fichte, Foundations of Natural Right , ed. Frederick Neuhouser, trans. Michael Baur (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) FTP Fichte: Foundations of Transcendental Philosophy (Wissenschaftslehre) nova methodo , ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992) GA J. G. Fichte-Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften , ed. Erich Fuchs, Reinhard Lauth,† and Hans Gliwitzky† (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1964ff.) GG Fichte, Über den Grund unseres Glaubens an eine göttliche Weltregierung (1798) GNR Fichte, Grundlage des Naturrechts (1796/97) GWL Fichte, Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre (1794/95) IWL Fichte, Introductions to the Wissenschaftslehre and Other Writings , ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994) KpV Kant, Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788) KrV Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft . As is customary, references to KrV will be simply to the page numbers of the A (1781) and B (1787) eds. KU Kant, Kritik der Urteilskraft (1790). P Kant, Prolegomena zu einer jeden künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können (1781) SE Fichte, System of Ethics , ed. and trans. Daniel Breazeale and Günter Zöller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) SK Fichte, The Science of Knowledge , ed. and trans. Peter Heath and John Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) SS Fichte, System der Sittenlehre (1798) SW Johann Gottlieb Fichtes sämmtliche Werke , ed. I. H. Fichte, eight vols. (Berlin: Viet Co., 1845–46); rpt., along with the three vols. of Johann Gottlieb Fichtes nachgelassene Werke (Bonn: Adolphus-Marcus, 1834–35), as Fichtes Werke (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971) WLnm[H] Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (“ Halle Nachshrift ,” 1796/97) WLnm[K] Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (“ Krause Nachschrift ,” 1798/99) VM Fichte, The Vocation of Man , trans. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987) VM(LLA) Fichte, The Vocation of Man , trans. William Smith, ed. Roderick Chisholm (Indianapolis: Library of Liberal Arts/ Bobbs-Merrill, 1956) VM(PW) Fichte, The Vocation of Man , trans. William Smith, in Vol. I of The Popular Works of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (London, Trübner Co., 4 th ed., 1889).
Preface
This volume collects seventeen previously unpublished essays by an international group of scholars, all focusing upon different aspects of and offering diverse perspectives upon a single, seminal text, J. G. Fichte’s “popular” tract of 1800, Die Bestimmung des Menschen . 1 The Vocation of Man has been translated into English no fewer than three times, first in 1846 by Percy Sennet, then again in 1848 by William Smith, whose translation was subsequently revised and reissued on several different occasions, and most recently, in 1987, by Peter Preuss. 2 Though it is unquestionably the best known of Fichte’s writings among Anglophone readers and students of German Idealism, there is in fact and has long been a great deal of controversy among Fichte scholars concerning its significance and its relationship to Fichte’s other, less popular—or, as he himself would have put it, more “scientific”—treatises, especially the various versions of his distinctive philosophical system, the so-called Wissenschaftslehre or “doctrine of scientific knowledge.” These issues are summarized in Daniel Breazeale’s introductory essay on the history of the reception of this text.
This volume aims to illuminate The Vocation of Man by exploring some of the issues and controversies that have surrounded it from the start and by offering fresh and varied examples of contemporary scholarly approaches to the same. A number of these essays directly address the question of precisely what kind of work this is and propose a variety of different contexts within which it might be understood. Günter Zöller offers a “theological-political” interpretation of The Vocation of Man; Benjamin Crowe and Elizabeth Millán propose two different readings of it as philosophical “novel” or Bildungsroman ; Michael Steinberg offers a “performative” interpretation of Fichte’s text as a device for initiating readers into a liminal state beyond mere knowledge; whereas Yolanda Estes situates the task of The Vocation of Man squarely in the context of the immediately preceding “Atheism Controversy” and stresses its continuity with Fichte’s earlier philosophy, albeit in a new communicative register.
Other authors address specific, often neglected themes in this work. Mário Jorge de Almeida Carvalho calls attention to the crucial function of “human interest” in the rhetorical strategy of Book One of The Vocation of Man; Wayne Martin examines the dialectical tension between personal self-determination and objective evidence in Fichte’s account of judgment in this work; Tom Rockmore argues that Fichte’s account of practical reason in The Vocation of Man represents something of a retreat from his earlier advances upon Kant’s conception of the same; David W. Wood examines Fichte’s conception of “infinity” in this work; Kien-How Goh analyzes Fichte’s new understanding of human “community” in The Vocation of Man and indicates how this differs from his earlier account of the same in his System of Ethics; Jane Dryden explores Fichte’s distinction between physical and moral evil in The Vocation of Man and how this is related to his view of personal responsibility; and Daniel Breazeale offers a highly critical reading of the “argument of belief ” in Book Three and argues that this signals a fateful turning point in Fichte’s intellectual development.
A third group of essays investigates the relationship between the views expressed in The Vocation of Man and those of various other thinkers: Kant, in the case of Angelica Nuzzo, with respect to their respective notions of freedom and determination; Jacobi, in the case of Violetta Waibel, with special attention to the difficult notion of the “original thinking power of nature”; Schelling, in the case of Michael Vater, with particular reference to the relation of Fichte’s views concerning personal agency to those expressed in Schelling’s System of Tra