The Closed Commercial State

J. G. Fichte, Anthony Curtis Adler

Description

Appearing for the first time in a complete English translation, The Closed Commercial State represents the most sustained attempt of J. G. Fichte, the famed author of The Doctrine of Science, to apply idealistic philosophy to political economy. In the accompanying interpretive essay, Anthony Curtis Adler challenges the conventional scholarly view of The Closed Commercial State as a curious footnote to Fichte's thought. The Closed Commercial State, which Fichte himself regarded as his "best, most thought-through work," not only attests to a life-long interest in economics, but is of critical importance to his entire philosophical project. Carefully unpacking the philosophical nuances of Fichte's argument and its complex relationship to other texts in his oeuvre, Adler argues that The Closed Commercial State presents an understanding of the nature of history, and the relation of history to politics, that differs significantly from the teleological notions of history advanced by Schelling and later Hegel. This critical scholarly edition includes a German-English glossary, annotations, and page references to both major German editions.
Acknowledgments

Abbreviations and Editorial Apparatus

Translator’s Introduction

Interpretive Essay: Fichte’s Monetary History

Johan Gottlieb Fichte’s Table of Contents

Translator’s Notes

German-English Glossary

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique
• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 18 mai 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438440224
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

SUNY series in Contemporary Continental Philosophy

Dennis J. Schmidt, editor

The Closed Commercial State
J. G.Fichte
Translated and with an Interpretive Essay by
Anthony Curtis Adler

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2012 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1762–1814.
[Geschlossene Handelsstaat. English]
The closed commercial state / J.G. Fichte ; translated and with an interpretive essay by Anthony Curtis Adler.
p. cm. — (SUNY series in contemporary Continental philosophy)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4384-4021-7 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. State, The. 2. Commercial policy. I. Adler, Anthony Curtis. II. Title.
JC181.F6 2012 320.1—dc22
2011014159
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For my parents
Acknowledgments
Work on this translation was spread over many years, and it would be impossible to thank all the teachers, colleagues, and friends who contributed to its realization. Wilhelm Metz, in an extraordinary proseminar at the University of Freiburg, introduced me to the wonder of Fichte's thought. Peter Fenves encouraged me to take on this project while working on my dissertation at Northwestern University, and Sam Weber and Terry Pinkard offered crucial support along the way. Géza von Molnár, who died suddenly and tragically on July 27, 2001, spent several hours helping me figure out some of Fichte's more unusual idioms. Paul North read an early draft of the introduction and offered valuable criticism and invaluable encouragement, and Melissa Zinkin, Markus Hardtmann, Helen Lee, Chad Denton, Karin Schutjer, Michael Kim, Gabe Hudson, John Frankl, Kil-Pyo Hong, Paul Tonks, Aljoša Pužar, Mason Richey, Sarah Brett-Smith, Saein Park, Eric Fuchs, and Michael Weitz all offered advice, guidance, and assistance at various stages of the project. Yongkyung Chung and Jeehye Kim assisted with the preparation of the index. A very great debt of gratitude goes to Tom Rockmore, for helping find a home for this project, and also to Daniel Breazeale, Isaac Nakhimovsky, and Chris Pierson for the interest they have shown in it. Andrew Kenyon, of SUNY Press, has been extremely supportive of this project from the beginning, and has done a wonderful job shepherding me through the process of publication. I am also very grateful to the anonymous referee at SUNY for his or her extraordinarily insightful, helpful, and careful comments, and to Dennis J. Schmidt, the series editor.
I feel fortunate to have found an academic home at Yonsei University's Underwood International College. For these last six years, my students have become an integral part of my life, and their enthusiasm and curiosity, more than anything, has kept me going through the hard slog.
Finally, I would like to thank Hwa Young Seo, whose path, different from my own, is also my own.
Abbreviations and Editorial Apparatus [ ] Insertion by the translator [37] Pagination referring to the German text of The Closed Commercial State in the first division, seventh volume of the edition of Fichte's works published by the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften . {387} Pagination referring to the German text of The Closed Commercial State in the third volume of the edition of Fichte's works edited by I. H. Fichte. 1,2,3, … Notes by translator i,ii,iii, … Notes by Fichte SW Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Sämmtliche Werke , ed. Immanuel Hermann Fichte (Berlin: Veit und Comp., 1845–46; Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 1971) GA Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag: 1962–) FIG J. G. Fichte im Gespräch: Berichte der Zeitgenossen , ed. Erich Fuchs in collaboration with Reinhard Lauth and Walter Schieche (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag, 1981) EPW Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Early Philosophical Writings , tr. and ed. Daniel Breazeale (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988) SOK Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Science of Knowledge , tr. and ed. Peter Heath and John Lachs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) VOM Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Vocation of Man , tr. and ed. Peter Preuss (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987)
Translator's Introduction
The Closed Commercial State is not one of Fichte's most elusive or enigmatic writings. Yet it presents special difficulties to the translator. The most fundamental of these involve the tension between the different discursive levels and linguistic registers through which the text operates. This tension is already evident in the organization of the work as a whole: whereas the first book presents an abstract theory of ideal economic relations, the second book considers the “history of the present” and the third offers a concrete proposal for political action. Fichte, in a novel fashion, attempts to bring philosophy and material reality, the language of German idealism and the very worldly science of economics, into a commerce. The argument of the Closed Commercial State insists on closure and boundaries. Yet Fichte's rhetoric often seems to be doing the very opposite.
This presents a challenge to the translator, who must do justice to the very different expectations and conventions governing the translation of these different registers. Whereas English often forces us to choose between “earthy” Germanic words and a more abstract vocabulary of Latinate derivation, German, whose rich philosophical vocabulary is mostly cobbled together from rather ordinary root words, is extremely adept at moving between these different registers. Most modern readers would probably reject Fichte's own extravagant claims regarding German's “originality” and the superiority of “original languages” as media for philosophical thought. 1 Yet it is still worth noting that for Fichte, the linguistic difference between “original” and other languages suggests the difference between the open and the closed commercial state. The closed commercial state is not only a political construct, but the hermeneutic construction of a state in which the meaning of economic activity, rather than being imperiled by the hyperbolic inflation and deflation to which world currency gives rise, would be conserved by sealing off reference within a hermetically closed whole. Seen in this way, translating the Closed Commercial State into English is a somewhat paradoxical undertaking—like trying to realize the value of national currency in world currency.
Rigorous philosophical translations, especially of German, are with good reason expected to make at least a valiant attempt at preserving not only the apparent reference of a term, but its resonances and associations within both the source language as a whole and the dialects and idiolects represented by the text in question, the philosopher's other writings, and contemporaneous discourse. No one could be happy translating Heidegger's Gestell as “rack,” though it is not unimportant to know that Gestell also has this very everyday sense. Economics, in contrast, was, or at least has become, a technocratic discipline with a vocabulary that claims precision in its reference. A philosopher might spend hours pondering the Latin roots of interest . For an economist considering the relation between unemployment and inflation, this is itself of little interest, and a translator who, translating a conventional economic text, felt the need to remind the reader that interest comes from a Latin word literally meaning “being-among,” that a commodity was not only commodious but contained a due measure within itself, and that capital had itself inherited a rich metaphysical endowment, would probably be treated with a shrug. And if someone translated “interest” as “among-being,” “commodity” as “the duly-measured” and “capital” as “head-part,” he would be justly regarded as out of his mind. Fichte's Closed Commercial State , however, is neither fish nor fowl. Or rather, it is a fish whose scales are on the way to becoming wings—or a bird returning to the sea. Sometimes this does not create problems. Forgetting that Anweisung appeared in the title of another work by Fichte, where it roughly means “instruction,” and also forgetting that it is related to a word meaning “to show” or “to point” and resonates with the German word for wisdom, we can happily translate it as “bill of exchange” in the sixth chapter of the third book. 2 The context in which it appears mutes these other senses and associations. But often things become more difficult. Berechnung must be translated as “calculation” to capture the ostensive meaning of the text, but it is also involved in an elaborate play of concepts, on which much of the meaning of the text depends. Not only is the closed commercial state one in which everyone can count on everyone else, and every activity counts on every other activity, but calculation, for Fichte, becomes the essence of “Right” ( Recht ). It might have been possible to capture this last association, and also the cognitive implications of Berechnung and Rechnen , by translating calculation as reckoning. Yet this sounds a bit antiquated and odd, and, moreover, has misleading theological resonances. So I stayed with “calculation,” though the reader is advised to keep these other associations in mind.
Perhaps the greatest difficulties of translation, however, revolve around the