Foundations of the Science of Knowledge (German: Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre) is a 1794/1795 book by the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Based on lectures Fichte had delivered as a professor of philosophy at the University of Jena, it was later reworked in various versions. The standard Wissenschaftslehre was published in 1804, but other versions appeared posthumously.[1] Fichte created his own system of transcendental philosophy in his book.[2]
Author | Johann Gottlieb Fichte |
---|---|
Original title | Grundlage der gesammtena Wissenschaftslehre |
Language | German |
Subject | Epistemology |
Publication date | 1794/1795 |
Publication place | Germany |
Media type | |
Pages | 324 (1982 Cambridge University Press edition) |
ISBN | 978-0521270502 |
a gesamten in modern German. |
Ideas
editScience of Knowledge has first established Fichte's independent philosophy.[3] The contents of the book, which were divided into eleven sections, were crucial in the way the thinker has grounded philosophy as - for the first time - a part of epistemology.[4] In the book, Fichte has also claimed that an "experiencer" must be tacitly aware that he is experiencing in order to lead to "noticing".[5] This articulated his view that an individual's experience is essentially the experiencing of the act of experiencing so that his so-called "Absolutely Unconditioned Principle" of all experience is that "the I posits itself".[5]
Reception
editIn 1798, the German romantic Friedrich Schlegel identified the Wissenschaftslehre, together with the French Revolution and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, as "the most important trend-setting events (Tendenzen) of the age."[6]
Michael Inwood believes that the work is close in spirit to the works of Edmund Husserl, including the Ideas (1913) and the Cartesian Meditations (1931).[7]
The Wissenschaftslehre has been described by Roger Scruton as being both "immensely difficult" and "rough-hewn and uncouth".[1]
See also
editReferences
editNotes
editBibliography
edit- Inwood, M. J. (2005). Honderich, Ted (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-926479-1.
- Scruton, Roger (2000). Kenny, Anthony (ed.). The Oxford History of Western Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-289329-7.
- Seidel, George J. (1993). Fichte's Wissenschaftslehre of 1794. A Commentary on Part 1. Purdue University Research Foundation: Purdue University Press. ISBN 1-55753-017-3.