B. Second position of thought towards objectivity : II. Critical Philosophy

B. Second position of thought towards objectivity : II. Critical Philosophy

1. While in the Kantian philosophy the principle according to which thinking determines itself out of itself has been established first in a merely formal way, whereas the HOW and IN WHAT RESPECT of this self-determination of thinking has not yet been demonstrated by Kant,

it is Fichte by contrast recognized this defect and who, while expressing the requirement of a deduction of the categories, at the same time undertook the attempt actually to deliver one.

2. The Fichtean philosophy makes the I the point of departure for the philosophical development, and the categories are to emerge as the result of its activity. And yet, the i does not truly appear as a free, spontaneous activity here, since it is considered to be aroused first by a check [ Austoß ] from itself.

3. The I is then supposed to react against this check, and only through this reaction is it supposed to acquire a consciousness of itself. -- With this, the nature of the check remains an unkonwn outside, and the I continues to be something conditioned having an other over against itself.

4. Consequently, Fichte, too, stand pat with the result of the Kantian philosophy that only the finite can be known, while the infinite passed beyond [the realm of ] thinking.

What is called " the ting-in-itself " in Kant is, in Fichte, the check from outside the I, this abstractum of something other than the I that has no other determination than being the negative or the not-I in general.

5. The I is considered ere as standing in relation to the not-I through which its self-determining activity is first aroused, and this in such a way that the I is only the continuous activity of freeing itself from the check, without, however, the actual liberation taking place.

6. For with the cessation of the check the I itself, whose being is solely its activity, would cease to exist. Moreover, the content that the activity of the I produces is noting but the ordinary content of experience, only with the addition that this content is only an appearance.