Thread 24719168

The Kantian-Fichtean Philosophy

I am upset that Hegel’s Science of Logic requires knowledge of calculus.

>>24719187
crazy right

>>24719192
Yeah it really pisses me off honestly. I feel like I can learn enough calc to understand over a few weeks but what a slap in the face, like a quarter of the book turns out to be in Sanskrit >:(

It's like neoplatonism but more sciency feeling. Actually, no that I think about I think there's a Kant which compared it to the relation between alchemy and chemistry, or astrology and astronomy. Gimme a sec Ima go find it.

>>24719203
There is intersection with Plotinus but don’t get filtered, Fichte was avant garde, so were Kant and Hegel. It’s definitely not warmed over Platonism even if there is a lot of talk about unity and plurality.

>>24719203
ok here it is. It's from the Prolegomena.

>Critique stands in the same relation to the common metaphysics of the schools, as chemistry does to alchemy, or as astronomy to the astrology of the fortune-teller.

>>24719197
>like a quarter of the book turns out to be in Sanskrit
wut?

>>24719187
>>24719197
Eh, it's not so bad, but be mindful that any study of calculus from Cauchy onward will depart in more and more substantial ways from the calculus Hegel would've been familiar with. Berkeley's The Analyst might be a worthwhile text to look at.

>>24719224
>Berkeley's The Analyst might be a worthwhile text to look at.
The more philosophers you read the more you see their similarities along with their differences.

“No infinity, no limitation; no limitation, no infinity; infinity and limitation are united in one and the same synthetic component. If the activity of the I did not extend into the infinite, it could not limit its own activity. It could posit no boundary for its activity, which it is nevertheless supposed to do. The activity of the I consists in unrestricted self-positing, in opposition to which there occurs some resistance. If the activity of the I were to give way to this resistance, then the activity lying beyond the boundary of this resistance would be utterly annihilated and annulled, and, to this extent, the I would posit nothing whatsoever. But of course the I is supposed to engage in positing beyond this boundary-line. It is supposed to restrict itself; and, to this extent, it is supposed to posit itself as not positing itself. In this domain, the I is supposed to posit the undetermined, unlimited, and infinite boundary (=B) and, in order to do this, it must be infinite. Furthermore were the I not to limit itself it would not be infinite. The I is only what it posits itself to be. To say that it is infinite means that it posits itself as infinite: it determines itself by means of the predicate ‘infinity’ and in so doing limits itself as the substrate of infinity. It distinguishes itself from its own infinite activity (though it and its infinite activity are in themselves one and the same), and this is how the I must comport itself if it is to be infinite. The activity which extends into the infinite, which the I distinguishes from itself, is supposed to be its activity. Consequently the I must, in a single, undivided and indivisible action, assimilate this infinite action to itself once again (A+B determined by A). But if the I assimilates the infinite activity to itself, it is determinate, and thus not infinite. But it is supposed to be infinite and therefore the infinite activity must be posited outside the I.”

Ideality of matter, infinite striving, the unity of finite and infinite, it’s all there in this passage.

>>24719240
There’s a difficult transition here where the not-I turns out to be the infinite, careful when you reach it. This is something that filtered Hegel and Schelling. There’s no dualism, in fact there is no not-I at all in Fichte.

>>24719187
>>24719197
Tbf the SOL is sort of the end piece of his project for this. In his history of philosophy he makes references to the necessity of scepticism, not to ward off other people's training but to shed your own, he implied this was the start of developing a conscious awareness needed. He even complained somewhere in the encyclopedia he was far better at philosophy, but basically his method of consciousness in relation to the process is what still lands him relevancy on this. If you're a doctrine of notion guy you'll see it in Connes but he flattened. If you're a doctrine of essence guy then you'll probably like Thom, there's 4 models and it can be taken all the way to a sorites.

>>24719240
>But if the I assimilates the infinite activity to itself, it is determinate, and thus not infinite.
was gonna try to argue with this but then I thought about it and realized nope he's right dammit

>>24719318
He’s saying that a free finite being it must be constantly alternating between what is and its infinite goal, into infinity and beyond. The oscillation becomes time. This confuses and enrages Hegelians.

>>24719362
why? Hegel says the same thing in a different way when he talks of the Now in the Phenomenology.

>>24719368
Right but it’s all le sublated. But you can see in the quote above that Fichte did not see the finite and the infinite as absolutely opposed, they are in fact negatives. Like I said this is clearer in the lectures. Hegel oversimplifies things to tell a neat story.

There’s this story that in 1793 Fichte had the insight of the “self-positing I” while staring into a furnace. So he became aware he was self-conscious? No. Staring into the furnace, Fichte realized his experience existed in reciprocity with his own willing himself through time, so the furnace does not exist in its own right and is ideal. That’s the core perspective of the Jena period. The fully real is the moral telos, God.

>>24719393
>Staring into the furnace, Fichte realized his experience existed in reciprocity with his own willing himself through time, so the furnace does not exist in its own right and is ideal.
This sounds like mental illness.

>>24719424
lol yeah happened to my friend John. He kept smoking weed, staring at furnaces, next thing you know he’s raving about the absolute ego and the police get involved. Now he’s in a program and doing somewhat better.

>>24719168 (OP)
>when we compare the thoughts that an author expresses about a subject, in ordinary speech as well as in writing, it is not at all unusual to find that we understand him even better than he understood himself, since he may not have determined his concept sufficiently and hence sometimes spoke, or even thought, contrary to his own intention”
-KrV A 314/B 370, tr. 396

>>24719626
Yes, great quote.

>>24719393
Not a bad summation of transcendental idealism as Fichte conceived it. Happy to see /lit/ is discovering the idealists.