E-Book Overview
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.
E-Book Content
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 Production by Eileen Nizer Marketing by Kate McDonnell 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
vii
Preface
ix
Introduction: The Checkered Reception of Fichte’s Vocation of Man Daniel Breazeale
1
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
19 33
3 Bestimmung as Bildung: On Reading Fichte’s Vocation of Man as a Bildungsroman Elizabeth Millán
45
4 Knowledge Teaches Us Nothing: The Vocation of Man as Textual Initiation Michael Steinberg
57
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
79
103
vi /
CONTENTS
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