First Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre

Fichte's case that the choice between idealism and dogmatism depends on what kind of person one is.

by Johann Gottlieb Fichte54 passages held

German, the original language

Original title: Erste Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre
First published: 1797(aged 35)
Original language: German

Overview

Three years after the Foundation appeared, Johann Gottlieb Fichte had decided that hardly anyone had understood it, and that not one of Kant's many followers had noticed what Kant was really talking about. In 1797, in the Philosophisches Journal that he co-edited, he started again from the beginning: an introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre — his "doctrine of science", or theory of knowledge — written for readers who brought no system with them. Its argument is a choice. Every philosophy must explain experience, and there are only two ways to do it: from things that exist in themselves, which Fichte calls dogmatism, or from the free activity of the I, which he calls idealism. Neither can refute the other, because each begins from a first principle the other refuses to grant. So which one a person adopts, Fichte concludes, depends on what kind of person they are — whether their own freedom is the thing they are most sure of, or whether they need to find themselves among things. He also insisted that his system was nothing but Kant's, presented by a different method, and suggested it might take twenty years to prove it. Two years later, in 1799, Kant published a public declaration disowning the Wissenschaftslehre, on the ground that logic alone, which abstracts from all content, cannot produce knowledge of any object. Later in 1797 the introduction also appeared as a separate book at Jena, and a Second Introduction, aimed at readers who already held a philosophy of their own, followed it.

Key concepts

What does Fichte mean by dogmatism?

Dogmatism is any philosophy that explains experience from things existing in themselves, independent of any mind. Fichte means it as a structure, not an insult: start from the thing, and the self becomes one more effect of things. Pressed to its conclusion, he argues, dogmatism must be fatalism, since our sense of freedom becomes an illusion, and materialism, since the soul becomes only a product of the world's workings.

What is idealism in this essay?

Idealism explains experience from the activity of the mind, which Fichte calls 'intelligence in itself'. It is not the claim that nothing exists outside our heads. It is a method: leave the thing out of experience, keep the knowing mind, and show how the mind's own necessary ways of acting produce a world that we cannot change at will. The essay presents the Wissenschaftslehre as idealism carried out consistently.

Why does philosophy's object lie outside experience?

Because philosophy looks for the ground of all experience, and a ground cannot be one more item in what it grounds. Inside experience we only ever meet more experience. So the philosopher steps back by abstraction: experience always has two sides, the thing known and the mind knowing it, and by setting one side aside the philosopher keeps the other as a possible explanation of the whole.

What does 'interest' mean in choosing a philosophy?

Interest is what decides between idealism and dogmatism once argument cannot. Since neither system can refute the other, the choice is made freely, and a free choice has a ground in inclination. Fichte says the highest interest is in oneself: one person wants to keep hold of their own independence in thinking, another needs to find themselves reflected in things, and that difference shows which system each will hold.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

Where Experience Comes From

Some of our ideas feel freely made and others feel forced on us. What could account for the second kind, which we call the world?

Philosophy, Fichte argues, has to give the ground of all experience, so its object must lie outside experience. The philosopher gets there by abstraction: experience has two sides, the thing and the mind that knows it, and leaving out one keeps the other. Keep the thing and you have a thing in itself, which Fichte calls a mere invention; keep the mind and you have an intelligence in itself, whose own acting explains why some ideas come with a feeling of necessity.

experience
representation
explanation
necessity
ground
abstraction
philosophical method
first principles
epistemology
consciousness
causality
a priori
a posteriori

Enter a dialogue

A Philosophy Fits Its Person

If two systems cannot refute each other, what decides between them? Fichte's answer is the most quoted line of the essay.

Dogmatism explains experience from things, idealism from the free activity of the I, and neither can refute the other, because each starts from what the other denies. A consistent dogmatist, Fichte argues, must be a fatalist and a materialist, for whom the self is only a product of things. So the choice falls to interest, and the deepest interest is in oneself: which philosophy someone chooses depends on what kind of person they are, since a system is not dead furniture but is animated by the soul of whoever holds it.

idealism
dogmatism
transcendental idealism
freedom
free will
selfhood
self-consciousness
materialism
skepticism

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 54
distinct concepts: 99
by passages held, corpus-wide: #643

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “dogmatism” and “idealism”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 24 pairings. 41 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
dogmatism	idealism	14
epistemology	idealism	8
consciousness	idealism	6
dogmatism	epistemology	6
experience	philosophical method	6
experience	idealism	5
consciousness	representation	4
dogmatism	philosophical method	4
dogmatism	representation	4
idealism	philosophical method	4
idealism	representation	4
dogmatism	experience	3
epistemology	representation	3
consciousness	epistemology	2
consciousness	experience	2
consciousness	philosophical method	2
dogmatism	self-consciousness	2
epistemology	philosophical method	2
consciousness	self-consciousness	1
epistemology	experience	1
epistemology	self-consciousness	1
idealism	self-consciousness	1
philosophical method	self-consciousness	1
representation	self-consciousness	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1792 Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation (Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbarung)
The debut, written in weeks in Königsberg to impress Kant: a book on religion that made Fichte famous before he had a system of his own.
DE
1794 Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre (Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre oder der sogenannten Philosophie – als Einladungsschrift zu seinen Vorlesungen über diese Wissenschaft)
A manifesto before the system: the short programme Fichte printed to introduce himself to Jena, months before the first sheets of the Foundation reached his students.
DE
1794 Foundation of the Entire Wissenschaftslehre (Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre)
The first full statement of the system and his best-known treatise, begun as lecture handouts in 1794; the 1795 Outline carries its theoretical half further, and the First Introduction of 1797 starts the explanation again.
DE
1794 Some Lectures concerning the Scholar's Vocation (Einige Vorlesungen über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten)
Popular ethics for students, given the summer Fichte arrived at Jena in 1794, alongside the far harder Foundation.
DE
1795 Outline of the Distinctive Character of the Wissenschaftslehre with respect to the Theoretical Faculty (Grundriss des Eigenthümlichen der Wissenschaftslehre)
A companion rather than a book of its own: the 1795 supplement that carries the Foundation's theoretical half on into sensation, space and time.
DE
1797 First Introduction to the Wissenschaftslehre (Erste Einleitung in die Wissenschaftslehre) you are here DE
1799 Streitschriften zur Denk- und Gewissensfreiheit
Gathered here from two separate publications, of 1793 and 1799, that bracket Fichte's rise to fame and his fall at Jena.
DE
1800 The Closed Commercial State (Der geschlossene Handelsstaat)
A venture into economics, offered as an appendix to his theory of right and published in 1800, the same year as The Vocation of Man.
DE
1800 The Vocation of Man (Die Bestimmung des Menschen)
Written straight after the Atheism Dispute, in his first months in Berlin: the system retold for general readers as a first-person passage from doubt to faith.
DE
1806 The Characteristics of the Present Age (Die Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters)
One of three popular lecture courses Fichte published in 1806: the philosophy of history that the Addresses to the German Nation would later claim to continue.
DE
1806 The Way Towards the Blessed Life (Die Anweisung zum seligen Leben)
The summit, in Fichte's own estimate, of the popular lectures he gave in Berlin before the war: religion presented as the result of the Wissenschaftslehre, his "doctrine of science", for listeners with no philosophy.
DE
1808 Addresses to the German Nation (Reden an die deutsche Nation)
His most influential book: public lectures once more, but this time a call to a defeated nation rather than a philosophy of history or a doctrine of religion.
DE
1810 Kürzere Darstellungen der Wissenschaftslehre
A Jena beginning and a Berlin summing-up, published separately and gathered on one page, on either side of the many versions of the system Fichte kept to the lecture room.
DE
1845 Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre. Aus dem Jahre 1801 (Darstellung der Wissenschaftslehre aus dem Jahre 1801)
An early Berlin reworking of the system, written in 1801 as Fichte and Schelling were drifting apart, and left among his papers.
DE

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