Streitschriften zur Denk- und Gewissensfreiheit

(lit.: Polemical Writings on Freedom of Thought and Conscience)

Two pamphlets six years apart: an anonymous demand that princes restore free thought, and Fichte's furious answer to the charge of atheism.

by Johann Gottlieb Fichte148 passages held

German, the original language

First published: 1799(aged 37)
Original language: German

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Overview

The title page of the first of these two pamphlets gave its place of printing as Heliopolis, "the city of the sun", in the last year of the old darkness. It was in fact Danzig, in 1793, and the author was Johann Gottlieb Fichte, then a private tutor on an estate nearby, who left his name off. This page brings together that pamphlet, Zurückforderung der Denkfreiheit von den Fürsten Europens — a demand that the princes of Europe give back the freedom of thought they had suppressed — and a second one written six years later; they were published separately, and no book of this title was ever issued. The 1793 pamphlet argues that the right to think freely, and to share what one thinks, can never be given up, because without it no one can do their duty, so no prince can lawfully take it away. The secret of authorship did not hold, and it helped give Fichte a reputation as a Jacobin, a radical supporter of the French Revolution. The second piece, the Appeal to the Public of 1799, answers a decree of the Elector of Saxony confiscating an issue of Fichte's own Philosophisches Journal for atheism, and its title page asks readers to read it before they confiscate it. Fichte turns the charge around: his accusers, he says, worship a God whose task is to deliver happiness, and it is they who have made themselves an idol. Saxony and Prussia threatened to stop their students from attending Jena. As the Atheism Dispute escalated, a letter in which he hinted he would resign was taken as his resignation, and by the summer of 1799 he had left for Berlin.

Key concepts

What is an inalienable right, in the 1793 pamphlet?

An inalienable right is one that can never be given up, because it is a condition of being able to do one's duty at all. Fichte argues that no social contract could include surrendering such a right, since no one ever had the right to promise it away. Freedom of thought belongs here, and so, he insists, does the freedom to share what one has thought, which is what censorship actually takes.

Why does the 1793 pamphlet prefer gradual progress to revolution?

Because humanity can advance in two ways: by violent leaps or by slow but sure progress. A violent revolution is a bold gamble: if it succeeds, the victory is worth the suffering, but if it fails, a people can be thrown back into the barbarism of an earlier age. Free thought and its free communication are the safe road, which is why suppressing them makes revolutions more likely, not less.

What is eudaimonism, and why does Fichte reject it?

Eudaimonism is the view that morality and religion are ultimately about happiness. Fichte calls his accusers eudaimonists in ethics: their hearts know nothing beyond wellbeing, so their God is the being who is to deliver it. He rejects this because it makes the moral law a means to pleasure and turns God into an idol, however grand the names given to him.

What does Fichte mean by God as 'ruler of the supersensible world'?

He means God is not a powerful being who arranges our fortunes in the world of the senses, but the moral order to which our duty belongs. Such a God is free of every sensuous addition, so Fichte will not even ascribe existence to him in the ordinary sense, which applies only to things we perceive. Believing in this God means acting on one's duty, not expecting rewards.

Themes of the book

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

Taking Back Free Thought

Can a ruler lawfully stop people from saying what they think? The 1793 pamphlet answers no, and tells princes so to their faces.

A prince, the pamphlet tells its readers' rulers, is not their God: from God people expect happiness, from a prince only the protection of their rights, and justice rather than kindness. Some rights can never be given up, even by social contract, because without them no one could do their duty. Princes allow thinking because they cannot prevent it, and forbid only sharing thoughts, yet sharing a thought is like sharing bread or letting another light a candle at one's flame. Free thought is progress's slow, sure road, where violent revolution is a gamble.

freedom of thought
freedom of expression
censorship
rights
human rights
political authority
social contract
enlightenment
truth
duty
autonomy
education
academic freedom
freedom
reason
political philosophy

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Answering the Charge of Atheism

Who is the atheist: the one who denies a God of rewards, or the one who worships him? The 1799 Appeal turns the accusation round.

Accused of atheism after Saxony confiscated his journal, Fichte replies that his accusers are the true atheists. Whatever is expected to deliver happiness, whether a bird's feather or an almighty creator, is an idol, and theirs is a God made to serve their wellbeing. His own God is free of everything sensuous, so free that he cannot ascribe to him even existence in the only sense he knows: God is purely the ruler of the supersensible world. Denying their God, he insists, makes him a defender of religion.

atheism
religion
theology
eudaimonism
happiness
morality
moral philosophy
moral autonomy
conscience
idealism
transcendence
irony
rhetoric
epistemology

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Within this work

passages held: 148
distinct concepts: 229
by passages held, corpus-wide: #419

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: “censorship” and “freedom of thought”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 17 pairings. 87 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
censorship	freedom of thought	8
freedom of thought	political authority	8
duty	religion	7
censorship	freedom of expression	5
freedom of thought	truth	5
moral philosophy	religion	4
censorship	truth	3
duty	moral philosophy	3
freedom of expression	freedom of thought	3
freedom of thought	religion	3
censorship	political authority	2
freedom of expression	truth	2
freedom of thought	moral philosophy	2
moral philosophy	truth	2
political authority	truth	2
censorship	religion	1
freedom of expression	political authority	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)
Written for beginners: the 1797 journal essay in which Fichte, frustrated with how the Foundation had been read, began explaining his system again from first principles.
DE
1799 Streitschriften zur Denk- und Gewissensfreiheit you are here 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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