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Full Idea
Fichte's very influential idea is that the subject becomes divided against itself. The absolute I splits into an I (consciousness) and a not-I (the objective world) that are relative to each other.
Gist of Idea
The absolute I divides into consciousness, and a world which is not-I
Source
report of Johann Fichte (works [1798]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 3 'Fichtean'
Book Ref
Bowie,Andrew: 'Introduction to German Philosophy' [Polity 2003], p.69
A Reaction
This is German Idealism in action. Is there a before and after the split here? I can't make much sense of this idea. It is said that babies spend a while deciding which bits are them and which aren't. There is more to the world than 'not-I'.
Related Idea
Idea 20950 German Idealism says our thinking and nature have the same rational structure [Bowie]
| 6912 | For Fichte there is no God outside the ego, and 'our religion is reason' [Fichte, by Feuerbach] |
| 21973 | Fichte believed in things-in-themselves [Fichte, by Moore,AW] |
| 20951 | The absolute I divides into consciousness, and a world which is not-I [Fichte, by Bowie] |
| 21914 | We can deduce experience from self-consciousness, without the thing-in-itself [Fichte] |
| 21964 | Reason arises from freedom, so philosophy starts from the self, and not from the laws of nature [Fichte] |
| 21968 | Abandon the thing-in-itself; things only exist in relation to our thinking [Fichte] |
| 21970 | Philosophy attains its goal if one person feels perfect accord between their system and experience [Fichte] |
| 21965 | Spinoza could not actually believe his determinism, because living requires free will [Fichte] |