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Full Idea
A rational creature cannot posit itself as such a creature with self-consciousness without positing itself as an individual, as one among many rational creatures.
Gist of Idea
We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities
Source
Johann Fichte (The Science of Knowing (Wissenschaftslehre) [1st ed] [1794], p.8), quoted by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 05 n25
Book Ref
Pinkard,Terry: 'German Philosophy 1760-1860' [CUP 2002], p.119
A Reaction
[1796 book about his Wissenschaftlehre] This is the transcendental (Kantian) approach to other minds. Wittgenstein's private language argument is similar. Hegel was impressed by this idea (I think).
Related Idea
Idea 22024 Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte]
| 22024 | Fichte's subjectivity struggles to then give any account of objectivity [Pinkard on Fichte] |
| 22017 | Normativity needs the possibility of negation, in affirmation and denial [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 22018 | Necessary truths derive from basic assertion and negation [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 22064 | Fichte's logic is much too narrow, and doesn't deduce ethics, art, society or life [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| 22032 | Fichte's key claim was that the subjective-objective distinction must itself be subjective [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 22060 | The Self is the spontaneity, self-relatedness and unity needed for knowledge [Fichte, by Siep] |
| 22066 | Novalis sought a much wider concept of the ego than Fichte's proposal [Novalis on Fichte] |
| 22016 | The self is not a 'thing', but what emerges from an assertion of normativity [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 22061 | Judgement is distinguishing concepts, and seeing their relations [Fichte, by Siep] |
| 22023 | Fichte's idea of spontaneity implied that nothing counts unless we give it status [Fichte, by Pinkard] |
| 22065 | Fichte reduces nature to a lifeless immobility [Schlegel,F on Fichte] |
| 22019 | Consciousness of an object always entails awareness of the self [Fichte] |
| 22020 | We only see ourselves as self-conscious and rational in relation to other rationalities [Fichte] |