Ideas from 'The Vocation of Man' by Johann Fichte [1800], by Theme Structure

[found in 'The Vocation of Man' by Fichte,Johann G. (ed/tr Preuss,Peter) [Hackett 1987,0-87720-037-x]].

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2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
The need to act produces consciousness, and practical reason is the root of all reason
                        Full Idea: Consciousness of the real world proceeds from the need to act, not the other way around. …Practical reason is the root of all reason.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
                        A reaction: Strongly agree with the last part. In my conceptual scheme 'sensible' behaviour (e.g. of animals) precedes, in every way, rational behaviour. Sensible attitudes to quantity and magnitude precede mathematical logic. Minds exist for navigation.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Sufficient reason makes the transition from the particular to the general
                        Full Idea: The principle of sufficient reason is the point of transition from the particular, which is itself, to the general, which is outside it.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but it seems worth passing on. Personally I would say that we have a knack of generalising, triggered when we spot patterns.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
Each object has a precise number of properties, each to a precise degree
                        Full Idea: Each object has a definite number of properties, no more, no less. …Each of these objects possesses each of these properties to a definite degree.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: Quine flatly disagrees with this. Fichte offers no grounds for his claim. On the whole I think of properties as psychologically abstracted by us from holistic objects, so there is plenty of room for error. The underlying powers are real.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
The principle of activity and generation is found in a self-moving basic force
                        Full Idea: The principle of activity, of generation and becoming in and for itself, is purely in that force itself and not in anything outside it…; the force is not driven or set in motion, it sets itself in motion.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: A good account of primitive powers, as self-motivating forces. I can't think what else could be fundamental to nature. This whole passage of Fichte expounds a powers ontology.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
I am myself, but not the external object; so I only sense myself, and not the object
                        Full Idea: I sense in myself, not in the object, for I am myself and not the object; therefore I sense only myself and my condition, and not the condition of the object.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
                        A reaction: I'm not clear why anyone would have total confidence in internal experience and almost no confidence in experience of externals. In daily life I am equally confident about both. In philosophical mode I make equally cautious judgements about both.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / d. Absolute idealism
Self-consciousness is the basis of knowledge, and knowing something is knowing myself
                        Full Idea: The immediate consciousness of myself is the condition of all other consciousness; and I know a thing only in so far as I know that I know it; no element can enter into the latter cognition which is not contained in the former.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.37), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.2
                        A reaction: This strikes me as false, and a lot of intellectual contortion would be needed to believe it. Is knowing this pen is in front of me a case of knowing that I have knowledge of this pen, or is it just knowledge of this pen? [cf Kant 1781:A129]
There is nothing to say about anything which is outside my consciousness
                        Full Idea: Of any connection beyond the limits of my consciousness I cannot speak. ...I cannot proceed a hair's breadth beyond this consciousness, any more than I can spring out of myself.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.74), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.3
                        A reaction: I can't see that this is any different from the idealism of Berkeley, although they get there from different starting points. Idealist seem unable to even begin explaining consciousness.
Awareness of reality comes from the free activity of consciousness
                        Full Idea: It is the necessary faith in our freedom of power, in our own real activity, and in the definite laws of human action, which lies at the root of all our consciousness of a reality external to ourselves.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], p.98), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06.4
                        A reaction: I'd love to know what the 'laws of human action' are. Is it what Hume was trying to do? Moore says there is an 'element of self-creation' in Fichte's account of the source of reality. This is Descartes' dream argument biting back.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
I immediately know myself, and anything beyond that is an inference
                        Full Idea: Immediately I know only of myself. What I am able to know beyond that I am only able to know through inference.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: A direct descendant of the Cartesian Cogito, I assume. Personally, if I bang my head on a beam I take the beam to be a full paid-up member of reality. Is it not possible that he also knows himself through inference? Do animals infer reality?
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Faith is not knowledge; it is a decision of the will
                        Full Idea: Faith is no knowledge, but a decision of the will to recognise the validity of knowledge.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
                        A reaction: What matters is the grounds for the decision. Mad conspiracy theories are decisions of the will which are false. Legitimate faith is an intuition of coherence which cannot be fully articulated.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / b. Basic beliefs
Knowledge can't be its own foundation; there has to be regress of higher and higher authorities
                        Full Idea: No knowledge can be its own foundation and proof. Every knowledge presupposes something still higher as its foundation, and this ascent has no end.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
                        A reaction: A metaphor that's hard to visualise! He must have in mind a priori as well as empirical knowledge. The 'higher' levels don't seem to be God, but some region of absolute rationality, to which free minds have access. I think.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 1. Mind / c. Features of mind
Consciousness has two parts, passively receiving sensation, and actively causing productions
                        Full Idea: My immediate consciousness is composed of two constituent parts, the consciousness of my passivity, the sensation; and the consciousness of my activity, in the production of an object according to the principle of causality.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
                        A reaction: Kind of obvious, but unusual to make this sharp binary division. Modern neuroscience strongly militates against any and every simple binary division of brain activities.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 7. Blindsight
We can't know by sight or hearing without realising that we are doing so
                        Full Idea: Q. Could you not perhaps know an object through sight or hearing without knowing that you are seeing or hearing? A. Not at all.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
                        A reaction: A nice statement of the traditional view which seemed to be demolished by the discovery of blindsight. In the light of modern brain research, the views of the mind found in past philosophers mostly seem very naïve.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 4. Presupposition of Self
Consciousness of external things is always accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of self
                        Full Idea: Q. So that constantly and under all circumstances my consciousness of things outside of me is accompanied by an unnoticed consciousness of myself? A. Quite so.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 2)
                        A reaction: He should be more cautious about asserting the existence of something 'unnoticed'. The Earth's core is unnoticed by me, but there is plenty of evidence for it. Not so sure about unnoticed self. Still, I think central control of the mind is indispensable.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 1. Nature of Free Will
Forming purposes is absolutely free, and produces something from nothing
                        Full Idea: My thinking and originating of a purpose is in its nature absolutely free and brings forth something from nothing.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 3.I)
                        A reaction: Modern fans of free will are more equivocal in their assertions, and would be uncomfortable bluntly claiming to 'get something from nothing'. But that's what free will is! Embrace it, or run for your life.
The capacity for freedom is above the laws of nature, with its own power of purpose and will
                        Full Idea: This capacity [for freedom], once it exists, is in the servitude of a power which is higher than nature and quite free of its laws, the power of purposes, and the will.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: You would think this could only refer to God, but he in fact is referring to the power of human free will. The clearest statement I have found of the weird human exceptionalism implied by a strong commitment to free will.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
I want independent control of the fundamental cause of my decisions
                        Full Idea: I want to be independent - not to be in and through another but to be something for myself: and as such I want myself to be the fundamental cause of all my determinations.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: I think this sums up the absurdity of the concept of free will. The only reason he gives for his passionate belief in free will is that he desperately wants some imagined 'fundamental cause' for his action, and he wants full control of that chimera.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 3. Panpsychism
Nature contains a fundamental force of thought
                        Full Idea: There is an original force of thought in nature just as there is an original formative force.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: I think this idea is false, but it helps to understand Fichte.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
The will is awareness of one of our inner natural forces
                        Full Idea: To will is to be immediately conscious of the activity of one of our inner natural forces.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: A more Nietzschean view would be that to will is to be conscious of the victor among our inner natural drives. It can't just be awareness of one force, because the will feels conflicts.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
I cannot change the nature which has been determined for me
                        Full Idea: I cannot will the intention of making myself something other than what I am determined to be by nature, for I don't make myself at all but nature makes me and whatever I become.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: I take this to be a lot more accurate than Sartre's claim that we can re-make ourselves, but Fichte doesn't seem quite right. Don't I get any credit at all if I give up smoking, or train myself to treat someone more sympathetically?
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / g. Will to power
The self is, apart from outward behaviour, a drive in your nature
                        Full Idea: This 'you' for which you show such a lively interest is, so far as it is not overt behaviour, at least a drive in your own peculiar nature.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: I assume this use of 'drive' is the origin of Nietzsche's picture of such things, focused on the basic will to power. I like Fichte's emphasis on active forces as the basis of nature.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
If life lacks love it becomes destruction
                        Full Idea: Only in love is there life; without it there is death and annihilation.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: He gives not context of justification for this sudden claim. Watching from a melancholy distance the current 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, I take this idea to be a profound truth. If you let go of love, you float away down a dark stream.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self
Freedom means making yourself become true to your essential nature
                        Full Idea: I want to be free means: I myself want to make myself be whatever I will be. I would therefore …already have to be, in a certain sense, what I am to become, so that I could make myself be it.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: This is much closer to the existenial picture of the malleable self, which Fichte arrives out once he commits to his desperate desire to have free will. [Not sure if my gist captures what he says].
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
Nature is wholly interconnected, and the tiniest change affects everything
                        Full Idea: Nature is an interconnected whole; …you could shift no grain of sand from its spot without thereby, perhaps invisibly to your eyes, changing something in all parts of the immeasurable whole.
                        From: Johann Fichte (The Vocation of Man [1800], 1)
                        A reaction: Sounds like idealist daydreaming, but might it actually be true with respect to gravity?