Idealism and infinity in Fichte’s Jena system

[My Middlesex MA dissertation from May 2011.]

Abstract: Johann Gottlieb Fichte was one of the key German Idealist philosophers and an important intermediary between Kant and Hegel. Yet his philosophical system has always been at the centre of fierce debate. Some dismiss Fichte as a rampant subjectivist; some cast him as an almost mystical theologian of the absolute; others claim he is a straightforward epistemologist in the Kantian tradition. This essay sketches an approach to Fichte that tries to build upon the  epistemological insights of recent anglophone scholarship while restoring some of the grandeur and speculative ambition of his work. It uses this approach to examine two issues in detail: the relationship between Fichte’s idealism and rival “dogmatic” philosophical systems; and the role played by infinity in the systematic articulation of theoretical and practical reason.

PDF [42 pages, 230KB]