THE FOUNDATIONAL SYSTEM OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE - PMM 244 - COINING "WISSENSCHAFTSLEHRE"

FICHTE, IOHANN GOTTLIEB.

Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre oder der sogenannten Philosophie, als Einladungsschrift zu seinen Vorlesungen über diese Wissenschaft.

Weimar, 1794.

Small 8vo. Bound in a very nice recent half leather binding of red morocco with gilt title to spine and red marbled paper over boards. A very nice and clean copy. 68 pp. (pp. I-VIII + (9) - 68).

The rare first edition of Fichte's main work, in which he coins the word "Wissenschaftslehre" (science of knowledge) and introduces his philosophy in general; the work is widely accepted as being one of the most important works of German idealism, as well as of the philosophy of the Romantic era.

In the beginning of the 1790'ies Fichte wrote the work "Versuch einer Kritik aller Offenbahrung", which Kant approved of and found a publisher for. The work appeared without mention of author on the title-page, and the work was immediately ascribed to Kant, -a better mistake could not have happened for Fichte, and when Kant corrected it, Fichte's reputation was secured. Already at the end of 1793 he was offered a chair teaching philosophy at the University of Jena. It was here in Jena that he wrote the work that became his most important and influential, his seminal "Ueber den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre", which came to hugely influence epistemological philosophy throughout the 19th century.

"In this perfected "Wissenschaftslehre" the way is prepared for all the later Hegelian dialectic. If Kant had opened up the path which German, and indeed all, philosophy was to take in the nineteenth century, the credit for the complete description of its subject-matter belongs to Fichte." (PMM 244).

Fichte represented a more radical version of Kant's philosophy, in which he, in direct opposition to Kant and his "Ding an Sich", explained everything as coming from the "I" ("Ich"). Even that which appears as being the independent, physical world around us, is in reality set by the I, which needs something that is different from itself (a "not-I") in order to define itself.
In the present work, Fichte uses the term "Wissenschaftslehre" in his attempt to create a system of human knowledge. He sets out to find an irrefutable foundation for human knowledge that would be raised above all doubt. In Fichte's system everything is connected to everything and the foundational theorem of the science of knowledge is the theorem of which all knowledge is dependant. Apart from that the science of knowledge makes sure that every single science contains its own foundational theorem which it cannot acquire itself.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) was of one of the founding thinkers of German idealism. He is considered a very important philosopher in at least two respects: 1) as the uniter of the ideas of the two great - Kant and Hegel -, and as an important philosopher in himself, who has contributed originally to the philosophy of the self. By some he is considered the father of German nationalism.

PMM 244

Order-nr.: 38384