Matters of Spirit: J. G. Fichte and the Technological Imagination

8. The Second Displacement: From a Metaphysical to a Technological Imagination

8 The Second Displacement From a Metaphysical to a Technological Imagination The second displacement of the imagination is marked by a shift from a strict metaphysics of imaging to an account of the imagination in terms of material technique. If the first displacement of the imagination showed a shift in the very site of the productive power of the imagination as a process of externalization, whereby it moved from the transcendental subject (as a faculty ) to Being, the second displacement of the imagination continues to affirm the paradigm of an externalized imagination, but further shows how what was once the exclusive domain of the metaphysics of spirit is readily appropriated by human technique and technology. By showing how Fichte’s interest in subtle matter and magnetic rapport, as attested to in the ‘‘Tagebuch über den animalischen Magnetismus,’’ was a significant philosophical concern as an empirical proof for his account of the metaphysics of imaging in the Wissenschaftslehre, I will demonstrate that Fichte recognized—if perhaps too late—that this technique of rapport was a material technology that The Second Displacement 181 threatened to overcome and transform the very metaphysics it was first intended to prove. Recalling that Fichte had earlier aligned spirit with the imagination by defining it as the power to produce images (EPW 193), one should realize that what is at stake in Fichte’s attempt to ground his metaphysics of the imagination in the material technique of rapport is the very structure and shape of spirit itself. In other words, if the empirical proof upon which Fichte grounds his metaphysics comes to take precedence as a technique that determines the very practice of the imagination, then, despite himself, Fichte leads us precisely to what he was trying to evade at all costs: a technologization of spirit. And although, as I have suggested, Fichte attempts to retreat from these conclusions —and his reversal seems much in line with his earlier attempt to embrace a pure spirit in the face of the technology of the letter (Chapter 2)—two elements nevertheless seem to work against this movement. First, there is the momentum of the better part of Fichte’s own work from the Grundlage des Naturrechts forward. The search for an empirical proof in subtle matter in the Grundlage des Naturrechts and in magnetic psychology in the ‘‘Tagebuch über den animalischen Magnetismus’’ seems to align itself with the momentum of the weight of history—carried by the itinerary of materialist science and the ever intensifying integration of reproductive technology into everyday life (for instance, as attested to by Benjamin). And second, although Fichte’s objection—that material technique produces a reproductive imagination that compromises the autonomy of the individual —is well founded, to the extent he initially seeks a proof for both idealism and his metaphysics of the imagination in the material technique of rapport, it is history, from the perspective of our contemporary concern with the role of technology in the constitution of the social medium, that shows this moment to be perhaps the more important one. In other words, Fichte’s unique rapprochement between idealism and materialism in the form of the proof of magnetic rapport represents an important instance in the genealogy of the decline of spirit and the concomitant rise of technology in the constitution of community, so that his initial attempt to fortify the claims of idealism through empirical proof, by uniting the communicative power of spirit with material technique—despite its ultimate failings—is a moment perhaps of greater philosophical and historical importance than Fichte’s ultimate denial of such a possibility. What is still more important to realize, however, is that while Fichte may have finally dismissed magnetic rapport—in its particularity—as a possible 182 Matters of Spirit material proof for his metaphysics, he never gave up his search for such a proof. And it is from this observation of Fichte’s continued grappling with the tension between idealism and materialism, and his ultimate suggestion of a possible overcoming of the Wissenschaftslehre, that Fichte’s account of the social in view of spirit must be pursued in view of the question of a possible completion of metaphysics by technology. The Technique of Imagination and the Aesthetic of Rapport Fichte continued to develop his earlier interest in subtle matter as an empirical proof from the time of the Grundlage des Naturrechts through his exploration of...