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Fichte and the Ursprache Andrew Fiala During the winter of 1807–8, Fichte delivered a series of lectures, Addresses to the German Nation, that were intended to inspire the German people to struggle against the tyranny of French occupation. In these lectures Fichte, the transcendental philosopher par excellence, addresses a political audience in a rhetorical voice. He intends to inspire his audience as much as he intends to educate them. Indeed, in these addresses Fichte deliberately muddies the distinction between inspiration and education: in order to create the conditions for the possibility of a new German spirit, Fichte must inspire the people to create a new form of education. Given the political context in which Fichte delivered his Addresses, it is easy to understand why he might occasionally overstate his case about the virtue of the German spirit. It cannot be denied, however, that Fichte’s Addresses contain a nationalistic tone that appears to be at odds with the transcendental concerns of his systematic philosophy. Much of the argument in the Addresses is centered on the relation between the nation, politics, language, and culture. His conclusion in the Addresses is to call for the rebirth of the German nation from out of its bondage to the French invaders of 1806. Fichte claims: “Only a complete regeneration [Umschaffung], only the beginning of an entirely new spirit [eines ganz neuen Geistes] can help us.”1 Fichte concludes by criticizing his fellow Germans for not being level-headed enough to see that French domination did not result in liberation. Fichte goes so far as to claim that enthusiasm for the French ought to sound ludicrous when uttered in the German language because the German language itself is “formed to express the truth”: “No! Good, earnest, steady German men and countrymen , far from our spirit [Geist] be such a lack of understanding, and far be such defilement from our language, which is formed to express the truth [zum Ausdrucke des Wahren Gebildeten Sprache]!”2 This nationalistic rhetoric finds its basis in Fichte’s understanding of language and its connection to politics. The implicit theory of language we find in the Addresses is thus different from Fichte’s earlier theory of language as developed in his 1794 essay 183 “On the Linguistic Capacity and the Origin of Language.” There are three main differences: 1. In 1807 Fichte extends his consideration of language in an explicitly political direction, explicitly linking language to the concept of the nation. 2. In the Addresses, Fichte revises his earlier theory of the Ursprache (i.e., primal language) by linking the Ursprache more explicitly to the concept of spiritual freedom. 3. Finally, in the Addresses, Fichte ties his whole argument about the political nature of language around his view that language is, in a sense, the transcendental ground for the possibility of both nationality and individuality . In 1794, as Fichte wrote his essay on language, he was caught up in an attempt to discover the transcendental ground of language. In 1807, as Fichte addressed his German audience under the French occupation, he was concerned with finding a way to renew the German spirit and inspire the creation of the German nation. While these two projects are quite different in intent, the second is only possible on the basis of the first. The German spirit is conceived by Fichte in terms of language; it is not primarily a racial or geographical concept.3 The spirit of a people is the connection between its language and the original source of language which, Fichte maintains, is the human need to communicate. Fichte goes so far as to explicitly define “spiritual culture” (geistige Bildung) as “thinking in an Ursprache” because such a primal language remains linked to the living root of human life.4 This living root is human intersubjectivity and freedom . In an Ursprache, Fichte continues, spiritual culture “is itself the life of one who thinks in this way.”5 Although Fichte’s comments on language in the Addresses represent the changed focus of his thought toward very practical political matters, he does not reject the conclusions of his earlier transcendental account of language. In 1794 Fichte understood the transcendental basis of language in terms of the intersubjective nature of human reason. This pointed him toward a social interpretation of language that he left undeveloped in the 1794 essay. In 1807 Fichte extended this reflection on language and reached the radical conclusion that language is the basis of both nationality and individuality. It would...

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