Fichte's Vocation of Man: New Interpretive and Critical Essays

16. Faith and Knowledge and Vocation of Man: A Comparison between Hegel and Fichte

16 Faith and Knowledge and Vocation of Man A Comparison Between Hegel and Fichte Marco Ivaldo Hegel and Fichte belong to the group of thinkers who create organic and original philosophical systems. The exercise of delving deep into their phi‑ losophies, as well as the points of disagreement between them, is a highly fruitful one for philosophical research. My aim in this chapter is to contrib‑ ute to deepening our understanding of Fichte’s Vocation of Man (1800) by comparing it with Hegel’s Faith and Knowledge (1802). Such a comparison is opportune, as Hegel declares his desire in Faith and Knowledge to take into consideration “preferably” or “above all”1 the Vocation of Man in order to illustrate and judge Fichte’s point of view. If, in The Difference Between the Philosophic Systems of Fichte and Schelling (1801), Hegel had recognized—in spite of his critique of Fichte—that the philosophy of the latter was “a genuine product of speculation”2 because it grasped the identity of the 273 1. “vorzüglich.” Glauben und Wissen oder Reflexionsphilosophie der Subjektivität in der Vollstän‑ digkeit ihrer Formen als Kantische, Jacobische und Fichtesche Philosophie (GW), in “Kritisches Journal der Philosophie,” hrgs. F. W. J. Schelling und G. W. F. Hegel, I, 2 (Tübingen: Cottasche Buchhandlung, 1802); now in G. W. F. Hegel, Werke II: Jenaer Schriften 1801–1807 (HW) (Frankurt a.M: Suhrkamp, 1986), 404. 2. Differenz des Fichte’schen und Schelling’schen Systems der Philosophie in Beziehung auf Reinhold’s Beyträge zur leichtern Übersicht des Zustandes der Philosophie zu Anfang des neunzehnten Jahrhun‑ derts (Jena: Seidler, 1801); in HW II, 115: “echtes Produkt der Spekulation.” 274 / MARCO IVALDO subject and object in intellectual intuition, in Faith and Knowledge Hegel decisively accuses Fichte’s philosophy of being a void and formal thought. Is this verdict of Hegel just? What is the fundamental theme that lies at the heart of the Vocation of Man? Is Fichte’s philosophy—as presented in this work—really “overcome” (aufgehoben) by Hegel’s philosophy? For the purpose of discussing these questions, I will pursue my reflections in three directions: (I) I will reconstruct the judgement Hegel advances in Faith and Knowledge on the Vocation of Man; (II) I will take into consideration some fundamental topics of this work of Fichte; (III) I will conclude with some consideration of the fundamental alternative represented by the philoso‑ phies of Fichte and Hegel that is already manifested in these two works. I In Faith and Knowledge, Hegel maintains that the so‑called “philosophies of reflection of subjectivity”3 —Kant, Jacobi, Fichte—are the result of a spe‑ cific “dialectic of Enlightenment” (Aufklärung). With the Enlightenment, philosophical reason asserts its “absolute autonomy”4 in the face of religion, but it is really victorious only in an extrinsic and apparent way. In fact, after the struggle against faith, reason of the Enlightenment (aufklärend)— which, according to Hegel, is shown to be incapable of comprehending the substantial content of religion—turns its gaze on itself, and enters, so to speak, a reflective period. Now, the outcome of this reflective movement of reason is: (1) that reason (Vernunft) is reduced to mere understanding (Verstand); and (2) that reason itself posits its proper substantial content as a “beyond all,” in “a faith outside and above itself.”5 Such a process of self‑alienation took place—according to Faith and Knowledge—in the philosophies of Kant, Jacobi, and Fichte. These could be considered the rejection by reason of its existence in the Absolute (ihr Sein im Absoluten) as the highest peak of philosophy. For Kant, Jacobi and Fichte, the Absolute is “above reason,”6 which can refill its void, its being nothing (Negativität), only through aspiration and a subjective presentiment.7 From this critique 3. “Reflexionsphilosophie[n] der Subjektivität” (GW, HW II, 287). 4. Ibid.: “absolute Autonomie.” 5. Ibid., 288: “als ein Jenseits in einem Glauben außer und über sich.” 6. Ibid.: “über die Vernunft.” 7. Ibid., 289: “mit der Subjektivität des Sehnens und Ahnens.” FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE AND VOCATION OF MAN / 275 of Hegel against the philosophies of the Enlightenment, we gather that for him, a true philosophical system can only be founded on the identity of reason with the Absolute, which in its turn must be thought of—this had already emerged in his work The Difference Between the Philosophical Systems of...