Abstract

Both Fichte’s 1804 Wissenschaftslehre (or Theory of Knowing) and Henry’s radical phenomenology conceive of the absolute as life. At the same time, both have to deal with a contradiction that seems to follow inevitably from the limitations they impose on thought and intentionality: Since the latter are intrinsically incapable of apprehending life as absolute and immanent, how is radical phenomenology, and how is the Wissenschaftslehre, even possible? The article takes this difficulty as the start to a possible comparison between Fichte and Henry. But, as will be seen, Henry’s claim about the existence of a nonintentional mode of appearing is not shared by Fichte.

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