Fichte: Il sistema della libertà (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 97 Luigi Pareyson. Fichte: II sistema della libertd. Milan: Mursia, 1976. Pp. 424. L. 7,500. This is the second edition of a book that was first published in 1950. Only the preface and a few of the notes at the end of chapters are new. But the author is correct in his convictionthat it is not outdated. It deserves the reputation of a "standard work" that it has already begun to enjoy. The book is a remarkably clear and intelligible systematic exposition of the philosophy of Fichte from its beginnings down to the second formulation of the "doctrine of Science" in the lectures of 1798. The "system of liberty," referred to in the title, is Fichte's system as expounded in these lectures---which remained unpublished (except for two "Introductions" and the first chapter , published in 1797) until 1937. It must, I think, be accounted the greatest merit of a book that has many merits, to have shown clearly both the continuity and the important advances that manuscript presents vis ~tvis the more celebrated treatise of 1794. Discussion of, and dispute about, other interpretations of Fichte is in general reserved for the notes at the end of each chapter. But in his introduction, Pareyson takes issue with two traditional views about Fichte: first, the idea that there is a natural progression from Kant to Hegel, via the Fichte of 1794-98 and the Schelling of 1797-1803; and secondly the claim that Fichte himself elaborated a new and very different philosophy after 1800. He shows how the f'ast view arose from what was never more than a partnership of misunderstandingsbetween Fichte and Schelling; and how the second is largely rooted in forms of speech adopted by Fichte partly for polemical reasons after the break with Schelling, and partly because the experience of the Atheismusstreit brought about a change in the focus of his interest and attention. The fast of these traditional errors forms the continuing groundbass of Pareyson's own reading of Fichte. He is concerned to show by meticulous explanation and copious citation that Fichte never dreamed of writing a "speculative" philosophy---one in which the standpoint of "philosophy " is identified with the self-consciousness of the "Absolute"--such as Schelling and Hegel collaborated upon from 1801 to 1803. The standpoint of Fichte's philosopher is "higher" than that of ordinary human consciousness, but it remains strictly a human standpoint, rooted in the recognition of its own finitude. It is an "artificial" standpoint, "made" by an act of freedom that "opts" for it: and the most interesting paradox of the "system of liberty" is that after one has made the choice one can show that no other choice is possible, if there is to be a consistent philosophy at all. Thus the standpoint of philosophy is indeed unique. There is only one true philosophy. But that one philosophy is a theory of our human consciousness of the Absolute, expounded by a man for others like himself; it is not in any sense the se/f-consciousness of the Absolute. The problem of the "philosophy of Philosophy," the problem of defining the transcendental standpoint, serves Pareyson as an organizingprinciple for his whole discussion. He knows that the "intellectual intuition" in which the philosopher reflectively reconstructs the spontaneous selfconstitution of his own ordinary consciousness is ultimately shown to be identical with the "intellectual intuition" of moral freedom that we all experience in our ordinary consciousness of rational moral obligation. This is the upshot of the 1798 version of the "doctrine of science." He further knows that the "primacy of practical reason" was the content of that original moment of insight that started Fichte on his deliberate attempt to reconstruct the Critical Philosophy. So Pareyson uses this principle as the point of approach for his exposition of the Wissenschaftslehre of 1794 (with the preliminary inquiry into the possibility of a "doctrine of science"). As a result we are able to see clearly what this difficult and unprepossessing work is really about. For one who, like the present reviewer, has spent much effort on the early "system" of Schelling and Hegel, it is fascinating to see how all the...