Abstract

Fichte's philosophy represented one of the first coherent attempts to provide a utopian philosophical foundation for preventative police power, one which anticipated in surprising ways the fundamental logical premises of modern dataveillance or "datapower". This article examines Fichte's proposals for a new system of police passports and the logic of control on which it rests, contextualizing it within the transformation of police practices during his lifetime. It concludes with a discussion of Hegel's criticism of the logical incoherence of securitarian policing, and its relevance for our situation today.

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