Tom Rockmore

Fichte is one of the small handful of philosophers on the highest level. But he is still relatively unknown, even in Germany, for a variety of reasons. These include the difficulty of his thought and its expression, which impedes even native Germans; the relatively greater attention paid to Kant and Hegel, and perhaps even to Schelling; and the lack of a critical edition of his writings. In English-language philosophical circles, beyond these handicaps, knowledge of Fichte is further impeded by the persistent paucity of good, or even any, translations of important items in his bibliography.

This collection of 13 essays on the philosophy of Johann Gottlieb Fichte is the first volume in English to focus upon Fichte's most celebrated and influential philosophical text, his Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre ("Foundation of the Entire Doctrine of Scientific Knowledge"). Fichte's Grundlage is an audaciously original effort to recast the Kantian philosophy into a full-blown system of "transcendental idealism." Rejecting all reference to "things in themselves," Fichte described his work as "the first philosophy of human freedom" and as a faithful expression of the true "spirit" of Kant's critical philosophy. For all of its deficiencies, the Grundlage occupied an absolutely pivotal role in the development of German idealism after Kant. Both Schelling and Hegel, for example, were profoundly influenced by the Grundlage. Most of the essays in this collection address specific themes and problems in the context of the Grundlage, such as imagination, time, representation, reflection, deduction, and transcendental methodology. Others examine the relationship of Fichte's philosophy to Kant's and the influence of the Grundlage upon such philosophers as Jacobi, Schelling, and Hegel. Collectively, these essays constitute an ideal introduction to the reading of Fichte's notoriously difficult but deeply rewarding work.

Aimed at specialists, as well as graduate students and select undergraduates, this study centers on Hegel's important, but neglected, theory of knowledge. Professor Rockmore interprets Hegel as reacting to the Kantian effort to reformulate epistemology in the wake of what Kant contends is the failure of earlier, dogmatic theories. Recent work has shown that Hegel's epistemology is a good deal more respectable than has usually been thought. Rockmore's aim is to continue that work in order to bring Hegel into the main discussion of knowledge. Rockmore's main argument for the relevance of Hegel's theory to the problem of knowledge is that in the absence of foundationalism, Hegel's antifoundationalist theory of knowledge as perspectival and historical supplies two items helpful to advance the epitemological discussion.