James Ternent

This paper attempts to resituate the concept of embodiment within Fichte’s Jena-era Wissenschaftslehre, by reading Fichte as a proto-Merleau-Pontean on the topics of embodiment and intersubjectivity. In so doing, I argue that embodiment on Fichte’s account serves a mediating role between the I as Tathandlung [f/act], absolute self-consciousness, and the I as intersubjectively constituted. I highlight the ways in which Fichte echoes Merleau-Ponty’s intertwined notions of the ‘Body Schema’ [schéma corporel] and the tacit cogito to suggest that Fichte’s notion of the body is at the same time an intersubjective ‘site’ of intentionality, the active ‘being towards’ other rational beings, and the phenomenal experience of the checked activity of the subject. The body is, as such, the subject’s lived experience of the Fichtean Anstoß [check/impetus], an argument that is, perhaps surprisingly, bolstered, rather than hindered, by spotlighting the areas in which Fichte anticipates Merleau-Ponty.

Fichte’s “Concerning the Concept of the Wissenschaftslehre” concludes by claiming that the Wissenschaftslehre makes possible an account of “the pleasant, the beautiful, and the sublime.” Attempts have subsequently been made to reconstruct an aesthetics on Fichte’s behalf, yet these omit consideration of the ‘sublime’. Fichte’s aesthetics concerns almost exclusively ‘the artist’, and refers to Nature as merely the subject of scientific analysis, so what does he mean by ‘the sublime’? This paper attempts to present a way in which a Fichtean can talk meaningfully about ‘the sublime’, simultaneously reaffirming the sublime’s importance in Fichtean aesthetic experience, and subordinating it to the creative acts of the I. I argue the sublime is itself an artwork, a creation of the I, and something that directs the I back upon itself. It is, in other words, a prompt for the subject’s move from the practical to the transcendental standpoint.

In this paper, I explore two differing conceptions of J.G. Fichte’s Anstoß and how it relates to his Transcendental ‘I’, the ground of his Wissenschaftslehre. I argue that one should not attempt to read later interpretations of the Anstoß back into his earlier definition, but find that attempts to tread a middle way between the original and later interpretations have thus far been equally unsuccessful. Instead, I suggest a new way of interpreting the Anstoß as a constituent component of the absolute I, built into his first principle of self-consciousness, and argue that this way allows the I to turn back upon itself without being externally determined. I argue that this way also avoids solipsistic and nihilistic objections by actually supporting the arguments of the proponents of earlier interpretations. I then advance to advocate the Anstoß’s importance in the wider sphere of understanding how Fichte’s theory of transzendentallogisch enables his first and rudimentary derivation of consciousness, prior to the finitely derived practical I of his later Jena writings.