Abstract
The specific topic of this chapter is the difference between the attempt in speculative and dialectical thinking on the one hand, and transcendental phenomenology on the other, to solve the enigmas presented by Kant’s transcendental deduction. The thesis is that they are diametrically opposed. The main concern is systematic and not philological-historical. That means, among other things, that the well-known fact that Husserl has a certain preference for the deduction in edition A and that Fichte refers mostly to edition B will not be corroborated in an interpreting of all the passages in both in which they refer to the deduction. What is at stake is a general systematic and theoretical explanation of this and other facts due to the fundamental difference in the foundations of their projects and their understandings of nature of transcendental philosophy.
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Notes
- 1.
Mohanty, J.N. 1952. Fichte’s ‘Science of Knowledge’ and Husserl’s Phenomenology. Philosophical Quarterly (Calcutta) 25:113–125; Hyppolite, J. 1959. Die Fichtesche Wissenschaftslehre und der Entwurf Husserls, Husserl et Ia pensee moderne, 182–189. Den Haag; Schneider, P.K. 1965. Die wissenschaftsbegründende Funktion der Transzendentalphilosophie. Freiburg/München, Chapters 6 and 7; Rockmore, T. 1979. Fichte, Husserl and Philosophical Science. International Philosophical Quarterly 19:15–27; Tietjen, H. 1980. Fichte und Husserl: Letztbegründung, Subjektivität und praktische Vernunft im transzendentalen ldealismus. Frankfurt a.M; cf. the review of this book by Schuhmann, K. 1981. Philosophische Rundschau 28:259–263.
- 2.
Cf. I. Kern, Kant und Husserl (Den Haag, 1964), 176ff.; and before my Die Bedingungen der Möglichkeit der Transzendentalphilosophie (Bonn, 1962), 181/182. Kern refers to material of Husserl concerning Fichte, loc. cit., 35ff., 292, 297.
- 3.
References to Fichte use Johann Gottlieb Fichtes sämmtliche Werke, ed. Immanuel Hermann Fichte (Berlin, 1845/1846). The translation Science of Knowledge with First and Second Introductions (1982, iibers. P. Heath and J. Lachs) has the page numbers of this edition in the margins. I refer to the Wissenschaftslehre with the translation Doctrine of Science.
- 4.
Cf. Natorp, P. 1901. Zur Frage der logischen Methode; mit Beziehung auf E. Husserls Prolegomenon zur reinen Logik. Kant-Studien VI:270–283; Natorp, P. 1917/1918. Husserls ‘Ideen zu einer reinen Phanomenologie’. Logos VII:224–246; Kreis, F. 1930. Phänomenologie und Kritizismus. Tübingen; Zocher, R. 1932. Husserls Phänomenologie und Schuppes Logik. Mänchen. – The first phenomenological reaction with a turn against the transcendental ego was given by Gurwitsch, A. 1929. Phanomenologie der Thematik und des reinen Ich. Psychologische Forschung XII which is available in English in Gurwitsch, A. 1966. Studies in Phenomenology and Psychology. Northwestern University Press. About Husserl and the Neokantians cf. my loc. cit. note 2, Chapter IX and Iso Kern, loc. cit., note 2, II. Abteilung, which contains much more material.
- 5.
All references to Husserl use the Husserliana (Hua), Edmund Husserl Gesammelte Werke (Den Haag, 1950), ff. The translations of the Cartesian Meditations (Hua I) by D. Cairns (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1977); Ideas Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy (Hua III) by F. Kersten (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1983); Formal and Transcendental Logic (Hua XVII) by D. Cairns (Den Haag: Nijhoff, 1960) have page numbers in the margins following the Hua. Other material used like Erste Philosophie I and II (Hua VII, Vlll); Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins (Hua X); and Analysen zur passiven Synthesis (Hua XI) are not or only in parts translated. The Beilage of Hua VI, the Crisis, mentioned below is not translated either.
- 6.
Jacobi, F.H. 1787. David Hume über den Glauben oder Idealismus und Realismus. Breslau, in Werke (Leipzig, 1812–1825), Vol. II, 301ff. in his critique of the thing in itself is such a critic. In recent times analytical philosophers like J. Bennett, 1966. Kant’s Analytic. Cambridge University Press, deal in a similar way with the problem of the “unity of transcendental apperception”, i.e. after pointing out the problem the corresponding part of Kant’s theory is rejected and the remainder is as far as possible reduced to the own position.
- 7.
References to the Critique of Pure Reason are given as usual. References to the Logic and the Metaphysical Elements of Justice are given following the edition of the Prussian Academy of the Sciences (AA) (Berlin, 1902) f. listing the number of the volume and the pages.
- 8.
See my “Die Kantische Beweistheorie und die Beweise der Kritik der reinen Vernunft”, Akten des V.Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, Vol. II (Bonn, 1982), 127–148.
- 9.
Cf., loc. cit., 139f.
- 10.
Cf. D. Henrich, 1969. The Proof-Structure of Kant’s Transcendental Deductions. The Review of Metaphysics XXII:640–659. The criticisms of H. Wagner and H. Robinson in the Kant-Studien 1980, 352–366 and 1982, 140–148, should be taken into account.
- 11.
Cf. J.G. Fichte, Second Introduction to the Science of Knowledge, I, p. 478; G.W.F.Hegel, Science of Logic (W.H. Johnstone and L.G. Struthers), Vol. I, 1929 (Allen & Unwin/Humanitas Pr.), 57/58; K. Reich, 1932. Die Vollständigkeit der Kantschen Urteilstafel. Berlin. Koerner, S. 1967. The Impossibility of Transcendental Deductions. Monist 51:317–331, has given a thorough critique of such an idea of deduction. It must be said, however, that – though many Kant interpreters believed in its possibility – Kant himself did not. On the other hand it holds, that Koerner did not explicitly deal with Fichte’s and Hegel’s attempt to develop such a deduction with the means of speculative dialectic.
- 12.
Within the first Critique the self as causa noumenon, cf. B 579ff., remains an empty metaphysical possibility. It receives content in Kant’s practical philosophy, cf. V, 48ff.
- 13.
The problem of the “double world theorem” becomes most pressing in the Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone, XX VI, 31, 47. Cf. the English translation by Th.M. Greene and H.H. Hudson (Harper, 1960), 26/27 and 42/43.
- 14.
Fichte is aware of this and other circularities in his “deductions” and considers them a belonging to the nature of reason. Cf. Über den Begriff der Wissenschaftslehre, I 62, 66ff., 72, 74, 78. The problem is closely connected with the undecidability of the dispute between idealism and realism, cf. I 429f., 435f.
- 15.
The meaning of Tathandlung can be explicated best by keeping in mind that Tatsache, factum in its original Latin sense is a juridical term. Sache, fact is considered as Tatsache to the extent in which it is the result of an act, Handlung, of an agent. The object A posited by the I is a Tatsache. Since in case of the positing of the I by the I the factum is itself an act, a Handlung, one has a Tathandlung.
- 16.
For a more detailed account of the logical aspect of developing dialectical contradictions and the type of formal logic presupposed here see my: The Grammar of Hegel’s Dialectic, Hegel-Studien 11 (1976), 149–180.
- 17.
The translation of Heath and Lachs, “In the self I oppose a divisible not-self to the divisble self’ (110) hides the dialectical character of Fichte’s formula which I tried to preserve in the given translation.
- 18.
For a more detailed account of “apodictic evidence”, its relation to original evidence and adequate evidence and the development of these concepts in Husserl see my Die Bedingungen der Moglichkeit der Transzendentalphilosophie (Bonn, 1962), 58ff.
- 19.
The III. Logical Investigation is, as Husserl himself emphasized, crucial for a proper understanding of his method. Cf. my “Reflexion and Totality in the Phenomenology of E. Husserl”, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology 4 (1973), 20–30.
- 20.
Given the IV. Cartesian Meditation neither the term “transcendental ego” as used in the beginning of the Cartesian Meditations nor the term “eidos transcendental ego” should be taken as referring to the ego as pole. The latter is an abstract momentum in the “ego in its concretion” i.e. transcendental subjectivity.
- 21.
Cf. note 4.
- 22.
Hua XI, Analysen zur passiven Synthesis give the most corroborated version of this program. Husserl himself entitled one version of this lecture “Transzendentale Logik, Urkonstitution”, cf. loc. cit. XIV.
- 23.
The question of objectification connects level b with level c. Most of the material relevant for this point is available in the C-manuscripts. Cf. loc. cit. in note 18, 126ff. and in note 20, 25ff. Concerning a controversy between methodological levels of the analysis and levels of constitution, see my review of Sokolowski, R. 1974. Husserlian Meditations. Northwestern University Press, in Philosophische Rundschau 23 (1976).
- 24.
Cf. Cantor, 1962. Gesammelte Abhandlungen mathematischen und philosophischen Inhaltes, ed. Zermelo. Hildesheim, 195, cf. also 168, 390.
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Seebohm, T.M. (2020). Fichte’s and Husserl’s Critique of Kant’s Transcendental Deduction. In: Nenon, T. (eds) Thomas Seebohm on the Foundations of the Sciences. Contributions to Phenomenology, vol 105. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23661-8_13
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