Also in the latest versions of the Science of Knowledge Fichte considers explanation of the structure of consciousness a central task of philosophy. In his late explanation of consciousness, the concepts of life and image (or schema) play a central role – two concepts that in Fichte’s account are inseparable and mutually elucidate each other. By interpreting the 1810 Science of Knowledge and Fichte’s introductory lecture The facts of Consciousness from 1810/11, this article aims to show that the pair of concepts “life” and ‘image’ occur on two different theoretical levels in Fichte’s late philosophy: first, in the formulation of a view of consciousness that Fichte characterizes as ‘idealist’ and that he considers to be in continuity with Kant’s transcendental philosophy; and, second, in the exposition of the conception of consciousness as an image of a non-constructible absolute that goes beyond the idealist explanation without, however, denying its validity within its own sphere. The second step, which occupies the major part of the 1810 Science of Knowledge, can be understood as Fichte’s late reply to Jacobi’s critique of the Science of Knowledge as a ‘nihilism’. Its final step is the introduction of the concept of ‘sober- mindedness’, in the sense of a self-interpretation of moral consciousness which goes beyond any constructible content. The concluding part of the article interprets and discusses the conception of sober-mindedness as involving Fichte’s final reply to Jacobi’s criticism.

The late Fichte transforms transcendental philosophy into ontology, without transcendental philosophy ceasing to be transcendental philosophy. The center of his philosophy is no longer the transcendental self, but rather concepts like existence, light, image, from which the transcendental self can be derived. Against dogmatism, for which being is to be considered as an absolute fact, Fichte tries to show that being can be deduced and explained from the light, and that means: from transcendental freedom. Whatever exists is made from the substance of appearance, from the substance of visibility and light, from the material of the image. But the appearance, the image, the light, can only derive their creative power from the fact that they are (in absolute terms) the existence of the Absolute. And precisely at this point, under the idea that only the Absolute is, Fichte has repeatedly to cope with the question of the relation between the being-character of this substance and the being-character of the Absolute. Against his reiterated attempts to proceed this way, the difference between being and existence can not so easily be traced back to the concept of an absolute Being, in whose inner essence lies the fact that nothingness becomes itself an ‘apparent something’ (the world), against the background of which, and by which, the Absolute cannot be, and cannot be understood, except as absolute.

In my contribution i would like to consider a thesis of Reinhard Lauth, according to which Fichte’s Doctrine of Science must be properly characterized as theory of the Bilden (formation), as “Bildenslehre”. In his late Berlin lectures Fichte understands Wissen (knowledge), in its actuality, as “Bild” (image). Knowledge is image and identifies itself as an image. The image as such shows a reflective and relational structure. The image presents an essential self-reflexivity and does not exist in isolation, but is a relationship to something else which Fichte designates as being, life, light, one, God. The basic idea of Fichte is that we have access to reality (to being) only through the image and in it, within a transcendental unity of being and thinking that must be conceived not as a fact (Tatsache), but as an act (Tathandlung). The term and concept Bilden (formation) expresses well the dynamic and active nature characteristic of the image. i try to explain this on the basis of certain passages of the Doctrine of Science of 1804 (second exposition).

In the present paper, i propose, first, to present some aspects of what we may call a type of "phenomenology" of the image contained in the Berlin lectures on transcendental logic – notably, in the second of these courses in Berlin. Second, i would like to return to the problem of the relationship between logic and philosophy, starting from these indications with regard to the "image", and, if possible, outline some parallel with certain theses on the same subject from the Jena years. Finally, in what i consider a novelty concerning these lessons, i would like to conclude my exposition by raising the question of the foundational character of Fichte’s project.

Images are usually understood as something perceived: as something presented to us and different from us. But since Antiquity the concept has also been given a different meaning: it has been used to describe our own being, and indeed so much so that it also stands for our essential nature: we are ourselves an image (we are ourselves but an image); and being an image (being but an image) is what is what really defines us. The experience of being oneself an image (as opposed to just perceiving something else as an image) – or, as one might also say, this basic understanding of oneself as being just an image – plays an important role inter alia in Pre-Platonic thought, in the corpus platonicum, in the Christian idea of the imago Dei (of the notitia Dei as capacitas Dei) and, not least, in Fichte’s late philosophy.This paper focuses on two ancient Greek forerunners of some aspects of Fichte’s understanding of image, namely pre-platonic and platonic views on our own being-just-an-image.

The paper has two aims: firstly, to present Fichte’s transcendental ontology as a theory of the analogia entis. This allows to comprehend in which sense his Doctrine of science is different from Kant’s or Hegel’s thought. Secondly, i aim to outline the twofold nature of Fichte’s analogical ontology, depending on whether the intellectual concept or the concept of love is in the foreground. i distinguish these two approaches and evaluate them both with regard to the relation between the Absolute and his manifestations and to the immanent connections among the creatures.

The aim of the „Grundriss des Eigentümlichen der Wissenschaftslehre“ is to analyse the theoretical faculty. The starting point of this analysis is the proposition that the I posits itself as determinated by the Non-I. My thesis, which can be proven in Fichte´s text, is that it is the notion of the picture which serves as a point of orientation in the analysis of the cognitive faculty, as Kant calls it. The cognition of an object comes about as a dialectical relationship between the picturing i, the picture and the pictured object, which Fichte calls the real thing. I would like to investigate how much Fichte follows the Kantian analysis of the cognitive faculty on the one hand and how much he differs from it on the other hand. This investigation will take into account a question which is very important for every epistemology taking its starting point in subjectivity, namely the question of how the i can recognize that the objects of its cognition are real things and not the products of his phantasy. Fichte explicitly raises this very question. At the end of this paper, I attempt to show what kind of answer Fichte gives to this questionee.

This paper examines the underdetermined relation between the absolute and absolute knowledge. Fichte not only claimed that he provided the correct reading of Kant’s critical philosophy but also that his Wissenschaftslehre constructively addressed and resolved its systematic problems. By discussing Kant’s notion of a “transcendental substrate” and its relation to the “thing-in-itself” it will be shown that this claim has to be taken seriously even from a Kantian standpoint. Moreover, it will be shown that Fichte's critical assessment of Kant's philosophy at the beginning of his second private lecture on the Wissenschaftslehre given in Berlin in 1804 and his philosophical reflection of the highest principle of all knowing and its relation to the absolute can be understood as a solution to problems that historically originated with Kant and were left unsettled by him.

The inquiry into the nature of truth plays an important role in Fichte's thought, especially following his departure from Jena, and indeed in the WL-1804-ii the doctrine of truth emerges as the centerpiece of the WL. The following paper argues that the conception of truth evolves significantly after the WL-1804-ii, and that, in such texts as the Erlanger Metaphysik, the Spekulation zu Koppenhagen, and the 1812 WL, Fichte, building on the account of the hiatus in the WL-1804-ii while moving away from its notion of absolute truth, seeks to understand truth in terms of freedom, or indeed, as what »yields to freedom«, wherein freedom, through the negativity of the concept, produces an emptiness, a clearing, that is »fulfilled« with truth. Anticipating the phenomenological account of truth yet without abandoning a strong sense of normativity, Fichte’s alethology remains a compelling alternative to contemporary positions.

In Fichte research, there is no consensus on the interpretation of a topic of fundamental importance for Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre: the relationship of the absolute ‘in itself’ to its appearance. In addition to the difficulty of the matter in itself, the problems of understanding might also be related to the linguistic and terminological form of its presentation.My paper starts with the hypothesis, that an adequate understanding is actually decisively dependent on the dissolution of the ambiguity of the terminus “being”, which also occupies a prominent position in Fichte’s prima philosophia. Taking a distinction from Rudolf Hermann Lotze, I consider in a type of thought experiment whether and how Fichte‘s concept of the absolute qua absolute being (“Sein”, as a counter-concept to appearance / image / existence of the absolute) can be explained or replaced by the term validity (“Geltung”). It is also necessary to consider to what extent the idea of validity is already contained in Fichte’s “Theory of Truth”.

The goal of this paper is to interpret Fichte’s terminology of ‚light‘ and ‚imaging‘ in the WL-1804-ii as a rendition of transcendental principles. This analysis is intended as a contribution to the discussion concerning the theoretical status and methodology of the later doctrines of science. i begin with an exposition of four criteria for transcendentally constitutive principles: 1. presuppositional character, 2. constitutivity, 3. categorial difference between conditions and conditioned, 4. immanent justification. The systematic function of ‘light’ is exemplarily reconstructed according to these criteria. The focus of analysis lies on the fourth criterion, which is framed as the philosophical problem which Fichte’s conception of a ‘law of imaging’ in the 24th and 25th lectures answers to. The ‘law of imaging’ is reconstructed as a special form of performative self-validation which is intended to satisfy the criterion of immanent justification. A further upshot of this reading is a reappraisal of Fichte’s treatment of light’s perpetual ‘objectivization’.

In the Doctrine of Science nova methodo Fichte explains the difference between the mirror and the eye. While the former only mirrors without seeing itself by doing it, the eye is in its essential connotation „image for itself“. The capacity of becoming aware of the image as such and of conceiving it as image for itself plays an essential role also in the perception of the other and in the originating process of the intersubjective relationship. The paper first focuses on reconstructing the meaning of the image for the intersubjective relationship and on evaluating whether and how far Fichte’s later elaboration of the theory of the image can be significant for the relationship to the other. Consideration of the different dimensions disclosed by the concept of image can also be helpful in illuminating the potential applications (and possible misuses) of the image of the other, especially in relation to the world of the media. The hypothesis is that Fichte’s conception of the image has a heuristic value also with respect to the image of the other in the present world and opens the way to further developments in the practical-ethical realm.

The article points out some ancient, medieval and modern topics of western philosophy which come near or appear to be identical with features of Mahayana-Buddhist thinking. Whether they are due to mutual contact and transfer between the two intellectual cultures or are independent parallel phenomena is, because of total lack of pertaining documents, a merely hypothetical question in want of future research.Der Beitrag stellt einige antike, mittelalterliche und moderne Argumentationen der westlichen Philosophie heraus, die mahayana-buddhistischen Denkweisen nahekommen oder mit ihnen identisch erscheinen. Ob sich dies einem gegenseitigen Kontakt und Einfluss zwischen den beiden geistigen Kulturen verdankt oder ob es sich dabei um unabhängige parallele Erscheinungen handelt, ist bei dem völligen Mangel an einschlägigen Dokumenten eine rein hypothetische Frage, die noch künftiger Forschung bedarf.

Topic of the essay is the central philosophical question of Buddhism of the onto- and epistemological status of the true self (skr. Atman). Based on the Kantian critique of the psychologia rationalis concerning the doctrine of the soul I argue in favor that the doctrine of the non-self of the Anattavāda should be interpreted in an apophatic way. This interpretation sustains the so-called “old-buddhistic doctrine” of Georg Grimm after which the essence of buddhistic thoughts on the true self lies in its unknowability and its inexpressibility, but not in its non-existence.Das Thema des Aufsatzes ist die zentrale philosophische Frage des Buddhismus nach dem onto- und epistemologischen Status des wahren Selbst (skr. Atman). Ausgehend von der kantischen Kritik der Seelenlehre der psychologia rationalis wird dafür plädiert, die Lehre des Nicht-Selbst des Anattavādas als Apophatik im Sinne der sog. „altbuddhistischen Lehre“ Georg Grimms zu deuten, welche die Unerkennbarkeit und Unaussprechlichkeit des wahren Selbst zum Inhalt hat, nicht jedoch dessen Inexistenz.

The author points out that there is an essential difference as well as correspondence between the idea of the absolute in Fichte’s philosophy and that of the emptiness (sunyata) in Mahayana Buddhism. Both ideas treat the origin of the subject which goes beyond the relation of subject and object. In this point they are in agreement. But if we pay attention to the point that the absolute in Fichte’s philosophy is completely closed and therefore includes no negation in itself, it becomes clear that it is, however, different from the Buddhist emptiness which consists in selfaffirmation through selfnegation. According to the author, the consciousness which works as a creator of the world in Fichte’s system remains out of the absolute. In this sense, Fichte’s idea of the absolute is insufficient as a principle of philosophy.Der Verfasser weist darauf hin, dass es zwischen dem Begriff des Absoluten bei Fichte und dem der Leere (sunyata) im Mahayanabuddhismus neben einer Übereinstimmung auch einen wesentlichen Unterschied gibt. Beide Begriffe stimmen darin überein, dass es ihnen um den Ursprung des Subjekts geht, der über die Relation von Subjekt und Objekt hinausgeht. Wenn man aber die Aufmerksamkeit darauf richtet, dass das Absolute bei Fichte als ein in sich Geschlossenes keine Negation in sich enthält, wird deutlich, dass es sich von der buddhistischen Leere unterscheidet, die in Selbstaffirmation durch Selbstnegation besteht. Bei Fichte hingegen bleibt das Bewusstsein als Weltschöpfer noch außer dem Absoluten. In diesem Sinne ist das Fichtesche Absolute als Prinzip der Philosophie unzureichend.

The central cognition that supreme knowledge cannot be of thetic nature is common to Buddhism and transcendental philosophy. Nāgārjuna ’s dialectic shows remarkable parallels to Fichte’s method in his Science of Knowledge of 1804.Daß die höchste Erkenntnis nicht thetischer Natur sein kann, ist die gemeinsame Erkenntnis des Buddhismus und der Transzendentalphilosophie. Daraus folgt, dass der Weg zu ihr nur ein dialektischer sein kann. Die negative Dialektik des Buddhistischen Denkers Nāgārjuna weist erstaunliche Gemeinsamkeiten auf mit Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre von 1804.